fivemyles

[I’m counting down to the release of the Brooklyn Spaces book by doing one mini-post per day, sharing teasers of some of the places you’ll find in it.]

neighborhood: crown heights | space type: gallery | active since: 1999 | links: websitefacebook, twitter

“Everyone in the neighborhood knows, if you need something, come to FiveMyles,” says Hanne Tierney, founder and artistic director of the Crown Heights gallery, performance venue, and community gathering space. Hanne opened the 1,500-square-foot nonprofit gallery, which is dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging, under-represented, and minority artists, in a former garage in 1999. FiveMyles presents six formal exhibitions each year, and close to half the artists shown are African American. “We’ve always stood with Africa, East Africa in particular,” Hanne says. “And it’s very exciting for the kids in the neighborhood to see contemporary work from Africa.

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pix by Maximus Comissar

This year, a 172-unit luxury condo will open two doors down from FiveMyles, which Hanne fears could mark the end for the community. But she continues to fight for her neighbors: screening documentaries, hosting talks, writing letters to Albany about police harassment, and, of course, curating more and more exhibits, showing the work of more and more artists. “Hanne is so important to this community,” says Francelle Jones, whose work has been featured in the gallery. “She brings people together, and she allows people who live in this neighborhood to feel as though they’re still part of something. That’s so important.”

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Want to learn more about FiceMyles, and 49 other incredible Brooklyn Spaces? Buy the book!

big irv’s

[I’m counting down to the release of the Brooklyn Spaces book by doing one mini-post per day, sharing teasers of some of the places you’ll find in it.]

neighborhood: williamsburg | space type: art & events | active since: 2012 | links: website, facebook, twitter

“New York can be very isolating, and when you’re isolated, you can start to feel a bit listless,” says editor Mark D., one of the members of the Big Irv’s collective. “Being part of an art collective is very energizing.” His housemate Kaitlyn agrees: “For me, community is huge. And being part of a community of artists—it’s a dream come true.”

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The Big Irv’s collective members are veterans of communal living situations, including the Bushwick Trailer Park, so they’re accustomed to working as a group. This space, which over the years has been a bodega, a hardware store, and a small Pentacostal church, has nine art studios and a shared workshop in the basement. The main space functions as an art gallery and performance space, with events ranging from music to performance art to storytelling.

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Want to learn more about Big Irv’s, and 49 other incredible Brooklyn Spaces? Buy the book!

 

freecandy

[I’ll be counting down to the release of the Brooklyn Spaces book by doing one mini-post per day, sharing teasers of some of the places you’ll find in it.]

neighborhood: clinton hill | space type: art gallery & coworking | active since: 2009 | links: website, facebook, twitter

A few years into its stride, Freecandy has become a malleable space for independent creative individuals to convene and showcase their work. By day it’s used for coworking, with creative types building apps, miximg music, managing bands, and designing streetwear; by night the space morphs into an art gallery, music venue, black-box theatre, or whatever the situation calls for.

all photos by Alix Piorun

all photos by Alix Piorun

Founder Todd Triplett’s goal is for Freecandy to bring all different kinds of people together in what he calls “directed serendipity” to see what develops. Todd, whose grandfather was a jazz musician, believes that art and music have the power to change the world, and he wants Freecandy to carry on the cultural legacy of Bed-Stuy, Clinton Hill, and Ft. Greene. “The vibe of this place, the bones, it’s just so authentic,” Todd says. “It’s exactly what I envisioned when I was moving to New York.”

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Want to learn more about Freecandy, and 49 other incredible Brooklyn Spaces? Buy the book!

 

pioneer works

space type: nonprofit, skillshare, gallery | neighborhood: red hook | active since: 2012 | links: website, facebook, twitter, wikipedia

Pioneer Works is huge. It’s around 27,000 square feet with 40-foot ceilings, which is just truly, absolutely enormous. The building dates back all the way to 1866, and for more than a century was home to Pioneer Iron Works, one of the largest machine manufacturers in the country.

Prominent Brooklyn artist Dustin Yellin bough the building in 2010. As he told the New York Times, “My crazy dream is to create a kind of utopian art center.” And Pioneer Works is something pretty close to that dream. The nonprofit has several elements, including a massive exhibition gallery and event space (one of the biggest in the city), classes and workshops, a science lab with a powerful photographic microscope, artist residencies, institutional residencies (currently the Clocktower Gallery), a radio show, and a modern art periodical called Intercourse Magazine.

all photos by Maximus Comissar

The events range from open studios to lectures (“How to Fake Your Own Death” is popular and recurring), from Hackathons to concerts, with musical acts like Spiritualized, Ariel Pink, and Omar Souleyman. And the classes are equally varied—some recent examples include “Physical Storytelling,” “The Alchemy of Light,” “From Tesla to the Transistor,” “Homebrew Kimchi,” “NY Theremin Society Workshop,” and “Lock-Picking and Open-Source Security.”

So get out to Red Hook and learn something! But first read the Q&A with David, Pioneer Works’ Director of Education.

brooklyn spaces: Tell me a bit about the history of this building.
David: Okay! I know this because we had a Red Hook history class here recently. It was built in 1866, then in 1871 it burned down, and it was rebuilt in 1872. It was originally Pioneer Iron Works, one of the biggest iron works in the country. After that it was a tobacco-drying warehouse. Then they were doing something manufacturing until the 1950s; whatever they were making was super heavy, so they had this system to move it all around in here, and rollers set into the floor to roll it out the door. And then since the 1960s it was used to store financial records. When Dustin bought it, there was no heat, no running water, minimal electricity. The windows were all bricked up, the floors were wrecked, the staircases were terrifying. It took about a year of heavy work to get it into shape.

brooklyn spaces: I love that uniquely artist vision of walking into a completely decrepit space and saying, “I can see what this is going to be.” It’s like that quote about sculptors, how they look for the piece within the marble and then let it out.
David: Exactly. Dustin was like, “All right, this building is my next piece of art.”

