Art Hag

Miska Draskoczy | Gowanus Landmarks

Carroll Street Bridge, Miska Draskoczy (courtesy of the artist)

Late last year the New York City Council passed the contentious Gowanus rezoning which will upzone 82 blocks of the historically industrial Brooklyn neighborhood and add approximately 8,500 new apartments. Developers got to work immediately after the plan passed, demolishing several old buildings that formerly added to the neighborhood’s charm in order to make way for new residential units.

With his ongoing photography project Gowanus Landmarks, Brooklyn-based artist Miska Draskoczy hopes to document the glory of these storied sites. Started in 2019, Gowanus Landmarks features beautifully haunting images of industrial buildings in various states of neglect and disrepair. Some of the buildings Draskoczy photographed, like the dilapidated S.W. Bowne Grain Storehouse at 595-711 Smith Street, are already gone, while others await the wrecking ball.

The buildings featured in the series represent twenty-nine sites that the Gowanus Landmarks Coalition deemed historically, architecturally, and culturally significant. The local advocacy group, in an effort to preserve the neighborhood’s history and “authentic sense of place,” campaigned for the buildings to be granted landmark designation.

“I think it's important to document these sites because as we've already seen, some of them will not be around much longer, in which case images of them will be some of our only remaining records,” the artist says. “While the city is always changing, the past invariably influences the future and I believe it's important to capture the neighborhood in this state of transition so that people can appreciate its history. Gowanus is one  of the oldest industrial areas of the country whose industries have shaped the city for almost two centuries. That industry has now wound down greatly and may eventually fade out altogether.”

Old American Can Factory, Miska Draskoczy (courtesy of the artist)

Gowanus Station Building, Miska Draskoczy (courtesy of the artist). This building will be torn down and replaced with an 8M-gallon combined sewage overflow tank, as part of the EPA's cleanup of the Gowanus Canal.

Draskoczy photographed the buildings as they would have been captured when they were originally built between the 1880s and 1930s—on large format 5” x 7” dry plate glass negatives. This complex and lengthy process produces vividly detailed images of the buildings in all their fragile splendor, imparting a wistful, vintage feel.

“I love browsing through the many great image archives that are held by New York City institutions and have always been struck by the quality of scans from old glass plate negatives,” he says. “They capture a rich tonality, incredible detail, and the emulsion used in the process only responds to certain wavelengths of light, giving them an unusual palette.... I love how they are often written on by the photographer, have peeling or cracked emulsion and of course glass is an inherently fragile medium. These delicate and organic qualities seem fitting for capturing structures that are similarly aged and worn.”

While the neighborhood is home to many intriguing structures, when pressed Draskoczy admits that the Carroll Street Bridge is a personal favorite. Spanning the notoriously polluted Gowanus Canal, the bridge was built in 1889 and is the oldest of only four remaining retractable bridges in the country. It was designated a NYC Landmark in 1987, “a model for what is possible with preservation efforts,” Draskoczy notes, adding, “it is a relief to know that it will not be destroyed.”

“Although it is closed at the moment due to the ongoing dredging (part of the EPA’s current cleanup of the canal), I have walked, biked, and paddled under it countless times and it has wonderful views from its vantage points,” he muses. “It is a unique structure, being one of the few remaining and operable retractable drawbridges in the country. I am fascinated that something mechanical built in the 19th century can still serve a useful purpose today. Respect to great engineering!”

Artist Miska Draskoczy during the installation of his exhibit Gowanus Landmarks

(L-R) S.W. Bowne Grain Storehouse and ASPCA Memorial Building, Miska Draskoczy

Gowanus Landmarks by Miska Draskoczy, on view at the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse

Originally from Pennsylvania, Draskoczy received his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Draskoczy has been documenting Gowanus since relocating to Brooklyn in 2008. In 2016 he published Gowanus Wild, a photo book exploring the area’s nature and urban wilderness.

Draskoczy’s goal with Gowanus Landmarks is to increase awareness of these buildings and help preserve the buildings that can be saved. “I hope that highlighting these buildings and structures can bring awareness to the efforts to preserve and landmark them, a process which requires active community involvement,” the artist says. For the buildings that cannot be saved, Draskoczy hopes to document them in a way that honors their rich history and conveys their current state of vulnerability.

For the future of his beloved Gowanus, Draskoczy hopes “that it can continue its long tradition of being a neighborhood for builders, makers and creators, whether through things like light industry or artist studios and spaces,” he says. “I believe these are critical components of cities and with the trend of pushing these spaces increasingly farther away from city centers in favor of luxury residential housing, something important is lost in that process.”

Draskoczy will be on hand at the exhibit on weekends throughout May. He will have examples of the glass plate negatives and the camera equipment he used for this series. Learn more about the artist at https://www.miskadraskoczy.com.

Gowanus Landmarks by Miska Draskoczy
Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse, 165 2nd Street, Brooklyn
May 7 – May 29, 2022 | Saturdays & Sundays (1pm – 5pm)
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 7, 6pm to 8pm

Art Over Time | Celebrating Senior Artists

Symphony of Colors by Victoria Cowles, on view at Art Over Time

A new exhibition in Red Hook is shifting the spotlight from au courant young artists onto their more mature peers. The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition [BWAC] presents Art Over Time, a monumental showcase of works created by 70 artists over the age of 65.

“As I’ve aged it’s become abundantly clear that the art world tends to focus on the young, the new, the innovative,” said artist Susan Handwerker who co-curated the exhibit with fellow BWAC member Sandra Forrest. “Whatever you haven’t seen before, that’s what’s going to be the next big thing. And that’s great because we need newness and we need innovation, but then there are the rest of us who bring depth and experience and perspective to forms and techniques that we’ve been practicing for a very long time, and we tend to get overlooked.”

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Handwerker attended art school in Toronto and Vancouver and remained in Canada after graduating. After marrying and starting a family, she returned to NYC in the mid-80s and taught art in public high schools until her retirement in 2012.

Handwerker creates painted clay sculptures from her studio in Gowanus. “I’ve almost always made figurative work in clay with a fairly feminist approach content-wise,” she explained. In the early 80s, while doing research for a solo show centered on death and transformation, Handwerker found several images of boats “referencing the way different cultures deal with death.” She began sculpting a series of boats. “That was the original impetus,” she recalled. “Then just before COVID I started to make boats again,” she added, but now her works focus on climate change and migration. One of her three works included in the exhibit, Fish For Home, Blue, was influenced by Southeast Asian fishing boats and addresses the Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar.

Moving in Waves by Susan Handwerker

Fishing For Home, Blue by Susan Handwerker

A member of BWAC since the 90s, Handwerker currently serves as co-president for the non-profit organization. Art Over Time celebrates “the work of older artists and recognizes the people who have these extended careers,” she notes. “What I should have titled this show was ‘The Triumph of Art Over Time’ because that’s really my intention. That’s really what I want people to take away, that there is important contemporary vibrant work being done by people into their senior years and [they should] not to be overlooked.”

A perfect example of a lifelong artist whose extensive oeuvre demands attention is 93-year-old Bernette Rudolph of Park Slope, Brooklyn. “I have been wanting to feature and honor some of our much older [BWAC] members,” Handwerker said of the mini-retrospective. “People love her work and it’s time she was recognized.” A rear corner of the BWAC exhibition space is dedicated to Rudolph's work over the decades.

Left to right: Hera, Sea Horse,  Antelope Man, Mermaid Riding a Sea Horse by Bernette Rudolph

Diana of Ephesus #1 and #2 by Bernette Rudolph

Left to right: Owl Lady, Looking At You, Wise Woman, Bunny Lady (above), Pearls Abound, Fish Face by Bernette Rudolph

Archway by Bernette Rudolph

Rolled Paper Art #2, #1, #3 by Bernette Rudolph

While she works primarily with wood, both fine wood and found pieces, Rudolph masterfully transforms various materials— paper, varnish, beads, shells, animal figurines—into delightful treasures. Unwilling to sit idly during a hospital stay last year, Rudolph rolled, folded, and transformed pieces of paper into enchanting sculptures. “She’s my hero,” Handwerker says.

Charlotta Kotik—a former curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum—served as the juror for Art Over Time. Along with the age requirement, the criteria for submissions included a narrative explaining how each artist arrived at this stage of their career. “We wanted to know how did [they] get here from there, from wherever [they] started, whether it was in youth or...a second career,” Handwerker explained. “The work itself is wonderful…and having the backstory is so enriching.”

On Her Mind (foreground) and Double Dare (rear) by Leah Poller

Ice Writing: River I by Ellen Alt

Oil Spill by Diane Miller

A Man by Nina Hellman

Opposites Abstract by Joe Banish

Clinton Hill Red Green, 1 on 1 (above), Six Over Six (below) by Daniel McDonald

Pandemic Series #2 by Michael Padwee

Memories - Coke Case (foreground) by Renee Radenberg; Do You Want to Meet at My Place? (rear) by Elizabeth Casquiero

Andy Warhol in China by Hui Tian

Infinity (foreground) by Ray Katz; Table of Contents (top) and Freud's Sister - A Collection of Short Love Stories (bottom) by Kenneth Ricci

Left to right: Blue's Note (top) and Basta (bottom) by Steven Nedboy; Noon and Nocturne by Virginia Sharkey

BWAC received more than 100 submissions from across the country for the juried exhibit. Kotik selected the top three artists:

• Mixed media works by Victoria Cowles of Potomac, Maryland;
• A pair of intricate sculptures composed of found materials by Ronald Gonzalez of Johnson City, New York;
• Elegant paper relief collages by Judith Eloise Hooper of Brooklyn, New York.

Cowles’ winning work embodies the exhibit’s theme, according to Handwerker. “Tory Cowles…does exemplify how innovative people are. If you’re an artist you’re an artist no matter what, no matter how old you are.” Learn more about Art Over Time at bwac.org.

Otherwise Engaged and Then by Judith Eloise Hooper

Head #1 by Ronald Gonzalez

Head #3 by Ronald Gonzalez

Dark Tapestry by Victoria Cowles

Art Over Time
Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC)
481 Van Brunt Street, Door #7, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view July 10 through August 15, Saturdays & Sundays from 1pm – 6pm
Closing party on August 15 will include a joint celebration with the concurrent Coney Island exhibit (on second floor) and feature magic shows and performances.

Karen Gibbons | Gowanus Retrospective

Karen Gibbons in her studio at 280 Nevins Street.

After nearly 30 years, Karen Gibbons is saying farewell to her Gowanus studio with an exhibition and courtyard party this weekend. Showcasing work created in the 1980s and 1990s, Gowanus Retrospective includes drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs, and collage works inspired by the rapidly changing Brooklyn neighborhood.

“All of these things were done when I was new to this space,” Gibbons said on Wednesday during a preview of her show. Gowanus inspired Gibbons “with lots of interesting wires, antennas, and shapes that you don’t see in other places.” The neighborhood also provided her with an endless supply of materials she’d find on the streets and incorporate into her artwork, such as springs, a plastic floor mat, construction materials, “detritus of life in Gowanus,” according to the artist.

Works by Karen Gibbons from the 1980s: 'Mountain Spring' (foreground) is composed of objects the artist found in Gowanus. The sculpture evokes "this feeling of surface that is very heavy if you look at it in one way, and then if you look at it in another way, it could be a like a cloud."

Paintings inspired by the Gowanus landscape hang above a sculpture wrapped in a plastic floor mat suggesting "a continuous walkway that you can’t actually walk on." Gibbons described the piece as "a portrait of depression."

Gibbons' Gowanus landscapes (front room) and the works in the rear were created in the 1980s. The sculptures were produced in the 1990s.

