A Minute With David Fierman
Hi! This is a newsletter about artists I like.
I began acquiring art through some friends who worked in galleries. I started small, working on a limited budget for stuff I could afford. As time passed, my collection grew, and it was exciting to watch many of the artists I'd collected go on to bigger shows and critical acclaim. My goal with this newsletter is to make a digestible resource for anyone interested in artists making excellent (and still affordable!) work whom you haven't heard about... yet.
It’s hard not to take notice of all the great stuff David is doing in the art world. When I noticed the great fair he put on in Miami last year and the news of Open Studio, it was time he came on to share a bit more of all this great stuff. Thank you David!
Was there a pivotal moment that made you want to have your own space or was it more a natural progression?
DF: The final impetus for opening my first gallery was a director job interview at a gallery i thought was very cool. The first question the owner, whom i hadn't met, asked me was who my parents were. My parents are lovely people but major collectors or socialites they are not. at that point i thought why not try to seize the opportunity ? I had been doing shows in interesting places around the city (a former convent, a historic gay bar) and thought why not formalize it.
Can you talk about your new venture, Open Studio New York City, and how this came to be?
DF: I have recently thrown a lot of my heart into working with artists with disabilities, and all the growth has been organic. I received as a gift from the artist Uman years ago a painting by Nyla Isaac, an artist whose studio is at the Living Museum, an incredible 40+ year studio program at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, the largest state run mental hospital in NYC. Later I put Nyla in a group show and visited the museum and was immediately changed for the better, shown a world of pure art making and the impact art can have on individuals' lives, and the power of free expression. After that I began to work closely with the director of the Living Museum to bring their art into the public eye. As a result of that I decided to start the Open Invitational, the first fair for artists with disabilities and the studios that support them, in Miami / Design District in 2024. It was a big success and also felt amazing to use my platform in the contemporary art world to lift up other voices. As a result of that I decided to open Open Studio wtih a partner, Rachel Cohen of Shelter gallery, to see how we could grow what we did at the fair in a more permanent way. My work is all about community because frankly we are stronger in numbers, both culturally and financially, so Open Studio has grown out of that ethos. The gallery will live at 127 Henry Street, the space where FIERMAN lived from 2016-2022 (previously inhabited by Bureau and Chapter NY) . Between 2022-2025 the space was inhabited by DIANA NEW YORK, an international cooperative gallery comprised of myself, Carbon 12 from Dubai, and Macaulay Fine Art from Vancouver. I organized DIANA because I wanted to hold onto the storefront when I moved FIERMAN, and the timing of Diana evolving from a permanent brick and mortar to a roving project concurred perfectly with the decision to launch Open Studio. I have learned from the DIANA project, in which many international artists had their first NY solo shows, that solo shows in New York still mean something ! So I would like to keep bestowing that 'first new york solo show' mantle on a new population of artists who haven't had enough exposure.
How do you balance/compartmentalize this new venture with your current gallery? Is there some collaboration ? Or do you keep separate?
DF: Everything bleeds into everything else, since I'm only one person running FIERMAN and following my passions in the directions they lead me. My programming has always been a bit about overlooked artists, queer folks and older folks and indigenous artists, so the work with artists with disabilities feels part of a larger process of inclusion and an attempt at revising the canon. My second show at the gallery was Jimmy Wright's sex club drawings from the 1970s, which the Whitney bought, so I have always followed my interests both human and artistic to create what FIERMAN is. A good gallery is an extension of an individual, a wide ranging constellation of artistic practices that hinge on sometimes unknown connections. Open Studio is part of the FIERMAN universe, or perhaps FIERMAN will become part of the Open Universe, but all is connected .
What are your summer plans?
DF: I am devoting my summer programming wise to Open Studio. (this answers this and the next question). We will open on July 10 with a solo show by John Tursi, one of the legends of the Living Museum, a polymath artist in his 60s from Queens who I see as a contemporary to artists like Carroll Dunham and Mike Kelley. Since Open Studio and FIERMAN are around the corner from each other, we will have a concurrent group show of artists we are looking at, excited about, and planning to show in greater presentations, artists like William Scott, whose work I discovered through Matthew Higgs/ Creative Growth 20 years ago, to young artists like Billy Bolds, an abstract painter from Philadelphia who works at the Center for Creative Works. I also do art consulting for a major hospital network and in July will be installing a 380 work collection in a new hospital center in Westchester. I have included many of the artists wtih disabilities we are working with at Open Studio and the fair in the hospital collection, so there is a lot of cross over as you can see. I will also spend 2 weeks in Cherry Grove because to me heaven is a beach town with no cars and a lot of gay New Yorkers.
Who should we have on next?
DF: Jackie Klempay from Situations and Benjamin Tischer from New Discretions - both great dealers with unique programs that are sharing space in Chelsea. I love the model of collaboration and gallery sharing they are doing.
I am also going to offer up some artwork from my personal collection and if interested, reach out.
Kent O’Connor / Work on Paper from 2016 / Custom Framed / 12” x 16” / $1,800
