{"id":3103,"date":"2014-06-05T14:50:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T14:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raulmourao.com\/blog\/?p=3103"},"modified":"2014-06-05T14:50:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T14:50:43","slug":"thoughts-on-the-present-and-future-of-bushwick-open-studios-by-hrag-vartanian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archive.raulmourao.com\/blog\/?p=3103","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on the Present and Future of Bushwick Open Studios by Hrag Vartanian"},"content":{"rendered":"

l\u00e1 no Hyperallergic<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Skewville's

Skewville\u2019s Bushwick sign on a rooftop on Flushing Avenue (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)<\/p><\/div>\n

People\u2019s reactions to\u00a0Bushwick Open Studios<\/a>\u00a0(BOS) generally fall into two passionate camps: those who love the\u00a0event\u00a0and those who despise it. The latter group often gripes about the crowds around the Morgan Avenue subway stop, the boisterous\u00a0atmosphere around that hub\u00a0(the epicenter of the party area is Bogart and Grattan Streets), and the throng of artists and gawkers from outside the neighborhood eager to get in on some of the action. Yet those who\u00a0enjoy BOS, myself included, know that steering clear of\u00a0the two blocks radiating from Bogart and Grattan is largely necessary (unless you\u2019re eating atMOMO\u2019s Sushi Shack;<\/a>\u00a0I always avoid Roberta\u2019s) and the real treats are in the far-flung spaces, the one-on-one conversations in\u00a0off-the-beaten-path locales. It\u2019s a rookie mistake to think \u201cBushwick\u201d is only northwest\u00a0of Flushing Avenue\u00a0or that the focus isn\u2019t on\u00a0community building.<\/p>\n

\"14123168930_80095d6271_m\"<\/p>\n

This year I spent agreat deal of time exploring the spokes of Broadway west of Myrtle, where\u00a0a new axis of \u201cSouth Bushwick Art<\/a>\u201d is starting to form. Stretching from the Flushing Avenue J\/M\/Z station\u00a0to the Kosciuszko stop, this new cluster, on the edge of the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods, includes long-time resident\u00a0Grace Exhibition Space, some not-so-new spaces, like Airplane and Microscope galleries, and some more recent additions, like Wayfarers and even Good Work Gallery.<\/p>\n

\"Left,

Left, Odetta gallery opening on Saturday; right, a work by Brent Owens on display at \u201cSouth Bushwick Art\u201d gallery Wayfarers<\/p><\/div>\n

That new area was a discovery for me, and the studios associated with Wayfarers and Good Work were both quite good. So was the community atmosphere at the Living Gallery, where an open mic event attracted aspiring beat poets, songwriters, and others eager for a chance to shine.<\/p>\n

\"One

One of the participants in the Living Gallery\u2019s open mic event last Saturday<\/p><\/div>\n

The standouts from this year\u2019s BOS were undoubtedly the group\u00a0and gallery\u00a0shows, even if they aren\u2019t the focus of the weekend\u2019s fun. Exhibitions\u00a0like\u00a0Do-It-Yourself<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0Communal Table<\/a><\/em>, and others brought together some of the neighborhood\u2019s strongest talents for curated experiences that were better than those of previous years. While \u201cstudios\u201d are\u00a0the focus of BOS, I have a hunch that curated shows are probably its future. Bushwick Open Studios has always been a community-building effort, and the goal is inclusion; shows like\u00a0Do-It-Yourself<\/em>, with 11 curators and dozens of artists, demonstrates how that could look.<\/p>\n

\"Visitors

Visitors playing with a sculpture that was part of REAL on Rock Street<\/p><\/div>\n

Arts in Bushwick<\/a>, which runs BOS, is one of the neighborhood\u00a0arts community\u2019s real success stories. As a\u00a0grassroots, volunteer-run organization, they have toiled away at creating bonds and bridges between artists, arts entities around the city,\u00a0and different groups of local residents and schools in the area. AiB\u00a0has created a\u00a0high school fellows program<\/a>, and launched a\u00a0Community Team<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0runs a variety of programs and events to serve youth and families in Bushwick. If BOS feels unwieldy, which it long\u00a0has, it\u2019s because Bushwick is really four or five geographic communities rolled into\u00a0one, and Arts in Bushwick has long attempted (with varying levels of success) to sew them all together into one big quilt.<\/p>\n

\"A

A look inside the Newd Art Show<\/p><\/div>\n

This year the\u00a0Newd Art Show<\/a>\u00a0really added another dimension to the weekend, since it highlighted some of the many strong galleries in the neighborhood (Regina Rex, Theodore:Art, Sardine) and brought in a few others from surrounding areas (American Medium gallery is from neighboring Bedford-Stuyvesant, while Rawson Projects is headquartered in\u00a0Greenpoint, for instance) to create a hub for the commercial face of the area\u2019s art scene.<\/p>\n

Newd was a well-curated experience by fair organizers, with some incredibly strong galleries and a few weaker ones. While sales from the fair may not have been phenomenal (a number of galleries told me they sold one or two works though they remained tight-lipped on\u00a0prices), sales\u00a0did happen, and some established collectors arrived to tour the compact fair. Newd\u00a0also launched their\u00a0artist\u2019s contract experiment<\/a>\u00a0to provide artists with negotiated\u00a0resale\u00a0royalty\u00a0provisions. When I asked the fair yesterday, I was told 10 contracts had already been signed on work sold.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A

A site-specific kinetic sculpture by Brazilian artist Raul Mour\u00e3o at the Newd Art Show<\/p><\/div>\n

The overwhelming topic of conversation\u00a0throughout the weekend was the \u201cg\u201d word, gentrification, and the art community\u2019s role. I myself took part in two panels on Sunday that tackled the issue, and I know\u00a0there was at least one other panel on the same topic in a different Bushwick location. The conversation has reached a fevered pitch, though none of this weekend\u2019s panels was\u00a0nearly as well-attended as a\u00a0similar one\u00a0I moderated a few years back at Bogart Salon, which was located at 56 Bogart. While the art community may be slowly digesting the realities of\u00a0change in Bushwick, Deborah Brown, artist, gallerist, nonprofit board member, and member of the Bushwick community board, explained at\u00a0panels throughout the day how more anxiety is bubbling up around the issue than ever before. With artists and hipsters spread past the industrial parks into more established residential neighborhoods, and the large 977-unit\u00a0Rheingold Brewery site<\/a>\u00a0slated for development into largely\u00a0market-rate apartments, you can see why longtime residents\u00a0worry that their neighborhood is quickly disappearing.<\/p>\n

\"Looking

Looking east down Wyckoff Avenue<\/p><\/div>\n

Bushwick is a big swathe of northern Brooklyn, and it seems clear that in the coming year it will fragment as gentrification intensifies in\u00a0the\u00a0west towards Brownsville, north into Ridgewood, and south into Bed-Stuy. Micro-neighborhoods will develop (West Bushwick? So(uth)Bu(shwick)? Bushwood?), white-collar professionals will follow, and more condos will be built. Until then BOS continues to provide a human face to a\u00a0community by connecting its\u00a0disparate elements as best it can. Arts in Bushwick\u2019s\u00a0accomplishment is amazing, and they should be proud.<\/p>\n