Dustin Yellin sculpture

brooklyn space: How did you become involved?
David: I was teaching high school and really wanted to quit, so when Dustin presented me the opportunity to start a teaching program here, I thought I’d give it a shot. So we started, and it went really well in the summer, and then it went really well in the fall, and then Hurricane Sandy happened, and it just totally knocked us out. This whole building was like shoulder-deep in water. We tried to keep doing classes even though we had very little power and no heat—I bubbled in the classroom, like in ET, just encased it in plastic curtains, and we put in as many heaters as we could without blowing the circuits, but it was still so, so cold. We didn’t get heat until March, so that’s when we finally started doing classes again. Since then, we’ve just been growing and growing and growing.

brooklyn spaces: How would you classify the different kinds of classes offered here?
David: They’re pretty different, but it’s basically stuff that’s either really new or really old. We do cutting-edge stuff like microcontrollers and 3D printing and upgrading the firmware in your camera; those are for artists, designers, software developers, to demystify the process of new technologies that everyone wants to know how to use. And then we do old stuff, like paper marbling, or wet-plate or tintype photography, which is Civil War era. It’s to a similar aim as the newer stuff: giving artists a new vocabulary and a specialized practice.

brooklyn spaces: Do you come up with an idea for a class and then go out and find a teacher? Or do people bring you ideas?
David: Both. The lock-picking class, which is super popular, came about because I saw a lock-picking tent at Maker Faire—although tracking down someone who picks locks for a living was really hard. Then on the other hand, a woman came by the other day who wants to do a bread-baking class. We were like, “But we have no ovens, we have no flat surfaces, we don’t have anything.” And she was like, “It’s okay, we can make it work. How about we cook the bread on sticks over a fire?” We’ll try basically anything if it seems cool and the teacher seems competent.

brooklyn spaces: There seems to be a strong movement in Brooklyn for these kinds of classes and skillshares, as evidenced by the extreme popularity of places like 3rd Ward and Brooklyn Brainery. Why do you think that is? Do people just want to have more hobbies?
David: I think it’s deeper than that. Demystifying processes is so enabling. There’s a huge movement of open-source hardware and software in the tech world, and I think part of that is because we’re so controlled by the companies that make the technology we use. The fact that you can’t just open an iPhone and replace the battery is a conscious choice on their part. It’s not because oh you might do it wrong; it’s to keep you under their control. The open-source movement puts the power back in the hands of the individuals, and I think people are used to that idea now, so by applying that model to education, we’re unlocking it a bit. And I think it’s going to continue to grow.

brooklyn spaces: With so many choices, do you think they’re beginning to overlap? What makes Pioneer Works’ offerings unique?
David: I mean, maybe there’s some overlap with what 3rd Ward was doing, but we have something that they didn’t have.
brooklyn spaces: Integrity?
David: Oh yeah, well there’s that. But also we’re a nonprofit and they were a for-profit, which makes a huge difference. We’re an arts institution; it’s just a very different kind of space. Plus we have the nicest building. Once people come here once, it’s not hard to get them to come back.

brooklyn spaces: Do you think being in Red Hook has had an influence on how the space has developed?
David: Sure. There’s such a strong community here, and a real neighborhood feel, like I’ve never experienced anywhere else in New York. We’re trying to find ways to use this space as more of a community center. At the end of April we did a twenty-four-hour hackathon that was Red Hook themed. Business owners from the neighborhood gave us challenges, and all the tech people competed to make apps to address those issues. Pizza Moto catered the event. I love those guys—after the flood they came down to Van Brunt Street when nobody had any power and just started cooking pizzas for free, out on the street under the police lights.

brooklyn spaces: What are some of your future goals for the space?
David: We’re building a lot of relationships with terrific groups like Invisible Dog and Generally Assembly and Fractured Atlas. We don’t know what we’re going to do with them yet, but we’re kicking around ideas. We’re also starting to collaborate in a bunch of ways with Brooklyn Museum, which is perfect because they want to be linked to a gallery and we want to be linked to an institution. Obviously we don’t want to be a museum, but the way they’re organized and the integrity they have, I think it’s a really great model for us.

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Like this? Read about more skillshares: Brooklyn Brainery, Exapno, Time’s Up, Ger-Nis Culinary Center, Lifelabs, UrbanGlass, 3rd Ward

brooklyn historical society

space type: museum, nonprofit | neighborhood: brooklyn heights | active since: 1863 | links: website, facebook, twitter

The Brooklyn Historical Society is definitely a bit more conventional than the spaces I usually cover here. But this is a site about exploring everything our borough has to offer, and that doesn’t only mean watching aerialists in a Bushwick loft or riding flaming bicycles in a Bed-Stuy alleyway. And it should also go without saying that Brooklyn is absolutely steeped in history, and that the particular initiatives, accidents, and cultural tides of the past are in large part responsible for making the present what it is.

Othmer Library archives; all photos by Alix Piorun

BHS is a beautiful way to connect with all that. As Programs Associate Meredith Duncan told me, “Sharing the past is so important because it informs what’s happening in the present, and also what will happen to the future communities and culture of Brooklyn.”

Founded in 1863 as the Long Island Historical Society, BHS’s mission is to “make the vibrant history of Brooklyn tangible, relevant, and meaningful for today’s diverse communities, and for generations to come.” The gorgeous building, which turns 150 this year, is best known for its stunning two-floor research library. But after finishing a $5.5 million renovation, the space now features a lot more: four art galleries, an event space for public programming, a classroom for student workshops, and a gift shop filled with crafts from a wide variety of Brooklyn makers.

The four galleries cover a lot of different ground: currently on exhibit upstairs is “Documenting Sandy,” a collection of mostly cellphone pix from the harrowing superstorm and its aftermath; whereas the just-opened exhibit on the main level, “In Pursuit of Freedom,” is a public history project exploring the heroes of Brooklyn’s anti-slavery movement.

