Next door is a slaughterhouse. Down the block are busy warehouses and a truck depot; a few hundred yards away, a rundown hall for exotic dancers. It’s not where you’d expect to find an arts center or, for that matter, its philanthropist founder hanging out. But it is this gritty part of East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, to which Lonti Ebers would frequently travel to visit the studios of the artists she collects, and where she decided to create a residency for other rising stars.
Amant began in 2014 with a site but no real program, other than to provide studios to young artists. Both would expand over the years to encompass multiple lots and diverse functions, such as exhibition and performance. Florian Idenburg of SO – IL—whom Ebers had met when she was on the board of the New Museum and he was overseeing construction of that institution’s new building in Manhattan for SANAA (2007)—would help shape Amant as it grew to include more structures, even if at the time SO – IL had little built work to its credit.
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