Artlog / The Last Surviving DODGE

Manish Vora

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Daniel Phillips, River Street, 2012. Courtesy DODGE Gallery.

Every year dozens of new galleries pop up and many close, often in their second year. After a year and a half in NYC at a beautiful dual-level space on Rivington in the Lower East Side, DODGE Gallery is already a neighborhood establishment after several well-received shows in a row and the terrific current exhibition of work by Michael Zelehoski and Daniel Phillips. We talked to owner Kristen Dodge about making the move from Boston and settling into the LES.

Tell us how you came to the Lower East Side.

A visitor to our gallery recently told me that the Lower East Side smells and looks like New York City. It’s a place where contrast and contradiction exist—homeless shelters and giant plastic tube slides, for example. But mostly it was a strategic decision to be here. The LES is one of the quickest growing art hubs in the city and is an exciting place to open a gallery. With the New Museum and several contemporary galleries run by ballsy workaholics, the groundwork was well laid out before us—and it just keeps growing.

Our space was originally a sausage factory (we have the press), then converted to Timberland’s design center, and now it’s an art gallery. I sought a space with two distinct but visually connected galleries. Part of the intent of our programming is to host two concurrent shows that conceptually inform one another and bring new audiences to each other. The space also allows us to have ambitious solo exhibitions.

Kristen Dodge, Owner DODGE Gallery

Coming from the art world in Boston, what have you done to put DODGE on the NYC art world map?

Being in NYC. Period. Choosing a well-positioned ground floor location and a memorable space. Travel and art fairs. We do some advertising, but word of mouth has a lasting and far-reaching impact. The secret recipe though is hard work and our gallery director Patton Hindle. And maybe also the gallery name (no, we don’t offer test drives).

Have you brought any Beantown flavor to NYC? Who from the Boston art scene, collectors or otherwise, has helped you in NYC ?

I brought a Red Sox bumper sticker and Patton from Boston. A number of our artists have connections to Boston, and collectors and curators from there have supported our program.

How has getting involved in the steering committee of the Whitney Contemporaries, ArtTable, and other organizations helped your gallery?

We are involved in some capacity with the Whitney, Creative Time, ArtTable, New Museum, and Artadia. Connecting with museums and other art organizations is fun. It is a way to contribute, to gain visibility for our program, to build a dialogue with other art-obsessed people.

You have facilitated several of your artists having shows at museums in the past year. How important has this been for your program?

Landing opportunities for our artists outside of the gallery is important. I believe in having an exhibitions program, and I also believe in working with the artist to develop their careers and gain a wider audience for their work outside of the gallery walls. Jason Middlebrook and I have been working together on a major commission for a museum TBA. The Norton show was great for Dave Cole, and he will soon exhibit his life-size steamroller music box commissioned by the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Michael Zelehoski, installation view of Secondary Structures, 2012. Courtesy DODGE Gallery.

Personal plug: you have been featured in ARTLOG’s LES art crawls and even as the best new gallery in our 2010 year-end list. How has ARTLOG been helpful?

ARTLOG has been there for us from the start. It was our first solo exhibition, Dave Cole, Unreal City, that sealed the bond. Or maybe it was a mutual affinity for capital letters? It’s been nothing but great to build our visibility.

Talk to me about the current ground floor show, Secondary Structures by Michael Zelehoski.

How can something be a thing itself and an image of itself at the same time? This is the incredible play that Michael achieves. Each of these pieces holds a utilitarian object that he deconstructed and reconfigured into a two-dimensional composition, from the spatial realm to the picture plane. These are not veneered compositions—they are more like suspended objects that have been trapped in time, their surfaces marred with evidence of use. Now elevated to a composition, an image, art. His works are grounding and disorienting at the same time. I’m especially drawn to the most abstract and minimal compositions where the definitiveness of the objects is obscured by geometry, shape, and perspective.

Michael Zelehoski, installation view of Secondary Structures, 2012. Courtesy DODGE Gallery.

Tell us about the very ambitious and powerful video installation downstairs, River Street by Daniel Phillips.

Approaching Daniel’s darkened video installation from above is an incredible experience. Four industrial engine hoists suspend thousand-pound slabs of concrete and debris that look like ancient artifacts unearthed or jacked from the side of an architectural remnant. Video projections are cast onto the textured, irregular surfaces of the rectangular slabs. The reverse sides protrude brick, rebar, roots, chain, chunks of industrial and natural detritus. The projections are gorgeous imagery of a dilapidated, historic, brick tower where he set up his studio practice for two years, working alongside a construction crew building a major shopping center and parking lots. There will be a second chance to see Daniel’s installation at the Moving Image fair during the Armory.