Gallerists Kevin Regan and Ellen Letcher pose for the camera at Famous Accountants. — Photo by Anna D’Agrosa

Ad Hoc may be going out of whatever, Eastern District may be selling sandwiches to pay the rent since $1000 shirts don’t seem to be flying out the door, but one Greater Bushwick space is gearing up for their grand opening in a spot that, while off the beaten path, has quite a pedigree in art circles.

This weekend during Norte Maar’s art walk "This Beat Is Sick," sponsored by BushwickBK, Bushwick artists Kevin Regan and Ellen Letcher debut their new gallery Famous Accountants at 1673 Gates Avenue, just about 100 feet over the Brooklyn-Queens border. Yes, on the Queens side.

In the basement of a building that was owned for nearly 15 years by performance artist Genesis P-Orridge and his late wife Lady Jaye after they purchased the property from the Lady’s grandmother, the gallery occupies the couple’s former studio. After selling the building, P-Orridge was forced to vacate the basement so the new landlord could monetize the space. P-Orridge is supportive of the venture, delighted to see it remain dedicated to art.

Mesmerized and driven by absurdity and politics (or do I repeat myself?), Regan fuses images of Ronald Reagan, skulls, and pornography, adding repulsive materials like clumps of his own beard hair as a model’s pubes, or spattering a gel medium, which when dry evokes ejaculate, across the dead president’s face. But unlike the legions of artists who used Bush — an easy target — in their work as protest, the artist just likes the idea of using Reagan for "something psychedelic."

"The political thing is a big tease. I wanted to trick the viewer into thinking the work is somehow political when, ultimately, I don’t give a shit," Regan says. "I hated all that Bush art. And now there’s all this crappy Obama art. On some level I’m trying to make fun of that stuff."

Famous Accountants’ first show is called "Twenty-three," an homage to the P-Orridges who used the space before them. According to Regan, there was a number "23" affixed to the ceiling, and thinking Lady Jaye had pasted it there, they left it and installed work around it. "It’s a magic number. It’s partly an homage to Genesis… It’s the universe talking to us." Regan paused. "I’m a stupid hippie."

Regan has a large studio in his Knickerbocker Avenue house, but after Letcher’s girlfriend insisted she move her workspace out of their Starr Street railroad living room, she and Regan began looking for a spot for her to work in studio and in which they could exhibit their own art. They also hope to run a social space in the vein of the recently closed Pocket Utopia, where Regan had a residency, and have other artists show their work in their gallery.

"I’m really excited about Famous Accountants," says Letcher. "I do believe I made friends with the ghosts as I have a really tough time leaving every time I go…."

Letcher’s work, like Regan’s, consists mostly of altered collages and other applied media. Working in production for Metropolitan Home and Elle magazines, she is bombarded daily by glossy images of beauty and status, which in her art she rips apart and reassembles into sometimes grotesque juxtapositions, using paint — often in shocking colors — as glue.

"Twenty-three" will showcase the work of the two proprietors, and the gallery will be open every Sunday after this weekend from 1-6pm. Regan has tentative plans to hold "coffee talk" in the space, where various subjects will be debated over strong coffee. As an overdose-level joe drinker and tireless yakker, it’s a concept Regan holds dear, and which he pursued a bit at Pocket Utopia when it was open. But it’s also a pretext to meet more Bushwickers.

Famous Accountants
1673 Gates Avenue
Sundays, 1-6pm