Honey Space: The Least Chelsea Gallery in Chelsea

NEW YORK—Honey Space might be the latest art gallery to crop up in Chelsea, but there’s nothing Chelsea about it. The raw, ground-floor space at 11th Avenue and 21st Street, just around the corner from the Chelsea Art Museum, is tiny—less than 1,000 square feet. It doesn’t have heat, it doesn’t broker sales, and it doesn’t have gallerists. In fact, it doesn’t have a staff at all. Designed to house site-specific installations and transform with each exhibition, the space is open to the public and unsupervised during the day, with security gates that open and close in the morning and evening.

“The first thing most people ask me about is security,” said Honey Space founder Thomas Beale, 29. But he says he is less concerned with the lack thereof than with how visitors will react to it.

“This is kind of a radical idea for New York City, where we have such a security-conscious culture,” said Beale, a sculptor who, ironically, debuted an exhibition of his own works in a much more corporate location—the display windows of the Lord & Taylor department store on Fifth Avenue—the day before Honey Space opened. “To do something where you put complete trust in people, and to see whether people end up respecting it or not, is a powerful idea.”

Honey Space’s inaugural installation is “Still Reaping,” a tower of nature-inspired acrylic paintings by Adam Stanforth that will remain in the gallery through March 15. Beale said he can’t reveal who will exhibit in the space after Stanforth, but the Japanese artist Midori Harima will mount an installation in May or June, and his inbox is clogged with email messages from other artists who want to participate.

“Still Reaping” is not the first work to be shown in the space. Beale also has his studio, which he cut in half to create the gallery, in the old warehouse that is home to Honey Space. He mounted two exhibitions of his own works there last year, before it became an official gallery. He said he opened Honey Space because he planned on “laying low” for several months without exhibiting his sculpture in the space, but wanted to give other artists the rare opportunity to exhibit in the middle of well-trafficked Chelsea. He spent $6,000 of his own money bringing the electricity up to code, and he did the grunt work himself— recruiting about half a dozen friends to help—with no intention of making even a cent of profit.

“I’m not interested in being a gallerist,” Beale said. “This was about how I could use the space and create opportunities but at the same time not burden my own studio practice.”

You might think all this couldn’t get any further from market-driven Chelsea, but there’s one more detail that makes the arrangement even more unusual. In an area where battles over square footage are the norm and rents tend to be sky-high, Beale’s monthly bill for the space comes to $0. Mega-developer and broker Alf Naman owns the property and has allowed Beale and other artists to build out and maintain studios there for free for the past year and a half (Beale says there are about a dozen studios in the building). Part of the agreement is that Beale will give artworks to Naman. Although no art has changed hands to date, Beale said he’s working on a major piece for Naman’s collection. The artist said he has developed such rapport with Naman that the latter’s only request concerning Honey Space was that Beale take care of the electricity.

“I was excited,” Beale said. “But the biggest moment was when I was first offered the studio space for free. I was really shocked—I hadn’t heard of any other situation like it.”

He said Naman offered the studio space for between one and two years (Naman will develop the property after that, according to Beale). “Anything beyond that, I feel is an added gift.”

Honey Space had its official opening, which drew about 150 people, on Valentine’s Day. When ARTINFO arrived, we found a tiny door with a patchwork of Stanforth’s paintings around it, but no sign indicating whether the gallery was open, or if we were even at the right entrance. We ducked through the diminutive opening, wandered hesitantly down a hallway lined with dried vines, lifted a gauze curtain, and emerged to find a small group gathered ‘round cups of apple cider, a pot of cheese fondue, and a space heater, with Stanforth’s paintings rising into a column in the center of a shabby room, some dangling from the ceiling. It seemed a thousand miles away from the sleek showrooms of Chelsea.

“Are you open?” we asked, confused.

“Yes,” Beale said with a smile that said our reaction was exactly the one he was looking for. “You’re actually the first guest.”