William Powhida and Jade Townsend, Hooverville, 2010. Graphite on paper

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"

You Can’t Do That On Television, curated by Joe Nanashe; pictured: David Greg Harth, What Ate That Black Man, 2007, DVD Video, 00:06:31.

Ingraham Street in Morgantown is filled with semis sitting eerily in open garages, garbage dumps, graffiti murals, vinyl siding, and brick factories.  Like its pronunciation-unfriendly name — Ingram? Ing-ra-ham? — it isn’t tremendously welcoming to strollers.  There was almost no signage announcing an exhibition, with the exception of the SITE Fest "YOU ARE HERE" poster and an 8 1/2 x 11 in. inkjet printout of the press release stapled to a small poster board on the sidewalk, which parenthetically instructs you that the show is (in the alley.)

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Will they take the train out here? — Photo courtesy of Arts in Bushwick

New York Art Week, where "60,000 visitors are expected to generate $44 million in revenue" in the city, is upon us. Local organization Arts in Bushwick (AiB) contributes to the din with SITE Fest, an interdisciplinary performance festival happening this weekend in Greater Bushwick.

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A high view of Clopen Studio, a show by RISD alumni at 1100 Broadway. — Photo by Michael Assiff

Friday night’s Clopen Studio at 1100 Broadway ended up somewhere in between an opening on W. 27th Street and a Providence house party.  Everyone is aesthetically disheveled (think Jim Drain, formerly of Fort Thunder), chain-smoking, and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) or Brown in the last five years.  1100 Broadway, a communal studio space for artists and one design team, was cleaned up and hung with about the same care as a school studio critique.

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It’s time yet again for another Arts in Bushwick event — the local arts non-profit issues an open call for artists of all varieties to get involved in this year’s SITE Fest. One of three annual AiB neighborhood-wide events, SITE places performance and music as its main focus.  This event, more so than the others, is completely DIY; open meetings are scheduled for every Tuesday night from now until the Festival.

Chez Bushwick, Grace Exhibition Space and the 3rd Ward team up to lead SITE Fest 2010, and seek to exhibit the incredible variety of performance art being made in Greater Bushwick today, from loud screaming sweaty music venues to silent Allen Kaprow-esque "happenings."

SITE Festival is scheduled for March 6-7, 2010.  Artist, volunteer, and space registration is open until February 5, 2010 — so get out there!

SITE Fest Open Meeting
1609 Dekalb Ave, #1D
Every Tuesday at 7:00 PM

A map of openings for the weekend of Dec. 12, 2009. Click to enlarge.

Since this weekend is so full of art openings — six, by our count — BushwickBK Art Editor Stephen Truax thought it wise to create a concise list and map for the convenience (and pleasure?) of the art-loving public. Click the above map for a compact printable version.

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Artist Kevin Regan discusses his work with the author. — Photo by Ellen Letcher

A small white-washed basement on Gates Avenue, not unlike any other block in Ridgewood near the Myrtle-Wyckoff L/M — the middle of nowhere, to some — is the site of 15 years of collaboration between performance artists Genesis and Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge.  The space served as their studio before Lady Jaye’s untimely death in 2007.  Genesis — cited as a major inspiration for art stars like Dash Snow, and who can count William Borroughs as a mentor — connects Bushwick to an art historical trajectory larger than that with which the neighborhood is typically associated. more »

Brent Owens’ solo show at English Kills, The Gnastic Pursuit. — Photos courtesy of the artist.

English Kills, on Forrest St. just off of Flushing Ave., has become an influential gallery in Bushwick during the past three years, specialized in rough-edged, quasi-absurd contemporary art.  Its emphasis is not on sales; it rents out several spaces in the back to keep its overhead at bay.  This liberates the gallery to show some pretty weird stuff in an equally rough-edged, quasi-absurd space defined by exposed brick, plywood floors, and some areas of white-box-style sheetrock.

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