The Development Gallery
75 Leonard Street
Between Church and Broadway
TriBeCa, NYC
@TheDevelopmentGallery #TheDevelopmentGallery
The Development Gallery is a cutting edge gallery that brings back the old-school art vibe with a predictive vision. The gallery is lauded for its multi-media exhibitions, dynamic performance artwork, talented musicianship, and special guests which have run the gamut from the underground to public icons. The gallery itself began underground, and now occupies the ground floor at 75 Leonard Street in a historic 4,000 square foot space, with sixteen-foot cast iron Corinthian columns running down the center, located in Tribeca.
Open to the public Monday - Saturday 11-6 pm.
Knock on door upon arrival or follow instructions on door.
current exhibition
Jennifer Elster’s
QUITE A BITE
oN VIEW
75 LEONARD STREET, TRIBECA
Jennifer Elster, native New Yorker and multi-medium artist, presents her latest exhibition, QUITE A BITE, in the 19th-century structure that houses The Development Gallery in Tribeca, where everything is part of the show.
Elster infuses her deep sentimentality in her historical assemblages, her piercing perspectives into her text-heavy paintings and sculptures, and her fears and warnings in photographic series. QUITE A BITE includes works that have never been seen before and others that span over three decades of raw, intense, and highly instinctual artistic creation.
Same, We Are, 2023
Elster’s skull and teeth and bite percolate throughout. The artist takes a dissective dive into the construction of her mouth during her current stint with braces.
Quite a bit to ponder at QUITE A BITE show
—The Village Sun, read here
The Chalice from Elster’s childhood crowns the assemblages of treasures.
The Garden of Artifacts
Enter The Garden of Artifacts, the assemblages from Elster’s personal life. A hauntingly beautiful homage to meaningful people in Elster’s life. A chalice from Elster’s childhood crowns the assemblages of treasures “somehow it made it through”, says the artist. Rich with meaning, the intermingling relics create a warm and magical moment in time. Wood cut from her tree, stones collected through time, and roses from momentous occasions. The Birds Are Frolicking on her grandparents-in-law's silver anniversary platter. Bouquets of dried flowers she collected from her grandfather's front lawn the day he died. Chimes, Elster’s signature sound transition between performances, make their way on display as a tribute to their original owner, her recently deceased uncle. An ode to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas includes gifts from the Chief of the Ramapough nation and a pouch from the chance meeting Elster had with a Native American man in the desert when she was in a desperate state of depression. A houndstooth blazer that hangs from a nail in the brick wall worn by David Bowie from Elster's work with him on 1.Outside album. A silver plate given to her by her psychoanalyst who possessed one of Elster’s favorite minds, and a coconut head to remind us of our recent climate issues in Hawaii, also make their debuts.
Treasured Gifts in The Garden of Artifacts.
“Years ago I was in the desert and filmed Terrence Howard and Mouchette Bell for my feature film “Into the Cave”. At the time I had recently miscarried and was in a desperate state of depression. (I had no clue what my hormones were putting me through.) During the trip, I met, and spoke for some time, to a kind groundskeeper who was Native American. After we spoke he sent me this pouch (above) filled with good omens. It was such a kind gesture, with nothing for him to gain. He just felt for me. And I present it because, I was, and will always be moved by his generosity of kindness. The second gift is from my friend Chief Perry of the Ramapough Lenape Nation who is in my film “In the Woods and Elsewhere” and it is a present that marked a full and beautiful circle.”
War Head, 2022 appears to reflect a cosmic scream. The artist’s anguish is reflected in the vivid brushstrokes in military olive and black, painted the first day that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The Wall of Paintings
Upon entering the space, a maniacal collage of paintings orbiting Mad Face is scattered precisely on the sixteen-foot wall of probing mayhem.
Walk further in, through assemblages of warnings and questions prompted by the artist, by means of anything, from paper towels to scraps of paper, to express her desperation to communicate. Plastic concealents cover assemblages which address a range from her close proximity to 9/11 and lead us right to our current world crises.
