red hook

No Comments

Art This Week: Algorithms, Jesus, and Bottle Blondes

(image via Flowers Gallery NY / Facebook)

yes no maybe
Opening Tuesday, July 17 at Flowers Gallery, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through August 24.

Thanks to social media, the word “algorithm” is no longer something only mentioned in math class. I’d say for better or for worse, but we all know that people typically invoke talks of The Algorithm when they are complaining about the latest way it’s seeming to screw them over. A new group exhibition at Chelsea’s Flowers Gallery, which takes its title from the mathematical theory of probability, asks five artists to create works using their own algorithmic processes. This may sound intimidating until you realize an algorithm isn’t much more than a purposeful pattern that repeats over time, which is something done in art often. The artists of yes no maybe (all prolific and regarded in their respective fields) take their algorithmic inspiration from topics as varied as geometric microscopic organisms, Berlin’s Tempelhof airport, jazz music, and hypercubes. At the opening, there will be a panel discussion with Beryl Korot, Manfred Mohr and Judith Stenneken, moderated by Zabet Patterson, a professor and writer who focuses on how contemporary art and computing interact. More →

No Comments

Watch: 3D-Printed Boats Go For Gold at the Red Hook Regatta

Gentlemen, print your engines!

The Red Hook Regatta, an annual race of 3D-printed boats, returned to Valentino Pier Park on Sunday. This year’s festivities promised to be pure “mayhem,” according to the folks at Pioneer Works (the artist residency program and events space teamed up with Red Hook Initiative, an education NGO, to put on the regatta). Which didn’t stop some 100 people from braving the cold and rain to watch the homemade boats shred water. Participants used remote controls to steer their vessels halfway up the pier, where they delivered bricks to a person with a red-colored hook (get it? Red Hook?). The boat that delivered the most bricks was declared the winner.

More →

No Comments

Funky Ceramics, Mermaids at Sunny’s, and More Art Openings

Jess Sheridan. Trump This, 2017. Screenprint. 22 x 15 in. Printed and published by the artist. Edition: 45. (c) 2017 Jess Sheridan.

Just Under 100
Opening Thursday, June 22 at International Print Center, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through September 16. 

This show marks the 56th edition of the International Print Center’s New Prints Program, the result of an open call for fine art prints created in the last 12 months. Curator Katherine Bradford has selected 98 of them from artists all over the world, and they will all be on view in the self-proclaimed “small” gallery space of the IPC on West 26th Street.

While there isn’t necessarily a unifying theme for all the prints, several seem to have a political bent. On the gallery’s website, I observed at least one pussy hat reference and one print involving a woman in an American flag hijab and ripped jeans skateboarding on top of the head of a man with very orange skin. Which isn’t surprising, as nowadays it almost seems like more effort to avoid referencing the current political climate than not. More →

No Comments

16 Works We Loved at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair

Silk tapestry by Bill Zangewa (Photo: Nicole Disser)

Silk tapestry by Bill Zangewa, Afronova Gallery (Photo: Nicole Disser)

It’s pretty screwy that here, now, in the year 2016 many people still have a hard time grasping that Africa is an incredibly diverse continent home to vastly different cultures, languages, landscapes, and art traditions. Thankfully, we have things like the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (held May 6 through 8 at Pioneer Works in Red Hook) at our fingertips to keep us in the know about the incredible (and, ahem, marketable) art work coming out of the 54 countries on the African continent.

More →

No Comments

From Warfare to Housewares: The History of the Ikea Red Hook Site

This week, we continue our series of deep dives into the histories of storied addresses.

Ikea, located on the Erie basin of Red Hook. (Camila Osorio)

Ikea, located on the Erie basin of Red Hook. (Camila Osorio)

We’ve all been there: duking it out with a roommate or a significant other over which couch or flimsy dining room table to buy at Ikea. The memories are cringe-worthy. But for what it’s worth, Ikea’s corner of Red Hook has always been a cradle of conflict – and much deadlier conflict. As in, Dutch colonizers displacing Native Americans, and the British confronting Revolutionary armies led by General George Washington. It’s also where battleships dry-docked during the Civil War and World War II.

More →

No Comments

Chelsea Garden Center Gets Uprooted, Sprouts Up in Williamsburg

(Photos: Daniel Maurer)

(Photos: Daniel Maurer)

After three decades in Manhattan, the Chelsea Garden Center is now a Brooklyn-based operation. The flower and landscaping shop opened in Williamsburg last Monday, at 87 Havemeyer Street. Jessica Windhausen, an employee, told us it lost its lease on the corner of 44th Street and 11th Street because a new building is in the works.

More →

No Comments

Film: a Brief History of Horror and the True Story of IRL Empire Records


If the thought of CMJ renders you an anxious, nail-biting, hair-pulling mess we’ve got some sweet alternatives for you, in places where you can hide away in a dark room without having to talk to people and avoid being regarded as a social misfit at the same time. “I’m just more into movies,” you can practice telling them. And hey, even if you’re not going to a music show per se, you can still join in the very trendy #notCMJ, which is currently trending on trendy website Twitter. Gobble up our film picks lurking just below this line.

More →

No Comments

I Took a Class in ‘How to Master the NYPD’

11960243_819107114869189_8455800042554999384_n (1)

Pioneer Works isn’t just an art gallery, residency program, and book shop — it’s an educational center, too. Pay a nominal fee and get learn’d on the basics of paper marbling, wet plate photography, and how to whip up a mole sauce from scratch– you know, cute stuff. So a two-day course, “How to Master the New York City Police Department,” taught by NYU urbanization researcher Patrick Lamson-Hall, kinda stopped me in my browsing tracks with its promise of a historical look at the NYPD and discussion about how to improve community-police relations. One of Patrick’s early suggestions: “As stupid as it sounds, maybe they need to start every day with yoga.”

More →

No Comments

This Photo Show Marks a High Point for the Transgender Movement

(Photo by Robyn Hasty)

(Photo by Robyn Hasty)

Robyn Renee Hasty is no stranger to outsiders, countercultures, and misfits. So it might feel a little strange for the artist to be in the midst of what’s becoming a mainstream social movement and media obsession to match, as embodied in the debut of Caitlyn Jenner. A new exhibition featuring Hasty’s most recent work, opening Thursday at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works, couldn’t be more timely. But even with a newfound frank (but still sometimes fraught) discussion of the transgender experience going mainstream, Hasty’s nude portraits of transgender, gender non-conforming, and cisgender people are still subversive.
More →

No Comments

Three to See During Frieze Week: NADA, African Art, and a Design Fair

'Untitled,' photo by Bobson Sukhdeo Mohanlall on view at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (Photo from 1:54 website and courtesy of Axis Gallery)

‘Untitled,’ photo by Bobson Sukhdeo Mohanlall on view at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (Photo from 1:54 website and courtesy of Axis Gallery)

If there’s anything to say about Frieze that speaks to the massive annual art fair as a whole is that it’s wholly impossible to see everything. Last year, there were 190 participating art dealers from all over the globe. And that’s just at Frieze alone. What’s more the art fair brings so many art people into the city and out of their studios in “far-flung” neighborhoods to Manhattan, that several satellite festivities coincide with the event in places other than the Frieze tent. So take your pick and get ready for two parts shmoozing and feigning interest and one part legitimate enthrallment!

More →