The private collection opened its Branchline location in Katonah as a way to bring Native art into public view, though questions linger about its engagement with the local Lenape community.
KATONAH, NY — In 1680, English colonists bought the land that would become Bedford, New York, from a Munsee Lenape sachem named Katonah, meaning “great hill.” Today, his name belongs to a Westchester village that is now home to Branchline, the Gochman Family Collection’s (GFC) new gallery and studio space, which opened to the public on November 6 with Line Break, an exhibition of works drawn primarily from its holdings of contemporary Native American art.
Since its founding in 2021, GFC has collected over 800 works with support from Native and non-Native gallerists, artists, and curators alike, including Creative Director and Curator Rachel Martin (Tlingít), curator and Hyperallergic contributor Shándíín Brown (Diné), and Director Laura Phipps, who also serves as Branchline’s director. Designed by Elizabeth Roberts Architects, the new space occupies two historic storefronts steps from Katonah’s Metro-North station, with free-admission galleries, skylit artist studios, a community ceramics studio, and apartments for invited artists.
Branchline makes a public home for what has essentially been a lending operation: According to GFC, more than 260 of its works have appeared in over 100 exhibitions at institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Broad, and it charges no loan fees. That model speaks to a known problem with private collecting, explained Joseph Pierce (Cherokee), professor and founding director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Stony Brook University. “Just because you collect something doesn’t mean you’re going to show it,” Pierce told Hyperallergic. “The risk is that it doesn’t circulate.”