archive
Review by Robert Egert
Photos by Julie Lemberger
Dance is so often a spectacle, a kind of voyeuristic experience. As a member of the audience you typically sit on your ass and watch the performers do all the work. If it’s good, when it’s all over, you clap.
Christian Nguyen “Modern Surfaces” 2012 Acrylic on Plexiglas.
Scale is a blade that cuts in two directions: Big often signifies importance, especially in an environment where space is at a premium. Conversely, we all know that Good Things Come in Small Packages.
Small Sculpture (by big people) is an exhibition of miniature sculpture that is a fascinating study of how the scale of things can change our perception of space and our bodies while toying with our expectations. The exhibit delivers intimate moments of delight and surprise while forcing us to slow down, look again and reject first impressions in favor of a second examination.
Sarah Bednarek; A Piano Has the Same Mass, Plywood, paint
By Robert Egert
@psychomotikon
May 4 – June 3, 2012
Co-curators Leslie Heller and Deborah Brown have organized this year’s sculpture exhibit on the grounds of the historic Onderdonk House in Ridgewood/Bushwick. Sculpture Garden features 15 pieces by 13 Brooklyn-based artists, that are situated throughout the grounds and in the farmhouse.
Shelley Hirsch and Simon Ho.
Where were you then? Greenpoint vocalist Shelley Hirsch and Swiss keyboardist composer/arranger Simon Ho’s new CD is an evocative, nostalgic, and stylistic exploration of personal and cultural memory.
Hirsch was born in East New York, Brooklyn, and has been a seminal and influential presence in the new music and performance art scenes. Throughout her rich career Hirsch has been able to continually broaden and deepen her work musically and emotionally while still making every song sound like a revelation.
Performance artist Danni Rash. Photo by Robert Egert, 2011
The Fountain Art Fair is a grungier, relaxed antidote to the more upscale Armory Show. The fair has its roots in Williamsburg and connections to Miami but for the third consecutive year, the exhibits were staged on the aging light ship, The Frying Pan, docked on the Hudson at West 26th Street. The Frying Pan has been set up with temporary walls, a tent roof, a bar, and heat, and one walks across a rail bridge and up a gangplank to enter. It took me a while to get accustomed to the slow rocking motion of the ship on the river (one artist, who has now spent a number of continuous days on board, reported dizziness).
Fountain brings together a kindred but diverse collection of exhibitors from Brooklyn and farther afield. What unites them is a passion for expression, immediacy, and meaning that relies on established visual motifs and not on theory. The result is unkempt, unpolished, and direct. Most of the work tends to elude commodification, though at least some of the dealers and artists are consciously trying to develop a financial basis to continue their work—even if many of the artifacts are ephemeral.