Angelo Lanza, the man behind Jeffrey Stark by Torey Thornton
Jeffrey Stark is an independent space located at 88 East Broadway #B11 (basement level) in New York, NY 10002, created in 2015 by Angelo Lanza. Usually, all shows there are viewable through a glass storefront, everyday from 9am to 9pm.
Interview by the artist Torey Thornton.
Torey Thornton: When I met you in 2013, we both worked for an artist and you actually trained me. I’m sure at this point you’ve seen and experienced various situations that were fascinating or surprising to you. How do you feel that working for a blue chip artist - a that term is obviously subjective and semi abstract - has effected the ways in which you decided to go about building the Jeffrey Stark program?
Angelo Lanza: I think in many ways, I started the gallery as a reaction to the work we were doing at that time. We were very much immersed in an exceedingly high budget, high output studio which had so many moving parts that even doing a simple studio visit required a certain amount of planning and came with a lot of weight. There was something so opaque and convoluted about how shows were planned and executed.
When I decided to open a gallery, I was driven, in part, by a desire to explore a more direct, more romantic, pared down way of doing things with an emphasis on personal connection and collaboration between the artist and the “gallerist."
Attempting to devise a bare bones DIY infrastructure while still creating refined, ambitious shows. The scale of Jeffrey Stark allowed me to access that balance seamlessly from the get go. Your show is a perfect example. I had such a wonderful time planning, shooting the video and then installing with you. Even bickering about how to pull 12 gigantic foam sheets into a tiny room with two people is something I remember with fondness. That experience brought us closer and it's moments like those that add to the overall magic of the experience for me. Maintaining a connection to the mundane in addition to the bigger picture stuff somehow makes the entire experience more gratifying. I think you approach your practice in a similar way. I should note that my fist isn't in the air as I type this and I'm not judging the aforementioned structure one way or the other. For many big budget galleries/artists with so much production on the line, those steps are necessary. I just relish the streamlined nature of my shows.
Infinitive by Erza Gray, January 14 - February 5, 2017
It’s interesting to think about the ways in which galleries start out and how they often commend rebelliousness and experimentation, New York names like American Fine Arts (RIP), Greene Naftali, or elsewhere Sprüth Magers , Kurimanzutto or Galerie Buchholz - to name a few - have such intense history of how these spaces really allowed for artists to experiment and grow, the punk breeder. Then as time goes on, the gloss blanket descends and money piles up and suits get nicer and work stiffens. Although it’s early for Jeffrey Stark, how do you plan to continue to allow for the complexities and confrontations that may reside in the artists work to continue to be the focus of your program, when blue chippers are already knocking at your door and asking to collaborate for street credibility - or whatever else currently benefits them - and at times even you?
The short answer is that I’m not thinking too much about the future of this particular entity. In a sense, bridling my aspirations for Jeffrey Stark as a project, as counterintuitive as that has been.
Angelo can and will venture in various directions, but keeping Jeffrey Stark separate from me is what will allow it to remain closely connected to its intended function, even as my personal ambitions shift and expand. I’m compartmentalising my various energies as opposed to trying to achieve everything I want in one venture.
Some of the galleries you mention have been incredible sources of inspiration and Kurimanzutto is a particularly relevant example of a subversive project that, as time went on, conceived of something closer to what the established art world/market could comprehend while continuing to produce adjunct projects simultaneously to satiate the right side of their brains. That's how I read it at least.
Perennial Shadows by Tommy Malekoff, February 9 - 19, 2017
Before we burrow any further, I should ask you to mention the story of Jeffrey Stark’s launch as a gallery, or at least its particular name. Can you explain how this came about and also why you would decide to use another name outside of your own? What are the pros and cons for this decision, if you could delineate them?