Mad Face, 2022 Acrylic on canvas 30h x 40w in
Forecast, 2017 Acrylic on canvas 24h x 30w in
Nuclear Warfare, 2017 Acrylic on Canvas 24h x 36w
Dark Forest, 2022 Acrylic on canvas 30h x 24w in
My Take On War, 2023 Acrylic on canvas 24h 36w in
The hanging construction lights pointedly illuminate the art while the duct work makes its own insane pattern on the ceiling. The disarray juxtaposed with the grandeur of the sixteen foot Corinthian columns that run down the center of the space creates a strange journey, unique to itself.
JENNIFER ELSTER
Looking Back, 2016
Self-portrait; Photograph
JENNIFER ELSTER
Looking Forward, 2016
Self-portrait; Photograph
The Self Portraits, entitled Warfare, of Elster in gas mask and suit, dance on the walls like past cautionary messages. The self-portraits create their own pattern of fears that beckon the audience to pay attention to the most dire of circumstances. A gas mask and suit lie in a cot entitled A Graveyard From Tomorrow's Despair. A harrowing reminder of the fragility of our existence and the looming world crises.
A large, barren, brick wall has a construction light hanging over Weathered Woman, a graphite sketch of a woman who appears to have seen too much, hence spent. The portrait is in a gold ornate frame as if a nod to artists of the past, but imply no time left for details.
Text paintings of collective concerns make a comeback with a fiercer residence in their accumulation of both worry and rebellion. Her What’s Really Going On? literally has a new slant.
Fun Future, 2016
Gas mask and suit, sign and label in plexiglass box
The artist invites us in to explore her reminiscence, foresight, and thought provocations which lead us back to ourselves.
Apocalyptic predictions infused with the artists’ obstinate dark optimism, crackle throughout.
Perhaps the overarching question the show poses is “with such beauty in the world, how did we end up here?” with a suggestion of history as that balance.
INQUIRE AtachiAtTheDevelopment.nyc
Opening night program
The opening included a performative tour with songs by Elster.
A special screening of Elster’s short film Nuclear Codes. And a return to her early directorial film excursion In the Woods Pathway, which features Glenn O’Brien, the late Karen Black, Jorgen Leth and others (a prologue to the larger body of unreleased work, the film series, …In the Woods (and Elsewhere)).
Visit here to learn more about the film work.
The paths in In the Woods Pathway were created and directed by Jennifer Elster. Words and handwriting by Elster. Edited by Elster and David Bronson. Digital landscapes by Champagne Valentine and Random nu. Music by Hilmar Orn and David Bronson. Production coordinated by Justin Lin.
Failure Egg, Jack Helfrich, Robert Ruth, and Jamelia MacEwan, debuted their live interactive performance installation, Scurry Scurry. Anthony Haden-Guest performed Waiting for The Bomb and other spoken words.
QUITE A BITE through Spring 2024
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TAKE HEED thru Fall 2023
Jennifer Elster’s TAKE HEED is indeed a magical type art experience of important measure, evoking urgent themes, eerie prescience, and strokes of mania.
A journey into a jungle of construction lights illuminating the artwork and in what feels like a surreal cinematic experience, the exhibition speaks to our complex times with directness; encapsulating both rage and dark humor, while the dates of the artworks reveal the foresight. Paintings that beckon and warn. Art pieces that one must puzzle together to figure. Portraits provoking surreal realizations and desperate fear. The artist probes our current times with critical analysis, offering new insight. The exhibition includes a special installation of the artist’s early work with David Bowie in new iterations.
After entering through towering burgundy curtains, the viewer begins a strange journey. Everything is part of the show.
Elster infuses her creative energy and deep angst into this cinematic, multi-medium art exhibition.
"Pitch dark clarity. Painfully timely show."
--Anthony Haden Guest, Whitehot Magazine Read
"Multi-dimensional bliss..."
"One feels as if they're stepping outside for the first time after an apocalyptic event"
--Benjamin Schmidt, The Knockturnal Read
VPRCOM Magazine
“Take Heed was a darkly poignant, striking gallery show covering themes of poverty, the environment, the threat of nuclear war, 9/11, fear, and indifference. Even so, this show is much greater but far simpler than its parts.”
