Dumbo NYC

Last night, the Dumbo Improvement District, in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Urban Art Program, installed the work of Dumbo resident and artist Eleanora Kupencow, entitled “Horsing Around the Arrows of Time,” in the Pearl Street Triangle. Per the Dumbo Improvement District’s press statement:

Adjacent to the Manhattan Bridge and DOT’s iron shop and fabricated out of powder-coated steel, the bold and colorful sculptures pay homage to DUMBO’s manufacturing and industrial story.

The four pieces in “Horsing Around the Arrows of Time” were designed individually - the Purple King, the Blue Thinker, the Magenta Acrobats and the Green Mother Earth. When arranged in a group, the sculptures work together to create a feeling of movement and energy.

The pieces bring more color to the triangle and has cool detailing. Check it out at the Pearl Street Triangle (Pearl Street between Water and Front Street).

{Photo set on Flickr}
{Press Release (PDF)}

[Note: This month's gallery walk is next Thursday, July 9 (not July 2), due to the holiday weekend.]

A festive occasion each month for art lovers. A chance to visit many quality galleries at night in the Dumbo Historic District - galleries showing works from artists of many disciplines, especially photography, while hosting receptions, producing live music performances and curator/artist talks among other highlights.

Let’s not forget the incredible views you can enjoy as you walk from one gallery to the next and the local drink specials afterward. Most of the art is for sale. Printed maps and 1st Thursday cards are available on-site.

Participating galleries may vary each month. For more information contact Zannah Mass at zannah@twotrees-dumbo.com or 718-222-2500 x38.

Check gallery websites for updates.
A.I.R. Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 228
Amos Eno Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 202
Brooklyn Art Project
Brooklyn Arts Council, 111 Front St., Suite 218
Caption Gallery, 55 Washington St., Suite 802
DUMBO Arts Center, 30 Washington St.
Farmani Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 212
Henry Gregg Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 226
Klompching Gallery, 111 Front St.
Kris Graves Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 224
Magasin Totale, 10 Jay St., Suite 724
Melville House, 145 Plymouth St.
Pochron Studios, 20 Jay St.
Powerhouse Books & Powerhouse Arena, 37 Main St.
Rabbithole Studio, 33 Washington St.
Randall Scott Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 204
Safe-T Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 214
Smack Mellon, 93 Plymouth St. @ Washington Street
Spring, 126a Front St.
Umbrage Gallery, 111 Front St.
VII Photo, 28 Jay St.
Watermill Brooklyn Gallery, 55 Washington Street, Suite 216

(Photo: Yumi Janairo Roth, Paleta: Pallet (Made in Philippines) (2005), 3 pallets (46×40x6)

According to Smack Mellon’s press release, the title of the group exhibit, Beauty Underfoot comes from John Cage— apropos of Robert Rauschenberg, “Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look.” This aesthetic is precisely followed by Jeanne Gerrity, curator.

Yumi Janairo Roth recontextualizes shipping pallets, objects so commonplace, so functional— they are almost invisible. Roth, however, builds them herself, and then embellishes them with hand carved designs, or inlays them with mother-of-pearl. Much of the technique she employs in Paleta: Pallet (Made in the U.S.A.), she learned while participating in a residency in the Philippines. Not rough hewn and thrown out with the trash; the pallets, in this exhibit, are defiantly elegant.

In Charwei Tsai’s video installation, a fish, projected on an artificial beach of the gallery floor, struggles to breathe, as the artist paints calligraphy on its belly. There is a tension created by the undeniable beauty of the image— the sand sparkles; crystalline and pure. It’s hauntingly ephemeral. This is contrasted with the fish; desperate to escape. It seems to be trying to move off the page.

Hood, by Fawad Khan, is the result of his first foray into integrating digital media and wall painting. His large scale painting of a car, cartoonish and joyful, shimmies and shakes with real time animation. Yet for all its playfulness, there is a not quite hidden malice, something tricky and deceitful: this could blow up in your face at any time.

All of the work in this exhibit also seems to reference, in spirit, the much larger exhibit at The New Museum, Generational:Younger Than Jesus— artists responding to a culture that is beset and besieged by images, by content. A world exploding with information. The work is performative, narrative. It is brash. Fearless. While not every piece in Beauty Underfoot succeeds— every voice is clear.

