Rafael Fuchs has lived in Bushwick for the last 11 years. For the first five, Fuchs worked as an independent artist and since 2012 he’s run Fuchs Projects, a gallery for showing work by himself and other artists (international and local) inside the BogArt, a building that on weekends is packed with streams of visitors headed to galleries with names like Soho20. An Israeli photographer who’s lived in New York since 1985, Fuchs arrived in Bushwick just prior to what he calls the “art explosion,” as just another newcomer looking for cheap rent. His neighborhood stomping grounds over the years have been mostly confined to the area around the Morgan stop. Beyond that zone of familiarity is what Fuchs described to me as “deep Bushwick.”
fuchs projects
‘The Bushwick 200’ Is Dead – For Now
A Bushwick-based photographer, hoping to drum up some hype for the nabe with a list of 200 influencers… what could go wrong?
Earlier this week Rafael Fuchs, owner of an eponymous gallery in The BogArt, launched an event page announcing a party to begin his newest project, an effort to highlight “the 200 most influential people in 2016” in Bushwick.
But after a heated debate erupted on the page about art’s role in gentrification and who gets to define the community, Fuchs backtracked and canceled the event. Per the Facebook page:
For the sake of peace in the community, we are canceling the event.
We Don’t wish to cause any trauma to anyone and any grief to the community, neither to create a platform that will ignite unnecessary violence.
We cannot tolerate any racial and hate notions and comments from anyone.
Fuchs projects is an art gallery, not a social organization, and we will continue our program, exhibiting innovative and challenging works in different media, especially photography.
Gallery’s ‘Bushwick 200’ List Sparks White-Hot Gentrification Debate
If you thought the season for “top 10” lists was over, think again: a Bushwick art gallery, Fuchs Projects, has stirred up some controversy with its planned “Bushwick 200” list.
Last week, the gallery announced that it was set to identify “the 200 most influential people in Bushwick in 2016 in the Arts, Restaurants and Bars, Music, performing arts, Entertainment, Health, Real Estate, Gaming, Design and Hi-tech.” The “comprehensive list” of those who are “shaping the neighborhood of Bushwick” and “transforming the conventional” is being compiled “with the help of more than a dozen experts in different fields of art and commerce,” according to the gallery.
Rafael Fuchs Turned Some ‘Bitter Incidents’ With Landlords Into Art
Like to grouse about your landlord? Why not do it over Kosher rugelach at an upcoming art opening?
Later this month at his Bushwick gallery, Rafael Fuchs will show new work “based on true stories” about North Brooklyn’s Jewish landlords. For the appropriately titled “LandLords” series, the artist digitally manipulated photographs he had taken of landlords — wearing Shabbat fur hats and following after their children, among other things — by adding imagery, writing, and portions of other photographs. One print features a naked woman with an airplane about to fly into her ass, with a couple landlords in traditional Hasidic garb in the background.
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