The burgeoning Lower East Side gallery district is about to gain one more gallery, with Chicago’s Golden Gallery set to open up shop in a ground floor space on Elizabeth Street, just south of Broome Street, in September. Golden, which was founded in 2008, will continue to operate its space in the Windy City.
“We’ve been working with more artists from New York and bringing them to Chicago to do shows for a while,” said Golden founder and director Jacob Meehan, in a telephone interview, explaining his decision to open in Manhattan. “We want to continue to grow with them and expand the audience for them.” Among the New York artists the gallery has worked with are painters David Malek and Patricia Treib.
The Elizabeth Street space will have about 200 square feet of exhibition space, an office, and a back room. “It’s very comparable to our location in Chicago,” Golden founder and director Jacob Meehan told The Observer in a telephone interview. “Both have high, tin ceilings, and we brought out our contractor from Chicago, so the build out is very similar.”
Proximity to collectors was also a factor in the move. “A large portion of our sales were happening with New York collectors that we have met at art fairs, like NADA in Miami,” Mr. Meehan said. “It will be nice to have a physical location here now.”
Golden will open in New York with a one-person show by photographer Aspen Mays, who earned her M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and showed at Golden in 2009. The exhibition, titled “Sun Ruins,” will open on Wednesday, Sept. 7, which is shaping up to be one of the major opening nights of the upcoming season.
Golden director Andrew Blackley will run the New York gallery, while Mr. Meehan plans to reside in Chicago, and frequently visit New York. “There’s nothing wrong with Chicago in the least,” said Mr. Meehan. “But we’re really serious about what we’re doing, and New York is the place to be. There’s so much more of an appetite for what we’re doing.”
