On the Rise: Galleries Move Up and Out

DOUBLE PLAY: CRISTINA GRAJALES AND LEON TOVAR MERGE FORCES
It was fifteen years ago that Cristina Grajales opened her eponymous SoHo design gallery, upstairs above the bustle of Greene Street. There she made her mark by featuring both important historic works and her own discoveries, notable among them the works of Pedro Barrail, Christophe Côme, and Sebastian Errazuriz. This fall, Grajales moved to New York’s NoMad neighborhood in a unique joint venture with the uptown art dealer Leon Tovar. The joint venture—it’s a shared space at 152 West 25th Street—gains further interest in that both Grajales and Tovar were born in Colombia, and both have striven to showcase Latin American talent.

The two seasoned gallerists have divided the six thousand-square-foot space into three, one for each of them and one, called the Third Room, that is shared and will be used for joint curatorial efforts or works that do not fall within the mission of either gallerist. The scheme was executed by the Colombian designer Jorge Lizarazo, who is based in Bogota? and is the owner of Hechizoo Textiles, which was featured in a long-running show at Grajales’s SoHo space in 2014 as well as in the Bard Graduate Center’s exhibition Waterweavers.

Currently on view at Cristina Grajales is an exhibition of works by Steven and William Ladd (who also have a show at the Saint Louis Art Museum though February) and the self-taught designer and artist Stefan Bishop. Tovar opened with work by the Colombian-born artist Edgar Negret. The Third Room presently features a sculpture of Pablo Picasso by the Spanish artist Marisol. cristinagrajalesinc.com leontovargarllery.com