Bushwick Open Studios 2011

Highlights from the BOS Film Festival

Audrey Tran — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:25:12 +0000

The First Bushwick Open Studios Film Festival

Andrea Monti and Elle Burchill are two independent cinema devotees who have brought Microscope Gallery to Bushwick, NY. From the video they exhibit, to the lectures, screenings, and BYOK nights (“bring your own Kodachrome“), these two are fostering an appreciation of the moving image in all forms and formats. Last June, Monti and Burchill turned the the attic-like performance space of Goodbye Blue Monday’s backyard into a cinema-salon to host the first Bushwick Open Studios Film Festival. They screened works from a mix of emerging and established artists while switching between video equipment, film projection, a record player, analog video, and live performances. Below is a recap of several highlights from the festival:

And Then They Watched the World Around Them

Throughout And Then They Watched the World Around Them, one senses that his/or her eyes become the mechanical eye of Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa’s film. In one frame, our vision focuses on the reflecting surface of still waters, a Monet moment via 16mm. Slowly, a shift in the lens then causes the reflection of the waters dissolve and visible before us are gentle leaves and stray, floating stems. Seconds later in this same frame, the lens shift again and we find the leaves/water erased so that slim plant stalks from some sort of weed stand as the only distinct item in view. Several lengthy, meditative shots move this way. They recall nature documentaries, though—to the piece’s benefit—it’s unclear exactly what the subject of study may be. Perhaps the act of looking is the focus. If the camera is supposed to act as an eye, then these sights might come from a deeply pensive persona, like Henry David Thoreau.
The film’s sound component, composed by Tristan Shepherd, gives the footage a gentle anxiety. In the beginning, we hear what one might identify as insect chirping, creaks, and buzzing noises; soon, (according to my ears) a flapping sound enters, as if very small rapidly moving wings are speeding though none are in view. A gurgling noise, a twisting noise, then sounds that are more reminiscent of instruments begin to vibrate and pulse. Three quarters of the way into the piece, we reach a climax of beats and hums, one of which recalls a wooden board, or wooden toys cluttering together. All of the descriptions above rely on images from the natural world, yet Shepherd composed this piece mostly using turntables and a Serge Modular Synthesizer. The oddity of this dated instrument makes it a fitting accomplice to Schultz-Figueroa’s 16 mm footage.

Garden
Allison Somers’ works often remove viewers from the New York City landscape. While shooting scenes in Wonder Valley, CA for Garden, the artist captured the knick-knack remains of a backyard surrounding an abandoned homestead. We see blurry black and white portraits of cacti, rocks, shrubs, and wrinkly desert mountains in the distance. We also see “The End” cryptically scribbled in cement, a weather vane, and pebbles left in an old frying pan. The focus of each portrait is off, and the frames all shake a bit, recalling the sub-standard hand of home-made movies. Somers’ footage may be inexact but it glows and creates another sensation that cannot be expressed by the hyper-real technologies. Her footage mimics the sensation of memories.

Images from Garden are courtesy and copyright of Allison Somers

Any conversation regarding memories remains pertinent to Wonder Valley as hundreds of similar small empty cabins exist in the area. During the early 20th century, the government attempted to populate places through passage of the Small Tract Homestead Act and similar bills that gave free land to settlers who built homes on federal territory west of the Mississippi River. Throughout the years, the first settlers, the “jackrabbit homesteaders,” have departed the land leaving behind sites such as the house explored in Garden.Abandoned homes remain full of a mystique that seems continually attractive to artistic energies. Consider Martha Rosler’s writings on art from Detroit’s urban wasteland. Or an earlier example– Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, specifically the chapter “Time Passes,” which is devoted to an empty house, once full of life. The photographs depicting the thousands of foreclosed homes across the country also come to mind and make Somers’ work related to our current cultural anxieties. While a number of artists have made the historical homestead the subject of their work, those art pieces have been exhibited mostly through events on the West Coast and Wonder Vallery’s desert communities. Thus, Garden presents a rare glimpse for those of us stationed on the East Coast. Uniquely in this film presented to the Bushwick arts scene, Somers never directly uses the image of the homestead. Instead, she gathers snapshots of all the peculiar details surrounding this structure as if to describe some indistinct nature surrounding the empty house. Meditative and ghostly, lonely and yet filled with some nameless thriving beat, Garden is a fitting art piece to follow up the legacy of the West.

