Incollect Magazine - Issue 15

50 www.incollect.com A t two in the afternoon, a visitor to Kanopi may be there to look at art. By evening, the same rooms may be filled with diners, private-club members, wedding guests, or hosting a corporate event. The works on the walls do not change. The purpose of the room does. That shifting use is the premise behind the partnership between Trimper Gallery, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Kanopi chef Anthony Gonçalves’s restaurant and event venue on the 42nd and 43rd floors of The Opus Westchester in White Plains, New York. Gallery viewings take place by appointment, around Kanopi’s event schedule. The rotating exhibition remains part of the dining and event spaces as their activities and guests change. Art in restaurants is hardly new. Here, however, the arrangement extends beyond a special dinner or a fixed decorative program. Trimper Gallery displays the bulk of its on-hand inventory inside an independent hospitality business while maintaining its own office in Greenwich. The art stays on view beyond gallery appointments, becoming part of the experience for people who came for a meal or a celebration. The arrangement might seem unconventional and somewhat complicated but is a successful collaboration because both businesses have embraced the notion that flexibility begets opportunity. Kanopi’s owner/chef Gonçalves had already spent years working with rooms that served several purposes, most notably his former restaurant 42 in the same location, then the Ritz-Carlton, which also served as a clubhouse and private kitchen for residents. Is Not the Room How an independent art gallery and a White Plains restaurant built a shared model for art and hospitality The Gallery