Cult-Fave Art Space Blank Forms Is Getting a New Home in SoHo
Since 2016, renowned nonprofit art space Blank Forms has lain hidden away in a residential Brooklyn building. But, come fall, the venue will launch into its second decade with a move to Manhattan.
“Blank Forms really started out from nothing,” founder Lawrence Kumpf told me at his organization’s current home, split between a third-floor gallery and a first-floor concert space.
Before launching Blank Forms, he’d spent eight years at Issue Project Room, another Brooklyn-based performance center that Suzanne Fiol founded in 2003. “A lot of the ideas came out of the limitations of that space,” Kumpf said. Rather than simply hosting one-off gigs, he wanted to foster long-term relationships with boundary-pushing artists, adopting a gallery model that most nonprofits eschew.
Since then, Blank Forms has produced 65 books, staged over 300 public programs, and organized 20 exhibitions both at home and abroad with hundreds of artists—from stars like Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon to lesser-known legends like interdisciplinary duo Don and Moki Cherry, whose first retrospective in 2021 sparked an overdue sensation.
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Charles Curtis performing at Blank Forms’s new SoHo space, pre-renovation. Photo: courtesy of Blank Forms.
Kumpf started considering Blank Forms’s move about two and a half years ago. At 8,000 square-feet, the nonprofit’s future digs on the sixth floor of 151 Lafayette Street will be more than quadruple the size of their current spot, offering much-needed room for fellowship, as well as the artist archives Blank Forms has amassed.
“I’m working with so many artists that other people don’t work with,” Kumpf said. “When I’m making books or making exhibitions and pulling all these boxes out from closets and under their bed or somebody’s parents’ house, the idea was always ‘we’re getting all this material; let’s not just make an exhibition.’” Instead, they organize everything for future study.
In addition to these archives, Blank Forms’s forthcoming location will house an expanded bookstore, enhanced performance area featuring Onken speakers, and a cafe where guests can chill before events (so there’s not a mad dash for the elevator ride at showtime.)
Although Brooklyn has baked itself into Blank Forms’s DNA, Kumpf has struggled seducing visitors to its shows between opening and closing receptions. He figures SoHo will draw more foot traffic, at similar rental rates to the ones Clinton Hill now commands.
A rendering of the south side of Blank Forms’s future home. Photo: courtesy of Blank Forms.
Finding a new abode, though, meant finding a landlord—and neighbors—who aren’t afraid of a little noise. “This space came about through a couple of our friends that were just getting into the building,” Kumpf said, including non-profit galleries times and Carriage Trade, plus the arty Montez Press Radio.
After signing a lease in May, Kumpf embarked on a $1 million capital campaign, $600,000 of which has already been funded by Blank Forms’s board and other organizations. The Frankenthaler Foundation, for one, offered a $50,000 environmental grant, which Blank Forms has used to recruit Bench Architecture to transform their new home from an office into an elegant open floor plan.
Of course, renovations often drag. Either way, Blank Forms is hitting Manhattan come October, starting with a celebration of electronic composer Laurie Spiegel and five shows by famed Japanese singer Keiji Haino—all offering the same intimacy that Blank Forms is known for. Perhaps New York still has another Loft Generation in store.