A Reasonable Man

A Reasonable Man stood apart from other works of the festival because of the simple nature of the film’s components. Filmmaker Brian L. Frye pairs raw footage of a high speed car chase with the courtroom dialogue from the U.S. Supreme Court trial that followed the chase. By itself, the black and white footage is engaging and almost hypnotic. Because it’s nighttime, you only see street lamps moving alongside the headlights and taillights of other cars passing in the dark, similar to a tunnel of shooting-stars. The footage might even be a romantic experience if the car wasn’t swerving or moving at such a high speed. While watching all of this, the courtroom dialogue informs us that this is criminal evidence recorded from the police cars pursuing the speeding vehicle. The chosen segments of courtroom dialogue—at times tense, other moments comical—also let us know that the car will crash. The deputy who induces the crash will also be sued by the driver of the speeding car, Victor Harris, who was left a quadriplegic afterwards.

In another post reflecting on A Reasonable Man, Mike Everleth, pinpoints a judge’s comparison of the event with The French Connection, and the familiarity of car chase scenes in Hollywood action movies. From the earliest heist films to the more recent technological wonders like Inception, filmmakers seem to be increasing the standards of good chasing with new forms of brutality. Though we’ve certainly grown comfortable watching these scenes, we are not accustomed to seeing the raw footage present in Frye’s film. Even the famous car chases delivered through local news media, carry obvious forms of hype. A Reasonable Man differs in its bareness. With few alterations in the footage and dialogue, Frye gives us room to think of the event without an action-movie background or a clear hero. Smartly, he also lays the burden of deciding who the title describes upon the audience.

Cloud Cuckoo Land
Erik Moskowitz and Amanda Trager’s “seductive cinematography and richly layered” film reads as a forlorn music video starring a cast of J. Alfred Prufrocks who experiment with ideas of progress. In the plot, a mom and dad move into a commune with their young son, where they find that they cannot thrive in this progressive, utopian setting. Some characters cannot be tolerated. Personal space seems violated. The family’s journey ends with a brawl involving the mother and a man representative of the community. All lines are also dubbed in the same slow voice along with a stream of sentimental guitar music. The slow, hypnotic opera strengthens the sense of absurdity in every sentence, as it drowns out the severity of each overly intellectualized conversation. For example, “there is division between the doctrine of separation of powers and democracy,” is just one snippet of dialogue from the last episode. Imagine how un-serious that phrase becomes when it is sung by a lifeless, electronic voice against soppy rock music.

In one of the more widely circulating images from Cloud Cuckoo Land, Robert Janitz and the actor playing his young son lie awake wearing pajamas. They do not face one another. Both seem deep in thought. It’s clear that the 2 actors are both standing straight up, but the image behind them displays an illustration of a large bed seen from above, implying that the characters are lying down. Or pretending to lie down. The scene expresses a true tension and an inability to feel comfort even in what ought to be the most comfortable of places–one’s own bedroom.

Using similar scenes in a stream of dream-like sequences guided by hypnotic music, Moskowitz and Trager describe a hypocrisy in community pride, what David Finkelstein provocatively writes of as “part of something terribly wrong with the entire utopian experiment of America.” By this, he points toward the tendency to idealize one’s own beliefs while looking down on the ideals established by outside communities. As interpreted from Cloud Cuckoo Land, everyone seems to represent and reject some sort of niche. For a nation as large and as varied as the United States, that sort of metaphor could assist us in understanding the complex social issues we face as a country.

My Water Broke

On a night cooler than most June evenings, the playful brutality of Genevieve White’s performance work manifested as she invited the audience to burst cold water balloons hanging across her torso. Politely, White approached nearby viewers as if to pass out raffle tickets. People were free to choose any balloon to burst. The splashing water combined with the artist’s upfront gestures created a sort of awakening among festival attendees who had been sitting through two and a half hours of onscreen works by this point of the night. No longer were viewers absorbed in documents but in live movements, which seemed enhanced by the previous lengthy hours watching projected images . In each other, the group formed part of a moving spectacle, our attention shifting from White and her heavy costume, to the water at our feet, and to each balloon popper.

