ART & DESIGN | Emerging Artists and Art Spaces: Swivel Gallery

BY DRUE HENEGAR

Photographs by Cary Whittier and Drue Henegar

The robust gallery districts of Chelsea and SoHo were once considered the “Gasoline Alley,” and “Hell’s Hundred Acres” of Manhattan.(1) Between the 1960s and 1990s, the neighborhoods were artists’ havens that marked a transition in art-making and viewing. Galleries moved from commercialized institutions to deconstructed environments of free-thought and aesthetic play. These cultural moments produced new ideas surrounding the “emerging artist,” that permeated through untraditional spaces, mediums, and societal reflections— a concept that is void in many of Manhattan’s present-day gallery scenes. Where these spaces once asked questions with open invitation to participate, the present-day exhibitions often prescribe thought, role, and behavior to the viewer when browsing exhibitions and attending openings. While there will always be institutional development in the once avant-garde domain, there will also always be emerging artists and creatives uncovering the new. In response to these closed environments and issues of accessibility, there has been a relocation of artists making and exhibiting in boroughs outside the city.

A space reflective of the community it represents and serves, Swivel Gallery is breaking the traditional discourse of white-box gallery viewing. Located among the studio-garages and local dives of Bushwick, Swivel presents an experimental juxtaposition to the colloquial Manhattan gallery-scape.  In 2021, founder and co-director, Graham Wilson, bought the space that previously housed Clearing gallery.(2) Wilson has been successful with Swivel in-part due to the creative, interdisciplinary network he’s built, along with the collaborative nature of Swivel’s team. The founder has a layered background working for over a decade in art handling with renowned galleries such as Hauser & Wirth, as well as artist management. Wilson and co-director Elisa Carollo work to guide emerging artists— many showing for the first time out of their MFA— to the entrance of the global contemporary art market.(3) Despite their emphasis on emerging artists, it’s important to note that Swivel also features more established artists from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. In speaking with Wilson, he expressed the desire to create space for artists to exhibit and sell that may have otherwise been pushed out of more mainstream galleries: 

“I like to make things happen for other people. I understand that it can be very difficult to make it as an artist, and I want to be a strong pillar for them to get their start.”

The gallery opens new exhibitions on a near monthly-basis, impressively retaining momentum for viewers seeing something new each visit. They do not have a permanent collection, as they push for sales across the artists showing.(4) Although the gallery is a “white box” in form, it’s activated by strategic curation that breaks up and disorients the space, as shown in the group exhibition Subject to Change, 2023,  showing Abigail Lucien, Nickola Pottinger, and Tami Soji-Akinyem (Figure 1). The frequent gallery openings are loud, provocative, and engaging, as viewers are not afraid to interact with the pieces, or other visitors—in some cases they are invited to even eat the artwork as seen with Andrea Ferrero’s All My Life I’ve Been Afraid of Power, 2023 (Figure 2).

In speaking with Wilson on the mission of the gallery he notes:

“There’s not a specific taste by any means. We try to find really distinct voices from all over the planet, and push a global agenda… Wide ranges of people with distinct voices, in order to create potent group shows that discuss topics younger generations are interested in exploring.”(5)

The push for a “global agenda” is apparent across many solo and group shows that explore decoloniality as it intersects with notions of gender, sexual orientation, race, and geographical disposition. Environment, material, and audience participation are also themes commonly threaded throughout the space that demand a closer, visceral encounter with the work at stake (Figure 3)(Figure 4)(Figure 5). 

On view from February 22nd to March 23rd, 2024, Swivel presents Simon Benjamin’s solo exhibition Native Diver, 2024, along with a group show curated by Alyssa Alexander composed of fifteen artists Go Tell It On The Mountain: Black Folx and Their Church, 2024. The exhibitions show the breadth of Swivel’s artist-representation: showing both emerging as well as more established artists.  Benjamin’s work illuminates neo-colonial structures by disrupting dichotomies of the seen and unseen, West and “non-West,” and past and present. His paintings, sculptures, and collages speak to histories embedded in coastal space and sea that interrogate the complex, imperial relationship between the Caribbean, and the West.(6) When entering the space, the gaze is disrupted by Benjamin's Giant Divers, 2024, on the left, front, and right side of the gallery, with the figure’s staring back at the viewer (Figure 6) (Figure 7).

