DEBORAH BROWN, “THE BUSHWICK PAINTINGS”

Bushwick, in general, conjures images of bulky warehouses and derelict factories, cyclone fences and concrete walls. Deborah Brown’s paintings of the neighborhood enliven such scenery with spiraling foliage and skies the color of Easter eggs. Brown works by making plein-air drawings around Bushwick and posting the pictures on her studio walls. She then extracts details from the drawings—utility lines, razor wire, the tops of factories—and places them in her paintings. These scenes could potentially be of any industrial district in any American town, but they are distinctively Bushwick.

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“Jetfire,” a sculpture of a giant toy plane by artist Luisa Caldwell, made a safe landing onto the roof of Diner at the corner of Broadway and Berry Street, yesterday.

The 10ft x 8ft x 4ft sculpture is made of laminated plywood, cut and slotted like the toy balsam-wood version. “It’s nostalgia for a more innocent time,” said Caldwell.

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AHOYA, an aerial show performed by Sky Box, NYC, a group of 30 students and their teacher, was an ambitious and at times impressive visual spectacle. The show which played for three nights, this past week, at House of Yes in East Williamsburg, was choreographed, directed and written by Jordan Baker, founder of Sky Box, the only aerial theatre group in NY. The performers ranged in skill level but all were more than competent. They’d have to be, to climb 25 ft into the air, and perform physical feats with only a swath of silk. I learned that one performer has a corporate day job and aerialism is his hobby.  Hmmm, aerialism for de-stressing!?

Tying the various performances together was a story line about a plane carrying a starlet and her overworked assistant which crashes onto a jungle island filled with wild animals and unfriendly natives, a very cute dinosaur on stilts, and a starlet-charming gorilla—a kind of King Kong of thirties-era adventure movies. The costumes and makeup were wonderful, and lent the event a high production value, and for the price of a $20, it wasn’t cheap.  Sets were minimal with the exception of a funny silver lame soft-sculpture plane that comes swinging onto the stage, much like the chandelier in the Broadway musical The Phantom of the Opera. But with aerialism, the colorful swaths of silk from which the performers hang, create the main visual focus. The lighting at times wasn’t the best, leaving the upper reaches of the space unlit and performers in the dark. There were two live drummers, accompanying mostly recorded pop hits, which was total audio upbeat.

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NORMAN MOONEY, “WALL FLOWERS”
Causey Contemporary 92 Wythe Ave., through 4/13

Causey Contemporary unveiled its vast new location with Norman Mooney’s show of five geometric sculptures that combine industrial brawniness with floral daintiness. Three freestanding constructions called “Windseeds” resemble white pollen grains from a distance and appear as though a gentle gust would send them tumbling toward McCarren Park. Up close, however, their sharp aluminum projections make you fear for your safety. All the sculptures, in fact, elicit this anxiety; touch them the wrong way and you will bleed.

“Wall Flower No.1,” a starburst of yellow aluminum blades, allures you toward its core like a thirsty bumblebee before you jump back from its snarl of prickly metal. The dark-red “Wall Flower No. 2” seems somewhat less menacing simply by the nature of its material: translucent resin. In this piece, Mooney has arranged the projections in a more intricate pattern, jutting out from the center then receding at the periphery. This creates an optical illusion in which the spikes at the edges appear to wiggle as you stare at the midpoint. Simplicity of form belies complex emotional power in Mooney’s sculptures—danger and delicacy coexist harmoniously and manufactured materials imitate natural wonders.

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February 2010 — Landscape Edition

The start of the new decade brings a slew of new art shows to North Brooklyn in which landscape plays a central role. Here are some of our favorites.

BENNETT MORRIS, “CLIMATE UNTAMED”
Like the Spice Gallery
224 Roebling St.
through 2/14
Bennett Morris conjures phosphorescent beauty from post-apocalyptic landscapes in his photographs of sculptural models. At his studio, Morris constructs elaborate sets out of found objects and submerges them under water. He then adds pigments to the water, creating smoky swirls of color around the topsy-turvy structures. Finally, he photographs the results, the finished products resembling dystopian versions of Romantic landscape paintings from the 19th century.

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