"Documenting Sandy" exhibit

The public programming offered at BHS is extremely diverse as well. Some of this year’s fascinating events include: Pat Kiernan in conversation with Gothamist publisher Jake Dobkin, an original musical by the Irondale Ensemble called Color Between the Lines, a lecture on the history of the Gowanus Canal by popular Brooklyn Brainery speaker Joseph Alexiou, a walking tour of the Wallabout Historic District, and the Brooklyn Zine Fest—just to name a few.

And then, of course, there’s the nationally recognized Othmer Library. Its various collections include municipal and administrative records from the villages that eventually became Brooklyn, personal and family papers dating back to the 1600s, genealogies, war histories, several thousand prints and drawings from the 17th century on, and more than 300 oral history narratives. There’s also a photography collection that starts in the 1870s, which includes amateur and professional photographs of buildings, people, and major cultural events, from the building of the Brooklyn Bridge to the 1977 Bushwick blackout. And there’s a large collection of cultural ephemera relating to Brooklyn icons, from the Wonderwheel to the Dodgers.

Othmer Library archives

There’s even a whole room dedicated to maps, as well as a person whose entire job is to catalogue and classify them. The amount of history contained in these maps alone is staggering; in addition to extensive street and lot maps, there are centuries-old Fire Department maps, municipal maps, sewage system maps, transit maps, and on and on. It’s exhilarating to look through them and feel the power of history’s force under your fingertips.

The majority of the collections are available for public use, although you need to make an appointment to view some of it. There are also various online-accessible catalogues—but don’t skip a visit to the marvelous building if you can help it.

"Landmarks of New York" exhibit

You should definitely visit to see for yourself the incredible resources available throughout BHS. In the meantime, sign up for the newsletter, where you’ll get to see Photo of the Week and a Map of the Month taken from the archives. BHS also publishes books, curriculum kits, and neighborhood guides, from Greenpoint to Bay Ridge, some with accompanying walking tours and podcasts.

BHS gift shop

According to Meredith, some of BHS’s future goals are “to encourage more interaction with the greater Brooklyn community, and to become a cultural hub, both for Brooklynites and for tourists.” In addition, they’re hoping increase educational initiatives; through donations and grants, schoolchildren can visit for free, so they’re working on expanding outreach to teachers who could take advantage. BHS also works with university professors to help them use original artifacts in their classes. And of course, BHS will continue to be a resource for anyone who, for any reason at all, wants to learn more about amazing Brooklyn.

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Like this? Read about more historic spaces: South Oxford Space, Brooklyn Lyceum, The Schoolhouse, Broken Angel

see.me

space type: art gallery | neighborhood: long island city | active since: 2013 | links: website, facebook, twitter

You’ve probably heard of See.Me already. The organization used to be called Artists Wanted, and they were well known for their Art Takes Times Square projects, where artists could compete for the chance to see their creations writ huge on a Times Square billboard. Or you may have heard of the group’s founders: William Etundi, who used to throw the massive Danger parties, and Jason Goodman, one of the founders of 3rd Ward.

At the Exposure exhibit

See.Me is an amalgamation of the awesome skills and ideas from all of those projects. It’s an interactive online platform where artists create profiles to showcase their art (unlike those on Facebook, Instagram, et al., See.Me keeps none of the rights to these images) and seek donations of any amount to fund their endeavors. See.Me also has a terrific new gallery spaces in Long Island City, where they show works by the site’s “power users” in perpetual rotation, and the group continues to hold awesome contests and throw sprawling art parties, gatherings, and shows. Here’s their own intro video:

Their latest contest is called Creatives Rising, which will culminate in a massive exhibit in and around the See.Me gallery in October. Work from winning artists will be projected on the face of a 30-story condo behind the gallery (possibly with help from the Illuminator!), and hundreds of contest participants will see their work on display during the event. It’s not too late to join the fun—go here to create your own See.Me profile and get started.

But first read my Q&A with See.Me’s Outreach Coordinator, Annie Laurie!

Art Takes Times Square

brooklyn spaces: Art Takes Times Square must have been an incredible project to be a part of.
Annie: Yeah, it was. It was really fun and we got an amazing response from the community. That was when we were still Artists Wanted, and we were basically only doing competitions, but they were really ambitious competitions that no one else was doing. People had been trying to get art in Times Square for a long time, but we were the first ones to do it.

brooklyn spaces: What’s the secret? How come you guys got to do it when no one else could?
Annie: It was all Will; he’s got insane connections. His ability to disrupt things is incredible. He’s kind of into disruptive parties, that’s his thing. To pull something off like that was a real feat, but he had a bigger vision, and that’s what See.Me grew out of.

brooklyn spaces: So can you summarize See.Me’s mission?
Annie: Will wanted to take this huge community of artists we’d been building and transfer it into a new kind of social network. See.Me allows you to build your own profile that looks like a website. It’s beautiful, with a great layout; it really makes your work look better. And on top of that there’s an amazing community that’s supporting you. You can get support through Twitter or Facebook, or people can donate money—even just a dollar—if they like your work. You can use your page to sell artwork, concert tickets, whatever you want. And on top of the social network, we still do competitions to find new talent and emerging artists, and we host crazy fun events all the time. So See.Me combines a social network with real-life events.

Story of the Creatives opening at the Angel Orensanz Foundation

brooklyn spaces: How many artists have See Me profiles now?
Annie: We just reached 800,000! We grew really fast, which is so exciting.

brooklyn spaces: And it speaks to the fact that See Me found a need and was able to fill it in a really effective way.
Annie: Totally. I think people are sick of Facebook; they don’t want to have their art on there. We’re trying to fill the needs of artists—artists want a community, they want feedback, they want financial and social support, and they want to share their work with the world.

brooklyn spaces: Are the users primarily visual artists? Photographers, sculptors, that kind of thing?
Annie: You can be any type of creator. I love seeing the new communities pop up. For example, we just integrated Soundcloud into the site, and now I’m seeing tons of amazing musicians using their portfolio page to post music, videos, album artwork, and raising money to support their visions. Our fastest-growing areas are music and fashion, but the majority of users are still visual artists and photographers.

