Since its founding in 1972, ARTISTS SPACE has kept two things at the core of its vision and daily work: a commitment to supporting and celebrating emerging artists, and a dedication to nurturing and stoking the creative fire of New York City’s cultural life. 35 years later, the art world is a very different place than it was at ARTISTS SPACE’s founding—MFA and Curatorial programs proliferate, contemporary art galleries and alternative venues abound. New and exciting cultural practice is not lacking. Rather, the cultural community of New York and beyond now requires a way to navigate and access this work. ARTISTS SPACE proposes a fresh and open curatorial approach in response.

In an effort to build more openness into the organization’s curatorial process, to broaden its range of exhibitions, and to energize the dialog that is central to its mission, ARTISTS SPACE has created a Curatorial College. The new Curatorial College appoints three curators for three-year periods, and these curators together articulate exhibition programs as well as online experiments, fostering dialog about curatorial practice and developing the notion of ARTISTS SPACE as filter. Each group of three curators will be the center of concentric participating circles of their peers, inviting colleagues to develop new projects and engage in dialog. They will be curators for ARTISTS SPACE as well as emissaries with an expanding group of emerging artist contacts and points of reference and discussion, increasing the range and depth possible for ARTISTS SPACE efforts. Programming in newly developed Blue and Black Rooms as well as innovative internet projects will provide additional outlets for this newly energized discussion and practice. To ensure the highest level of professionalism across the board, the management of exhibition production is undertaken in-house by ARTISTS SPACE staff. The first class of curators, appointed this spring, consists of Joseph del Pesco, Raimundas Malasauskas, and Meredith Johnson.