“it’s stark ambiance flavored with a tumultuous manic flair.”
“biting tone that largely reflects the wicked inner monologue one may hear and try to avoid.”
“symbols of compassion and unification.”
—Victoria Bruno, VPRCOM Magzine
Read article here
"She feels the wider, macro pain and trauma of the world deeply."
-- Kurt McVey, Whitehot Magazine Read
Virtual tour OF TAKE HEED AND QUITE A BITE coming soon
Past Night of Performances
NIGHT OF PERFORMANCES: W H A T A N I G H T The Take Heed exhibition was sparkling in its Closing, Closing night party with a very special Night of Performances in The Development Gallery. A spectacular blast! So much made these nights of art and performances special, sign up on our YouTube to see more. Performers above in order of photos Chanel Matsunami Govreau, Junyi Liu, Anthony Haden-Guest, Monique Erickson, Mike Handelman, Eimi Tanaka, and Jennifer Elster.
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Collect the Art
Even the Fighters Won’t Want to Fight, 2016
Photograph, self-portrait, triptych
Digital C-Print, mounted
19h x 48w in
Limited Edition
$12,500.00
Charge, 2015
Don’t FREEZE Don’t GET STUCK Series
Photograph series, self portrait,
Digital C- Print, mounted on Sintra
40h x 39.5w in
Limited Edition
$8,000.00
I’m Not Scared, 2009
Handwritten Word Series
Digital C-Print, mounted
50.75h x 44.50w in
Limited Edition
$7,500.00
Original Art Pins
$10.00
Sequence No. 5 T-Shirt
$90.00
Original Art Magnets
$10.00
“ ‘Harrow Head,’ a work Elster painted last year, features an anxious face trailed by an inky, roiling cloud that looks a bit like a caterpillar … The exhibit is essentially a distillation of Elster’s reactions living through the dual realities of the pandemic and Trump.”
-- Lincoln Anderson, The Village Sun Read
Visit The Development Gallery limited editions: available here.
Details below.
“Crystalizing the flurry of cultural norms that have been introduced in the past two years, Take Heed is the first honest retrospective of work that was created or heavily reconsidered under the shadow of an on-going global pandemic and an affronting war.”
— Benjamin Schmidt, The Knockturnal Read
“Sound and vision at ‘Take Heed’ closing event”
— Lincoln Anderson, The Village Sun Read
“Powerful, Eerie, beautiful, with a sly sense of humor”
— Dwyer, Westview News Read
March 16th Reception
The March 16th reception of Take Heed was an evening of dynamic performances that played into the timeline of the art exhibited; each artifact’s date pieces together a reeling story of awareness, defiance, and insight of and about our times. The closing night reception was a night of unusual warmth and spontaneity that was just as unexpected as the space and exhibition itself. Special words and music by Jennifer Elster, Chief Dwaine Perry of the Ramapough Lenape Tribe, Heide Hatry and Jane LeCroy, Mike Handelman, and Nargiz Aliyarova.
" Serrated rage."
--Tyler Nesler, Interlocutor Magazine Read
“Artist Jennifer Elster Revolutionizes Mixed Media to a New Platform”
Untitled, 2021. Acrylic on paper mounted on canvas 48’ x 36''
The Artist Statement
A sinking despair.
It is with the force of wisdom
and a relentless, dissecting of what is,
that I bring forth Take Heed.
Mounted on experience
and sharp and proven, reliable intuition,
I beckon the patron to pay attention
…but only if they could see!
Yet I hope on, like the chances a child gives a parent who constantly disappoints.
“They will”, I say to myself, but not aloud, and still unsure.
A wicked lashing out to an asleep and/or deadened audience,
or all love
to those who know
true concern.
And now War and Climate Disaster and Pandemics do an interwoven dance in the intake of our global, daily lives.
But will we respond?