From the Exposure exhibit

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about the gallery space. Has it always been a gallery? Has it always been the home of See.Me?
Annie: We just moved here in January, and we love it. It’s a lovely gallery, and it allows us to showcase our artists’ work at all times. We don’t take any commission; if anyone sells a piece in here, it’s all theirs. We’re not exactly against the gallery system, but we kind of are. We want to give artists a chance to get their names out there without gallery representation.

brooklyn spaces: Tell me a bit about the different events you’ve done.
Annie: We just had a big exposure show for photographers. Before that we did a solo exhibition for Jun Kim, and Cinders Projects produced a printmaking show in the gallery. We’re very open if somebody wants to use our space for a show; we’ll help them out in any way we can. Our biggest event is coming up in October: the Creatives Rising exhibit. We’re going to take over this space, the adjacent warehouse, and Rockrose Park too, and we’ll be projecting the winners’ art onto the Linc LIC building right behind us.

At the Jun Kim exhibit

brooklyn spaces: What’s the goal of Creatives Rising?
Annie: It’s to get people using See.Me in a more meaningful way, seeing what See.Me can do for them. The campaign is about helping artists becoming their own representation, giving them the tools and the power to succeed without a gallery or a record label or anyone telling them what’s good. We’ll be showing lots of different artists’ work at the Creatives Rising exhibit, including a fashion line and bands and sculptures in Rockrose Park.

brooklyn spaces: What are See.Me’s future goals?
Annie: We’re working on a lot of ways to make it easier for artists to interact with each other, to build community. One example: if you need help and support with a project, soon you’ll be able to contact people in your area and figure out how to make something happen together. I’m really excited about building the community aspect of what we do even more.

The See.Me team

brooklyn spaces: Why did you choose Long Island City for the gallery, and what’s your relationship with the neighborhood? I think this is such a fascinating area.
Annie: It is, and it’s growing; it’s one of the fastest-growing startup and art scenes in New York. It’s really exciting to be part of that.

brooklyn spaces: Are you collaborating with other arts groups in the neighborhood? There are so many amazing things out here: Flux Factory, 5Pointz, Museum of the Moving Image, PS1
Annie: We haven’t done a lot of collaborations yet since we just got here, but we’re definitely planning to. I’d love to do an all Long Island City arts day! We’re very open to collaborations, and creating a vibrant art scene in LIC is one of our main goals for the future.

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Like this? Read about more art galleries: Wondering Around Wandering, #OccupyWallStreet art show, Ugly Art Room, 950 Hart Gallery, Concrete Utopia, Invisible Dog

silent barn redux

neighborhood: ridgewood | space type: music, art, events | active since: 2013 | links: website, facebook, twitter

By now everyone probably knows the storied history of the Silent Barn. The band Skeletons started the DIY venue in their Ridgewood apartment in 2005 (which I profiled back in 2009), and until 2011 it was a raucous, dingy, rollicking good time—and then they got ransacked. Around $15k worth of equipment was destroyed, and then the city came in and evicted them. That probably should have been that, but the Silent Barn launched a Kickstarter, which brought in more than $40k. So they decided to start over, but this time, to be as legit and legal as they could be.

the Husk; photo from Showpaper

Fast forward to early 2013, and the Silent Barn 2.0 opened its doors in Bushwick. The new incarnation is definitely a continuation of the Husk (which the original space is now called), on a much bigger scale. The building itself is a lot lager—three floors and a yard, with eight bedrooms, thirteen roommates, three stages (or more, as needed), an art gallery, a dozen art and recording studios, and on and on. The scope is bigger too; in addition to music shows nearly every night, there’s the Babycastles videogame collective, science art, Aftermath Supplies artist reuse shop, multimedia video art events, a supper club, piñatas, theatre groups, and a whole lot more. And the community involvement this time around is huge: there are about 150 people participating, in various degrees, in the conceptualizing and running of the space. Administration is framed on the metaphor of a kitchen, and there are about 60 Chefs, each responsible for keeping a small aspect of the Barn going. It’s all volunteer, all consensus, and all making it up as they go along. It is, I think, pioneering a new way to do DIY—intentional, flexible, transparent, and innovative. (Want to join in the fun? Go here.)

Here’s a short Q&A with Katie, the Press Chef, and below that I asked two questions of a dozen different Barn members: 1) What’s your favorite event you’ve participated in here, and 2) Why, out of all the myriad ways you could be spending your time, is Silent Barn where you want to be?

brooklyn spaces: From the structure of the collective to the special vocabulary to all these working groups—did that evolve spontaneously as you figured it out, or was there a model you were working from?
Katie: We’re making it up as we go. We have weekly Kitchen meetings with all the Chefs, and part of that is Stew, which is all our discussion topics, whether it’s what murals are coming up or how to deal with conflict resolution; everything goes in the Stew and we work it out together.

all pix by Alix Piorun unless noted

brooklyn spaces: I love that. I feel like this space is really breaking new ground in a lot of ways, sort of changing the meaning of DIY in Brooklyn.
Katie: Well, there’s a responsibility here. Places come and go, you know? When the Husk was ransacked, we had such a huge reaction from the community, so it was our responsibility to do things the right way. After the Kickstarter, we could have re-opened the next day—and then probably gotten shut down again. So we decided to focus on longevity. I think we’re really on the right path. People always try to define DIY; we’re still doing it ourselves, we’re just doing it differently. It’s not like we’re trying to change the model for other spaces; this is just what we have to do. Plus look at this! This place rules! This never would have happened if we hadn’t taken the route we took.

