Yoshihito Mizuuchi in his studio at ISCP on Morgan Avenue. — Photo by Paul Cox

The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) has been providing private studios to visual artists for fifteen years now, but until 2008 they were sited in midtown Manhattan — no place for an artist. They’ve now migrated to a much more cost-effective Brooklyn space, an ex-factory building standing at the intersection of Morgan and Metropolitan. It takes a little imagination to call the location Bushwick, but it should certainly be a big enough draw to pull our art scene regulars slightly out of their accustomed orbit.

The International in ISCP counts for more than a well-rounded acronym, as almost every artist has come a long way to be here. From Peru to South Korea to Bosnia, it’s hard to find a more global group outside of UN Week. Sponsored for up to twelve months by their governments, corporations, foundations, galleries, and private patrons, they receive 300-400 square feet of 24 hour space to do with what they will.

Twice a year, during the nine days of their Open Studios, this compartmentalized space turns into the best place in Bushwick to see something new. The quantity and variety of work puts it on the level of, say, MoMA’s PS1 at its best (the repurposed brick building suggests the comparison), but with the bonus of having most of the artists around for a chat.

While the opening on Friday evening brought the expected flood of visitors, the weekend saw only a sporadic few drop in. The residents didn’t mind too much, though. To hear it from performance artist Anindita Dutta, displaying on the second floor, “it’s nice just to see the other artists. Ordinarily we’re all coming and going at different times.” Many were taking the opportunity to check in on their neighbors’ work and swap their hard-earned private space for a more sociable environment.

Anindita Dutta, her messy work displayed in her spotless studio. — Photo by Paul Cox

Working with mud and clay — large expanses of the stuff, covering herself and her surroundings — Dutta uses her studio to display stills from her video productions and sometimes as a laboratory for mixing up test batches of her messy materials. She’s kept the room clean and mostly bare. Others make more direct use of their allotments, such as Yoshihito Mizuuchi, whose space is so full of assemblages, experiments, and mechanical whims that a visitor has to squeeze through the half-open door. The jungle of plywood and roadside junk within reveals itself, with Mizuuchi’s patient guided tour, as something of a factory for the automatic production of sounds, images, and language under the guiding principles of chaos theory. Nothing is without a function. Rain falls sporadically on paint cans while eggs draw trails across wobbling tables; the crumbs from grated baguettes choose the radio station, and potted leeks spell out cryptic language as they grow, guiding charcoal pendulums across word find puzzles.

Long before reaching the third and top floor of the building, anyone hoping for a quick visit is likely to feel in over their head. Everyone is more than happy to talk about their work for as long as you’re happy to linger, and some interesting video installations don’t help to speed things along. These range from simple but effective loops like Stefano Cagol’s VAMPA, an unsettling study of a vampire bat-like tattered flag, to scenes from Renzo Martens’s Episode 3, a perversely hilarious documentary of the Dutch artist’s mission to the DR Congo.

If you’re tempted to drop in, in other words, plan to make a full afternoon of it. Doors will close again after Sunday, so use your time well. It’s a good warm-up for next month’s looming Bushwick Open Studios, but it’s also a whole other art world unto itself. The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) is at 1040 Metropolitan Avenue, at Morgan.