The NARS Foundation Exhibition Program presents compelling and innovative work being produced on a local, national, and international level by emerging and mid-career artists and curators.
Through our exhibition program, NARS presents compelling, innovative work produced locally, nationally, and internationally by early- to mid-career artists and curators.
Alongside our artist studios, NARS maintains two gallery spaces, where we present 12 to 13 exhibitions per year. We welcome the public into our galleries Monday through Friday, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment.
The small scale of our second floor gallery, The Project Space, offers an intimate setting for viewing art, while our Main Gallery, on the fourth floor, accommodates larger exhibitions. Both spaces host the work of early-career or underrepresented artists and curators chosen through our annual open call program. This program is open to new applicants and residency alumni, with whom we hope to foster ongoing relationships. We invite proposals for solo or group exhibitions that reflect our mission to foster compelling artistic projects and important dialogue in contemporary art and broader culture, and we encourage participants to activate the gallery space through performances, artist talks, and other events. Through our exhibition program, we aim to encourage artists and curators to experiment and grow their ideas.
In 2026, we introduce the Invitationals, a new annual exhibition series, in which we give over both of our gallery spaces to artists who have lacked the recognition we believe they deserve. As its name indicates, these exhibitions are by invitation, which distinguishes them from our regular program of seasonal artist-in-residence exhibitions and those selected from among the applicants to our open calls. By presenting the Invitationals in both our second floor Project Space and fourth floor Main Gallery, we aim to further set them apart and give the artists plenty of room to showcase their work.
We inaugurate the Invitationals series with HUMANSCAPE, showcasing large-scale, photorealistic portraits by artist Richard Masters, organized by curator Yun Jung Rhee. To find his subjects for these portraits, Masters walked the streets of New York City with an eye toward the neglected: the homeless and mentally ill. Inspired by his late son’s compassion for these city dwellers, he stopped to talk to them, taking notice of their lives through short, recorded conversations, which he presents alongside his intimately detailed portraits.
Our second Invitational, in 2027, will feature abstract paintings by artist Mary Agnes Smith, made over the past 50 years of her eventful life. Smith moved to New York in the late 1970s, and became part of the downtown artist community as it was on the cusp of expanding into the large, multifaceted art world we know today. That scene, and the many artists she met within it, inspired her abstractions, as did her youth and later years in the American Southwest.
Introduced in 2015, the NARS South-West Brooklyn exhibition program highlights the work of local artists, many emerging or underrepresented, through a curated biennial exhibition. South-West Brooklyn has been largely overlooked by the art world, despite being a hub of artistic activity. We launched this program with the goals of raising the profile of this creatively fertile area and showcasing the artists right here in our community, helping to nurture their growth.
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NARS exhibition programs are, in part, supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and City Council Member Alexa Avilés.
The NARS exhibitions works mainly through annual open calls that are open to artists, curators, collectives, cultural producers, and thinkers to propose solo or group exhibitions that reflect our mission to foster and represent important artistic directions and critical dialogue in contemporary art and culture with large. NARS selects proposals to be further developed, and provides the space and support to mount ambitious and compelling exhibitions.
