Bushwick Gallery Guide

By Charles Kessler

Bushwick Gallery Guide

Bushwick was slow to recover from the looting and rioting after the infamous blackout of 1977, so it was a relatively dangerous area well into the 1990's. But now, like in the rest of New York, drug activity and crime are way down. I personally have never felt unsafe anywhere I've gone in the area.

It’s a diverse neighborhood with a large population of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and South Americans as well as many other nationalities; and even the artists are not all young hipsters but are all ages. Bushwick is also a varied urban environment with  two- and three-family townhouses next to six-family tenements next to four- and six-story factories mixed in with stores, restaurants, bars and now art galleries. But it’s the large supply of loft buildings at relatively low rent, as well as the convenience of many nearby subway stops, that has attracted artists — many of them from nearby Williamsburg.

The galleries are spread out over a large area. What is being called “Bushwick” actually includes parts of eastern Williamsburg and Ridgewood, Queens. If you have the energy, it’s possible to do it all in one afternoon (it's about 4 1/2 miles), but, if you want, you can easily split the tour into eastern and western sections. For the eastern section you can end with Factory Fresh (G) and walk back to the Morgan Street L stop from there. For the western section you can start from the Myrtle/Wyckoff L and M subway station and tour in reverse order beginning with Famous Accountants (K). You can return via the Jefferson Street L (at Wyckoff and Troutman).

Most galleries are open Friday - Monday, 1 - 6 pm, but not all of them. I only included galleries that are at least consistently open on Sundays from 1:00 - 6:00, but it's a good idea to check their websites (gallery names below are linked to their websites), email them, or call the galleries in advance to confirm. It’s also a good idea to take the gallery phone numbers with you because in some cases you may need be let in.

I took the opportunity to list some bars and a variety of restaurants along the route, as well as galleries that are only open by appointment. These are not on the map but are placed in the listings next to the galleries they are closest to. 

To start the tour, take the L train to Morgan Avenue and go out the Bogart Street exit (toward the back of the train if you’re coming from the west). 56 Bogart is across the street from where you exit.

A - 56 Bogart Street galleries:

     Bogart Salon - (203) 249-8843

     Interstate Projects   tom@interstateprojects.com

     Momenta Art - (718) 218-8058   email them via their website

     NURTUREart - (718) 782-7755   gallery@nurtureart.org 

     Studio 10 - (718) 852-4396   studio10bogart@gmail.com 

       

     Nearby:

     Luhring Augustine Gallery - 25 Knickerbocker Ave (at Ingraham)

     (212) 206-9100; info@luhringaugustine.com 

     The gallery will not be open until at least January. This is the first big-time Chelsea gallery to

     open a branch in Bushwick. (Rumors are the Andrea Rosen Gallery will be next.)

B -  To go to:  Centotto - 250 Moore St  (Call to be let in: 908-338-3590)

Head south on Bogart St two blocks

Turn right onto Moore St ½ block

      Destination will be on the left

      postuccio@gmail.com

     Nearby: 

     Roberta's Restaurant  261 Moore St (near Bogart Street), (718) 417-1118; 

     Open Daily 11a.m.-Midnight

     MoMo Sushi Shack, 43 Bogart Street (near Moore Street), (718) 418-6666

     Open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday

 C - To go to:  English Kills - 114 Forrest St -- use door to the garden on the right

Head back on Moore St to Bogart St

Turn right onto Bogart St, go 0.1 mi

Turn left onto Flushing Ave, go 269 ft

Sharp right onto Forrest St

      Destination will be on the left

      (917) 375-6266, info@englishkillsartgallery.com

     Nearby:

     Grace Exhibition Space (Performance art), 840 Broadway, 2nd Floor. (646) 578-3402

D - To go to:   Airplane - 70 Jefferson St - basement

Continue southwest on Forest St to the end, 276 ft

Take the first left onto Central Avenue, go 0.2 mi, 4 short blks

Turn right onto Jefferson Street, go 0.1 mi

Turn right onto Evergreen and take a quick left to stay on Jefferson

      Destination will be on the left

      (646) 345-9394; airplanegallery@gmail.com

E - To go to:   Microscope  - 4 Charles Pl

Continue southwest on Jefferson, turn left on Bushwick Avenue, go 0.1 mi

Slight left onto Myrtle Avenue (just before the subway bridge)

Take an immediate left onto Charles Pl. 

