The AFC Guide to Bushwick Open Studios

by Whitney Kimball on May 29, 2013 · 1 comment Events


View AFC’s Guide to Bushwick Open Studios 2013 in a larger map

We always go into open studio events with high hopes, though the experience itself is not always a picnic. You’re going to do some digging to find those gems. To help you get through this, we made you a list of picks based on photos we saw on the Internet. It’s not a perfect method, but hey, who else is going to several spend hours sifting through art photos? You’re welcome.

Norte Maar

Jefferson, Dekalb L:

Maps-N-Mimosas and Portraits of Fern
83 Wyckoff Ave, #1B

A no-brainer: start the day with a mimosa. You deserve it. Then collect your map and look at the show, Bushwick’s tribute to the Norte Maar dog, Fern. “Portraits of Fern” have been made by 42 artists (among them Sharon Butler, Paul D’Agnostino, and Tamara Gonzales) who pretty much form the Bushwick establishment.

Ginny Casey, "Cocoa stripes"

17-17 Troutman Street

The warehouse building at 17-17 Troutman may be a little north of most of the activity, but the sheer volume of artist studios and choice shows at Regina Rex and Parallel make this a destination.

Jefferson L:

Studio #251, Ginny Casey
Saturday and Sunday 12-7 PM

We featured Ginny Casey’s  delicate, folky-abstract paintings in last year’s round-up, and their ambiguous tender quality has made them very hard to forget. While events like BOS can be swamped with bids for attention, it only makes Casey’s work stand out more.

Studio #220, Parallel, Rob de Oude & Enrico Gomez
Friday 6pm-10pm, Saturday and Sunday 12pm-7pm

Parallel Art Space will host a show of collaborations between Bushwick and international artists, alongside their individual works. Like Brooklyn/Montreal, we hope shows like these could help broaden the vision for what art in Bushwick could look like. That’s generous, but, you know.
Behind the gallery, you can also find work by co-directors Rob de Oude and Enrico Gomez, both of whom share an interest in optical abstraction; de Oude in particular has been fine-tuning his technique of webbed lines.

Studio #329, Regina Rex, Mathieu Lefevre
Saturday and Sunday, 12-7

Regina Rex presents a show of junk assemblage by Mathieu Lefevre, a Bushwick-based artist who passed away after a bike accident in 2011. His work takes a formal interest in ‘bad’ art, often making jokes on painting with piles of trash, poking fun at deconstructive art dialogue. Definitely don’t miss this.

From "Axiom and Simulation," Mark Dorf

Jefferson, Morgan L:
Studio 303, 41 Varick Ave, #303
Saturday and Sunday 12 – 5pm

This is an obvious choice for us, as many of these artists—Man Bartlett, Carla Gannis, Nathaniel Sullivan, Mark Dorf, and Seldon Yuan—are particularly invested in the online art world. That may be because each of them show an engagement with the world-in-general, from Occupy-related performance (Sullivan, Bartlett) to negotiating physical and digital space (Gannis, Dorf). We dunno what they’re up to with this show, but the investigation itself is refreshing.

Lauren Collings, "Studio 2013" Oil on Canvas 54 x 58 inches

Brooklyn Fireproof: Cafe, gallery, and studios

Jefferson, Morgan L:
119 Ingraham Street

BFP will be a must for its coffee and studio spaces.

Studio #316, Lauren Collings Saturday and Sunday 12pm-7pm

Is it time to name an art movement? Collings’ washy, dreamlike sensibility, similar to that of painters like Ginny Casey, Michael Berryhill, and Roger White, make me think yes.

The Bushwick Boardgame

Jefferson, Morgan L:
GamePad 3000 Experimental Arcade
176 Knickerbocker Ave. #4R
Friday 5pm-9pm
Saturday and Sunday 10 AM-9 PM

It’s unclear how this experimental arcade is art, but this “The Bushwick Boardgame”– a Game of Life-style trip from Williamsburg to Bushwick– looks both promising and depressing. It’s a drinking game!

Image for a collaborative social media performance “You Are Not Here” by Maritza Ruiz-Kim & Laura Isaac.

56 Bogart Street

Morgan L:
Galleries and IRL: internet <-> real life
Saturday and Sunday 12 – 7 PM

The beating heart of Bushwick, the 56 Bogart building’s many galleries will make any picks list.

