“Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.”
-Blaise Pascal, Pensées
*NYC Land Use Review: A Citizen’s Guide Workshop @El Puente Green Light District (289 Grand St) 6:30-8:30pm, Want to know who decides what development happens in our neighborhood? Interactive workshop about ULURP, the City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, RSVP ♥Salsa Wednesday @ School Settlement Association (120 Jackson St) 7-8pm $7, 1-hour lesson, More Info • Quizz Off @Pete’s Candy Shop (709 Lorimer St) 7:30pm, FREE Wrack your brains with six rounds of twenty questions, 1st prize $75 bar tab, 2nd prize $40 bar tab, 3rd prize $15 bar tab More Info
♦Museum Mixtape @ Reverse Space (28 Frost St) 7:30-10:30pm, a series of videos in which amateur rappers perform freestyle rhymes as live critiques of museums in the southeast United States, RSVP ☺A Most Wondrous Evening of Comedy @ Shea Stadium (20 Meadow St, Bushwick) 8pm $6, Host Ross Parsons/Michael Lawrence/Sheng Wang/Michelle Wolf/Bryson Turner, RSVP ♫A$AP Rocky/Bodega Bamz/DJ Getlive/ASAP Ferg/4th Pyramid @Public Assembly (70 N.6th St) 9pm, FREE, More Info
THURSDAY 2/21 ♦Another Landscape @440 Gallery (440 Sixth Ave, Park Slope) Opening 6-9pm, Presenting new works by Greenpointer Jennifer Williams & Jason Varone, features work operating outside the canon of the traditional landscape, RSVP ♦Secondment @ Beginnings Gallery (110 Meserole Ave) Opening 7-10pm, Peter Nencini solo show reveals a world of never-before-seen colors and structures that we have always known, a class of brand new shapes that we have always seen, RSVP Tom Shillue’s Funny Story @The Brooklyn Brewery (79 North 11th St) 8pm, $10 (includes a beer), Tom Shillue is a master tale spinner and each month puts together a program of great, true stories from various raconteurs More Info ♦Littoral: Perec! Queneau!OuLiPo! @155 Freeman St, 8pm, FREE, Celebrate the publication of Georges Perec’s La Boutique Obscure and the expanded edition of Raymond Queneau’s Exercises with an evening of readings, RSVP ♫Happy People/House of Fools,/Momma Holler/Robbers @Union Pool (484 Union Ave) 8pm, $10 RSVP ♫XXYYXX/Teen Daze @ 285 KENT, 11pm, $10, First show sold, (2nd) 11pm show added! TIX
FRIDAY 2/22 ♫Deafheaven/Sannhet (record release)/Cleanteeth/Theologian @ Saint Vitus (1120 Manhattan Ave) 8-11pm $13, RSVP ♫Legs Like Tree Trunks/Zula/The N’ere Dowells/Nic Lawless @ Shea Stadium (20 Meadow St, Bushwick) 8pm, $7 RSVP ♫Money and King/French Camp/Bird Dog @ The Gutter (200 N.14th St) 8pm, $5 Record release show RSVP ♫King Cake/Le Boum/Air For Ants/Hello Phones @The Trash Bar (256 Grand St) 8pm, $8 RSVP *7th Anniversary Party @ Boulevard Tavern (579 Meeker Ave) 9pm DJ Spaz spins the tunes, dancing and free munchies and surprises! RSVP
SATURDAY 2/23 *Flea Market Party @ 151 Kent (apt 312) 7pm-12am, $4 Vintage clothes for sale, cocktails, and DJ’s spinning, entry gets you one cocktail and all proceeds will go to the funding of Parsons thesis show catalogue, RSVP • Grand Opening Party @ Catland (987 Flushing Ave, Bushwick) 9pm-3am, $5 Tarot Readings, Esoteric Standup from Kat Toledo, special performance by “Your 33 Black Angels”, DJ’s: Judge Wise, T’Angelo, and Evan Michael Free with RSVP ♫ Sleeping Bag/Speedy Ortiz/Shark?/Plates of Cake @ Cameo Gallery (93 N.6th St) 8-11pm, $7 RSVP ♥ Soul a Go-Go @ The Grand Victory (245 Grand St) 11pm-4am, FREE Join the “Empress of Soul” for a twisting night night of Soul and R&B 45′s More Info
SUNDAY 2/24 •Roof Top Supper Club: Communion @ (Location TBD) Noon-3pm, $45 They say brunch is the new church, take culinary communion with new friends in the sanctuary of a classic Williamsburg loft overlooking the city, TIX *7th Williamsburg Cask Beer Festival @ D.B.A Brooklyn (113 N.7th St) 4pm, FREE (tastings pay as you wish) 16 rare and interesting casks promised, including authentic ‘real ales’ from England, rarities and vintage bottles up for grabs at the Mega Beer Raffle More Info