      Destination will be on the right

      (347) 925-1433; info@microscopegallery.com

     Nearby:

     Tandem (Bar and Restaurant), 236 Troutman Street (between Wilson and Knickerbocker)  (718) 386-2369

F - To go to:  Storefront - 16 Wilson Ave

Head back on Charles Pl to Myrtle Avenue and quick turn left onto Willoughby Ave

Go 1 blk and turn left onto Evergreen 

Go 1 short blk on Evergreen and turn right onto Troutman St, go 0.3 mi, 2 long blks

Turn left onto Wilson Ave, go 0.2 mi, about 4 short blocks

      Destination will be on the left

      (646) 361-8512;  jandrewnyc@yahoo.com

Update: Co-founder Jason Andrew will be leaving the gallery on December 18th and Deborah Brown, Storefront's other founder will be taking over the lease. The gallery will be called Storefront Bushwick.

     Nearby:

     Narrows Bar, 1037 Flushing Ave (near Morgan) 

     Opens around 5 pm, (281) 827-1800

G - To go to:  Factory Fresh - 1053 Flushing Ave

Continue northwest on Flushing Ave

      Destination will be on the left

      (917) 682-6753;       ali@factoryfresh.net

     Nearby:

     Cafe Ghia Restaurant, 24 Irving Ave (at Jefferson Street)

     (718) 821-8806, open Sun-Thur 11-10pm, Fri-Sat 11-11pm 

     Arepera Guacuco (Venezuelan restaurant), 44 Irving Ave (at Troutman Street)

     (347) 305-3300, Open for lunch and dinner every day.

     The Bodega (Bar/Restaurant), 24 Saint Nicholas Avenue (corner of Troutman St.)

     Kitchen open until 2 am.

     Sugar Art Gallery, 449 Troutman St (between St Nicholas and Cypress Avenues) 

     Open by appointment only. (718) 417-1180

H - To go to:  Norte Maar - 83 Wyckoff Ave

Continue of Flushing Ave 3 blocks

Turn right onto Wyckoff Ave and walk 5 short blks

      Destination will be on the left:

      (646) 361-8512; email them via their website

I - To go to:  Regina Rex  - 1717 Troutman St - ring bell #329

(The numbers change when you cross the Queens border -- it's not as far as the address would imply.)

Head back on Wyckoff Ave for 2 blks

Turn right onto Troutman St for 2 ½ long blks

      Destination will be on the left:

      (646) 467-2232; info[at]reginarex.org

     Nearby:

     Northeast Kingdom (Restaurant/Bar), 18 Wyckoff Avenue (at Troutman), (718) 386-3864

     Sardine  286 Stanhope Street (between Irving and Wyckoff), a small gallery/boutique

J - To go to:  Valentine -  464 Seneca Ave

(This is a bigger space than it appears to be from outside.)

Head back on Troutman St ½ blk

Turn left onto Cypress Ave and walk 5 short blks 

Turn left onto Dekalb Ave, go 0.3 mi, 3 long blocks

Turn right onto Seneca Ave, go 0.2 mi, 3 1/2 blks

      Destination will be on the right:

      (718) 381-2962; valentineridgewood@gmail.com

K - To go to: Famous Accountants   -   1673 Gates Ave

Continue southeast on Seneca Ave, 0.3 mi, 7 1/2 short blks

Turn right onto Gates Ave

      Destination will be on the right:

      (917) 309-3540

      FamousAccountants@gmail.com

     Nearby:

     Small Black Door (Art Gallery), 19-20 Palmetto St. (before Forest Ave)

     Open during receptions and by appointment only. 

     Use contact form on their website to get in touch with them.

Charles Kessler is an artist and writer who lives in Jersey City.

