X OUT
by Ben Davis



So long X, we barely knew ye. The X-Initiative, the pop-up non-profit that inhabited the former Dia space in Chelsea, has closed after an eventful one-year run. Always meant to be temporary, the "initiative" was bankrolled by dealer Elizabeth Dee and masterminded by talented, unflappable Italian curator Cecilia Alemani. It captured the moment better than most with its feisty programming, the sense of huddled-together, semi-utopian escapism in the year of the Great Recession, when most artists were caught between looking for alternative models and just hoping that things would just turn out alright.

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