Williamsburg Veteran Makes a New Home on the Ridge

Jeniece Primus — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:14:09 +0000

Fred Valentine’s salt-and-pepper hair easily betrays his status as an O.G. of the New York art scene. In the nineties, long before the condos came, he helped to create art and performance happenings in Williamsburg under the names Organism and Mustard. A mix of art, performance, and music mayhem, they were the forebears of the warehouse events now publicized by the likes of Nonsense NYC. Fred’s involvement in this scene climaxed in 1995 when he co-founded Galapagos Art Space in its old guise on N. 6th street. Unfortunately it didn’t take very long before he and his cohorts were priced out of the scene that they helped to start. But now Freddy’s back to launch VALENTINE Gallery in Ridgewood–Bushwick’s quieter, better-looking cousin. Just don’t call him a pioneer. Read more on The Bushwick Dream.

Artist Profile: Hiroshi Tachibana

Jeniece Primus — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:04:09 +0000

Hiroshi Tachibana uses a gel transfer method to make “physical paintings”. During Bushwick Open Studios Hiroshi told me that he doesn’t choose which of the colorful layers should go together on a given piece, but instead listens to how they “talk together” and uses this “conversation” to guide him. The results are colorful, quietly exuberant pieces that don’t feel forced in any way. Recently he answered a few more questions about his work and life in Bushwick.

What’s your favorite medium of expression?
I make paintings but I don’t usually paint directly onto the canvas in the traditional sense. Instead I create separate skins of acrylic paint on sheets of polyurethane. Once the paint is dry these marks get peeled from the plastic and transferred, in reverse, onto canvas with gel medium. Often many, many layers will be put together to make a single painting.

What most inspires your work?
Anything can inspire me: images, colors, shapes or materials. It’s more about a sensation of curiosity, I just follow my curiosity wherever it may lead me.

If you could choose to be a part of any moment in history, not including the present one, what time would you choose?
I have always had a strong affinity for the artists Agnes Martin, Barnett Newman, and Robert Mangold. Minimalism and artists influenced by the minimalist movement have played a big role in shaping me as an artist. Maybe I would have to choose to be a part of the art movement in the late sixties, early seventies, when minimalism was at its peak.

How has your work been influenced by Bushwick?
Because many of my artist friends now live in this area, it is easy to have studio visits with others. Being able to share ideas and give feedback to each other on a regular basis is a huge advantage to living in this neighborhood.

Who are some of the other Bushwick artists you admire?
Tina Schneider, Bjoern Meyer-Ebrecht, Andy Cross, Pat Berran and Yasue Maetake.

What’s you favorite Bushwick hangout and why?
Roberta’s has really good artisanal wood-oven pizza. Thin crust! The restaurant has a really nice feeling, too.

Do you do any activities outside of your art and your studio that contribute to the larger Bushwick / Ridgewood community?
I pretty much only make paintings and sleep in Ridgewood, but I hope to curate shows here in the near future.

A Discussion with Cathy Choi

Audrey Tran — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 04:27:05 +0000

Cathy Choi is a sculptural painter based in Bushwick and she recently participated in BOS ’11. For this post, I’ve posed a few questions about Choi’s practice and views of our community in contrast to the other art communities she’s experienced abroad.

Audrey Tran (AIB): Tell me about any current projects you have going on. (This can be anything, shows, collaborations, projects in your studio, or even just any of the latest fascinations you might have with materials, learning process, etc).

Cathy Choi: I’m continuing my series of “Liquid” paintings and would like to do larger scale works. I’m very excited to see where it will lead me. I’d also like to explore a kinesthetic sound/sculpture installation based on a person’s body frequency in reaction to color and light and sound. The idea came from one of my glue paintings. It leans more toward a conceptual approach that is more metaphysical. I’m in the process of researching materials and how to do it technically. Since these ideas are in its infancy, I need to let it sit in my brain and let it maturate a bit.

AIB: What attracted you to Bushwick NY?
Choi: To be honest, I had no idea that the studio I found in Bushwick is in the midst of a burgeoning art scene. I came here from a very practical necessity of finding an affordable studio. Synchronicity is wonderful.

AIB: I noticed that you studied Art both here in the U.S and abroad, and you also were born in Korea. What kind of differences did you notice in the different educational systems?

Choi: Having this mix of cultural backgrounds has been confusing growing up yet a great asset as I’ve gotten oler. I’ve always thought my influences came primarily from a western perspective in art. It hasn’t been until recently I’m realizing how much influence my Eastern heritage has affected my inclinations and proclivities with my creative process and so much of who I am and why I’m drawn to certain things.

