Pace Inaugurates 25th Street Space with David Byrne
By Stephanie Cash, Art in America, 23 August 2011 [Link]

David Byrne, Artist's rendering of Tight Spot, 2011. Courtesy The Pace Gallery.

Pace Gallery is spreading like kudzu in New York. The gallery, which already had locations on 57th Street, and on 22nd and 25th in Chelsea, has acquired a vacant lot underneath the High Line, at 508 W. 25th St., the spot where Pace  held its 50th anniversary party in September 2010.

Pace spokesman Andrea Glimcher told A.i.A. that "later this season we will start construction to expand our gallery at 510, which is adjacent to the [508] lot." The gallery will work with architect Bill Katz on the project, she said in an e-mail.

To inaugurate the unrenovated space musician/artist David Byrne is installing a 48-by-20-foot inflatable elementary-school-style globe, wedging it between pillars that support the High Line overhead. Speakers inside the globe will emit a low-frequency hum, a sound that Byrne made with his own voice and then electronically distorted. Titled Tight Spot, the work will be on view for two weeks, Sept. 16–Oct. 1, after which construction will begin on the expansion.

It's not the first time Byrne, best known as the lead singer of the Talking Heads, has undertaken a major public artwork in New York. For his 2008 Playing the Building, commissioned by Creative Time, at the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan, he attached electronic devices to pipes, pillars, beams and other surfaces, which created sound when activated by wind, touch or motion.


Pace will be pruned in the near as-yet unspecified future. It has been renting its 534 W. 22nd Street location from the Dia Art Foundation, which plans to construct its future headquarters on the site. According to Pace's website, from Sept. 23 to Oct. 22 Carsten Nicolai will have a show at the 22nd Street location, followed by a group show that pays homage to the incandescent light bulb, Oct. 29–Nov. 26.