Durational Art After Dark: Joseph C. Thompson’s Next Cultural Experiment
One month ago, New Yorkers learned that they would soon be spoiled with yet another cultural institution, though even in the announcement, it was clear that CANYON is trying to distinguish itself. Located on the Lower East Side, CANYON will focus on durational work and remain open late into the night to better absorb Dimes Square’s gamer intellectuals. CANYON was conceived by veteran museum director Joseph C. Thompson and financier Robert Rosenkranz, and Observer caught up with Thompson to hear more about his ideas for it.
New York has no shortage of fine institutions dedicated to art of every medium. What makes CANYON different, necessary and vital?
It’s true that New York City is rich with cultural venues, and many have already hosted beautifully presented exhibitions of art that invite you to stay awhile: Isaac Julien at MoMA, Steve McQueen at Dia and the exquisite Pipilotti Rist show at our soon-to-be neighbor, the New Museum, spring to mind. Those exemplary shows prove the need for generous footprints and the framing of the experience as one that is holistic. None of those shows were entered via a black velvet curtain, leaving a world in which you control your time to enter a totally different chronological transaction, one in which you are invited to give yourself over, to settle in and surrender, in a way.
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And even in the city, these kinds of shows are rare because it takes a lot of work and technology to articulate proper environments with respect to sound, light and climate. Beyond that, we believe that if the art invites you to settle in and stay awhile, it should be in a really comfortable, sociable space, more like a living room than a typical white or black box. Little things—like soft seating with backrests and a place to put a drink—and big things, like precise articulation of image and sound, make a difference with this work. Finally, time of day matters, too. We believe we’re just wired to give ourselves over to things that take time—like concerts or movies or dinners with friends—in the evening hours, so we will tilt towards the night when more people have more time.
Among those institutions are Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), Rhizome and the Archive of Contemporary Music (ARC), which are described as “institutional partners with dedicated spaces within CANYON, contributing exhibitions and archive-based explorations of video, online art and music.” Can you please speak more about how that works?
Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), Rhizome and the Archive of Contemporary Music (ARC) are all exemplary archives of time-based media. Each will have a physical, public-facing presence (with entry on the free side of our paywall) and also a curatorial voice. At any one time, visitors will be able to explore and interact with works of art and music selected by EAI, Rhizome and ARC in dedicated viewing or listening rooms, or mediatheque. And from time to time, we will also work with all three to present larger format exhibitions, drawing on their remarkable knowledge, archival resources and artist communities. For ARC, which collects vinyl, we hope to serve as a sort of depository, where people who wish to donate albums of interest to ARC can drop them off at our doorstep, simplifying the process for those wishing to contribute.
CANYON will span 40,000 square feet in “an adaptive re-use of vacant (and never occupied) commercial space…reimagined by architects New Affiliates Architecture.” What more can you tell us about the space?
The space was part of One Essex Crossing, a multi-tower development in and around the Williamsburg Bridge footing in Manhattan, along Delancey Street. While the upper stories sold and rented quickly as domestic condominiums and apartments, the mid-level commercial office space has been slower to absorb, delaying development of the street level and subgrade floors, planned for food services and retail. We will be occupying the previously vacant lower levels of the building at 200 Broome Street.
The CANYON NY Foundation is a non-profit organization initially funded by the Rosenkranz Foundation as “venture philanthropy.” Could you give us some details about what that description means?
It means providing startup funds to cover the initial renovation, equipment and early operational support. However, it is not a private museum. We plan to run the institution as a public 501C3, building a board of trustees and finding the usual mix of revenue streams—tickets, retail and café sales, sponsorships, gifts and grants—so we’re not dependent on any one source of funding.
Since CANYON is dedicated to “video, sound, performance and other forms of durational art,” I must ask for some of your favorite offerings in those genres. I speak as someone who once took a Valentine’s Day date to Matthew Barney’s River of Fundament.
Then you might just be our ideal target market! But actually, we hope to build an audience of people who not only don’t know that work, but who have no clue as to who Matthew Barney is (and I, too, admire his work greatly). What I love about this art is its breadth. MTV spawned works (and produced works) that still inform some of the best video and multi-channel art being made today. Gaming is deeply influential to the look, feel and narrative structure, which is generating lots of exciting new work. At the other end of the spectrum, I’m probably in a small club of people who find Warhol’s Empire strangely mesmerizing. That said, I’m a populist at heart, meaning I like works of art that are both serious and meaningful, but that also engage wide audiences. We seek gateway works that resonate with those for whom video is already a native, immediate form of communication.
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