Outstanding highlights from Sikkema Jenkins with gallery partner Meg Malloy

Sheila Hicks

LAUNCHING SOLO SHOWS AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS EVERY MONTH THROUGHOUT THE YEAR CREATES A PHENOMENAL WORKLOAD FOR A GALLERY BUT THIS IS JUST THE PROVERBIAL TIP OF THE ICEBERG OF THE EFFORT IT TAKES TO SUPPORT ARTISTS, PLACE THEIR WORK IN COLLECTIONS, BOTH PRIVATE AND PUBLIC, GAIN INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR THEIR WORK AND ORGANIZE EXHIBITIONS IN OTHER GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS. SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO. EXEMPLIFIES A GALLERY DEDICATED TO A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT TO THEIR ARTISTS, CONTINUALLY ADDING NEW TALENT TO A ROSTER OF ESTABLISHED ARTISTS, AND GIVING THEM A PERMANENT COLLABORATION BETWEEN GALLERY AND ARTIST TO PROVIDE BOTH COMMERCIAL AND CRITICAL SUCCESS.

THE LRFA BLOG IS VERY PLEASED TO WELCOME  BACK MEG MALLOY, PARTNER AT SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO., TO SHARE A VERY FEW OF THE MANY HIGHLIGHTS OF GALLERY NEWS AND TO SPEAK ABOUT THE GALLERY’S HOPES AND PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.

https://www.sikkemajenkinsco.com

Arturo Herrera

MEG, WELCOME BACK. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE EXHIBITIONS THAT YOU HAVE HAD IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS AT THE GALLERY THAT ARE PARTICULARLY MEMORABLE?

Kara’s last show was so exciting. We placed all of the works in the main space with major museums, and all of them have been on view at those institutions since those acquisitions.  I was just up at the Harvard Museums where I saw how many classes were held in front of Kara’s piece,  and it was great to see the work MoMA bought front and center in the rehang of the collection!   Mitch Epstein’s show addressing our uses and abuses of the land was very powerful, and will be shown at the Amon Carter next year.  Vik’s current show Museum of Ashes is striking a chord with visitors. It focuses on the tragic fire at  the National Museum in Rio and the loss of its irreplaceable artifacts, by recreating them out of the actual ashes.  

Louis Fratino

Louis Fratino’s show was so fresh and tender, and Jennifer’s work for her most recent show was just so powerful. It’s hard to convey how much pleasure I get  out of each of our artists’ shows.  Walking through the space and looking for four to five weeks, you really connect and see more, or learn to understand something different over time. It  Is such a gift.

MANY OF YOUR ARTISTS ARE HONORED WITH MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS AND SHOWS AT OTHER PRESTIGIOUS GALLERIES HERE AND ABROAD. HOW DO YOU ARRANGE FOR THESE AND HOW DO YOU PUBLICIZE THEM TO THE ARTIST AND GALLERY’S BEST ADVANTAGE?

We send out email blasts and use Instagram to announce exhibitions and awards.  We have also started making e-books for our shows with installation shots  to better share with a non local audience what the gallery and our artists are up to!

Josephine Halvorson

RECENT AWARDS AND MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS: 

Jeff Gibson wins the  MacArthur Foundation Fellowship

Kara Walker’s commission at Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern

Vik Muniz opening the new museum in Sarasota

Josephine Halvorson wins the James and Audrey Foster prize at the ICA, Boston

Jennifer Packer at MoCA this spring and the Serpentine this fall

Erin Shirreff at SF MoMA  now through November

Deana Lawson with survey forthcoming at Ica Boston at PS 1

Arturo Herrara’s  new work at Corbett vs Dempsey forthcoming

Marlene McCarty exhibit at the UB Art Galleries in Buffalo

Sheila  Hicks in MoMA’s Surrounds, the installation section on the 6th floor

Erin Shirreff

HOW HAVE YOU SEEN THE GALLERY SYSTEM CHANGE AND ADAPT TO GLOBALIZATION IN GENERAL AND HOW HAS SIKKEMA JENKINS APPROACHED THESE CHANGES IN PARTICULAR?