Originally from Pennsylvania, Gibbons moved to NYC where she studied at Pratt and earned her MFA in painting from Hunter College. While a student at Hunter, Gibbons and her husband spotted an advertisement for a four-story industrial building at 280 Nevins Street that housed a stuffed animal factory on the first floor and studio spaces on the upper levels. “It said ‘air-conditioned building near BAM,’” she recalled. “We drove by and said ‘this is not near BAM and that building is not air-conditioned.” The couple eventually went back to check out the building and were “blown away with the amount of space.” In 1984 they moved in, sharing studio space until a dance studio on the second floor became available in the early ‘90s. Gibbons took over the lease for the vast studio and has worked there until this year.

The new space allowed Gibbons to create large-scale sculptures and a series of paintings inspired by the Gowanus landscape. “What interests me is the sky and the buildings,” Gibbons said. “The neighborhood is unusual in that there’s so much sky.” Created in the ‘80s, the paintings illustrate the interactions between the buildings and the sky. They do not represent any specific local landmarks. “They’re more like creatures created from the inspiration of the buildings,” she said of the works. A series of black-and-white photographs also captures glimpses of architectural details around Gowanus—rooftops, smokestacks, and cornices—all seen under those expansive skies.

Gowanus Retrospective by Karen Gibbons

A series of black-and-white photos shot by Karen Gibbons in the 1980s.

Gowanus Retrospective by Karen Gibbons

Looking out of her studio windows inspired Gibbons to create a series of charming paintings featuring pigeons, bestowing grace upon these typically humble creatures. Embodying two of her passions, nature and urban life, the birds share similarities to humans, the artist insists. “We’re like pigeons in a way that we travel in groups and are sort of oblivious to our surroundings. They’re very city creatures.”

In 2019, after years of changing hands, 280 Nevins Street was sold to a developer who plans to convert the building into luxury condos—another sign of gentrification in an area facing the threat of a massive rezoning. “The neighborhood was really kind of dead,” Gibbons recalled of her early years in Gowanus when drugs and prostitution were the area’s main trades. “A lot of the industries were not here.”

“It was just quiet,” Gibbons said of the now bustling neighborhood. “Before, on weekends, nobody walked on Union Street. I would tell people, ‘We’re right by the Union Street Bridge,’ and they would say, ‘Where is that?’ Now I say, ‘We’re near Ample Hills.’” Gibbons began noticing changes in the area about ten years ago, when the Green Building first started hosting weddings and events. “We started seeing people in wedding gowns taking pictures on the bridge…. We were like, ‘this is the end.’”

Collage paintings by Karen Gibbons

A group of work from the 1980s on display at Gowanus Retrospective

Sculptures by Karen Gibbons. 'Mother Tree' (foreground) was inspired by a picture Gibbons' daughter drew in the 1990s.

To prepare for the impending closure of her Nevins Street workspace, Gibbons moved to Red Hook’s TI Art Studios in December 2019. At 350 square feet, her new studio is significantly smaller than her longtime Gowanus space, so the artist needs to pare down. Anyone who purchases a ticket to Gowanus Retrospective will take home a piece of Gibbons’ artwork! What’s more, a majority of the proceeds from ticket sales will go to Arts Gowanus, the non-profit organization that hosts the much-loved Gowanus Open Studios every year.

“I realized that part of what made this studio so vital was having an open studio every year that I could count on,” Gibbons said of the organization. “Also with all the changes in Gowanus and Arts Gowanus’ working to make sure the artists still have a place here, I felt like it was a great match.” Though she might have missed the very first Gowanus Open Studios event, Gibbons believes she “might have participated in every single one.”

While her new studio may be much smaller, it has not slowed Gibbons’ productivity. She had a solo show at 440 Gallery and was part of a group show with the gallery in late 2020. Earlier this year she had a solo show at Sweet Lorraine Gallery. “Now with a different studio and different perspective with the neighborhood changing, my work is changing too,” Gibbons said. “We’ll see where it goes.” When asked whether Red Hook inspires her in the same way Gowanus does, she replied. “Somewhat. It’s quirky and there’s still sky.”

Learn more about Karen Gibbons at karengibbonsart.com.

Karen Gibbons | Gowanus Retrospective
Saturday, June 12, 4pm-8pm (Rain date: June 19)
280 Nevins Street, Gowanus
Ticket prices: $25, $40, $60, $100, $300
See some of the artwork available at each price point at artsgowanus.org.
Purchase tickets here.

Art Crawl Harlem Presents Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem at Kente Royal Gallery

Art Crawl Harlem Presents Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem at Kente Royal Gallery

Head uptown to celebrate the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance with Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem. Presented by Art Crawl Harlem at Kente Royal Gallery, this sweeping group exhibition features a vibrant array of work by 18 artists influenced by the iconic neighborhood.

The Harlem Renaissance emerged in the wake of the 1918 influenza pandemic and The Great Migration which brought an influx of Black Americans from the South in search of opportunity. “A movement translating the joy, pain, resilience, and brilliance of Black people. A rising up of sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers. A celebration of artistry, individuality, and community,” according to the Art Crawl Harlem website.

Fire & Soul commemorates this influential movement in Black history during another pandemic, celebrating the “the majesty of Black life” a century ago, today, and looking ahead to the future. The artwork showcased in the exhibit examines “the varying identities and impacts of Black people as it intersects American culture, from The Great Migration to immigration, music, sexuality and gender identity, politics, religion, public health, education, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the pursuit of freedom and everyday life.”

Fire & Soul curators Nakia Hicks, Ulysses Williams, Executive Director of Art Crawl Harlem, and Dodji Gbedemah, owner of Kente Royal Gallery, received an overwhelming response when the call for submissions launched for the exhibit early last month. “We knew it was going to be an important exhibit, but…considering COVID and everything that’s been going on this year, we didn’t know that the interest was going to be that big. We were pleasantly surprised,” Gbedemah said last week at the gallery.

“We were heartbroken that we couldn’t include everyone,” he added. “We wanted to have all of them because they were all wonderful pieces.”

Featuring painting, photography, collage, sculpture, digital art, and textile art, the exhibit features longtime Harlem stalwarts such as Thomas Heath, artist and owner of Heath Gallery, and Rudy Collins, a photographer who has documented the neighborhood for decades. “He’s a true Harlemite,” Gbedemah said of Collins. “Not only was he born here in Harlem, lived here his whole life, but he took a lot of pictures of Harlem, especially of the architecture and personalities and all kinds of people who came through here. He’s seen it all.”

WIlliam Daniels, Falcon-Warrior Totem, Butterfly Totem, Bird Totem; Dominick Williams; Mario Joyce Belyusar, Matrilineal I

Mario Joyce Belyusar, Patriarchy, Matrilineal I, Matriarch

Thomas Heath, Caravan (top), Kings Crown (below)

Taeesha M., We the People, Warrior Prose; Ricky Day, A Day and A Park, Malcolm and MIke, Baldwin and The Bishop; Rudy Collins, Harlem is Art, Ladies Day in Harlem, Happy Birthday Daddy, Black Sup-Her Hero

Guy Stanley Philoche, Aubrey W., Saba F.

Demarcus McGaughey, State of Mind, Mind of a King; Sade Boyewa El, Faces of Harlem Series

“The Harlem Renaissance [included] poets, musicians, writers, painters, and dancers,” exclaims Gbedemah. “It was an explosion of artistic expression.” Fire & Soul serves as an “ode to the Harlem Renaissance and beyond,” he continued. “Yes, the Harlem Renaissance happened a hundred years ago but what happened in the hundred years that followed? And what’s going to happen in the next hundred years?”

Khalid Sabree vividly illustrates Harlem’s musical history linking two hometown genres in Jazz Iz Hio Hop Iz Jazz while a fiery orange canvas proudly declares The New Harlem Renaissance, a nod to today’s thriving creative community showcased at this exhibit.

Harlem-based textile artist William Daniels upholds the African American tradition of quilt-making. “He is one of the few male African American quilters,” Gbedemah notes. “In the African American tradition, there’s been a lot of quilters since slavery but the majority of them have been women.” Daniels’ three black, white, and red panels perfectly combine the time-honored craft with a modern graphic aesthetic.

Anthony Boone’s monochromatic sculptural works darkly stand out in the gallery filled with brightly hued works. Black Butterfly represents “Black women and their beauty,” Gbedemah explains, while a closer look of Ma’ Dear reveals a woman feeding an infant, a haunting representation of wet nurses or “Black women feeding white babies,” he adds.

Matrilineal I, a portrait of Mario Joyce Belyusar’s mother, traces the artist’s African American lineage through her womb. Belyusar further explores his roots by incorporating vintage family photos in Patriarchy and Matriarch.

Daryl Daniels’ intimate works focus on everyday New Yorkers riding public transportation. Far From Home, her painting of a young boy curled up on a bus seat pensively staring out the window, is a touching and familiar sight. “We’ve all been there, riding with our parent and looking at the beauty of New York City,” Gbedemah says of the work. “A young person experiencing the city.”

Daryl Daniels, (clockwise from top left) Divine RIght II, Butterflies, Windows to the Soul, Far from Home; Sean Patrick Watters, Harlem Black Series: Pose, Black Sabrina, Andre J. Superstar

Mark McLeod,  What Would Jackie Do

Mark McLeod, Blue Heals All

Karim Chambers, Nina Simone and Miles Davis

Khalid Sabree (KHA-Tees), SunRa + Sun Raised, Jazz Iz Hio Hop Iz Jazz, The New Harlem Renaissance; Demarcus McGaughey, State of Mind, Mind of a King; Sade Boyewa El, Faces of Harlem Series

Art Crawl Harlem's Ulysses Williams and Kente Royal Gallery's Dodji Gbedemah

The message of the exhibition is hope, according to Gbedemah. “Maybe it’s a coincidence that we have another pandemic,” he said. “Every time society goes through such a drastic period, we come out of it with an explosion of creativity, business, and prosperity.” Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem is an outstanding homage to a storied NYC neighborhood that will inspire pride and optimism. “We might be going through a tough time right now but 2021 is around the corner.” Learn more at artcrawlharlem.com.

Art Crawl Harlem Presents Fire & Soul: 100 Years of Harlem
Kente Royal Gallery, 2373 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, Harlem
Exhibition on view December 3, 2020 through January 3, 2021
Gallery Hours: Wed. – Fri. 2pm to 8pm; Sat. & Sun. 12pm to 8pm; Mon. & Tue. closed
Visitors must follow social distancing protocol. Reservations are encouraged. RSVP here.

PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux | Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC)

Carol Adams' sculptures (front and back left); Joyce Riley's Dawson's Creek, Meet You There, We Are All One (back wall, left to right)

The second weekend of the Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux at the BWAC gallery was bustling on Saturday with art lovers of all ages. The exhibition, featuring a variety of works by Arts PSWT members, serves as an alternative to the group’s annual Open Studios event, offering more room for artists and visitors to adhere to pandemic protocols.

“With COVID we were thinking of just canceling and not doing it at all,” explained Sandra Giunta, a member of Arts PSWT who helped organize the group show. “I’m a member here at BWAC so I knew the space and…I thought that this would be a great way for us to continue our Open Studios this year, in an 8,000-square-foot gallery where we could social distance.”

She proposed the idea of hosting the exhibit at BWAC in early October. The 32 participating artists joined forces to make it a reality, exhibiting an array of  painting, prints, ceramics, collage, drawings, photography, and sculpture. Each artist is given wall space or a table to showcase a selection of their work.