Martha Moszczynski’s painting and piñata studio

brooklyn spaces: What are your thoughts on the neighborhood? What’s it like being in Bushwick now, especially after having been in Ridgewood?
Katie: We’re really trying to make ourselves an asset to the neighborhood. We go to community board meetings every month. We want people to know us and recognize us, to know that they can come to a show or book a show or play a show or put up some art. We really want to find new ways to integrate with the community and make our presence a positive thing.

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brooklyn spaces: What’s your favorite event you’ve participated in here?

Katie: I like the ones that seem to be holistic Barn, like when there’s a house show and a complimentary show downstairs. Like the Modular Equinox, which took place in every single room. It was really neat to have that kind of foot traffic everywhere, even in the “private” areas.

Tricia: Lani’s birthday party. We had been holding our breath waiting for a liquor license for so long, and I think that was the first show where we’d really come into our own. It was this giant wild night, everyone went crazy, just the whole Barn partying.

Joe Ahearn (Showpaper): This question never gets easier. I’ve seen / thrown / taken part in easily over a thousand shows at Silent Barn! My favorites are those that come out the blue from old friends, the ones that have strange challenges, the ones with moments that feel like magic, the ones that somehow discover a new way to use a place that thousands of bands have been playing with for years.

zine library

Mila (website): I trust that if I show up on any given night, I will see something intriguing. One evening that stands out is the Public Meeting we had in May,“Women in DIY.” It was amazing to see the room filled with women who have done really extraordinary things. It felt supportive and positive, inspiring and motivating, to be a participant in this community.

Theresa (Internal Events Chef): The Wild Boys Immersive Party, which had performances, dream machine, food, piñata, art, community costumes, etc.

another living room; sometimes transforms into the Hawkitori Dinner Club

Larissa (Paesthetics Octopus): No offense to the events (and I’ll give another shoutout to that Modular Solstice night when there were three completely different events going on simultaneously), but it’s the times in between the events and the things that happen because events are going on that I most remember.

Arielle (Aftermath Supplies): My favorite events are the ones I don’t show up for on purpose. I’ll be working in the shop or my studio and there will just be someone singing their heart out or the most nasty thrash band totally destroying. I stumble into the show room with total awe and appreciation of what’s going on and that I happen to be there to witness it.

Deep Cuts (barber shop + record shop)

Nathan Cearley (Dark Cloud Chef): On the one hand, I really love the Modular Synthesizer Solstice and Equinox shows I curate here, because I always include so many individuals who are part of the community and have such crazy visions about weird electronics. On the other hand, I really love our weekly administration meetings because it’s crazy how much we get done for a group with no traditional top-down hierarchy. Both “events” speak to the possibility of surprise still existing in such a dead, predictable, monotonous society.

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brooklyn spaces: Why, out of all the myriad ways you could be spending your time, is Silent Barn where you want to be?

Brandon: I used to do house shows in Michigan, and the intimacy and humanity of that scale of cultural happenings was really important. When I moved to New York I was so depressed, going to all these crappy clubs where they tally at the door how many people paid for your band. It just sucked. And then I found the old Barn and it was so different. It’s a way to exist in New York and interact with other people on a much more human level.

Gravesend Recordings / Future 86 Recording Studio

Katie: I think that’s what a lot of our answers are, actually. I’m from a small town in Mississippi, where there aren’t any clubs or bars or anything, so it’s only DIY stuff, jamming with your friends, playing in someone’s basement or on the beach or whatever. And I was so depressed when I moved to New York too; I got stuck in this dorm with these people I didn’t get, and the Husk was the first place I felt at home. It’s home and family, that’s why we do it.

Larissa (Paesthetics Octopus): I love working toward the future of Silent Barn along with all these other pretty incredible people who all have such different talents and viewpoints, knowing that I might never had the change to even meet them otherwise.

backyard during Warper blockparty

Tricia: I’m here because I can be. I can’t think of anywhere else that would say, “Hey neuroscientist, come have a space!” Not only can I learn about art and music and DIY culture, but I can collaborate with artists. It’s just amazing to do science and art in the same space. And to show it to people who want to see it!

Theresa (Internal Events Chef): Being here lets us work with a bunch of people who are good at things we’re not good at. For a recent show, Martha made a huge dick piñata for us. It would have taken me ages to figure out how to make a dick piñata! There’s so many skillsets here. You can just email the Kitchen saying, “I need this weird thing. Does anyone have it or can anyone do it?” and you get three emails back saying, “I can do that!”

another living room; paintings by Devin Lily, photography by Nina Mashurova

Arielle (Aftermath Supplies): The constant friction and motion of interacting with people, art, life, and general day-to-day bullshit, like emptying trash cans or drinking coffee and sharing “that time I puked” stories over a taco. Navigating a place that is a whole made up of parts, and all the interesting drama that brings about, while ultimately having a community of people who’ve got your back. A second place to call home, to take creative refuge in.

One the living rooms; art by Lena Hawkins, Lani Combier-Kapel, Jen May

Lani (Volunteer Chef): It’s easy to get wrapped in bar culture here, or to just go to a show and leave to go home, fall asleep, and go to your 9–5 job. That’s not the life I’m interested in; I want to be immersed in the art and music that happens here. Being involved in Silent Barn satisfies a part of my personality that helps me grow as an artist and musician.

Eli (Art Chef): Silent Barn is an excellent experiment in joining art, life, and politics. We’ve managed to corral so many brilliant people and force their conflicts and concordances into creating something with the potential to be truly new and exciting.

Nina (hosts Phresh Cutz): It’s this great community environment that really supports experimental ideas or any kind of creative thing. My whole life, the events I’ve really enjoyed and been inspired by have been in community-based creative art spaces like this, so it’s really great to support that and help facilitate it by giving people space to do what they want to do.

