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| Recess Art | |
|---|---|
| Name | Recess Art |
| Established | 2000 |
| Location | Midtown Manhattan, New York City |
| Type | Contemporary art nonprofit |
| Director | Daniel S. Palmer |
Recess Art is a contemporary art nonprofit and artist-run space based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 2000, it operates as a platform for experimental projects, artist residencies, publications, and public programming. Recess Art collaborates with a wide range of cultural institutions, artists, and community organizations to present site-responsive work and to support emerging and midcareer practitioners.
Recess Art was founded in 2000 by a collective of artists, curators, and administrators influenced by models such as Artists Space, PS1 (MoMA PS1), The Kitchen, Art in General, and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. Early exhibitions drew from networks including Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern Art, New Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Tate Modern, Serpentine Galleries, and Palais de Tokyo. Its programming was shaped by dialogues with figures associated with Fluxus, Conceptual Art, Relational Aesthetics, Institutional Critique, and initiatives like Creative Time and Frieze Projects. Over two decades Recess Art has occupied multiple sites and adapted models used by Dia Art Foundation, Socrates Sculpture Park, Chashama, and Wave Hill to foreground affordable, flexible studio and exhibition space.
Recess Art's mission emphasizes artist autonomy, experimentation, and access, resonating with missions of Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Core programs include artist residencies, project grants, public programming, and publishing—practices paralleling Harvard Art Museums, Yale University Art Gallery, Columbia University School of the Arts, and California Institute of the Arts. Recess Art administers short-term and long-term residencies similar in scale to Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Ox-Bow School of Art, and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Public programs engage curators, critics, and artists associated with Sotheby's Institute of Art, Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design, and Cooper Union.
Although not a collecting museum like Metropolitan Museum of Art or Smithsonian Institution, Recess Art mounts temporary exhibitions and produces editions and publications akin to initiatives at Publishing Audiobooks, Printed Matter, Primary Information, and Apexart. Exhibitions have featured artists with affiliations to MoMA PS1 Greater New York, Venice Biennale, Documenta, Whitney Biennial, and galleries such as Gagosian Gallery, David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, and Pace Gallery. Recess Art projects have included site-specific installations, performances, and socially engaged work by artists who have shown at Studio Museum in Harlem, Hammer Museum, International Center of Photography, Jewish Museum, and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Education and outreach at Recess Art intersect with programs run by New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and community partners like Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Museum of the City of New York. Workshops, artist talks, and youth programs have collaborated with PS 1 Studio Programs, Public School 33, Metropolitan Opera Education, and arts education initiatives at Hunter College and New York University. Recess Art's pedagogy echoes models from National Endowment for the Arts–funded residencies, Americans for the Arts initiatives, and partnerships seen at Carnegie Hall and Apollo Theater.
Recess Art has received support and partnered with philanthropic and cultural institutions including Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Ford Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Rockefeller Foundation, Getty Foundation, NEA, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and private foundations such as Rauschenberg Foundation and MacArthur Foundation. Collaborations have extended to academic and nonprofit partners including Pratt Institute, School of Visual Arts, Hunter College, Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), and international partners like British Council, Institut Français, Goethe-Institut, and Asia Society.
Critical reception of Recess Art appears in publications and platforms associated with Artforum, Art in America, Frieze, Hyperallergic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Los Angeles Times. Recess Art alumni and participants have proceeded to participate in exhibitions at major events and institutions such as Venice Biennale 2019, Whitney Biennial 2022, Documenta 14, Sundance Film Festival, and artist-centered awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellowship, Turner Prize, Hugo Boss Prize, and Vilcek Prize. The organization has been cited in studies and reports by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, Americans for the Arts, and municipal cultural planning efforts, contributing to dialogues about artist-run spaces, urban cultural policy, and nonprofit sustainability.
Category:Contemporary art galleries in the United States