Page 5 - The Faces

BEN SCHONZEIT
Our interviewee, artist, Ben Schonzeit, moved to Soho in the late 1960s and experienced the early years of Soho’s art scene, the boom years and the more recent transformation into a shop- ping district, first hand.
Please tell us about your Soho story?
I moved into this loft in 1966. You need to understand that it was a very different place in the late 1960s compared with today. There was no Nolita, it was all about small factories and manufacturing, mostly for the textile and fashion industries. There were no galleries here - galleries were on the Upper East Side and among them was Leo Castelli, he was the king. But nothing compared with the mega galleries of today like Gagosian. Castelli had his gallery in a town- house, maybe two large rooms for exhibition space and he was the go-to guy if you wanted a Warhol or Lichtenstein. Then in the late 1960s and early 1970s galleries started to move down here - includ- ing Castelli (to show Richard Serra).
The area was cheap and you could get a lot of excess real estate and large spaces for almost nothing. Donald (Judd) bought the entire house on the other street side for $40,000 in 1968 - but he never
BIO
BORN MAY 9, 1942 IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK BFA (1964) COOPER UNION, NEW YORK, NY LIVES AND WORKS IN NEW YORK CITY
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