The Gallery Director of Old New York

Brooklyn remains a microcosm of all 5 boroughs of New York. Manhattan is known for luxury and the prestige of the city with the Chelsea galleries, 5 star restaurants, and world class museums. Brooklyn on the other hand seems to represent the soul and essence of the city through the gritty streets, aged-industrial architecture, and reputation for being a hub for emerging talents. As a result, sometimes Brooklyn is referred to as ‘Old New York’. 

Shawn James is the Gallery Director of the Greenpoint Gallery in Brooklyn, a venue which specializes in featuring emerging artists. Some of the artists he has featured over the years have gone on to become major established artists or become individuals with notable prestige, such as Charlotte Segal, Landon Carter, and Liz Slome. His gallery is a massive facility located in a rustic late 19th century building which once operated as a creamery. Inside the sprawling complex, visitors will find 13,000 sq. ft. of space containing three floors, two 2500 sq. ft. galleries, a large communal studio space, 9 private studios, two music stages, and a sound studio capable of recording live performances. As a result, his facility can be described as quite unique in the context of New York in both massive size and containing various functions. 

The most notable celebrities at Shawn’s gallery have usually been his wolves and wolf-hybrid dogs. Recently his dog Blueberry passed away and her memorial posting on Instagram is one of the most liked posts in the history of the Greenpoint Galleries’ social media account. Sky, a massive wolf, passed away almost a decade ago but was notably so large he would almost fill up the entire corridor in a stairwell with his massive body. 

Greenpoint Gallery was founded in 2003 as a nonprofit. Despite the fact Shawn James’ gallery gives immense opportunities to struggling emerging artists and the notion his gallery does considerable charity work for children in the city and other charitable endeavors, the Greenpoint Gallery has been unable to obtain any grants in its entire history as an operating gallery. Despite being a registered nonprofit over the past couple of decades as well as genuinely serving the community, the gallery has faced challenges ranging from suffering from a devastating fire a few years ago to struggling to pay for their massive energy bills in order to operate their huge facility. The Greenpoint Gallery relies on the generosity of a few private donors and event rentals but still lives on a month to month timeline of uncertainty. Shawn James even once received a letter from a grant-giving organization postmarked on Christmas Eve which denied his request for a grant with the description of distributing grants to organizations “more worthy” than his. As a result, he was highly offended by the letter considering the notable amount of charitable endeavors he has executed over the past two and a half decades. 

As a practicing artist and musician himself, Shawn obtained the idea to open up the gallery after a career as a bartender and nightclub co-owner. He had a dream one night of God presenting himself in the form of comedian George Carlin. When Shawn asked God why he was presenting himself in the form George Carlin, God answered in the case because Shawn would not be able to handle the visual substance of God’s true form. God then revealed his true form for a few seconds, Shawn became so overwhelmed, he begged God to return to the form of George Carlin. So George asked Shawn in the dream “what do you want to do?”, Shawn replied “to help others” and then George asked “what do you like?”, Shawn again replied “art and music”. George Carlin then proceeded to clap his hands together and the resulting vision ended up being the idea of starting a nonprofit gallery for emerging artists.

Over the years, many entrepreneurs and artists have tried to directly imitate Shawn’s success with a nonprofit gallery in Brooklyn, only to find themselves unable to sustain the massive costs and logistics of such an undertaking. Shawn describes New York as a city which notably represents ‘edginess’ and the avant-garde, he states being in New York is “so hard to survive” and the city “rejects and crushes you like coal and eventually turns you into a diamond. If you can find success in New York, you can make it anywhere”. 

In past years, some collectors of Shawn’s art and patrons of the gallery have helped sustain the survivability of his operation. Most notably, John Perry Barlow, a former songwriter for the Grateful Dead purchased a painting from Shawn for $25,000. 10 years later, Barlow gave the painting back to Shawn telling him to use the fact a celebrity owned the painting to sell the work of art for even more money. To this day, Shawn refuses to sell the painting because he identifies the work as a memento of the crucial advice John Perry Barlow gave him over the years. Shawn attributes his success as a gallery director solely on the financial support and advice of John Perry Barlow.  

As a gallery which specializes as a nonprofit organization conducting charitable work and hosting gallery receptions with multiple live bands playing on two floors of exhibitions and recruiting massive crowds to visit his gallery, the Greenpoint Gallery can be described as a unique experience in the city of New York. Despite the fact the gallery sells hundreds of works of art every year, Shawn James takes no commission because he genuinely wants to support and cares about emerging artists. The Greenpoint Gallery acts as a conduit of expression and opportunity in the city of New York.

https://www.thegreenpointgallery.com