MONDAY 2/25 ☺Broken Comedy@ Matchless (557 Manhattan Ave) 8pm, FREE Guy Branum/Aparna Nancherla/Adam Lowitt/Craig Baldo/Phoebe Robinson. Hosted by Nimesh Patel, Michael Che, Mike Denny More Info
TUESDAY 2/26 *Between the Bread: The Masters of Social Gastronomy Talk Sandwiches @Public Assembly (70 N6th St) 7pm, FREE The history of sandwiches is laced with vice, ingenuity, and industry RSVP ♦ Talking to Strangers Screening @ Light Industry (155 Freeman St) 7:30pm, $7 A noncommittal, increasingly unreliable, disintegrating protagonist as he tackles the world; this choreography also includes a series of strangers, who remain strangers to us and him despite being confronted with probing questions about life, religion, ethics, art, love, followed by a conversation with Porterfield and Tregenza More Info
* Greenpointers’ Pick ♫ Music ♥ Pheremones likely ♦ Art Event ☺ Comedy Event
Greenpointers contributor and local artist Martin Esteves and local artist Amanda Browder will feature recents works at Calico Brooklyn (67 West St #206) with an opening reception tonight Friday, November 16, 2012 from 7-9pm. The show will run from November 16 – December 2, 2012. RSVP
“Bad on its Own”
Technically, a tree falling in the woods doesn’t make a sound unless the resonance has an eardrum to bounce off of – an argument that only stands under the assumption that the “anyone” in the famous question is a human being. Yet the crash displays independence even within its own nature. The tree falls despite our ears and despite its own roots.
Art also provides an example of an imaginary sentience, and “Bad on its Own” is a particularly mischievous one. Pairing the malleable found textile patterns of Amanda Browder with “nature” paintings by Martin Esteves, the show demonstrates a pretend awareness through a more puckish spite; but art isn’t actually aware of itself, so the line treads wearily between a straight face and a smirk.
Browder’s oversized installations create optical hallucinations from the simplest found sources. Her materials have been freed from all practical intentions and aren’t afraid to let you know it. Esteves’ paintings highlight the fact that nature is mean spirited already, regardless of human interferences such as greenhouse effects or global warming. Both artists’ mix of beauty and farce are what gives this show its title. The word “Bad” here means an intentional state.
“Bad on its Own” plays Browder’s lively environment against Esteves’ more traditional containment. The playful tension that results is welcoming to the public – while an actual need for the public is another story…
The second of two inaugural group art shows at Calico
ex•hib•it – noun – document or material object produced and identified in court or before an examiner for use as evidence (via Merriam-Webster) “Exhibit B” includes works by: Elana Adler, Lisa Bauer, Eric Lee Bowman, El Celso, Corey Corcoran, Thomas Dupere, Pat Falco, Kyle Garnett, Shepherd Gilhooly, Kenichi Hoshine, Vanessa Irzyk, Chris Mottalini, Kate Nielsen, Damion Silver, Hannah Lamar Simmons, Chris Smith, Will Star, and Charles Wilkin
October 19 – November 7, 2012
Opening Reception: Oct 19, 7-9pm
67 West St, #206, in the Greenpoint Terminal Building
It was nothing like the cowboy-dress, sepia novelties of every town tourist traps. Having my collodian portrait taken at Heliopolis gallery by inherent photographer Eric Lee Bowman felt (and was) more like a real, happening tradition. The week of signup volunteer shots was an active extension of his too brief cynanotype print and glass plate figure show at the Huron space. Continue reading →
Currently showing at Cleopatra’s, a small art gallery (sidenote: here’s a brief story about its inception) tucked into a thin slice of space on a quiet stretch of Meserole, is an array of drawings by Poznań, Poland based artist Leszek Knaflewski, or, as he signs his drawings, Knaf. I’ll leave Cleopatra’s website to chronicle the lion’s share of the history of Knaf’s work, but it is important to recognize his work in the context of the collective with which he associated, Kolo Klipsa.
