AIR Gallery

A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence) Is the first all female artists cooperative gallery in the United States. It was founded in 1972 with the objective of providing a professional and permanent exhibition space for women artists during a time in which the works shown at commercial galleries in New York City were almost exclusively by male artists. A.I.R. is a not-for-profit, self-underwritten arts organization in which the New York artist members serve as the board of directors. The gallery was originally located in SoHo at 97 Wooster Street, and was located on 111 Front Street in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn until 2015. In May 2015, A.I.R. Gallery moved to its current location at 155 Plymouth St, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

A.I.R. is a non-profit organization that aims to show the diversity and artistic talent of women, to teach, to challenge stereotypes of female artists, and to subvert the historically male-dominated commercial gallery scene, with the overall hope to serve as an example for other artists who wish to realize their own art cooperative endeavors.

Barbara Zucker and Susan Williams, two artists and friends, confronted the challenges of finding a dealer and decided to look for other women artists to start a co-op. Feminism at that time had barely penetrated the New York Art scene, a 1970 Whitney Museum protest drew attention to the less than 5 percent female representation. Directed by activist art critic Lucy Lippard, the two, together with Dotty Attie and Mary Grigoriadis, visited 55 studios to select and invite women artists to form a co-op.

At a first meeting on March 17, 1972 in William’s loft, women artists met, among them Maude Boltz, Nancy Spero, Louise Bourgeois, Howardena Pindell, Ree Morton, Harmony Hammond, Cynthia Carlson. In the end, there was a highly eclectic mix of 20 artists (some of the approved declined joining the group, nervous of being in an all-female gallery). For the artists themselves, their work and exhibition goals was all about quality. Still, having to deal with feminist politics was in the center, which meant fighting prejudices and fears that the showings would be considered second-rate. After the opening, the story goes, one man said grudgingly, “Okay you did it; you found 20 good women artists. But that’s it.”

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