Jen Bekman Gallery

Last updated

Jen Bekman Gallery is a former art gallery located at 6 Spring Street in New York City. [1] It was established by Jen Bekman in March 2003 on Spring Street west of Bowery, and closed in August 2013. Bekman's goals were to help emerging artists become more appreciated, and to encourage a broader swath of people to feel comfortable buying art. [2] Jen Bekman Gallery exhibited the work of artists in the mediums of photography, works on paper, paintings and mixed media.

Contents

Jen Bekman Projects have included 20×200 [3] (editioned prints at affordable prices) (2007–2013), Hey, Hot Shot! [4] (an international competition for emerging photographers) (2004–2012), jen@joe (a revolving exhibition of photographs at Joe, affordably priced and available for purchase online only) (2003–2006), and Personism [5] (a personal blog about design, photography, and current events) (2009–2010).

In 2006, Bekman was named an Innovator of the Year by American Photo. They wrote, "She's developing a new generation of photo artists and consumers." [6]

20×200

About Four Thirty by William Wegman (2010) Aboutfourthirty 500.jpg
About Four Thirty by William Wegman (2010)

20×200 is an e-commerce site by Jen Bekman Projects that sells original artist editions at affordable prices. The company received $800,000 in Series A funding in October 2009, with an additional $2 million secured in August 2010. [7]

When the business first launched, the smallest size was reprinted in the largest batch — an edition of 200 — and sold at the lowest price — $20. Hence the name 20×200 (pronounced: "twenty by two-hundred"). [8] [9] [10] [11]

According to Bekman, the company brought in $2.5 million in revenue in 2010, including $100,000 worth of work by artist William Wegman in a single day in February. [12] [13]

In January 2013, 20x200 went offline and operations were suspended. [14] The board of 20×200 including lead investor Tony Conrad resigned and the company's staff were dismissed. The company reportedly left hundreds of unfulfilled orders and owes vendors tens of thousands of dollars. [15] Bekman has not commented publicly.

The site relaunched in April 2014 [16] as a beta on youshouldbuyart.com, bringing back artist editions as well as expanding their public domain collection. The company later moved back to the original domain at 20x200.com. [17]

Artists represented

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christie's</span> British auction house

Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Amsterdam, Geneva, Shanghai, and Dubai. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, the holding company of François Pinault. In 2022 Christie's sold $8.4 billion in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. In 2017, the Salvator Mundi was sold at Christie's in New York for $450 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracey Emin</span> English artist

Tracey Karima Emin is an English artist known for autobiographical and confessional artwork. She produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and sewn appliqué. Once the "enfant terrible" of the Young British Artists in the 1980s, Tracey Emin is now a Royal Academician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wegmans</span> Supermarket chain in the northeastern United States

Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. is a privately held American supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Gates, New York, and was founded on January 30, 1916, in Rochester, New York.

Walgreens is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States, behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, and photo services. It was founded in Chicago in 1901, and is headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois. On December 31, 2014, Walgreens and Switzerland-based Alliance Boots merged to form a new holding company, Walgreens Boots Alliance. Walgreens became a subsidiary of the new company, which retained its Deerfield headquarters and trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol WBA. In 2021 the company was found by a federal jury to have "substantially contributed to" the opioid crisis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Close</span> American painter (1940–2021)

Charles Thomas Close was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very large format camera. He adapted his painting style and working methods in 1988, after being paralyzed by an occlusion of the anterior spinal artery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Wegman (photographer)</span> American photographer

William Wegman is an American artist best known for creating series of compositions involving dogs, primarily his own Weimaraners in various costumes and poses.

In Magic: The Gathering, Power Nine is a set of nine cards that were printed in the game's early core sets, consisting of Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, and Timetwister. These nine cards were printed in the first sets of Magic: The Gathering, starting in 1993. They are considered among the most powerful cards in the game. Owing to their power, they were banned from being played in most competitive settings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RH (company)</span> American home furnishings company

RH is an upscale American home-furnishings company headquartered in Corte Madera, California. The company sells its merchandise through its retail stores, catalog, and online. As of August 2018, the company operated a total of 70 galleries, 18 full-line design galleries, and 6 baby-and-child galleries. The company also has 36 outlet stores in the United States and Canada.

Nina Berman is an American documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and educator. Her wide-ranging work looks at American politics, militarism, environmental contamination and post violence trauma. Berman is the author of three monographs: Purple Hearts – Back From Iraq; Homeland; and An autobiography of Miss Wish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">5 Pointz</span> Building in Queens, New York

5 Pointz: The Institute of Higher Burnin' or 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center, Inc., mainly referred to as simply 5 Pointz or 5Pointz, was an American mural space at 45-46 Davis Street in Long Island City, Queens, New York City. When the building opened in 1892, it housed the Neptune Meter factory, which built water meters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Koons</span> American sculptor and painter (born 1955)

Jeffrey Lynn Koons is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. He lives and works in both New York City and his hometown of York, Pennsylvania. His works have sold for substantial sums, including at least two record auction prices for a work by a living artist: US$58.4 million for Balloon Dog (Orange) in 2013 and US$91.1 million for Rabbit in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows Live Messenger</span> Deprecated instant messaging client

MSN Messenger, later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the now-discontinued Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versions, was compatible with Yahoo! Messenger and Facebook Messenger. The service was discontinued in 2013 and was replaced by Skype.

