VILLAGE VOICE

Annual Manual
by Kim Levin

Galleries
Art Attacks

December 31, 2003 - January 6, 2004

You can't venture onto 22nd or 24th or 26th streets between Tenth and Eleventh avenues without stumbling across a zillion street-level galleries. You don't need a manual for the anti-Chelsea either: Part of the fun in Williamsburg is seeking out the exhibition spaces on your own. And despite a few heroic holdouts, Soho is so over. So here are some of the farthest-out galleries elsewhere—21st-century loners, contrarians, and pioneers who show art that's as unpredictable as their choice of location.

KENNY SCHACHTER CONTEMPORARY 14 Charles Lane, 212-807-6669 Schachter, a law school grad, thinks out of the box. After a decade staging hit-and-run shows of freewheeling art—the good, the bad, and the ridiculous—in temporary, makeshift exhibition spaces, empty garages or lofts, he's settled down. Expect the same uneven mix in the duplex gallery, Kenny Schachter Contemporary, he opened a year and a half ago. But don't expect white walls: Everything is metallic. The gallery itself, designed by Vito Acconci, is its own best work of art.