There is a wider worldwide audience.  There is also a lack of interaction as people use places like Artsy for inquiries.  I don’t like that!  I think we need a sense of who a buyer is. 

WE ARE IN THE THROES OF THE PRESENCE OF UBER-GALLERIES BOTH IN THE BRICKS AND MORTAR WORLD AND AT THE ART FAIRS. HOW DO SUBSTANTIAL, LONG-TERM BUT MORE MODEST GALLERIES DEAL WITH THIS COMPETITION?

We cannot compete with the uber galleries. But we can keep doing what we do best. Show great artists, work as hard as we can for them, place the work in the best collections we can, and remain approachable!

Mitch Epstein

WHAT EXHIBITIONS ARE YOU PLANNING FOR THE SEASON AHEAD?

We are currently showing Zipora Fried, a wonderful artist who was with the great  Stellar Rays until they closed. It is our first solo show with her and we are thrilled.  In the back galleries we are showing new  Cameron Martin paintings paired with vintage Kepes photographs.   Cameron’s show at James a Fuentes last year was a stunner, and we are delighted to show these new pieces.  In January, we will show new work by William Cordova and Josephine Halvorson’s Foster Prize show.  Then we will show Kara Walker, including some pieces that will go to Kunstmuseum  Basel for her forthcoming show there. In  May we will show  Merlin James, a still undervalued painter who’s got a terrific artists following.

We have to get Arturo Herrera and Kay Rosen on the books, both such strong wonderful artists

Kay Rosen

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE PLANS FOR THE GALLERY IN THE FUTURE?

To keep going!  To support our artists as best we can and to keep the non-uber gallery alive!

MEG, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR WONDERFUL CONTRIBUTION TO THE LRFA BLOG AND TO SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO.  GALLERY. IT IS NO WONDER THAT THE GALLERY HAS SUCH A LOYAL AND DEDICATED TEAM AND CONTINUES TO GROW AND THRIVE.

TIS THE SEASON, AND IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOGS, WE ARE DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE THE LRFA BLOG ANNUAL TRADITION:  POSTS FROM DOUG FLAMM, GAGOSIAN’S RARE BOOK EXPERT, WITH THIS YEAR’S IRRESISTIBLE GIFTS.

 

Holding one’s breath while allowing artists complete creative license with Meg Malloy, partner, Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Zipora Fried As the Ground Turns Solid Current exhibit Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

 

BOASTING A DIVERSE ROSTER OF NOTEWORTHY ARTISTS WORKING TODAY, SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO. IS AN ESTABLISHED MIDSIZE GALLERY SPACE LOCATED IN WEST CHELSEA. REPRESENTED ARE SUCH BIG-NAME VETERANS AS VIK MUNIZ AND KARA WALKER, AS WELL AS MID-CAREER POWERHOUSES SHEILA HICKS AND DEANA LAWSON. THE WORK REPRESENTS ARTISTS WHO WORK IN EVERY MEDIUM: PAINTING, PHOTOGRAPHY, SCULPTURE, VIDEO, INSTALLATION; AND IN EVERY GENRE: ABSTRACTION, NARRATION, FIGURATION, MANY ADDRESSING SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES, OTHERS ADDRESSING THE LEGACY OF ART HISTORY AND EVOLVING IT FORWARD.  THE UNIFYING FACTOR IS THE QUALITY, ENGAGEMENT AND IMPACT OF THE WORK, TO THE VIEWER, TO THE COLLECTOR AND TO THE MUSEUM CURATOR.

IN 2019 ALONE, SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO.  EXHIBITED THE WORK OF THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS, AN ABBREVIATED EXAMPLE OF THE BREADTH AND SCOPE OF THE ARTISTS THE GALLERY SUPPORTS AND ENCOURAGES.

