(Photo courtesy of pockettree pics)
The Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) is having an open call for artists or curators (individuals or groups) to submit exhibition proposals in its gallery space in 2009. The 3,000 sq. ft. space is located at 30 Washington Street. Go to dumboartscenter.org/opencall.html for application requirements and details. Deadline is May 1, 2008.
There is also an open call for the 12th Dumbo Art Under the Bridge Festival (September 26-28, 2008). The deadline is July 1, 2008.
Dumbo Artists and Business Owners: Be Featured on TV
April 9th, 2008
One Glass Productions, a Dumbo-based production company specializing in video services (pre-to-post production and design for film, music videos, and promotional media) for artists and creative businesses is producing a weekly television series that highlights the culture of Dumbo. This will be an ongoing project but would like to hear from artists and business owners by April 15th if you’d like to be in the first episode.
One Glass Productions is producing a weekly television series that highlights and documents the culture of D.U.M.B.O. We’d like to get a behind-the-scenes look at the creative businesses, establishments, and artists that make this neighborhood so special.If you’d like to be a guest on the show (at no cost to you), please email, call or fax us and let us know what you do. How long have you been in D.U.M.B.O.? What makes your work unique? If you have a special D.U.M.B.O. story or history, we want to hear it!
Not only is this a fun and easy (and free!) way to get your name out to the rest of the New York community, but the show will also be viewable on the internet for world wide watchers.
We look forward to scheduling you!
Sincerely,
Valery & Stephanieemail: info@oneglassproductions.com
tel: 646-379-9327
fax: 718-360-9279
SEED Film Screenings at St. Ann’s Warehouse (Sat)
April 4th, 2008
SEED Film Screenings at St. Ann’s Warehouse
38 Water Street
Saturday, April 5, 2008
1:00 – 6:00PM
FREE & Open to the Public
City of Water
1:00 – 2:00PM
The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance and the Municipal Art Society are proud to present their new documentary City of Water about the future of New York City’s waterfront. Two years in the making, City of Water explores the aspirations of public officials, environmentalists, academics, community activists, recreational boaters and everyday New Yorkers for a diverse, vibrant waterfront at a time when the shoreline is changing faster than at any other time in New York’s history.
The RENEWAL Documentary
2:30 – 4:00PM
RENEWAL is the first feature-length documentary to capture the breadth and vitality of America’s religious-environmental movement. In rural communities, suburbs and cities, people of faith are rolling up their sleeves in practical and far-reaching ways. Offering a profound message of hope, RENEWAL shows individuals and communities driven by the deepest source of inspiration – their spiritual and religious convictions – being called to re-examine what it means to be human and how we live on this planet.
Throughout, RENEWAL attempts to paint an honest picture of how much work will be needed to stem the tide of environmental devastation. Its compelling characters and stories inspire the vision and commitment that addressing the challenge will require.
TreeHuggerTV in Conversation with Ben Harper
4:15PM
TreeHuggerTV is a news source dedicated to eco-optimism and everything that has a modern aesthetic yet is environmentally responsible. With fun and thought-provoking contributors from around the world focusing on the people and ideas that are leading the modern eco-revolution, they seek to make your day a little more green! In TreeHuggerTV’s latest installment, Graham Hill speaks with musician and activist, Ben Harper, while walking through DUMBO. Ben shares his passions and concerns for environmental issues and offers his personal everyday practical solutions to issues we face today.
The SEED film screenings are made possible through partnerships with Rooftop Films and St. Ann’s Warehouse
For details on Smart Environmental Efforts in DUMBO (SEED), go to dumbonyc.org.
Opening Tonight: The Electric Image, Photographs by Chris Kitze
April 1st, 2008
What: The Electric Image: After the End of Photography by Chris Kitze exhibition
When: Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 6 – 8 pm (Opening Reception); Exhibition through April 30
Where: Windows on Main: The powerHouse boilerRoom, The powerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street at Water Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
In The Electric Image: After the End of Photography, Chris Kitze explores the intersections of technology, media and popular culture. Investigating urban centers where store windows and monumental advertising images are a worldwide phenomenon and a part of modern mythology, Kitze reveals how the numerical representation of imagery makes it possible for everything and anyone to be everywhere. With the four-by-five-foot backlit images that will be featured in each window of The powerHouse boilerRoom, Kitze’s work illustrates the transformation and globalization of culture by digital technology.
What: DIVIDED PORTRAITS: Identity and Disability by Hilary Cooper (Opening Exhibition and booksigning)
When: Thursday, April 3, 2008, 6 – 8 pm
Where: Umbrage Gallery, 111 Front Street, Suite 208, DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY 11201
DIVIDED PORTRAITS: Identity and Disability by Hilary Cooper
Exhibit will hang from March 27-April 26th, gallery open Mon-Fri, 11-6pm. This event is free and open to the public.
In portraiture, the head always comes first. In human communication, the head – indeed the eyes – always come first, too. But with people in wheel chairs, the thing that comes first, and the thing that sets all priorities, is that odd chair. It tells the able-bodied at once and forever that the disabled are profoundly different. And that is not true.
These Divided Portraits are painted to right that wrong perception in a deeply visual and emotional way. The portraits are divided; we are not. The portrait painter, Hilary Cooper, spent some time in a wheel chair, when she broke her neck in 1995; for a while it appeared she would spend the rest of her life there. She knows what people in chairs know and the able-bodied do not: The head comes first for all of us. We are all in the chair. We are all walking around.
