17 Jun Gertrude Stein’s Legacy Lives On in Pop-Up Art Salons
There’s a new trend in New York City; a cross-over between an art exhibit and an educational experience. Marisa Meltzer, writes about a new company named after the writer and art collector Gertrude Stein:
On a Saturday afternoon in Chelsea, a group of a few dozen people milled around the International Print Center New York, drinking Champagne and making small talk about the show New Prints 2014/Winter. But this wasn’t a gallery opening, nor was it an artist’s talk. Rather it was a salon by Gertrude, a new company organizing events to discuss art.
The company is named for the writer and art collector Gertrude Stein, who was well known for the gatherings of artists and writers she organized in her apartment on the Left Bank of Paris.
But that was a century ago. “If you do a high-level description of what the art world is, you have the commercial side of the art world, which is about selling art work, and then you have institutions on the other end of the spectrum, with education as the main goal,” said Kenneth Schlenker, 26, the founder of Gertrude.
“What we want to offer is something in the middle that’s an educational experience and a social one,” said Mr. Schlenker, who was raised in France by an American father and a French mother and is a former Google employee. Gertrude has salons in New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City and London. The organization is forming more salons in Paris; Basel, Switzerland (during Art Basel); and San Francisco during the next month.
Would-be salonistes can sign up, for on average $25 to $75, to attend traditional salons, studio visits, exhibit tours and performances, which Gertrude organizes, with names like “Making Sense of Abstract Art” and “Beyond Banksy: Art in the Streets of the Lower East Side.” A recent offering was “Three Galleries Trending in Chelsea.”
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