After 18 years, New York’s Murray Guy has announced it will shut its doors. The Chelsea gallery is hosting one final exhibition, featuring artists with whom they have worked over the years, which will open on January 10.
The public announcement, made on Thursday via a message posted on the gallery’s Facebook page, came as a shock to many in the art world:
Murray Guy’s current roster includes renowned artists like Matthew Buckingham, Moyra Davey, Alejandro Cesarco, Lucy Skaer, Rosalind Nashashibi, Barbara Probst, and Sergei Tcherepnin.
The gallery, located on the second floor of 453 West 17th Street, on the edge of New York’s Chelsea art district, was founded in 1999 by Margaret Murray and the photographer Janice Guy.
As early as 2014, artnet News asked, “Are Mid-Size Galleries Disappearing, and Who’s to Blame?” This latest closure indicates that the new year won’t spell the end of the trend of mainstay mid-level New York galleries closing, whether for rising rent prices or, as Stefan Simchowitz put it, “a systematic failure” in the market.
Proof that something is afoot comes in the number of galleries closing their doors in the last couple of years. In 2016, Laurel Gitlen Gallery closed after eight years downtown; Team Gallery closed its Wooster Street space after rent doubled in March; Lisa Cooley closed her Lower East Side gallery in August after eight years; and Mike Weiss Gallery closed in October due to construction of luxury condos on 24th street.
Murray Guy’s 18-year tenure ending comes as an especially hard blow, but the duo wrote that they will soon be announcing future plans, and that they “will be continuing to work with the artists on current and upcoming exhibitions.”