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Renowned art collector Adam Lindemann has opened the doors to his Upper East Side mansion for a limited-run exhibit. Blending African culture with contemporary abstract art, the exhibition displays five Urhobo structures from Southern Nigeria dating from the mid-19th to early 20th century.
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The building, located at 77 East 77th Street (between Park and Madison avenues), is a Beaux-Arts carriage house dating back to 1897.
Lindemann, who most recently made headlines after being arrested over an alleged altercation with another art dealer in Montauk, paid $6.75 million for the property in 2004. He put it on the market just two years later for $14 million, but then delisted it after 26 days, according to an article by the Observer.
Behind the façade is a black concrete structure designed by Ghanaian-British architect Sir David Adjay, in front of a six-story house with Whitney-inspired asymmetrical windows and a glass catwalk. The renovations included the addition of three floors above and two below the original structure, but maintains its original modesty from the street level.
Adjay is best known for his work on the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
Named “Urhobo + Abstraction,” the exhibition opened on Monday May 12, and is available to view from Monday-Thursday from noon to 3 p.m. until June 13. Appointments can be made by request.
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Lindemann, who is also the founder of the Venus Over Manhattan gallery in Soho, organized the exhibition alongside Dr. Bernard de Grunne, a scholar and friend. The premise is an attempt to juxtapose traditional West African carvings and to display them in a contemporary abstract setting, which they hope will evoke “themes of spiritual potency, material innovation, and diasporic continuity”.
Artists on display at the exhibition include El Anatsui, Ed Clark, Melvin Edwards, Sam Gilliam, Norman Lewis, Richard Mayhew, Merton D. Simpson, Alma Thomas, and Jack Whitten.
The exhibition is timed to coincide with the reopening of the Met’s Rockefeller Wing, which has a focus on the art of sub-Saharan Africa, the ancient Americas, and Oceania.
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