{"id":52679,"date":"2025-08-08T10:37:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T10:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/52679\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T10:37:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T10:37:12","slug":"clearing-trend-setting-gallery-with-new-york-and-los-angeles-locations-will-close-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/52679\/","title":{"rendered":"Clearing, trend-setting gallery with New York and Los Angeles locations, will close – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clearing, the influential New York gallery that has served as a launchpad for many prominent artists\u2019 careers, will close its Manhattan and Los Angeles locations, founder Oliver Babin announced Thursday (7 August). In a statement, Babin said the gallery saw \u201cno viable path forward<\/a>\u201d. Babin tells The Art Newspaper he\u2019s turning in the keys to the gallery’s three-storey New York space tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kept hope\u2014probably in a sort of irrational way\u2014that we could turn the corner. Turns out, there’s no corner,\u201d Babin says. \u201cNow, we are forced to face the fact that actually it doesn’t make any sense to put in another minute or another dollar trying to resurrect a corpse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gallery launched in 2011 in Bushwick at a time when the Brooklyn neighbourhood had a thriving gallery scene. Babin had moved to the US from France in 2009, first as an artist for a residency, before opening the gallery. As Babin describes it, early Clearing shows were an adventure, \u201cpure poetry [held together] with tape and rubber band\u201d. The gallery held more than 200 exhibitions in its 14-year run, including staging important shows by artists including Harold Ancart, Calvin Marcus, Korakrit Arunanondchai and Hannah Levy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve been crushed by the overheads, which is pretty classic. Rent, shipping, fairs\u2014all these things continue to increase and revenue plummets,\u201d Babin says. \u201cA proper [chief financial officer] would have decided to pull the plug six months, 12 months, 18 months or 24 months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gallery’s Bushwick space relocated to the Bowery in Manhattan in 2023. In retrospect, Babin says, taking on a more expensive rent just as the art market began<\/a> to slow down was a bad gamble, and could be seen as \u201cthe first nail being driven into the coffin\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Olivier Babin of Clearing. Photo courtesy of Clearing.<\/p>\n

Those two years recovering from the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and leading up to the economic retraction, Babin says, \u201ceveryone was flush, business was excellent\u201d. But by the time the new, more expensive space in the Bowery opened, \u201cthe music had stopped, the tide was low and we were overexposed\u201d. Clearing also had other spaces to worry about by then: the gallery had expanded to Brussels in 2012 and Los Angeles in 2020. (Last year, the former Clearing outpost in Brussels split from the rest of the gallery in a restructuring that ended with that location\u2019s former director, Lodovico Corsini<\/a>, now operating the space under his own name.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no regrets, but yeah, I probably should have done a few things differently,\u201d Babin says. \u201cBut ultimately, everyone’s suffering right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearing\u2019s final exhibitions were solo painting shows, Henry Curchod in Los Angeles and Coco Young in New York. In June, the gallery launched Maison Clearing<\/a>, a pop-up group exhibition of works by 46 artists\u2014most not members of the gallery\u2019s roster\u2014in a villa in Basel, Switzerland, instead of taking part in any of the city\u2019s concurrent art fairs.<\/p>\n

Clearing is the latest in a spate of US galleries to shutter this summer. On Wednesday (6 August), Chelsea stalwart Kasmin announced it would close in order to transition to a new venture called Olney Gleason<\/a>, led by the former\u2019s executive leadership. Venus Over Manhattan<\/a> founder Adam Lindemann said last month he would shut down the business to focus on building his own collection, and Tim Blum<\/a> announced he too would \u201csunset\u201d his eponymous Tokyo and Los Angeles spaces.<\/p>\n

As for Babin\u2019s next steps, he says not to expect him to take a sales director position at a larger, more established gallery. It\u2019s not an uncommon path to take: after Jasmin Tsou closed her closely-watched gallery JTT<\/a>, she joined Lisson Gallery; Gavin Brown\u2014whose namesake enterprise was a fixture of the downtown and, later, uptown scene\u2014is now a partner at Barbara Gladstone<\/a>; Simon Preston was hired by Pace after closing his eponymous Lower East Side gallery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t want it, and I think I would be really bad at it,\u201d Babin says. \u201cI want to stay a wild animal. And I’d rather suffer in the wild than become like a lap dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

Babin says he has been touched by the outpouring of support since announcing the gallery\u2019s closure. He wants to stay in an art-adjacent career, and is taking an expansive view of the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m going to drink Ayahuasca in the Amazon next week,\u201d Babin says. \u201cI\u2019ll see what I learn and what I find out. Where I should go, what I should do.\u201d<\/p>\n