The exhibit runs from June 20th to August 2nd, 2009.

Smack Mellon
92 Plymouth Street (@ Washington St), Brooklyn, NY 11201
Gallery hours are Wednesday-Sunday, 12-6pm.

On the afternoon of Sunday June 7, a group of artists will lead ’sonic excursions’ throughout New York as part of a rare live sonic arts experiment — the ISSUE Project Room Soundwalk-a-thon. We’ve featured Soundwalk previously, and they have since updated the content for Dumbo.

Led and designed by some of New York’s most exciting sound artists and musicians, these walks will take groups of 10-20 people at a time on an intimate journey of sonic discovery to experience our community in a way they may never have done before — through sound. Walks range from meditative deep listening, to sing-a-longs, to noise-making walks incorporating instruments, iPods, boomboxes, cell phones, or silence in order to amplify the nuances of our ever-changing soundscape.

There are two Soundwalks in the Dumbo area on Sunday at 3pm:

1) Demasking The Bridges led by Daniel Neumann: “Demasking The Bridges” will explore the small triangle between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge on the Brooklyn side. The soundscape of this area is mainly dominated by the traffic of the two bridges. By slowly oscillating between the bridges, crossing through diverse surroundings the group will learn about and experience the “Masking Effect”. Focusing on the weaker maskees and shifting the threshold of the masker with our movement will then slowly uncover more and more sound events underneath the threshold.

Artist’s website: danielneumann.wordpress.com

2) Underpass Walk led by Bruce Tovsky: “This soundwalk will replicate many excursions I have made throughout Dumbo and the adjoining areas doing research and recordings (both video and binaural audio) for my 2007/8 piece titled UNDERPASS. While exploring this area I was struck by the incredibly resonant spaces under and around the bridges and overpasses at the intersection of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. This fascination became an obsession and grew into an hour long video/live sound performance that premiered at Issue Project Room in a workshop form and took its full form in a month long residency at Diapason. In 2008 it toured the EU, with performances and installations at Literaturhaus in København, Steim in Amsterdam and at “64″ in Paris.” - Bruce Tovsky

Artist’s website: skeletonhome.com

To sign up, go to issueprojectroom.org/walker-sign-up-form/. To sponsor a walker and donate to ISSUE Project Room, go here. Also check out the Soundwalk blog at soundwalk.com/blog.

What: CornerMRKT design collective
When: Sat/Sun June 6-7, 11am-7pm
Where: Corner of Jay and Front Street in Dumbo Brooklyn

Participating designers:

• Aimee g
• Arza Design
• Cinderloop
• Lauren Wimmer Jewelry
• naturevsfuture
• Pinhole New York
• Radka Design
• Rebecka Froberg
• SAMOY LENKO
• + more

Tonight in Dumbo: A festive occasion each month for art lovers. A chance to visit many quality galleries at night in the Dumbo Historic District - galleries showing works from artists of many disciplines, especially photography, while hosting receptions, producing live music performances and curator/artist talks among other highlights.

Let’s not forget the incredible views you can enjoy as you walk from one gallery to the next and the local drink specials afterward. Most of the art is for sale. Printed maps and 1st Thursday cards are available on-site.

Participating galleries may vary each month. For more information contact Zannah Mass at zannah@twotrees-dumbo.com or 718-222-2500 x38.

Check gallery websites for updates.
A.I.R. Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 228
Amos Eno Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 202
Aswoon Gallery, 14 Jay St.
Brooklyn Art Project
Brooklyn Arts Council, 111 Front St., Suite 218
Caption Gallery, 55 Washington St., Suite 802
DUMBO Arts Center, 30 Washington St.
Farmani Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 212
Henry Gregg Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 226
Klompching Gallery, 111 Front St.
Kris Graves Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 224
Melville House, 145 Plymouth St.
Pochron Studios, 20 Jay St.
Powerhouse Books & Powerhouse Arena, 37 Main St.
Rabbithole Studio, 33 Washington St.
Randall Scott Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 204
Safe-T Gallery, 111 Front St., Suite 214
Smack Mellon, 93 Plymouth St. @ Washington Street
Spring, 126a Front St.
Umbrage Gallery, 111 Front St.
VII Photo, 28 Jay St.
Watermill Brooklyn Gallery, 55 Washington Street, Suite 216

Alan Lupiani, a multimedia artist who has been involved with internet talk shows since 2006, will be making a jump to the stage @ the new Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO Brooklyn, with his new show aptly named, “Into the Evening” with Alan Lupiani.

