The Real Estate Show, What Next: 2014

Participating artists: John Ahearn, Liza Bear, Peter Fend, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Robert Goldman (Bobby G), Julie Harrison, Becky Howland, Lisa Kahane, Gregory Lehmann, Ann Messner and Laurie Arbeiter, Alan Moore, and Tom Otterness

Exhibition Dates: April 19 through May 18, 2014
Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 12-6pm *Free Speech hour Tuesday – Sunday, 5-6pm*
Location: 120 Essex Street (inside Essex Street Market)

Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space is honored to present The Real Estate Show, What Next: 2014. An extension of The Real Estate Show of 1979/1980, this exhibition will serve as a living project space, presenting new work that continues to question the impending re-development of the Seward Park Urban Redevelopment Area (SPURA) sites. By addressing certain issues that have both united and polarized the neighborhood over the last 30+ years, the exhibition will encourage artists and community members to become an active part of the conversation by focusing on the particular insights and experimental processes that artists bring to imagining new urban spaces. All of the projects, contributed by former Colab members and participants in the original Real Estate Show, take form through audience engagement, as Cuchifritos becomes a flexible site for the active processes unfolding throughout the duration of the exhibition.

The Real Estate Show, which opened on December 31, 1979, was an extra-legal occupation of and art show in the city-owned building at 123 Delancey Street on the Lower East Side. Organized by Collaborative Projects (Colab), a collective of artists and activists that formed in 1977 to create exhibition and funding opportunities for artists, the exhibition sought to address the growing real estate crisis in New York City, with the dissolution of lower-income neighborhoods, amassing evictions and displacement of non-wealthy residents. The exhibition, as much art show as it was collective action, was shut down on the morning of January 2, 1980 by The New York City Department of Housing, Preservation and Development, who replaced the once-broken lock and removed all of the artwork, prompting an influential press conference called by the show’s organizers. This public demonstration, attended by the New York Times, Soho Weekly News and, notably, artist Joseph Bueys, led to negotiations between the representative artists and the city resulting in the eventual founding of ABC NoRio at 156 Rivington Street.

Presented as part of LES History Month

Corresponding Exhibitions:
The Real Estate Show, Was Then: 1980 at James Fuentes, 55 Delancey Street, April 4 – 27
RESx: The Real Estate Show Extended at ABC NoRio, 156 Rivington Street, April 9 – May 8
No City is an Island at The Lodge Gallery, 131 Chrystie Street, April 10 – May 11

Related Press
Studio International, “Lower East Side: The Real Estate Show Redux,” Natasha Kurchanova
Art F City, “The Historic “Real Estate Show” Returns” Whitney Kimball
The Lo-Down, “The Real Estate Show Revisited at the James Fuentes Gallery” Ed Litvak
Stedelijk Studies, “The Real Estate Show and The Times Square Show Revisited” Francesco Spampinato

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Special thanks to Astor Wines & Spirits for supporting The Real Estate Show, What Next: 2014!

Cuchifritos is FREE to the public and handicap accessible. Located inside Essex Street Market at the south end nearest Delancey. Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space is a program of Artists Alliance Inc., a 501c3 not for profit organization located on the Lower East Side of New York City within the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center. Cuchifritos is supported in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. This program is made possible by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. We thank the following for their generous support: Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York City Economic Development Corporation and individual supporters of Artists Alliance Inc. Special thanks go to our team of dedicated volunteers, without whom this program would not be possible.