When I was doing my graduate studies in Italy, the biggest difference I noticed was the Italian system stressed apprenticeship, learning from a “master” first. And a subtle difference was their approach to critiquing the student’s work.

Italy and Switzerland surprised me the most because no matter who on the street you spoke to, no matter the person’s educational background, they seemed to revere you because you’re an “artist” – in ways not so prevalent in the American milieu.

AIB: Have you participated in Bushwick Open Studios before? If so, are there any good moments you’d like to share?

Choi: This is the first BOS I’ve participated in. It’s really been a positive experience because BOS provided a venue to meet other artists that are practically your neighbors but somehow paths never crossed – even though you may share the same street address to your studio. The BOS really facilitated a “meeting of minds” and created a way to connect by opening your door.

The other aspect of BOS I appreciate is that it by-passes some of the “gates” you have to navigate through to have your work shown. This event empowers the artist to dictate how and what you show and helps to connect with artists, collectors, and the public in an independent way.

AIB: Can you share a past memory involving water?

This sounds like a really interesting fascination. Or perhaps you there are other pieces of art/or music/ or films involving water that have influenced your work?

Choi: There is work by Masaru Emoto that shows human consciousness has an effect on the molecular structure of water. It’s quite astounding how complex this element is. There is also a documentary video I’ve seen recently, done by Voice Entertainment that explains how water retains memory.

There is an artist who made me think about color in a different way. Even though Wolfgang Laib’s work is not related to water, his sensitivity to material is brilliant. Using collected pollen, he sifts them as a square onto the floor. It is the most intense yellow I’ve ever seen. It’s left an indelible impression.

But ultimately for me, it’s simply the visual sensation of seeing flowing water that I get excited about. I can watch water flowing over rocks for hours. It’s those memories from direct experience that I directly tap into and helps to motivate me to create work.

Artist Profile: Rafael Fuchs

Jeniece Primus — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:01:25 +0000

And you thought that you were busy during Bushwick Open Studios. The work of photographer Rafael (Rafi) Fuchs was included in five different shows during the event, including an exhibit of thirty prints from his Postcards from Bushwick project at Café Swallow. Here are his views on art, Bushwick and life in general.

What’s your favorite thing about Bushwick?
One of my favorite things about Bushwick is the young raw energy that this neighborhood and it people exude. It’s a new playground for young artists who are interacting with each other, exchanging ideas and creating shows, performances and events.

How long have you lived here? What changes have you noticed in the time you’ve spent in Bushwick?
I have lived here for over 6 years and have witnessed the new restaurants, business and venues that are continually establishing themselves in the area. Also the fact that folks in their thirties are moving out here in addition to the people in their twenties.

What’s you favorite Bushwick hangout and why?
My favorite Bushwick hangout place is the benches area by 49 Bogart St. (underneath my studio.) This little stretch was described by a friend of mine as a “fairy tale” area. It’s like an oasis, where people are passing by from or to the subway station, and come to get their supplies from the deli or the coffee shop. It’s like an urban beach.

What most inspires your work?
The people that I’m taking pictures of are the main source of my inspiration.

What project are you currently working on?
I’m now working on producing a book about Bushwick, a personal survey of the past 7 years.

Who’s your favorite Bushwick artist (other than yourself, of course)?
One of my favorite Bushwick artists is Makram Hamdan, a dancer, performance and installation artist.

If you could choose to be a part of any moment in history (not including the present one), what time would you choose?
I would choose to live in the late 30′s and kill Hitler. (How come nobody did it back then?)

What would you do if you were not an artist?
I would be a tour guide (still in a very “artistic way”, though.)

BOS Blogger Favorites

sarahlowndes — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:23:00 +0000

This is one of the first year’s we’ve had a blog up and running for an AIB festival, and we couldn’t have made it happen without the work of dedicated and talented volunteer bloggers. See below for a few of our bloggers’ favorite BOS2011 experiences, shows and artists.

JACOB McPHERSON: Top 2 Locations
1) Hart Studios: Brand new art and exhibition space in an old barber shop with a focus on conceptual and experimental art.

2) Bushwick Beer Garden: DIY space with a hand-crafted backyard garden. Like the Facebook page to get info on events at this homemade beer garden.