Sandra Giunta stands beside a display of her Corals sculptures at BWAC

Sandra Giunta, Cause and Effect 1, Cause and Effect 2

Alise Loebelsohn, Talking to Angels, Sail and Sea (top), Dots and Stars (bottom)

Works by Dara Oshin

Works by Cynthia Ruse

Paper collage portraits by Judith Eloise Hooper

Works by Robin Roi

Whereas the open studios tend to be “a much more intimate kind of event,” Giunta is happy with the expansive exhibit because it gives the artists an opportunity to see each other’s output. “When we have Open Studios at many different places, the artists don’t get to see each other’s work, so it’s something you really miss. This is giving everybody the opportunity to see all the artists' work.”

Janie Samuels, President of Arts PSWT agrees, adding that “manning our own studios” during the usual Open Studios event prevents members from visiting their colleagues at their workspaces. “What’s fabulous about this show is that…it’s the first opportunity we’ve actually had to be able to spend as much time here as a group and talk about the work as a group,” she said.

Born in upstate New York, Samuels grew up in Manhattan and received her BA from Bennington College in Vermont and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts. A member of Arts PSWT for more than ten years, Samuels works from her home opposite Green-Wood Cemetery. Her evocative drawings and paintings address immigration issues and the refugee crisis. “I’ve always been affected by how horrific, heartless, and unnecessary so much global strife is, so I try to attack those political issues on an intimate level and bring it back to something that’s humane,” she explains. “I also deal with more intimate issues, but the paintings are all about relationships.”

Janie Samuels stands with her works (left to right) Is It Safe Yet?, Lazy Summer Days, Lean On Me, and two landscapes

Janie Samuels, (clockwise from top left) In Dialogue, Helping Hands, In Hopes of a Better Life

Jonathan Blum's (with Sean Qualls) A Magical Moment (top left); Brooklyn Rabbi Blessing Flowers (bottom left); Pope Playing Bass (center);
(with Sean Qualls) The Rehearsal (top right); Pink Llama with Blue Watermelon (bottom right)

Works by Bob Hagan

Fotini Vurgaropulou, Film Reels

Works by Bernardo Justin Campoy

Phil DeSantis (left to right) Lily Pads, Crucifiction, Nathan's, Windows Reflection

Works by Heidi Yockey

Mary Cuddihee Skrill, Blue and red building (top left); Black Lives Matter wall (bottom left);
Yellow house (center); Orange building (top right); Grey buildings (bottom right)

Watercolors by Lynn Cole

Sculptures by Steve Ettlinger

A member of Arts PSWT for five years, Giunta is a resident of Windsor Terrace and works from TI Art Studios in Red Hook. Formerly a Doctor of Education in Instructional Technology and Distance Education, Giunta is a self-taught artist working in clay sculpture. She began sculpting figurative works—detailed busts and human figures—before finding inspiration in the “wonderful coral reef” along the coast of Belize. Her playful, colorful coral sculptures on display at BWAC transport visitors momentarily to a tropical beachfront, however her works carry a more pressing message. “With global warming, the reefs are being destroyed and I just want to keep everything kind of above the surface and alert people,” she said. “We have to do something about this or we’re going to lose these incredible structures.”

With dozens of artists enthusiastically showcasing their work to the steady stream of visitors throughout the weekend, the exhibition at BWAC proved to be just as popular as the annual open studios. “I didn’t know how we would do with COVID and what kind of turn-out we’d have, but I think everybody’s anxious to get out again and do things,” Giunta noted. The Arts PSWT team may make the group show a regular event on their calendar. 

“We may try to set something up where we do this once a year and we do the Open Studios once a year,” added Samuels. “This has been a wonderful event [despite] COVID. It’s given us an opportunity to show our work and what we’ve done, and it’s also given the community an opportunity to see work in a safe place.”

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux has been extended through next weekend, November 21 and 22. 

Like last year, OSSAM Gallery in Park Slope serves as a central hub for the event, displaying one piece by each participating artist. See my post on the OSSAM exhibit here.

PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux
Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, 481 Van Brunt Street (ground floor), Red Hook, Brooklyn
Saturday & Sunday (Nov. 21 & 22), noon to 6pm

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux | OSSAM Gallery

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux, OSSAM Gallery

Although the annual Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios event cannot proceed as usual this year, the group has found an alternate way to showcase work by dozens of local artists while adhering to COVID-related health restrictions. Instead of attendees visiting individual artist studios, PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux assembles more than 30 artists for a group exhibition taking place at two spacious venues where there is plenty of room to social distance while meeting the artists and checking out their work. Don't forget to wear a mask!

The collective of artists based in Park Slope and Windsor Terrace has hosted open studios annually since 2013. Spanning two weekends, Open Studios: Redux kicked off last Friday. Once again Ossam Gallery serves as a preview gallery, exhibiting one piece by each participating artist. Works on view include painting, prints, drawings, ceramics, sculpture, photography, and collage.

Over at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's (BWAC) gallery in Red Hook, the artists showcase an array of work, each with a designated table or wall space to exhibit. The artists will be on hand over the weekend to meet and greet visitors and sell their work.

Visit ArtsPSWT.com for more info and click here to see my post covering last year's PSWT Open Studios Weekend. Below are photos taken last Sunday at OSSAM Gallery. 

PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux
OSSAM Gallery, 300 7th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Friday through Sunday (Nov. 13-15), noon to 6pm

Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, 481 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Saturday & Sunday (Nov. 14-15), noon to 6pm

Dan McDonald, 6 Over 6, mixed media

L-R: Bob Hagan, Life Goes On (25a), mixed media; Mary Cuddihee Skrill, Pink Building, acrylic on canvas

Robin Roi, Elemental, mixed media, acrylic paint, collage, dressmaking paper

L-R: Stephanie Amend, Doe Deer, oil; Dara Oshin, Fecundity, archival pigment print, glass beads, metal leaf, board; Alice Garik, Nest, gelatin silver print

L-R: Cynthia Ruse, Still, oil and mixed media on wood panel; Alise Loebelsohn, From Green to Orange, oil paint on panel

L-R: Janie Samuels, Silence Speaks, pastel on paper; Lynn Goodman, Brooklyn Parrot Flight, porcelain, glazes, gold

L-R: Stacy Bergener, Behind the Veil, mixed media on canvas; Heidi Yockey, Untitled, oil on panel

L-R: Phil Desantis, Rusty Chains, photograph; Susan Greenstein, Wave Hill, watercolor

Howard Skrill, Junipero Serra Decapitate, ink, gesso, graphite, colored pencil, pastel on watercolor paper

L-R: Raya Dukhan, Ardent, mixed media on canvas; Phyllis Gaughran, Just Before Dawn, acrylic on natsume

Luis Coig, Untitled, wood shelf and tchotchkes

L-R: Justin Campoy, in collaboration with John Lennox, Fielder's Choice (First buds must like the cold), multicolored ink and letterpress with Baskerville Type on paper; 
Lynn Cole, View From Inside, watercolor, rubber stamp

Joyce Riley, Green-Wood Cemetery, Pink Paths, oil and acrylic on wood

Kathleen Jean-Jacques, Lou, mixed media

L-R: Caryn Kreitzer, The Peace March, terracotta; Karen Jarmon, Hanukkah Menorah, ceramic and brass; Paola Corso, Blue Moon Shadows, photograph

Jonathan Blum, Sheep Thinking About Aged Gouda, monoprint

Steve Ettlinger, Sleeping Shmoo, cedar with Danish oil

Fotini Vurgaropulou, Chambers, cast glass and copper

L-R: Sandra Giunta, Coral Reminder 47, clay; Carol Adams, Irini, ceramic with terra sigilatta, underglaze, washes, glaze, metal, beads

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios Redux, OSSAM Gallery

Gowanus Reflection | Documenting A Changing Neighborhood

Gowanus Reflection: View from Carroll Street bridge, December 2013

The spring-like weather this weekend will be perfect for a Gowanus scavenger hunt! The husband-and-wife filmmaking team behind the documentary Gowanus Current have taken ten stills out of their hundreds of hours of footage and posted them at the original locations throughout the neighborhood where they were shot.

Jamie Courville and Chris Reynolds began filming Gowanus Current in 2013, documenting the rapid transformation of the former industrial district, from the demolition of old factory buildings to the construction of new luxury residences, a Whole Foods, and numerous hotels, bars, and restaurants. At the center of the neighborhood is the Gowanus Canal, a 1.8-mile-long toxic body of water designated a Superfund Site by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2010. With the agency’s cleanup of the polluted waterway finally beginning along with the impending rezoning of Gowanus—which will bring with it thousands of new residents, more commercial space and taller buildings—this once gritty neighborhood will soon become a very different place.

The Brooklyn-based couple were living in Gowanus when they started the film and witnessed firsthand the gentrification of the neighborhood, seeing longtime businesses close and residents move out, they told Brownstoner in 2014. They’ve attended countless city meetings in the neighborhood and documented various local events, like the environmental activist swimming the fetid canal in 2015. They also interviewed community members and even set up a phone line for neighbors to call and leave their personal stories about Gowanus.

Gowanus Reflection: Southeast corner of Union and Nevins, October 2013

Gowanus Reflection: Public Place site, March 2014

View from photo Gowanus Reflection: Public Place site, March 2014

Gowanus Reflection: Burns Brothers coal pockets demolitions, April 2014

When completed Gowanus Current will show “the neighborhood becoming an entertainment destination, losing artists and small manufacturers, and entering an era of increasing community awareness,” the filmmakers state on their website. “Neighborhood icons like the beloved Kentile sign are dismantled, while new landmarks like the 700-unit 365 Bond apartments gradually rise up. In the wake of the transformative rezoning plan, local groups struggle to have their needs addressed. This film will continue to explore the changes to the community as these mounting conflicts finally reach their resolution with the city’s decision on rezoning in the coming months.”

Their outdoor photo exhibit, Gowanus Reflection, will be on display from October 29 through November 11. The framed 8 x 11-inch prints, mounted onto sign posts and fences, offer a sneak peek of the in-progress film. “In some cases, they reflect a dramatic remaking of the landscape. In others, the changes are more subtle,” the filmmakers wrote in a Facebook post. The couple welcomes feedback on the photos on their website where you can also find a map of the photo locations. Visit gowanuscurrent.com to learn more.

View from photo Gowanus Reflection: Kentile Floors sign, June 2014

Gowanus Reflection: Gowanus Dredgers boat house, February 2014

View from photo Gowanus Reflection: Gowanus Dredgers boat house, February 2014

Gowanus Reflection
Various locations across Gowanus, Brooklyn
On view through November 11, 2020

John Edmonds: A Sidelong Glance | Brooklyn Museum

John Edmonds, Two Spirits, 2019

The Brooklyn Museum presents John Edmonds: A Sidelong Glance, the Brooklyn-based photographer’s first solo museum exhibition. Edmonds’ intimate photos, featuring friends from his creative circle as well as still lifes of African artwork, examine Black queer experiences and identity.

Originally from Washington, DC, the 31-year-old artist earned his BFA from Corcoran School of Art & Design and an MFA in Photography from Yale University. His portraits of friends, lovers, and sometimes strangers, explore “identity, community, and desire,” according to the artist's website. His early work includes The "Du-Rag Series," featuring candid shots of men and women donning the headwear on the streets of his Crown Height neighborhood, he said in an interview for Another Man. These photos soon led to his portraiture work which combines elements of Black American culture with references to religious paintings and modernist photography.

A Sidelong Glance features three groups of recent work. The first includes portraits of friends from the NYC creative community posing with African masks and sculptures borrowed from a Brooklyn collector. Many of his models gaze at or grasp the objects to illustrate “the reception of African art in the United States and Europe that has been conditioned by the legacies of colonialism,” according to the museum. “I was drawn to the objects because of how they were stylized and how that stylizing spoke to a wider view of an ‘African’ vernacular of Black homes in America,” Edmunds stated.

