Keith Schweitzer

In late February, 2010, I worked with Tara de la Garza and Felicity Faulkner to organize “The Possibility of a Painting”, an exhibition produced by 2|ONE|TWO |Projects inside of the Hotel Chelsea‘s Gallery Suite. The exhibition explored a transition from representational paintings through to abstract and minimalist paintings via an innovative twist on salon-style artwork presentation.

Artists: Gillian Bostock, Winston Chmielinski, Tara de la Garza, Marissa DeMarco, Felicity Faulkner, Meghan Keane, Ayca Koseogullari, Susan Olmetti, Kenneth Park, Sirikul Pattachote, Kate Shaw, Koji Shimizu, Darren Wardle.

A review of the exhibition, with images of the exhibition can be viewed HERE.

“Reflecting Transformation”
447 W16th Street, NYC
July 30th – September 25th, 2009

Working with the curatorial team for No Longer Empty‘s second exhibition, I managed and directed “Reflecting Transformation”. The exhibit was mounted in a street level indoor space under the just-opened High Line park in Chelsea. Inspired by the re-gentrification of the meat packing area and the renovation of the High Line, Reflecting Transformation was organized to reference this urban regeneration and play on the theme of transformation of space and character. In a minimalist aesthetic, the exhibition also alluded to the healing nature that art can have on a community.

Artists: U-Ram Choe, Cao Fei, Yoko Ono, Stephanie Rothenberg, Alyson Shotz, Sean Slemon, Suzanne Song & Siebren Versteeg.

In July of 2009, I organized a mural on the street-level exterior of the Hotel Chelsea (222 West 23rd Street, NYC) to commemorate our first exhibition as No Longer Empty.  Israeli artist “Know Hope“, in collaboration with Chris Stain, created this site-specific artwork directly upon the roll-down gate of NLE’s inaugural exhibition. I documented the artists at work by creating the time-lapse video below:

No Longer Empty began exhibiting at two storefronts at the Chelsea Hotel, the historical art heart of Manhattan. Artists such as Michael Bevilacqua, Alina and Jeff Bliumis and Diana Puntar filled economy-ravaged spaces with installations while responding to the present dire financial straits and its effect on the urban landscape and national psyche. Resident artists at the Hotel Chelsea also exhibited.

No Longer Empty´s first exhibition took the name of its location. The Chelsea Hotel offered a forum for artistic dialogue. The spaces here were not gallery or museum locales and the resulting works and conversations were not defined by such conventional exhibition spaces. Indeed, the exhibition was the pioneer of No Longer Empty´s new model of community art. The project strived to stem any potential neighborhood decline resulting from unused and abandoned buildings by lavishing them with art.