I had no intention of starting a gallery at that time, but I was walking by the mall one evening with a friend at around 10pm and we saw a sign in the window written in Chinese with a phone number under it. Out of curiosity, we called the number and it so happened the building manager Terry was there working late and able to show us around the building. After establishing that the space we had seen the sign in was absolutely out of my budget, Terry said he had one tiny space that no one wanted because it was down in the basement next to the mens bathroom, but he could give me a good deal on it if I wanted to fix it up. It needed "a lot of work." It was one of the most impulsive things I've ever done, but within 5 minutes of seeing it I signed a lease on the spot. The space was in complete disrepair with a cracked tile floor, shitty drop ceiling with missing or trashed ceiling panels and a number of softball sized holes in the walls. The only thing I found inside was a name tag that said Jeffrey Stark stuck to the wall. I found out that Mr. Stark was the former head of security at the mall and my space had been his office for 30 years. I knew I wanted to use a person's name as that is the most neutral way to title something. I decided to use his name as a nod to my predecessor at space #B11 and, frankly, because it sounded cool.
I didn't want to use my own, and also wanted it to be a strange, ungoogleable name that no one had ever heard of in hopes that this project would feel as though it existed alone in space like a mysterious oasis with no associations.
I loved the idea of someone not knowing it's there, then stumbling across the gallery while exploring the mall and having no clue what's going on with it. Seeing artists they might be familiar with, but struggling to find any other real context to connect to. I mean, anyone could figure it out if they tried, but I wanted to set it up to allow that sort of first confrontation with the space before going on to connect the dots.
People People People People People Building by Marisa Takal, September 23 - October 26, 2018
I’m imagining you would be at least a little uncomfortable with using this persons name without their consent, but after meeting the other Jeffrey Stark, and speaking with him how did it change your perspective on this name and identity that you’d imagined and built on top of or alongside?
I didn't really give much weight to the decision, but just felt it was a fun homage to the previous inhabitant while at the same time being a pretty generic, but cool sounding name. Both familiar and foreign. Meeting him was fun and he was thrilled that I had named the spot after him.
There are conflicting interests for me in the idea that we are always watched by cameras and or placing our faces inside lenses and screens. What was it that brought on the idea of the 24/7 surveillance and live feed aspect of Jeffrey Stark and do you feel that many of of the artist who you’ve worked with have incorporated this into their ideas around exhibiting work in the space, or does this aspect of the gallery still feel mostly untapped ?
It doesn't seem that many of the people who have done shows have really focused on the camera or worked with it much. It's definitely one of my favorite parts of the project. I got the idea brainstorming with my friends who run a design studio which doubles as a cactus store in Los Angeles called The Cactus Store. They were helping me design my website and when the idea came up, it just seemed perfect. The gallery was small enough to fit in single camera frame and because of its location, we could set the camera up across the hall with ease. I personally have a hard time with security cameras in general, but obviously this one serves a very different function than most.
As the homepage of the website, anyone with internet can view the space live at any time.
People tune in for openings and even just watch the stream randomly to see what the vibe at the mall is on any given day. Having access to both install images of the show in addition to the live stream showing the facade of the space in real time allows people to connect in a fuller way with things even when they can't be physically present. Beyond that, just as the name sort of fell into place, once the camera was installed and we learned that the gallery was once the head of security's office, having a security camera pointed at this space 24/7 added another layer to the story.
What would you say are the pros and cons of non regular gallery hours and or viewers having to often schedule an appointment with you, if they aren’t interested in the more removed, larger vitrine viewing experience?
To begin with, the entire concept of the gallery is that it is to be viewed from the outside. It’s not a regular gallery with open hours because that’s not what I was interested in opening when I started - nor was I able to. So it’s hard to look at it in comparison to a scenario with open hours.
More often than not, artists make shows for Jeffrey Stark that are meant to be viewed from the outside and I definitely try to encourage that. One of my favorite things about this setup is allowing viewers to take their time at the show completely alone.
(Side note: one of my pet peeves is an unfriendly gallery attendant. Getting a blank stare when I walk into a gallery can honestly change my entire experience viewing a show. Maybe I’m just sensitive!)
Personality or temperament aside, just having a host present while viewing shifts the dynamic.
