Tag Archives: Seth Price

Seth Price at Reena Spaulings (a fake gallery)

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Contemporary Art Daily‘s post today is on Seth Price’s show at Reena Spaulings Fine Art, which I discovered was a block from my old apartment here, and half a block from my new one. Seeing it today reminded me of something I learned after attending the opening: Reena Spaulings is a fake.

It’s a real gallery…but there is no Reena or Spaulings or Reena Spaulings. Typically, galleries are named after their owners. To explain (sort of), we have the New York Times, as fine a news source on a Sunday morning as any:

“Behind the Spaulings name stands…the collective known as the Bernadette Corporation. Formed in 1994, the collective has produced films, albums, magazines and books. One of its permanent members, John Kelsey, is co-director, with Emily Sundblad, of Reena Spaulings Fine Art on the Lower East Side.”

So what the hell does that mean? “Reena Spaulings is a fictional artist, performer and art dealer,” but do we know who puts on the shows and who decides the artists. Is Seth Price a member of the collective that shows its own works? I called the gallery, but the phone just rang forever, and the only time I’ve seen a sign of life in that unremarkable doorway was at the opening.

Ah, the mysteries of the art world. Ah, the mysteries of life, which are best pondered on a fine Sunday morning on the terrace with coffee. Perhaps I’ll have more information for you after my afternoon nap.

Seth Price at Reena Spaulings Fine Art

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Art’s commercial aptitude was apparent last night in the unlikeliest of places—my block. I’ve written about the spread of gallery hopping in Manhattan, but it’s officially reached the last stop of the F train in Manhattan. Seth Price had an opening at Reena Spaulings Fine Art last night. I googled the location, 165 East Broadway. I knew the google map was wrong because there was nothing on the block it showed but a Chinese restaurant.

How wrong was I, I discovered when I climbed the old stairs after a crowd of mid-20s folks who seemed to know where they were going. The floor above the Chinese restaurant is Reena Spaulings Fine Art. Instead of 4 people milling about, there were over 40 drinking, smoking and chatting around—oh yes—the art.

Sitting around the corner from said gallery now, having coffee, watching Chinese people practice New Years dances in the park across the way, the scene of the neighborhood just gets better now that I can include galleries. I understand why Renee Spauling and the LaViolaBanks Gallery, also on East Broadway, are here. The spaces are enormous. There are many tiny gallery spaces in the area immediately north of here, but these are massive. Based off last night, I’d say they draw a good crowd.

But where was art’s commercial potential last night? That takes us back to the art; Seth Price’s works are so polished and intelligent they might sell themselves even in this market.


Stressing the importance of dates, Price has created a series of calendar pieces where he has painted older paintings in a square in the top of a canvas and a calendar locating them in time along the bottom. For me, works like the one featured above, where molded objects or faces break through a flat, plasticine surface were less explicit and more appealing. I didn’t stay for the video, which I suspect was the best part.