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Art & Design in Brooklyn, 2012 EXHIBITION GUEST CURATED BY RISA SHOUP
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EXHIBITING ARTISTS & COLLABORATIVES 596 Acres FreelandBuck, Claudia Paneca Rosa Ruey Rob Stephenson R. Justin Stewart Thread Collective
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EXHIBITION DATES November 17 – December 21, 2012 ASSOCIATED PUBLIC PROGRAM Space to Create Saturday, December 1, 2 – 4 pm
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This panel discussion will focus on temporary usage models for nontraditional and vacant commercial/industrial space in arts, cultural, and civic space programming. Participants will include Gavin Kroeber, independent cultural producer; Prerana Reddy, Director of Public Events at the Queens Museum of Art; and Paula Z Segal, Founder & Lead Facilitator of 596 Acres. The discussion will be moderated by Risa Shoup. The event takes place at BRIC Rotunda Gallery and is free to the public. Refreshments will be served.
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At BRIC Rotunda Gallery, the contemporary art space of BRIC ARTS | MEDIA | BKLYN BRIC ROTUNDA GALLERY 33 Clinton Street Brooklyn, NY 11201
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
When I was first introduced to BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn in 2010, I was immediately struck by their dedication to the borough of Brooklyn. Founded in 1979, the organization works to create opportunities designed to serve the needs of the creative population of Brooklyn, rooted in a uniquely local, Brooklyn sensibility, but reflective of global concerns through a local lens and of a quality that can truly be considered world class. In doing so, the output of this dynamic group of artists, designers, and producers is shown to be not provincial and only able to exist within the boundaries of Kings County, but reflective of global concerns through a local lens and of a quality that can truly be considered world class.
BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn presents contemporary art, performing arts, and community media programs that reflect Brooklyn’s creativity and diversity. BRIC also provides resources to launch, nurture and showcase artists and media makers. We advance access to and understanding of arts and media by presenting free and low cost programming, and by offering education and public programs to people of all ages.
In conceiving of On Purpose, I was inspired by BRIC Rotunda Gallery’s rich history of exhibitions of fine art and design as well as by BRIC’s commitment to trans-disciplinary work by artists at all stages of their careers. This exhibition, occurring during the final season at the 33 Clinton Street location before BRIC joins all of its programs at BRIC House, its new home in downtown Brooklyn, is very much a celebration of the combined legacies of BRIC as an organizational whole and the gallery in and of itself. But it is also a way of moving forward. Design offers functional innovations that can unlock today’s problems and open the door to tomorrow. Art informs our sense of beauty; reminding us to infuse functionality with the sublime. Nevertheless, it is spurious to attempt to separate these disciplines — they are constantly working together. I want to immerse the viewer in a bold landscape of objects and images that force an engagement with these projects’ intentionality of purpose and aesthetics. And so as much as this exhibition is a celebration of BRIC’s creative past, of this gallery’s important role in exhibiting the creativity of Brooklyn’s artists, it is also an opportunity to consider the contemporary themes and prescient questions that this talented group of individuals and collaboratives explicates through their work. RISA SHOUP
Tuesday – Saturday Noon – 6 pm FREE ADMISSION A/C to High Street; 2/3 & 4/5 to Borough Hall; R to Court Street
bricartsmedia.org/contemporary-art facebook.com/bricartsmedia twitter.com/bricarts #OnPurposeBRIC
BRIC’s contemporary art initiatives aim to increase the visibility and accessibility of contemporary art while bridging the gap between the art world and global culture in Brooklyn through exhibitions, public events, and an innovative arts education program at BRIC Rotunda Gallery. BRIC acknowledges public funds for its contemporary art programs from the Institute of Museum and Library Services; New York State Council on the Arts; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York City Council members Mathieu Eugene, Vincent J. Gentile, Sara M. Gonzalez, Letitia James, Brad Lander, Stephen Levin, Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., Albert Vann and Jumaane Williams. Additional support is provided by Astoria Federal Savings; Lily Auchincloss Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; Barclays/Nets Community Alliance; Bay and Paul Foundations; Bloomberg; Bloomingdale’s Fund of the Macy’s Foundation; Con Edison; Robert Lehman Foundation; Lawrence W. Levine Foundation; and numerous individual supporters.
Director of Contemporary Art Elizabeth Ferrer Associate Director, Contemporary Art Christian Fuller Director of Contemporary Art Education Hawley Hussey Education Program Assistant Linda Mboya Marketing and Events Coordinator Abigail Clark Graphic Designer Matthew de Leon Interns Lori Camilleri, Sarah Simpson President BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn Leslie G. Schultz