Phresh Cutz, photo by Meghan O’Byrne

Kunal (Babycastles): The thing that’s important is the promise of this strange experiment actually producing something of immense value to the world. Once we get all the pieces solidly in place, a massively successful mechanism of including participation from almost anyone interested, a successful “community-building” pathway for any new voice interested in gathering and growing any piece of culture inside of a stew of culture, successfully extending the value of all this community, strengthening the celebration to our direct neighbors and thereby to the city as a whole as a truly exhaustively functioning projection of the social ecosystem that the world should be, the potential for the thing to be so strong that it continues to channel and nurture and organize new voices in art and communication almost entirely, and finally, some sort of flowering and seeding aspect, where the energy is too much for the small space, and the vision encompassed inside starts to blow up, fly with the wind to surrounding areas, and just take over life in the city itself, and the ideas propagate strongly and successfully. Stuff like that.

Hieroglyph Thesaurus performing

Joe Ahearn (Showpaper): Silent Barn acts as an artistically inclined autonomous zone, where we get to make the rules and share the work we want and are excited by. I don’t think it’s too different than the DIY ethos of other collective art spaces in Brooklyn and around the world throughout history, but I happen to live here and want to be able to participate directly in the culture I consume, and this is as solidly sustainable a way to do so, on my own terms, that I’ve found in New York.

Mila: The Barn is a place where my ideas about what I can and can’t do are constantly challenged. I am constantly forced to reexamine how I think and how I do things, because infinitely more is possible, permissible, and at stake. Plus it feels like family.

Title:Point theatre company’s desk/workspace.

Nathan Cearley (Dark Cloud Chef): I participate in the Silent Barn because it’s giving vitality and substance and life to the concept of constructing our own world—a concept that I find hyper-American but strangely near extinct in this country today. I love experiencing the art and ideas that all these diverse individuals create and, in a broader sense, I love helping to create the space that makes that human freedom possible.

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Like this? Read about more collectives: Flux Factory, Monster Island, the Schoolhouse, Hive, Bushwick Project for the Arts

wondering around wandering

space type: pop-up gallery | neighborhood: crown heights | active: 2012 | links: website

Wondering Around Wandering is a huge, vibrant pop-up art gallery in a former iron-working factory in Crown Heights, run by artist and designer Mike Perry. Inspired by the publication of his monograph (also called Wondering Around Wandering), the gallery was funded through Kickstarter as a way to celebrate the book’s publication while also creating a fun, free space for people to appreciate art and make things together.

All photos by Alix Piorun

The gallery is open during the days—the permanent collection is Mike’s, and there have been several rotating group shows—and there are a slew of free events, like dance performances, drink-and-draws, and zine-making workshops. Coming up is an art salon with Moleskine, a collaging workshop, an animated-film screening, and more. But hurry! The gallery will only be around until November 20.

Braving wind & rain, Jillian Steinhauer of Hyperallergic and I went to hang out with Mike and talk about this crazy project on the afternoon Hurricane Sandy was supposed to hit. (We even made it home in time for last-minute grocery shopping!)

brooklyn spaces: What made you want to do this?
mike: Well when the book came out, it was really exciting and big, and I wanted to do something that was even bigger to celebrate it. I figured I should have a show, but then I started thinking about what expectations I would have for the space: I’d want it to be communal, I’d want it to be open, I’d want it to be free. A friend of a friend works at Kickstarter; her whole job is to find artists who don’t use Kickstarter but should.

brooklyn spaces: What an amazing job.
mike: Right? Just convincing artists that they should make money.
hyperallergic: Artists need that.
mike: Big time. And doing the project that way was brilliant, it really focused my ideas in a way that made this much easier to pull off, because it wasn’t somebody being like, “Here’s some money, figure it out!” I had a plan, there were goals and steps, I knew how to put it all together. When the Kickstarter ended, I walked over here and paid the landlord and started this journey.

hyperallergic: What was the space like when you got here?
mike: It was a total shitshow. I think they’d just been storing and dumping junk in here for like thirty years. So I hired a bunch of people, my brother-in-law came out, friends in the neighborhood, it was very communal. My friend J. is the architect, he makes everything happen. Kevin, who owns a candy store up the street, he’s like the neighborhood electrician, he came and wired everything. My friend Masha, I went to her and said, “I need a producer, someone who can line things up and cross them off the list.” Fiona, who works in the gallery now, first came to interview me for a personal project, and it was one of those days that was just so crazy, I was covered in dirt and I’d had so much coffee, and after the interview she was like, “You need help. Can I come help you?” We have so, so many people, it’s just a massively beautiful, heartwarming experience. We had this huge opening, I think we had 700 people in here. And the next day we came back and regrouped and said, “That was insane. This is just the beginning.”

brooklyn spaces: Does this make you want to find ways to do this all the time, or to never do something like this again?
mike: You know, I’m still not sure. It’s such a major commitment, but it’s so incredibly gratifying. Yesterday we had about a hundred kids in here for pumpkin-painting, and it’s like, this is why you have a space, this is what you should do! But at the same time, it’s really hard for me to go to my studio and do work. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t an artist because I can’t do both, I can’t be the advocate and the creator at the same time.

brooklyn spaces: The only other thing I can think of that’s like this is the Brucennial. Did you take a cue from other big collaborative art shows like that?
mike: Well there really aren’t a lot of galleries or institutions like this. Giant Robot was a great resource but that closed down. Some friends of mine run a terrific space in Greenpoint called Beginnings, but that just opened. There aren’t even that many zine stores anymore, other than Printed Matter. There used to be so many of them and they’ve all gone away because the audience doesn’t invest in them. Making art is really satisfying, and people love art and believe in it, but they don’t do enough to support it. Last year, every present I bought for anybody was art. Because then you serve two people: the person who gets the piece and the person who made it. If creative people don’t support each other, who’s going to support us?

