Feels like summer. Photo: Eric Ryan Anderson
archive
Joe Amrhein stands in the glare of a floodlight and surveys the rising clutter that crowds this giant brick cavern, a towering old boiler room that he must transform, in two short weeks, into an extension of Pierogi 2000, his small but influential art gallery a few blocks away. “It’s starting to fill up in here,” he says with a satisfied smile. “We’re already running low on space.” Earlier, Amrhein ushered in two sizable arrivals: the six-foot wooden crate that holds an 800-pound sphere made of security monitors, and an even-larger metal crate containing a four-and-a-half ton piece of Antarctic ice.
Just a week earlier, this defunct boiler room in a factory on Williamsburg’s North 14th Street looked like the backdrop for the dramatic confrontation of a film noir. The room’s dirty brick walls stretch nearly fifty feet to the ceiling, where a metal catwalk spans the room’s width. Birds swing in and out, perching on the broken panes of a window, where a dim light ekes through decades of grime. A brick boiler, built in 1931, stands like an industrial mausoleum with hinged, steel portholes and a melange of pipes turning at right angles, winding across each other and doubling back, as if Jules Verne had contributed the first sculpture to this new expedition.
By Eric Kohn
When Harvey Elgart first started looking around the Williamsburg-Greenpoint area for places to open a movie theater, he saw a wide open opportunity in a neighborhood devoid of commercial movie options. “It was under-screened,” recalls Elgart, who at the time already operated the Cobble Hill and Kew Gardens Cinemas. “Few theaters could have found the proper zoning rights and price.”
A giant poster of a brain tells you you’re at the right apartment. Under the screaming wheels of the elevated J train, and up the flight of stairs, is a sizable loft painted in gray.
Grace Exhibition Space, a converted loft at 840 Broadway, is one of the few performance art galleries in New York City, ridding itself of a stage and focusing on the immersion of artist and audience. With a suggested $10 donation at the door, the gallery hosts artist talks and art events every other Thursday and Friday, providing several hours of performance by both local and international artists.
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.