The past week has been a ghost town in the neighborhood as everyone recovers from Bushwick Open Studios. The streets are strewn with litter and cigarette butts, and I could almost hear the soundtrack from a spaghetti western as I emerged from the Morgan Street station on Monday morning. Hosting an event, I didn’t get out to see too many shows or studios myself, but at 117 Grattan Street, we had a swarm of visitors throughout the weekend. Many thanks to everyone who stopped in to say hello.
Here are a few reports about BOS2012:
Holland Cotter @ NYTimes: Latest Vibe Moved to Brooklyn
But what does frontier mean anyway? Does it � should it � mean something about the kind of art being produced? It meant that in SoHo in the 1960s and �70s, with the emergence of new media (video, installation, sound art), and in the East Village of the 1980s, which could claim an apocalyptically minded post-punk aesthetic, not to mention Neo-Geo.
But since then art has professionalized and industrialized. Schools pump out artists; artists pump out vast amounts of art. The market, as embodied in art fairs, has become a bulk operation, favoring the smooth-selling tried and true � painting, sculpture � over experiment. An ancient avant-garde model of the artist as creature of high ideals, messy habits and no expectations has been revised to accommodate competitiveness, personal polish and an agenda for professional success.
To what degree those elements shape artists� lives in Bushwick today I
can�t say. More than once during a recent gallery and studio walkabout I
had the sensation of being in a giant M.F.A. graduate show, with all
the cautious, self-conscious formalism and too-tight ideas that implies.
At the same time, the general atmosphere was school-like in a good,
utopian way: people working side by side, artists enjoying other
artists, Manhattan a mere mirage in the wide Bushwick sky.
Hyperallergic: A Journey Through the 2012 Bushwick Open Studios // A great slideshow of Hrag’s tour through Bushwick.
Art Fag City: Bushwick Basel Participants Report: BOS a Success //Answers the timeless question: Did you sell anything?
The Great Grey Bridge: Bushwick Open Studios, June 2, 2012 //Check out Kyle Gallup and Philip Turner’s images, which include lots of good shots of INQUIRY curated by Austin Thomas, the exhibition that I hosted in my studio. Thanks Kyle and Philip for stopping by!
Bushwick Daily: Thoughts on Bushwick Open Studios // “The thing that struck me as I wandered from place to place during
Bushwick Open Studios was the field day Freudian psychologists would
have with the percolating ego in every direction. Some obvious, some
subtle, some well-intentioned, some well-executed and some none of the
above.”
Brooklyn Street Art: What’s New in Bushwick–Street Art Survey // I guess it’s no surprise that Bushwick has AMAZING street art. Great images.
Street Artist Specter hand-painted this Bodega facade as an homage to New
York’s disappearing streetscape. (photo � Jaime Rojo / Brooklyn Street Art)
Related posts:
An invitation: Two Coats of Paint’s fifth anniversary party @ Bushwick Open Studios
BOS2012: My neighbors at 117 Grattan Street
——-
Subscribe to Two Coats of Paint by email.
It took me longer than I expected to write about BOS 2012, but you can add this post to the list of Bushwick lovers: LeftBankArtBlog.com.