John Edmonds, Tête de Femme (Portrait of Ladin), 2018

John Edmonds, Female Nude, 2019

John Edmonds, Collapse, 2019

In Tête de Femme (Portrait of Ladin), a young woman with her head propped on a table poses next to an elaborate African mask, emulating Man Ray’s Noire et blanche in which a white model poses with a mask from Côte d’Ivoire. Unlike Man Ray’s model, the woman in Edmonds’ portrait has her eyes open and stares directly at the viewer. The model’s confident gaze suggests a reclamation of the artwork from Man Ray's photo.

A shirtless figure seated before a Kuba cloth wears a large-beaked mask in Two Spirits. The Ge Gon (male spirit) mask from Liberia is traditionally worn during masquerade performances. The double exposure image gives the surreal appearance of two masks. According to the artist this portrait “calls and echoes the sentiments of Ibeji” a spirit that represents a pair of twins—a reference to the model’s gender-fluidity.

John Edmonds, Anatolli & Collection, 2019

John Edmonds, Untitled (Light Passing over Ja'Tovia and Senufo), 2019

The second series of images features models interacting with Edmonds’ personal collection of African artwork which includes a mix of both religious objects and commercial pieces to question “what makes or who deems an object ‘authentic.’” 

Anatolli & Collection features a man staring intently at a selection of sculptures from the artist’s collection. “Anatolli gazes upon these sculptures as he himself is gazed upon by Edmonds and the viewer, rendering him a parallel object of desire,” the wall text reads.

John Edmonds, Untitled (Marion & Yaure Mask), 2020

John Edmonds, Untitled (Ellison Collection), 2020

For the third group of images, the Brooklyn Museum gave Edmonds access to its Arts of Africa collection, including objects donated to the institution in 2015 by the estate of Ralph Ellison, the author of the 1952 novel Invisible Man. 

Shot in the Brooklyn Museum’s Beaux-Art Court, a man dressed in black admires a Yaure mask once owned by Ellison in Untitled (Marion & Yaure Mask). Unlike Edmonds' earlier works in which his models engage with the objects, this model sits at a distance from the artwork to illustrate “barriers created by art history and its institutions.”

Edmonds’ elegant and evocative photographs pay tribute to African arts while revising art history narratives by incorporating his experience as a young Black artist. His work was included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Edmonds was also the recipient of the inaugural UOVO Prize for emerging artists in Brooklyn. A Sidelong Glance is presented as part of that prize along with a $25,000 cash grant and the installation of a 50 x 50-foot mural of Edmonds’ 2019 photo Whose Hands? on the façade of UOVO’s Bushwick facility.

John Edmonds: A Sidelong Glance
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view through August 8, 2021

Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks | Brooklyn Museum

Charles Cary Rumsey, The Dying Indian, circa 1904, and Study for Buffalo Hunt Freeze, Manhattan Bridge, 1912-15;  John Little Sun Murie, I'm Gonna Run With Every Minute I Can Borrow moccasins (on sculpture), 2019;  Jeffrey Gibson, I'm Gonna Run With Every Minute I Can Borrow mural, 2019.
A selection of moccasins from the Brooklyn Museum's Collection is displayed in front.

For his current show at the Brooklyn Museum artist Jeffrey Gibson exhibits a selection of his recent multidisciplinary works alongside an array of Native American objects from the museum's collection. When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks features Gibson’s kaleidoscopic paintings and murals, sculptures, and garments juxtaposed with ceramics, headdresses, and beadwork created by Indigenous artists, as well as works depicting Native Americans made by non-Native artists.

Born in Colorado and based in Hudson, New York, Gibson is of Choctaw and Cherokee descent. He incorporates into his work traditional Native American materials and practices (e.g., beadwork, metal jingles, animal hides) to challenge perceptions of Native American artwork and to address the erasure of Indigenous art from Western history. He received a MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 2019. 

Visitors entering the exhibit are met by Charles Cary Rumsey’s life-sized bronze, Dying Indian (circa 1904), set against a dizzying rainbow-colored mural by Gibson. According to the artist, the sculpture is a prime example of how many late 19th- and early 20th-century non-Native artists represented the “decline and eventual end of Native American civilizations.” In the wall text Gibson states that these artworks “have always saddened and perplexed me because I have never understood why some people celebrate these sculptures while I have found them offensive since I was a child.” Gibson collaborated with John Murie to create a pair of the latter's signature beaded moccasins to adorn the statue’s feet. Lyrics borrowed from the Roberta Flack song See You Then are meticulously beaded onto the footwear, reading, “I’m Gonna Run With Every Minute I Can Borrow.”

Two other sculptures by non-Native American artists—one of Chief Blackbird and another of an Indian Warrior—are displayed on either side of Gibson’s I Don’t Belong To You – You Don’t Belong To Me. “These sculptures present images of Native people that are idealized in the mind of the maker either for the objectification of their beauty or their demise,” the artist states.

L-R: Alexander Phimister Proctor, Chief Blackbird Ogalalla (Oglala) Sioux, modeled 1903, cast 1907: Jeffrey Gibson, I Don't Belong to You—You Don't Belong to Me, 2016;  Adolph Alexander Weinman, Indian Warrior, 1898

Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks installation view

Jeffrey Gibson, When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks, 2019

Jeffrey Gibson, All I Wanted, All I Needed, 2019

An adjacent gallery exhibits Gibson’s dynamic paintings on hide or canvas, a beaded punching bag, and three garments inspired by Ghost Dance ceremonies wherein Paiute dancers wore “self-made ghost shirts” that they believed would deflect “white man’s bullets.” The gallery also displays various examples of Native American beadwork as well as two traditional headdresses. The feathered headdress represents the “romanticized Indian” in mainstream media, according to the artist. Young Native American men from the Plains section of the United States (the central expanse from Texas to the Dakotas) added feathers to their headpieces after demonstrating an act of courage or performing a good deed, taking years to accumulate the plumage to complete a full headdress.

The Tsimshian headdress, from the northwest coast, is worn by leaders during gift-giving celebrations to symbolize prestige and “showcase acts of generosity.” Gibson’s two interpretations of headdresses appear more like helmets, encasing the wearer's head in a protective shell. All of the headwear exhibited “symbolize strength” according to the museum, “but one represents strength in the form of protection while the other is in the form of the protector.”

L-R: War Bonnet from the Plains region and Tsimshian headdress from the Northwestern Coast

Top, L-R: Jeffrey Gibson's People Like Us, 2018;  Tribes File Suit To Protect Bears Ears, 2018; A Wag A Wit A Witness; 2018
Below, L-R: Jeffrey Gibson's Oceana, 2018 and Peace, 2018

Jeffrey Gibson, Peace, 2018

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) artist,  Beaded Bag,  circa 1850s-60s

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) artist, Beaded Bag, early 20th century

Jeffrey Gibson, Mound Builder, 2013

Jeffrey Gibson, Speak To Me In Your Way So That I Can Hear You, 2015

The third gallery focuses on items from the Brooklyn Museum’s Archives including a tipi liner covered in illustrations by the Lakota member, Rain-In-The-Face, who documented his life on the swath of cotton. This gallery questions the museum’s Native American collection assembled by Stewart Culin, Curator of Ethnology for the institution from 1903 to 1929. Gibson and historian Dr. Christian Ayne Crouch, who collaborated on this exhibit, argue that while the objects showcase “Indigenous subjects and culture," they also suggest a vanishing culture, “the exclusion and erasure of indigenous histories and stories that had been fundamental to the narratives that institutions promote.” The tipi liner that documents Rain-In-The-Face's history is, according to Dr. Crouch, both an art object and archival piece that "invites us to bring a new approach to recover Native agency, presence, and voice in the Museum archive and in the collections."

Jeffrey Gibson, Whose World Is This? It's Yours It's Mine, 2019
The stained glass work's title is a modified Nas lyric from the 1994 song "The World is Yours"

Grete Mannheim,  Navajo Mother and Baby, Arizona, 1952

Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks installation view

Jeffrey Gibson, Power!, 2018

Rain-In-The-Face, Tipi Liner, 1850-89

Southwest water jars from the Brooklyn Museum Collection

Charles Cary Rumsey, The Dying Indian, circa 1904, and Study for Buffalo Hunt Freeze, Manhattan Bridge, 1912-15; John Little Sun Murie, I'm Gonna Run With Every Minute I Can Borrow moccasins (on sculpture), 2019; Jeffrey Gibson, I'm Gonna Run With Every Minute I Can Borrow mural, 2019

“When fire is applied to a stone it cracks” is an Irish proverb, Gibson explains, adding that it reflects his desire for museum-goers to abandon their preconceived notions when looking at historical objects. “I read ‘fire’ in this quote to describe the innovative making, use of materials, transformative techniques, and the survivalist ethic of Indigenous people. Our use of new and different materials to make things that support ourselves and our communities in the ‘fire’ that continues to break open the static and antiquated ideas regarding who we are and what we are capable of.”

Through the exhibition and his artwork, Gibson demonstrates the “continuity and endurance of Indigenous communities and artists.” Don’t miss this fascinating exhibit that showcases overlooked Native American artwork while reviving it in meaningful and innovative ways.

Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view through January 10, 2021

Studio 54: Night Magic | Brooklyn Museum

Studio 54: Night Magic exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum

This is your last week to check out the Brooklyn Museum’s massive Studio 54: Night Magic exhibition chronicling the legendary nightclub’s three years of glamour, disco, and debauchery. On view are 650 objects documenting the venue’s history including photos, film, music, architectural plans, design sketches, ephemera, and lots of fabulous ‘70s era fashion.

Founded by two Brooklyn natives who met while attending Syracuse University, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, the club was housed in a former opera house at 254 West 54th Street. The Gallo Opera House, constructed in 1927, later became the WPA Federal Music Theatre, then the New Yorker Theatre in the 1930s. CBS took over the building in 1943, recording television shows such as What’s My Line?, The $64,000 Question, Password, and Captain Kangaroo from the vast network’s 52nd studio, Studio 52. In 1966, according to the Brooklyn Museum, the Velvet Underground recorded their first album in the same building. In 1977, Schrager, Rubell, and Jack Dushey, a business partner, leased 254 W 54th Street for their nightclub, dubbing it Studio 54 in reference to the street address.

The businessmen assembled an innovative creative team who worked for months to transform the space, incorporating the original theatrical architecture with luxe décor that accommodated evolving, elaborate sets and state-of-the-art sound and kinetic lighting systems. In lieu of disco balls and lit-up dance floors, which they considered outdated at the time, they hired set designers Richie Williamson and Dean Janoff to create the iconic Moon and Spoon graphic—an eight-foot wide crescent moon with a row of blinking lights leading from a coke spoon up to its nose. The moon adorned the back wall of the club as a cheeky wink to “the popularity of cocaine,” according to the museum.

Studio 54: Night Magic exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum

FIorucci Skirt, Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos,1977

Fiorucci Ribbon Skirt, Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos,1977, remade 2019

Studio 54 VIP Complimentary Drinks tIcket. Gil Lesser designed the club's deco-style logo.

L-R: Fiorucci Blouse, Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos, 1977; Dress, Stephen Burrows, 1978; Pleated Gold Lame Gown, Zandra Rhodes, 1977.
Model Pat Cleveland dances in the Rhodes gown at Studio 54 in the Guy Marineau photo (1977) above the display.

The Moon and Spoon with Planets, designed by Richie Williamson and Dean Janoff

L-R (bottom): Halter, worn by Liza Minnelli, circa 1979; Evening Ensemble worn by Elizabeth Taylor at the Academy Awards, 1976; Dress worn by Liza Minnelli, 1978; (top) White silk and sequin ensemble worn by Liza Minnelli, 1977, all designed by Halston.