ORIANA LECKERT: Top 2 Moments
1) Wandering into The Hive NYC and being so warmly welcomed. After ogling the amazing art and taking a quick tour of the terrific space (including a visit to the rooftop beehive), the artists laid out an amazing spread of homemade food for us: boiled eggs, hummus, couscous salad, avocados and cheese.

2) Traipsing through the seemingly endless Schoolhouse (330 Ellery St.), being assailed by a roller-skating guitarist, a lollipop maker/screenprint artist, mobiles, photographs, collages, collections…just room after room after room of incredible art.

JENIECE PRIMUS: Top 2 Performances
1) Seeing Gordon Voidwell perform at the Natural Ass Sessions presented by Pedal Power NYC. First of all, anything featuring bicycles is likely to get high marks from me. Pedal Power gets volunteers on bike-mounted generators and uses the energy created to power live performances by some amazing bands. They took over a warehouse on Troutman Street and created such an amazing energy–literally. I was fortunate enough to catch Gordon Voidwell doing his thing on stage, it was awesome!

2) Listening to Listener at the Bushwick Dream Secret Rooftop Show. I think we’ve all been waiting for the summer to arrive so as to enjoy one of the best Bushwick traditions–rooftop parties. This secret show on Jefferson St. will be a tough act to follow. La Confidential, Homeless Gospel Choir, Ancient History and Timatim Fitfit all played but the highlight for me was Listener. They’re a “talk music” band with impactful lyrics and a unique stage presence. They hail from out of state but seemed perfectly suited to the Bushwick night air!

SARAH LOWNDES (Me!): My Top 2
1) I was completely taken by surprise by the Onderdonk House. It’s this 18th century farmhouse down on Flushing (1820 Flushing Ave.) with preserved architectural and interior design and CHICKENS. Actual chickens, a small graveyard in the backyard and a sculpture garden set up for BOS–who knew something like this could be found in Bushwick? Throw in some free knishes and live music, and it was a near perfect way to spend an afternoon.

2) One of our early posts this season was on Factory Fresh, and since reading Jeniece’s coverage, I’d been pumped about visiting. I finally made my way out there and LOVED it. Zeitgeist + Bushwick spirit = Factory Fresh for sure. The best part was being welcomed to relax on one of the outdoor pieces (“KEEP ON GRASS”) by one of the Skewville brothers. The sun was shining, had ice cream in hand…what peace.

What were your Top 2′s? Let us know by shooting us an email at press@artsinbushwick.org!

Artist Profile: Artur Ratton Kummer

Audrey Tran — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:33:26 +0000

Filmmaker and photographer, Artur Kummer is one of the 350 artists who participated in BOS ’11. He exhibited his work as part of an artist collective, Pixel Playground, which includes Cern One, Cyphered Threads, Kika von Kluck, Lilka Hara, and several other Bushwick-based artists and musicians. Rebecca Baird-Remba, one of AIB’s volunteer writers from the NYU community, prepared the following interview with Artur before BOS weekend.

Rebecca Baird-Remba: What’s your favorite medium of expression/what kind of art do you do?

Artur Kummer: I am a filmmaker, and I often mix fiction and documentary. I am interested in capturing performances by non-actors and method actors to create a narrative full of surprises. I am also a cinematographer and photographer, and lately I’ve been doing collage work and exploring my fear of performing by putting myself on stage. During the Bushwick Open Studios I will be coming out as a performance artist for the first time in my life.

RBR: What most inspires your work?

AK: People’s ability to survive the pains of life with humor and bravery, New York City, record covers, wild jazz musicians, National Geographic Mags from the 70′s, Brazilian psychedelia, comedians and classic cinematography. I am also very inspired by the colors red and yellow.

RBR: What are you planning for Bushwick Open Studios?

AK: I am organizing a big collective show featuring my own work and also Lilka Hara’s work, with whom I share my studio space with, showing photography, video and sculpture. We are also curating a really interesting group show mixing artists form different walks of life and different medias such as Cern (grafitti and water color, his work is all around the neighborhood including the famous Morgan/Seigel corner mural), Argentinian artist Alex Gruss, sound artists represented by The Prog Lady, Joel Stones, Lone Wolf and really interesting performances by Cyphered Threads, Duben Canales, Kika Von Kluck and myself. Also paintings by Chris Millstein, rock n’ roll renaissance man Greg McKeighan and photos by Alexandra Henry. Last by not least we will be showing the “filthiest short film ever”, ‘The Killer Trainny” by Antonio Santini and we will have food provided by Bun-Mi a culinary project by photographer Liudi Hara.

