This spring, Catharine Clark doubled the size of her eponymous gallery, yielding additional exhibition space as well as a “bonus room,” as she describes it, that was “the perfect size for something I have often wanted to pursue”—a store. Offerings at the new jewel-box shop, called Exit, include melted crystal vases by Katherine Vetne, William Kentridge woodcuts, an abstract stained-glass sculpture by Andy Diaz Hope, Kara Walker lithographs and wooden bracelets by Ana Teresa Fernández.
Exit “looks a little like my own living room,” Clark says of the warm and welcoming atmosphere. Amid Persian rugs and textiles from Mexico, a wooden 19th-century canning table, chairs with sheepskin seats, an upholstered plaid sofa and a teak bar cart preside. An adjacent venue serves as a bookstore, whose inventory includes rare titles.
“People are encouraged to sit and thumb through the books,” the gallerist emphasizes. “Have a cup of tea or a glass of something stronger with us. Exit is a store, but it is also a hangout space—a place to commune with others casually and in a context that might promote interesting conversation.”