For BOS only, the show “IRL: internet <-> real life” pops up on the fourth floor. The title refers to a group of artists from around the country, brought together by social media. This means we’ll see more internet-based artists like Carla GannisMaritza Ruiz-Kim, and Laura Isaac alongside more IRL/gallery-based artists Carol SalmansonJoanie Gagnon San Chirico, and Katarina Wong. That’s no promise for the work, but maybe it’ll show that the two worlds aren’t as far apart as we’d thought.

Darren Goins, "Rock Stack," 2013

Morgan L:
Darren Goins Studio and English Kills
114 Forrest Street, #1B

Right behind English Kills Art Gallery lies the studio of Darren Goins. There’s plenty of sexy internet to get us in the door; now it’s gotta stand up to all of its sexy internet kin.

Morgan L:
Storefront Bushwick
16 Wilson Avenue

Right around the corner from English Kills, Patrick Berran and Jack Henry open at Storefront Bushwick. Henry’s been appearing a lot around the emerging scene, at galleries like Fjord and Dodge, with columns of cement, rubber, glitter, paint, and plaster. Henry seems to be the low-high answer to Mathieu Lefevre’s high-low at Regina Rex.

Foxx, Matthews, Tron, Sheets

Studio and Party?: 64 Jefferson Street, #1
Myrtle J,M and Central Ave M:

I have no idea what to expect from drawings, films, installations, and fun television-based surprises by Cora Foxx, Michael Matthews, Gina Tron, and Mike Sheets. I’m going on a hunch because participant Gina Tron, contributing editor of LadyGunn Magazine, is a pretty balls-of-fire storyteller.

Myrtle J,M and Central Ave M:
Airplane Gallery, Transmissions
70 Jefferson Street

Artists exchange work between Tokyo and Bushwick, via projectors and printers. Who knows what’ll happen.

Here are our Bushwick show picks, from Tuesday’s events listing:

Opening Friday:

Myrtle J,M and Central Ave M:
Microscope, Overt & Covert: technology and portraiture
6-9pm, 4 Charles Place

A group of artists DataSpaceTime (Ray Sweeten & Lisa Gwilliam), James Fotopoulos, M. Henry Jones, and Anton Perich offer 3-D imaged versions of famed artists and works. This will be a good show for people who like to keep up-to-date with the tech; artist M. Henry Jones, for example, debuts his own technique of “Fly’s Eye” 3-D photography.

Flushing and Myrtle J,M:
Grace Exhibition Space, Performances
9 – 11 PM, 840 Broadway, 2nd floor
$10 donation

“Psycho-Geography” takes a series of performances starting with place, and it shows a diversity of artists which you’ll only find in Bushwick, from burlesque performer Rosabelle Selavy to New Zealand actionist Peter Dobill. We expect this to be heavy.

Screen shot from Rick Silva’s “En plein air”

Opening Saturday:

Grand St L:
Transfer Gallery: Cocktails & Kebabs
6 – 9 PM, 1030 Metropolitan Ave

Resident filmmaker and administrator Rhett Jones loves Transfer’s current show of Rick Silva’s plein-air 3D modelled landscape renderings and GIFs–and from the exhibition site, we believe him. They’re beautiful. That’s enough to get us to Transfer Gallery, but the cocktails and kebabs seal the deal.

(Tip: plan ahead for Transfer, since it’s the farthest from the rest).

Morgan, Montrose, and Grand St L:
Third Ward: Birthday BBQ
2 – 10 PM, 195 Morgan Ave

Third Ward, Bushwick’s hub for cheap and hands-on creative education, is having a barbecue to celebrate its seventh birthday. After BOS, this is probably a good place to end up.

{ 1 comment }

jlauch May 29, 2013 at 6:53 pm

I would just like to say briefly; that the studios listed here, and most of the others registered this year are not actually in Bushwick. Yes, I know I am being ‘technical’ and more than likely it doesn’t matter, but the vast majority of studios are – not only not even in Bushwick, but smack dab in the middle of Williamsburg proper.

I know this might not seem to be a big deal for most. Understandably, if you you trek all the way out to Bushwick, you want to get the most bang for your buck (Metrocard fair). But, as someone who lives out in Bushwick (which actually starts at flushing and heads east all the way out to the cemetery), who is an ‘serious’ artist, and who moved out here not to be hip but because it was cheap, it is sad to think that almost no-one will venture out this far.

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