Karma
Opening its third exhibition space on the same street in the East Village in order to accommodate an expanding exhibition program, Karma took over a former industrial brick building situated in the immediate adjacency of the neighborhood’s storied history—the building's rear wall backs onto New York Marble Cemetery, the city’s first non-sectarian burial ground, dating back to 1830—and remarkable green space characteristic of the area. Originally built in the early part of the twentieth century, and having previously been the host to more industrial uses, the building was most recently an experimental theater, which left the space an interior of raw exposed brick, wooden joists, and concrete slab floor. The visibly aged brick building, slightly out of scale and on a mostly residential block, didn't reveal its function. The original brick façade was graffitied over.
For the conversion to an art gallery showing both new and historically important artwork, the building was transformed into a series of proportionally varied rooms, with a reception and front office, main exhibition space, and private viewing room that sometimes serves as a second exhibition space.
Square in plan with a tall ceiling height that is half its width, the main exhibition space is nestled into the middle half of the building’s footprint. This principal room exhibits the tension between typical ‘white cube’ gallery space and the desire to retain the building’s essential character, leaving exposed at the top of the walls and ceiling the original brick and steel roof beams, and centering the space around a single large skylight.
The lower height non-public area is outfitted with a kitchenette, restrooms, and storage; a mezzanine office offers the further possibility to display art for the gallery's clientele. A series of millwork pieces—reception desk, office desks, dividing wall bookcase, and built-in office cabinet, as well as a kitchenette and built-in under stair storage—in contrast to the otherwise materially bare finishes and commercially available lighting, rounds out the renovation.
On the exterior, a new storefront was installed. Playing off the existing openings in the brick facade, the steel and glass structure divides into five parts of equal width. The storefront is further divided into a top of transparent glazing and a bottom portion of mostly opaque painted steel paneling. These fixed clerestory windows, steel panels, and a pair of glass and steel entrance doors are set back into the storefront structure, putting them at relief to the deep vertical and horizontal structural mullions that give rhythm to the overall storefront and new public face to the building. In the evening, when the gallery closes for the day, the exterior lights go on and a sliding metal panel door is pulled over to cover the entrance doors, making the bottom of the façade fully opaque.
