For José Esparza Chong Cuy and Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa, the Storefront for Art and Architecture loomed large in the imagination well before they began their tenures at the New York institution. “In college, we were asked to draw the facade as an exercise,” remembers Esparza Chong Cuy. The 1993 installation—which tapped artist Vito Acconci and architect Steven Holl to reenvision Storefront’s Nolita display area—won the admiration of the two architecture students from Mexico.
Now, the duo is at the helm of the pioneering organization. As executive director and chief curator, Esparza Chong Cuy prides himself on thinking big picture about Storefront’s legacy, while Deputy Director and Curator Ruiz de Teresa considers himself the more pragmatic one. “I’m more focused on how things will take place, and José is always leading the charge in what things could be,” he explains.
This year, that complementary dynamic has been put to work—and rewarded—with “Swamplands,” a year-long series of research, exhibitions, and programming that centers “the ethical and technical entanglements of water.” When we speak, London-based artist Imani Jacqueline Brown’s “Gulf” (or “Strike Gulf”) is on view in New York, and they are reviewing the over 200 applications they received for an open-call exhibition next January.
These milestones were born of an immersive period of preparation. Before “Swamplands” came to be, the pair held a four-day “Swamp Summit” on the Yucatán peninsula with the entirety of the Storefront team, featured artists (including Gala Porras-Kim, whose show is on view through Dec. 7, and Fred Schmidt-Arenales), and a few special guests. “We invited a physicist that had been working on the coast of the Yucatán,” Ruiz de Teresa says, “and through conversations with Imani, the physicist connected her to the archives of the University in Mexico that has core samples from the 1960s,” which had a direct impact on the artist’s work and exhibition centered on the “geographies of oil and gas.”
Connections like these are what the duo are working to foster within the organization and beyond. “Storefront was never really about the square footage,” asserts Esparza Chong Cuy. “The gallery has always been an excuse to gather.” As they continue to consolidate their program and the community that informs it, the pair are also looking outside New York. After its current run, the “Swamplands” project will become a touring group exhibition, starting at the Graham Foundation in Chicago. Storefront also recently announced the creation of the Kyong Park Prize, an unrestricted $25,000 award to be bestowed on an individual or collective working at the intersection of art, architecture, and politics.
Despite many irons in the fire that draw the duo’s attention elsewhere, a commitment to deepening their roots in the Storefront community takes precedent. “Let’s buy the building,” Esparza Chong Cuy exclaims. “Let’s manifest.”
