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Wednesday 11am - 5pm Thursday 11am - 5pm Friday 11am - 5pm Saturday 11am - 5pm

Rivalry Projects

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Buffalo, NY
Rivalry Projects

Rivalry exhibits emerging, mid-career and underrepresented artists working in all media, but with an emphasis toward contemporary photography.

Rivalry Projects, or RIVALRY, is an artist-run commercial art gallery located in Buffalo, NY that is committed to connecting local audiences to national and international contemporary art and ideas. Rivalry is founded on the competing motivations of artist and curator, Ryan Arthurs, to create an arts space that can function as both a site of exhibition and production of contemporary art.

09/11/2026

Join us for the opening of Aftertouch: Mimosa Pudica on Friday, September 18 from 5:00 - 9:00pm!

The presentation will debut a new series of paint and photo-based collages, alongside cast bronze and iron sculptures that examine global herbarium specimens of the mimosa pudica - an abundant, touch sensitive plant, with medicinal and sentient properties. Native to South and Central America, but now found in tropical climates around the world, the history of mimosa pudica is grounded in anthropomorphization, colonial touch, and scientific experimentation. Together, the works in the exhibition expand upon these histories to speak to contemporary ripples of colonialism, extraction, and empire. The exhibition will be on view from September 18 - October 30 and will be accompanied by a new publication.

Image: Crystal Z Campbell, 2026, Acrylic Paint, Archival Photo, Glazed and Unglazed Porcelain and Stoneware Ceramic Shards, Jacquard Weaving, Fish Leather, Ink Fabric, Beads on Birch Wood Panel, 60 x 36 inches

08/27/2026

Tonight: Rivalry: After Dark

Join us for the closing celebration of Gabriel Martinez's exhibition, Sites of Encounter.

Inspired by the role of the dance floor in Q***r culture—and the ways disco, light, and memory resonate throughout the exhibition—the evening invites visitors to experience the work in two distinct settings.

Beginning at 7:30 PM, DJ Brian Buttlett will spin disco and dance classics as the gallery gradually transitions from its standard lighting into an immersive after-dark environment that echoes the mirror-ball and laser exposures embedded within Martinez's photographs.

Lighting for Rivalry: After Dark is designed by Frank Napolski. A Buffalo-based intermedia artist and creative technologist, Napolski has created a site-specific mirror-ball installation that extends Martinez's experimental darkroom process into the gallery itself, transforming the space into a luminous reflection of the photographs on view.

Thursday, August 27
7:30–10:00 PM
Rivalry Projects
106 College Street, Buffalo, NY

Free • RSVP encouraged (link below)

The evening continues with drinks at 26 Allen following the event.

Gabriel Martinez: Sites of Encounter remains on view by appointment through September 4.

08/25/2026

Join us for Rivalry: After Dark, a closing celebration of Gabriel Martinez’s exhibition, Sites of Encounter.

Inspired by the role of the dance floor in q***r culture and the ways disco, light, and memory resonate throughout Martinez’s practice, the evening invites visitors to experience the exhibition in two distinct settings.

DJ Brian Buttlett will spin dance classics as the gallery gradually transitions from its standard lighting into an immersive after-dark environment.

Lighting for Rivalry: After Dark is designed and installed by Buffalo-based intermedia artist and creative technologist Frank Napolski, co-founder of the audiovisual collective Groupwork. Napolski has created lighting and sound installations for Torn Space Theater and other regional arts organizations. For the closing, he’ll build a mirror-ball environment that echoes the darkroom light Martinez exposed into the prints themselves.

Thursday, August 27, 7:30–10:00 PM
Rivalry Projects
106 College St, Buffalo, NY 14021
Free, RSVP required, link in bio.

The evening concludes with drinks at 26 Allen, just down the street.

Photo credit: 1) Mark Duggan, 2) Gabriel Martinez Gabriel Martinez Brian Buttlett Frankie np twentysixallen

08/08/2026

Rivalry is pleased to announce Aftertouch: Mimosa Pudica, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with Crystal Z Campbell. The exhibition expands Campbell’s ongoing exploration of “underloved” histories through new collages and sculptures that are inspired by the touch-sensitive mimosa pudica plant. Drawing from herbarium collections, archival materials, ceramics, painting, and cast bronze and iron, the work examines colonial histories, migration, and ecological memory.

