Curator Summer Guthery, who left economics to found four non-profit experimental art spaces across the US, is launching a fifth venture called Times with fellow curator Francesca Sonara. Located in Manhattan’s Chinatown at 151 Lafayette Street, the 3,000-square-foot space will host up to three exhibitions simultaneously across two galleries and a screening room. The inaugural event on 12 February features Latvian performance artist Jana Jacuka, followed by a solo exhibition by Danish artist Nina Beier (21 February-9 May). Times rejects a permanent institutional model, planning a three-year obsolescence to remain nimble and responsive to artists’ needs.
Times matters because it offers an explicit alternative to the commercialized art market, embracing what Guthery calls “the efficiencies of being small” and prioritizing artistic risk over market logic. Inspired by economist E. F. Schumacher’s “Small Is Beautiful” and the Dadaists and Surrealists’ responses to sociopolitical rupture, the project aims to provide a platform for experimental, non-commercial work that addresses contemporary crises. Its planned obsolescence challenges the art world’s default growth model, suggesting a new paradigm for how art institutions can operate with flexibility and purpose.