Brenda Goodman

BRENDA GOODMAN

With over 50 years of experience as a painter, Goodman is an artist at the height of her career. She began in 1960s Detroit, as a member of the famed Cass Corridor Movement. In the early 1970s, she exhibited with Guston, Tworkov and de Kooning at the Gertrude Kasle Gallery. After moving to New York City in 1976, Goodman explored ways to integrate intensely personal issues with the freedom of abstract expressionism.

Louis Fratino

LOUIS FRATINO

Drawing inspiration from personal experience and, more recently, photographic source material, Fratino makes paintings and drawings of the male body. His work includes portraits, nudes, and intimate scenes of male couples engaged in activities ranging from the mundane to the graphically sexual. The result is a body of work that is a loving and honest expression of the contemporary gay experience.

Jennifer Packer

JENNIFER PACKER

Packer’s painted figures and still lifes are exceptional for their expressive fields of color, worked tenderly by the artist’s hand. They are images made with the utmost care–for the subject, and for the artist herself. Packer’s subjects are often friends and family, loved ones who serve as an emotive force in her life. Her representations critique the positionality, autonomy and power of the marginalized subject.

Terry Haggerty

TERRY HAGGERTY

Terry Haggerty’s paintings reveal the multi-dimensional possibilities within painting – bold color is used to enliven and give volume and depth to positive and negative space. A series of monochrome lines, corners, and edges fold around one another, activating gaps between geometric planes of color. Haggerty’s works embrace the tension between two-dimensional outline and three-dimensional form, creating images characterized as “half object, half painting.”

AND CURRENTLY, THE BEAUTIFUL RECENT ABSTRACTIONS BY

Zipora Fried

ZIPORA FRIED

Working across sculpture, photography, and drawing, Fried’s oeuvre explores the potential of color and form to transcend language and express the nuances of the human experience. The subconscious remains a focal point of interest for Fried, as the formal conditions of object and image become deconstructed and reinterpreted through their symbolic connections to one another. Every gesture of the artist’s hand, in shape and form, signifies a distinct moment in the phenomenological experience of Fried’s work.

MEG, WHAT ARTISTS DOES THE GALLERY REPRESENT, AND HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE WORK?

The artists that  we represent are quite varied, and it is hard to pinpoint, but I feel that all  start from social or conceptual concerns, and all have great skill and create work that is consistently engaging on both a visual and an intellectual level.

IS THERE A PARTICULARLY AESTHETIC, OR CONCEPTUAL OR ABSTRACT POINT OF VIEW THAT CONNECTS EACH ARTIST’S WORKS?

I would say it is open-ended, but each of our artists has an integrity and an unshakable commitment to what they do. 

WHAT DID YOU MOVE TO CHELSEA, AND WHAT PROMPTED THAT DECISION?

The gallery moved to Chelsea because there were great spaces, and Soho rents were through the roof.

WAS THE CURRENT 22^nd STREET LOCATION THE FIRST SPACE THAT YOU TOOK, AND HOW HAS IT EXPANDED OVER THE YEARS?

We are at the same address, but the gallery has been in the unusual position of  being able to expand in place as the business grew.   We had half of our downstairs originally and then were offered the other half.   This was due to unfortunate circumstances as both Pat Hearn and Colin de Land who had that space passed away.  Then we rented the back of upstairs from Anina Nosei for storage and viewings, and then when she didn’t renew we took over  that space. 

Sheila Hicks

 

THE GALLERY ROSTER IS A STRONG MIX OF ESTABLISHED ARTISTS SUCH AS ARTURO HERRERA, SHEILA HICKS, KARA WALKER, AND EMERGING TALENTS. WHO ARE SOME OF THE ARTISTS AND WHAT ARE SOME OF THE EXHIBITIONS THAT HAVE RESONATED WITH YOU THE MOST?

