Governors Island and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council have opened a new gallery space on the island, and it has to have the most gorgeous views of any gallery in the city (and this coming from the new gallery district!!). LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island is contained in the old ammo warehouse just to the right as you get off the ferry at Soissons Landing — a beautiful old building two-story cement building. There are several exhibition spaces as well as free rehearsal and studio space for a rotating group of 20+ artists with 17 permanent artist-in-residence positions. And, in the ambition department, it is adding to the list of reasons that the island should stay open year-round. (yes)

I just love how scrappy the projects on Governors Island are allowed to be; they don’t try to bury their conversions in granite or stainless. The exposed beams and ducts are there for all to see, in peaks above the new white boxes of the galleries. The ground floor will have a nod to the times: a coffee bar offering Coperaco coffee, for those who follow beans closely, Advan tea and oat milk.

There are three shows up right now, which will be open till the entire island closes on Oct. 31. Totally worth a trip. There’s exhibitions by Moroccan multi-media artist Yto Barrada (who also has a show up at Pace) with guest artist Bettina (a New Yorker who, I must note, lives in the Chelsea Hotel); New York environmental artist Michael Wang; and The Take Care Series, a fall public program that reframes art curation as a mindful practice stemming from the concept of care. Wang is below, spritzing the plants in his show titled Extinct in New York. His four greenhouses contain a selection of plant, lichen and algae species known historically from the natural environments of New York City, but which no longer grow wild in any of the city’s five boroughs. (Those beautiful photos are his as well.)

LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island
www.lmcc.net
Thursday through Sunday through Oct. 31, 12 – 5p
Coperaco Café: Wednesday through Sunday, 9a – 5p