by Sophie Baron.
Art lovers around the world, and especially in New York City, long the center of the world creative market, have been especially hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects and after-effects of lockdowns and social distancing have led many to wonder if the jovial and communal atmosphere of the gallery scene, the opening and closing receptions, the wine and cheese, the artist talks, will ever return. The famous critic Jerry Saltz has expressed his fears that whole sectors of the art industry, in particular the ones composed of low-income artists, gallerists, and writers, might simply be wiped out. Yet, creative professionals are finding new ways to show and display their talents, and this time, it is women who are primarily doing the innovating.
Cyberspace has become our main means of communicating with each other, as we all are kept in our residences, and some cutting-edge creative minds are seeing in cyberspace the means of saving the contemporary art experience. While the revolutionary implications of apps such as Instagram upon the larger art market have been discussed, most observers felt that online art viewing could never be an acceptable substitute for the immersive gallery experience. That may all be about to change this week.
Marina Dojchinov is a name that has of late become a buzzword on the NYC scene. The former director of Chelsea’s 3Squared Gallery, and an associate director of Chase Contemporary, Dojchinov’s out-of-the-box thinking has won her acclaim throughout the art and fashion communities. Six months ago, she achieved widespread mainstream media coverage after taking over a space that had become notorious for hosting sex parties, to showcase the art of Mari Gior.
Not only a gallerist, and a writer with her own online magazine, Winston Wise, Dojchinov is also a philanthropist who uses her art connections to raise needed funds for charity, and a feminist, who is working to advance the profiles of women artists held down by our patriarchal society.
Now, Dojchinov has come up with an art exhibition project that is social distancing-approved, and one that will be philanthropic and feminist as well. Called The Zero Experiment, it will be a private virtual space meeting, to be held every Thursday evening, that will be a combination of an opening reception, open studio, auction, and artist talk. As these meetings will be held in the artists’ studios, participants will have the opportunity to see the artist’s work and working process in a more intimate and less anxiously hurried manner than pre-pandemic in-person events allowed. The online setting will also provide the artists with the freedom to discuss their thoughts and feelings calmly and articulately, without the usual hustle and bustle. At the end of each meeting, a pre-selected offering of each artist’s works will be auctioned off, and the profits from each auction will be donated to a different charity each week.
A number of big-names have already signed on to show with The Zero Experiment. Among them are Shei Phan, Carole Feuerman, Jessica Maffia, Daniela Raytchev, and Udo Spreitzenbrath. For its debut, this Thursday, April 16th, the featured artist will be Pierre Fraiture, painter, performer, a star of the Downtown NYC avant-garde, and most famously, the brother of Nikolai Fraiture, bassist in the early 2000s indie-rock hit making band The Strokes. The two Fraitures have collaborated together as Arts Elektra, and are strongly involved with charity work. Rumor has it that Nikolai may also be dropping in on the Thursday Zoom session.
The cause that will benefit from this first session will be Broadway Bound Kids, an organization that helps disadvantaged children learn about and experience theatre and drama. As with many charitable institutions, Broadway Bound Kids has seen its donations dry up during this time of crisis and panic, and yet there has never perhaps been a time when the world of the imagination, the escape that they arts provide, is more essential to our emotional stability, and most of all, for those of us who are underprivileged and under-resourced.
It is no secret that women have been kept out of the closed inner circle of the high-end art market. The current economic collapse portends danger and doom for many struggling creative professionals, and especially perennially underpaid and undervalued women. Yet, women, who some say are quicker-thinking and less rigid than their male counterparts, are coming up with solutions to these problems, not only to help themselves, and art as a whole, but also to directly impact and improve our cities and society. If these new developments such as The Zero Experiment take off, we may find an art world at the end of the lockdown that is more fair, democratic, and socially concerned.
For artists, charity executives, and anyone else interested, the Zero Experiment can be contacted at thezeroexperimentny@gmail.com