Lower East Side Gallery Update

Sloan Fine Arts is the only Lower East Side gallery I know of that closed — they’re looking for a new space. While that’s a real loss (hopefully not for long), the good news is thirteen (!) new galleries opened in the last few months — a surprising three of them are on Forsyth Street. The even better news is all of these new galleries are run by smart, ambitious, nice people. Here are the details:

BosiDamjanovic Gallery
48 Orchard Street, NY 10002
http://www.bosidamjanovic.com
(212) 966-5686


Brennan & Griffen
55 Delancey Street, NY 10002
brennangriffin.com
(212) 227-0115

Katie Grinnan, Accordion Thoughts And Everyday Superposition, Brennan & Griffen Gallery, installation view

Callicoon Fine Arts
124 Forsyth Street, NY 10002
callicoonfinearts.com
(212) 219-0326


Essex Street
47 Essex Street, NY 10002
http://essexstreet.biz/
(312) 399-0531


Golden
120 Elizabeth Street, NY 10013
http://goldengallery.co/
(773) 209-8889


steven harvey fine art projects
208 Forsyth Street, NY 10002
shfap.com
(917) 861-7312


Louis B. James
143B Orchard Street, NY 10002
Louisbjames.com
(212) 533-4670


Lu Magnus
55 Hester Street, NY 10002
LuMagnus.com
(212) 677-6555

Mulherin + Pollard

187 Chrystie Street, NY 10002
You can also enter at the end of Freeman Alley
mulherinpollard.com
(212) 967-0045

SHOW ROOM
170 Suffolk Street, NY 10002
http://showroom170.com
(646) 559-2856


Marc Straus (temporary)
132 Delancey Street, NY 10002
Enter on Norfolk Street - second floor
They will be moving to 299 Grand Street between Eldridge and Allen in January.
http://marcstraus.com/
(212) 510-7646

Forsyth Street view of the toomer labzda gallery

toomer labzda
100a Forsyth Street, NY 10002
www.toomerlabzda.com
(917) 488-3388

Y Gallery
165 Orchard Street, NY 10002
ygallerynewyork.com
(917) 721-4539


Also: 
Thierry-Goldberg 
103 Norfolk Street, NY 10002
http://www.thierrygoldberg.com/
(212) 967-2260
Moved to a larger and nicer space at 103 Norfolk Street (between Rivington and Delancey).


NOTE: The good people at the gallery Feature Inc. have put their excellent LES Gallery map online. In the future, a link to this site will be on the right sidebar instead of the LES guide we have been providing -- it's somewhat out of date anyway!

October Chelsea Roundup

By Charles Kessler


About a third of the galleries are installing new shows that will open Thursday -- it’s going to be a CRAZY night in Chelsea!


OBG’s:

Roy Lichtenstein, Entablature, 1974, oil, magna, sand, magna medium, aluminum powder on canvas, 

60 x 90 inches (Paula Cooper Gallery)

It seems like the top-tier Chelsea galleries are competing with each other to present museum-quality exhibitions. Paula Cooper proves her mettle with Roy Lichtenstein: Entablatures (extended through November 12th).


The paintings, completed between 1971 and 1976, are based on illustrations he found in Greek and Roman architecture journals, but I also believe Lichtenstein was making a tongue-in-cheek reference to Minimalism generally and to the the striped paintings of Kenneth Noland in particular. See below:

Kenneth Noland, Via Light, 1968, acrylic on canvas, 54 x 113 inches, (courtesy of Lelie Feely Fine Art).

Richard Pousette-Dart, Cloud Sign, 1950, Oil and graphite on linen, 36 x 74 inches  

(Luhring Augustine Gallery).

Richard Pousette-Dart: East River Studio at Luhring Augustine until December 17th.


This is a show of rarely-seen paintings and wire sculptures he did in the 1950s. One interesting sidelight is the exhibition is organized by the well-known artist Christopher Wool, who studied with Pousette-Dart in college, and Pousette-Dart’s daughter, the painter Joanna Pousette-Dart.


