Sky High Farm Biennial: Trees Never End and Houses Never End
11 Main Street
June 28–October 2025
Germantown, New York
Visually stunning and conceptually ambitious, the Sky High Farm Biennial is an engaging new addition to the ever-growing mid-Hudson Valley contemporary art scene. Spearheaded by artist Dan Colen, in his first curatorial effort, the exhibition features some 160 works by more than 50 artists installed on two floors of an historic disused apple cold storage warehouse located in the village of Germantown, N.Y., along the banks of the Hudson. Participating artists include well-known figures such as Wade Guyton, Richard Prince, Carroll Dunham, Mark Grotjahn, Charline von Heyl, Lyle Ashton Harris, Ryan McGinley, Nan Goldin, Roni Horn, and Rirkrit Tiravanija, among others. Unlike most other biennials, many of the works in the exhibition are for sale, with a portion of proceeds benefitting the programs of the Sky High Farm.
Founded by Colen and administered by him along with Anders Johnson and Bryan Tant, the Sky High Farm occupies a 560-acre property located in a rural area about fifteen miles east of Germantown. The non profit organization aims to address and respond to urgencies in the food system. According to a press statement, the farm uses an agroecological approach to cultivate nutrient-dense produce and protein, distributed in partnership with community-based organizations to individuals and families experiencing food and nutrition shortage and insecurity. The farm also offers grants to individual and community programs with like-minded goals, plus a nine-month residential formal training and mentorship program for burgeoning farmers interested in regenerative agriculture. The biennial, titled Trees Never End and Houses Never End is dedicated to Sky High Farm’s first staff member, Joey Piecuch, who died in 2014, and the title refers to the name he gave to a nearby wooded area that he and his sister played in.
“We created the exhibition without a dollar of support from the art industry,” Colen told the Rail. “Except for Andrea Rosen Gallery, representing the Felix Gonzáles-Torres estate, no galleries were directly involved, nor were auction houses or other art businesses.” Among off-site biennial presentations, a series of twenty-four billboards by Gonzáles-Torres, Untitled (It’s Just a Matter of Time) (1992), are installed along the Hudson River and its estuaries. Colen met with Germantown officials, who were generally supportive of the endeavor, albeit with concerns about issues like parking and public safety. Colen was also careful to preserve as much of the building’s original character as possible. For the exhibition, no new construction material was introduced into the structure, which had sustained extensive fire damage in the mid-1970s when the volatile cork insulation used for the cold storage facility ignited. The gritty wall textures enhance many of the works on view.