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Koenig & Clinton will move its operations from West 19th Street in Chelsea to 1329 Willoughby Street in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, the gallery announced in a release. The last show at its Chelsea space will a survey of work by Peter Dreher in May. The new Brooklyn digs will open in June with an Albert Herter show.
The news comes at a time when a number of galleries are defecting from the traditional clusters of white cubes and alighting in far-flung parts of the city, seeking lower rents and fresh environs. The release also notes that “the gallery will be situated near many of the artists around whom our work takes shape and many of the audiences that keep an exhibition space relevant.”
Koenig & Clinton will now share an address with galleries such as Bushwick stalwart Microscope and be a quick hop away from spaces in the neighborhood such as Luhring Augustine, Clearing, Signal, Interstate, and others.
Also housed inside the building at 1329 Willoughby will be the newest venture from gallery owner Leo Koenig, a project space called Century Pictures. In an email, Koenig explained that he’ll be using the space to show works from his own collection, and also to stage exhibitions in conjunction with artists’ studios. First up at Century Pictures is a show with Jon Kessler, where the artist will re-stage work he made for the 1985 Whitney Biennial, alongside new work. Casey Mack of Popular Architecture is handling the design of both new spaces.
The move is something of a homecoming for Koenig, who owns Koenig & Clinton with Margaret Liu Clinton, the gallery’s director. The first storefront space for Leo Koenig Projekte opened in Williamsburg in 1999, near where he was living at the time, in Greenpoint. Koenig was 20, and, if a 2005 New Yorker profile on the dealer is to be believed, the gallery was conceived after a night of staying up late snorting vodka.