Andy P. Smith, Greenpointers.com Art Editor 2016-2018, at his LCD Soundsystem Sidewalk Dance Party last summer. Photo: Julia Moak
The time has come to pass the torch. It’s been an absolute joy and privilege working as Art Editor at Greenpointers.com for the last two years. The amount of creativity and artistry and community that I’ve experienced, not just as a fellow resident but as a journalist, has been overwhelming. You guys are the best!
Now, more than ever before, I’m fully convinced that Greenpoint is the most supportive, most artistic community in New York (and resultantly, one could argue the world). But don’t tell anyone!
Jk jk jk you already know! It’s not a secret. Greenpoint’s beloved artistic community only continues to grow in scope and renown and popularity every year. Continue reading →
Hey Greenpointers! How’s everyone’s New Year’s Resolutions going? Excited for the Super Bowl?
If you’re anything like me, you don’t really have any resolutions (just trying to live my best life) and you absolutely despise the Patriots (Tom Brady is a cheater and a T-supporter), so all the more reason to check out some art this weekend!
On Friday, the Greenpoint Gallery is hosting its first open call group exhibition of 2018. Also Friday (and through the weekend), check out the politically-overt exhibition at SHIM/ArtHelix. And come Monday evening, we have two very interesting literature events: Geoff Cobb reading from his book Sugar King and the all-women publishing collective Mag Mob discussing the future of independent publishing.
You see, there’s a reason why you live in the center of the universe, even if it costs you 60% of your income to rent an apartment here!
For “Home”, Westergren combines recent works and two-site specific installations. Recalling a house in the country, the works use elements of elite traditional decor like Murano glass, wallpaper and hunting trophies to explore interior distress amid outer luxury. “Gut Renovation” combines trompe l’oeil and papier-mâché animal heads that glare back at the viewer to create a menacing domestic space. “Carolyn Glasoe Bailey June 25, 1969- November 16, 2015,” titled in memory of a friend, is a taut juxtaposition of images of Scandinavian domestic life with motifs of emptiness and loss. The final piece, “Gardening,” gathers natural forms and vintage glass pieces into a sculpture that invites viewing from multiple angles. Its structure of twisted brass pipe recalls rusted and rotting infrastructure even as its lights rise to transcendence.
Ok, y’all… how we doing with those New Year’s resolutions? It’s been about three weeks, you still with me? Because I know one of those resolutions was to “see more art” or “soak up the culture” or “take full advantage of this great city,” something like that?
Ya basic.
“Don’t be silly, Andy,” you say. “I love art, I see art all the time!”
I double-dog dare you to hit two of these six galleries this weekend.
Microscope is very pleased to present Break The Sky, the first solo exhibition at the gallery by Jeanne Liotta, whose works we have previously shown in “Triple Blind” (2013), “Slide Slide Slide” (2014), and “Dreamlands: Expanded” (2016-17), a series of expanded cinema events presented in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the exhibition “Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema & Art 1905-2016”.
A recurring theme of Liotta’s practice – which spans the mediums of moving image, photography, collage, installation, painting, drawing and performance – is a personal and poetic interest in the intersection of art and science and the tools and technology thereof.
Daniel Gardiner Morris at The Arm. photo: Andy P. Smith
On a quiet stretch of North 7th Street, neighboring the BQE, in the shadows of rising condominiums, lies a glass-front, converted warehouse space. There’s no signage, no buzzer, and from the outside, it’s unclear what is going on inside: a handful of people hover over large gray machines, operating levers and rolling cranks. With just a little imagination it could be a white-walled submarine or some kind of steel widget factory.
“I’ve never hung a sign out front,” says the founder and owner, Daniel Gardiner Morris. “When I have events, I have a little A-Frame sign that I’ll sometimes put on the sidewalk. It’s almost maybe superstitious at this point that I’ve never put a sign up.”
Not knowing what they do in there is one thing. Not knowing it’s there is another—it’s been at that same location since opening in 2004.
Inside, the space is awash in daylight from the large windows. The room itself is longer than it is wide, and lined with silver and grey metal machines, rollers attached, a few rustic wooden cabinets, and in the middle of the room is a grouping of tables topped with posters and wood blocks and artist tools.
Is it beginning to come together? Yes! It’s The Arm (281 N 7th St), Williamsburg’s longstanding public access letterpress studio, which Daniel Gardiner Morris has owned and operated for nearly 15 years.
Wow, has it been cold or what?! I mean, like, we went straight past Netflix-binge-cold to I-hope-the-delivery-man-doesn’t-freeze-to-death-cold. (Also, I know y’all tip heavy so I won’t even get into that.)
This first week of 2018 hasn’t exactly been very welcoming, what with that bomb cyclone. Trendy storm names, though, so that’s cool!
But we’re past that now, y’all. We made it to the other side. It’s gonna be near 60 degress on Friday! Time to get out there and support your local artist community.
We have a ton of openings happening this week and this weekend, starting tonight, so bundle up and get amongst it!
Opening January 8th and on view through February 3rd, this collaboration between Precious Okoyomon and Hannah Black presents a process of digestion, shitting out, decaying and rebirthing, seeking human-like if not reliably human assistance through playful figuration: teddies, dolls, and creatures both cooked and raw.
I Need Help comprises a disintegrating iteration of Black’s recent solo show at the Chisenhale Gallery in London, Some Context, with works by Okoyomon made in response.
