Native Bushwicker Michael “Tido” Cabrera at his new gallery/clothing store, Eastern District.
Last weekend’s dual art openings on Bogart Street created quite a stir, as heavy crowds pushed their way through the stark storefront of Morgantown’s newest tenant, Eastern District.
Named after an alternative geographical term for North Brooklyn, Eastern District serves as half art gallery, half fashion boutique, blending the talents of both its founders, Jesse Lee Denning and Michael “Tido” Cabrera.
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Cabrera, who oversees the high fashion component of the space, approached Jesse in her Orchard Street gallery late last year with the idea to open a collaborative art space in Bushwick.
“We want to treat it like it’s the happening sixties,” Cabrera said. “We will be coordinating with Ad Hoc and have the same nights for openings and after parties as well as cocktail and music events in between openings.”
Cabrera became immersed in the fashion world after leaving high school in Bushwick to work at Miami club king Max Pierre’s boutique, Arrive. The store also had close relationships with the Museum of Contemporary Arts, working on exhibit installations, and holding events at Art Basel, where Cabrera began making connections in the contemporary art world. When he made trips home to Bushwick, he began noticing art galleries sprouting along Bogart Street and Flushing Avenue, and seeing them at Art Basel booths back in Miami.
One of the galleries Cabrera visited often was Invisible NYC in the Lower East Side, run by Denning. A tattoo artist and native West Villager, Denning attended LaGuardia High School for the Arts — yes, the “Fame” school — before working in galleries in Chelsea and SoHo.
“When I was at Invisible, I showed everything from detailed, laborious stencil works to huge sound installations and sculpture projects,” Denning said.
As a gallery director, Denning veers toward young, urban artists, who often work in a street art aesthetic. She anticipates about half her shows will include street and graffiti artists, and Poster Boy, one of the city’s more admired/reviled street artists, is set to open a solo show at Eastern District this spring.
The solo exhibit which opened the gallery features the work of Juan Doe, a comic artist currently working as an illustrator for Marvel Comics. Six canvasses that line the side of the gallery wall, painted in a red, black, and white color scheme, read like six panels in a graphic novel. The poem, written with one line across each panel, opens:
The Ghost is in the house
To identify the ciphers of Fear
To expand the sublime
To call upon a miracle
Which never arrives
And never leaves.
“The works are handpainted, except the lettering which is stenciled,” Denning said. “If you look up close, you can see the brush strokes. The paintings represent his journey as a superhero and Juan Doe is the artist’s superhero alter ego.”
In the back of the gallery, Cabrera has set a rack of high-end clothes and t-shirts from designers who made clothing lines specifically for the store. So far, Cabrera has assembled peacoats and leather jackets from Public School, sweaters and jersey dresses from Geoffrey B. Small, and an array of t-shirts with original prints.
“We’re still trying to treat fashion as art,” said Cabrera. “Every item gets handmade and many are commissioned.”
Cabrera and Denning are both excited to be a part of Bushwick’s emerging retail landscape and to tap into their old art connections. Denning is once again a neighbor to Ali Ha at Factory Fresh, who ran a gallery on Orchard Street in the late 1990s. The Lower East Side’s loss is once again Bushwick’s gain, but in this recession, could that iconic neighborhood change again and welcome their return?
“No, I really don’t think it will,” said Denning. “Every square inch is luxury condos and new hotels. The LES is now Chelsea, which I don’t want to be a part of. It’s so saturated now, while out here there’s a bohemian, creative vibe.”
Eastern District
43 Bogart Street