It is with no assistance to our world crisis that the global majority have a stubborn resistance to the truth.
I think it’s good to not be callous during these times,
which are only worsening.
Instead we need to come together, with compassion for one another,
to try and help resolve some of the pressing, critical issues of our time.
The urgency of now.
Take Heed.
Read more about the exhibition below.
Click here to read article
Photobook Mag:
How does your upbringing affect your work?
It’s who I am. At a young age, I began creating in all mediums, and I’ve never stopped. I was very sensitive and intuitive, never trained. I was also always on the lookout for evil, and I have carried that astute detection into adulthood. I am worried for us all.
Who are your biggest artistic influences?
My thoughts are a great inspiration to me. And my feelings. The people I love deeply inspire me. Regarding artists, Bob Dylan has been an important influence on me since childhood. My dad played Dylan as a way of communicating with me during hard times. I also had a very powerful moment with Picasso’s Guernica. And the world inspires me.
Could you tell us about your favorite artistic medium to work in?
Writing. It's the most accurate. I've written obsessively since a child. I hope I will go out that way too.
Where do you find inspiration?
From within and my life. And I am, of course, triggered by the injustices in the world. I don't look for inspiration per se.
When is your favorite time of day to create?
I love the early morning. #Coffee. Floating. Thinking. Then…
Describe how art is important to society?
Art gets to be important to society when the people who have been given the keys for amplification pay attention to what is valuable. Art relieves pain, and when it does its job, it inspires you and opens your mind.
What motivates you to create?
My feelings. I’m an intense person, and it’s my outlet. It’s how I cope and how I have fun.”
“Pitchdark clarity”
“The Development Gallery is Elster’s gallery and Take Heed is her painfully timely show.”
“Take Heed, an unusual show of work by Jennifer Elster, occupies The Development Gallery, a sizeable street level space at 75 Leonard, which exemplifies the post-industrial chic of the Cast Iron District, its slender columns with Corinthian capitals reaching up to fat pipes swaddled in silver paper on the perforated ceiling. Elster’s art is hung or pasted on the brick walls, stands upon plinths, and is laid flat on the floor and it is variegated, including brushy black abstractions, pieces in which the brushwork has been morphed into a sign, such as a question mark, and pieces in which real life materials have been embedded.
Truculent or fearful signage crackles throughout.”
“They watched a storm of rubble falling from the sky.”
— Anthony Haden Guest, Whitehot Magazine. Visit here to read full article
“As a teenager in a very dangerous neighbourhood you had to watch out or you would get ... damaged,” (says the artist)
“I saw the Towers go down, I saw people jumping out. I saw everything. Our electricity and plumbing and everything went down. I said out loud it’s a terrorist attack. I don’ t think I ever said the word terrorist before. I never thought about terrorists, nothing. And I said Goodbye to my life. “
It changes the way that you see. It exacerbated my worries about how bad things could get in the world. Living through it like that frames and shapes the way you see the present and the future from that moment on. These things can happen.”
People aren’t great at adapting to change. They freak out, they get scared, and just want to go back go to their normal lives, But it's much more powerful to be fluid. Things change. Things happen, things continue to happen. Just be fluid with it."
—Jennifer Elster, artist
For his album, 1. Outside, David wanted to recreate Rudolf Schwarzkogler’s 2 Aktion (1965) so we did, and here we are.
Come by The Development Gallery to see Ramona, who is another character that had back story, but what I brought forth was so me. Savage. The other characters were more defined in practical measures ie. Store Owner. Baby Grace too. Yeah Ramona and Baby Grace. Though I love them all.
And how fun to have worked on the artwork for his conceptual art album that plays ever strong today.
Take Heed art exhibition
#TheDevelopmentGallery
If you’d like to become a client of my artwork you can request a catalog of my limited edition works that are available.
1. Outside album was photographed by the wonderful John Scarisbrick who was chosen by Bowie for the unique energy that he brought (and brings) to his photographs.
In celebration of Bowie’s born day, the original photograph of Ramona, taken by John, is in one of the windows of the gallery, between the Corinthium columns, and should not be missed! And then come inside for more.