That is an impossible question!  😊

YOU SHOW ARTISTS IN A WIDE VARIETY OF MEDIA. WHO ARE SOME OF THE ARTISTS THAT YOU REPRESENT THAT ARE THE MOST CHALLENGING IN TERMS OF THE EXHIBITION OF THEIR WORK? YOU ARE SO GENEROUS WITH THE GALLERY SPACE, ALLOWING THE ARTISTS LICENSE TO TREAT THE SPACE AS PART OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS.

You have to have faith in an artist’s  vision.   That said, there are times when we hold our breath. For Kara’s last show, there were three very large-scale unframed works on paper.  The audience for that show was enormous and we worried that the work could be damaged but people were so respectful.  William Córdova created a scaffolding that pushed viewers to the perimeter of the gallery. 

William Cordova
Machu Picchu

MORE ABOUT THE GALLERY, ART FAIRS, CURRENT AND FUTURE EXHIBITIONS WITH MEG MALLOY IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG.

IN THE MEANTIME, EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY, AND HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Andy Warhol
Turkey Noodle Soup

The LRFA blog welcomes Meg Malloy, partner at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. gallery

Meg Malloy
Partner
Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO. ENJOYS A LONG AND RESPECTED HISTORY IN THE CONTEMPORARY ART WORLD FOR DISCOVERING EMERGING ARTISTS WHO GO ON TO GAIN GREAT CRITICAL AND COMMERCIAL SUCCESS AND SUPPORTING ESTABLISHED CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS WHOSE CAREERS THEY NURTURE. LOCATED AT 530 WEST 22nd STREET IN THE WEST CHELSEA ARTS DISTRICT IN NEW YORK CITY, THE GALLERY WAS FOUNDED IN 1991 BY BRENT SIKKEMA AS WOOSTER GARDENS. BRENT SIKKEMA BEGAN HIS GALLERY WORK IN 1971 AT THE DIRECTOR OF EXHIBITIONS AT THE VISUAL STUDIES WORKSHOP IN ROCHESTER, NEW YORK. HE OPENED HIS FIRST GALLERY IN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, IN 1976. MICHAEL JENKINS, WHO HAD WORKED ON PROJECTS WITH THE GALLERY SINCE ITS OPENING IN 1991, JOINED AS DIRECTOR IN 1996, AND BECAME A PARTNER IN 2003.

Sikkema Jenkins Gallery
530 West 22nd Street
Chelsea, New York

SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO. WAS ORIGINALLY LOCATED ON WOOSTER STREET IN SoHo AND IN 1999 MOVED TO ITS PRESENT CHELSEA LOCATION SUBSEQUENTLY UNDERGOING EXTENSIVE RENOVATION AND EXPANSION.  THE GALLERY IS AN EXTREMELY INVITING ENVIRONMENT, WITH A DEDICATED AND ACCESSIBLE STAFF EAGER TO EDUCATE AS WELL AS TO PLACE WORKS.

MEG MALLOY, A PARTNER AT SIKKEMA JENKINS, IS THE PERFECT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE OPEN UNPRETENTIOUS SPIRIT OF THE GALLERY AND THE LRFA BLOG IS DELIGHTED TO WELCOME HER TODAY.

MEG, THANK YOU, IN THIS BUSY SEASON OF THE ART YEAR, FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE LRFA BLOG.

Vik Muniz: Surfaces
Current exhibition
Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

WHAT WERE YOUR EXPERIENCES GROWING UP THAT ENCOURAGED AN INTEREST IN ART?

I was born in Chicago and raised in Glencoe, a suburb north of the city. I am the oldest of six.   My mother had wanted to be an artist, and going to museums was a part of my childhood.  The Art Institute also had a great outreach program and before any school trip there, museum docents would come to school and educate us about what we might see.  My parents were involved in a local theater group and I took part in the youth version, always on the management side as a producer or v.p.-  never as a performer.    In high school and college, friends and I used to take the train to the city and to go the Art Institute.  We would just wander.  I was always struck by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Sky Above Clouds, which was installed at the top of a grand staircase at the museum: it seemed so majestic, and it motivated me to read her biography. I loved thinking about her work, and what sounded to me like an impossibly exciting life in art.

