The Kitchen to Establish Temporary Home at Westbeth During Renovation of its Own Building

The Kitchen has announced a generative meeting with another epicenter of the New York and international avant-garde, the world's largest artist community: Westbeth Artists Housing (55 Bethune St, New York). As The Kitchen continues to celebrate its 50th anniversary, it begins the renovation of its Chelsea home on 19th Street and will move temporarily to Westbeth's expansive West Side Loft, a space whose vast potential recalls The Kitchen's own original locations at the Mercer Arts Center and later, the loft it occupied on the corner Wooster and Broome Streets. The Kitchen's stay at Westbeth will begin with a soon-to-be-announced Fall 2022 season that treats the site as a flexible medium and transcends the containment of given platforms or disciplinary distinctions.

Executive Director and Chief Curator Legacy Russell said, "The Kitchen and Westbeth-and the artists who've passed through the doors of both-have been running alongside and in intersection with one another for decades. Now in active and deliberate intersection, this moment now opens up such exhilarating potential for this collaboration and for artists making work here. This is a space that pays homage to a different chapter of The Kitchen's history, but also allows for us to reflect forward, asking rising artists of today to respond to the site itself as a creative material. In this next phase we will grow The Kitchen's community and expand what the future of the avant-garde can be. We are so excited to see our refractive vision of experimentation take inspiration from the West Side Loft's openness to go beyond walls, and between disciplines."

Westbeth Executive Director George Cominskie said, "As a fellow mission-driven nonprofit dedicated to giving a platform to emerging artists in the City, we are thrilled to have such a storied and iconic arts and cultural institution join us at Westbeth. The Kitchen has long been a pioneer in elevating artists across the cultural spectrum. Having them under our roof will open the door to exciting new creative opportunities and deepen Westbeth's tradition as a home to the arts. We look forward to welcoming The Kitchen not only to a great space for creative output, but also to the diverse community of artists living and working at Westbeth."

In anticipating its move to a home-away-from-home, The Kitchen sought to find a space that might speak to the organization's history, one which recalled a former Kitchen, in a nascent moment of its institutional pathway. The West Side Loft, an historic 6,000-foot-space on the fourth floor, located in the heart of the landmarked Westbeth Artist Housing complex, represented the ideal opportunity.

Founded in 1970 as the city's only affordable housing complex for artists, Westbeth has played an important role in supporting and sustaining the creative community in New York and beyond. The 383 affordable apartments have provided a home for artists and performers since the nonprofit institution first opened its doors more than 50 years ago, becoming one of the first examples of adaptive reuse of industrial buildings for artistic and residential use in the United States. In addition to its residential component, Westbeth contains the Westbeth Gallery, a theater, large and small commercial spaces, performance and rehearsal spaces, and artists studios for both individual and communal use, such as the Westbeth Sculpture Studio, Westbeth Painters Studios, Westbeth Ceramics Studio, and the Westbeth Print Studio. Westbeth currently houses The Martha Graham Dance Company and The New School for Drama. It is a landmarked building that has been placed on the National, State and City historic registries.

Bringing artists into every facet of the organization's next steps is fundamental to The Kitchen's ongoing mission. With this in mind, the institution has hired the innovative and interdisciplinary emerging designer Rachael Elliott with architect Jeanie Fan to vision Westbeth's West Side Loft space for The Kitchen's staff and creative program. The Kitchen is working with ascendant design duo Pacific (Elizabeth Karp-Evans and Adam Turnbull) on an expanded relaunch of their website that will prioritize The Kitchen as a site of wildness and broadcast, collapsing the boundary between the organization's digital and in-person presences.

Enabled by a five-year capital campaign, The Kitchen's renovation project at its storied 19th Street home will be designed by Rice+Lipka Architects (New York) and provides an opportunity for the organization to continue to expand its understanding and vision of experimentation and what it means to foster the next generation of the avant-garde. Construction will begin this fall.

The plans to modernize The Kitchen's Chelsea facility and redesign its interior, while preserving the historic industrial character of its building, will help the organization serve artists and audiences by increasing accessibility and enhancing the space's infrastructure. Once complete, the project will secure the non-profit organization's future for decades to come as a durable institution with a durational program model where artists across disciplines can experiment freely and engage audiences in a direct way. At the same time, the project reaffirms The Kitchen's ongoing investment in the Chelsea community and neighborhood, where the organization arrived in 1985 as one of the area's very first arts organizations; and where it has remained even in the face of challenges posed by the area's radical transformation and commercial development during the past decade.

The Kitchen will commence its fall season in September 2022, a transition that will be welcomed with a closing dance party in its empty Chelsea building on September 17 (details to be announced).

About The Kitchen

As one of New York City's oldest nonprofit alternative art centers (founded as an artist collective in 1971 and formalized as a 501c3 in 1973), The Kitchen is dedicated to offering emerging and established artists opportunities to create and present new work within, and across, the disciplines of dance, film, literature, music, theater, video, and visual art. Recognizing its longstanding legacy for innovation, The Kitchen remains devoted to fostering a community of artists and audiences, offering artists the opportunity to make-and for audiences to engage with-work that pushes the boundaries of artistic disciplines and strengthens meaningful dialogues between the arts and larger culture.

Among the artists who have presented significant work at The Kitchen are Muhal Richard Abrams, Laurie Anderson, ANOHNI, Robert Ashley, Charles Atlas, Kevin Beasley, Beastie Boys, Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, Anthony Braxton, John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Julius Eastman, Philip Glass, Leslie Hewitt, Darius James, Joan Jonas, Bill T. Jones, Devin Kenny, Simone Leigh, Ralph Lemon, George Lewis, Robert Longo, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sarah Michelson, Tere O'Connor, Okwui Okpokwasili, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, Sondra Perry, Vernon Reid, Arthur Russell, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Spiegel, Talking Heads, Greg Tate, Cecil Taylor, Urban Bush Women, Danh Vō, Lawrence Weiner, Anicka Yi, and many more.

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