“What Art Can Do”
Art 101, 101 Grand St., through 10/17

The six artists in “What Art Can Do” have at least one thing in common (and it isn’t their artistic styles): they all run galleries in Williamsburg. Richard Timperio, who heads the Sideshow gallery, contributes lively watercolors of colorful rings and rectangles. His taste for audacious abstraction becomes evident in his own paintings as well as in the work of artists he exhibits at his gallery. Daniel Aycock (Front Room Gallery) offers an animation called “Diagram of a Perpetual Motion Machine Powered by Art World Personalities” — basically a Ferris-wheel contraption with attached nodules, spinning in an endless loop. Aycock and the others in this show are “art world personalities.” Are they part of the machine?

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A man named Elliot Lessing gathered together 17 artists, and had them install works pertaining to water in McCarren Park.

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Williamsburg and Greenpoint have a passionate shared environment, a strong sense of community, especially when it comes to the arts. This weekend the area played host to two “arts and crafts” related events.

One of the art related events was the unveiling of Future Phenomena, a piece by artist Amanda Browder—a large scale (40 foot) fabric art sculpture covered the entire side of a building on Manhattan Ave. It was brightly coloured and beautifully pieced together but the most impressive detail about the art work, is the fact that it was made, in all its glory, by volunteer hands, showing a true representation of the group effort in the Greenpoint community; sewing from March until June. This piece is paving the way for the much needed ‘together-ness’ of the area and its inhabitants; a physical display of the community’s effort to recycle and reuse. With all the construction, activism, and I’m sad to say change, that this community is facing, this piece sheds light onto a much darker phenomena.

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“Mystic Stylez:” Deuce 7 + Friends

Deuce 7 is a prolific street artist from the Midwest whose work you’ve probably seen even if you aren’t familiar with his name. He’s got something of a following with people who follow street art but also maintains a low profile and there’s definitely an air of mystery surrounding him. This is probably appropriate given the hit and run tactics required of the form. Deuce 7 seems to want to avoid conflict and erasures: he often chooses buildings slated for demolition, concrete barriers and other surfaces that don’t have proprietary owners. Deuce 7 represents the breed of street art that is more image-based than typographical. He also stands apart because he works with a broader range of techniques and materials in addition to traditional spray paint.

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The human body as a subject in art tells us as much about our society as anything intended by the artist. Even representations of the inner workings of the body reflect social beliefs and cultural perspectives. The ancient Chinese, for example, had no tradition of autopsy and as a result had no clear mapping of the internal organs. Despite this, they were able to develop a sophisticated system of medicine based on the outward signs of inward disease.

Today’s dominant perspective on the human body is a systems approach (circulatory system, central nervous system, etc.). This can be interpreted as an expression of the way we educate and organize physicians professionally rather than an empirical truth.

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