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Local Art Livin’ Just Enough for the City
Galapagos, like so much of NYC’s creative lifeblood, moves to Brooklyn
Galapagos Art Space
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Galapagos Art Space may have changed zip codes, but their Williamsburg to DUMBO real estate swap doesn’t seem to have hampered them. Those familiar with the old space will probably feel right at home sipping cocktails in the new hall, which has preserved and expanded its concrete-and-water chic. Lily pads of industrial metal flooring float curved red benches out across the indoor pond. Red spotlights and hanging video screens direct the eye up to a second tier of seating. It’s still the kind of space that makes you feel a little hipper, and little more artistically talented, just by sitting at the candle-lit bar with a cocktail. We caught up with Galapagos director, Robert Elmes, a couple months after the move to find out how they’re settling in.
Galapagos Art Space has moved from Williamsburg into a remarkable building in DUMBO. Are you feeling at home there?
We love DUMBO. It’s the smartest neighborhood in the city. It’s becoming the green hub of the creative economy, and we like being at the center of that. We hope that our pending LEED certification lands us as the first LEED-certified “green” cultural building in NYC.
What does it mean to be a “green” performance space in NYC? Why is that so important to Galapagos?
If the arts can’t show leadership then who can? We can’t simply be bystanders in the midst of what others before us have built. As cultural leaders, we have a deep responsibility to lead not only on culture but also on helping society evolve and adapt.
In what ways might the demographics of the new neighborhood impact the space? Will it allow you to do new or different things that weren’t on the table in Williamsburg?
We moved from a position at the geographic center of a large audience base we helped create—but could no longer afford to live in—and now we sit directly between the larger Brooklyn audience that [previously] found it difficult to get to us and the larger Manhattan audience. Couple that with the community we moved into, and we think we’re in a very good position to create traffic to our new venue.
Walking into the new space reminded me of the first time I walked into your previous home many, many years ago. I imagine there was some reminiscing during this transition.
I love the Williamsburg venue. It took three years to build because we kept running out of money, and I knew where every bolt was because I put it there. It was like a child. The first years were hard; I thought the venue was going to turn blue every time I left it alone. Eventually that eases, you gain confidence and you can leave it with sitters for a night at a time. After years pass by, you watch it learn on its own, and even though parts of it are no longer yours because they’re inhabited by people doing their jobs, you feel immensely proud by seeing what you dreamed about and fought for come to life.
Cutting-edge performance seems to have been pretty much evicted from Manhattan and forced to relocate deeper and deeper into the boroughs. What impact do you expect this will have on city life?
This is an absolutely critical moment in the history of cultural New York. It’s emerging and mid-career artists are no longer talking about the next show they hope to land; they’re talking about the next city they can land in once their current lease runs out. Culture, the irresistible force, has met real estate, the immoveable object; and by definition the one leaving our city isn’t real estate. The danger is that without meaningful new participants shoring up the foundation of our billion-dollar creative economy, that foundation begins to calcify and crack. New York is one of the greatest cultural cities ever—perhaps the greatest. But New York could easily become a museum city like Paris or Rome; wonderful cities, but cities that no longer produce much in the way of relevant artistic culture.