Located in DUMBO, Brooklyn, A.I.R. Gallery is a feminist, artist-directed, nonprofit arts organization and alternative exhibition space for women and non-binary artists. Founded in 1972, A.I.R. is the longest-running alternative space for women artists in the United States.

To learn more about our history, click here.

It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of artist Ann Pachner.

A member of A.I.R. for over thirty years, Pachner had thirteen solo exhibitions at the gallery, including Ritual of Consciousness (1995), Many Tears Become One (2005), and Archeology of a Studio (2022). Her work spanned drawing, photography, and wood carving, all pointing to the multi-dimensional experience of being.

Pachner said of her practice: “Inherent in the relationship of the artist and their tools, such as the mallet and sharpened chisel, is a continually summoned courage, intelligence, and will. Art making creates a place of quietude, of contemplation, space and time to resonate with subtle voices. The practice and viewing of art opens us to the opportunity of becoming friends with that place within the self that knows. I bow to that place, that river, that place of leaping, that artists have claimed from the beginning.”