I really like the idea of ‘bedroom galleries’. I read an article about it here, and I kind of want my own, although I’m not sure how my housemates would feel about it. But, wouldn’t it be great? None of the pretension sometimes involved with traditional gallery spaces, a revolving cast of beautiful things for your home and lots of people over for cups of tea.
Mr. Gartenfeld and Ms. Marshall, both of whom have day jobs in the art world (he’s the online editor at Interview and Art in America; she’s the assistant curator at the Swiss Institute), are part of a new wave of gallerists who for a grab-bag of reasons — economic, philosophical and purely pragmatic — are turning their homes into art galleries.
Some are creating roving galleries, this year’s version of the “Happening” for the post-grad set, or one-night events in other people’s homes, like the Apartment Show or Parlour, which are put together by young artists or curators, and romp from living room to living room and neighborhood to neighborhood like punk bands “touring” suburban basements.
Even at the high end, established dealers like the glamorous Palm Beach, Fla., gallerist Sarah Gavlak are opening their homes: through Dec. 19, Ms. Gavlak’s one-bedroom pied-à-terre, in a prim ’60s white brick building on 57th Street, is given over to the paintings of Christopher Milne, an artist who creates stylized images inspired by women’s magazines of the “Mad Men” era.
Like 17th-century salonistes, home gallerists use the intimacy of their homes — or other people’s — to incite discussion and forge a deeper connection to the art.