Agnes Denes is a Hungarian-born American conceptual artist based in New York. She is known for works in a wide range of media—from poetry and philosophical writings to extremely detailed drawings, sculptures, and iconic land art works, such as Wheatfield — A Confrontation (1982), a two-acre field of wheat in downtown Manhattan, commissioned by the Public Art Fund, and Tree Mountain—A Living Time Capsule (1992–96) in Ylöjärvi, Finland. Her work Rice/Tree/Burial with Time Capsule (1968–79) is recognized as one of the earliest examples of ecological art. She lives and works in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">India Art Fair</span>

India Art Fair, previously known as India Art Summit founded by Sunil Gautam, is an annual Indian modern and contemporary art fair held in New Delhi, India. The fair includes paintings, sculptures, photography, mixed media, prints, drawings and video art. The first three editions of the fair were organized at Pragati Maidan, one of India's largest and oldest exhibitions grounds. Starting from the 4th edition, the venue was shifted to NSIC grounds, Okhla. First held in 2008, it is India's largest art fair. The art fair includes several pavilions of exhibits by galleries and solo projects by several artists. It also has an art education series with guided walks conducted by curators and students of art history. Simultaneously, there is a speakers' forum with panel of Indian and international experts from the art domain to discuss issues pertaining to the art in the region. It focuses on key issues related with the art production, art market and its reception in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Harlem Art Fund</span>

The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. is a public art and media organization based in the City of New York, founded in 1998. Savona Bailey-McClain is its Executive Director and Chief Curator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Lindquist</span> American artist

Greg Lindquist is an American artist, painter and sculptor based in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spring Street (Manhattan)</span> Street in Manhattan, New York

Spring Street is a street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, which runs west–east through the neighborhoods of Hudson Square, SoHo, and Nolita. It runs parallel to and between Dominick, Broome, and Kenmare Streets, and Vandam and Prince Streets. Address numbers ascend as Spring Street travels westward from the Bowery to West Street along the Hudson River.

Clare Grill is an artist from Western Springs, Illinois. Grill currently lives and works in Queens, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nalini Cheriel</span> American singer

Nalini "Deedee" Cheriel is a visual artist, musician and filmmaker who lives in Los Angeles, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah McKenzie (artist)</span> American painter

Sarah McKenzie is an American painter born in Greenwich, Connecticut. She has had numerous solo exhibitions, most notably with Denver's David B. Smith Gallery, New York's Jen Bekman Gallery, and the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art. Her paintings have been included in group exhibitions at the Walker Art Center, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Yale School of Architecture, the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and the Aspen Art Museum.

References

  1. "Jen Bekman Gallery".
  2. Scelfo, Julie. "Easing the Pain of Collecting". New York Times. February 28, 2008.
  3. "20x200". 20x200.com.
  4. "Hey, Hot Shot! website". Archived from the original on April 8, 2008. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  5. Personism, Jen Bekman's blog
  6. "2006 Innovators: Galleries – - PopPhotoJanuary/February 2007". Archived from the original on May 11, 2008. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
  7. Rao, Leena (October 21, 2009). "Online Art Store 20×200 Scores $800,000 From True Ventures And Angels". TechCrunch.
  8. "20×200: Our Story". Archived from the original on October 12, 2010. Retrieved October 6, 2010.
  9. Dana, Aaron. "Jen Bekman on Art". GOOD Magazine. April 5, 2007.
  10. Walker, Alyssa. "Jen Bekman, founder of 20×200". Fast Company. April 12, 2010.
  11. Wilhide, Jenny. "Printastic: why prints are more popular than installations" Archived September 14, 2010, at the Wayback Machine . London Evening Standard. April 19, 2010.
  12. Segall, Laurie (April 26, 2011). "Wealthy investors add art startups to their collections". CNNMoney. Retrieved February 13, 2013.
  13. Pollock, Lindsay. "Jen Bekman Sells 100k in Wegmans in a single day" Archived July 12, 2010, at the Wayback Machine . Art Market Views. March 2, 2010.
  14. Ferro, Shane (February 1, 2013). "Update: 20×200 Still Offline, Confirms Some Staff Departures in Email". ARTINFO. Retrieved February 13, 2013.
  15. Halperin, Julia. "Can 20×200 Be Saved? Anger From Collectors Mounts as Leading Art Site Flounders". Art Info.
  16. Bekman, Jen. "20x200: The Beta".
  17. "20x200.com".

40°43′15.7″N73°59′39.6″W / 40.721028°N 73.994333°W / 40.721028; -73.994333