REELS and RHYMES is a new Urban Word NYC workshop which blends film screenings and open mics to initiate awareness and dialogue about social issues affecting today’s youth.

WHEN:
For eight weeks starting October 22nd from 3-6pm, we will alternate four film screenings and four open mics.

November 5: The screening will be Jails, Hospitals and Hip Hop with a guest appearance by Danny Hoch, a Brooklyn actor, performance artist and hip hop activist, who will speak about his career path as a writer/performance artist and his involvement wit the growth and evolution of hip hop.

November 12: Open Mic for performances related to Jails, Hospitals and Hip Hop

November 19: We Will Not Die Like Dogs: Screening of a documentary film profiling African AIDS activists from Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia, followed by a discussion with Director, Lisa Russell, and African AIDS activist living in NYC.

November 26: Open Mic for performances related to We Will Not Die Like Dogs

December 3: Special Screening and Appearance TBD

December 10: Final Open Mic for performances related to any of the workshop film screenings.

December 10: 7-10pm. Special event to support Lisa Russell’s new film and spoken word project called “Myth of the Motherland” which is intended to confront stereotypes and biases of Africa and Africans.

LOCATION:
Retreat, 147 Front Street in Dumbo Brooklyn (Take the F train to York Street, walk one block towards the water and make a left.)

CONTACT:
To RSVP or if you have any further questions, please contact Lisa Russell at lisa@governessfilms.com

Issues: Economic Justice, International, Media, Politics/Government, Middle East, U.S./Foreign Relations, Media Literacy, Peace/War

www.urbanwordnyc.org
Contact: lisa@governessfilms.com

 Jane Walentas with her Carousel, October 13, 2006

  Photo courtesy Jane Walentas

An article in The New York Sun today describes the carousel’s opening at 65 Water Street on Friday:

“Friday at noon, at 65 Water St., a 1922 carousel painstakingly restored by Jane Walentas — the wife of David Walentas, who through his firm Two Trees Management owns 13 buildings in of the neighborhood — will open to the public (for viewing only, no rides). The carousel is a beautiful ornament on an already delectable stretch of Water St., which includes Jacques Torres Chocolate and the French bakery Almondine, not to mention the River Cafe at the end of the street.(Ms. Walentas referred to this as the “street of dreams.”)”

  Photo courtesy Jane Walentas

I had the priviledge of chatting with Jane Walentas at the opening. Ms. Walentas purchased the carousel in 1984, and after 22 years of her labor, the historic carved wood carousel has been restored to its original condition. The decorative carvings and vibrant paint, leafed in 24k gold and palladium are beautifully embellished with faceted jewels and 1200 lights. The temporary space where the carousel is housed is unfortunately too small to allow the public to safely ride the carousel, but Ms. Walentas is looking forward to the day when a Carousel Pavillion will be in the Brooklyn Bridge Park will have a permanent home. We’re looking forward to it too.

  The lighted Carousel at night

We also asked Ms. Walentas about the Empire Stores. Her dream is to provide a place where artists can display their artwork in lofts and galleries. We hope it becomes a place of art but when that will happen is still TBD. Thanks to Ms. Walentas for her “dreams” and for her beautiful restoration work.

Jane’s Carousel
56 Water St. Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY
The First Carousel on The National Register will be open Fridays through Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.

{David Walentas, Neighborhood Creator and Patron of the Arts, New York Magazine, October 13, 2006}
{The Paradox Of DUMBO, Art Around Town, The New York SUn, October 13, 2006}

The opening night of the 10th annual Dumbo Art Under the Bridge Festival last night had an exciting buzz to it. From Jane Walentas’ Carousel Opening at 56 Water Street to PowerHouse Arena’s No Sleep ’til Brooklyn at their new space at 37 Main Street, to “Katrina Remembered” at 99 Front Street, the diversity of events and creative art is inspiring. There’s two more days left to experience the interactive art, street performances, live music, gallery openings, and open studios, so come to Dumbo to experience and support the artists from around the world.

Some photos from today:

 Jane Walentas’ Carousel, October 13, 2006

 Katrina Remembered, 99 Front Street, October 13, 2006

 Opening Reception, live music by The Blizzard of 78, 99 Front Street, October 13, 2006

 PowerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, October 13, 2006

{THE Biggest Weekend in Dumbo, DumboNYC.com}

  Photo by epc

250,000 people will be in Dumbo Brooklyn this weekend to attend the 10th annual Dumbo Art Under the Bridge Festival from Friday, October 13 to Sunday, October 15. The annual festival is the largest field for experimentation in public space art by emerging artists in the United States. Along with extensive gallery showings, neighborhood wanderers who visit for the festival will discover Project Glow: light installations and sculptures illuminating the waterfront and Brooklyn Bridge Park. This is a unique opportunity for art lovers to wander in and out of the galleries that show hundreds of emerging artists from NYC and around the world. It’s like a neighborhood-wide museum with outdoor installations in the park, on the streets, and in the galleries.

