pierogi 2000 press: gasworks

The Flat Files

It is a curious paradox that in a time of extraordinary breadth in the arts, a time without movements and delineations in which artists are free and in some ways required to be experimental and to make it (whatever that "it" is) new and invigorating, galleries themselves, by and large, have gravitated toward a shared, standard model that is anything but quirky and individual. Chelsea has become the apotheosis and to an interested observer it's quite clear what that model is: more or less generic "white cubes" or, for top galleries, soaring ultra-designed spaces, all housing the gallery's "program" and doing so in a thoroughly professional, thoroughly businesslike manner. These spaces are designed (and designed is the word) to evoke a certain "purity." It is very much a surface purity, a kind of pristine shell, that frames the artworks, a whole context of business being conducted, in-the-know control, hierarchies being maintained, and the abundance (or the appearance) of money. Humanly speaking, a certain aloofness, chilliness, and severity seem to come with the territory (with some notable exceptions). Moreover, there seems to be a vast gulf between this era and others when galleries—in addition to their major business of selling or merchandising art—were also cathartic arenas where people met, exchanged ideas, mixed it up, formed friendships, engaged in foolishness and exploration, and where other genres like music and literature made frequent appearances. It's this freewheeling quality of exchange (something, by the way, essential to the arts of any era) that has largely been exiled from the prevailing white-cubed, ultra-businesslike, immaculately ordered gallery model.

It has not, however, been exiled at Pierogi 2000 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which began as a very local gallery in 1994 and which has since emerged as one of the prime alternative venues anywhere in New York. Pierogi 2000, owned by Joe Amrhein, who is an accomplished artist himself, began as a forum to show Williamsburg-based artists that Amrhein felt were being under represented or in fact ignored in the Manhattan gallery system. Hours of operation were odd (Friday through Monday). Also odd were the fresh pierogis and cups of vodka served at the opening, and oddest of all was how this small, local gallery very quickly became a focal point, and not only in the thriving arts situation in Williamsburg. It was adopted as a "home" by artists who have a vested interest in the place, either because of showing there or through being friends with Amrhein, but also a great many others who were ready for another experience that was not chilly, not pretentious, not fraught with anxious questions of who's who, of who is rising or falling, of how one behaves in the art world. In addition to mounting vigorous, compelling, and at times highly unorthodox shows, including a much-acclaimed (and also controversial) reenactment of Robert Smithson's "Dead Tree" from 1969, originally shown in Germany: a horizontal tree interspersed with mirrors on the gallery floor, Pierogi 2000 has shifted the terrain humanly, and perhaps also ethically: it is welcoming, it really does have an aura of generosity and experimentation, and while a commercial gallery it does not at all seem beholden to commercialism. Indeed, its focus is intently on art and artists.

This whole context of broad artistic vision, friendliness, experimentation, and entrepreneurial, risk-taking acumen comes together in Pierogi 2000's acclaimed "flat file" which is being exhibited here. On one level, this flat file represents a canny marketing decision: it's a lot easier to get collectors coming to Brooklyn to buy works on paper costing a few hundred dollars than sculptures or paintings costing a few thousand dollars. The flat file has thus been the gallery's economic life blood, but it goes much further than that. Each year only so many shows can be mounted, but Amrhein's interests extend to a far wider array of artists, and the flat file allows him to show diverse work on a shoestring budget—most assuredly, this is not a gallery with wealthy backers behind the scenes, or with a big secondary market trade. At the same time, it has also provided the artists themselves with a vibrant forum, and indeed countless artists have been invited to other group shows and one person shows when galleries, museums, and curators discovered their work in the flat file. Over time, the flat file has expanded to include some 500 plus artists, and its range has been extended way beyond Brooklyn, both nationally and internationally. Pierogi 2000 has also developed a video library in which one can see experimental videos by a number of artists, and a literary magazine, Pierogi Press, headed by Susan Swenson.

Pierogi 2000's flat file is not curated in any recognizable sense of the word. It does not, for instance, represent Amrhein's take on who are the 500 (or so) most important artists now and in any event it is constantly changing. Included are artists Amrhein loves and champions, artists who might not perfectly coincide with his personal taste but who he thinks might very well be of interest to others, artists that you primarily know not for works on paper but for very different kinds of work, artists that you've never heard of at all, older artists deep in their careers, younger artists just at the beginning. Within the rubric of small scale works (usually, but not only, on paper) it allows for all sorts of different approaches and aesthetics, and while quality is certainly an issue, so too is a robust, democratic verve. The flat file is filled with discoveries and it's meant to to be like that: not a static thing, nor an informational archive, but a sprawling, burgeoning, endlessly in-process zone, which provides an awfully interesting, hands-on access to contemporary art, and by no means only to artists that have already received a lot of commercial and critical sanction, although there are well-known artists represented.