The works on display at Cleopatra’s utilize a number of quotidian images – boxy, stereotypical houses, basic furniture, trees, cats, and so forth – run through Knaf’s surreal imagination before being drawn out. It reminded me of images that you may hold in your mind of half-remembered places and people to which you ascribe dreamlike qualities to make up for a lack of actual details. Did the vase look like the cat, or did the cat look like the vase? Simple inversions in elements of even the most basic drawings, as in the work pictured above, add a depth to images that far exceeds their composition.
Knaflewski’s work will be on display at Cleopatra’s (110 Meserole Avenue) until May 27.
Heading over the Williamsburg Bridge, have you noticed the colorful oval tiles, an art installation that covers the rafters on your way down towards Manhattan? It is one of my favorite pieces of public art, not only because of how happy it makes me as I whiz down, but because of the intrigue the work inspires and how bold the artist is, not only in his color choice, but it makes you wonder, “how the hell did he do that?”
When I walked by Black and White Gallery on Driggs this past week, I spotted those eye catching ovals. Was he so audacious as to tape them to the outside of a gallery?
Of course I barged in and met Peter Brock, who was installing his first solo exhibition in the space.
The Most Exciting Part About An Old Brick opens tonight, Friday April 20th from 6-9pm, and he is giving out presents!
We are very proud of Will Star, talented photographer and contributor to Greenpointers, who will be showing a solo exhibition of his photographs of Greenpoint at Brouwerij Lane (78 Greenpoint Ave.) The show opens this evening at 7pm. Don’t miss it!
On March 10, 2012, Greenpointers is organizing a gallery tour of the neighborhood in order to participate in the festivities of armory and the other art fair events around town.
Many of the galleries will stay open late (from 6-9pm) and the WG News will be dedicating a full page for a map of the tour that guests will be able to carry from gallery to gallery. Hyperallergicwill also be sponsoring the event. Its going to be a lot of fun, similar to Williamsburg 2:nd Fridays and Beat Nite in Bushwick. Greenpoint’s “art scene” needs this!
I am writing to ask you for information and for participation.
* YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE AN ART GALLERY IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE *
* If you are an artist/art organization/curator in the area and have a show that will be up during that time, then you can be on the map. (or you can organize one ASAP!)
* If you are a local business (cafe, bar, store, etc) in the area and you will be featuring artwork and want to stay open late that night, then you can be on the map.
* AFTER PARTY!!! We need an afterparty location in Greenpoint. If you would like to host, let me know!
The more neighborhood participation, the bigger and more fun the event will be.
It is FREE to participate, all you have to do is send me the following ASAP:
Name of Gallery/Business/Art Organization:
Address:
Name of Show:
Artist(s) in Show:
Date Show Will Be Running:
** Also, here is the list of galleries/spaces participating, please take a look and let me know if I am forgetting anyone…
1. Booklyn
2. Fowler Arts
3. Janet Kurnatowski
4. Causey Contemporary
5. Ugly Art Room
6. Yes Gallery
7. The One Well
8. Yashar Gallery & Brooklyn Art Studios
9. Brouwerij Lane
Not confirmed: Splatterpool, Pierogi, Greenpoint Gallery, Real Fine Arts, Triple Canopy, G-Spot
I am sorry for the last minute nature of this request. The event is a month away but in order to get everything into print, I need information very soon. If you can’t get me information right away but still want to participate I may be able to still include you on the map and I will be updating the website after the map is in print.
