New York’s Eclectic Francis Irv Gallery Shutters after Three Years
38Jan. 29, 2026
Francis Irv, a young New York gallery known for showing an eclectic mix of established and emerging artists from the US and Europe, has announced its closure after a little more than three years in business. The gallery was founded by Shane Rossi and Sam Marion Wilken, who met while working as studio assistants. The pair toldFriezethey decided to start their own enterprise after bonding over a “shared appreciation for artists our peers weren’t looking at.” Launching under the name Kinder (soon abandoned) in 2022 in a Chinatown mall underneath the Manhattan Bridge, the gallery moved to a TriBeCa space that Marion Wilken likened to a detective’s office in an old movie.
Francis Irv kicked off its exhibition program in Los Angeles in 2022 with a group show co-curated by artist and writer Aria Dean, the onetime curator and editor of Rhizome, which featured the work of Hannah Black, Jordan Wolfson, and Benjamin Echeverria, the last of whom would go on to have several solo shows with the gallery (Francis Irv never formally announced a roster of artists). Among the other artists it showed were Sophie Gogl, Karla Kaplun, Megan Marrin, Win McCarthy, Ahgharad Williams, and noted German sculptor Reinhard Mucha. This past December, the group helped mount an experimental play by Georgica Pettus.
“It’s tempting to write some kind of eulogy or translation stone for everything the gallery did or was. So much of that will be swept up and indecipherable in a few years, and that’s the only part of closing up shop that seems properly daunting,” wrote the pair in their farewell, posted to their website. “Oh well. We made it to the chorus. Had the best time. Two kids hoisted in a trench coat, it was all well aligned and justified, surprisingly dainty. Ultimately Harvey Dent made the wrong choice, and we think it’s best to abide by the lesson of his failures. Thanks for the ride.”
A number of New York galleries have closed in the past year, including heavy hitters like Sperone Westwater, Venus Over Manhattan, and Clearing, as well as nonprofits like Canal Projects. Still others have sprung up in this span, however, including the tiny apartment-based Iowa, in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, and the behemoth Pace DiDonna Schrader; the revered nonprofit Art in General, which closed in 2020 as the pandemic raged, announced that it would be staging a comeback.