“The best way to experience DUMBO and the festival, of course, is to start with a jaunt across the Brooklyn Bridge for a bird’s-eye view of the tiny neighborhood under the adjacent Manhattan Bridge. Look for the red, white and blue water tower on the roof of a building on your left as you near Brooklyn – that’s approximately where you’re headed. Follow the exit ramp to the left and descend a short flight of stairs to street level. Head downhill, and in two short blocks you’ll see Washington Street, one of the main gallery arteries that weave through DUMBO.” (by Ginger Adams Otis)

“Extra this year: new international programs featuring artists from Beirut, Mexico City and Seoul plus special live video/music event by renowned Mexican media artists, Arcangel Constantini and Manrico Montero. In addition, Fred Brehm, takes visitors on a nostalgia trip, with a compilation of archival footage from the past festivals.

Streets, lobbies, elevators, loading docks, facades, under the Manhattan Bridge, storefronts, sidewalks, parks, trees, grass, billboards, rooftops, sky, corridors, walls, water, riverbank, windows; in fact, everywhere and anywhere in DUMBO: a multitude of site-responsive projects by a rising generation of visual artists: pro-situ art performance trio, TRYST, stage Assisted Street Crossings and Line, a monumental street happening that accentuates the formal aspects of mass collaboration.” (from Courier Life)

Some links and articles about the Dumbo Art Under the Bridge Festival:

• dumboartscenter.org, organizer of the 10th annual art under the bridge festival
• Brooklyn’s edgy DUMBO art scene
• 30 Blocks of DUMBO Done Over With Artistic Flair, courierlife.net
• Down-under art scene far from out, Contra Costa Times
• October “Art Fair of the Month” Selections, Art Fairs International Magazine
• Brooklyn’s edgy DUMBO art scene, Lonely Planet: Brooklyn

A few gallery showings opening this Thursday:

>  5+5 Gallery: The exhibition “Secret Worlds, drawings and mono-prints” by Raphael Fodde and Bobby Beard will open in Dumbo Brooklyn on October 5th, 2006 at 111 Front Street. See 5+5 Gallery for more info. Also via PRWeb.

>  Sankaranka Gallery: Sankaranka Gallery-Contemporary African Art at 111 Front Street/suite 206
will show recent works by Sanaa Gateja, a renowned Ugandan artist. Sanaa paints on barkcloth; he is also a designer of clothes, beadwork and jewelry. The exhibition, which opens on October 5, continues to the end of the month. See Sankaranka Gallery for more info.

>  Dumbo First Thursdays:

October 5th, DUMBO’s First Thursday Gallery Walk, sponsored by Two Trees Management. First Thursday features area galleries and artists’ studios, open from 5:30 to 8:30, on the first Thursday of each month. The welcoming informality of First Thursday attracts casual browsers as well as serious art collectors to each festive event, with galleries, studios and cultural organizations in DUMBO hosting receptions and exhibition openings. There is no admission fee- participating galleries are open to the public.

See Dumbo First Thursdays for listing of participating galleries and more details.

I first read about Dumbo, Brooklyn artist Anna Schuleit from the New York Daily News on September 19, 2006. Anna was named a MacArthur Fellow from Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation. After intense review of the creative efforts of thousands of artists considered for the award each year, the MacArthur Foundation selected only 25 fellowships this year. Anna, a Dumbo resident, is an artist “illuminating the lives lived within mental health institutions by transforming historic facilities into moving, multi-sensory memorials.” Her creative endeavors include art and sound installations such as “Bloom”, a 28,000 flowers in bloom and recorded sound at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston. I was lucky enough to speak with her about her inspirations and thoughts about the Dumbo neighborhood.

The MacArthur Foundation describes you as an artist who brings back to life historic sites and honor those who live in mental institutions. How would you describe your art?
I’m a painter and installation artist with an interest in people, their communities, and their institutions. Much of my site-specific installation work has revolved around psychiatric institutions, because I feel drawn and connected to outsider-history. But on a day-to-day basis it’s my paintings that keep me afloat and busy.

How long have you lived in Dumbo?
Since March of this year.

BLOOM: RED TULIPS | copyright © 2003 by Anna Schuleit

How do you think Dumbo has changed since you’ve been here? Do you feel artists are being pushed out because of higher rent prices?
I haven’t lived in Dumbo long enough to point to the ongoing changes, but I have lived in different neighborhoods throughout the city and always witnessed the artists losing their spots to the inevitable influx of higher-income renters and buyers. I don’t know how this would ever change, but I am hopeful that artists can one day be seen as necessary members of any neighborhood, that they would be supported and encouraged to STAY, not leave.

Where do you get your inspiration? How does being in Dumbo inspire your sense of creativity?
I love Dumbo for its architectural drama, its proximity to the water, and the two bridges, which dominate this neighborhood in a wonderful way. There is something about the scale of these, the awe and wonder they evoke, that makes me continually grateful to be able to live here. I hope to be able to stay in this neighborhood.

Thanks Anna for taking your time to interview with us. Best wishes and continued success!

