Volume 2, Number 12 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | December 21 - 27, 2007

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"Support businesses and organizations that support Chelsea Now"

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By Ron Sklar

The Chelsea Art Museum’s youth association, lovingly referred to by its go-getting members as YA, strives to be more than just a group of yuppie networkers exchanging business cards and pretending to be interested in art.

The museum, located at 556 West 22nd Street, is a non-profit island set in a sea of commercial museums, yet its dedicated young members have grand dreams for its future that do not necessarily concern money.

“The goal of the YA is to create a community within the larger Chelsea community,” says Carrie Elston, Vice Chair of the Young Associates. “We really try to differentiate ourselves from other museum groups, where the entry fee is often in the thousands of dollars, and it really excludes people who actually work in the art industry. We want our program to be acceptable to artists. We even give discounts to artists and students. We really want it to be a community where people can come together to learn about art and learn about collecting art.”

The museum also prides itself on its hip edge and its insistence on a lack of intimidation, so not to scare away potential members.

“The main difference between the Young Associates and other young members groups is that the YA is really much more intimate,” says co-chair James Tunick. “These other groups are about seeing and being seen. At our events, people are actually, actively learning. It’s about education and meeting other artists and curators. We offer studio visits where you are literally face to face with the artists, in one-on-one dialogue that just isn’t possible with a lot of these other groups due to their sheer size.”

Vanguard artists such as Tom Sachs and Courtney Smith have all opened up — both their art and themselves — to the YA, leaving everyone a bit more enriched and appreciative after their close encounter.

“Everybody who comes has a general interest in talking about art, seeing art, being involved with art,” says co-chair Henry Tibensky. “We’re all not artists, so we’re all not trained professionally in the arts, but it’s something we appreciate and that we can enjoy. The social aspect is something that goes along with that.”

The social aspect, by the way, is readily apparent. On the agenda for January 26th is a major in-house party that will encompass all three floor of the museum, including a DJ, performance art, video installations and their first major corporate sponsor, Absolut. The goal is to attract new members, and already the expected attendance is 500.

“I think as the group grows, we will get more and more interesting members,” says Till Felrath, Museum Director. “And more and more, suggestions for new events, studio visits and connections to the artists are sparked by the members.”

Dorthea Keeser, President and Founder of the Chelsea Art Museum, says the YA has been helpful to the development of this already inclusive institution. “We go to the schools [and invite them to the museum]. We go to the other galleries and we invite the other galleries. We are not selling art. We are a nice meeting point. We reach out.”

“We really want to create a young, vibrant community that is interested in the arts,” Felrath adds. “Our strategic goal over the next couple of years is to really be regarded as a community museum. I live in Chelsea myself. I want people in Chelsea to want this museum, to use this museum as their cultural gathering place. I would love people to join and really make this a neighborhood museum. The membership price [$100 a year, and $150 for a dual membership] is very low compared to the Guggenheim and other organizations. We deliberately chose to have it that way so that it is affordable for people. It’s more of a community outreach than a big money maker.”

YA member Carolyn Pressly, an interior design student at Parsons, has some experience with other art museum groups in the city, but she has a special fondness for the YA.

“I’ve also been a member of an older, more established museum Uptown that focuses on eighteenth-century European art and I’ve been doing that for some time,” she says. “It’s involving, but at the same time, it’s not as accessible regarding the actual arts process as the Young Associates provides. I love that they concentrate more on contemporary art. It’s really a diverse, successful group of young professionals who are interested in art and who also get to discuss the process of it. Unlike the other museum, here you have the opportunity to actually go to a reception with the artist, who explains how the piece was created and the concept behind it, what they are inspired by. I find that level of accessibility really stimulating. And I love that the YA can give that to its members.”