Shin Gallery
Shin Gallery is an encyclopedic art gallery owned by Hong Gyu Shin. It specializes in modern and contemporary art and hosts museum-quality exhibitions. It is located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York, and opened in 2013. In 2014, an immersive project space was opened next to the gallery. In 2017 Shin Gallery expanded to include three different gallery spaces on Orchard Street. In 2020 Shin Haus was launched, a program with the aim of discovering up-and-coming artists. Shin Gallery also specializes in rediscovering overlooked artists, traditionally marginalized due to their ethnicity and gender. Work is also done with a variety of venues including national heritage sites, hotels, and public spaces further demonstrating its international agenda.
Background
Hong Gyu Shin was born in South Korea and moved to New York as an international student at the age of 16. Interested in art since his youth, he started collecting at 13 when he bought a Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Shin graduated with a degree in art conservation and opened his gallery after his second year in college. After getting to know the gallery scene in the city well, he realized that New York needed a more inclusive space for both artists and visitors alike. When he was only 23 years old (2013) Shin opened his gallery, at first displaying work by largely emerging Korean artists. His first exhibit showed the work of the Korean artist Hyon Gyon, including her monumental fabric pieces, made by melting traditional Korean garments together. Since then the type of art that Shin displays has expanded tremendously, and he actively seeks out art that piques his curiosity. The gallery features a dynamic collection of both established and emerging artists, one of the only of its kind on the Lower East Side. A significant number of works by rediscovered women and self-taught artists of color can be seen as well. The collection features artworks that represent their era while still being aesthetically challenging in the present moment.
Notable exhibitions and projects
In 2015, the gallery exhibited a project called Salon de Mass-age in which the gallery's experimental space was transformed into a seedy exotic massage parlor to exhibit the grotesque works of Rudolf Schwarzkogler and the erotic works of Nobuyoshi Araki. This project drew attention in the Lower East Side because of its provocative nature and threats by nearby wealthy residents to sue to the gallery for possibly lowering nearby property values with the seedy project.[1] In 2015, Shin Gallery showed the works of Balthus, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Salvador Dalí, and Teresa Burga in its experimental space, which the gallery had transformed into a CBGB bathroom.[2] This project, entitled I Wanna Be Me, sought to conjure the essence of the punk rock scene by showing the iconoclastic works of the aforementioned artists in a gritty space fit with grimy toilet stalls and layers of DIY stickers and graffiti tags. In 2017, drawings and photographs of Keunmin Lee and Hans Bellmer were presented with an obstacle course of ropes. And most recently, the gallery exhibited over 40 artists and turned the space into a nightclub inspired by Club 57, which examines the development of contemporary art in New York over the past five decades.
Artists
As of 2018, according to the website, Shin Gallery represents the following artists: Andreas Emenius (Sweden), Otavio Schipper (Brazil).