Bianca Jagger,  May 2, 1977,  photo by Rose Hartman

L-R: Sarong Gown, Halston, 1977;  Low-Back Slip Mio and Ruffle Skirt,  Norma Kamali, 1977; Super Flare Dress, Norma Kamali, 1977

Brooke Shields and Mariel Hemingway at Studio 54, 1977,  photo by Adam Scull

Studio 54 with Balloons, 1978,  photo by Tod Papageorge

Western Union Mailgram from The Andy Warhol Museum collection

Elizabeth Taylor, Halston, and Bianca Jagger at Taylor's birthday party,  March 6, 1978,  photo by Allan Tannenbaum

Two pairs of Halston metallic sandals worn by Elizabeth Taylor to events at Studio 54 in 1978.

Studio 54 guest list from April 7, 1978

Steve Rubell, Liza Minnelli, Bianca Jagger, and Andy Warhol, April 1978, photo by Roxanne Lowit

Fashion Designer Issey Miyake and Fashion Editor Diana Vreeland, 1978,  photo by Adam Scull

When Studio 54 debuted on April 26, 1977, the club instantly became a Mecca for revelers from all walks of life, or as the museum puts it “people from different sexual, sociopolitical, and financial strata.” Preceding the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, the club offered a place to experience “sexual, gender, and creative liberation, where every patron could feel like a star,” according to the press release. The venue was a late-night playground for the biggest celebrities of the day, from movie and television stars, artists, models, singers, dancers, rock stars, writers, fashion designers, and many more.

Despite its success—with desperate mobs trying to get past the doormen each night—shady business operations led to police raids of the venue which eventually landed Schrager and Rubell in prison briefly for tax evasion. (President Obama granted Schrager a full pardon in 2017.) The two were locked up in February 1980 and Studio 54 was sold in May of that year, with Schrager and Rubell staying on as consultants. The last hurrah they helped organize was a "Busby Berkeley-inspired" Sweet 16 birthday party for Calvin Klein’s daughter in October 1982. The pair went on to open another popular nightclub, the Palladium, as well as boutique NYC hotels including the Royalton and The Paramount.

Anton Perich's photos of Jerry Hall and Patti Hansen, 1978, and his "machine paintings" of the images

Clockwise from top left: Two Men on Couch, circa 1978; Untitled, circa 1978; Untitled, circa 1978; and Untitled, circa 1978  all by Anton Perich

Velvet, Lamé, and Rhinestone Dress,  Zandra Rhodes, circa 1979

L-R: Dress (Look 9), 1979 and Dress, 1978, both Zandra Rhodes;  Dress (purple silk charmeuse), circa 1976-79, and Dress (from "Romantic Chiffon" Collection), 1974, both  Giorgio di Sant'Angelo; V-Neck Blouse, 1979, Kenny Bonavitacola

Donna Summer Sings, April 26, 1979,  photo by Allan Tannenbaum

Red Balloons, Valentine's Day 1979, photo by Dustin Pittman

Halloween 1978, photo by Hasse Persson

L-R: Top, 1978, Gauntlet Gloves, 1978, and Hooded Catsuit, 1978 all designed by Larry LeGaspi; Wrap Jumpsuit, 1979, Kenny Bonavitacola; Asymmetrical Catsuit, 1978,  Larry LeGaspi

Studio 54, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 1978, Andy Warhol

Bulgari Sapphire Sautoir worn by Elizabeth Taylor to Studio 54 on May 21, 1979. Richard Burton gave Taylor the 62-carat Burmese sapphire necklace for her 40th birthday.

L-R: Norma Kamali's Sleeping Bag Coats circa 1979 and 2019 (silver), Silver Lame Parachute Dresses 2020 (top) and Slinky Dress (pink jersey), 1977, remade 2019:
Zandra Rhodes' pleated lame dress, 2019

Heavy Stud Thong Slip Mio Swimsuit, 2019, Norma Kamali; Powernet and rhinestone dress, 1991, Giorgio di Sant'Angelo and Martin Price

Studio 54 Jeans by Norma Kamali (men's and two pairs of women's), 1980, and a pair of Calvin Klein jeans

Rubell contracted HIV and passed away from AIDS related illnesses in 1989. Schrager has continued his success as a hotelier, launching the Delano in Miami, the Mondrian in Los Angeles, and more recently Public in NYC’s Lower East Side.

Though only open for 33 months, Studio 54 has had an indelible influence on pop culture and sets an imposingly high bar for nightclubs and party promoters today. Do the hustle over to the Brooklyn Museum and be transported back to the extravagance of this boogie wonderland!

Studio 54: Night Magic
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Closing November 8, 2020
Tickets: $20

Tamara Staples | New Video Portraits Explore Light And Memory

Photographer Tamara Staples debuted a new four-channel video work during the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave opening over the weekend. A stack of four televisions display her intimate “moving portraits,” examining the power of lighting and questioning our sense of memory.

“Time and memory are at the heart of this work,” according to the artist. “The video captures the ever-changing content of our faces and demands the viewer to mistrust any static images ever experienced. In a sense, it proves the uncertainty of all our judgements.”

“I’ve always been fascinated by how lighting can really create a personality and change how quickly we see…or just make generalizations about [people], from making them look more feminine or more masculine, younger or older…the lighting is everything,” Staples said on Saturday.

The project—three years in the making—began with Staples designing a special crank-operated light which a friend in the film industry built for her. Staples filmed her models for about two minutes each, hand-cranking the light to make it circle around each subjects’ head. As the light revolves, it increases the brightness or casts shadows on each models’ face, seeming to instantly transform their expressions, dispositions, and features. The mesmerizing effects may make some viewers wonder at times if they are still looking at the same person! See an excerpt at the artist's website. 

“As I started to crank, it’s as if everything disappears the moment the light moves away from [a face],” Staples said. Seeing these rapid transitions led her to think about identity and “how we are often wrong when we think we can identify someone.” She began to question our ability to remember someone’s appearance based on “little snippets” or quick glimpses. Our brains are “geared to short-term thinking and we’re not really able to recognize people the way we think we are,” she argues.

Staples shot more than 20 models of diverse ages and backgrounds. She experimented with various expressions, tried adding movement, and tried shooting some in black and white. Approximately a dozen models are featured in the final work which runs on a 22-minute loop on four unsynchronized television screens.

Staples worked with an editor over the summer to cut the hours of footage, capturing the “best frames, the best lighting, or the expression for that moment.” She also manipulated the speed of the videos during the editing stage. “Some are slowed down…because some people are maybe moving a little quickly and it’s disconcerting. I wanted it all to be much slower so that you’re really getting the nooks and crannies of their faces.”

Staples studied photography at the University of Florida and lived in Chicago before moving to Brooklyn in 1999. Based in South Slope, she has participated in five Gowanus Open Studios. “I love having that stream of people…. As an artist it’s great to have that rotating crop of enthusiastic art lovers because we can talk about the work,” she said. “As an artist you kind of know what you’re doing, but you’re not quite sure, you have to talk it out.” She thinks this year’s alternate event—the socially-distanced art walk—is “brilliant,” noting “people are really coming down, they’re dying to see artwork. We’re all missing that, so I am thrilled.”

Tamara Staples' video installation on view at Out Of The Closet, 475 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Tamara Staples’ video portraits are on view at Out Of The Closet, 475 Atlantic Avenue, until November 1, 2020 as part of the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave Art Walk. Learn more about the event at artsgowanus.org. Go to tamarastaplesfineartphotography.com for more about the artist.
[Note: Due to the sun, the best time to see Staples’ installation is after 4pm.]

Eye Smile You Smile | Public Art Spreads Joy on Atlantic Ave

Artist Miguel Ayuso with his wife Beth and their daughters Max and Lola.

Dozens of smiling faces greet passersby from a construction barricade on the northwest corner of Atlantic Avenue and Hoyt Street where artist Miguel Ayuso has installed his public art piece, Eye Smile You Smile. Inspired by the face coverings worn to prevent the spread of coronavirus, Ayuso has exhibited a series of side-by-side portraits of participating New Yorkers—one with a face covering and one without—to reveal their hidden smiles.

“Now that we are in quarantine, we are wearing these masks [for] the purpose of caring for ourselves but also for each other,” explained Ayuso on Saturday during the opening of Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave. “All in a sudden [the masks] became something more aesthetic, like an art statement or a fashion statement… What we’re missing are the smiles which, when we care for somebody, are something we wish to see. My idea with this installation is to show that those smiles are still there.”

Ayuso first requested two photos from volunteers—with mask and without—in late April. Participants were asked to smile in both images. He debuted Eye Smile You Smile in May in the window of his gallery La Bodega. Johnny Thornton, the Executive Director of Arts Gowanus, invited Ayuso to recreate the installation for the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave event. “I think it was a good idea because when I did it at La Bodega, it was the very beginning of the pandemic, and even though it was accessible to the public, not a lot of people were going out, so this is a better opportunity to show it again, now that we are a little bit more relaxed,” Ayuso said. The artist also enjoyed revisiting the project because this time around he was able to work on a larger scale, creating 11 x 17 inch portraits instead of the 4 x 7 inch images he previously displayed. 

Thornton was formerly the Gallery Director at La Bodega, a beloved art gallery and community space in South Slope. Due to the pandemic, Ayuso was forced to permanently shutter the space in June after three years. Even without a physical location, Ayuso is carrying on La Bodega’s mission of offering “cultural artistic activities” to the community. He hosted several of the venue’s popular figure drawing sessions at Prospect Park over the summer and is trying to continue those “in a safe way” as the days get shorter and colder. While Ayuso hopes to open another brick-and-mortar location in the future, he says right now he’s “regrouping to see what the next step is going to be.”

    La Catrina Enmascarada on view at Betty Bakery, 448 Atlantic Avenue

Detail of Miguel Ayuso's Eye Smile You Smile on view at Atlantic Avenue & Hoyt Street

Head over to Betty Bakery at 448 Atlantic Avenue to see a another work by Ayuso, a vibrant reinterpretation of José Guadalupe Posada’s iconic Dia de los Muertos image La Calavera Catrina. According to Ayuso, Posada’s illustration of a well-dressed skeleton represents a wealthy woman. “The idea is to show that we are all going to the same place after this life, no matter how much money we have here or how our life was here. We all go to the same end,” he said.

Ayuso’s La Catrina Enmascarada wears a face mask to echo Posada’s original message of unity. “It doesn’t matter who you are, everybody has to wear the masks. We’re all going through the same thing,” Ayuso said. “This is temporary and at some point, we are going to stop wearing these masks and the smiles are going to start coming back slowly.”

Miguel Ayuso’s Eye Smile You Smile is located at the northwest corner of Atlantic Avenue & Hoyt Street and La Catrina Enmascarada at Betty Bakery, 448 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn. Both works are part of the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave Art Walk, on view through November 1, 2020. Learn more about the event at artsgowanus.org. Follow Miguel Ayuso at @themexiyorker.

 

Death Become Her | BRIC

Death need not be final according to the group exhibition currently on view at BRIC. Employing objects commonly associated with death—a cemetery, flowers, shrouds, and memorials—the ten female-identifying artists showcased in Death Becomes Her demonstrate that the act of mourning the dearly departed can serve as a pathway to "self-discovery, inquiry, and introspection."

Death Becomes Her installation view. Mimi Bai's Conjuring a future full of pasts (2020) is in the foreground and three images from Keisha Scarville's Placelessness of Echoes (and kinship of shadows) are displayed on the left.

Catalina Ouyang, past imperfect (Lipotes vexillifer), 2019, and past imperfect (Psephurus gladius), 2019

Nona Faustine’s self-portrait series inspired by the Greek myth of Persephone was shot amongst tombs and mausoleums at Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery. The cinematic photos feature Faustine portraying Demeter, the goddess of harvest. Dressed in black or golden cloaks, she mourns and waits for her daughter Persephone who was forced into marriage with Hades, the god of the dead and the underworld.

