First of all - I know I am switching between languages; that refers to the estimated readers ... or my feelings at this moment ;)
It was never intended to develop a blog spreading the experiences of my stay in New York City and therefore this has no regularity.
However, the days are passing by and I have the opportunity to get in touch with so many super crazy wonderful things, institutions, spaces, people, initiatives that I would like to share this with people interested in to art and culture*
Friends ask me if I have time to explore NYC besides working here at ISPC; the great thing is that exploring the art world is part of my work and my leisure time. Haven´t been to Manhatten for several days as the there is so much great stuff to discover in Brooklyn and Queens.
On Thursday we made a little gallery tour and just within a 15 minute walking distance from our working space at ISCP we visited 5 different galleries in our Bushwick neighborhood. Each space highly professional with exciting program and artists represented. From Transfer Gallery showing the „Digital Museum of digital Art“, to the high end Bushwick space of Luhring Augustine Gallery showing Rachel Whiteread, heading to the special cool Interstate Gallery showing younger artist´s site specific works. Last station are two quite different galleries in the same building around the corner; the Nurture Gallery introducing us into there great non-for-profit work and sophisticated educating program with local schools. Finally we saw Arnold Mesches – 75 Years of Works on Paper at Life on Mars.
Although it was raining and everyone of us was soaking wet already at the second station of this tour, it is so exciting what´s going on here that I can´t get cold. I admire those people beeing so brave to open up spaces with individual, unique and specific profiles, working sophisticated with heart and belief into the art. Just inspiring*
To get a deeper insight in how are all these spaces evolving I went on a small Williamsburg artist studio and project tour visiting four female artists in their studios and shows in this Brooklyn hotspot. Starting at El Museo de los Sures with Natasha John-Messenger, visiting the Canadian artist Louise Belcourt in her wonderful live and work studio, then getting a tour through her first solo exhibition at Journal Gallery by the French artist Agathe Snow before we got introduced into the work of Daphne Fitzpatrick. There is so much to say about those people and there works that I prefer to let the pictures talk for the first insight ...
And as this would not be enough on Sunday I discovered an immense art and culture venue in a former door producing factory in my neighborhood (!!!) which completely blew my mind. The Knockdown Center knocked me up. Incredibly cool, open-minded and motivated people are developing here something that is even for NYC extradinary, not only in it´s space dimensions but also in it´s open-minded and cool approach ...
By the way, today we were heading out of town up north for a field trip to Dia: Beacon, a massive museum showing large scale classics ranging from Sol Lewitt, Walter de Maria, Josef Buys to Agnes Martin and my favourite Louise Bourgeois
It´s a never ending story ...