All this art extravaganza is happening under the name Pixel Playground which is an organization we started that provides digital media training for underprivileged students and gives creative and technical support for emerging artists and filmmakers. Bushwick Open Studios is the perfect opportunity to be part of this amazing community. We are very excited and it will be very fun to put this incredible collage of personalties and art together.

RBR: And what are your current projects?

My current projects, besides Pixel Playground, are a travel documentary on Brazilian Psychedelic music and a photography album mixing found photography and low res digital photos from my own archive.

RBR: What’s your favorite thing about Bushwick?

AK: The sun light at that magical hour hitting the orange of the brick walls of the buildings and the sudden silence that happens once in a while.

RBR: What changes have you noticed in the time you’ve spent in Bushwick?

AK: Besides the new restaurants and groups of tourists (sometimes with a tourist guide which reminds me of Jacques Tati every time I see them taking pictures of garbage bags and trash cans), I think the art community is getting more diverse and mature and finally finding a balance of co-existence with the communities that were here before.

RBR: What’s in your fridge?

AK: Unexposed 16mm film, exposed 16mm film, cod fish soaked on water, carrots and oranges and a big bottle of cold fancy beer that I’ve been saving for a while for whatever reason I can’t remember anymore.

Artist Profile: Eric Trosko

Jeniece Primus — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:08:39 +0000

Eric Trosko is surrounded by ducks. Many of the paintings in his Troutman Street studio include the critters. For the most part they are portrayed in ways not found in nature. Why the interest in the web-footed creatures?

“Ducks have personality,” he explains. Indeed. There’s also a UMass connection: as a student there Eric was fascinated by the huge pond that dominated the campus. Unfortunately ducks are in short supply in Bushwick. Nevertheless Eric, who’s also a member of the enigmatic FLAN collective, still likes it well enough.

What’s your favorite thing about Bushwick?
Bushwick is different now compared to when I first moved here, so this has changed. Aesthetically I used to love it’s desolation, like I love the desert.

Right now it’s the great people that have moved here recently. The social / creative scene is going through a good period right now. There are a lot of talented people who seem open to exploring new ideas, or at least the possibility of that.

Do you feel that your works have been influenced by the neighborhood?
Of course it has but I am not sure about specifics. I think I like to work with aesthetics which have a feeling of the “cast off” or “unconsidered”, which could be influenced by my early years here. New York City in general has made me approach my working process with a pragmatic efficiency, otherwise I don’t think I would ever complete anything.

What’s your favorite medium of expression?
It has to be a toss up between food and sex.

If you could choose to be apart of any moment in history (not including the present one), what time would you choose?
Now. Maybe after the end of the world…I always wonder.

What’s in your fridge?
I cook a lot, so many things. All kind of plants and animals. My liquor cabinet has scotch, cognac, bourbon, vodka, and tequila among other things…which reminds me, summer is here so I need to buy some gin.

Artist Profile: Steve Myers of Mighty Fine

sarahlowndes — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:36:54 +0000

Did you check out any of the music that went down at BOS this year? SO GOOD. We caught up with Steve Myers of Mighty Fine, one of the bands that played at this year’s music festival. What’s he got to say? Here it goes…

What did you do for BOS2011?
What we do at every event or show that Mighty Fine plays. “A rump shaken good time!”

What motivated you to be involved in AIB?
For the past few years I would get the emails about what was going on and never knew who was behind it. When AIB asked for us to be involved this year, we jumped at the chance.

What’s your favorite thing about Bushwick?
I’m old school, back in 1999 – 2000 there were massive loft parties in Bushwick mainly because there really wasn’t any bars in the area. They were barely bars on the south side of Williamsburg…maybe Art Land and that was it. If you didn’t want to hang out on Bedford, you created your own happenings and that was Bushwick..

What’s you favorite Bushwick hangout and why?
Whoever I’m dating at the time’s loft. I also dig The Beauty Bar….I like to keep it simple. Just bourbon, good music and someone to dance with.

Do you feel that your music has been influenced by the neighborhood?
Our music is a long distance love affair between Brooklyn and New Orleans. So sorta?

What would you do with a million dollars?
Are you giving me a Milli? That’s great, now I can by that old fire house I always wanted! What are you doing next week? Wanna go fire house shopping with me?

