Jack Shainman Gallery was founded in 1984 in Washington, DC. Soon after opening, the gallery relocated to New York City occupying a space in the East Village before moving to 560 Broadway in Soho and then to its current location at 513 West 20th Street in Chelsea in 1997. In 2013 the gallery added two additional exhibition spaces, one in Chelsea, the other a 30,000 square foot former schoolhouse in Kinderhook, New York.

The first of two spaces is at 524 West 24th Street, four blocks north of the gallery’s current location. It is used as an auxiliary space for the gallery allowing artists to show their newest work, or additional projects concurrently with their exhibitions in the flagship space. The second space is a 30,000 square foot school building in Kinderhook, NY built in 1929. In addition, the property has 5 acres of outdoor space for a sculpture park. Just two hours from Chelsea, The School is near a number of art institutions including Mass MoCA, The Clark Institute, the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, and the future site of the Marina Abramović Institute.

The focus of the gallery since its inception has been to exhibit, represent and champion artists from around the world, in particular artists from Africa, East Asia, and North America, by mounting major exhibitions of their work in the gallery, presenting artworks at important fairs, securing museum exhibitions and publishing major catalogues and scholarly essays. The gallery is a member of the Art Dealers Association of America and presents approximately twelve exhibitions a year, as well as participating in major art fairs including Art Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, The Armory Show, and Frieze New York.

Gallery artists have been included in many important exhibitions, such as Documenta (1992, 1997, 2002, 2007); The Venice Biennale (1990, 1995, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2013; 2015); The Paris Triennial (2012); The Carnegie International (1989, 1999/2000); the Moscow Biennale (2005, 2009); The Gwangju Biennale (2000, 2004, 2008); The Havana Biennale (2009); The Johannesburg Biennale (2005); and the Whitney Biennale (1997, 2006). Gallery artists have been recognized with numerous awards, including a Leonore Annenberg Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Grant, a Fulbright Scholarship, four John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships, two MacArthur Foundation Grants, five Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Awards, six Joan Mitchell Foundation Grants, a US Department of State’s Medal of Arts, an ICP Infinity Award for New Media, a Gardner Fellowship for Photography and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award, and have been documented in countless publications, monographs, and films.

Gallery artists are included in numerous public collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; the British Museum, London; the National Gallery of Canada, and the Museum of Modern Art, Vienna.