Just Above Midtown, or JAM, was an influential New York art gallery from 1974 to 1986. Founded by Linda Goode Bryant, JAM served more as a laboratory than a traditional gallery and helped to launch the careers of many artists well-known today, such as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, Edgar Heap of Birds, Lorraine O’Grady, Dawoud Bey, and Lorna Simpson. This archive comprises the records produced and collected by JAM staff and artists, including documentation of general operations, exhibitions, public programs, and publications. The finding aid for the Just Above Midtown Archives can be found here. This research guide will go into more detail about JAM’s history and influence, and give further context to the time period using resources within MoMA and other outside collections.
After years of hearing artists complain about the boundaries placed on their creative endeavors saying, “they won’t let us,” Linda Goode Bryant, then the education coordinator for The Studio Museum in Harlem, decided to create a space in which there would be no institutional mandates or restrictions. Goode Bryant opened the Just Above Midtown gallery (JAM) in November 1974 with the exhibition Synthesis at 50 West 57th Street. JAM’s first space was inextricable to their ethos, given that 57th Street in New York City was well known for its blue-chip galleries who largely exhibited only white artists. JAM was never intended to be a reactionary space with an all-black program, but rather an autonomous one, open for all artists, regardless of race, working in post-minimal and performance art to create and exhibit their work without fear and free of the influence of the larger art world. JAM was not a gallery for profit’s sake, but rather to exist in an effort to redefine the art world's infrastructure. Decades later, in the catalogue to the retrospective exhibition, Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces, the Studio Museum of Harlem museum director Thelma Golden would describe the space as “a new gallery providing an alternative approach to viewing.”
A persistent characteristic of JAM and its artists was resourcefulness, and the concept of using what they had to create what they need. This idea was expressed in early exhibitions at 57th Street. For example, Senga Nengudi’s works in R.S.V.P. (1977) are made primarily of pantyhose and sandbags; David Hammons’ exhibitions Greasy Bags and Barbeque Bones (1975) included works made up of those exact materials; and Wendy Ehlers’ used dryer lint collected at her laundromat to create all the works for her solo show Wendy Ehlers (1978). For five years JAM held successful exhibitions and maintained a positive relationship with their landlord, Bill Judson, who fought for JAM to stay at 50 West 57th Street after he sold his shares of the building. Unfortunately, the new owners had other plans, and in 1979 JAM was forced to move for the first time.
JAM, III.A.431. MoMA Archives, NY (top left).
JAM, II.A.1*. MoMA Archives, NY (right).
JAM, I.29. MoMA Archives, NY (bottom left).
JAM, IV.A.203. MoMA Archives, NY (bottom right).
Belying their name, JAM relocated to the burgeoning cultural scene of lower Manhattan, moving into a former meat-packing warehouse at 178 Franklin Street in Tribeca, and subsequently altering their name to Just Above Midtown/Downtown. There they created several gallery spaces and were able to expand their programming to now include dance and performance art. At Franklin Street they were able to put on larger group shows, including Dialogues (1980) which was a collaboration between 15 different alternative art spaces, and What I Do for Art (1982) which explores the relationship between artists’ work and their day job. JAM was also able to facilitate full performance series, such as Crossovers (1981-1982) and American Dreams (1983). Outside of exhibitions, JAM made a conscious effort to do more for artists and the community that they built. JAM published exhibition catalogues and quarterly magazines and helped to further artist’s careers through public programs like Business of Being an Artist (BBA), a first of its kind program dedicated to helping artists navigate the commercial art world.
JAM occupied the street-level and basement levels of 178 Franklin Street, while the top levels were residential floors. Due to JAM’s increased performances, the noise complaints became an issue with their landlords and their lease would again be terminated in 1984. For a brief time, JAM used a temporary office space at 225 Lafayette Street before finding their final physical location in Soho.
JAM, II.230. MoMA Archives, NY (top right).
JAM, II.A.248. MoMA Archives, NY (left).
JAM, IV.A.209. MoMA Archives, NY (bottom right).
Their final move to 503 Broadway landed JAM in a much larger space, measuring twenty-five thousand square feet on the top floor of the building. This move coincided with Goode Bryant’s efforts to establish the Corporation for Art and Television (CAT) which included a production space, an artist-in-residence program, and laboratory programs. Most of JAM’s exhibitions at this time were related to CAT Lab projects. This included primarily performances, concerts, and occasionally gallery shows. During this time JAM worked on renovating their space and renting studios to artists until eventually real estate developers started working on redeveloping Broadway and JAM was eventually pushed out in August 1986. They would continue to operate until 1989 under names such as CATconcerts and JAM Presents at locations such as The Knitting Factory and The Kitchen.
Over time, artists who were fostered by JAM began to amass critical acclaim and recognition, which prompted The Museum of Modern Art to examine JAM’s legacy with the 2022 exhibition Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces, organized by Thomas T. Lax and Lilia Taboada. As a result of this exhibition and with a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation, in April 2023 The Museum of Modern Art Archives was able to establish the JAM Archives.
JAM, IV.A.218. MoMA Archives, NY (top).
JAM, III.D.27. MoMA Archives, NY (bottom).