 

Georgia O’Keeffe
Sky Above Clouds

DID YOU PAINT OR HAVE AMBITIONS TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL ARTIST?

 I never had any talent for art making, though  I enjoyed it.  I really thought I would go into publishing. I worked on the school newspapers in both junior high and high school.  One close friend did have parents who were collectors, and another had a mom who ran a gallery downtown.    

WHAT WAS YOUR ACADEMIC BACKGROUND, AND HOW DID IT LEAD YOU INTO THE ART WORLD?

 I went to The University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana and studied Comp Lit.  

My plan was to follow my favorite aunt’s career path in publishing.   Because comp lit is interdisciplinary, we often looked at visual art. My interest in its history was piqued, and I added art history classes to my course of study.  I was a resident advisor and had a number of artists on my floor  – I  loved visiting their studios and talking about what they  were doing.

Kara Walker
Turbine Commission Tate Modern

Then  I took a museum studies class and decided I should go into museum education.   With that goal in mind, I decided to go to grad school in art history, and ended up at UC Berkeley. There I had a job at the art museum bookstore, and then became the intern for Connie Lewallen, a wonderful curator and human being.   She ran the Matrix program, which focused on one contemporary artist at a time in a frequently changing exhibition program, always with an accompanying brochure.  I loved the variety and the engagement with the artists and their ideas.  It was compelling.  I also became the de facto house sitter for the curators — all of whom had great contemporary art and libraries, and I loved being immersed in those environments.

Erin Shirreff
San Francisco Museum of Art

SO MANY INFLUENCES LEADING YOU TO NEW YORK AND A CAREER IN THE ARTS. IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG, MEG WILL  DETAIL HER FIRST EXPERIENCES IN THE NEW YORK ART WORLD.

PLEASE JOIN US!

Oliver Scholars visits the Leonardo Drew exhibit at Sikkema Jenkins – one student’s reflections

Leonardo Drew
Sikkema Jenkins & Co
Gallery installation
September – October 2016

THIS FALL, SIKKEMA JENKINS GALLERY IN CHELSEA HOSTED A GROUP OF STUDENTS FROM THE OLIVER SCHOLARS PROGRAM TO MEET THE ARTIST, LEONARDO DREW WHO SPOKE ABOUT HIS SOLO EXHIBITION. SO MANY THANKS TO MEG MALLOY, PARTNER AND GALLERY FOUNDERS BRENT SIKKEMA AND MICHAEL JENKINS FOR THEIR WELCOMING INVITATION AND AN ENORMOUS APPLAUSE OF APPRECIATION TO LEONARDO DREW FOR SHARING HIS EXHIBIT AND INSPIRING PERSONAL HISTORY AS AN ARTIST WITH THIS SPECIAL GROUP OF STUDENTS.

Leonardo Drew is known for his abstract sculptural installations, which incorporate materials such as paper, rope, wood, paint chips, tree branches and roots, and sheet metal. In Drew’s hands, these raw materials are exhaustingly transformed to resemble debris. While artistically rooted in art movements of the 1950s and 60s including abstract expressionism, minimalism, and Arte Povera, Drew – influenced by non-Western philosophical traditions – views his work as a reflection of the cyclical nature of time, the continual processes of transformation, and the connectivity of all things. This is perhaps most evident in the artist’s practice of incorporating parts of earlier works into newer pieces, including several of the works on view in the current exhibition.

http://sikkemajenkinsco.com/?v=exhibition&exhibition=5769ae6683b95

http://sikkemajenkinsco.com/index.php

THE NEW YORK BASED OLIVER SCHOLARS PROGRAM PICKS THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST BLACK AND LATINO STUDENTS IN THE NEW YORK AREA AND GIVES THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES THE ENCOURAGEMENT, ACADEMIC AND EMOTIONAL SUPPORT TO ATTEND AND BE SUCCESSFUL AT EXCELLENT INDEPENDENT HIGH SCHOOLS, BOARDING SCHOOLS AND RESPECTED COLLEGES.

