James Fuentes set to debut new Tribeca gallery space.
Stipan Tadić, illustration of 52 White Street, 2024. Courtesy of James Fuentes Gallery.
Lower East Side gallery James Fuentes will inaugurate its new Tribeca space this Friday with a Kikuo Saito solo exhibition. The show, titled “Color Codes,” will run from March 8th to April 20th at the gallery’s new location at 52 White Street.
“I’m excited about, for the first time in my career, being in the center of everything, whereas we were always on the periphery,” founder James Fuentes said in a recent interview with Artsy.
This show will feature an extensive collection of the Japanese American artist’s monochromatic works, created between 1990 and 1993. These large-scale paintings were developed in Saito’s studio six blocks from the new gallery space, adding a layer of significance to her exhibition’s inauguration of the new location. Curated by Christopher Y. Lew, “Color Codes” builds upon the gallery’s previous Saito exhibition in 2021, which highlighted the artist’s use of the color black.
Kikuo Saito, Copper Table, 1993. Courtesy of the Estate of Kikuo Saito and James Fuentes Gallery.
The venue itself has added historical significance, as it was the original site of the Collective for Living Cinema, an artist-run cooperative. The Collective, founded in 1973 and active for 19 years, was known as a vibrant New York film venue in its time. In collaboration with film curator Jacob Perlin, Fuentes is planning to restage the Collective’s original programming.
In May 2023, James Fuentes launched a Los Angeles location, which is currently presenting a solo exhibition of the late Geoffrey Holder. At Frieze Los Angeles last week, the gallery showed works from both Holder and Saito in a presentation selected as one of Artsy’s best booths at the fair.
