Connecticut arts incubator Nxthvn marks its fifth anniversary by looking to the future

This year marks the fifth anniversary of Nxthvn, an artist residency, gallery space and community centre based in the heart of New Haven, Connecticut’s historically Black Dixwell neighbourhood.

Once a bustling epicenter for jazz music and the Black middle class, Dixwell was hit hard by deindustralisation and rampant red-lining by local authorities beginning in the late 1960s, leaving residents facing dwindling prospects even as nearby Yale University continued to expand. Nxthvn aims not just to revitalise Dixwell, but to forever shift the narrative on non-normative virtuosity in the culture sector.

Since it launched 2019, the organisation has partnered with industry titans like Gagosian—which represents Nxthvn's co-founder, artist and Yale MFA alumnus Titus Kaphar—for professional development initiatives, served as a pop-up vaccine clinic during the city’s Covid-19 vaccination rollout and brought a slew of museum-level exhibitions to a brand new audience.

Kaphar and private equity partner Jason Price founded the organisation with the goal of demystifying the art world through mentorship and concerted engagement with local populations and institutions. Kaphar and Price see New Haven not just as an up-and-coming arts hub emerging from Yale's long shadow, but as a nexus of change for a sector built on hierarchy. Housed in a former ice cream factory, Nxthvn boasts art studios, event spaces a gallery and, now, a black box theatre across its 45,000 sq. ft.

The core of Nxthvn programme is a paid, ten-month fellowship for artists and curators. Fellows receive studio space, a stipend and subsidised housing as part of their relocation to New Haven, but the most important aspects of their experiences are interpersonal.

“We’re looking at being a part of the larger canon of history, and disrupting the art world conversation,” Kaphar tells The Art Newspaper. “At a lot of art schools, they’re only teaching technique—talking about business or being a professional artist is considered 'dirty'. At our school, we help people approach their careers as professionals with the same creativity they use in their practices.”

The latest group of nine fellows, the programme's sixth cohort, includes rising stars like the Chinese artist and Fulbright scholar Reeha Lim, the interdisciplinary painter Kwamé Azure Gomez and the Ugandan curator Musoke Nalwoga.

In June, Nxthvn opened a culminating exhibition for the fellows in its fifth cohort at The Campus, a former school that six commercial galleries have turned into an art space in upstate New York. That show, Double Down (until 27 October), includes works by Adrian Armstrong, Alexandria Couch, Eric Hart Jr, Fidelis Joseph, Jamaal Peterman, Eugene Macki and Alex Puz, organised by curatorial fellows Marquita Flowers and Clare Patrick. The Campus is donating 10% of sales proceeds back to Nxthvn in service of future programming.

“We developed a pedagogy that we combined with the fellowship—you’re going to leave with a real understanding of the pitfalls and challenges to being an artist, and there’s an academic curriculum broadening your sphere,” Price tells The Art Newspaper.

Kaphar and Price embrace pragmatism first when discussing the Nxthvn project. “As a banker, I knew that the number one thing we needed to provide was a big building,” Price says. “Building a non-profit is about building stories, building scenarios. At the beginning, we started to think, 'If we could pull this off, and we could use arts and artists as a way to really transcend and impact community, we could create something really special'.” He adds “We are really searching for the next generation of real talent.”

Pulling each cohort of artist and curatorial fellows together is no easy task: Kaphar says Nxthvn attracted more than 800 applications, many international, for its latest round of residencies. But the team is dedicated to creating a mutually edifying atmosphere. “We want people who we can cultivate and integrate into the Nxthvn experience,” Kaphar says. “If you are interested in engaging and being a professional artist on a high, new level, this is the place”.

Kaphar's approach works, and Nxthvn has the track record to prove it. One of the 2019 studio fellows, Alexandria Smith, is now represented by Gagosian; 2021 studio fellow John Guzman recently had a solo exhibition at Sean Kelly Gallery (which has also hosted past Nxthvn fellowship shows) and 2020 studio fellow Ilana Savdie had a solo exhibition last year at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Nxthvn also boasts an apprenticeship programme for high school students, where young people from the New Haven school district can get paid, hands-on experience.

“We’re in an underserved community,” Price says. “Titus is from an underserved community. There’s a lot of really talented kids who are making unbelievable work. But they don't even know that there's a career in the arts. With the apprenticeship programme we can select one apprentice for every single artist that works alongside them. It’s a way for us to get them closer to arts, and to help them imagine that it can be a profession. More importantly, they're learning through osmosis, so kids can have this revelation of, 'Oh I thought I was a painter, but I realise I want to be a curator,' or, 'I didn't realise that I can major in art history in college and then I can use that to be executive who runs an institution.' We see this transformation of the town through kids who, through high-level exposure, then go to really unbelievable places”.

Kaphar and Price plan for Nxthvn to keep expanding its programming, at a sustainable pace. “We’re in a growth phase,” Price says. “We want to stay true to our values and our original arts ecosystem, but at the same time, maintain the opportunity to be selective so we don’t dilute the mission. We want to expand, but we want to do it right.”