Burning, Bright: A Short History of the Light Bulb, Pace Gallery on 22nd Street until November 26th.
(The Pace Gallery website is so bad I won’t expose you to it; instead, here’s a write up in Art Daily.)


It’s amazing how many artists have used the light bulb as a motif in the last century. As you'd expect, the show has the well-known light bulbs of Jasper Johns and Claus Oldenberg, but there is also work by many others including Man Ray, Francis Bacon, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and a delightful small cat lamp by Alexander Calder.


LA OBG’s:
Undoubtably because of Pacific Standard Time there’s been more than the usual number of exhibitions of older Los Angeles art and artists in New York. Here are three that I think are among the most interesting.


Sonia Gechtoff, the Ferus Years at Nyehaus gallery until December 17th.

Sonia Gechtoff, Death of a Child, 1957, oil on canvas, 66 x 97 inches

This is an artist I knew nothing about, and one of the very few women that showed at LA’s now-famous Ferus Gallery. The only other woman artist I can think of is Jay DeFeo and, like her, Gechtoff was from the Bay area and stylistically closer to West Coast Abstract Expressionists like Hassel Smith. 

The gallery is giving away a beautifully printed color catalog of the show. It includes a 2006 interview with Gechtoff by Marshall Price and several photos of the period.

Llyn Foulkes at Andrea Rosen Gallery until December 3rd.

Llyn Foulkes, Happy Rock, 1969, oil on canvas, 88 x 84 1/2 inches

There's been quite a bit of Foulkes's art shown in the last few years, maybe because the surrealistic and conceptual quality of his work is compatible with post-modern sensibilities. The focus of this exhibition is on Foulks’s 1963 to 1991 rock landscapes. These are strange, disconcerting and haunting works.


Pacific Standard Editions, Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl; 465 West 23rd Street - Ground Floor, (temporary location) until November 5th.


During the 60’s and 70’s, all the New York heavies — Stella, Johns, Lichtenstein, Rauchenberg and many others — would come to LA to make prints at Gemini. This show provides a small taste of what was done in those years. Look for the Ron Davis multiple — it’s a knock-out.


I’m looking forward to Robert Graham: Early Work 1963 - 1973, opening November 7th at David Zwirner.

The press release says the show will contain his Plexiglass boxes. The boxes contain small wax sculptures of suntanned bathers at the beach, or small domestic interiors with figures making love or otherwise enjoying themselves. The viewer is very much a voyeur and a giant one at that.  This work was very popular when it was first shown; I remember even Clement Greenberg liked it, but for whatever reason it's hardly ever seen anymore. Unfortunately Graham’s work became more somber and academic as he got older. He died in Santa Monica, California, in 2008.

Robert Graham looking at his wax sculptures in his exhibition at Nicholas Wilder Gallery, 1968. © Robert Graham. Image courtesy of Jerry McMillan and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica. © Jerry McMillan. This photo was taken from the Getty Museum's website.

Younger Artists (sort of)

William Powhida, Derivatives at Postmasters until November 26th

and Allison Schulnik at ZieherSmith until December 17th.

Video has become obligatory for exhibitions by younger artists — and the videos are usually not as good as their other work. The opposite is the case with these two artists. 

I’m frankly getting a little tired of standing and reading Powhida’s work in a gallery setting -- it’s a lot easier to read, and seems more appropriate, on his website -- but, as he’d be the first to point out, you can’t make money that way. His video, on the other hand, is an entertaining extension of the obnoxious art-star persona he created this summer at a performance at the Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea. 

Likewise, even though LA-based Allison Schulnik is 32 years old and a CalArts graduate, this is a very immature artist — talented but sophomoric.  As you can see from the reproduction (below), her work is heavy-handed, melodramatic, sappy and kitschy. But this kind of theatricality and pathos seems to work better in her video. 

Allison Schulnik, Yogurt Eater, 2011, oil on linen, 84 x 68 inches

I saved my favorite for last: Shane Hope, Transubstrational: As a Smartmatter of Nanofacture at the Winkelman Gallery (until December 23rd). 