(L-R) Nona Faustine's Demeter in Mourning, Magic power divine beauty and grace, Isis, all 2020

Nona Faustine, Isis, 2020

Kim Brandt, Untitled (Greenwood), 2019

Projected onto a screen is footage of Kim Brandt’s Untitled (Greenwood), performed at the cemetery last summer as part of a series presented by Green-Wood in partnership with Pioneer Works. Performers interacted at the cemetery’s circular Cedar Dell in an examination of relationships among the living in a space that memorializes the dead.

Ceramic works by Heidi Lau (2019-2020)

Ceramic works by Heidi Lau (2019-2020)

Detail of Heidi Lau's ceramic works

Inspired by Taoist and folk mythology, Heidi Lau’s ceramic sculptures represent "silenced histories" or "ritual objects, funerary monuments, and fossilized creatures" that have been lost or transformed over time. Rachel Grobstein’s miniature sculptures depict actual roadside memorials, featuring tiny recreations of a ghost bike, candles, stuffed animals, and flowers left on streets and highways to commemorate lost loved ones.

Rachel Grobstein, Ghost Bike, 2019

Rachel Grobstein, Hwy. 285, 2018

Rachel Grobstein, William, Bushwick Avenue, 2018

Rachel Grobstein, Rt. 46, 2018

On select Fridays and Saturdays, Gyun Hur will be on site to perform I wouldn’t know any other way, an installation that features the artist resting in bright yellow dust she creates by shredding silk flowers into a powder that blankets the floor. The piece symbolizes "impermanence and assimilation," Hur’s family and homes, both in her native South Korea and in Atlanta, where she grew up.

Gyun Hur, I wouldn't know any other way, 2020

Gyun Hur, I wouldn't know any other way, 2020

Death Becomes Her at Gallery at BRIC House

Two artists will be featured at Green-Wood Cemetery in programs presented in conjunction with the BRIC exhibit. McKendree Key will host 5 x 10 @ The Catacombs, discussions about death and dying on Saturdays in March (14, 21, 28). Freya Powell’s immersive performance piece Only Remains Remain will honor the unidentified migrants buried in mass graves in Sacred Heart Cemetery in Texas (Saturday, April 11).

Encouraging discussion and reflection, Death Becomes Her is an enlightening meditation on death that asserts we can learn about ourselves by confronting loss.

Death Becomes Her
Gallery at BRIC House, 647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view February 20 through April 19

440 Gallery: 15th Anniversary Members Show

Park Slope’s 440 Gallery celebrates its 15th anniversary with a group exhibit showcasing work by all 15 members of the artist collective.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Nancy Lunsford, Star of Bethlehem, 2006; Ellen Chuse, Floating: Gold, 2019; Janet Pedersen, Night Sky 1, 2019; Karen Gibbons, Common Ground, 2019

The space opened at 440 6th Avenue in January 2005 as a pop-up exhibiting artists from co-founder Nancy Lunsford’s weekly figure drawing workshops. Following the success of the month-long show, Lunsford and co-founder Shanee Epstein decided to keep the storefront going as an artist-run gallery.

"We’ve had 20 to 25 members over the 15 years," Gallery Director Amy Williams said last Friday. Williams joined 440 14 years ago and notes that many of the artists on the current roster have been with the collective for nearly 10 years. Along with having designated duties at the gallery, each member pays dues which go toward rent, utilities, insurance, and other operating costs. "Everybody is really invested in making sure the gallery is successful," she added.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Shanee Epstein, By the Sea, 2009; Amy Weil, Loopy and Falling Petals, both 2020; Susan Greenstein, Highline Silver and Trastevere, both 2019; Doris Rodriguez, Ancestors, 2017. Jo-Ann Acey's By the Sea, 2018, is partially seen in the rear project room.

Nancy Lunsford, Star of Bethlehem, 2006

Each artist has a solo exhibition in 440’s main gallery every two years and is included in a three-person show in the venue's rear project space at least once a year. "It’s a real community of artists and we really value each other," Williams said. While Lunsford and Epstein review portfolios and oversee new members, all other decisions at the gallery are made as a group during regular monthly meetings. "It’s a very democratic system," according to Williams. "We vote on everything."

Williams joined 440 Gallery in 2006 after submitting artwork for the annual Small Works Show. In 2016, "after 10 years and six solo shows," she decided to leave and explore new opportunities. A couple of months later, Lunsford and Epstein offered Williams the Director position to oversee the sales, marketing, and administrative duties at the gallery. "I’m still here four years later," she notes.

Susan Greenstein's Highline Silver, 2019 and Trastevere, 2019

Doris Rodriguez, Ancestors, 2017

Upon accepting the role Williams introduced monthly programming at the space, including jazz performances, poetry readings, and artist talks. "I wanted to make this gallery a destination in the community for culture beyond visual art," she explained. Williams added that the talks are "a great way to engage with the community" and offer visitors the opportunity to ask questions about the art for "a deeper understanding of what [they] are looking at." The next artist talk on Sunday, Feb. 23 will feature 440 Gallery’s two founders, Nancy Lunsford and Shanee Epstein. The pair will discuss the gallery’s successful 15-year run as well as the work they selected to showcase in the current anniversary exhibition.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Joy Makon, All Overgrowth is Comic, 2016; Gail Flanery, Blue Avens, 2019

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Janet Pedersen, Night Sky 1, 2019; Karen Gibbons, Common Ground, 2019; Janet Pedersen, Blue Vase, 2019

15 Years at 440 features a piece or two by each artist and includes an array of collage, encaustic, print, painting, and photography. The two founders contributed older works: Epstein’s 2009 By the Sea is a mixed-media piece and Lunsford’s 2006 Star of Bethlehem is an elaborate quilt pattern composed of pages from magazines, military images, and Arabic and Hebrew text. Paintings by Joy Makon, Ellen Chuse, and Janet Pedersen boast vibrant palettes that play on light or dark while monotype prints by Gail Flanery and Jo-Ann Acey feature unique textures and hand-colored details.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Doris Rodriguez, Kite Dreams #2, 2014; Leigh Blanchard, Flower.3.9.1, 2019; Amy Williams #148-Never been this way and #179-I never think, both 2019; David Stock, Red Cube (Noguchi), 2019

Leigh Blanchard created spontaneous colors and forms for Flower.3.9.1 by moving and distorting an image on a flatbed scanner, while David Stock shows an unexpected black-and-white view through a scarlet sculpture in Red Cube (Noguchi).

Karen Gibbons incorporated images of sculptures, mountains, and a woman balancing above a vivid blue sea for her dreamscape Common Ground, while Fred Bendheim carved a sheet of PVC into a red, yellow, and blue ribbon playfully twisting through a series of triangles for his Mondrian-like Night and Day. Inspired by Tom Phillips’ treated book, A Humument, Williams displays two pages from a copy of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms that she found on the street and reinterpreted with ink, pencil, and gouache.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Fred Bendheim, Night And Day, 2016; Richard Barnet, Sculpture Sketches, 2018-2019
 

Reflecting on her 14 years at 440 Gallery, Williams fondly notes, "This has become an extended family for me. Everybody really supports and encourages each other and I’ve developed incredible friendships with the artists."

Looking ahead, Williams is excited for the future of the art space. "The fact that we’ve been here for 15 years is so remarkable…as a group of artists, we’re all really committed to making sure that the gallery is here for another 15 years."

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show
440 6th Avenue, Park Slope
Exhibition on view February 12 through March 15
Founders' Talk with Nancy Lunsford and Shanee Epstein, Sunday, Feb. 23 at 4:40pm

The Red Bean Grows In The South | Faurschou New York

Faurschou New York, a new private museum, debuted in Greenpoint in December with an inaugural exhibition entitled The Red Bean Grows In The South featuring work by 17 international artists including Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, Tracey Emin, Anselm Keifer, Robert Rauschenberg, and Danh Vo.

Edward and Nancy Kienholz, The Ozymandias Parade, 1985

The title of the show was inspired by Love Seeds, a Chinese poem about longing, penned by Wang Wei during the Tang Dynasty era. Love seeds “sprout from the desire for what once was, or what could have been—the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible,” according to the exhibition notes. The show examines the notion of yearning and “revolves around themes of violence, war, politics, idealism, escapism, desire, hope, dreams, and memory.”

The red bean represents blood and tears in Chinese culture, according to the notes, as well as physical and emotional exile, and “political passion and the desire to break free from repression.” The exhibit’s title references the Faurschou’s Foundation’s ties with China and the “desire to engage Western audiences with important ideas, thoughts and themes from the region.”

Cai Guo-Qiang, A Boat With Dreams, 2008 (above); Alison Saar, Dying Slave, 1989 (right); Dahn Vo, Photographs of Dr. Joseph M. Carrier 1962-1973 (rear and side walls)

(L-R) Tracey Emin, The more of you the more I love you, 2016; Louise Bourgeois, The Couple, 2003; Ai Weiwei, Two Figures, 2018

Cecily Brown, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, 1997-98

Housed in a former warehouse, the gleaming new 12,000-square-foot venue was launched by Danish art dealer/collector/advisor and philanthropist Jens Faurschou. He created the Faurschou Foundation in 2011 "to champion artists and foster cross-cultural dialogue and exchange internationally, in particular between the East and the West." The foundation opened an exhibition space in Beijing in 2011 and a second in Copenhagen in 2012 to showcase its collection of approximately 400 contemporary works, many large-scale installations, according to The New York Times. Faurschou works with his wife on building the collection and with his three children on curating exhibitions.

The show currently on view in New York features painting, sculpture, photography, and video. The centerpiece, The Ozymandias Parade by Edward and Nancy Keinholz, is an immense “satirical tableaux” depicting a leader “mounted on a horse upside down,” a general riding on the back of an “overburdened taxpayer” surrounded by green toy soldiers and a mélange of other found objects.

Edward and Nancy Kienholz, The Ozymandias Parade (detail), 1985

Robert Rauschenberg, The Lurid Attack of the Monsters from the Postal News, August, 1875, (Kabal American Zephyr), 1981-82 (foreground); Yoko Ono, Happy Xmas (War is Over), 1971/2003 (single channel video displayed on screen)

(L-R) Anselm Kiefer, Für Velimir Chlebnikow, 2015-16; Christian Lemmerz, The Last God, 2018-19

Christian Lemmerz, The Last God, 2018-19

(L-R) Georg Baselitz, Mit Roter Fahne (With a Red Flag), 1965; Paul McCarthy, CSSC, Frederic Remington Charles Bronson, 2014-16

Just off the central gallery, four works addressing sex and love are displayed: Louise Bourgeois’ The Couple, a hanging aluminum sculpture featuring a pair of twisty figures reaching out to one another; Cecily Brown’s feverish painting Seven Brides For Seven Brothers; Tracey Emin’s pink neon piece The more of you the more I love you; and Ai Weiwei’s Two Figures, life-size nudes of the artist and a woman sleeping on a mattress beside a mound of red seeds.

Edward and Nancy Kienholz, The Ozymandias Parade, 1985

“We’re making shows because that’s actually what we love to do,” Faurschou told the NY Times. “It’s become a passion to make exhibitions.”

Head over to Greenpoint and check out this labor of love. Learn more at faurschou.com.

The Red Bean Grows In The South
Faurschou New York
148 Green Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view December 15, 2019 through April 11, 2020

Simen Johan: Conspiracy of Ravens | Yossi Milo Gallery

Saturday is your last chance to check out Conspiracy of Ravens, Simen Johan’s latest exhibition at Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea. The show features Johan’s “psychologically charged” digitally manipulated images of “animals in turbulent scenes of power play and theatrical poses,” according the press release.

