Amant Founder and chief executive Lonti Ebers with artistic director Ruth Estévez on site at the Amant Foundation Lyndsy Welgos. Courtesy the Amant Foundation.
The American philanthropist and mega-collector Lonti Ebers will launch a sprawling non-profit art centre in Brooklyn this summer called the Amant Foundation. The 21,000 sq ft complex will span four buildings across two blocks in East Williamsburg and include two galleries, a performance space and studios for resident artists.
The centre aims to “emphasise practitioners coming from the disciplines of theory, poetry and literature”, says its artistic director, Ruth Estévez, the former senior curator of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and the co-curator of the forthcoming São Paulo Bienal.
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The SO-IL-designed 21,000 square foot multi-building “art campus” in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is set to open in the summer of 2021, with construction projected to conclude by May 2021. Serving as the Amant Foundation’s new headquarters, the complex will host exhibitions, public events, archival projects, performances, and residency programs.
Comprised of four structures connected by walkways and public courtyards, including a performance space, two galleries, a cafe/bookstore, and four studios, the campus is located in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Centered on flexibility, the research and artistic platform takes on an interdisciplinary program. Designed by architectural firm SO–IL as an “art campus,” the Amant complex is both a new landmark and seamless addition to the area. Generating spaces dedicated to moving images and live art, the project allows internal networking of activities while connecting, spatially, with the dynamics of the surrounding neighborhoo
Commonwealth and Council gallery family portrait at Elysian Park, Los Angeles. Photo: Ruben Diaz
Covid-19 has laid bare the unsustainable expectations of an increasingly stratified market and the narrowing margins of both creative and financial success it yields. But the Los Angeles gallery Commonwealth & Council has revised its business plan to rethink how small and mid-level galleries can turn a profit and support their artists in both lean and flush times going forward.
Started by Young Chung over a decade ago as an apartment gallery in LA’s Koreatown, Commonwealth & Council quietly announced via its holiday newsletter last week that it has started the Council Fund, an initiative that would help support artists’ financial needs that are normally outside of the scope of a traditional gallery, like health insurance, personal emergency aid and the development of non-commercial projects.