1883 Brooklyn Bridge completed.
596 ACRES 596 Acres helps neighbors transform vacant public land into community resources. Hundreds of acres of vacant public land are hidden in plain sight in New York, concentrated in neighborhoods disproportionately deprived of beneficial land uses. 596 Acres builds tools for communities to use vacant land and the opportunities within them to improve neighborhoods. 596 Acres works to make information available to local residents, to maintain a network for communities to share knowledge and build relationships with decision-makers, and to provide education about government and civic issues. They assist communities with the tools to increase participatory decisionmaking about local public resources. 596acres.org
FREELANDBUCK FreelandBuck is an architecture design practice based in New York and Los Angeles, headed by David Freeland and Brennan Buck. Through contemplation of form, space, and pattern, FreelandBuck articulates the inherent lived atmosphere of built spaces. In noting their approach to the design needs of the urban environment they state, “Our design research explores complex configurations of natural and infrastructural systems supple enough to insinuate themselves into the existing geometry of the city.” Inspired by Lebbeus Woods’ 2010 Slipstreaming drawings of flow, FreelandBuck’s installation is a digitally constructed drawing extruding horizontally and cut away to produce a sinuous wall that defines a single interior volume. The linear extrusion acts as both structure and dynamic visual filter, obscuring views in some directions while opening them up in others, visually connecting the structure to its surroundings. freelandbuck.com
CLAUDIA PANECA Cuban-born, Brooklyn-based visual artist Claudia Paneca studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana and at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Currently an artist-in-residence at The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn, Paneca has participated in several group exhibitions in Havana and New York.
1971 The Brooklyn Navy Yard reopens as an industrial park, with affordable studio space available.
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1973 Green Guerillas, an advocacy and organizing group for community gardens, is founded by Liz Christy on the Lower East Side. They now have a Brooklyn organizing office.
1910 Brooklyn Botanic Garden is founded.
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Vestige is comprised of a series of small sculptures made with white clay and porcelain, placed over a soil of earth. The pieces simultaneously resemble amulets, human figures, anthropological fragments or recollections of some archaic time. This series is accompanied by photographs that point out Paneca’s reflections on society and time; the relentless creation of the material object in human culture that resonates in our individual and collective memory. In their simplicity, the pieces are somehow archaic, with a porosity that immediately suggests erosion and time past. claudiapaneca.com
The Park Slope Food Co-Op is founded.
1860s Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux design Prospect Park,
providing green space for the rapidly growing Brooklyn population.
TIMELINE + EXHIBITING ARTISTS & COLLABORATIVES Select Events in Brooklyn’s Design History
THREAD COLLECTIVE Thread Collective is a Red Hook-based architecture studio comprised of architects Gita Nandan, Elliott Maltby, and Mark Mancuso. They work to incorporate sustainable, green design into urban building, landscape architecture, and art. Emphasizing freedom and fluidity of form as well as collaboration and hybridization, the studio was awarded Design Trust for Public Space’s Design Fellowship as well as the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce’s Building Brooklyn Award, among others. Gowanus Field Stations is an exploration of the emergent ecology of the canal, through temporary public “seeds” dispersed along its length. Each field station creates a dedicated space for people to observe and engage with a distinct aspect of the canal: these discrete experiences create a shifting, composite understanding of the area, and recognize the intermingling of human and natural systems. threadcollective.com
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2013 Proposed completion of the world’s largest rooftop farm, located in Industry City, Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
ROB STEPHENSON Rob Stephenson’s photographs focus on spaces where natural and built environments merge with or intrude upon one another. Currently, he is documenting urban agriculture in New York City, contextualizing these natural, growing spaces within their uniquely urban environment. Stephenson has had recent exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and the Jen Bekman Gallery, NY.
2004 Developer Forest City initially proposes the controversial Atlantic Yards complex; the first element of the complex, Barclays Center, opens in 2012. R. JUSTIN STEWART Brooklyn-based artist R. Justin Stewart forms structures based on networks, information, and communication. He builds sculptures out of materials like fleece, rope, and zip ties, incorporating digital QR (Quick Response) codes on many of the works themselves to link the form to the information that inspired it. Stewart received his MFA from University of Minnesota Twin Cities and has had solo exhibitions at The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn, and at Chashama Gallery, NY.
2011 596 Acres is founded, forming connections between residents and surrounding vacant public lots.
2010 Myrtle Hall, Pratt’s first LEED Gold certified “Green Building,” opens.
Systems of Knowing 8 (expanded) investigates what happens when knowledge, information or beliefs transition from their point of origin into completely different fields. This work emphasizes the disconnect that can arises when information migrates into new contexts. rjustin.com
The images in this exhibition are part of a series documenting different approaches to implementing a sustainable food system in New York. The project was made possible through the Photo Urbanism fellowship that Stephenson received from the Design Trust for Public Space in 2011. robstephenson.com 2003 The first Bklyn Designs annual show is hosted in DUMBO, showcasing local designers, many of whom use sustainable materials. 2002 The Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation is launched to help start and grow social/ environmental enterprise.
1978 GreenThumb (GT), the nation’s largest urban gardening program, is established.
ROSA RUEY Based in Carroll Gardens, Rosa Ruey transforms prints and drawings into fantastical architectural landscapes. Through her geometric, machinelike forms and intense colors, she investigates humanity’s desire to build and control, and the anxiety that stems from the resulting structures. Ruey received her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, in 2005 and recently had a solo exhibition at Pelavin Gallery, NY, in 2011. Ruey has created original faux-machines that are born from her ongoing concept of Fantastic Functionalism. These playful machines comingle with her wallpaper, based on her drawings, mixing and recontextualizing art and design. rosaruey.com
1982 El Puente is founded. The community initiative is dedicated to harnessing the energy and efforts of the diverse peoples of Brooklyn.
1996 The exhibition Design/ Brooklyn is presented at BRIC Rotunda Gallery. This is BRIC’s first exhibition focusing on design out of Brooklyn.
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1999 The Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project Local Development Corporation is founded with the mission to restore the “Main Street” of the Fort Greene and Clinton Hill community.