The Williamsburg Hotel is not just for tourists and out-of-town guests — the plush boutique is expanding its public services, and this includes open meditation every other Monday.
Starting this month, the hotel at North 10th and Wythe opens its doors to launch a partnership with MDNFL, a meditation studio with outposts in Williamsburg and Manhattan. With classes in the hotel’s library bar, MNDFL will pop up every other Monday from 7–7:45 PM to help you relax and reflect. Classes cost $10 for hotel guests and $20 for visitors; cushions/mats are provided, but of course bring your own if that’s your jam. There’s no strict dress code — just come cozy.
A certified MNDFL instructor will guide guests through a step-by-step meditation practice, encouraging everyone to turn their attention inward to detox. These evening classes may improve sleep cycles, and more info about future sessions can be found here.
The library space where MNDFL classes take place, photo by Liz Clayman
The Williamsburg Hotel has a host of other eventful offerings including jazz nights on Thursdays, Sync Yoga, and — of course — Harvey, the hotel’s on-campus bar and restaurant. If you want to grab a bite after your class — and maybe a drink as well — Harvey hosts Mindful Mondays where guests who turn in their phone get a free cocktail. It’s like a sunnier episode of Black Mirror; you’re rewarded for surrendering technology. It’s the perfect way to cap off a meditation session — that is, if you don’t mind a little extra buzz.
Dancer-choreographer Denisa Musilova has put a modern twist on the classic love triangle. Yes, there are one man and two women in her dance piece, Fitting Rooms, but a Marius-Cosette-Eponine reimagining this is not. Instead it’s more like if Handmaid’s Tale were set to dance — but with a more theatrical and less grim tone.
Fitting Rooms at Triskelion Arts
The lithely and talented Massimiliano Balduzzi, Giulia Carotenuto, and Musilova herself perform in this feminist and individualist piece, which concludes at Triskelion Arts (106 Cayler Street) this evening at 8 PM after its three-day run. Continue reading →
Last weekend’s warm spell was a tease, and though it hardly feels like spring has settled in, Earth Day is upon us. We celebrate our blue marble this Sunday, April 22, with plenty to do around the nabe to help tidy, decorate, and love our fragile planet. Check out these (free!) events below. Continue reading →
Hey Greenpoint artists, designers, crafters, fabricators, performers, and anyone who has work or work-in-progress to show! Now is the time to sign up for Greenpoint Open Studios and connect directly to thousands of art lovers, who will swarm to our neighborhood to celebrate creativity in Greenpoint!
The festivities start with an epic launch party followed by a weekend when local art studios, galleries, and pop-up spaces, open to the public. Every sign-up gets added to a map and gets a profile on the GOS online gallery.
GOS 2017, Photo by Korey Knecht
Greenpoint Open Studios reveals that we have a vibrant creative community here with over 400 participating artists in 2017 and 350 in 2016! Let’s keep this going strong Greenpoint!
The deadline to enroll as a participating artist for Greenpoint Open Studios is Monday, April 30th. Sign up here! Continue reading →
Danielle Orchard in her Greenpoint studio, photo by Ian Hartsoe
Danielle Orchard greets me with a big smile in her Greenpoint studio. We just met two months prior at her solo exhibition, “A Little Louder, Love,” at Jack Hanley Gallery. Danielle and I immediately connect over our shared Midwestern roots, having both spent four idyllic years in Bloomington, Indiana for college. While in her studio, I am drawn to a painting of a woman bathing with her head laid back on the edge of a tub. In some areas, a color change designates a volumetric form, and in another moment, it will depict a flattened shape. The clarity she has in her vision is insurmountable, and echoes in the candor of her paintings.
Orchard’s figures exist in their own reality; they are neither staged nor stumbled upon, yet seek both attention and solitude. She invokes figuration of the past and present. Inspired by how the nude woman has been portrayed throughout Western art history, she uniquely explores the familiar yet overlooked shapes of the female figure. Orchard reveals how a woman’s body flattens in a bathtub while breasts buoy to the surface, how her arms tangle overhead while taking off a shirt, and how her curves contour the ground while laying nude in grass. Repeating tulip and cigarette motifs are reflected in her figures’ pubic and elegant fingers, signaling impermanence, or a momentary recess. Danielle explains to me that those activities we visualize ourselves doing we can biologically benefit from as if we were physically doing them. While viewing her paintings, we are all in some way benefiting from their requiescence.
Painting in Danielle Orchard’s studio, courtesy of Ian Hartsoe
Greenpointers: When were you first exposed to art growing up?
Danielle Orchard: I was born in Michigan City, IN and grew up in Fort Wayne, IN. Both of my brothers and a lot of my family are into skateboarding. I was never a skateboarder, but creativity was always around me. There was always this sense of making art which shaped the community, like building the skate park which was fairly engrossing while I was growing up. I drew as a kid, and remember always asking for art supplies for holidays. Both of my parents are design minded, my dad a really good draftsman and my mom a flower hobbyist. I think once you’re recognized as being talented as a kid, you sort of decide that is the thing you’re going to pursue. I had an art teacher in high school who was really supportive. There was always that sense that art was serious, but not to say that that was never mutable. It has always been subject to various pressures and even taste throughout college and graduate school.
Orchard’s wall of drawings and reference material, courtesy of Ian Hartsoe
GP: In your interview with MaakeMagazine in October 2017, you mentioned you would like your drawings to be standalone pieces. How is that process going?
