Unique gallery space founded by Kenny Schachter and designed by Acconci Studio

Kenny Schachter, the independent curator and artist known for his large-scale installations in temporary venues has commissioned the architectural firm, Acconci Studio, headed by internationally recognized sculptor Vito Acconci, to design a large scale gallery and bar space in Chelsea. However, while the Chelsea space is being built (it is expected to open in late 2003), Schachter and Acconci Studio have designed a 1,200 square foot public exhibition space, conTEMPorary, at 14 Charles Lane, in New York's West Village. This space is situated directly behind the residential tower on the West Side Highway and Perry Street that has been designed by Richard Meier. Once the gallery in Chelsea is complete, this space will become a secondary exhibition space

conTEMPorary will set the tone for Schachter's permanent gallery, opening with a group show "Artchitecture" featuring artists, architects and fashion designers such as Vito Acconci, Frederick Kiesler, United Bamboo, and Winka Dubbeldam . The opening exhibition will also include architectural drawings and models from the Acconci Studio. Furniture, fashion, music and design objects, on equal footing with the art, will be showcased as a regular component of the program.

Frederick Kiesler's design of Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery (from 1942) was a point of departure-to readdress the paradigm of the white cube as the monolithic, singly viable model within which to show art. Guggenheim's gallery had curved walls, carnivalesque devices to display art, and all-in-one furniture that functioned as seats, pedestals and storage devices. Remarkably, nothing has been done to alter gallery architecture since the late 40's when the omnipresent cube first came into existence.

The design concept for conTEMPorary is unique and cutting-edge. Schachter and Acconci mutually concluded that there is no reason for art to be exhibited on traditional flat, white walls, therefore the centerpiece of Acconci's design is a large ribbon of perforated metal snaking throughout the ground floor space before it flips up to re-emerge in the second floor gallery. The individual perforated metal "slats" that make up the wall will be affixed to a steel frame that will allow them to be moved to a horizontal position to serve as a table, a chair or a pedestal.

Acconci Studio consists of a group of architects who design projects for public places - streets and plazas, gardens and parks, building-lobbies and transportation centers. Founded in the late 1980s, the collaborative has completed projects in Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; Milwaukee, WI; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; St. Louis, MO; and internationally in Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands. International projects are planned in Austria; the Philippines; and the United Kingdom.

Kenny Schachter has curated more than fifty exhibitions, group and one person, chiefly in uninhabited, temporarily rented venues; though he has shown extensively in galleries and museums in the US and abroad. He began his career as a lawyer and then sold neckties before dealing in European art prints, which eventually brought him to his position as a curator known for identifying young talent. Schacher is an artist himself, showing with New York's Sandra Gering Gallery, and a regular contributor to several art magazines.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CALL 212 807-6669 FAX 645-0743 schachter@mindspring.com

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