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The Terrain Gallery, or the Terrain, is an art gallery and educational center at 141 Greene Street in SoHo, Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1955 with a philosophic basis: the ideas of Aesthetic Realism and the Siegel Theory of Opposites, developed by American poet and educator Eli Siegel.Dunsterville, Hilary, Art News, December 31, 1959. Its motto is a statement by Siegel: "In reality opposites are one; art shows this."
From the beginning, the Terrain was simultaneously an exhibition space for contemporary art and a cultural center with "a lively and unconventional approach to aesthetic issues" where artists, scholars, and the general public could learn about and discuss principles of Aesthetic Realism,S.F. in Arts Digest, April 15, 1955. such as "The resolution of conflict in self is like the making one of opposites in art."
Although exhibiting artists were not required to endorse Aesthetic Realism, many wrote comments on the Siegel Theory of Opposites in relation to their work, which were displayed with their art. Over the years, dozens of exhibition announcements, catalogues, and broadsides were printed and circulated by the Terrain, describing how the opposites in reality are central in art.
Artists whose work has been exhibited at the Terrain Gallery include Ad Reinhardt, Larry Rivers, Chaim Koppelman, Robert Blackburn, Roy Lichtenstein, Hans Namuth, Dorothy Koppelman, André Kertész, Mark Di Suvero, Will Barnet, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Richard Artschwager, George Tooker, Lois Dodd, Jim Dine, Elaine de Kooning, and Steve Poleskie. Pop artist Richard Bernstein, optical artist Arnold Alfred Schmidt, photographers Nancy Starrels, Lou Dienes, Nat Herz, and others had their first one-person shows at the Terrain.
In 1973 the Terrain moved to SoHo, Manhattan, becoming part of the not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation located at 141 Greene Street. There, the gallery featured a one-man show of drawings and silkscreens by Charles Magistro, and continued exhibitions such as "Big and Small" ("Art shows that nothing, however small, is without largeness and meaning"), and "The Arts, They’re Here!: Ten Arts and the Opposites", which included music and architecture.
In 2005, the Terrain Gallery held a 50th anniversary exhibition that brought together works by 52 artists, several of whom contributed statements about how the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel influenced their work.Eaton, J. Sanders, Gallery & Studio, September/October 2005. A memorial exhibition for Chaim Koppelman, in 2010, included over six decades of the artist's prints, paintings, pastels, and sculpture, with critical comment.
Discussing both classical and contemporary work, club members considered the relation of composition in art and in life. They described art as having ethical implications, being "not an escape from life but a true picture of reality".
Existing records of one of the discussions held at the Terrain in 1961 indicate that many artists felt that while opposites were undeniably present in their work, the conscious awareness of them would "lessen, or somehow destroy, the 'magic,' the 'talent,' the 'je ne sais quoi'" of art. Others believed that "study of the opposites makes for an entirely new level of perception, a surer technique, a wider field of vision." Painter Rolph Scarlett wrote: "The Siegel Theory of Opposites, which is the motivating consideration of this gallery, is inspiring." Sculptor Barbara Lekberg, in an interview that appeared in the magazine American Artist, stated that Aesthetic Realism shows "not only that conscious knowledge can cause the unconscious to give up its riches, but also that this process of giving form to feeling has in it the principles of happiness for all people, not just artists."Dorothy Grafly, "Three Women Sculptors", Vol. 16, No. 2, February 1952, p. 58.
In addition to talks on art, the Terrain held poetry readings and discussions by the George Saintsbury Poetry Club.”Society Holds Poetry Inquiry,” The Village Voice, December 1, 1955. The Terrain Gallery published Personal & Impersonal: Six Aesthetic Realists, a book of poems by Sheldon Kranz, Louis Dienes, Nancy Starrels, Nat Hertz, Martha Baird and Rebecca Fein“Personal and Impersonal, Six Esthetic (sic) Realists: Poems by Sheldon Kranz, Louis Dienes, Nancy Starrels, Nat Hertz, Martha Baird, Rebecca Fein, with critical preface by Eli Siegel (Terrain Gallery)", "Books Today", New York Times, 1 June 1959, and held an exhibition of work by 45 artists, including Leonard Baskin, Robert Andrew Parker, and Nathan Cabot Hale, inspired by the poems.”45 Artists and a Book of Poems,” The Villager May 14, 1959.
In response to the art critics, Mr. and Mrs. Koppelman placed an ad in The Village Voice in which they asked critics and artists to be fair to Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel:
We ask you, personally, to be fair to Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel...We find bizarre the tendency in artists and critics to call Aesthetic Realism a cult while using it—under cover of "common knowledge"—to crystallize their own thoughts and writing on art...We cannot consider any person a friend who does not want to be fair to Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel.Koppelman, Chaim and Dorothy, “A Statement to the Art World”, The Village Voice, 1 March 1962.
Dorothy and Chaim Koppelman both had one-person shows at the Terrain, and both were chosen for MoMA's 1962 exhibition "Recent Painting USA: The Figure".
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