Stux Gallery

Stux Gallery was a contemporary fine art dealership that operated in Manhattan, New York City, from 1986 until its closure in 2016. Founded in Boston in 1980 by Stefan Stux and his wife Linda Bayless Stux, the gallery developed a reputation for identifying and promoting emerging artists, many of whom received their first New York solo exhibitions there. Its significance in art history is marked by its role in launching major careers and its central position in the "culture wars" of the late 1980s through its exhibition of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ.

Stux Gallery was founded in 1980 in Boston by Stefan Stux, who held a Ph.D. in Immunology and had taught at Harvard Medical School, and Linda Bayless Stux, a performance artist who taught math at Boston Latin School. The couple's shared interest in contemporary art led them to open their first space on Newbury Street in December 1980. The gallery quickly became a leader in what the Boston Globe termed a "Boston art renaissance" in the early 1980s, representing local artists including Doug Anderson, Gerry Bergstein, Alex and Allison Grey, and Paul Laffoley.

The gallery's trajectory shifted dramatically when Doug and Mike Starn, graduates of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, met the Stuxes at their graduation in May 1985 and received their first show that September. The success of the Starn Twins' work elevated the gallery's profile nationally, prompting the opening of a second location on Spring Street in So Manhattan in 1986. The Boston location closed in 1988, and the New York operation continued until market difficulties forced its closure in 1993. Stefan Stux then engaged in private secondary market dealing for several years before reopening the gallery in 1996 on 20th Street in Chelsea. Andrea Schnabl joined as Partner and Director in 2002. The gallery moved to 530 W. 25th Street in 2004, then to 24 West 57th Street in 2014, before finally closing in 2016. In 2017, Stefan Stux opened Salon STUX West on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Stux Gallery maintained a program focused primarily on emerging contemporary artists, with particular strength in photography, conceptual art, and multimedia practice. The gallery was distinguished by its commitment to providing first New York solo exhibitions to young artists, while also presenting established international figures. Its publishing program produced catalogues for each artist's show, featuring essays by prominent critics and historians including Dan Cameron, Robert Pincus-Witten, and Donald Kuspit. The gallery also engaged independent curators such as Collins & Milazzo and Christian Leigh to organize group exhibitions that developed critical context for its roster.

The gallery's most historically significant exhibition was Andres Serrano's Piss Christ in 1987, a photograph depicting a plastic crucifix suspended in a plexiglass tank of the artist's own urine. The work, produced with partial support from a National Endowment for the Arts grant, became a flash point in the "culture wars" after being cited for blasphemy by the American Family Association and denounced in the U.S. Senate by Jesse Helms and Alphonse D'Amato.

Among artists whose careers were launched or significantly advanced at Stux were Doug and Mike Starn, whose 1987 Whitney Biennial selection validated the gallery's eye for talent. Vik Muniz, Lawrence Carroll, Holt Quentel, Fabian Marcaccio, and Cary Leibowitz (aka Candy Ass) all received their first New York gallery exposure or first solo shows there. The gallery also presented senior artists including Elaine Sturtevant and Gerhard Hoehme. In its later years, the roster expanded internationally to include Nigerian sculptor Sokari Douglas Camp, Dutch photographer Ruud van Empel, Icelandic painter Thordis Adalsteinsdottir, Iraqi photographer Halim Al Karim, Japanese photographer Manabu Yamanaka, German conceptual artists Gia Edzgveradze and Heide Hatry, and Chinese artists Wei Dong and Zhang Xiaotao.

The gallery occupied several distinct spaces during its New York existence. Its first Manhattan location opened on Spring Street in the SoHo district in 1986. After reopening in 1996, it occupied a space on 20th Street in Chelsea before moving in 2004 to a larger ground-floor space at 530 W. 25th Street in the same neighborhood. Its final location, occupied from spring 2014 until 2016, was a 4,000 square foot space on the 6th floor of the New York Gallery Building at 24 West 57th Street near Fifth Avenue, in the historic 57th Street district associated with the birth of early American modernism. This location neighbored the Marian Goodman Gallery's 3rd and 4th floor spaces in the same building.

At the time of its closure in 2016, Stux Gallery was located at 24 West 57th Street in the New York Gallery Building in Midtown Manhattan. The gallery's website remained active as a point of reference. Following the gallery's closure, Stefan Stux opened Salon STUX West in a historic townhouse on Manhattan's Upper West Side in the summer of 2017, continuing his activities in the art market in a more intimate, private format. The gallery had regularly participated in significant art fairs and international collaborations throughout its existence.