The exhibition reflects the history of coin divers, young black boys who would dive for coins thrown into the harbor by North American and European tourists, highlighting the growing influence of tourism in the early twentieth century.(7) Looking at the installation view, the curation simulates a sea-like intervention for the viewer, with floating sculptures placed throughout the gallery, encapsulated by the monumental canvases demonstrated with silkscreen and acrylic paint, along with postcards that have been manipulated and painted over (Figure 8).

Benjamin’s Barrel sculptures are poetic markers of the past, as well as commentary on environmental waste with stratified material composition of ​​cornmeal, sand, beach detritus, non-toxic resin.(8) His work is a powerful vehicle of visibility for dispersed Caribbean communities in Brooklyn. Barrel #2, 2024, sits on top of a barrel that is a common vessel used in present-day to ship items back to family members in the islands (Figure 9). The barrels are a familiar sight to anyone walking through Brooklyn neighborhoods that are home to various Caribbean communities, often advertised on the facades of bodegas. Native Diver’s profound presentation at Swivel Gallery is a reminder of the fluidity in colonial legacies that are inherently intertwined with present-day experiences.  

Go tell it on the mountain: Black Folx and Their Church, features the work of Joseph Cochran II, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Lloyd Foster, Xayvier Haughton, Y. Malik Jalal, Basil Kincaid, Joe Minter, Ambrose Rhapsody Murray, z tye Richardson, Lamar Robillard, Le’Andra LeSeur, Shikeith, Nyugen E. Smith, Renée Stout, and Chiffon Thomas. The exhibition explores the relationship between black communities and spirituality, showcasing complex dynamics of Christianity and its colonial history, along with African spiritual practices.(9) The three rooms housing the show experiment with powerful material and curatorial interventions from painting, mixed media, and sculptural installations such as Skikeith’s Grace Comes Violently, 2022, and Ambrose Rhapsody Murray’s Enshrouded, 2022, and Nyugen Smith’s Spirit Carriers, 2016 that hang from the ceiling (Figure 10)(Figure 11)(Figure 12).

Go tell it on the mountain—the title references the carol and Baldwin’s 1953 novel— interrogates notions of spirituality, land, water, birth, rebirth, and death, along with the communal and familiar. The immense exhibition deserves a much more extensive celebration and analysis of each artist and work than this journal entry details, which instead will look more closely at Le’Andra LeSeur’s captivating red room That body of (a reflection of the sky), 2023—‚ (Figure 13).

The artist, represented by Marlborough Gallery, was in conversation with Swivel’s co-director Elisa Carollo about the collection of archives she was accumulating that dealt with baptism, and symbolisms of death and rebirth. LeSeur considers the installation a sketch that was formulated through her typical writing-to-visual-based process from personal images and video, with around 85% of the materials sourced from archives at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY.(10) The sound-scape of the exhibition is LeSeur’s words along with sourced field recordings. In conversation with LeSeur, she explains that her work often begins with her writing that is inherently poetic in nature:

“When I was a kid, I wrote poems often, but as an adult I felt like writing wasn’t a strong suit. Now when I write it is like an abstract language… poetry became important in order to break down, and redefine myself through language, and move into the visual.”(11) 

The profound imagery of That body of (a reflection of the sky) makes evident the artist’s unique abstract language. The work is grounded with sensitivity to the viewer’s visceral engagement when stepping into the space. LeSeur has created safety in a space that is immersive in its contemplation of death and rebirth as a notion that is at once painful and joyful.  LeSeur discusses the ideas surrounding her process:

“I was writing a lot about collapse and surrender and breathing… trying to encapsulate in the room the feeling of hitting the water; what does that look and feel like…moments that are fleeting, phenomena, collaging all of them together. Tragedy and hope and divinity….”(12)

In looking at LeSeur’s oeuvre, blue and red are prevalent colors that the artist meditates upon, thinking about freedom— who has access to this, and how this freedom pertains to the body. 

“I think about who has access to navigate these colors and actually feel liberated by them. This framework became deeper in how these colors made me feel… thinking about the idea of the sacred, communal connection, and the body and surrender… how we have to get into our body first in order to get into the space to surrender.”

Swivel Gallery embodies the voice of a new generation of artists, thinkers, and viewers that empower the in-between. The space echoes the decades of the once-experimental, grassroots art-scenes, but has taken it a step further; breaking open the dialogue between the viewer, artwork, and artist by erasing the question of who is allowed to occupy the white box, and the nature in which they occupy it. The thoughtful and dynamic curation, along with the attention and support given to the artists shown, provide an alternative direction in gallery ownership and exhibition display that has the grit and substance to provide real change in creative discourse.