Mighty Fine’s new album “Get Up to Get Down” will be available via Drug Front Records this summer.

Volunteer Profile: Alex Fredericks from Bushwick Open Pages

orianal — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 01:29:09 +0000

As a Brooklyn blogger and publishing professional, I was incredibly excited about this weekend’s Bushwick Open Pages Indie Publishing Fair. It brought together organizations all along the publishing continuum, including literary journals, online publications, zines, letterpress publishers, brick-and-mortar booksellers, and more. Some of the participants: BOMB, n+1, A Public Space, Birdsong, and Fiction Circus. There were also two panels, with guests like Richard Nash (Cursor/Red Lemonade), Saba Afshar (Slice Magazine/Brooklyn Writers’ Conference), Tobias Carroll (Volume 1 Brooklyn/The Scowl), Paddy Johnson (Art Fag City), Hrag Vartanian (Hyperallergic), and Marina Galperina (AnimalNY). What a lineup!

Unfortunately, I got sidetracked seeing so much other amazing art, and I never actually made it over to the fair. Horrible! But I did get a chance to talk with Slice Magazine’s Alex Fredericks, who organized the event. Click through for his thoughts on Cuban sandwiches, arts organizing, grubby labor in dank cellars, MTA persecution, and a whole lot more.

Arts in Bushwick: What’s your favorite thing about Bushwick?

Alex: Specifically? The boojie-Cuban sandwich at Bodega Wine Bar. Generally? The fact that, as a neighborhood, it manages to fairly well integrate the existing community with unused/reused space. It allows for creative work and industry to exist without the sense of either Williamsburg-y soulless displacement or LES-y party circus.

Arts in Bushwick: Why do you think AIB and Slice are a perfect match?

Alex: Well, nobody’s a perfect match. In terms of community building, Slice actually has a more pragmatic, “trade school” approach to arts organizing. I mean, we love the idea of bringing together people based purely on their passion to create, but the fact of the matter is, we’re also really dedicated to demystifying the commercial publishing world for rising writers, whereas AIB seems to exist more for the sake of nurturing and channeling an idealistic creative energy. I almost feel like Slice fits in with AIB the way a pasta maker fits on a stand mixer. Slice is pretty specific; AIB is pretty all-purpose.

Arts in Bushwick: The Bushwick creative scene is often focused on the visual arts; do you think writing/publishing/media is as well represented and important in the neighborhood?

Alex: It’s much harder to “represent” writing/publishing/media because, unlike visual or performance art, the more object-tied and/or site-specific it is, the more easily it can judged to be a failure. Generally speaking, you don’t “edition” writing; you want it to be disseminated for as long as possible, as widely as possible, forever. So it’s hard to say that it’s underrepresented. There are a great number of young writers and editors in Bushwick—Justin Taylor, Melissa Febos, rumored sightings of a free-range Michael Cunningham, not to mention half of the Gawker staff. But these people are “represented” universally. It’s not impossible that a Bushwick writers’ identity may arise (lord knows a Fort Greene writers’ identity did, and it apparently made Jonathan Lethem puke), and it would be fascinating if it did, but I don’t really expect it. That being said, the act of publishing, as an endeavor that requires collaboration, often does become more site-specific. Moreover, it’s so much less a solitary pursuit than writing. And that’s really what we’re trying to call attention to, the fact that literary arts seems like grubby labor in dank cellars, but is actually the product of a lot of people working together, and more joyous for it.

Arts in Bushwick: What’s the last amazing book you read?

Alex: Cadillac Desert, by Mark Reisner; before that was A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which is designed to make all aging punk rockers feel terribly awkward.

Arts in Bushwick: Anything you’d really like to tell the world about Slice, Bushwick, Open Pages…or anything else?

Alex: About Open Pages: a lot of what I say and think about community was sort of codified by two people. One is Stephanie Anderson of WORD. The other is Richard Nash of Cursor/Red Lemonade, a really fascinating experiment in building and internet community into a remunerative engine for writers.

Regarding Bushwick Open Studios: It is such a testament to Laura and Chloe and Richie and Trish and the rest of the organizers that this small neighborhood fair is getting amazing amounts of press, generating huge amounts of excitement, and being inexplicably targeted for persecution by the MTA… We’re extraordinarily lucky to have people like them around, and it’s a testament to the spirit of Bushwick that that’s where you can find them.