I think this can often alienate people who aren’t familiar with the way an art gallery works or what the expectations of them are if they stop to engage. The majority of people who walk past Jeffrey Stark fall into that category and there are a number of mall regulars who walk past completely ignoring me while I’m there, but who I’ll later see standing at the storefront staring into the gallery for 5 minutes straight on the security cam. I think eliminating the gatekeeper makes the space accessible to a wider audience. At least at this location with this setup. Of course, there are disadvantages of no regular open hours. Viewers can’t ask questions. They can’t get up close to see the work in great detail. It really eliminates certain types of work or even certain artists altogether. And it has certainly made selling work and meeting or cultivating a relationship with collectors more challenging, but again, all of this is built into the framework and I feel it wouldn’t really make sense to have someone there for the most part.
Deca • Dance by Matt Hilvers, February 2 – now
Wasn’t your mom a dealer in 80s lower East side? What are her comments on what you are doing with the gallery and how it’s functioning, as its much less commercial in some ways than hers then, or many others around today?
I’m actually 3rd gen.
My grandfather, Angelo Lanza, had a gallery on the Upper East Side in the 50s called Trabia Gallery where he showed Marino Marini, Mirko Basaldella and Carmen Herrera among others.
Then my mother had Zeus Trabia on 9th between Avenue A and 1st in the late 80s, then Trabia Macafee in Soho followed by Bianca Lanza in Miami Beach in the early 90s. She showed artists like David LaChapelle, Leonid Sokov, Louise Fishman and Anne Minich. She was definitely more commercially minded than me, but I think she realizes that I'm doing something quite different. I guess the clearest distinction is my interest in presenting slightly more conceptual work than she showed. She's extremely aesthetically inclined and always says "beauty drives me". Her interest in pursuing aesthetics first and foremost as well as her need at the time to make her gallery a thriving business, has made what I'm doing a little hard for her to relate to at times, but she is extremely supportive and thrilled I'm following in her footsteps.
Bloopers trailer for Love A Loves Me! by Hard to Read, November 2018-January 2019.
What comes to mind when you think about one of the most exciting or shocking experiences for you thus far as emerging gallerist and in addition, who is an artist who you have worked with but, before hand, in the courting phase, brought up the most nervousness or fears of rejection for you?
Wow, that's a really hard one. I've been racking my brain for a few days now, but I can't seem to think of anything particularly notable. I'm sure that as soon as I click send something great that I'm forgetting will pop into my head. Generally the most exciting moments so far have been getting acceptances to show proposals from artists I've admired for years. This brings up another important facet of Jeffrey Stark. Being that it's so small and I don't represent people, I'm able to approach artists casually whom would otherwise hesitate because of their gallery representation. It's (theoretically) less of an undertaking to work on a show for Jeffrey Stark than most exhibition spaces and because of its untraditional location, I'm not perceived as a threat. There isn't really the same air of possessiveness that exists when galleries approach artists represented elsewhere. So the way I see it, no one is off limits!
As far as who has been the most intimidating to approach, I'd say it was Paul Lee. Ironically Paul is the sweetest, most down-to-earth person, but at the time I had yet to reach out to any relatively "established" artists with whom I didn't have a personal connection. It was pretty early on and not many people had heard of Jeffrey Stark so I felt I was going out on a limb. He turned out to be such a pleasure to work with and the show pushed him to the edge of his comfort zone, which was a thrill for both of us.
Centre by Paul Lee, December 10, 2016 - January 5, 2017
It seems that there are endless new experiences that have come your way as the gallery continues to grow, including being excepted into NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) and on another end of the spectrum being invited to participate in Art Walk NY, a project that raises awareness and funds which help give the homeless a way off the streets.
You also mentioned attempting to work with children and school systems to possibly supply art materials or some service where it’s needed. In addition to giving artists the freedom to explore and further the needs of their practices, in what other ways do you see yourself continuing to provide assistance to those with less access to the arts or is this a big interest of yours? In many ways you could say that your gallery and it’s function and placement in itself are an act that moves closer towards a more diverse visibility?
Exactly.
One of the most important parts of the gallery is how accessible it is and how casual and unintimidating viewing the work can be to those unfamiliar with a traditional art exhibition.
