Spectrum Paint Applicator Corp., at 95 Evergreen Ave., is the only locally based business to win significant federal contract dollars, while the bulk of “local” spending went to multinationals. — Photo by Diego Cupolo

The government spends a lot of money. Millions of federal dollars have been spent in Bushwick over the last decade, and though officials encourage bureaucracies to spend their budgets with small businesses, most of these millions went to large corporations who merely do business in the Bushwick vicinity. To find out how much was paid out to whom, BushwickBK sifted through the government’s recently expanded transparency database. All it took was a bit of patience and a high tolerance for statistics jargon.

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Brooklyn Democrats who supported Obama want to support his health care reform — but don’t know what it entails. — Photo by Mimi Luse

Organizing For America (OFA) was originally developed as Barack Obama’s campaign tool, a wired social network that would replicate the grass-roots viral success that Howard Dean had in his own 2004 bid for president. After he was elected, the network and newsletter, 13 million e-mail addresses strong, changed slightly in name (from Obama for America) and has persisted in supporters’ in-boxes as an unprecedented means of bypassing traditional media and communicating with supporters one-on-one.

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In the most basic sense, one could describe Suzanne Stroebe’s works as Postminimalist.  Against the industrial sterility inherent to Minimalist art, artists considered to be Postminimalist — such as Richard Tuttle and Rachel Harrison, to name two — Stroebe’s work embraces materiality, painterly concerns, and the tenuous operatives of chance. more »

Terence Koh performs his show at Starr Space to a jaded crowd. — Photos by Mimi Luse

Held at Starr Space as part of his continuing partnership there, Curator Joseph Whitt’s  Halloween event, "Codex Gigas," proved to be an exuberantly depraved show.  A 13th-century book that purportedly houses all of human knowledge, the Codex Gigas was written in a single night by a Bohemian monk who had to call upon Lucifer for help. Thus it is also known as the  "The Devil’s Bible", and accordingly, Whitt’s show was a ritualistic invocation of the dark side, with whatever taboos that remain today brought out one by one in succession. During performances by some of New York’s best-known contemporary artists and bouts of nudity, the rowdy audience was alternatively titillated and bored by both, and couldn’t keep quiet.

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Crowding in to see vibrating bottles and such. — Photos by Mimi Luse

Bushwick saw it’s own installment of the Apartment Show phenomenon two Sundays ago. Organized by artists Denise Kupferschmidt and Joshua Smith, The Apartment Show is a one-night-only show series installed in a different apartment each time.

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Billy Hahn, aka The Wizard Clown, sells his art to Bedford Avenue passerby. — Photos by Mimi Luse

Few emerging artists without gallery representation can claim to support themselves solely through the sale of their artwork, but since quitting his day job this summer, Billy Hahn has been able to count himself as one of those lucky ones.

"I quit my job in June and just started selling my art on the street," he said.

Though Hahn had always made art, until recently, he had been working at American Apparel as a merchandiser, a position for which he had trained in college. After a weekend camping upstate changed his perspective on what he was doing in life, he decided to leave his post. At first he panicked: "The realization set in. ‘Oh my god, I just quit my job in this crazy economy’." he recalls.

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Burlesque illustrator and founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, Molly Crabapple kept a studio in Bushwick for three years, showing at Ad Hoc multiple times. One month ago, she moved to the Financial District, perhaps expecting a windfall due to this piece. But we’ll link to it anyways. In this bildungsarticle she describes her career development, which includes the job that many a lost-soul creative has taken up at one point or another: working the register at Shakespeare and Company in Paris in exchange for a hay-filled loft bed and some Rimbaud.  But Crabapple’s not done yet; you can catch her this Friday for the Superwow! cosmic art party at the loony Muffinhead venue in Williamsburg. There will be bands, and probably some hula-hoopers, but what really draws us there will be the fact that none other than the restless 80s art star Mr. Kenny Scharf seems to be at the bottom of this.

With the apartment show phenomenon, the ubiquity of large-scale site-specific art projects, or exhibits in say, convents, today it’s pretty much par for the course to see art in non-traditional spaces.  If you’re a curator, this has cut nearly everything else that’s hard about curating out of the picture, so now all you need to do is volunteer your apartment or stairwell for BETA Spaces art festival and you’ve got yourself an art show.

"The festival offers curators an opportunity to re-imagine (non) traditional exhibition spaces to present innovative contexts for artwork," writes Arts in Bushwick organizer Steve Weintraub. Happening this November 8 for one day only, and constrained to the 15-block area bordered by Bushwick and Johnson Avenues and Starr Street — two blocks deeper into the neighborhood than last year’s — it’s easier to handle than Bushwick Open Studios.  My favorite work in last year’s BETA Spaces was Rachel Higgins‘ lofted bean bag chair in María Hernández Park. Though the location is outside of the borders specified, AiB is willing to make some exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

Arts in Bushwick is accepting submissions for curated projects, with a deadline of October 5, but it will be extended if you submit your project, say, nowish. Their website is down, but you can find information on AiB’s Google docs.

From the street to the street-art gallery, Aakash Nihalani’s art remains accessible. — Photos by Mimi Luse unless otherwise attributed.

Artists who work on walls and sidewalks (ok, call them street artists) cultivate a kind of mysterious notoriety due to the double fact that they are anonymous yet ubiquitous. You can’t seek them out, but you’ll turn a corner, and they’ll spontaneously appear in your life again. If you’re not a fan, it can be assaulting (I have love/hate for this guy) but if you like the work, it will bring you luck as you start to mentally collect sightings.

In 2006, when I first noticed the fluorescent and reflective tape works of the Bushwick-based Aakash Nihalani, they were some of the most original pieces of street art I’d seen in a while. Since then, Nihalani has also dabbled in the gallery setting, and this Friday his third gallery show, ”Tape and Mirrors,” opens at Eastern District (Ad Hoc Art is co-hosting). BushwickBK snuck a peek at the show while Nihalani was installing, and was then invited to see the artist’s studio, where we found Nihalani’s secret tape stash.

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Crowds mill around the lobby of the Castle Braid on Troutman Street. — Photos by Mimi Luse

Proving the theory true that "if you build it, they will come," the double opening of Brooklyn Artillery and the brand-new Castle Braid complex this Saturday drew a sizeable crowd of all ages. Judging by some quick queries, it was a mix of potential renters, art lovers, and rubber-neckers, with at least one couple having come from the far-flung Upper East Side (!).

While workers had still been pouring the concrete floors of the complex last Tuesday, four days later what the public was privy to looked slick and finished.  Filled with people for the first time, the art event functioned as a dress rehearsal for what the Castle Braid might look like inhabited. From any vantage point the entry-way felt like a fish-bowl for social interaction.  With a grand descending staircase that announces each guest, a glassed in gym at its rear, floor-to-ceiling windows that incorporate the courtyard, and a second-floor balcony overlooking it, the foyer alone allows infinite possibilities for voyeurism. 

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