In an industry that is notoriously slow to innovate, Stefania Bortolami isn’t resting on her laurels. In the shadow of international mega-galleries, the Italian-born gallerist is carving out a innovative niche for herself with her new gallery space in Manhattan’s Tribeca, where she fosters an engaging program of promising emerging and established mid-career artists.

While Bortolami’s newly opened 9,000-square-foot gallery is as beautiful as it is impressive, ironically it is the work that she’s doing outside of that space that’s really changing the game. Under her ongoing Artist/City project, the dealer is bringing long-term contemporary art exhibitions to unlikely locations in the American heartland. Current shows include a yearlong exhibition by gallery artist Eric Wesley housed in a former Taco Bell restaurant in St. Louis, Missouri, and Tom Burr’s exhibition in an abandoned brutalist office building in New Haven, Connecticut.