DO: Not well! I’m always so impatient to get painting. I do keep a pretty steady sketching practice and I also take a lot of written notes. I think it’s interesting when painters take color notes to plan for future paintings. Drawing is so much a part of the way I paint that I feel that the urge is satisfied there. The early stages of my paintings are typically linear. I don’t see much of a division between drawing and painting in my process, so I guess that’s why I’m okay with drawing not being a distinct thing where I show the work independently. I do think a lot about Nicole Eisenman’s decision to stop painting for a year and what that means to fully shift focus to a different medium. In the future it’s something that I’m interested in to turn off oil paint for a while and see what happens.
Girl Drawing Pears, 2017, oil on canvas, 48 x 72 inches, courtesy of the artist and Jack Hanley Gallery, New York, NY
Greenpoint Gallery Night is celebrated this Friday, all over the neighborhood
Spring is here, at long last, and Earth Day is just around the corner. Art kicks into high gear this season — there’s Greenpoint Gallery Night (with a guide to the fun here), our Gardens of the Galaxy Spring Market, then Greenpoint Open Studios June 2 and 3, and more. Check out some highlights for the upcoming, biannual Greenpoint Gallery Night (taking place all over the neighborhood on April 20 from 6–9 PM), and explore the latest artistic (and terrestrial) happenings this Earth Day week! Continue reading →
Khruangbin performing live at Music Hall of Williamsburg on April 13. Photo by Peter Kirchhausen
With back-to-back sold-out performances this past weekend at Music Hall of Williamsburg, the East Texas based trio Khruangbin (Pronounced Krun-bin) is firmly making the case that a bands sound doesn’t need to neatly fit in a musical box to sell out music venues across the United States. Following the February release of their second full length album, “Con Todo El Mundo,” their fanbase continues to swell as was seen in North Brooklyn.Continue reading →
Greenpoint Gallery Night is back! From 6-9pm this Friday (April 20th), more than ten local art galleries and art-friendly spaces will open up their doors for a special evening affair. Spaces will be open to the public (for free) for folks to browse interesting local artwork, check out their unique spaces, and usually a lot of them have wine and snacks too. You should try to hit as many of these awesome spaces as you can, but some highlights include:
• Real Estate, a combination gallery and real estate office is showing Hyper Opulence, large-scale metallic mixed media paintings by artist Rosalind Tallmadge. (1144 Manhattan Ave) • Greenpoint Hill, which consistently shows unique sculpture artists and is opening Naturalized, an exhibition of new works by artist Carol Joo Lee—brightly-hued sculptural compositions incorporating symbols from immigrant communities. (100 Freeman St) •Dusty Rose Vintage is a vintage clothing warehouse that consistently draws crowds from all over Brooklyn for their unique art events. For Gallery Night they’ll be throwing their 3rd annual 4/20 Pop-Up, with smoking vessels, rolling dishes, munchies and art by Haute Chocolate, Caitlin Rose Sweet, Most Recklessly, Lylynn Pham; tarot readings by Anna Toonk, andlive screen printing with Kingsland Printing, and the work of photographer Jordan Tiberio will be on display. (251 Greenpoint Ave) • Areté, a unique indoor/outdoor space opened at 67 West Street last year. For Greenpoint Gallery Night they’ll be playing host to musical performances until 10pm, including Healing Music for a Troubled World from 8-9pm, where you can expect both experimental noise/jazz music and performance art. (67 West St, #103) • Calico, Greenpoint’s sweetest little gallery, is opening Surfaces, a show of 5 artists curated by Owen James, who had his namesake gallery in the Pencil Factory building for many years and late last year moved it to Manhattan. Expect to see a range of collage, ceramics, encaustic, sculpture, printmaking and painting. (67 West Street, #203)
RSVP on Facebook, and check out the full list of participating galleries and art spaces after the jump.
Møme controlled the packed room for 2 hours with his eclectic electronic creations.
With more than 200 million songs streamed since the debut of his 2016 Album Panorama, French DJ Møme is breaking out of Europe and turning up his global presence with a new focus on the United States. Currently on a North American tour with Gramatik until mid May, Møme ventured to Williamsburg this past Wednesday night for a headline show at Rough Trade (64 N 9th St) and we sat down with him to explain his motivations and process for creating his extremely popular sounds. He says fame has not changed his general musical equation and the his organic love of music continues to be his guide.
Greenpointers: You are originally from the south of France, but you were producing music in Australia. Where are you currently based?
Møme: I’m Back in Europe. I moved to Australia three years ago to write my first album but now I’m back in France and I’m touring a lot. I had 150 gigs last year and I have a lot of gigs overseas, it was a very busy year. I’m not supposed to be touring right now, I’m supposed to be writing my new record, [so] things are very busy. Continue reading →
It’s Friday the 13th—time to treat yourself to an affordable tattoo from a talented Brooklyn artist who might otherwise be booked months out. Here’s a roundup of local shops offering a variety of cheap (starting at $13!) flash designs. Be prepared to wait in line (hopefully you took the day off), and walk out with a rad pizza slice tat or the badass sword-pierced skull you’ve always wanted.
Evil & Love| 211 Franklin Street 1-8pm $80-$180, first come first serve, cash only, arms and legs only! Each artist will have dozens of designs to choose from, price depends on size. Get in line early! More info
