Artist Anthony Filipelli converted a storefront at 657 Meeker Avenue in Greenpoint into a namesake exhibition space planned around the scale of his own sculpture.
The venue was prepared to show work made from 2014 onward, including new pieces developed after Filipelli moved to New York in 2022.
A gallery chosen for one tall sculpture
An 18-foot work intended for the opening played a decisive role in selecting the building. The storefront’s 18.5-foot ceiling offered enough height for a sculpture that had originally been conceived for Filipelli’s graduate exhibition.
Complications had prevented that first version from being completed. For his thesis show, he instead produced the 20-foot sculpture A Rustic Cross Was Pinnacled Upon the Makeshift Altar, presented at the IceBox Project Space in Philadelphia in 2021.
That work combined a fibreglass twin stepladder, stainless-steel gazing balls, Air Jordan shoes, exercise weights, gravel, plaster, melamine and aluminium. The material list reflected Filipelli’s interest in joining everyday objects through an exaggerated vertical structure.
A practice moving between cities
Originally from Florida, Filipelli studied photography in California and later completed a master’s degree in fine art in Philadelphia. After his undergraduate studies, he had operated a storefront studio in Los Angeles.
The Greenpoint space followed a similar model, combining personal studio history with public presentation. Rather than waiting for representation by an established gallery, the artist created a venue in which the architecture could respond directly to his work.
The opening exhibition was intended to introduce both the large new sculpture and a selection tracing several years of practice. The project showed how an artist-run space can emerge from the practical demands of making, especially when conventional galleries cannot accommodate the scale or installation needs of a work.