Creating a flurry of reaction that rippled through art blogs and gallerists’ and critics’ Facebook pages and garnered heavy — sometimes even heated — commentary from some of the more influential names in art criticism, Powhida and Townsend’s Hooverville, 2010, immortalizes Bushwick and some of our resident personalities in the outskirts of the drawing.
This art editor carefully sifted through the names and tiny faces in what Paddy Johnston rightly characterizes as a "Where’s Waldo-esque," piece to find: Famous Accountants, Kevin Regan, English Kills, Andrew Ohanesian, Brent Owens, and Andrew Hurst all idling in the upper left-hand corner of the drawing. In a slumlike shantyville they huddle in groups very near to the roaring fires on the horizon (representing Bushwick?)
In addition, in the bottom right-hand corner of the drawing, we find local Bushwick artist and landlord, Jules de Balincourt, demanding rent payment from a "groveling peasant," stating "This isn’t Bushwick." Finally, frequently seen and heard in Bushwick but no longer resident, the duo Hrag Vartanian and Veken Gueyikan, of the art magazine Hyperallergic, survey the whole situation from the very edge of the drawing.
Republishing gossip like this normally wouldn’t fly. But I feel that it’s particularly relevant that this drawing is making such a huge impression, causing even bigger ripples than Powhida’s Brooklyn Rail cover exposing the New Museum’s incestuous program, and that it includes Bushwick and local galleries and artists as important, if not distant, contributors to "Hooverville" (the art world.)
Follow the thread here, be sure to glance over the riotous comments:
William Powhida, "Hooverville Catastrofuck"
Paddy Johnston, "This Week in Comments Part Two: Powhida!"
Jerry Saltz, "William Powhida Is Making Fun of Me, and I Love It"