brooklyn spaces: Do you feel that being in Crown Heights has an effect on the space?
mike: That was the exciting part about realizing that this was what I wanted to do: finding something that’s missing in the neighborhood and trying to provide it. I meet new people here every day. The neighborhood becomes more interconnected and more exciting every second. It’s going to be really sad when the project is done.

hyperallergic: Do you know what’s going to happen to the space when you’re gone?
mike: Me and some friends may actually try to keep it, but unfortunately this is not a self-sustaining business model. The space is perfect for right now, but there’s no heat, and we basically ran the electricity from a line off the building next door. In order to turn it into something that’s more than a three-month thing, we’d have to invest some serious cash, get the landlord to agree to different terms, all those things. Which, if it happens, awesome. If not, then you know what? It’s been a great time, and we’ll do something else somewhere else some other time.
hyperallergic: That’s sort of the beauty and the sadness of pop-up spaces.

brooklyn spaces: Anything else you wanted to talk about?
mike: No, I don’t think so. I almost teared up a few times during the interview, so I think it was good.

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Like this? Read about more art galleries: Invisible DogMonster Island, See.MeUgly Art Room, #Occupy Art Show, Gowanus Ballroom, Micro MuseumConcrete Utopia, Central Booking, 950 Hart

ugly art room

space type: art gallery | neighborhood: greenpoint | active since: 2010 | links: website, facebook, twitter

Ugly Art Room is a lovely little contradiction. They don’t have an art room, and the art they’ve got is certainly not ugly. They’re a group of four—Jen, Scott, Julie, and Martin—that make up a roving curatorial art project, putting on site-specific shows in nontraditional venues, including the Parlour Brooklyn hair salon, Brouwerji Lanes, The Gutter, Dandelion Wine, and Paulie Gee’s pizzaria, among others. Their aim is to explore the relationship between the artwork presented and the venue in which it’s displayed.

Martin, Julie, Jen, Scott. This & all photos courtesy of Ugly Art Room.

Ugly Art Room has their headquarters in the Terminal Building in industrial Greenpoint, along with the Fowler Arts Collective. They’re incredibly busy, having put on eleven shows and featured over a hundred Brooklyn artists in the year they’ve been active. In addition, Jen runs the popular neighborhood blog Greenpointers, and Scott is the director of the Distillery Gallery in Boston. For the incredible Bring to Light New York festival, Ugly Art Room contributed “Peep Show,” essentially a walk-up set of View-Masters, where several photographic works were displayed stereoscopically. Next up they have a collage show called “All That Remainsopening at Picture Farm on October 21st and running through November 19th. Definitely check it out! But first check out my interview with Jen and Scott.

"Peep Show" at Bring to Light New York

Scott: We actually want to start by saying that we’re really excited to be on Brooklyn Spaces, because we pride ourselves on the fact that Ugly Art Room doesn’t have a space. We only put on shows in venues that aren’t typically art-designated. I think showing art in alternative venues is absolutely a legitimate way of exhibiting these days. We’re able to expose so many more people to art.

"Noise Jam" at The Gutter

brooklyn spaces: Okay, so tell me about doing “Peep Show” at Bring to Light. What was that experience like?
Jen: It was unbelievably great. The light show is a big outward display, so I wanted to bring it inward and make our piece a more intimate experience. I’m a photographer myself, which means I’m a very harsh judge of photography, so I like that we presented it in a really unique but also weirdly traditional old-school way.

"Girls & Boys: An Undidactic Probing" at Dandelion Wine

brooklyn spaces: How was the audience response?
Scott: It was awesome. There was always a crowd of people waiting to see what it was. Curiosity for us is key. People couldn’t just see something projected on the side of a building and then keep on walking. They had to want to see what everyone else was seeing.
Jen: That was another idea behind it, that the viewer would become part of the show, because while you’re viewing, you’re being viewed. That’s what we were doing too, standing off to the side watching, listening to people’s reactions. We got such a kick out of it.

"Opening Rejection" on Bedford Ave.

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some other shows you guys have done.
Jen: We did one called “Opening Rejection,” which was a 6 x 6 x 6 white cube with all the art bolted to the walls inside. Scott built that, It was its own piece of artwork with artwork inside. He’s basically a wizard; he built “Peep Show” too.
Scott: “Opening Rejection” was cool because we got to put it on in two different places. First it was part of Northside Open Studios. They closed Bedford Ave for Williamsburg Walks, and we put the cube on the street and watched hundreds of people walk by, kind of wonder “What’s going on here?” and then go in and figure it out. That was super. And then we put it on Governor’s Island for the 4Heads Fair, which was a blast. Another cool show was “B Is for Bear,” which we put on in a daycare center as party of Bushwick Beta Spaces. That was another event we were so lucky to be a part of, because it was so well put together and so well attended.
Jen: Another show we did was “Landing Jam,” which Martin curated. It was in Greenpoint, in the skylit hallway of a third-floor walk-up, and all the work was abstract painting. It was art I didn’t initially relate to, but the way he put the show together and the feeling of it inside the space was terrific. I think it was one of the best examples of what Ugly Art Room does.
Scott: There’s a new show that Martin is working on, it’s a two-person show, with one painting from each person, and we’re going to reuse the 6 x 6 x 6 cube, but it’s going to be in a boxing ring, so you’ll actually climb up into the ring, into the mini-gallery, to view these two paintings facing each other. He describes the work as very ego, very self-involved.

"B Is for Bear" at Beta Spaces

brooklyn spaces: What are your thoughts on being artists and curators in Greenpoint?
Jen: We love Greenpoint! Ugly Art Room started during Greenpoint Open Studios. The sense of community and the support for the arts here, not only among artists and art enthusiasts but also among local businesses, is phenomenal. Fowler had a big opening and where twenty local businesses donated hundreds of dollars worth of gift certificates and merchandise for raffle.

