Just steps from a commuter rail station about 45 miles north of Manhattan, a new address for contemporary Indigenous art has opened. Branchline, a 10,000-square-foot arts centre in Katonah, Westchester County, opened its main gallery to the public on Saturday, 7 November 2026, as reported by The Art Newspaper. It is free to visit.
A collection that lends – and now shows
Branchline is an initiative of the Gochman Family Collection (GFC), a private lending collection set up in 2021 by the philanthropist Becky Gochman and the former gallerist Zach Feuer. The collection holds around 800 works and has lent 260 of them to more than 100 exhibitions worldwide. Until now, parts of it were shown in private residences on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and in West Palm Beach, Florida. Gochman and Feuer also co-founded the Forge Project in Taghkanic, New York, in 2021. In 2024 it became a Native-led nonprofit after Gochman withdrew; it is now led by Candice Hopkins.
The name refers to the railway: a branch line is where tracks split off and begin. Laura Phipps, a former associate curator at the Whitney Museum who became GFC director this year, said at a preview that the team liked both the metaphor of the train and that of trees, and wants to “experiment and grow in this space”. She works with creative director and curator Rachel Martin (Tlingít). Once complete next year, the site will cover three adjoining buildings with several galleries, a ceramics studio, two apartments, a sculpture deck and a café.
“Line Break”: borders, scores and drones
The opening exhibition, Line Break, is curated by assistant curator Moonoka Begay (Ndee/Diné) with collection associate Nicole van Brugge. Nearly 30 works by 18 artists explore lines and borders, both literal and metaphorical. Artists include Sara Flores, Jeffrey Gibson, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kay WalkingStick, Marie Watt and Emmi Whitehorse.
A centrepiece is Raven Chacon’s Storm Pattern (2021–24). Its abstract musical scores recall traditional Diné weavings and the sound of drones. The work comes with recordings Chacon made of drones flying over the Standing Rock camps during the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests. The lines in the scores follow their uneven flight paths. Outside, Matthew Kirk (Diné) has made a four-panel, site-specific work for the gallery façade, We Start To Think We’ve Got Someplace To Go (2026), which turns traditional Diné motifs into construction materials.
“The Branchline space functions as a free public space, which is a new concept for us,” Gochman said. Her guiding principle stays the same: artists and art come first. For a part of the country better known for its estates and commuter towns, Branchline is a welcome new stop on the line.