Emma Grayson in Conversation with The Hole NYC Founder, Kathy Grayson
Kathy Grayson is an energetic, young gallerist who has curated exhibitions with over two hundred emerging artists, bringing together characters from all walks of life. Owner of The Hole in NYC’s Bowery area, Kathy has had her finger on the pulse of this artsy neighbourhood for over ten years. Now, as the world finds itself recovering from a global pandemic, Kathy finds herself ambitiously opening a second location in Tribeca. While many galleries struggled to the point of having to close this past year, The Hole creatively displayed its artists on a global scale with nearly sold-out shows even in the midst of total lockdowns.
From the way Kathy has rightfully earned her place in the New York art scene, we can only watch as she follows her dedication and ambition all over New York, and hopefully the world one day. Her perseverance not only fosters loyalty from artists and collectors but the average aesthete who, after the havoc wreaked by coronavirus, sees the achievement of this gallery and understands it will be around for a long, long time.
Sotheby’s Institute alumna, Emma Grayson (no relation to Kathy, unfortunately), talks confidence, motivation, and advice for anyone looking to open up their own gallery from one who has maneuvered the industry and done so with flying colors.
Kathy Grayson
Emma Grayson: How might you describe your gallery, The Hole, in your own words? And how has its description, or perhaps even its reputation, changed over the years since opening in 2010?
Kathy Grayson: A Grayson dialogue! I love it. The Hole started out to “fill the hole” from Deitch Projects closing abruptly in 2010. It wasn’t named for that (it is named after a club, The Hole, a block away that closed in 2005, or something), but people really wanted The Hole to be a “new Deitch,” and for a while, I think that’s how the public saw it. We showed many Deitch diaspora and did crazy installations like Kembra and EV’s Giverny exhibition with a huge lily pond and Monet arched bridge in the gallery. We did giant concerts at Art Basel Miami Beach with ASAP Rocky and had a ton of events, lectures and afterparties. I think the headline of a 2013 New York Times article about the gallery was "Art? But we are here to party,” or some nonsense. It also had a photo of me smoking a cigarette in the gallery, much to my parent’s displeasure.
The gallery has become much more "serious" in the past 6 years or so, and thus we are now known for having discovered and built up the careers of some major artists -- though we still throw a great party. I think people know the gallery as being curatorially ambitious and discovering talent. We do celebrate thematic group shows every year and out of those shows have discovered fantastic artists over the years. People are always hot on our tail when we do these, like our current show, Nature Morte at our Bowery location.
EG: You recently opened a second location in Tribeca in addition to your original Bowery space, congratulations! How will the two locations be different, and what prompted you to expand to this neighborhood of Manhattan?
KG: With all 2020 art fairs cancelled, we lost out on a lot of inventory and thus revenue. We needed a space to show all the solo booths that were cancelled, as many of those artists had begun working or even finished working on their booths. Walking around Tribeca, I was looking for a 6-month pop-up space to do this, but we found the perfect space and they were only open to a long-term lease. So, we took the plunge! I had walked around to all the Tribeca galleries numerous times and could tell from talking to my friends [located] there or just from looking at their guestbooks that important curators, critics and collectors were doing the same thing. I wanted to connect with this audience. Bowery gets gobs of people every day, we have major foot traffic, and it gladdens me to see tons of first-time gallery visitors coming in and taking photos and being super psyched. But we also need that art world foot traffic too, which only being in a full “gallery neighborhood” like Tribeca can do.
EG: That absolutely makes sense, I remember walking into The Hole just before the pandemic and being that ‘super psyched art-lover’ you just mentioned. So, when you first started out in the art industry, did you imagine opening your own gallery?
KG: I would have been happy staying right where I was at Deitch Projects, curating shows all over the world. Jeffrey was supportive of everything, and he gave me big budgets to make all the books and shows I wanted to, he helped me grow my career (Jeffrey Deitch is an American gallerist known for curating groundbreaking exhibitions and has been involved in the art industry for over 40 years). Making just enough money to get by and living the art life, I could have done that forever, so I was scared when he closed, and I had to make a plan. I wanted to keep curating shows, discovering artists, writing about art and designing exhibitions. Some forward-thinking museum should have hired me, but instead, I decided to open a gallery. It was not a dream; it was a necessary expedient. At first! And it was seven days a week of panic-level stress for many years. A ton of people have contributed to the gallery’s success over these first ten years. It was always part of my ten-year plan to have two spaces. But the next ten-year plan? Maybe ten spaces!
Construction shot of The Hole's forthcoming second gallery in Tribeca
EG: Let’s hope the world gets lucky enough for you to open ten more spaces! To what do you attribute your curatorial confidence and how did you gain the experience to spot a promising artist?