She believes that portraiture, which is as old as art itself, is peculiarly well placed to help “correct” wrong views of the disabled and put us all more accurately in touch with one another and with – is the blessed, the grateful, the life-granting realization, “I am still me!” Ms. Cooper hopes that these Divided Portraits show that, able-bodied or disabled, our humanity is intact.
Umbrage Gallery, 111 Front Street, Suite 208,
DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY 11201
t: 212.796.2707
www.umbragebooks.com
hilarycooper.com/divided/
Img: Video Art Project on Manhattan Bridge
March 15th, 2008
{Video Art Project on Manhattan Bridge Anchorage, 07Mar2008}
Exhibition Opening: Fresh Kills (Dumbo Arts Center)
March 14th, 2008
What: FRESH KILLS Opening Exhibition
When: Saturday, March 15, 2008, 6 – 9 PM
Where: Dumbo Arts Center, 30 Washington Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Curated by David Kennedy Cutler
Featuring works by: Jan Bünnig, Dan Colen, Rachel Foullon, Daniel Gordon, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Carter Mull, Hannes Schmidt And Ruby Sky Stiler.
The recent history of Fresh Kills, the Staten Island landfill that became the resting place for the rubble of the Twin Towers, serves as a real world parable for a group of simultaneously destitute and monumental artworks.
Go to dumboartscenter.org/exhibitions.html for details.
New York Photo Festival To Draw Crowds From Around the World
March 10th, 2008
[Update: Also see article about New York Photo Festival 2008 Kicks Off, 15May2008]
With a little over two months to go, the New York Photo Festival has announced the artist selection for the curated pavilions, satellite shows, the NY Photo Awards, and Design and Media partners. Organizers are expecting the event to draw 100,000 visitors to the festival, headquartered in Dumbo for the four day festival. According to the NY Photo Festival press release:
“Photography, one of the most important visual media of our lives, has been surprisingly uncelebrated, particularly in the United States. New York City, home to the most influential commercial and fine art photography community, has lacked—until now—a large-scale event dedicated to photography.
powerHouse Books and VII Photo Agency have joined forces to launch the new, annual New York Photo Festival, the first international-level festival of photography to be based in the U.S.
The inaugural New York Photo Festival (May 14–May 18, 2008) promises to deliver a dynamic, high-quality event in what is arguably the photographic capital of the world. The festival will celebrate both contemporary photography and the creative, inspirational talents of the people who produce this work.”
The New York Photo Festival joins other large annual Dumbo festivals such as BKLN Designs (May 9-11, 2008) and the Art Under the Bridge Festival (September 26-28, 2008) that draw crowds of 100,000+ visitors.
{First New York Photo Festival Aims To Draw 100,000 Visitors, 03Mar2008, PDNonline.com}
{nyphotofestival.com}
{Dumbo Becoming Next Photo District, 05Nov2007, DumboNYC}
Video Art Project on Manhattan Bridge Anchorage (Through Sunday)
March 7th, 2008
The Dumbo Improvement District is working with the Brooklyn Arts Council and the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT), bringing a temporary public art project, “Applied Kinetics,” a video art project that projects a large screen on the Manhattan Bridge anchorage at Front and Adams Street. Dumbo’s Leo Kuelbs has curated Brazilian video-artist, Adriana Varella for this project. It was a cool sight to see the whole anchorage wall (pictured above) lit up last night showing the video installation.
Thursday, March 6th-Sunday, March 9th
Dusk-11:00 p.m.
Press release after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
NY Times: Dumbo Artists Get Subsidies from Two Trees
March 6th, 2008
(16 Main Street, the future home of The Galapagos Art Space. Photo courtesy of blackoutny)
An article in today’s NY Times talks about artists and organizations receiving subsidized rent from the Walentas’ Two Trees Management. Of course there’s the notion that the subsidized rents are temporary and that given the pace of gentrification, the future of Dumbo’s artists remain uncertain. A few tibits from the article:
- When 70 Washington was converted to condos, Two Trees offered every artist in the building below-market rates at 20 Jay or 55 Washington and 80% accepted.
- Mr. Walentas would like to move St. Ann’s Warehouse to the 19th-century Tobacco Warehouse in Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park and convert the Empire Stores Warehouse, on Water Street between Dock and Main Streets, into studio and gallery space. Both are owned by the state.
- The Galapagos Art Space almost moved to Berlin before Walentas offered a 15 year lease at 16 Main for $6.82 per sq ft.
- The rents vary depending on the organization and “depends on the space and who they are and what they contribute”: In the 55 Washington building, for example, the James Glass Studio pays $6.77 per square foot per year; Chris Perry Woodworking, $11.39; and the Robinson & Grisaru architectural firm, $19. At 45 Main Street, Lynn Veitzer, an artist, pays $14.61; Jennifer Riley, also an artist, $12.79; and the Dumbo Arts Center, zero.
- “In 2003 the Walentases told Smack Mellon that it had to vacate its gallery and studio space at 56 Water Street to make room for a 1922 carousel restored by David Walentas’s wife, Jane, an artist. But the developers moved Smack Mellon into a former boiler house at 92 Plymouth Street, gratis, and helped pay for the renovation.”
There’s no question that artists add value to any area/neighborhood, but as gentrification (and rezoning) takes place, and market rate rents go up, artists are forced out of a neighborhood they originally helped to create.
{The Lords of Dumbo Make Room for the Arts, at Least for the Moment, 06Mar2008, NY Times}