This will be the first of many Greenpointers Gallery Tours, so stay tuned…
With two shows currently up at Greenpoint’s own Alan Nederpelt Gallery and Elizabeth Moore Fine Art in Manhattan, English born and Greenpoint artist Paul Duncan may not be so much a “madman” (as the Nederpelt show titles) as a canny guide through madness. To call Duncan’s paintings and drawings surrealist, wouldn’t be far off, but it would be a lazy stray from what makes his own personal landscapes so particular. Having the actual tour guide walk us through his world – as The Greenpointer was able to at the Nederpelt space – was to enjoy the full experience of being chaperoned through the “hyper-magical,” as the artist puts it.
With a mixture of recognizable cultural objects and invented characters, the work in the show manages a consistent hodgepodge of initially familiar wanderings that quickly dive into murkier depths.
“The image needs to step away from the object to another level,” Paul says. With a roguish demeanor and swashbuckler looks, the charismatic artist is well suited to speak in front of his hallucinations. To call the art ‘psychedelic’ would be misuse of another clichéd and inappropriate term (a term all too often stamped on to fantastic imagery). “This territory is not about drug exploration. It’s to do with the mythological element we all carry around with us. With my hand and some paint, I can filter these worlds.”
In fact the worlds depicted here aren’t really too far from the one we live in. “My trip to India and that region was very profound for me. To walk through the Himalayas and see Nepalese art that I had only seen in books and actually experience these things was extraordinary.” Like his artwork, Duncan’s storytelling can suddenly shift from dreamscape to visceral reality with surprising fluidity. “Well, I also got very ill on this trip after swimming in the Ganges! I lost half my body weight while my stomach swelled. After treatment from a western Doctor I had a chance to go to Goa where the illness returned and I was next found collapsed in the middle of a field. For days I lay on what I thought was surely my deathbed. It was here that I had the experience of being bathed in golden light. Now I’m not as religious man, but I remember that light as an angel. Whatever it was, I felt much better after that!”
Walking around the local galleries, you might notice exhibits showing a theme of pointless and oppressed labor! A scary new take on recession art? Echoing the chill of nearby Rawson Project’s ominous installation is Daniel Turner’s Mariana. With a quieter sense of menace, The Journal Gallery displays Sisyphusian evidence of ironic toil, rather than monuments toward it.
The brash bareness of the show’s appearance might have some passerby thinking that the space is between shows. What they could easily miss from the street is a silvery haze marring the perimeter of the white cube – a smudgy pattern made by pressing steel wool against the walls.
The general effect is that of accidental, haphazard rubs mimicking a low hanging fog. The significance though, lays in the act it records. The height of the marking hovers around a foot-and-a-half to two feet – about the level of someone scrubbing on hand and knees. The steel wool usually meant for cleaning becomes a staining agent here. The irony is completed by the encirclement of the mark. The more the action attempts to clean the imprint, the worse it gets.
Is this a statement on post-minimalist futility or a tease at the endless drudgery of a cleaning crew’s job? The general lightness of the ring suggests the former. The “artist” thought the ethereal nature of the work best suits the fleeting nature of most art labels and the “janitor” knew enough to stop rubbing before things got worse.
♦Museum Mixtape @ Reverse Space (28 Frost St) 7:30-10:30pm, a series of videos in which amateur rappers perform freestyle rhymes as live critiques of museums in the southeast United States, RSVP 
Nencini solo show reveals a world of never-before-seen colors and structures that we have always known, a class of brand new shapes that we have always seen, RSVP
♫Deafheaven/Sannhet (record release)/Cleanteeth/Theologian @ Saint Vitus (1120 Manhattan Ave) 8-11pm $13, RSVP
SATURDAY 2/23
*Between the Bread: The Masters of Social Gastronomy Talk Sandwiches @Public Assembly (70 N6th St) 7pm, FREE The history of sandwiches is laced with vice, ingenuity, and industry RSVP
