A Selection of Bushwick Exhibitions - Part 1

By Charles Kessler

Here are highlights from the 19 Bushwick galleries I went to last week. I tried to get at least one good photo of each; a closeup detail, if I thought it might be useful; and an installation view to give you a sense of the scale of the art. Most of the gallery websites have additional images and information about the art.

Since there are 63 Bushwick and Ridgewood galleries listed on the excellent and comprehensive BushwickGalleries.com, this roundup is far from complete. More highlights will follow soon.


SOHO20, 56 Bogart, Ann Young Water:Color, and Kathy Stark In Plain Sight (through November 9th). This gallery is new to Bushwick, but it has been around since 1973. They focus on women artists.

Installation view of Ann Young's exhibition, Water:Color.

Ann Young, Water Shield # 131, 2014. oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches.

Installation view of Kathy Stark's exhibition, In Plain Sight.

Detail, Kathy Stark, Tossed in Unpredictable Directions by Random Events, 2015, mixed media on wood.

Theodore:Art, 56 Bogart, Ready for Mayhem: Scooter LaForge and Bill Mutter (through December 6th). This is a two-person show, but the work goes so well together I originally thought it was a collaboration. 

Installation view of Scooter LaForge and Bill Mutter's exhibition Ready for Mayhem.

Bill Mutter, Little Frog Doll, 2014, glazed earthenware and lace, 6 x 9 x10 inches.

Scooter laForge, Raggedy Ann and Andy Go To School, 2015, mixed media, artist frame, 48 x 36 inches.

Life on Mars, 56 Bogart, Todd Bienvenu, Exile on Bogart Street (through November 8th).

Installation view of Todd Bienvenu's exhibition Exile on Bogart Street.

Todd Bienvenu, Wrestlemania, 2015, oil on canvas, 84 by 96 inches.

Studio 10, 56 Bogart, Meg Hitchcock, VERBATIM (through December 20th). Hitchcock laboriously cuts out letters from a sacred text and uses them to make a design and another text.

Installation view of Meg Hitchcock's exhibition VERBATIM.

Meg Hitchcock, Paradise, 2015, letters cut from the Koran, approximately 12 inches high.

Close-up detail of Meg Hitchcock, Paradise, 2015.

Robert Henry, 56 Bogart, Elise Engler: A Year on Broadway (through December 20th). Using gouache, watercolor and colored pencils, Elise Engler spent a year documenting every block of Broadway – all 13 miles of it. 

CLEARING, 396 Johnson Avenue, Eduardo Paolozzi, Horizon of Expectations (ended October 31st). Eduardo Paolozzi, who died in 2005, was a British artist active in the second half of the twentieth century. He will have a major retrospective in 2016, organized by the Whitechapel Gallery, London.

Installation view of Eduardo Paolozzi, Horizon of Expectations. In the foreground is the sculpture Kalasan, 1973-1974, cast, extruded and welded aluminum, 82 3/4 x 85 1/2 x 102 3/4 inches.

Foreground: Trishula, 1966, cast, extruded and welded aluminum, 74 x 78 x 112 1/2 inches; background: Suwasa, 1966, cast, extruded and welded aluminum, 87 1/2 x 37 1/2 x 130 3/4 inches.

Odetta, 229 Cook Street, Seeing Sound, work by Jane Harris, Alex Paik and Gelah Penn (through November 1st). The work I liked most in this three-person exhibition was by Alex Paik. The colored reflections off the ribbons of paper create a hazy atmospheric perspective that results in a sense of depth.

Alex Paik, Modular Wall Installation, 2015, gouache, colored pencil, paper and nails, 96 x 180 x 1 1/2 inches. 

Detail, Alex Paik, Modular Wall Installation, 2015. 

Microscope, 1329 Willoughby Avenue, Sarah Halpern, The Changing Room (through November 29th). 

Sarah Halpern, Traces, 2015, glue, pencil, and collage on paper, 12 x 12 inches.

Sarah Halpern, Chapters, 2015, 16mm film, single-channel video, and laptop.

Halpern's video/film installation is multi-layered. A 2 ½ minute hand-processed color film of pages from the 1958 novel The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and footage from the 1963 movie of the same name directed by Luchino Visconti, are projected onto a laptop screen on which a video of the famous 45-minute ballroom scene is playing. 

There were three excellent group exhibitions that involved many artists, and all of them were in small spaces.

Transmitter, 1329 Willoughby Avenue, Painting: More or Less... with works by Aimée Terburg, Alain Biltereyst, Chris Fennell, Danielle Mysliwiec, Emma Langridge, Michael Rouillard, and Shawn Stipling. The subject of this group exhibition was the variety of mark-making possibilities.

On the left: four small works by Emma Langridge; on the right: Chris Fennell, Enkidu, mixed media on canvas, 48 x 40 inches. 

Emma Langridge, B1, 2015, enamel and acrylic on wood, 11 ⅞ x 11 ⅞ inches.

TSA New York, 1329 Willoughby Avenue, American Pharoahs curated by William Crump, including Mariah Dekkenga, Robbie McDonald and Ian Pedigo (through December 6th). Like this year’s Triple Crown winner, American Pharoahs, these artists are triple threats, and work in at least three disciplines including painting, sculpture, performance, collage, photography, installation, and digital media.

From the left: ink drawings on rice paper by Mariah Dekkenga; Robbie McDonald, Sad Blue Flowers, 2015, wood, acrylic, bulbs and wire; and in the background, on a shelf: Mariah Dekkenga, Untitled no. 3, 2015, sand and plaster.

Underdonk, PAUL KLEE (through November 1st). This is an exhibition of relatively small work by twenty artists who have some affinity to Paul Klee. Some of the artists are well know, such as Brenda Goodman, Jonathan Lasker, Dona Nelson, Carl Ostendarp (who really didn't fit), and my favorite ceramic artist, Joyce Robins.

From the left, work by Lori Ellison, Brenda Goodman, Glenn Goldberg, Sanford Wurmfeld, Peter Acheson and J. Grabowski.