Simen Johan, Untitled #198, 2019

Johan creates stunning, evocative images that are staged or constructed in Photoshop, combining multiple images of wildlife, landscapes, and backgrounds shot at zoos, safari parks, wildlife sanctuaries, jungles, and rainforests from all around the globe. “Photoshop allows me to create imaginary worlds the way a painter always could, but unlike a painter I do have to first photograph every element that I want to incorporate, so I travel a lot and over the years I’ve built an image library of different animals, plants, and landscapes,” Johan explained at a talk hosted by Red Hook Labs in December. Stephen Frailey, Director of Education for Red Hook Labs, introduced Johan at the event. Frailey was one of Johan’s professors at the School of Visual Arts in the early 90s. Johan received his BFA from SVA in 1996.

Simen Johan, Untitled #196, 2018

Born in Norway, Johan grew up in Sweden with aspirations of becoming a filmmaker. “Filmmaking to me felt like the most engaging art form there was,” he said. The artist was inspired by Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, and David Cronenberg, whose films “reveal complex truths about life, people, and the world.”

Johan switched his focus from film to photography after he learned that he was “too broke to produce anything” and "too shy" to communicate his story ideas. “Even as a photographer I continued to have cinematic ambitions,” he said. “I wanted to construct photographs rather than document them and from the beginning I looked for ways to stage and construct my photographs. At first I would manually cut and paste my images into narratives and collages and then in my second year I discovered Photoshop which I’ve been working with ever since.”

Johan explained that he does not interact with the animals he photographs, so in order to achieve specific poses he shoots countless photos and combines different images. “I like images that have multiple layers of meaning and that speak to me about what life and the world are like: illusory, multi-faceted, contradictory, ironic,” he said. “I vaguely envision an end result but I never know how to get there. It can actually take me several years to complete an image because I keep running into roadblocks.” An example of an obstacle that might impede his process includes the need to reshoot a subject or scene in a different season for the perfect weather and lighting.

Simen Johan, Untitled #193, 2018

Simen Johan, Untitled #200, 2019

“Whenever I start with a plan, I tend to fail,” he said, recalling a trip he took to a wildlife rescue in Maine to shoot an albino raccoon. “When I got there the raccoon was in a dark area of the park and it moved too much for me to get a sharp picture, but then I saw this raven…sitting with its beak open.” The artist photographed the raven and placed multiple images of the bird into a group, “together they looked like they were arguing,” he said. The image is part of his exhibit currently on view at Yossi Milo. “I’ve come to realize [the show] has a lot of influences from the current political climate. The correct term for a group of ravens is either a 'conspiracy of ravens' or a 'congress of ravens,'” Johan noted. Along with the bickering birds, Johan’s recent work showcases battling Barbary lions, piranhas swimming in dark waters, small salmon-colored iguanas crawling over a bemused larger lizard, skunks investigating a serene panda, and a grizzly bear roaring atop a trash heap.

Johan told the backstory of a ferocious-looking wolf. “This image started with a wolf’s face which I photographed at a wolf sanctuary in California. The caretaker was rubbing its belly when it made this face. I found it fascinating that this was the wolf’s happy face.” According to Johan, he did not have a suitable photo of a wolf’s body to graft on to the original snarl and was not able to complete the image until years later after he had photographed another wolf.

Simen Johan, Untitled #195, 2018

“For me a successful image is not one I can necessarily explain or talk about, but one that generates meaning and interpretation possibilities when I look at it. Ideally, the longer I look at an image, the more meaning it should generate and this is one reason I don’t like to title my work,” the artist explained.

Earlier works that Johan showed during his talk at Red Hook Labs included several photographs of children. Johan worked with children for several years before switching his focus to animals. A nod to his former filmmaking ambitions, Johan said, “The work is not really about children or animals. They’re just actors but they exist in this primal realm that I’m interested in where behavior is guided by intuition more than intention.” He added that his subjects serve as “witnesses to the worlds” he creates and that kids and animals can engage in these environments on a “more primal and fundamental level” than adults.

Simen Johan's Untitled #203 (2019) as seen in a slideshow during his talk at Red Hook Labs on December 7, 2019

Recurring themes in Johan’s work include fog, which he sees as the “breath of nature” as well as “strange, symbiotic relationships” and camouflage. “Camouflage is really nature’s way of confusing the things we see, like our perceptions are already distorted by personal desires, fears, experiences…and nature really conspires against the possibility that we can ever see clearly,” he said.

“I like to make something that’s not real feel logical—or distort logic—because so much in life is like that,” he continued. “Things make sense until you start questioning them and you realize that things are not really what they appear.”

Learn more about Johan at simenjohan.com and click to see my posts on his past exhibitions from 2011 and 2009.

Simen Johan: Conspiracy of Ravens
Yossi Milo Gallery, 245 10^th Avenue (between 24th & 25th Streets), NYC
Exhibition on view through January 4, 2020

Studio Visit: Dara Oshin | TI Art Studios

After seeing Dara Oshin's artwork in several group shows around Brooklyn including the Park Slope/Windsor Artists 2019 group exhibition at Ossam Gallery, The Constructions at Ground Floor Gallery, and the 15th Annual Small Works Show at 440 Gallery, I wanted to check out more of her nature-inspired work and was happy to find an opportunity to visit her studio last weekend.

Dara Oshin's artwork on display in her studio

Dara Oshin's 'Ascension' available at 440 Gallery as part of the 15th Annual Small Works Show

On Saturday, December 7, Oshin invited visitors to her sunny, fourth-floor space at TI Art Studios in Red Hook for a studio sale featuring artwork by her and fellow artists Robin Roi and Mahalia Stines. Originally from New Jersey, Oshin studied English at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania and minored in Studio Art. She discovered her true calling was art and continued taking various art courses, including a two-year stint studying oil painting at a Paris atelier. She painted for more than ten years but after having three kids found that she needed to switch media because of the toxic chemicals in paint. 

Dara Oshin's studio at TI Arts Studios

Line Drawings by Dara Oshin

A line drawing by Dara Oshin (courtesy of the artist)

A line drawing by Dara Oshin (courtesy of the artist)

In 2016 she began a series of line drawings. "There was a point in time when there was so much bad news...and I was feeling distressed about it and I wanted to do something to bring love into the world and that showed people connecting and loving one another," Oshin said. "This whole project was about spreading love and good feelings and showing what emotional connections are all about." The uplifting, stark drawings unite the figures by blending their body parts "so it becomes kind of ambiguous where one person ends and the other person begins," she explained. "I try to minimize the amount of lines that you actually need."

Works from Oshin's 'Not A Toy' series

Another earlier series, Not A Toy, consists of small interactive boxes filled with a variety of beads and moving objects that viewers can shake, rattle, and roll inside the wooden containers. "I don’t think I ever would have moved into this mixed media world if I didn’t have to move away from [oil painting] and I’m just loving it. I’m loving having no restraints on what I do," Oshin said. The boxes include everyday objects from Oshin's Windsor Terrace home, such as dryer lint lining the edges of the works, and abstract photos of kitchen items such as plates and pans. "I incorporate a lot of stuff from my domestic life into my work," she explained. One image, which suggests a woman's nether regions, is actually a close up shot of the corner of a baking pan. "I was just playing with the idea of women in the kitchen and, it being a toy, women as objects," she noted.

Dara Oshin, Rising and Falling, 2019 (image courtesy of the artist)

Her photographic Eggs series was conceived in her kitchen. "I was boiling eggs for my son’s lunch every single day, and they would burst, and I started realizing how cool they were. Most of the work is really inspired by my life with my family." she recalled. "You can’t fight trying to separate it, I had to just incorporate it into my work."

"They’re just abstract forms. They don’t have to be an egg," she said of the photos. "They’re just these cool forms that everyone can see in them whatever they want to see." Oshin began photographing the misshapen eggs—many of which could be mistaken for sculpture or otherworldly beings—and soon started incorporating the images into mixed media sculptural works. 

Artwork by Dara Oshin

Works by Dara Oshin

Artwork by Dara Oshin

These rustic yet elegant Icons feature images of the distorted eggs on a gilded background embellished with beads and surrounded by twigs, feathers, seed pods, and other natural materials she collects from Prospect Park. Oshin said she gilds the works as a way to "raise nature to a religious level," presenting them "like little altars or reliquaries." She also sews glittering beads onto the images to create a sense of movement and sparkle and to symbolize seeds or Mother Nature.

L-R: Robin Roi and Dara Oshin pose with an elaborate nest they created for a duo show at Ground Floor Gallery in March

"I was feeling really disconnected from nature...and when I started making these I felt very nourished by getting out and constructing them and bringing these pieces of nature into my space and then living with it," she said. Oshin soon discovered that she wanted viewers to interact with the works. "I want people to connect with stuff…pick flowers and stick them in and just continue adding on to them and swapping them out," she insists. "One of the things I like about this series is that it really can be interpreted on a lot of different levels. Some people see completely different things than me and I love that."

To learn more about Dara Oshin, and to see more of her artwork, visit daraoshin.com.

Garry Winogrand: Color | Brooklyn Museum

Garry Winogrand: Color, on view at Brooklyn Museum through December 8

This is your last week to catch Garry Winogrand: Color at the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibit is the first devoted to the color photographs of Winogrand, who was known primarily for his black-and-white street photography. 

Born in the Bronx in 1928, Winogrand pioneered a "snapshot aesthetic," according to the museum, and shot thousands of color slides from the early 1950s through the late 1960s. The artist did not have the funds to print his color slides and at the time exhibited these works in slideshows. "He found ways to use color as an artistic tool, transforming the commercial and amateur uses of the medium and producing candid pictures that pushed the limits of recognizable art photography at the time," the exhibition notes read.

More than 450 of Winogrand's color transparencies are projected onto the walls of a long darkened gallery at the Brooklyn Museum. The slides are divided into eight categories: Coney Island, 1952-1958; Early Color, 1950s; Early Color, 1960s; Portraits And Still Lifes, 1960s; On The Road, 1960s; Travel, 1960s; Women, 1960s; White Masculinity, 1960s.

Winogrand began using Kodachrome color slide film in the early 1950s. The film produced high resolution images with "brilliant and lifelike colors, and broad tonal range," according to the exhibition notes. As seen in the show, the results are captivating, richly hued images that document mid-century NYC and postwar American life—back when everybody dressed up to go about their daily lives. Winogrand's shots capture his subjects looking retro-cool and glam, especially the images presented in the "Women, 1960s" section which pre-date street style/fashion photography. It's impossible not to be drawn into each of the slideshows which offer images loaded with details evoking countless stories. 

From the 50s through the 60s, Winogrand often carried two cameras—one with black-and-white film, one with color—shooting a color image immediately before or after snapping one of his iconic black-and-white photos, according to the Brooklyn Museum which is also presenting 25 of these black-and-white images culled from its collection. Winogrand passed away in 1984 at the age of 56, leaving behind a vast archive of "'unfinished' work," including 45,000 color slides and roughly 6,500 rolls of undeveloped black-and-white film. 

Garry Winogrand: Color
On view May 3 through December 8
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights
Learn more here.

Macho | Established Gallery

The bloviating, badly-behaving men holding positions of power in this country are forcing many to question and combat patriarchy as well as the outdated boys-club mentality. Macho, a group exhibition currently on view at Established Gallery, brings together the work of twelve artists examining toxic masculinity and what it means to be a man today.

