Can a New Art Space Refresh a Tired Downtown?

Bosco Sodi’s new museum in New York’s Catskill Mountains will feature artists from around the world and perhaps add some glimmer to a place that time has frayed.

The New York Times
26 April 2022
By Laura Van Straaten

Like its sister towns nestled nearby in the Catskill Mountains, signs are everywhere that the cultural and economic heydays of this seat of Sullivan County were deep in the past.

Amid the nods to contemporary life in the town center — barbershops, a sports bar, a pizza parlor and other casual eateries — storefronts in buildings from the 1800s sit empty and hotels from the borscht belt boom of the 1950s are still boarded up. Many of the buildings have been declared fire hazards.

But a new museum featuring 21st-century international artists could be a step toward rejuvenation when it opens May 21 on the town’s main street, Broadway.

The new nonprofit art space is the latest project of the prolific Mexican-born, Brooklyn-based artist Bosco Sodi. The new art space is named Assembly. To create it out of what had once been a Buick dealership, Mr. Sodi worked with the Mexican architect Alberto Kalach to carve galleries out of the yellow-brick, hangar-style building.

“I really believe in the exchange of information, ideas and knowledge among human beings,” Mr. Sodi said recently, as he gave a tour of the 23,000-square-foot space. “That’s what makes societies evolve.”

Mr. Sodi chose the name Assembly to emphasize his hope that it will be a gathering place and a forum for Monticello. Assembly will feature rotating yearlong exhibits and offer educational and community programming.

To read more, visit www.nytimes.com/2022/04/26/arts/design/bosco-sodi-assembly-monticello-new-york