Soho and Chelsea

Vincent Anthony Falkiewicz

Erica Gilbert-Levin  

The art gallery district in Chelsea on Manhattan's Far West Side has replaced SoHo as the most prominent and "most important" site in the world "for sales of new works of Contemporary Art," according to Halle and Tiso. This development is the result of a confluence of factors, all of which shed light on dynamics integral to today's art market.

One factor involved in the rise of the Chelsea district is directly related to economic developments: "Chelsea's very rise was real estate-driven." Soaring rents in SoHo between 1995 and 1999 "[forced] a mass exodus to Chelsea of galleries that could not afford the new rents" (Halle and Tiso). In fact, Saltz maintains that real estate and real estate alone was behind Chelsea's rise. But while market forces may have undergirded the initial migration, the factors that contributed to the success of these galleries in Chelsea appear to be more complicated. The principal features of the content of the contemporary works available in the Chelsea galleries "[speak] to central themes in the audience's lives," including "the modern family, the landscape and environmental threats to it." The prominence of these themes suggests that the creation of contemporary art is not necessarily driven, at least not in total, by "markets and economics," argue Halle and Tiso. In fact, aesthetic factors are "shaped by, and respond to, a different set of dynamics than the market domain." Perhaps this explains the success of boutique-style, independent galleries in Chelsea which open their doors to the public without charging an entrance fee. Chelsea galleries appear to have been able to draw on principles of public accessibility and still make a profit. This might be due, suggest Halle and Tiso, to the "buzz" created when more people are exposed to the art; perhaps greater accessibility generates more discussion, more critical reviews, a higher profile for the art and its artists, and, in turn, more interest from the elite collectors who actually pay for the art. In fact, if we return to Bourdieu's model of symbolic capital, we might surmise that Chelsea's galleries have been so successful because they are able to generate a sense of disconnection from the perception of economic interest, which has the effect of imbuing the works contained within with a sense of prestige, the notion of "art for art's sake" – and by building this reputation, the galleries are able to draw in more collectors who seek art imbued with such prestige. We can know for certain that artists are more attracted to independent galleries than to corporate institutions that allow them less "freedom," note Halle and Tiso.

Agora Gallery in Chelsea

Kimberly Ann Phoenix