http://oliverscholars.org/scholar-services

JEANETTE CREWS, A HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR AND OUTSTANDING OLIVER SCHOLAR, HAS CONTRIBUTED A WONDERFUL REFLECTION ON THIS EXPERIENCE IN TODAY’S LRFA BLOG. THANK YOU, JEANETTE!

 

Jeanette Crews

My name is Jeanette Crews. I’m a H.S. Senior and Oliver Scholar. On Tuesday October 4th I had an opportunity to visit the Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Gallery in Chelsea. Along with a group of other Oliver Scholars we were there to see an exhibit of the works of Artist Leonardo Drew.

I have a great passion for Art and hope to include Art and Education in my future endeavors. I have been to many of New York’s great art museums but this was my first official visit to an art gallery. I attended with my Dad and we arrived quite early. Upon walking in the door, we actually met Mr. Drew and had a brief conversation with him.

As I entered the main gallery space, my impression of Mr. Drew’s work was that it was a big sweeping piece that ran from the far right corner of the room and stretched all the way around to the front right side wall. Additional art works were on the left and back walls. First I thought it was one continuous art piece but it was also dozens of individual pieces arranged on the wall to look like a connected piece.

LEONARDO DREW
Number 77 (Detail)

Mr. Drew gave a presentation and spoke candidly about his background, both setbacks and successes. Also, he lets people interpret or appreciate the art however they wish, as long as they derive some sort of feeling. There was no right or wrong way to look at or understand his art; it was what you got (or didn’t get) from it, from your perspective. And none of that mattered because Mr. Drew is a person that doesn’t create art for others (opinions) but for self-expression; at least that’s my opinion. Mr. Drew also mentioned that he started out drawing cartoons and developed as a fine arts artist but moved on to more abstract forms using natural materials reclaimed or repurposed from nature and from discarded man made items. I was impressed by his commercial and cultural successes; he’s got his art works in renowned museums, galleries and shows. I was also impressed to know that he still has a thirst for learning new techniques; he was going to be traveling to China to learn special traditional style glazing (pottery/sculpture) techniques.

It was a great experience and helped me understand that no success comes easy but only with hard work and determination.

 

 

 

Mentor an Oliver Scholar!

 

HELPING TO CHANGE THE FUTURE OF YOUNG, SMART AND EAGER STUDENTS TO REALIZE DREAMS OF FULFILLMENT AND SUCCESS IS AS GRATIFYING AS ANY 2017 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION COULD BE.  HERE’S A LITTLE INFO ON THE OLIVER SCHOLARS MENTORING PROGRAM. MAKE A DIFFERENCE, OPEN A DOOR!

 

Oliver’s new mentoring program is for high school freshmen who are interested in having an adult role model and exploring college options.

Program Details
1.5 year program
4 hrs/month in person, email or phone contact
Quarterly group events
Custom mentor matches based on areas of interest and goals
Collaboratively explore career, college, volunteer & leadership opportunities with your mentee

Why Mentor an Oliver Scholar?
You will serve as a positive role model
You will support Scholars in their transition from public school to private school
You will be instrumental in helping a high school freshmen establish important life skills and build self-esteem

THE ART WORLD IS OFFICIALLY BACK IN BUSINESS AFTER THE HOLIDAYS WITH THE FIRST FAIR OF THE SEASON, UNTITLED, IN SAN FRANCISCO.  NICHOLAS CHRISTOPHER OF TURON TRAVEL IS A FAN AND IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG PROVIDES A WEALTH OF INFORMATION NOT ONLY ABOUT THE FAIR ITSELF BUT THE MAGICAL CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO.

PLEASE JOIN US!