Art Gotham, 4 St. Mark’s Place
Today we welcome a new small business to our neighborhoods — help us welcome the next. Tell us which new independent store in Greenwich Village, the East Village, or NoHo you’re excited about by emailing us at info@villagepreservation.org.
As advocates for local small business, we find great satisfaction in hearing of new independent establishments opening in our neighborhoods. These arrivals give us hope that reports of the death of mom-and-pops have been greatly exaggerated. Whenever such occasions present themselves, we like to share our enthusiasm with the world in the hopes that others will join us in wishing our new neighbors a warm welcome, and more tangibly, patronize and spread the word to help ensure their success and survival.
Are the East Village’s days as an artistic hub behind us? A recent addition to the local arts scene answers with an emphatic, “no,” and further adds, “not if we have any say in the matter.” Today, we welcome to the neighborhood Art Gotham at 4 St. Marks Place, a contemporary art gallery operating out of a storied space that offers a platform for emerging artists to showcase their work and become part of a broader artistic community.
All evidence suggests that the building at 4 St. Marks may be haunted at once by the sometimes kindred, sometimes adversarial spirits of nonconformity and finance. It boasts a connection to American revolutionary and financial system architect Alexander Hamilton. This was the longtime home of his widow and two of their children, Col. Alexander Hamilton Jr. and Eliza Hamilton Holly. Over a century later, it was for decades the location of 2024 Village Awardee Trash and Vaudeville, a groundbreaking store that made a business out of selling rock ‘n’ roll style and punk attitude. (Village Preservation got the house landmarked in 2004). Into the building’s evolving story, now steps Kimberly Salib (a.k.a. Kimberly Dawnly), an artist and former investment banker who saw in this one-time home and retail space the makings of an ideal art gallery.
Kimberly fell in love with art serendipitously her senior year in high school when, in a move that presaged a future career change, she switched out of calculus and into an art history course that introduced her to abstract expressionism. That movement’s emphasis on rendering visible the creative process and conveying emotion through the spontaneity of gestural brushstrokes made a profound impression on her, and subsequently had a lasting influence on her own art. She began painting in college. After graduation, she embarked on a career in investment banking, a profession notorious for its long hours. Those long hours, however, include plenty of downtime; and Kimberly started devoting it to the creation of art, some of which started selling. She loved the fast pace of banking; but the 9/11 attacks inspired her to change gears, step away from her job, and devote herself to raising her children and, on the side, launching an art gallery.
Kimberly opened her gallery in Chelsea and then, after a few years, moved it to SoHo, where it is still in operation. She briefly considered a return to banking after the COVID pandemic. Taking stock, however, of the pleasure she took in working with artists and in introducing new artwork to the world, she decided to go in the other direction and devote herself full-time to her gallery work. To that end, she set out to find a larger space where she could more fully realize this ambition. She found the perfect one at 4 St. Mark’s Place.
Gotham Art specializes in the work of early-career artists, most of whom tend to be local. The gallery boasts two large exhibition spaces. The front one usually features solo shows; the back one, group ones. Kimberly takes care to stage exhibitions in conversation with one another. During our visit, she had paired a solo show by Brooklyn-based abstract artist J.J. Ellis with the group show Brooklyn NOW!, which showcased the work of other emerging artists in that borough. As she often does, Kimberly invited a guest curator — Hayley Ferber — to arrange the group show so as to increase the likelihood of bringing in artists whom she did not yet know.
Its exhibits alone would make Gotham Art a valuable addition to the neighborhood and its arts scene. But Kimberly has more than that in mind for the space. She wants it to help foster and grow the artists’ network that she has gradually developed through her work. This effort got a deliberate start a few years ago when Kimberly placed an ad inviting artists to attend an “artists’ circle” to mingle and discuss ways to promote their work. Twenty people attended the first one. A hundred, the one after that. Now it meets every month at Art Gotham. In addition, Kimberly would like to complement the opening events that she currently hosts with more artist and curator talks. Ultimately, the goal behind these initiatives is to turn Arts Gotham into a sort of living room for artists and to use the space to get people thinking and talking about art.
We invite you to swing by, welcome Kimberly to the neighborhood, and join the conversation!
If you would like us to welcome another independent business to the neighborhood, please let us know at info@villagepreservation.org.