Incidentally (and this is the hilarious thing for me) the flat file is rooted in an extremely bland and nondescript kind of office presentation: unadorned flat files filled with normal folders. These are office supplies with a vision; here you find office furniture that crosses over into a hybrid, richly collaborative conceptual sculpture on its own. The flat file is compact and transportable, and from time to time (as here) it is shipped to other venues to be included in exhibitions, including Gasworks in London and Cornerhouse in Manchester, Künstlerhaus in Vienna, the Ronald Feldman Gallery in new York, and Bard College, where the exhibition had the interesting title Pierogi Goes to College. At the Brooklyn Museum it was installed in the middle of one gallery while a whole explosion of works by artists based in Brooklyn occurred around it. The flat file, like Pierogi 2000 itself, is cathartic; it is an instigator; it opens up possibilities and potentials. It also demolishes the proprietary, branding mechanism of most galleries—the gallery's "program," presented in a thoroughly businesslike and professional manner. That it does this while still being commercially viable is a good measure of the kind of flexible innovations that Amrhein has consistently brought to his gallery.

In a sense, there is no way to pin down exactly what Pierogi 2000 means to Williamsburg, or to New York City. It's a commercial gallery that has the refreshing spirit and freed-up demeanor of a non-profit, artist-run space; a neighborhood gallery, seamlessly connected to the arts scene in Williamsburg, that generates a lot of attention in New York and that also has an international following. While presenting intriguing, often times provocative shows, and while developing his highly idiosyncratic flat file, Amrhein is also reimagining and reinvigorating what a gallery is, the form that it takes, the life that occurs there.

GREGORY VOLK
November 1999

P I E R O G I 2 0 0 0
177 north 9th street brooklyn, ny 11211 718.599.2144
noon to 6p friday through monday and by appointment
pierogi 2000 is an innovative art gallery in williamsburg, brooklyn, new york