Safe Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of sculptures and drawings by John Newman from the last 35 years. The seed of the exhibition is Newman’s completion of 65 drawings, for his 65 years, while in France in the summer of 2017. Newman thinks of, and titled, these drawings as Developing Old Negatives: Bringing extant images to life again. Some are drawings of existing sculptures from Newman’s 40-year career, some are speculative spaces, and others are ideas for future sculptures. Installed in the gallery’s front room, these drawings provide a roadmap to Newman’s ideas about space, structure and form.
Christmas is on Monday, y’all. Still looking for that fun, sweet gift for that special someone? Are you also into supporting the local artistic community? If so, then do we have some ideas for you!
Firstly, check out Greenpoint Hill, a cute white box store stocking everything from original paintings to ceramics and jewelry, all hand-made in Brooklyn, including these stoneware “Paper Plates” by Amelia starting at $48.
Greenpoint Then/Now by Julia Wertz, for The New Yorker, now anthologized in Tenements
About Tenaments: “With drawings and comics in her signature style, Wertz regales us with streetscapes “Then and Now” and little-known tales, such as the lost history of Kim’s Video, the complicated and unresolved business of Ray’s Pizza, the vintage trash and horse bones that litter the shore of Brooklyn’s Bottle Beach, the ludicrous pinball prohibition, Staten Island’s secret abandoned boatyard, and the hair-raising legend of the infamous abortionist of Fifth Avenue, Madame Restell.”
Pins! Everyone loves pins! And Brooklyn’s own Pintrill, with a storefront at Grand and Driggs, offers a crazy selection of pins: emjois, cartoon characters, catchphrases… they got everything for that pin-wearing lover of yours. They even have unique, vintage pins from NASA and the Olympics, ya know, if you’re into that sort of thing.
And so, fret not my young procrastinators. There are plenty of gifts available at local purveyors. Support local artists, support local businesses! And Happy Holidays, y’all!
Featuring over 100 works of art by over 30 artists, each piece is priced at $300 or less. Some works are priced as low as $40 and mediums include sculpture, photography, painting, printmaking, drawing, and collage.
CALICORNUCOPIA 6 at Calico Gallery Dec 8 – 17, 2017 OPENING PARTY: Dec 8, 7-10pm
For more information and a list of contributing artists, visit CalicoBrooklyn.com.
This open call exhibition is curated by Shawn James and tonight’s selected Best in Show artist wins $200 and a solo exhibition. This show is one night only, across two floors of the gallery, and features a lineup of local bands and musicians including Joe Krzyzewski, Jim Saint-Amour, Hanford Reach, Hoag & the Weasel, Castle Black.
Guy Nelson is a Midwesterner, who grew up surrounded by nature. For this reason, he doesn’t romanticize the natural world as a place of transcendence, but sees it as a familiar environment that functions as a kind of Rorschach test; the longer you stare and wonder, the more your mind makes of the twisting branches in the long shadows of a late fall day.
From this close attention, Nelson has created a world of blurred demons and shadowy creatures, myths that emanate from the mouths of old hunters, whether to scare children or just to keep their minds busy while waiting in the brush. Myths in his work speak to a greater truth of the natural world; it is a place both unsentimental and mysterious, where life and death pass with very little care for human context. There is a grim undertone to Nelson’s oft-repeated motifs that, like their subject, tantalizingly suggest meaning before disappearing through the trees like a morning’s mist.
Saturday, December 2nd, Byron Westbrook premieres Interval/Forum, his third and final piece as a 2017 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence. The work completes a series of conceptual environments that collaborate with audience perception and participation, making use of the theatrical setting of Irondale Arts Center to focus and expand the perception of audience presence as a dynamic performance element.
The piece experiments with an audience situated in a large stage setting that contains sound design and periodic lighting changes. The installation-as-performance environment incorporates the filmic cut and fade techniques of coordinated light and sound framing gestures used in Interval/Habitat (at ISSUE’s 22 Boerum Theater in April, 2017), while utilizing the color washes and audience illumination explored in Threshold Variations (at Abrons Art Center in September, 2017). The cohesion between these techniques aims to shift the social orientation of space dynamically between levels of “incidental” and “focused.” Sound is approached as architectural, using found sound, sound effects, white noise and contemporary music to create illusory audio design in the space, functioning in conjunction with technical lighting.
The piece places an emphasis on both visual and social “afterimages” where there is a cognitive and collective response to abrupt scene changes, allowing room for emergent audience response to the unpredictability of the environment.
The performance-as-installation runs from 8 to 10pm. Attendees are encouraged to arrive at any time during the duration of the piece, as well as move throughout the space, enter, and exit freely.
Event listings submissions may be sent to Art [at] Greenpointers.com
Ok guys, this weekend is the last weekend before holiday madness… Thanksgiving is Thursday! Then it’s just holiday parties, and office shindigs, and family dinners… and that’s 2017, folks!
A solo show featuring a new body of sculptural and installation work by Aimée Burg on view in the Main Gallery of Slag from November 17th to December 22nd, 2017.
Of course, many local artists will be participating and exhibiting. Be sure to catch these Brooklyn-based artists at The Other Art Fair!
Andrea Packard (b. 1984), a fine artist who specializes in portraits and figurative oil paintings from life, was born and raised in Excelsior, Minnesota. She received a BA in Studio Art and Psychology from Connecticut College and additional instruction from The Art Students League of New York, Chelsea Classical Studio and Academia Taure (Barcelona, Spain). She has lived and worked in Chicago and Barcelona and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
