For the second time since his eponymous Bushwick gallery opened, Christopher Stout logged onto Facebook to find that his account had been frozen. The gallerist, whose interest lies in “subversive art,” had posted an image of Lisa Levy, who plans to sit naked on top of a toilet for two straight days in order to call out “the bullshit trendy art dialogue” that she says is plaguing the art world. The image shows the long-haired artist sitting sideways, naked. “You can see her top, but you can’t see her bottom,” Stout said. “It’s just such a crazy, conservative kind of standard.”
bushwick art crit group
Christopher Stout Gallery Opens With a Show Focused on ‘Queer Hate Crime’
Christopher Stout, founder of Bushwick Art Crit Group, has just opened his gallery in the disputed territory of East Williamsburg, the realization of plans we first heard about in early September. I had a chance to check the place out on Friday, and found that Stout is already keeping good on his pledge to show “subversive art.” The centerpiece of the gallery’s inaugural show, Shepard by Phoenix Lindsey-Hall, is a massive, meticulously crafted porcelain replica of the iconic fence Matthew Shepard (the victim of a notorious hate crime) was bound to before he was tortured and left for dead back in 1998. Not easy-to-swallow material, to say the least.
Founder of Bushwick Art Crit Group to Open Gallery Dedicated to ‘Subversive’ Art
“This gallery is my baby,” explained Christopher Stout, founder of the Bushwick Art Crit Group. This fall, Stout will host his inaugural exhibition as a gallery owner at his new space, the first of several anticipated art institutions inside an East Williamsburg warehouse space. BACG is “a not-for-profit community resource for everybody,” Stout explained. “But it felt like it was increasingly challenging– in a negative way– to make programming that was about everyone.” In order to host exhibitions that relate to specific subjects that Stout is more personally invested in, without having to worry about “alienating everyone else,” he said, “it really needed to be separate and become its own thing.”
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At BOS, Detroit Artists Shared Concerns with Bushwickians
Cornish, who essentially lives off-the-grid thanks to solar panels, shared an experience that’s become a familiar, but no less envy-inducing refrain when it comes to people describing the benefits (particularly for artists) of living in a place like Detroit. Almost everyone at the discussion audibly gasped. But Cornish and other artists visiting BOS from places like Detroit, Jersey City, and Philadelphia shared some surprisingly similar concerns about ownership, gentrification, and real estate with Bushwick residents.
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Watch a Man Stroll Through the City in a Preposterous Periscope Helmet
The Greenpoint cardboard-box artisan might be fake, but the Bushwick artist who puts cardboard boxes on his head is completely real, and he’ll be showing his trippy “sculpture helmets” during Armory Week.
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A Bushwick Artist Barreled Over the Competition to Take Home $10,000
Booze has been the downfall of many an artist (absinthe, ear, etc.) but it paid off nicely for Bushwick photographer and sculptor Phoenix Lindsey-Hall last night, as she took home a $10,000 check from Herradura. Drinks on her!
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