COURTESY THE ARTIST AND DOWNS & ROSS
Less than a year after opening in New York, Downs & Ross gallery will move to a new location in the midst of the Lower East Side and Chinatown. Its new space will be located on the second floor of 96 Bowery, putting the gallery across the street from Bridget Donahue and just a block from Lomex. Its first show on the Bowery, an exhibition of new paintings by Sojourner Truth Parsons, will open September 17.
Downs & Ross was inaugurated in February with the merger of Tomorrow Gallery, run by Tara Downs, and Hester, run by Alex Ross. (Downs and Ross are a couple.) The gallerists initially continued to operate both spaces together, at 106 Eldridge Street (formerly Tomorrow) and 55 Chrystie Street (Hester), but now they have decided to combine their efforts in a single location. Their roster together currently includes Vikky Alexander, Andrea Crespo, Yanyan Huang, and Brad Troemel.
“We felt that if we can occupy a space as large as this one, we can provide artists with opportunity to produce shows that are more complex,” Ross said. “In a single space, [we] can project that complexity without exhausting viewers. We can choreograph within the space rather than across the spaces.”
Downs added that the move has kept them close to home. “We’re still in the Lower East Side,” she said, “so we feel a connectivity to the other galleries in the area.”