Join us for the opening reception on Friday, September 18, 2026 from 5:00 - 9:00pm. The exhibition will be on view from September 18 - October 30, 2026, and will be accompanied by a new publication. Stay tuned for more details!

Image: Crystal Z Campbell, 2026. Acrylic paint, archival inkjet print, glazed and unglazed ceramic shards, fish leather, on birch wood panels, 28 x 11 inches, 29 x 12 inches framed Crystal Z Campbell💚❤️🇵🇭💚❤️

08/07/2026

Gabriel Martinez: Sites of Encounter has been extended through Friday, September 4 by appointment.

The exhibition marks a departure from Martinez’s earlier use of national Q***r archives, turning instead to his own documentation of cruising spaces across the United States and abroad. Through a process that bridges analog and digital photography, Martinez transforms these landscapes into layered, luminous images that speak to memory, desire, and the histories embedded within Q***r space.

Regular gallery hours continue through Friday, August 14. Following that, the exhibition will remain on view by appointment through September 4.

Stay tuned for details about a special closing event we’re planning later this month.

Gabriel Martinez, Sunbeam, 2026
Silver gelatin print,
16.5 x 21 inches, 17.25 x 21.75 x 1.75 inches, framed
Gabriel Martinez

08/01/2026

Rivalry Projects is open today from 11:00 AM–5:00 PM.

Stop by to see Gabriel Martinez: Sites of Encounter, on view now.

Gabriel Martinez, Iron Cross, 2026
Silver gelatin print, 20 x 30 inches

Gabriel Martinez, Mattresses, 2026
Silver gelatin print, 20 x 30 inches

07/30/2026

New works from the studio of Peter Stephens. ☀️

If you’d like to see what’s currently available, get in touch—we’d be happy to share images and details.

Peter Stephens, Jumpin’ Jivin’, 2026
Acrylic on panel, 20 × 18 inches

Peter Stephens, Four Leaf Clover, 2026
Acrylic on panel, 20 x 18 inches
Peter Stephens

07/15/2026

Artist Jen Everett is the latest guest on the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s podcast, produced by WCRX-FM Studios at Columbia College Chicago.

In conversation with MoCP Community Engagement Fellow Alayna N. Pernell, Everett discusses her interdisciplinary practice spanning lens-based and time-based media, installation, collage, and writing, and her ongoing exploration of how Black knowledge is produced and transmitted through rupture, interiority, and embodied memory. The episode also includes a reflection on a work by Patty Carroll from the MoCP permanent collection. Link in bio to listen in.

Image: Untitled, diptych from Redoubled/Something We Carry, 2018

Image 2: Patty Carroll, Georges’s from Hot Dog Stands and Changing Chicago, 1987-1990

07/10/2026

Referencing flora- and fauna-themed textiles, Susan Metrican assigns the same utility to painted canvas by cutting, sewing, and forming it into image and object. Rather than functioning as a window onto illusionistic space, the canvas becomes a constructed surface—stitched, stuffed, and materially transformed.

The title, Prairie School, alludes to the relationship between figure and ground in painting—the interplay between an object and the space it occupies. It also references Frank Lloyd Wright’s description of Prairie School architecture as being “married to the ground,” emphasizing an integrated relationship with the Midwestern landscape.

Susan Metrican, Prairie School, 2021
Acrylic on canvas, cotton, recycled cotton stuffing, thread, 24 × 21.5 × 2.5 inches

07/08/2026

Gabriel Martinez: Sites of Encounter is now on view.

Photographed across Fire Island, Miami, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and beyond, these landscapes are rooted in Martinez’s own experiences while also evoking a broader network of Q***r cruising sites that span generations and geographies. Together, they trace spaces of desire, community, memory, and absence from the 1970s to the present.

On view now at Rivalry.

Gabriel Martinez, Redwoods, 2026
Silver gelatin print
20 x 12 inches, 20.75 x 12.75 x 1.75 inches, framed
Edition of 3 ( #1/3)

Address

106 College Street
Buffalo, NY
14201

Opening Hours

Wednesday	11am - 5pm
Thursday	11am - 5pm
Friday	11am - 5pm
Saturday	11am - 5pm

Telephone

+17162172923

Website

http://www.rivalryprojects.com/

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