And yes, I am interested in trying to engage artistically underserved demographics. One thing I do is work as a mentor at GOSO (Get Out Stay Out), an organization in Harlem that supports young men who have had recent involvement with the criminal justice system. I focus on art with them, among other things, going to museums and galleries and just chatting about stuff. I've even brought a few guys to their first museum which has been super fun. It's humbling to realize how many people in the city don't even know the Met exists. I'm definitely interested in trying to find ways to give more and more people access to art.
What are your thoughts on the exploiting of artists identities in order to meet a quota and or appear interested in diversity? How do you imagine things will evolve in the art world with cancel culture as a large big brother umbrella looming and faux liberalism as the gloved hand to hold it up?
I do think it's an important time in art and society on the whole and I'm glad that diversity is at the forefront of many people's minds. Of course it's frustrating in a way to see many galleries so transparently pandering to the public, acting in ways they never have in the past, but I guess in the end it's all part of pushing the culture forward. It was a goal of mine to make sure my program was diverse from the outset, because that's just what keeps things interesting, but I haven’t really forced anything.
I rely on my community of friends and collaborators to generate ideas and to be introduced to new artists.
My immediate community is diverse so to a degree that has led my program to be so as well... does that make sense? Jeffrey Stark is indirectly a group effort in many ways.
That being said, balancing certain practical constraints (scheduling, who accepts invitations, etc.) that I've faced with pursuing a philosophy of inclusion hasn't always been simple. There's plenty of room for improvement.
Nationale by Eric N. Mack, November 24, 2019 through January 26, 2020
With so many emerging and middle galleries closing down how do you stay honest and focused on the betterment of your program versus chasing market trend for capitalistic gain?
At the end of the day, I set up Jeffrey Stark in a way that allows me the freedom to focus on the projects that I really want to do without worrying as much about sales the way many of my peers must. Of course I do make sales as that is an important part of any business, but because of the scale of everything, I'm never faced with a make or break situation.
Shirts from Nationale by Eric N. Mack, November 24, 2019 through January 26, 2020
Gallery’s often guard their plans and curatorial ideas for fear of them being taken or functioning in a less surprising fashion, but I will still ask this. What’s next in store for the program and additionally what artist or project would you most like to work with at Jeffrey Stark?
I don't want to speak about too far into the future because so much is unsure in this strange time, but I can tell you that as of today my next show will be with the painter Dona Nelson followed by a wild project by Pippa Garner which I'm really excited about. Both shows will be in motion. I'll leave it at that! And as far as who I'd like to work with, there are too many to list here, but I'll just throw out the first few who come to mind: Pamela Rosenkranz, Seth Price, Richard Nonas, Cameron Rowland, Joan Jonas................. My dream list goes on and on and I'm slowly but surely reaching out trying to make them happen. We shall see.
Would you like to take this time to place some thank yous or in this context, last words?
It's crazy how nuts things have gotten since we started this interview a couple of months ago with COVID-19. None of this feels very important with all that is going on. The fate of Jeffrey Stark as well as many small galleries is up in the air and as I write this, I have no idea what the future will look like. All I can do is thank everyone who has been a part of making this space what it is up to now and say that I hope there will be more to come. A big thank you to Jeanne-Salomé for facilitating this and being so supportive of Jeffrey Stark and for being an inspiring, engaging friend to me over the years. Of course a major thanks to you, Torey for encouraging me since day one to be as ambitious as I possibly could and for having had this back and forth with me through an increasingly challenging moment in our lives. Thanks to all of the artists who've blessed the space and to the MANY friends and collaborators who have been sounding boards, volunteer art handlers, gallery sitters and more (a particular shout out to Rebecca Adib, Odessa Straub, Maya Barrera, Augusta Joyce and Kyle Yanagihara). And one last major thank you to Mr. Jeffrey Stark for graciously giving me his blessing to use his name and to Huang, Terry, Sherri and all of my neighbors at the East Broadway Mall who have embraced me and allowed me to do this odd project which doesn't quite fit in with everything else there (谢谢Huang, Terry, Sherri 和我的唐人街邻居。 认识你们真的很高兴). It's really because of them that Jeffrey Stark is able to exist the way that it does.
Sir Veil's Faux Outing by Torey Thornton by June 24 - Sept 9, 2018
