Anti-Whitney Bushwick Artist Collective | Oleksandra Heewon Ji Hyeon

This project sets out to create the unfamiliar with the familiar, offering a new logic and order that is not visually apparent but intuitively negotiated. The art collective is located in Bushwick, designed to physically represent the virtual collective already in existence. It is also a response to the New Whitney Museum being built in the Chelsea Gallery District.
Participant  Name: Oleksandra Heewon Ji Hyeon
Country: United States

The art collective is a physical representation of the Bushwick art website. The gallery spaces are formed by small units that get plugged into a remaining shell of the current buildings on the site, and between newly introduced steel beams. This project is theorized to be a lengthy development, with multiple landowners purchasing their own galleries, or current businesses agreeing to support the collective. Artist and gallerist become stakeholders, thus creating a platform that allows for different voices in the art world to achieve a presence comparable to the power and prestige of major art institutions. This is what makes the project an un-museum.

The main organizing structure of this project are the existing party walls. The walls are used to support the steel structures installed to house the gallery units, recognized as “the increment”. Consciously aware of the existing conditions and utilizing new structural elements, the increments are strategically inserted on site. The models and diagrams presented feature multiple adjustments to the existing conditions of these walls, these are used as studies to understand possible re-programming and structural strengthening of existing conditions.