We’re already lucky to have a handful of mid-century home goods shops in Greenpoint, and now we have a newcomer to the ‘hood, You & Yours Fine Vintage. Tonight they’ll officially celebrate their opening with a drinks and desserts soiree from 6-9pm and everyone’s invited. Continue reading
On a gorgeous springlike evening last week, Jen G and I popped into the newly opened Brooklyn Safehouse for an early dinner. This is the place at 120 Franklin Street, which seems to have been in the making for at least two years and finally opened its doors last month. Continue reading
Ugly Art Room & Greenpointers Present “NOW” – A Group Art Show @ Dobbin Project Space (50 Dobbin St) in participation with Greenpoint Gallery Night.
Opening: Friday September 13, 2013, 7-9pm
Exhibition: 9/13/13 – 9/30/13
There is never a better time than now, but the moving target of “in the moment” is ever elusive. We are often told to “let go of the past” and “stop worrying about the future.” At the same time we are told that patience is a virtue and that we must wait for the “right time.”
But what about now? What is now? Right here. Right now.
Now is a time and place. We are all inspired by our time – the year 2013 – and our space, which is Greenpoint, Brooklyn, USA, the planet. This will be the loose connecting theme among the artwork chosen. Special considerations will be given to works that consider time and place.
All mediums accepted.
The show titled “NOW” will present the contemporary artwork of artists living or working in Greenpoint – work that has been created specifically for this show or within the last 6 mo, as well as work created on site during the opening reception on 9/13/13. Progressions of pieces: studies along with completed work will be accepted. Unfinished works will also be accepted. Artwork will be created on site during the opening.
The show will serve as a “snapshot” of the contemporary art community in Greenpoint, Brooklyn during the year of 2013.
Submission deadline: August 15, 2013
Email the following to greenpointers (at) gmail.com
Subject Line: “NOW” (Your Name)
In the email include the following information:
Name:
Email address:
Phone:
Website:
Attach small jpg(s) images of artwork(s) for consideration:
For all work submitted include: name of piece, size in inches, medium, price
Brief summary of work to make for the show and/or during the opening (if applicable):
If your work is chosen you will be notified and must be available to drop off your work during the week of Monday September 9th and pick-up your work on September 30, 2013.
Clay Space 1205 celebrates 7 years of community and creativity! Tonight, Friday March 22, 2013 from 6-9pm, join Clay Space (1205 Manhattan Ave) for a group show of former and current members’ work exhibiting the diversity of the Clay Space community.
Thanks to our twitter buddy @boredvegetarian for taking this shot on the door of Coco66 that says they are reopening this Friday 3/22. She also wonders, “How long before they get shut down again?” Good question.
When I previewed Calico Brooklyn’s show titled Born Again, featuring the works of Thomas Buildmore, Allison Maletz, and Charles Wilkin, it was easy to find the theme of reuse and reinvention in collage artist Wilkin’s enlarged pigment stained postcard prints and Buildmore’s drippy spraypaint floral still lifes, but Maletz’s sound installation called Utility Purgatory, outfitted with a telephone and surrounded by her watercolor mold paintings was harder to discern. That is, unless we consider the post-Mayan apocalyptic experience referenced by Curator Scott Chasse, which he described as “very similar to the pre-Mayan apocalypse, only we are able to celebrate the afterlife in real-time.”
When I asked Chasse what inspired Born Again he said, “I understand that appropriation and reuse of images, ideas, materials, etc is nothing new, but I think that looking at the works by these three artists as a form of “rebirth” gives a fresh, slightly different way of experiencing what is being presented.”
Sitting on a rotary phone on hold with the telephone company for so long that mold grows on the walls would leave anyone dreaming of the apocalypse, or at least the reinvention of customer service tactics.
Maletz explained that, “these services exist in theory to improve our lives, yet are rendered useless as all the various “please hold” messages loop endlessly, leaving the audience completely impotent.” But Maletz doesn’t take “hold” for an answer and presents this experience in a new way with “a new meaning, so that we might all step back as outsiders looking in, to observe and perhaps even enjoy this well known and frustrating experience.” She went on to say that she made “the Mold Paintings specifically to go with Utility Purgatory. At their core, both works are about what can grow out of neglect.” Continue reading
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…
If I wasn’t sick as a dog, I’d walk right out of my house this instant and try out Selamat Pagi, the new Balinese Restaurant on Driggs Ave that is now open!
If I could get off my couch I would enjoy a crisp walk across McGolrick Park and order Bali Style Deviled Eggs, Lemongrass Fish Curry, with pollack, noodles, fresh cucumbers and roasted peanuts and a Shirley Temple. For dessert I would get the Coconut Creme Brulee. And I wouldn’t share! (Because of germs.)
They also serve breakfast and lunch. They are open 7 days, but the kitchen is just closed Monday (so only ice cream, coffee and pastries then.)
For now I can only imagine and stalk their Instagram Feed.
Please go and tell me how it is!
Selamat Pagi
152 Driggs Ave
“Exhibit B”
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
Darkened, apocalyptic skies loom over dramatic and desolate landscapes, while human figures, hooded and covered from head to toe in bleach white, toil among scores of mysterious boxes. Something massive is most definitely amiss. The tone of David Pettibone’s paintings is unmistakable; distress and destruction seep off his formidable canvases.
Check out David’s work and that of his studiomate, Allison Maletz (featured here) at Interdependent, this Thursday, September 20th from 7 – 9pm at YASHAR Gallery, located at 276 Greenpoint Ave (between Newel and Jewel), curated by Elizabeth Lamb.