The event will take place starting @ 8pm on June 2nd, 2009. Doors open at 7:00PM and tickets are $10.00.

Lupiani has lined up a diverse and entertaining group of performers and talk show guests which include:

• Helen Hong – NYC comedian www.helenhong.com
• Collette McLafferty – Lead singer www.myspace.com/ediblered
• Max Miller – Musician and regular contributor to Tom Green’s House Tonight www.maxmillermakesmusic.com
• Peter Coffin – Rising youtube superstar and satirist/comic www.petercoffin.com
• Christina Ewald and Fritz Donnelly are hiChristina. – performing artists. www.hichristina.com
• Ilir Topalli, PhD. – Scientist who will discuss the “nature of cells.”

There will also be a DJ, audience participation, and a film showing before and after the show. The link to buy tickets in advance: www.galapagosartspace.com, OR CALL to buy tickets: 718-222-8500.

(Photo by Josh Derr)

A collaboration by a group called 303 Collectives (named for the studio number at 135 Plymouth Street in Dumbo) painted the Water Street wall (between Jay and Pearl Streets) over the Memorial Day weekend. I spoke with Craig Anthony Miller (aka Cam) yesterday, who was kind enough to speak about how it got started and the images in the painting while traveling in his car. 303 artists include Cam, Demon 202, Tron, John Breiner and One 9 (who wasn’t there for the painting).

If you know Dumbo, you’ve seen Cam’s work on Pedro’s wall and on reBar’s wall, which has a recognizable stylized images of faces and animals. The Water Street wall started when Cam and Demon 202 contacted the wall owner, who ok’d the project. The theme is one of harmonizing artists of different styles with the 4 elephants representing each artist. The message that in life, there are obstacles and barriers that are lifted away to result in success.

The middle of the mural of two elephants passing eachother symbolize communication. These elephants bear the name of the artist, Demon 202 (cool way of incorporating words without looking like traditional graffiti. See an example of Demon’s prior piece (from artcrimes.com) that show this.) The elephant ears are like speakers. Cam’s elephants, to the left and right of Demon’s elephants have a Ganesh style to them; something Cam’s been into lately. The right one is a full body Ganesh and the left a partial one. Ganesh or Ganesha is a Hindu elephant deity of success and remover of obstacles.

The 2 angels represent guidance and protection from the barriers in life; the left one done by Tron and the right by Cam. The wolves in each corner (John Breiner) symbolize life’s surroundings and that we all need to be aware of the negatives lurking in the background. These images of life moving through a bamboo forest are brought together by the message that our interactions with eachother can create a community of harmony.

Speaking with Cam, you get the sense that he’s a spiritual and grounded soul who has artistic talent. Both Cam and John, who I spoke with, know and respect the history of the artwork on that wall and wanted to bring a similar note of ‘brightness and peacefulness’ to Dumbo. We look forward to more collaborations from these artists and they’re looking to do something for the 2009 D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival, which will take place on September 25-27, 2009.

Please comment below on your feedback on their work and your ‘interpretations’. You can see more of their work on craiganthonymiller.com and johnbreiner.blogspot.com.

{DumboNYC Flickr set of 303}
Previous Water St art:
{Concrete Alchemy Street Art Displays Their Talent on Water Street, 17May2008}
{Revok, Retna, Saber Live Wall Painting on Water Street, 06Aug2007}

The sculpture, titled Zeus, by Bates Wilson got hauled away yesterday after it was knocked down last month. It can only get bolted down to the Belgian block (and not through it), and they don’t hold under the weight. It was reported that people were riding bikes up the sculpture, which pulled it off the bolts. Thanks to Greg for the photo above.

(Photo thanks to Innuendo)

Previously:
{Zeus Down at Pearl St Triangle, 13Apr2009}

You’ve seen several of the talented RWK street art around Dumbo. Here’s one spotted on Pearl Street over the weekend. Below is one from Water Street between Jay and Bridge Streets.

More at robotswillkill.com.