Shane Hope, "Transubstrational - As a Smartmatter of Nanofacture," (installation view showing his hand-made 3D printer, Winkleman Gallery). Photography by Etienne Frossard.

I recently wrote that some of de Kooning’s works have so much going on and are so complex, they’re like nature itself. Well this applies in spades to Shane Hope’s work. I thought his last show was dense, but now he’s crammed in even more by adding a third dimensions. I can’t describe it better than Ed Winkleman:

For his new series of lenticular-3D prints (titled "Post-Scarcity Percept-Pus Portraiture"), Hope has continued to customize user-sponsored open-source nanomolecular design software systems. He uses this software to modify, manipulate and design groups of molecular models. To build his painterly pictures, he assembles together tens of thousands of these models, resulting in fantastic compositions depicting organic, inorganic, synthesizable, theoretically feasible and nano-nonsensical molecules. The lenticular 3D print format presents holographic-like relief-sculptural depth, providing an extraordinary view into molecular design spaces and how hacking matter happens.

Don’t get the wrong idea, the work isn’t the dry by-product of some intellectual/conceptual conceit; the process is absolutely integral to the meaning and experience of the work, and the result is rich art in every way: beautiful, glowing, mysterious and downright profound.

Art News

By Charles Kessler

I wasn’t going to write about Gagosian’s Bob Dylan exhibition because I think it got more attention than it deserves, but people I know who care about art, and think about it, have asked what I think, so….

By presenting Dylan's art in the same gallery and at the same time as Jenny Saville's, Gagosian is suggesting they're in the same league. They're not. Of course it isn't Dylan’s fault that Gagosian showed his work, but every time Dylan had to deal with something a bit challenging, like hands or kneecaps, he sloughed over it -- the guy didn’t even try. And even compared to some other musicians, like John Lennon or Captain Beefheart, Dylan’s art isn’t very good. I mean let’s keep things in perspective — this is the work of a dedicated hobbyist; he's somewhat better than Eisenhower but not as good as Churchill.  

***

Another thing people keep asking me about is this new “Occupy Museums” movement. I think Hrag Vartanian nails it on the blog Hyperallergic when he writes: "Leave it to the art world to make everything about them…." And in another post he presents his objections in more detail:

If we’re going to change the way museums do things then we have to find them an alternate mode of funding. If rich patrons aren’t going to fund them then they’ll need a more grassroots approach (Kickstarter?) or maybe public money, but neither of those seem likely at the moment. ...Who gets to decide what goes into a museum of the 99%? That’s a bigger question I’d love to know the answer to.

***

There’s a lot going on in New York right now, but don’t miss David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy at the Whitney - it’s pure joy. The show originated at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,  In the catalog, the curator, Carol S. Eliel, makes somewhat of a phony argument. She tries to refute the claim that David Smith only worked with cubes later in his career -- but who ever said that in the first place?

David Smith, Cubi I, 1963, Stainless steel, 124 x 34 x 33 ½ inches, (Detroit Institute of the Arts)

In any case, the work is glorious: inventive, sensual, playful -- note the little sphere on the bottom of Cubi I (above) propping up the precariously stacked stainless steel boxes. (BTW, despite its name, it's not the first Cubi sculpture.)

I’ve seen a lot of David Smith's work over the years, but the thing that got to me this time was the compelling illusion of the stainless steel dematerializing into ephemeral light. Maybe it was the way the work was lit that made the difference, but the calligraphic burnishing on the stainless steel created squiggles of light that floated in space in front of and behind the steel surface, transforming the steel into what looked like transparent gray scrim. You can see a little of this illusion in the photo below, but you really need to see the work in person and move around it to truly experience the illusion. 

David Smith, Untitled (Candida), 1965. Stainless steel, 103 × 120 × 31 in. The Estate of David Smith/VAGA, New York. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson; courtesy the Estate of David Smith, NY.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art upgraded their website making it a lot easier to use. It now contains good reproductions of most of their collection, including many high-resolution images.

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I'm working on an update of the Lower East Side galleries -- there are 15 new ones, about 75 all together. Incredible! And I'm also working on a map of Bushwick galleries. Stay tuned.