	the flat files an essay written by Gregory Volk reproduced in a catalogue for the flat file exhibtion at The Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts, Philadelphia 4 November - 4 December, 1999 The Flat Files It is a curious paradox that in a time of extraordinary breadth in the arts, a time without movements and delineations in which artists are free and in some ways required to be experimental and to make it (whatever that "it" is) new and invigorating, galleries themselves, by and large, have gravitated toward a shared, standard model that is anything but quirky and individual. Chelsea has become the apotheosis and to an interested observer it's quite clear what that model is: more or less generic "white cubes" or, for top galleries, soaring ultra-designed spaces, all housing the gallery's "program" and doing so in a thoroughly professional, thoroughly businesslike manner. These spaces are designed (and designed is the word) to evoke a certain "purity." It is very much a surface purity, a kind of pristine shell, that frames the artworks, a whole context of business being conducted, in-the-know control, hierarchies being maintained, and the abundance (or the appearance) of money. Humanly speaking, a certain aloofness, chilliness, and severity seem to come with the territory (with some notable exceptions). Moreover, there seems to be a vast gulf between this era and others when galleries—in addition to their major business of selling or merchandising art—were also cathartic arenas where people met, exchanged ideas, mixed it up, formed friendships, engaged in foolishness and exploration, and where other genres like music and literature made frequent appearances. It's this freewheeling quality of exchange (something, by the way, essential to the arts of any era) that has largely been exiled from the prevailing white-cubed, ultra-businesslike, immaculately ordered gallery model. It has not, however, been exiled at Pierogi 2000 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which began as a very local gallery in 1994 and which has since emerged as one of the prime alternative venues anywhere in New York. Pierogi 2000, owned by Joe Amrhein, who is an accomplished artist himself, began as a forum to show Williamsburg-based artists that Amrhein felt were being under represented or in fact ignored in the Manhattan gallery system. Hours of operation were odd (Friday through Monday). Also odd were the fresh pierogis and cups of vodka served at the opening, and oddest of all was how this small, local gallery very quickly became a focal point, and not only in the thriving arts situation in Williamsburg. It was adopted as a "home" by artists who have a vested interest in the place, either because of showing there or through being friends with Amrhein, but also a great many others who were ready for another experience that was not chilly, not pretentious, not fraught with anxious questions of who's who, of who is rising or falling, of how one behaves in the art world. In addition to mounting vigorous, compelling, and at times highly unorthodox shows, including a much-acclaimed (and also controversial) reenactment of Robert Smithson's "Dead Tree" from 1969, originally shown in Germany: a horizontal tree interspersed with mirrors on the gallery floor, Pierogi 2000 has shifted the terrain humanly, and perhaps also ethically: it is welcoming, it really does have an aura of generosity and experimentation, and while a commercial gallery it does not at all seem beholden to commercialism. Indeed, its focus is intently on art and artists. This whole context of broad artistic vision, friendliness, experimentation, and entrepreneurial, risk-taking acumen comes together in Pierogi 2000's acclaimed "flat file" which is being exhibited here. On one level, this flat file represents a canny marketing decision: it's a lot easier to get collectors coming to Brooklyn to buy works on paper costing a few hundred dollars than sculptures or paintings costing a few thousand dollars. The flat file has thus been the gallery's economic life blood, but it goes much further than that. Each year only so many shows can be mounted, but Amrhein's interests extend to a far wider array of artists, and the flat file allows him to show diverse work on a shoestring budget—most assuredly, this is not a gallery with wealthy backers behind the scenes, or with a big secondary market trade. At the same time, it has also provided the artists themselves with a vibrant forum, and indeed countless artists have been invited to other group shows and one person shows when galleries, museums, and curators discovered their work in the flat file. Over time, the flat file has expanded to include some 500 plus artists, and its range has been extended way beyond Brooklyn, both nationally and internationally. Pierogi 2000 has also developed a video library in which one can see experimental videos by a number of artists, and a literary magazine, Pierogi Press, headed by Susan Swenson. Pierogi 2000's flat file is not curated in any recognizable sense of the word. It does not, for instance, represent Amrhein's take on who are the 500 (or so) most important artists now and in any event it is constantly changing. Included are artists Amrhein loves and champions, artists who might not perfectly coincide with his personal taste but who he thinks might very well be of interest to others, artists that you primarily know not for works on paper but for very different kinds of work, artists that you've never heard of at all, older artists deep in their careers, younger artists just at the beginning. Within the rubric of small scale works (usually, but not only, on paper) it allows for all sorts of different approaches and aesthetics, and while quality is certainly an issue, so too is a robust, democratic verve. The flat file is filled with discoveries and it's meant to to be like that: not a static thing, nor an informational archive, but a sprawling, burgeoning, endlessly in-process zone, which provides an awfully interesting, hands-on access to contemporary art, and by no means only to artists that have already received a lot of commercial and critical sanction, although there are well-known artists represented. Incidentally (and this is the hilarious thing for me) the flat file is rooted in an extremely bland and nondescript kind of office presentation: unadorned flat files filled with normal folders. These are office supplies with a vision; here you find office furniture that crosses over into a hybrid, richly collaborative conceptual sculpture on its own. The flat file is compact and transportable, and from time to time (as here) it is shipped to other venues to be included in exhibitions, including Gasworks in London and Cornerhouse in Manchester, Künstlerhaus in Vienna, the Ronald Feldman Gallery in new York, and Bard College, where the exhibition had the interesting title Pierogi Goes to College. At the Brooklyn Museum it was installed in the middle of one gallery while a whole explosion of works by artists based in Brooklyn occurred around it. The flat file, like Pierogi 2000 itself, is cathartic; it is an instigator; it opens up possibilities and potentials. It also demolishes the proprietary, branding mechanism of most galleries—the gallery's "program," presented in a thoroughly businesslike and professional manner. That it does this while still being commercially viable is a good measure of the kind of flexible innovations that Amrhein has consistently brought to his gallery. In a sense, there is no way to pin down exactly what Pierogi 2000 means to Williamsburg, or to New York City. It's a commercial gallery that has the refreshing spirit and freed-up demeanor of a non-profit, artist-run space; a neighborhood gallery, seamlessly connected to the arts scene in Williamsburg, that generates a lot of attention in New York and that also has an international following. While presenting intriguing, often times provocative shows, and while developing his highly idiosyncratic flat file, Amrhein is also reimagining and reinvigorating what a gallery is, the form that it takes, the life that occurs there. GREGORY VOLK November 1999



	P I E R O G I 2 0 0 0 177 north 9th street brooklyn, ny 11211 718.599.2144 noon to 6p friday through monday and by appointment pierogi 2000 is an innovative art gallery in williamsburg, brooklyn, new york

the flat files

The Flat Files