David Bowie Installation
And with comedy and horror, pathos and style, she weaves in momentos from her earlier life and career, including an installation and artifacts from her avant garde styling work with David Bowie and photographer John Scarisbrick. The installation has been described as “multi dimensional bliss” and ‘serrated rage”.
In a corner, a large-scale homage to David Bowie. Elster presents an installation piece that incorporates her styling work in a photo shoot on Bowie from 1995 for his 1. Outside album. The artist expanded on this work numerous times, including in 2020 for the 25th anniversary of the shoot’s execution, where she painted on the same print in recurring black paint, applied with considered recklessness. In a “tribute to the awesomeness of the whole situation,” Elster here has the cutout piece and bullet belt that was used in the original shoot, and then she built Bowie’s grinning, lipsticked, Codpieced, androgynous photographic specter into a cut web. “I met Bowie as I was referred by the Swedish photographer John Scarisbrick who took the original photograph for 1. Outside,” Elster recalls. “Bowie and I went very deep. I wanted to pay tribute and incorporate but not overwhelm the show. I do like to have my remnants around. I had to go into my hoard to find them.”
“Take a deep dive into the mind of one of New York’s most intriguing underground artists. People have been enthralled by both the exhibition and the David Bowie installation. With artifacts from the character of Ramona on display including the original Serrated Piece he wore and the Bullet Belt.”
—David Bowie News
Read full article here
Jennifer Elster Taps Into Visceral Memory With New Show at The Development Gallery
“Jennifer Elster has always been a deeply reactionary artist. Whether it is rebutting (or accepting) seismic shifts in the culture or simply responding to a question posed or a happening taking place, her multi-modal replies are always candid and fizzling with raw, determined energy.
Elster has always consumed with world as anyone else does- receiving and interpreting on an on-going basis. But rather than letting things happen to her passively, she posits and responds urgently and instinctually. Stepping into the Take Heed show, now on view at The Development Gallery in Tribeca, one feels as if they’re stepping outside for the first time after an apocalyptic event.
Crystalizing the flurry of cultural norms that have been introduced in the past two years, Take Heed is the first honest retrospective of work that was created or heavily reconsidered under the shadow of an on-going global pandemic and an affronting war.
Taking shape amid the soaring columns and roiled tin roof and wood of the Tribeca space, the show feels like a shell of what once was and a space being repopulated once more. The dust has settled but hasn’t yet been swept away. A mount of KN95 masks, a signature element of the deepest valley of the COVID-19 pandemic, are positioned on a pedestal, taking on the performance of a future relic. In fact, preservation seems particularly important to Elster in this show, with many works being encased in plexiglas or wood.
A series of large-scale self-portraits, originally executed in 2016, featured Elster in military fatigues and gas masks. The works, faraway and innocuous at the time of their execution, are revisited within the collective gasp and gaze of an egregious war taking place in Ukraine. Have no doubt, conflict rages globally. But distance can breed unfounded comfort.
Elster’s instinctual quips, done in chiseled marker, are not flailing in conspiracy, but are bright-red warning lights. “Warhead” (2022) is one of the most delicate and thought-provoking pieces the artist has completed in recent memory, adding to an ongoing series of “head” works that address, in the most abstract way, the awe-inspiring dynamism of the human condition.
Unlike previous shows, Elster is no longer angry. She’s done defending herself. Now she is a communicator. Her prophesies have come true and she’s been prepared for a long while. Now she invites the broader world to involve themselves. Of course, there is humor. There is realism. Elster remains as buoyant as ever, motivated by- believe it or not- absolute optimism.
Viewers will relish in the opportunity to revisit one of Elster’s most remarkable achievements: the styling of the late David Bowie. In a new installation, the image, which is celebrated for its deeply collaborative and improvised instant, enters into a new territory of multi-dimensional bliss by way of cut web around the enlarged image. “Bowie and I went very deep. I wanted to pay tribute and incorporate but not overwhelm the show.”