Macho, on view at Established Gallery

The show’s curators, Alexandra Rubinstein and Andrew Smenos, decided to explore masculinity and gender relations because machismo is an “unexplored topic in today’s sexual landscape,” Smenos explained. “There’s a lot of things focusing specifically on women and women’s issues but maybe not so much about how masculinity affects every single person on the planet.”

“You can’t deny the fact that there’s a real sea change coming through culture and it has to do with masculinity being problematic,” he continued. “A lot of people are having these discussions and conversations but it’s never specifically about how masculinity is affecting everyone and that’s something that everyone has to be aware of…. From everything in the news—all these young men shooting people because they’re lonely, scared or feeling marginalized, upwards to the president being a complete asshole and affecting the entire world.”

Alexandra Rubinstein, Dump Trump

Erica Rosenfeld, (clockwise from left) Mushroom Dog, Tigers with Swan Snakes, Leopard-Lion,

Smenos and Rubinstein assembled a group of NYC-based artists working in various disciplines. “We wanted to have as many diverse media in the show as possible—photography, sculpture, drawing, video,” Smenos noted. “We also wanted to get as much diversity as far as age, gender orientation, and experience in the art world.” Each of the artists included in Macho offers a unique perspective on the topic as well as a healthy dose of humor. “Throughout it all, we wanted to make sure it wasn’t a finger-wagging shameful thing, a punishment or accusation in any way, but more of a lighthearted engagement with the subject matter,” according to Smenos. “We also knew we wanted it to be a very aesthetically powerful show, nothing could be boring, nothing could be muted or subdued,” he added.

The works definitely deliver a visual punch, such as Rubinstein's Dump Trump, a toilet seat emblazoned with the outline of the president's head; Rose Nestler's Gym Shorts, which leaves nothing to the imagination; Alfred Steiner’s Why I Want to Fuck Donald Trump, a portrait of the 45th president composed of male and female genitalia; and Dan Flanagan’s Dick (Snapped), whose title says it all.

Dan Flanagan, Dick (Snapped) 

Paul Gagner, Portrait of the Artist's Brain

L-R: David Samuel Stern, Kosuke II; Andrew Smenos, The Glory Days Are Over

Chuckles come courtesy of Rubinstein’s painting Tell Me I’m Pretty, featuring a penis admiring its reflection in a full-length mirror and Smenos’ The Glory Days Are Over, a golden penis flaccidly poking out of a (glory) hole in the wall. Paul Gagner’s Portrait of the Artist’s Brain, a pink fleshy mass (made of gummy worms) wrapped in bondage belts, plays a series of jokes recorded by the artist roasting himself. In one of his zingers he quips: “Paul, you have the athletic ability of a newly born calf. Combine that with your grandpa body, Buddy Holly glasses, and you become full-blown pussy repellant.”

Less tongue-in-cheek works include Deborah Czeresko’s Exhaust—a mirrored glass muffler suspended from the ceiling—a commentary on her three decades working and having to prove herself in the male-dominated field of glass arts. Czeresko recently won the Netflix glassmaking competition Blown Away. Grace Whiteside’s melting dinnerware shows an “uglier, different side of domesticity,” Smenos said. “A dinner table where everything is coming apart at the seams.”

Grace Whiteside's Deflated Cup(s), Deflated Bowl(s), and Deflated Centerpiece 

Daniel Davidson, (clockwise from top left) Mr. Everything, Next Summer, Big Gulp

Daniel Davidson’s trio of watercolors depict addiction and over-consumption. “Being a man, you can’t talk about it or emote or show weakness, so [pain] manifests itself in abuse with materials and chemicals,” Smenos noted of the works. For his own painting, Selling Power to the Powerless, Smenos painted Pepe the Frog, Matt Furie’s anthropomorphic amphibian that was appropriated as a meme to spread hate.

“It’s sad to think that there’s a lot of young men out there who don’t have the same kind of community I had when I was a younger, before the internet and before cell phones and before social media. People actually got together and started a band, skateboarded, or whatever,” Smenos recalled, “versus this inward social media sort of mind-warping that they all engage in of who can be the worst person or who can have the worst ideas.”

Andrew Smenos, Selling Power to the Powerless

“I felt like Pepe was co-opted by the right and all these poor marginalized young men, who don’t have a clue, are sort of being sold this idea” of community, Smenos continued. “It’s definitely not what [Furie] intended and it’s just sad that he didn’t have control over his own creation and it was twisted and warped into something really terrifying.” Smenos first sculpted a model of Pepe then painted the character with a “really unnerving, panicked sort of face,” which the artist assumes “is the face of a lot of these poor kids, who are scared and have a lot of contempt.”

David Samuel Stern, Dexton

Don’t let all the phalluses on display fool you—they are more than just dick pics. Smenos insists that Macho is not about “making men feel bad.” The exhibit is meant to encourage visitors to have a conversation about gender. “There’s so much more you can ask about the work, whether or not you see it in the first blush,” according to Smenos. “There’s so many more layers to everyone’s work here. It’s informational, funny, and really potent.”

“I think the best part is that people walk out with at least a grin or they understand…they get the joke or get the humor in the show. Without that, then it’s just a very serious show.”

Macho
Established Gallery, 75 6th Avenue, Prospect Heights
On view November 9-December 8
Learn more here.

The Constructions | Ground Floor Gallery

Kurt McRobert's signage on the window of Ground Floor Gallery

Ground Floor Gallery’s latest group show, The Constructions, is packed with wonders inspired by the art of Joseph Cornell including sculpture, assemblage, collage, and painting.

“I have a long affair with Joseph Cornell. I love the work. It’s kind of heartbreaking. It’s poetic,” said the exhibit’s curator, John Gagné, during the gallery opening Friday evening. “His kind of working method was [going to] Downtown Manhattan, [into] old bookstores, antique stores, and gathering up all these small bits and then building them into boxes.” 

Cornell (1903-1972) crafted dreamlike scenes with found objects arranged inside wooden boxes as intricate tableaux. The self-taught artist called his boxes "constructions,” Gagné added. Learn more about Cornell and see his artwork at Guggenheim.org and artnet.com.

The exhibit features work by 21 local artists, including Kurt McRobert who hand-painted the eye-catching vintage type on the gallery window.

Clockwise from top left: Jon Bunge, Energy #5, 2017; Tony Stanzione, Glass Punching Bag, 1991-2019; Christina Martinelli, MY MEMORIES/OF YOU/HAVE BECOME/SILENT FILMS/YOU CONDUCT/AN ORCHESTRA/NOW AND THEN/I HEAR IT/CALLING ME, 2018; Rachel Wren, Nevertheless, 2017

Clockwise from top left: Barry Rust, Marsh Wheeling Cigar Box Ukulele, 2014; Barry Rust, Club House Cigar Box Ukulele, 2015; George Horner, Enlighten Up, 2014

Clockwise from left: Andrew Robinson, Jamón in the Marais (For the love of Bruno Lenoir and Jean Diot), 2019; Sophia Rauch, Ghost at Lunch, 2018; Sophia Rauch, Stripe Dot, 2018

Barry Rust’s cigar box ukuleles breathe brand new life into found objects while Sophia Rauch’s “literally constructed” photographic works reinterpret Cornell’s tableaux. Rauch created rich abstract scenes with painting, self-portraiture, cardboard, string, and spray paint, according to Gagné. “I think [this] is the essence of what Cornell was doing,” he said.

Assemblage works include Ward Yoshimoto’s compelling mixed media pieces and Susan Greaves’ ornate frames filled with photos and an array of trinkets. Marlene Weisman’s Pop Art Punchboard assemblages and Saved Souls collages mix vintage objects that evoke different eras. Weisman’s recent Super Deep series combines 3D lenticular plastic panels to create captivating images that transform from different vantage points.

Ward Yoshimoto, At the Bell/Papal Escutcheon/Parking on Left, 2001

Clockwise from left: Susan Greaves' Sir Michael, 2014; Lady Diane, 2014; Demonica, 2014; Little Ruth, 2015

Marlene Weisman, Saved Souls Series - #16, 2017 and Barbara J. Norman's School Kids/Palms/Eyes Small/Bricks/Eyes Full, 2019

Marlene Weisman's Super Deep Series: Glam Rock, 2019; Hudson Valley Abstract, 2019; Geometric In Nature, 2019

“I’m always interested in the materials,” Gagné noted before pointing out Tony Stanzione’s wood pieces filled with hundreds of colored pencils providing an unexpected pop of color, as well as the artist’s Brass Dumbells—a pile of shiny doorknobs transformed into a work of art.

Tony Stanzione, Penciled Logs, 1999-2019 and Tree Project, 2019

Tony Stanzione, Brass Dumbells, 2014

With such diverse artwork showcased in the exhibit, Andrew Smenos decided to display six ceramic pieces. “I wanted to make it as straightforward as possible,” he said. The artist’s three 24-karat gold-lustered figures are fixated on their cell phones while catastrophes surround them—Smenos’ other sculptures of a burning building and a pair of sinking ships. “It’s fun to have them in the middle of the three disasters. They just can’t be bothered,” the artist noted.

Andrew Smenos' Idle Worship I, II, III, 2019; Looks Good Going Down, 2019; Destroyer, 2019

Clockwise from back left: Tony Stanzione, Glass Seed Bomb Prototype, 1990; Barbara J. Norman, Franken-Her, 2019; Jordan Maurice, Light Study No. 11, 2019; Andrew Robinson, Reliquary, 2019; Andrew Robinson Chicken Paw, 2019

When curating the exhibit, Gagné was drawn not only to materials but also to the artists’ practice. Of Jordan Maurice’s Light Study No. 11—a stout aluminum base topped with two 9-volt batteries and wrapped with a simple strip of LEDs—Gagné said, “I love seeing the batteries. I like seeing the process. When I saw that work, I thought that walks right into what I’m trying to show.” The intensive manufacturing required to produce Scott Albrecht’s steel tabletop sculpture Rise also appealed to Gagné. “I’m interested in what these artists are capable of doing,” he said.

George Horner, Putties, 1985 (front) and Scott Albrecht, Rise, 2018 (rear)

Like several of the artists included in the group show, Gagné met Albrecht in October during Gowanus Open Studios. Albrecht created his sculpture last year as part of a series of work that “use the same shapes and relationships, but personify different characteristics or situations,” the artist explained. For Rise, he “took the basic geometry of a circle to represent the sun, but abstracted it and personified it” to represent “rising up, rising above.”

Scott Albrecht and his work Thinking/Feeling, 2017

Originally from New Jersey, Albrecht studied graphic design at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. “A majority of my work is mostly informed by abstracted typography,” he said. Albrecht’s puzzle-like Thinking/Feeling overlays the two words in the work’s title. “Because they are overlaid on top of one another, you’re seeing little moments of each word coming through, but as a viewer you can’t really distinguish the words independently,” he explained. “It’s intentional because those two ideas are conflicting with each other. They’re fighting for your attention, and in the end because they are in direct competition, [neither] can get resolved.” Albrecht adds that his intention is to encourage viewers to slow down and “have them meditate on those ideas [and] find their own relationships.”

Earlier this year Gagné launched Gagné Contemporary, an online gallery where he represents 13 NYC-based artists and organizes exhibits, studio visits, gallery tours, and more. Originally from Canada, he traveled across Europe in 80s and 90s creating experimental films. Gagné worked in advertising as a Creative Director for twenty years, moving to NYC eight years ago. He left the ad industry three years ago to focus on art—his “first love,” he says.

“Gowanus, Bushwick, Greenpoint, Red Hook, DUMBO…they’re filled with really good, strong artists doing great work and I love being able to share that,” Gagné said. Head over Ground Floor Gallery and check out work by 21 of those artists.

The Constructions: A Complete Fabrication 
Ground Floor Gallery, 343 5th Street, Park Slope
On view November 22-December 8
Learn more here.