Detail of “No Sleep ‘til Brooklyn,” 2011, an installation by the People’s Art Collective at the Bogart Salon. Photo by Matthew C. Lange

At the center of the Bogart Salon, toys and trash make up a sprawling model of two very different allegorical places, the “Art Scene” and “Hedge Fund City,” connected by choo-choo trains. The model was supposedly devised by a clandestine group of art collectors from the wealthy suburbs of Westchester County, New York, and Fairfield County,Connecticut. They call themselves the People’s Art Collective.

In the “Art Scene” section of the model, we find many familiar characters from across Brooklyn’s artsy enclaves—toy figures of bearded men, a deejay, laptop users in a coffee shop, and giant rats along the Gowanus Canal. There’s a box wallpapered in the visage of an artists’ loft called Heartbreak Hotel. And a “Volcano of Youthful Passions” made of empty beer bottles, crushed cigarette packs, foam peanuts, and Mickey Mouse souvenirs, wrapped in tape and painted blue. Crowded and dirty, the “Art Scene” encapsulates an outsider’s perspective of our fair borough, a disdainful view that is more-or-less accurate.

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Williamsburg will soon lose two more of its beloved galleries. The Hogar Collective, which has graced Grand Street for the last eight years, is set to close shop at the end of February, and Capricious Space will lock its gates for good in mid-March. Both galleries say goodbye with group shows of their artists.

Christelle de Castro’s “Julesy, Accident,” 2011, part of the exhibition “The Show Must Go On” at Capricious Space.

What does the future hold for these institutions? Todd Rosenbaum of The Hogar Collective told the WG that he plans to concentrate on his own art for a few months and then open a new gallery “somewhere in New York City.” Capricious will live on as a magazine, book publisher, and vagabond curatorial project.
 

The Hogar Collection will be replaced by a hair salon.

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Nina Lola Bachhuber’s “Untitled/2010.” (calfskin, steer horns, wigs, polystyrene, paint, tights, leather, branches) Photo by Javier Cambre, courtesy of Momenta Art

Nina Lola Bachhuber can glean a lot of evocation out of just a couple materials. In her rectangular banners, or “flags,” currently at Momenta Art, those materials are silky acetate fabric and human hair. Though uniform in dimension and color (all works in the show are black), each flag possesses a unique personality through the use of strategic cuts and woven hair. A few resemble dresses with fur trim. Others are more animalistic, evincing horse manes and rodent tails. The creepiest pieces, however, have got to be the ones that look like the backs of human heads—pigtails, ponytails, combed coifs—all of which could be scalps removed from schoolgirls. The flags are like tribal insignia for esoteric neuroses.

At the center of the exhibition sits a sculpture that further instills the idea of primal urges. Two beasts perch on tree branches and square off as if preparing to do battle. These twin creatures are made of calfskin masks the size and shape of human heads, with shoulder-length curly hair and steer horns protruding from the mouth area. They evoke sadomasochism as well as some dark sacred ritual. Monochromatic and bleak, “Nachtschatten” raises questions of mortality, femininity, instinct, and allegiance. Like Joseph Beuys before her, Bachhuber finds sacrosanct energy in organic materials. Unlike Beuys, her work is pristine and under control.

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