by Ran Dian

The Red Bean Grows in the South
Faurschou New York (148 Green Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn) December 15, 2019 – April 11, 2020
Ai Weiwei, Georg Baselitz, Louise Bourgeois, Cecily Brown, Cai Guo-Qiang, Tracey Emin, Omer Fast, Anselm Kiefer, Edward & Nancy Kienholz, Christian Lemmerz, Paul McCarthy, Richard Mosse, Joko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg, Alison Saar, Danh Vo, Yu Hong

Faurschou Foundation opened its New York branch this month with a show dedicated to fallen heroes and strident protests. Ran Dian first revealed the foundations plans to open in New York in our interview with Jens Faurschou last December. Faurschou New York resides in a former shoe factory in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint area. Designed by New York-based German architect Markus Dochantschi, the single-story building has a definite Danish understatement. From the beginning Faurschou wanted a space that was easily accessible from Manhatten and from the street.

With some 1800 square meters of space, Faurschou New York balances scale with purpose: it is more about showing art than showing off. This is reflected in the opening show, “The Red Bean Grows in the South” which mixes major Western and Chinese mid- and late-career artists, about a third women. Faurschou developed the exhibition from the juxtaposition of George Baselitz’s “Mit Roter Fahne” (With a Red Flag) (1965), with its wretched German soldier returning home from Russia, and Paul McCarthy’s giant “CSSC Frederic Remington Charles Bronson” (2014–16), depicting the famously macho Hollywood actor with cowboy hat. At a time of increasing nationalism, this show critiques the glib jingoism that has taken hold in so many countries, not least America. It is not the kind of show expected from a private collection.

Faurschou launched his foundation in 2012 in Copenhagen in a converted warehouse on the ctiy’s docks, with some 1,500 square meters of space, of which about 900 is devoted to exhibitions. Faurschou’s former gallery space in Beijing’s 798 Art District became the Foundation’s China outpost. With its New York expansion, Faurschou Foundation is doing something quite different from other private art institutions, which often court international adulation while doing little for artistic development (just think back a couple of weeks to Miami). Instead, Faurschou Foundation is building intercontinental networks for artists and visitors, setting up the kinds of interactions that eventually lead to new collaborations, whether among artists or museums. Sure, it remains a private foundation, but its Copenhagen-Beijing-New York network has the potential to make a real and unique difference in an art world drowning in hubris.