Tribeca Fixture Ortuzar Projects to Triple its Size with New Location

Ortuzar Projects, the Manhattan gallery known for its stellar revivals of 20^th and 21^st art historical figures, will significantly expand its operations, with a new space triple the size of its former Tribeca lodgings.

Ortuzar Projects, a venture launched in Tribeca in 2018 by former David Zwirner partner Ales Ortuzar, is focused on “international artists that have played critical roles” in the canon “but have not received recent exposure in the United States,” according to Ortuzar. The new space, spanning a sprawling 10,000-square-foot, will be at 5 White Street, will replace the gallery’s original outpost. Visitors, however, won’t have far to travel to see its shows—it’s next door to the gallery’s original outpost.

5 White Street, the one-time home of the nonprofit Artists Space, has entrances on White Street and West Broadway, which will allow Ortuzar Projects to host multiple exhibitions at a time. It was designed Caplan Colaku Architecture.

Among the stand-out shows staged since its opening was the solo exhibition of Warsaw-born, Romanian-French artist André Cadere, who died in 1978 and gained a posthumous cult following in Europe. He was best known for his off-beat performances—présentations or promenades, according to him, which debut in 1972—which involved walking the streets of international art hubs while holding a tall sculptural object. Ortuzar Projects’s show marked Cadere’s first survey in the United States since a MoMA PS1 retrospective in 1989.

In another notable coup, Ortuzar Projects in 2022 inked a deal to represent the estate of Ernie Barnes who was a surprise success at a Christie’s auction when an image from his Sugar Shack series, featuring a joyous nightclub scene that appeared in the opening credits of the TV series Good Times and on the cover of a Marvin Gaye album, sold for $15.3 million at auction, surpassing its $150,000 low estimate 80 times over. (Ortuzar Projects shares the representation with fellow New York gallery Andrew Kreps.) Barnes, who died in 2009, was a NFL-star-turned-painter of dynamic figure paintings that often examined the uncomfortable overlap of professional sports and human spectacle.

The gallery will inaugurate 5 White Street with an exhibition of Sugar Shack works by Barnes, curated by Derrais Carter.

“We have been so gratified by the response to our program from collectors, curators, and—most importantly—artists since we opened our doors on White Street five years ago,” Ortuzar told ARTnews. “Our expanded space, right next to our original gallery in the heart of Tribeca’s gallery district, sets us up for our next chapter of championing artists who deserve greater exposure in New York.”

Correction, 5/19/23, 12:15 p.m.: A previous version of this article stated misstated that Caplan Colaku Architecture designed Artists Space’s current location. It did not.