The American Academy of Arts and Letters, a century-old honor society, sits like a fortress in Upper Manhattan. Housed in a neo-Italian Renaissance complex, it rarely opened its sculpted bronze doors to the general public. Over the years, honorees as varied as Mark Twain, Frank Lloyd Wright, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joan Didion, Robert Caro, Duke Ellington and Stephen Sondheim passed through them.
But everyone else? Not so much.
That is about to change. The doors are being flung open to the general public and the magnificent Beaux-Arts interior — the buildings were designed by McKim, Mead & White and Cass Gilbert, architects of some of New York City’s most famous landmarks — is being earmarked as a venue for visual and performing artists, and events that combine the two. It’s as if Manhattan’s downtown contemporary art scene is being lured uptown to Washington Heights and to a setting from the Gilded Age.
“We want to make use of the space that was given to us,” said Cody Upton, executive director of the academy. “This would be for music, for readings, for art, for cross-discipline projects and as a place to see contemporary art. Grand spaces like this don’t exist, and we want to make it available for the public to see and experience it. We are very lucky to have these buildings and feel obligated to use and share them with the wider city.”
The academy is an example of how an underused — and large — space is being reimagined and reinvigorated. For over a century, it has served as the home of an honor society with 300 prominent Americans in four disciplines: art, music, literature and architecture. Every year, the academy gave out awards and financial grants to nonmembers in those disciplines and would occasionally put on exhibitions with limited public hours and little attention.
With dwindling attendance to its events and no real focus to its activities, it had become increasingly inward-looking, Upton said. But, about five years ago, the academy realized that it needed to evolve to stay relevant. And now it is embarking on that endeavor. Academy officials believe they have a lot to offer with over 10,000 square feet of space for galleries spread over three buildings, a 730-seat auditorium with impeccable acoustics and a broad plaza in front for outdoor events.
To that end, the academy in 2022 brought on Jennifer Jaskey, former director and curator of the Artist’s Institute at Hunter College, as chief curator to develop programs that would fill the galleries and work with academy members to build an audience interested in contemporary art. One change is that the academy would be open all year — and free — and that exhibitions would remain in place for months.
“We have a desire to have the public see works of art in a way that gives them dignity,” Jaskey said. “We want to show works that may surprise and delight an audience. We have the opportunity to do something unique here. We’re interested in working with artists working in cross disciplines and not siloing off art from dance from writing. Our goal is to be cutting-edge and experimental — what you associate with downtown New York.”
The academy is off to a fast start with three interdisciplinary shows. One is “Aviary” by Raven Chacon, a Native American composer, performer and artist who has also received a Pulitzer Prize in music (2022) and a MacArthur Fellowship (2023). In a cavernous Beaux-Arts style room where visitors are invited to lie down on soft cushions, Chacon has created a sonic environment of bird calls that echo off the walls. It is in recognition of the fact that the academy is on land once owned by the naturalist John James Audubon and, before that, the Lenape people.
“Aviary” features calls of endangered and extinct birds of the region —either from recordings of bird calls or from sounds that Chacon made from musical instruments he created from discarded materials found in the Hudson Valley. Visitors lie in silence as the sound of birds fills the space.
A second exhibition, spread over four galleries, featured more than 50 works from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s by Christine Kozlov, one of the pioneers of the conceptual art movement. A third exhibit, “Kosmic Music,” showed the work of Wadada Leo Smith, a member of the academy and an acclaimed musician and artist. Smith not only composes pieces, often based on a musical language he calls Ankhrasmation, but also translates that language into bright abstract art — art-scores — that are visual representations of his music.
Next up will be a spring solo show for the photographer and filmmaker Elle Pérez, who grew up in the Bronx and whose work explores gender identity, and another for the Los Angeles-based mixed-media artist Teresa Baker, a Native American who combines artificial and natural materials to create textiles and other visual art.
In October, the academy hosted the premiere of a four-hour performance by the choreographer Jonathan González, an improvisational ghostlike dance that moved between spaces in the buildings.
“It is important for us to change and move into the present, especially for younger artists,” said Joan Jonas, an academy member and multidisciplinary artist whose work was featured this year in a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.
“These are all interesting artists who now have another place to show and engage an audience here,” said Jonas, whose work is also in the Guggenheim and Tate Modern.
“You don’t always want to be centered downtown, she said. “It’s important to get the word out about this place that the spaces are amazing. It’s not rocket science. People will go everywhere.”
One of the big challenges facing the academy is its location: West 155th Street and Broadway in the middle of a blue-collar neighborhood and far from most of Manhattan’s museums. Even though it is only about 20 blocks north of Columbia University’s new Manhattanville campus, it is not well known on the New York culture scene. The academy is part of a larger eight-building complex, Audubon Terrace, that was developed in the early 1900s by Archer M. Huntington, a philanthropist and scholar.
Huntington’s idea was to create a cultural center, one of the first in the country. He turned land once owned by the Audubon family, into a complex of museums: the Hispanic Society of America, the National Museum of the American Indian, the American Geographical Society and the American Numismatic Society, along with the academy. But as the fortunes of the surrounding neighborhood declined in the 1980s and 1990s, most of the museums decamped to other locations, leaving the Hispanic Society and the academy as the remnants of a complex that looked increasingly deserted and forlorn.
In 2005, the academy acquired the space next door that once housed the Numismatic Society. But what to do with it? The academy carried out several strategic studies and developed a master plan to renovate many of the buildings, including perhaps turning some of that newly acquired space into studios for working artists.
Yet with new space comes upkeep.
“These are all buildings with maintenance issues,” Upton said. For instance, the academy is in the midst of installing air-conditioning in its auditorium so it can be comfortably used for performances, conferences and other events. At the moment, the auditorium is limited to serving as a recording studio for classical musicians.
The academy is supported by a $100 million endowment set up by Huntington in the 1930s, along with other contributions over the years. It has a capital goal of $30 million to upgrade its three buildings, Upton said — largely infrastructure work that is hidden behind walls. To date, he said, about $15 million has been raised and the academy is working on plans to raise the rest. It has an annual operating budget of just under $5 million.
One unusual feature of the academy’s finances is a collection of 44 Childe Hassam paintings, left to the academy by the American Impressionist painter. The Hassam bequest allows the academy to sell the paintings, as needed, to fund its operations. Several Hassam paintings are on the walls of Upton’s office.
If there are any models for the academy, Jaskey cites New York venues such as MoMA PS 1, the Kitchen and Artists Space, all of which showcase emerging artists and are in what was thought of as offbeat locations.
Jay Sanders, executive director and chief curator of Artists Space, a nonprofit in Lower Manhattan, thinks the academy can pull it off.
“They seem to be off to a good start,” Sanders said. “New York has a real captive audience for experimental art, and people are used to going anywhere. The shows were beautiful and nicely installed. And the trek up there has a positive aspect. It takes you into a different head space.”
On a warm night earlier this month, Farah Mosley, a landscape architect, was attending the opening reception with her friend Karin Kiontke. “This space is so incredible and has so much history,” Mosley said. “It’s where the best of America gets inducted for their craft, and I live right here.”
Kiontke added that this was her first visit to Audubon Terrace. “It’s nice to see the arts,” she said. “And I enjoyed the bird calls. That was cool.”
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