KG: Unearned confidence usually comes from privilege, but there is certainly an acknowledged aspect of that. I was an overachiever all my life and my real talent is pattern recognition. It was great for math and science and comparative literature, but also great for curating. I know a lot about a lot, including the history of art, and I take in a ton of new input - art fairs, open studios, other shows - just TONS of input, and I can synthesize it to see the bigger picture. This leads to compelling and timely thematic exhibitions as well as spotting the “next big thing.” Sometimes you spot the next big thing but you are the only one who sees it; I have learned better and now have a team to help make that great talent widely successful.
EG: Having a trusted team can be vital to an in-demand gallery owner, but what are some of the most challenging individual aspects of being a gallerist? I imagine it could be an emotional rollercoaster with artists, and occasionally difficult to face critics and the public.
KG: At first it was collectors that were hard to manage. Now it is artists struggling to keep it all together as they become more and more successful, often very quickly. When you have sought-after works, you have collectors on their best behavior because they want what you’ve got. The artists are the ones having the growing pains, many with a psychology that holds them back, so my current struggle is helping the artists be strategic and get around their mental barriers so they can grow. I don’t have a plug and do not ‘unplug’ -- it’s all renewable energy! They say if you love what you do you never work a day in your life!
Kathy Grayson
EG: And it’s obvious that you love what you do! During the pandemic, what were some of the creative ways you have kept art visible through your gallery?
KG: I lived above the gallery during the whole pandemic and thus came to work every day. [There were] lots of long days by myself with my dog in my fantastic Second Smile show of surrealism and feminism that no one saw. My operations director came in too and kept the machine running, otherwise shit would have really ground to a halt. We cooked up plots to keep the flow going: building an art fair booth in the gallery so we could stage the missing art fair booths IRL. We had to close Eric Shaw and Dan Attoe early, but we had already sold almost all those works. Second Smile, no one saw, but I still documented the show and sold it from email and Artsy communications. Then we had Koichi Sato and Royal Jarmon. The physical gallery was closed until the last week of the show when we finally got to reopen, and both those guys were sold out immediately by the time they opened, so we didn’t really miss out on sales.
Then we boarded up the windows in June and participated in the protests going up the Bowery every day. We did a giant auction raising $100k for BLM-related groups and charities. That kept the artists in people’s minds in a good way too, and we started doing 3D walkthrough photography in our shows so people all over the world could “walk around” in here. We did an art fair as well if you can believe it. There was a parting of the COVID clouds at the end of August where Denmark had almost zero cases and we could travel there, so we did a full in-person art fair. It was amazing (and scary!). Our summer shows, Pedro Pedro and KATSU were massive hits, then in the fall Caitlin Cherry’s debut solo exhibition in NYC was massive, and our top artist, Alex Gardner, had his second solo show to end the year here. In December we went to Miami to do a great outdoor art exhibition with the Institute of Contemporary Art there of Jon Chapline works. We really put in the extra effort and so did our artists.
Eric Shaw, I Examine My Surroundings, 76 x 84 in., acrylic on canvas (2020)
EG: All of that success, especially in the face of such adversity, is amazing. You and all of your artists should be so proud of that. My last question for you now is, why did you want to become a gallerist in the first place, and what advice might you offer to someone interested in the gallery world?
KG: I never wanted to be a gallerist, I just wanted to be where the action was so I could have a positive impact. After interning at the Whitney Museum, I saw that museums weren’t the ones steering the ship, so to speak -- they were like last responders, once galleries and curators discovered and launched talent, collectors bought it, and board members advocated for it, then at last museums accepted it. Or at least, that was the dynamic I saw then.
I became friends with artists and wanted to support them. I wanted to expand the audience of art and expand the type of art that got shown. That is still how I feel, and I now have the opportunity to expand the audience for art by immersive and ambitious exhibition design, a giant Bowery location that draws hundreds every day and a new Tribeca location with more modest proportions where I can plan other types of special exhibitions suited to that space as well. It’s an exciting time, and I am indeed very excited for the rest of our 2021 shows!
For young people who deliberately want to be a gallerist, I would recommend fostering crucial connections to artists. If you want to open a gallery because you have a group of friends who are making great art that isn’t being recognized, that is a great impetus. Connect with your generation, get to know the art that your peers are making, and get to know your peers as well! Out of that community-building will come a great gallery.
Thank you, Kathy.
Discover Kathy Grayson’s gallery, The Hole, at her website and on Instagram.
Imagery courtesy of The Hole.
Emma Grayson,
Contributor, MADE IN BED