Bushwick Biennial logo, NURTUREart banner. — Photos by Hrag Vartanian

Curator Benjamin Evans understands the irony that half a world away in Venice, the art world cognoscenti gathered for the world’s foremost biennial mating ritual known as the Venice Biennale, while here in Bushwick the neighborhood has launched it’s own homegrown version with more Tecate than truffles. But Evans doesn’t dwell on it and has curated a serious show from NURTUREart‘s own flatfiles which pulls together over a dozen artists that are as different as they are similar.

While four spaces are participating in the first Bushwick Biennial, it is rather obvious that the show at NURTUREart is the only one to consciously resemble anything like a biennial. The other venues, English Kills, Pocket Utopia and Grace Exhibition Space, created shows that are typical of their programming and don’t seem to have gone out of their way to partake. Evans explained that part of the reason for the inclusion of so many spaces was to demonstrate the diversity of gallery models in Bushwick, which was a great point to make but was probably lost on most Biennial goers.

	Jonathan Brand’s “Fallen.” Click for more.

The new Bushwick Biennial is a welcome addition to the Bushwick Open Studios (BOS) festival, even if its host NURTUREart doesn’t register on anyone’s radar as within the boundaries of the burgeoning Brooklyn neighborhood. For years Arts in Bushwick’s flagship event seemed to lack focus; the Biennial may be what’s needed to focus people’s attention.

Biennials usually react to a place or theme but most of the work on display could have easily been about the East Village in the 1980s or Williamsburg in the 1990s — in other words, there was nothing specifically Bushwick about any of it. But that’s not to say there wasn’t some worthwhile art on display. As can be expected from art produced in hipster-heavy neighborhoods, there is much imagery that evokes environmental consciousness, industrial decay, condo developments and gentrification.

Audrey Hasen Russell’s “Bean Tower with Pink Grass” (2008/9) was one of the most intriguing works not so much for what it was but what it wasn’t, namely, overly serious and self-conscious. Sprawled across the gallery’s rooftop space, Russell’s pool of pink foam was a bit campy and accompanied by the beam, seemed like a sketch for a tree in a pond rather than a patch of grass.

Longtime Bushwick champion and BOS organizer Deborah Brown was represented by two canvases. Her “Summer On Stanhope Street #1″ (2008) is a beautifully composed work that portrays a silhouette of local architecture emitting rays of wires against a polluted sky dominated by purples and reds. In her gothic vision, Bushwick is depicted as prickly and mysterious.

Jonathan Brand’s curious “Fallen” (2007) sculpture is a mountain bike composed of wood chips and glue. It is quite powerful for its collision of delicate material with youthful daring. Dropped to the ground, it looked like its owner was going to return at any moment. Unfortunately, the installation of the piece was awkward and a tape border pushed you away from the piece which deadened the effect — surely there must be a better way to display something so delicate but dependent on its warping of what we perceive to be real. Behind the sculpture were intriguing small silverpoints of a young guy on a similar bike but considering they were impossible to see — that damn tape again — I can’t say if they were any good.

Radek Szczesny’s drawings were inconsistent in their quality but when they were good they were quite remarkable, like “Untitled” and “Sky Watch” (both 2009). Both portrayed a solitary form against a wash of color or sky. The small paintings felt fresh and romantic, and almost made the metal forms seem humane and vulnerable, rather than what they normally are, stoic and foreboding.

On the night of the Biennial opening, NURTUREart seemed to relish its role of host and staged a velvet rope outside their door and shuttled a stretched white SUV limo between the “too far to walk” Biennial venues. It was quite ironic and tongue-in-cheek — highlighting the lack of ironic art on display in the event, the most notable and successful exception being Mike Estabrook’s “The Good Etc. Remix” (2009) video, which was displayed in a small room plastered with cardboard.

Estabrook’s work reminded me how a postmodern work that quotes (or in this case, swipes) from an established artistic source doesn’t have be a one-liner. I found myself getting lost in the looped video and watching cartoony heads mask the figures from the 1966 spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. I felt soothed and confused. I didn’t want to like it but I did.

My biggest criticism of NURTUREart’s show was that it lacked any particularly cutting-edge work. In a neighborhood packed with young talent it’s rather surprising that none of the art seems to push any real limits or anyone’s buttons; it all looked safely like “art.” The other — more serious — omission is street art or graffiti. I don’t understand how a Bushwick Biennial could exclude either homegrown art form… lest we forget that North Brooklyn was an important incubator of early graffiti and a major player in the today’s global street art scene. I assume it is because NURTUREart doesn’t have many street talents in its flatfiles (something that should be remedied). The lack of street work was particularly noticeable considering Ad Hoc Art or Factory Fresh — both major Bushwick art venues — were not part of the Biennial.

Looking at the show as a whole I realized that there was no raging against anything, no critique of authority (thankfully the Bush administration is spoken of in past tense these days), but most of the work did seem to speak for something. It was a good starting point for a further exploration of the latest and greatest ideas bouncing around Bushwick now.

The Bushwick Biennial closes July 19.

For a selection of images from the show, visit Hrag’s flickr set.