New York’s gallery landscape has no shortage of white cubes. What it has less of are spaces willing to rethink how artists create, exhibit and sustain their practices.
That ambition sits at the heart of Studio2M, a new artist-centred project space founded by Abby Caulkins in 2026. Located in a historic SoHo loft with a layered past that stretches from textile manufacturing to artist studios, Studio2M launches with a deliberately flexible model that combines exhibition-making, artistic production and creative exchange under one roof.
Its inaugural exhibition, Ad Hoc, brings together French artist Marie Hazard and Portuguese designer Constança Entrudo in a collaborative presentation that blurs the boundaries between contemporary art, fashion and textile practice. But the exhibition also serves as an introduction to the wider ethos behind Studio2M itself.
Rather than functioning solely as a gallery, Studio2M operates as both workshop and exhibition space, inviting artists to create work on-site and engage directly with the history and character of the building.
For founder Abby Caulkins, the project emerged from a desire to create a more intimate and relationship-driven alternative to conventional gallery structures.
“Opening Studio2M was about trying an alternative model—one that emphasises relationships and exchange. I wanted a setting with more intimacy, warmth and character than the traditional white cube.”
The space itself played a crucial role in shaping that vision. Before becoming an artist’s loft, the building stood on a street once occupied by brothels before being redeveloped for New York’s textile industry. Later it became home to artists, most notably the post-minimal sculptor Jackie Winsor, who lived and worked there for more than fifty years.
“The floors dip in some spots from decades of machinery—industrialised looms and then Jackie’s enormous saw,”
Caulkins explains.
“I like to learn about the layers of history that took place before me and understand where I fit within navigating the next chapter.”
The launch exhibition feels particularly fitting given that history. Ad Hoc reunites Hazard and Entrudo, who first met while studying Textile Design at Central Saint Martins and have spent more than a decade developing parallel practices. Their collaboration explores weaving as both material process and conceptual language, bringing together Hazard’s tactile, narrative-led textile works and Entrudo’s technologically driven approach to fabric and garment construction.
The exhibition also draws an unexpected connection to the building’s past. While working in the loft, the artists discovered a 1992 ArtNews interview in which Winsor recalled attending meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Artists, a group formed in the 1970s to challenge the underrepresentation of women artists in major exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial. The discovery provided the exhibition with both its title and a historical thread linking different generations of women working across art and design.
Studio2M’s ambitions extend beyond its own programme. Caulkins envisions a structure built around three strands: exhibitions organised directly by Studio2M, projects developed with external curators and galleries—particularly from outside the United States—and collaborations with brands that can help support the space financially while enabling artist-led programming.
The approach reflects a growing conversation across the art world about sustainability and scale.
“I think we’re in a moment that galleries that have scaled to the max are reckoning with the fact that the industry is inherently relationship-based, and it’s difficult to maintain relationships past a certain scale,”
Says Caulkin
Having spent six years at kurimanzutto, she cites the gallery’s commitment to artists as a key influence.
“I want to keep artists at the centre of Studio2M’s programming—to create, to sell and present their work, to professionally or creatively connect with others.”
At a time when many galleries are reassessing traditional business models, Studio2M arrives with a proposition that feels both practical and idealistic: a space shaped as much by conversation, experimentation and community as by exhibition schedules.
In a city that constantly reinvents itself, Studio2M’s first contribution may be less about what is hanging on the walls than about reimagining what an art space can be.
MORE: @studio2mnyc
All installation views photography, Guang Xu, Courtesy the artists and gallery
