Exhibition Prep: A Focus on the Feminine Pt.2
Following our debut group show at the Newport Art Museum, ZDS Creative presented A Focus on the Feminine Pt. 2 in Nolita, Manhattan—furthering the opportunity for emerging exhibiting artists to share and sell their work. In conjunction with Parasol Projects, we hosted a 6-day-long pop-up multimedia exhibition at 2 Rivington Street, connecting our featured artists to a larger network of art lovers, buyers, and creators alike.
Our first visit to the gallery space last year was nothing short of exciting, overwhelming, and most obviously, idea-triggering. Starting with a clean slate (white walls, grey paneled flooring, overhead track lights, and a small backroom space for storage) made for a nearly formidable amount of ways to display the work we had from our first show. In addition to the nine artists featured at our Newport Art Museum pop-up in September of 2023, our New York show featured not only an additional painter but a handful of new one-off creations from each exhibiting artist. Because we had multiple rooms to work with the first go-around, consolidating everything (and then some) into one smaller, cohesive space was our next and main looming priority. What began as a three-room, very breathable exhibit in a Gilded Age Rhode Island historical site quickly morphed into a busy, one-room NYC gallery show.
Because Zoey and I both learn, plan, and create in very tactical, visually-led ways, our first step was to review the floor plan of our new space, given to us by the team at Parasol Projects. With my minimal but functional knowledge of Indesign, I was able to make a scaled-down version of the space, wall by wall, along with scaled versions of each piece we planned to hang up—all so Zoey could print everything out, assemble our miniature gallery right in front of her, and pre-plan the curation of the space before we even stepped in the door again.
Despite installation taking a full 12-hour day before opening night, the visual assurance we had from the model we constructed ahead of time made for a comfortably full, maximalist display of powerful, vibrant work. Minimal tweaks made to Zoey’s original curatorial plan not only kept things timely but also gave us the ability to make the space feel welcoming ahead of our first day open to the public. A bright pink rug from her bedroom, two chairs from our studio space in Brooklyn, floral arrangements, and our collaborative studio playlist on repeat enabled our Nolita setup to breathe a different kind of life into the atmosphere of our displayed works.