{MacArthur Foundation Press Release}
{Also seen on Brooklynrecord.com}

It’s a sad thing to see something that’s been around for 75 years taken down floor by floor, especially when the structures are as cool as the four aligned smokestacks in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn. Two smokestacks at the ConEd plant are coming down slowly. As mentioned in a NY Times story on August 6, 2006, ConEd is dismantling three of the five stacks. “Only two are needed now because the plant is using fewer boilers to generate steam. The job will take about four months but will begin to alter the view immediately.”

 Click photo for close-up. ConEd Plant Smokestacks, Vinegar Hill, August 22, 2006

 Click photo for close-up. ConEd Plant Smokestacks, Vinegar Hill, September 17, 2006

  Photo taken on 8/22/06

  Photo taken on 9/17/06

The story shows Nicholas Evans-Cato’s painting of the Brooklyn waterfront, a panorama that includes the Williamsburg Bridge, several new condominium buildings and a quintet of towering brick smokestacks from the ConEd Hudson Avenue Generating Station on the edge of Vinegar Hill.

 Click photo for close-up. Nicholas Evans-Cato, Amphitheatre, oil on linen, 42 x 70″, 2006

For those who are interested in viewing his painting, there is a showing at the George Billis Gallery (info below). Soon enough, we will only have his painting and our memories of the smokestacks. In the meantime if you want to see the smokestacks before they’re gone, hurry!

Nicholas Evans-Cato at George Billis Gallery NY
October 10 – November 11, 2006
Reception: Thursday, October 12, 6 – 8 PM
Georgebillis.com
511 West 25th Street, New York, NY

Related: Artist Paints Dumbo Landscape, DumboNYC.com

Design*Sponge, a great Brooklyn-based design blog has put together a shopping guide for Williamsburg, Park Slope, ‘Bococa’, and Dumbo. Her plans are to regularly update the list with “comments, notes, maps and little tips on where to snag a bite when window shopping.”

“dumbo: a bit off the beaten path but a fun little trip if you have an hour or two to spare. grab a bite at the general store and then buy some chocolate at jacques torres.

• spring gallery: great gifts and gorgeous art
• tivoli home: fantastic scandinavian finds
• prague kolektiv: pricey but gorgeous czech modern and vintage furniture
• baxter liebchen: expensive but lovely collection of vintage and mid century furniture
• wonk nyc: modern, modular furniture
• more shops here…”

Nice job on the compilation Grace! We’re looking forward to further updates on Brooklyn shops.

 (from Spring “Around the Flat” Show, May 2006 (126a Front Street, Brooklyn NY))

{brooklyn design guide, Design*Sponge}

Between September 14 and October 14, Safe-T-Gallery starts the fall season with exhibitions of photographs by Gary Green entitled “Maine Trees”—a suite of large-format, black and white portraits of living trees and Brooklyn-based artist Noah Baen‘s, titled “Chloroplastic Colonnade”, an installation that will contain both living and inorganic elements, gathered mostly from the streets and back lots of Brooklyn.

Wessel + O’Connor Fine Art, hosts an exhibition of work by noted photographer Steven Klein between September 21 and November 4.

“Well known for his highly influential and extremely successful work in fashion and advertising, the show will balance new photographs with works never before seen.

A true auteur, Klein has created a series of iconic yet risque images not just of Madonna, Brad Pitt and Anjolina Jolie, but Tom Ford, Justin Timberlake, David Beckham and Naomi Campbell, treating these superstar subjects as actual collaborators in order to realize his own personal vision.”

Both galleries are located at the 111 Front Street Galleries.

 (Above photos courtesy of Safe-T-Gallery)

{Brooklyn Nature In Stark Black & White, Courier-Life Publications}
{www.safetgallery.com}

{Steven Klein At Wessel & O’Connor Fine Art, Courier-Life Publications}
{www.wesseloconnor.com}

There was a mention of Helen Brough’s sculptural installation at 70 Washington Street in Dumbo, “Emulated Flora” in today’s New York Sun.

It was completed in May for the new condominium conversion of 70 Washington Street, a sprawling block-wide warehouse in DUMBO.

The piece was commissioned by David Walentas, the property mogul who owns most of the area. Ms. Brough (b.1966) had been a participant of the Triangle Artists’ Workshop’s first residency program, generously hosted in 2002 by Mr. Walentas at 70 Washington before renovations began. This makes “Emulated Flora” a rare, happy link between the artists who helped put the neighborhood on the map and the affluent residents basking in its upward transformation.

The work consists of dozens of lasercut Plexiglas shapes — in a variety of colors and arranged in parallel lines — that are suspended from, or bolted to, a mirrored ceiling extending over the whole lobby. Each element is around 18 inches high and hangs well overhead. Some of the shapes are also themselves cut from sheets of mirror. From the street, and then more intensely within the lobby, one senses row upon row of translucent plastic, curvaceous shape, and chirpy, soft, nursery color. The layering puts you in mind of rows of scenery in a theater’s eaves.The mirroring doubles the perceived depth of the work, giving a soaring sensation of light and color above.

The controversial installation was discussed last November on curbed.com. Most people seem to hate it, but we know Walentas is not afraid of controversial art.

{An Explosion of Color, and of Bridal White, New York Sun, August 17, 2006}