signs and symbols

89 Greene at signs and symbols
curated by Dr. Kathy Battista

***89 Greene is located at 249 East Houston Street***

signs and symbols is delighted to announce the launch of a new project: 89 Greene.* The name 89 Greene is taken from the address of legendary queer filmmaker and artist, Jack Smith. Famous for his films, especially the still banned Flaming Creatures, Smith was also one of the first performance artists. In his infamously bohemian Soho loft, he would host late night events for an audience of friends, neighbors and artists who were “in the know.” While in the early 1960s Smith, alongside Andy Warhol, was a star of the art world, he eventually resisted the impending careerism of the downtown art scene, staying resolutely independent and anarchic. Like the spirit of signs and symbols, which aims to give a platform for experimental and performance-based practices, 89 Greene acknowledges the history of its charismatic forerunners in downtown NYC.

89 Greene as a project space is a microcosm of experimentation. It is a historical location reimagined within a contemporary address. Curated by Dr. Kathy Battista, this space, which comprises one large and one smaller adjacent wall, will have its own schedule and program, independent of the gallery’s calendar. It is a space where the curator will host artists who are not represented by the gallery and often not represented in New York. The project is an ode to the underground of 1960s, 70s and 80s New York City. In that spirit of community and collaboration, artists are invited to show works just for the sake of it and to forge new relationships in New York. As Penny Arcade famously said, “There is a gentrification to the world and cities, but there is also a gentrification of ideas.” Projects shown at 89 Greene Street do not necessarily focus on performance, but they exist in the spirit of working within the limitations of New York real estate and with community building as a goal.

*Please note that all 89 Greene exhibitions are on view at the gallery’s location at 249 East Houston Street; the name of the project is only in reference to Jack Smith's historic address.

kathy battista is a writer, educator and a curator of exhibitions in museums, galleries and non-profit spaces. Her research is primarily focused on cross generational feminist art, in particular performance and body-oriented practice. Most recently she has curated Everything Has Its Place at Sevil Dolmaci Gallery, Istanbul; you pinned me down like a butterfly on a wall, Marie Jacotey for Ballon Rouge at Pablo's Birthday, New York; The Art of Fashion at Fountain House Gallery, New York; Escape Attempts at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery, Los Angeles; and E.A.T.: Experiments in Art and Technology at the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria. She has authored numerous books, including New York New Wave: The Legacy of Feminist Art in Emerging Practice (2019) and Renegotiating the Body: Feminist Art in 1970s London (2012). Battista also co-edited (with Bryan Faller) a book on artist estates and foundations, Creative Legacies: Critical Issues in Artist Estates, for Lund Humphries (2020).

Battista has over twenty years of leadership positions in the art world. In 1997, she founded the Interaction program at Artangel, a renowned public art agency in London. She also founded the MA Program in Contemporary Art at Sotheby's Institute of Art in New York, which she helmed for 11 years. She served as Editor in Chief of the Benezit Dictionary of Art for Oxford University Press and is on several international non-profit boards and committees. She is currently faculty at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, an Ensemble member of the New School of the Anthropocene and the first Expert Scholar in Residence at Instituto Susch in Switzerland.