Metro Footage was recognized for independence and curatorial care—deep dedication moderately than deep pockets. That method labored for 4 many years. Based in New York by two ladies who went to junior-high faculty collectively in Los Angeles, the gallery was at all times a single area: first in Soho, then in Chelsea, with a short-lived department in East Hampton.
“Everyone is attempting to create a number of outposts, and so they simply stayed in New York and made it work,” says Sophie Chahinian, who’s making Footage of Footage: The Metro Years, a function documentary concerning the gallery that represented many artists related to the Footage Technology group—together with Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo and Walter Robinson. “It’s sort of miraculous. There’s some sense to it, and likewise some magic,” Chahinian says.
In 1980, Janelle Reiring left Leo Castelli Gallery to discovered Metro Footage with Helene Winer, who on the time was the director of the Decrease Manhattan nonprofit Artists Area.
“They have been integrity-driven, they have been pushed by their artists, they have been pushed by their programme, and so they didn’t actually pay a number of consideration to the factor that galleries take note of proper now, which is mainly the underside line,” Chahinian says.
With a mortgage from her household, Winer purchased the gallery’s first residence in Soho. “It was about $12,000. These have been the times,” she says. “The story of how the artwork world has modified within the 40-some years that we have been open is extra fascinating than the gallery per se. It was so small. There have been solely perhaps 5 galleries displaying new younger artists. It’s unbelievable.”
“It was a clubhouse,” says Robert Longo, Chahinian’s husband. Longo had relocated from Buffalo when he and his then-partner Cindy Sherman joined the gallery, which represented a few of his buddies and different artists.
Longo remembers: “I trusted them utterly. I believe ladies artwork sellers are held to a better normal. I by no means had any enterprise issues with them, ever. They have been tremendous sincere, and so they have been extremely supportive.” Longo now reveals with Tempo Gallery and with Thaddaeus Ropac in Europe. Sherman is represented by Hauser & Wirth.
A time of various expectations
Issues weren’t at all times simple within the early days at Metro Footage, not even for Sherman. “Individuals didn’t perceive that she was an artist utilizing pictures,” Longo says. “You couldn’t fucking give these film stills away to start with. They have been being bought for $50.” In December 1995, Metro Footage bought a whole set of Sherman’s Untitled Movie Stills (1977–80) to the Museum of Trendy Artwork in New York for $1m, averaging $14,492 per print; editions from the collection now routinely promote for greater than ten instances that at public sale.
Metro Footage got here up at a time when artists approached their work and the market with totally different expectations. “Cindy and I, we by no means thought we have been going to make any cash being artists, by no means,” Longo says. “We thought we’d perhaps get a stipend. Being profitable was by no means on the menu.”
Or nearly by no means. “I bear in mind one time after I came upon that Julian Schnabel’s work was promoting for greater than mine and I obtained very upset about it,” Longo remembers. “I went to the gallery and mentioned, ‘I’m going to fucking kill myself.’ And Janelle mentioned to me, ‘It gained’t work. They’ll simply overlook you.’ And I realised, when she mentioned that, it gave me this motivation to outlive.”
Reiring, recalling that change, provides: “I simply mentioned, ‘You haven’t executed sufficient work but to be well-known.’” Artists, Winer says, “have plenty of needs, and hopes, and ups and downs. They usually watch one another’s careers intently.” That a lot has not modified within the 45 years since Metro Footage opened its doorways.
The market through which Metro Footage thrived was remodeled not by artists however by mega-galleries, which made the mannequin of a curated gallery run by two individuals in a single metropolis a enterprise anachronism dealing with extinction.
“After all, all people beloved us after we introduced that we have been closing,” Reiring says. Each Reiring and Winer moved again to Los Angeles after shutting the gallery in 2021.
“It’s simply concerning the aggressive setting and what it’s important to do to outlive as a gallery now,” Winer says. “In regards to the early years, I can get nostalgic, however it’s so way back it looks as if studying a ebook about someone’s outdated gallery.”
Or like watching a documentary. Chahinian expects to complete Footage of Footage in early 2026.