"The Man, The Myth, The Moustache" at Brouwerji Lanes

brooklyn spaces: Are you inspired by living in Brooklyn?
Jen: Oh yeah, Brooklyn’s awesome. It’s always been a place that has identified itself outside of Manhattan. It has its own identity and its own grit and feel.
Scott: There’s so much talent here, the bar is set so high. You really have to give it so much more than your all in order to pull it off here, and that’s great. People respect it, people acknowledge it, people come out and support it. When you do put out the effort, it’s recognized, it’s not just lost in the shuffle.
Jen: It’s also a place where you can build your own community, your own scene. Ugly Art Room is building a community of art appreciators who look for art outside of traditional galleries, and I think Brooklyn is the perfect place to do that. A lot of people are here because they’re not into the art scene in Chelsea and they want to do something different.

"Head Space" at Paper Garden Records' Multiverse Playground

brooklyn spaces: What are your goals for the future?
Jen: We want Ugly Art Room to continue to put shows in unique locations and be able to sustain itself doing that. I want to continue to show Brooklyn artists, but at the same time, I think it would be cool for Ugly Art Room to expand. New York’s awesome, Brooklyn’s awesome, but there’s an entire world of weird places out there.

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Like this? Read about more art galleries: Wondering Around Wandering950 Hart, Concrete Utopia, Central Booking, Invisible Dog, Micro Museum, See.Me

950 hart gallery

neighborhood: bushwick | space type: art gallery | active: 2010–2012 | links: website, blog, facebook, twitter

950 Hart came relatively late to the Bushwick gallery scene, but they were incredibly busy. In their first nine months, they put on seven shows in their space, plus one off-site at Life Café. The gallery spanned two floors, with the basement holding their permanent collection, featuring work from three of the space’s four founders: Michael Kronenberg, Antoinette Johnson, and Mikki Nylund. Sean Alday, the fourth member of the team, is a writer, blogger, videographer, and unofficial gallery historian. When I went to the opening of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” it was pleasantly busy, and several of the artists were there to talk about their work. Everyone I met was welcoming and warm, and eager to share their excitement about the project.

Due to skyrocketing rents in the neighborhood, 950 Hart closed their doors in July 2012, along with several other pioneering Bushwick galleries, including Famous Accountants and Botanic.

Q&A with Michael and Sean

brooklyn spaces: Do either of you have any prior curating experience?
Sean: All I’ve really done is construction and gardening; I learned how to make things lovely through construction, and then with gardening I learned how to put things in the right order. I did a lot of Zen gardening, so my first curating experience was making a little garden on the side of a hill. Then I got here, and I realized it’s another little garden on a hill, and it just needed to be cultivated.
Michael: Sean’s being modest; he’s actually been a godsend. He’s incredibly brilliant and very motivated, and super at coordinating and reaching out to people. He also has a really good idea of what he wants to do and a great eye for new talent.

photo by Sandee Pawan

brooklyn spaces: What made you decide to start a gallery?
Michael: We’re acquainted with a pretty large circle of creative, talented artists, and we wanted to try to get more exposure for them. We started talking about starting a gallery when we were all hanging out. Mikki and I were making art, and Sean was writing and video-documenting everything.
Sean: And Antoinette went out and got four panels and started meticulously crafting the checkerboard pieces that are now in the permanent collection. She worked on the piece for about a month straight. Every time I came by, she was working on it. It’s a very good vindication of the enthusiasm we had about doing this, and it kind of became the reason we were doing it, because everyone was so excited about it. And we all fed off of the excitement; there was no way not to.
Michael: I also want to give a big shout-out too to Grant Stoops, from Bushwick Project for the Arts. He’s the one who talked me into actually showing my stuff for the first time, and now we’ve got some of his pieces in our permanent collection, too. It’s great synergy.

E.V. Svetova and her model in front of her art

brooklyn spaces: Who are some of your favorite artists you’ve shown?
Sean: We love all of our artists, but some who come to mind are Raquel EchaniqueTeddi I RogersEisig FrostIrena RomendikE.V. SvetovaSandee PawanWorm CarnevaleJarvis Earnshaw, and Dan Victor.

permanent collection

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some of the different shows.
Sean: The first show was called “950 Hart,” and just putting it up was big for us. The second one, “Broken Hearts,” was even more exciting, and the responses from both of them were so different that it pushed us to do the third show, “The Garden of Eve.” For that one, we wanted something that was going to push us to be more creative than we had been, and also be unique enough that it would draw more artists and more people who appreciate art spaces.

photo from 950 Hart's tumblr

brooklyn spaces: Do you prefer a certain type of art?
Michael: We like to encourage figurative and abstract art to a certain extent. We like to give enough of a leading narrative so that people can either take it and run with it or reflect back or come in with something completely off in left field. But as far as a criterion for what we show, if we respond to it emotionally, we show it. It doesn’t matter what your name is. We’re not particularly interested in pedigrees; we look for people who are sincere and generate an emotional response from the viewer. We’re looking for positive, energetic, upbeat pieces that are made in Brooklyn—and certain other places as well, as the octopus spreads out his tentacles.

brooklyn spaces: Are you a part of the greater Bushwick art scene?
Michael: Yes. This year we did a show for Bushwick Open Studios, which allowed us to interact more with the community, and let them know we’re here. We had a really good response from the organizers; they were so supportive.
Sean: After that, we did a show at Life Café. Actually, we put up three different shows over the course of a month, framed as art battles.

"Bloom" by Michael Noel

brooklyn spaces: What are your goals for the future of the space?
Michael: To have as many shows as possible, and to eventually expand outward and upward.
Sean: For me, the main thing is progressing the community. We want to leave behind a roadmap for the kids who come after us, because eventually there’s going to be curiosity about what happened here in Bushwick. That’s why I’m videoing everything and blogging as much as I can about what we’re doing. It’s an easy way to feel like you’re doing something for the community of the future.

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Like this? Read about more art galleries: Ugly Art Room, Wondering Around WanderingConcrete Utopia, See.MeCentral Booking, Micro Museum, Invisible Dog