Mission
SmartSpaces reimagines vacant urban spaces as venues for dynamic contemporary art. Facilitating artistic interventions at the borders of public and private spaces, SmartSpaces transforms empty properties into temporary public art installations. Central to this mission is providing the highest quality educational and informational content to make exhibitions immediately and widely accessible to a diverse public audience.
History
SmartSpaces was founded in 2007 by artist Ellen Scott, who was pursuing an MFA in Digital Art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. The inspiration for SmartSpaces sprang from her daily morning walk to the subway, as she passed a vacant store on the corner of West 4th Street with large windows facing the street. Brown paper and “For Lease” signs blocked the view inside — an increasingly common sight as the financial crisis shuttered more and more retail businesses. Knowing the abundance of exceptional artists and the scarcity of exhibition space in New York City, she began to wonder if it would be possible to install art in these windows while they remained empty. This could appeal to owners by attracting attention— and potentially businesses — to their vacant spaces. Ellen began to reach out to friends, colleagues and collaborators in the art and business worlds with her vision: a sustainable, scalable platform for public art in New York City.
Ellen gathered a group of art enthusiasts on her Board of Directors and began meeting with real estate owners, curators, and potential funders to pitch the concept. SmartSpaces was a collaborative model from the beginning. Each project would need three partners: a real estate owner to donate the space, a curator to organize the exhibition, and a funder (as well as sponsors) to help cover costs, SmartSpaces exhibitions would be in windows only, with no interior access. This limited liability, reduced costs, and simplified logistics for the real estate owners. With its educational focus, SmartSpaces would provide information and tools to engage the public, including signage, free cell phone audio guides, text messages and online videos. Curators were drawn to SmartSpaces’ mission to create thought-provoking, visually stimulating exhibitions in windows and the opportunity to put together shows that would receive the wide audiences provided by Manhattan foot traffic. Sponsors were receptive, and funding through public grants and private donors looked promising, especially given SmartSpaces’ educational mission. At the time, SmartSpaces’ business model was unique, and at the forefront of innovative public art initiatives.
In May 2008, SmartSpaces opened its inaugural show Color Coordinated by artist Tamara Gayer in the windows of an empty storefront midtown Manhattan. This was followed by a 2009 group show presenting the open-player digital video project produced by Nathalie Angles and Drazen Pantic in the storefront of a retail space on the Upper West Side. Soon after, SmartSpaces board member Hilary Strong introduced Ellen to curator and writer Stacey Goergen, her colleague at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Ellen invited Stacey to organize an exhibition in the windows of a large corner space in the Financial District, which resulted in Regeneration, a three-artist installation that opened in October 2009 in partnership with the Downtown Alliance. After this project, Stacey joined SmartSpaces as Ellen’s partner and the curatorial director for future exhibitions.
Over the next two years, SmartSpaces installed six additional storefront installations in lower Manhattan, including collaborations with The Drawing Center and The New Museum for Contemporary Art, with support from a diverse array of businesses and funders, including Bloomberg, The Downtown Alliance, The Ace Hotel, InFocus, Guide by Cell, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. In 2016, SmartSpaces produced and curated Playground Parachutes by Isca Greenfield-Sanders, in partnership with The Children’s Museum of the Arts and Green Below 14, at Vesuvio Playground in SoHo. While a departure from SmartSpaces’ traditional venue of storefront installations, this exhibition likewise remained on view in the public domain 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Since its inception, SmartSpaces has presented work from 27 artists on the streets of New York City. Ranging from emerging artists to global art stars, the work of these artists has also been featured in galleries and museums internationally, including The Asia Society, Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga, Spain, The Brooklyn Museum, The Drawing Center, Mass MOCA, The McNay Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, The Museum of Modern Art, The New Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Queens Museum, Seoul Arts Center, Korea, The Walker Art Center, and Whitney Museum of American Art.
Directors
Stacey Goergen
Ellen Scott Hudson
ASSISTANT PRODUCER
Micah Bozeman
Board
M. Franklin Boyd
Stacey Goergen
Ellen Scott Hudson
Brian Strong
Hillary Strong
Ron Shah
Tristine Skyler
Partners
The Ace Hotel
The Alliance for
Downtown New York
Bespoke Gallery
Beveridge Seay, Inc.
Bloomberg
Broome Street
Hospitality
Build It Green
Chashama
Children’s Museum
of The Arts
The Drawing Center
Green Below 14
Andrea Hill
InFocus
Invisible-Exports
Gallery
Louky Keisjers
Kew Management
Look Solutions
Lower Manhattan
Cultural Council
Kimberly Marrero
Millennium Partners
New York Foundation for the Arts
open-player
Paragon Building
Artisans
P. Zaccaro Inc. Rosen Partners, LLC
Sara Story Design
Thor Equities
Stacey Goergen
Stacey Goergen is an independent contemporary arts curator and writer as well as Co-Director of SmartSpaces. Abrams published her book, Artists Living with Art, in 2015. She has written essays for gallery and museum catalogues and her work has appeared online and in publications for The Wall Street Journal, Architectural Digest, The Sunday Times, Hamptons, Garage, Gotham, Aleim, and Art Basel Miami Beach Magazine, among others.
In 2008 she was the Curatorial Director of The Station, a non-profit independent group show organized with Nate Lowman and Shamim Momin in Miami that encompassed over 14,000 square feet. Prior to this, she worked in the curatorial department at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Stacey has also produced television segments for Plum TV including interviews and tours of artwork by Leidy Churchman and Mark Bradford.
She serves on the boards of The Drawing Center, Princeton University Art Museum, and is on the curatorial committee of Madison Square Park Art.
Ellen Scott Hudson
Ellen Scott Hudson is an artist, producer and Co-Director of SmartSpaces. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor of 4-Dimensional Design at Pratt Institute and an Experience Design Lead at Nike, Inc. She has designed and produced digital experiences and exhibitions for clients including Nike, Lancôme, Games for Change, READ Magazine and The Museum of the City of New York.