— Benjamin Schmidt, The Knocturnal Visit here to read full article
“Serrated rage”
“Take Heed is a more dire, and to me personally, worn out version of pay attention --with punctuation. I think the exhibition cries out for an audience to hear, to pay attention, and yet the exhibition is a strange and somehow optimistic excursion. Cinematic too.
I know what it is to relentlessly try to open people's minds to what they don't want to be conscious of. That is no longer a role I burden myself with. I gave up on that. Now I'm able to enjoy my life, accept where others are at, and engage, and that in itself is liberating. This exhibit meets the person where they are at and takes them to different places. It inspires revelations.
I am meticulous about the placement of each piece. The exhibit is a proper art exhibition, but also feels like an intense mental experience for the participant. I put footprints out for people to follow, but no one does. People just start exploring.
The aesthetic is a perfect disorder for this body of work. I will forever love the image of this exhibition in my mind.” —Jennifer Elster
Some excerpts from The Interlocutor interview. Visit here to read full article
“[…]she feels the wider, macro pain and trauma of the world deeply.”
—Kurt McVey, Whitehot Magazine
“Take Heed is quite clearly the greatest answer to the ongoing contagion of cry-for-help activists, usually young and culturally, environmentally, politically, spiritually traumatized, vandalizing famous, undoubtedly priceless works of art in the name of climate and economic awareness and other nodes of social justice.”
“These kids are splattering Van Goghs, I’m splattering this space with things people should be thinking about and considering,” she told me a couple weeks before the opening at 75 Leonard Street.
“For artists like Elster, meaning, not factory made cogs in the institutional art complex, the exact aloof, gaslighting corporate complex these young protesters are raging against, she feels the wider, macro pain and trauma of the world deeply.”
(Elster) “attacking, almost destroying the canvas with an obvious disdain for the commercial art object. She’s destroying Art as it is. “
“The Development can and will serve as a true safe space for the young and old alike; a proactive bridge between the potential fine art Campbell Soup assailants of the recent past and near future and those who want to protect and preserve all that is priceless.”
“Elster reinvigorated her Downtown punk jam, which shares the title of The Wake the F*ck Up Show(think the love-child of Henry Rollins and Tinker Bell) and rocked out in a hybrid of poetry, spoken word, and frenetic performance art, pausing frequently to share extremely human, often hilarious musings about the writing process, ancillary anxieties, often connecting the dots to the cyclical nature of art and war. The ultimate, supreme hyper-metal moment, was the grand finale of this jam,”
Words here will struggle to attest, but great performance art always has a “had to be there" quality.”
“I love this show. Strong and unusual.
It reminds me of the shows from the 60’s, except it’s more serious. It’s deadly serious.”
–Anthony Haden Guest (art critic, artist)
“Take Heed invites living humans from across generations to wake up to the harsh realities of the present moment, without ignoring the past or abandoning hope for the future.”
—Kurt McVey (art writer)
"Back in 2016, Elster laid out her deflated, hollow, dead-playing military green, industrial gas mask and biohazard suit in front of Jeffrey Deitch’s former Wooster Street gallery, which was showing Ai Weiwei: Laundromat at the time, a multimedia commentary on the global refugee crisis, designed by the artist while under soft, secret detention in Beijing in 2011. Elster reminds us again that there have long been performative confrontations to art, and the crises continue."
The exhibition is open to the public. Further details regarding schedule and programming will emerge on this page.
For inquiries, please contact AtachiAtTheDevelopment@gmail.com
Return to this page to see more.
Past exhibitions include Jennifer Elster’s The Retrospective of an Extroverted Recluse, the J. Elster Pop Up, The Window Exhibition including Elster’s multi-discipline artworks, a 9/11 memorial tribute, a special commemoration of Elster’s work with the late David Bowie, and a tribute to Mick Rock and Steve Hiett’s life in photography from Elster’s private art collection.
The Development is pleased to present
The Window Exhibition:
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Elster’s prior solo exhibitions include:
The Development gallery, gift shop, J.Elster NYC, Tribeca, Art gallery
