Magenta Plains Marks a Decade of Bold, Unexpected Art in Lower Manhattan
The gallery’s 10‑year anniversary show celebrates its rise from a tiny Allen Street storefront to a 4,500‑square‑foot hub for cutting‑edge art.
Magenta Plains is celebrating its 10‑year anniversary with a show that runs through October 31, highlighting the gallery’s role in shaping Lower Manhattan’s adventurous art landscape.
Olivia Smith came to the project after a successful stint running Exhibition A on the Upper East Side, a company that sells original contemporary art editions. In 2015, artists Chris Dorland and David Deutsch approached her about opening a gallery on the Lower East Side.
Smith had produced limited‑edition prints with hundreds of artists but had never managed a commercial gallery or negotiated with museums. Nonetheless, she felt a kinship with Dorland and Deutsch, who had secured a ground‑floor storefront on Allen Street and needed help programming it.
Choosing a name was the first hurdle. “We wanted something expansive and open‑ended,” Smith told Hyperallergic. “We felt Magenta Plains represented a place, but we didn’t know what that place was that we were building yet.”
Ten years later, Magenta Plains has outgrown its original location. The gallery now occupies a 4,500‑square‑foot space at 149 Canal Street, where it continues to present groundbreaking, technology‑influenced installations, sculptures and paintings.
The anniversary exhibition showcases selections from the past decade, underscoring how the gallery has helped define what the Downtown contemporary art scene can offer the world.
Visitors can experience the bold, unexpected works that have become the hallmark of Magenta Plains, a testament to the vision that began with a simple, open‑ended name.
