Just like the program, the app will include all the participating galleries, venues, studios with artists names and addresses. As BOS has grown, the galleries and venues have become major destinations because they are large and central. The BogArt collects over a dozen galleries within its industrial building who collaborate on openings and events to support each other’s efforts (56 Bogart, across the street from the back exit of the Morgan Ave L train). English Kills remains a local favorite (114 Forrest St). While Norte Maar has been called “the beating heart of the Bushwick art scene” (83 Wyckoff Avenue, #1B). These galleries are major sponsors of the festival because they are also important galleries for local artists and deeply rooted in the Bushwick scene of the last decade. These locations know who’s who and what’s what, so can answer many questions about what you are seeing. Curated galleries establish a certain standard in the quality of work, but don’t avoid the smaller ones. Paul D’Agostino runs Centotto Gallery out of his apartment, politely welcoming MoMA curators and other art world leviathans to his small but significant salon (250 Moore Street #108). Most recently Roberta Smith positively reviewed D’Agostino’s own collage works and drawings, but in keeping with the Bushwick ethos, Paul determined that this year’s BOS would still see Centotto Gallery displaying artists whose works he hopes will get more notice for his support. He plans to send his visitors onward to the artists’ studios whose work he is showing. It is after all “Bushwick Open Studios,” he emphasizes.
Studio visits can be off putting because it is such a mixed bag. Last year, one attendee complained that she walked into someone’s living room where they had push-pinned some drawings that had clearly been scrawled with little effort. The artist seemed indifferent to her presence, drinking a beer on his couch. Why did he bother, she asked upon arriving at the studio of a full-time professional painter, Tim Kent (250 Moore St #104). He declined to answer, but proceeded to tell her about his interest in perspective, the English tradition of interior design, his influences, why he continues to love oil painting, and then over a slice of watermelon, introduced her to another guest. Discovering that they shared acquaintances, the two visitors joined forces and information, happily setting off to see more work together. Studio tours may sometimes be dismal, but they also provide a setting for such serendipitous encounters.
Most people are familiar with the Bushwick area around the Morgan Avenue stop, where many of the galleries already mentioned are located. In 2012, the Bushwick art scene centered around Morgan in part because of the group gallery building at 56 Bogart but also because Luhring Augustine, the renowned Chelsea gallery, opened a space within walking distance (25 Knickerbocker Ave). The gallery has done little to become a part of the community; it will be open during BOS, but is not participating as a sponsor or a hub. Its presence however makes an important statement about Bushwick’s place in the ever shifting, always seeking, art scene of New York City.
Despite the growing art community, many visitors to the Morgan area have never entered a gallery. They were lured there by Roberta’s pizza. Lauded by foodies internationally, Roberta’s helped make the immediate neighborhood a destination spot. Anytime after 7PM, diners can wait up to three hours to be seated–and do, so expect an even longer wait if you want to get a meal there during the festival (261 Moore Street). Momo’s, the communal-table sushi restaurant around the corner, has received commendations in New York and London newspapers, but before those reviews used to post on their street sign: “Roberta’s packed? Come on in!” Now, Momo’s diners too can have a long wait. Tutu’s just opened this Spring but already has a loyal following, with music playing in their three rooms on weekends (25 Bogart Street).
Besides such fine dining, Bogart street provides plenty of quick and easy food options: two delis with plenty of organic choices, a falafel joint and Swallow, the coffee bar that took over one of the neighborhood’s first establishments, The Archive. Stepping off Bogart even just a few paces will reveal Fine and Raw, a chocolate factory (288 Seigel Street); Shinobi, a small spot that serves homemade ramen soup (53 Morgan Avenue); L’Ange Noir, serving typical coffee shop fare (247 Varet Street); and 983 which took over the space when the much beloved East Village off-shoot, Life Café 983, closed its doors in 2011, and continues to serve satisfying American comfort food (983 Flushing Avenue). During BOS, boutique food trucks also offer an assortment of fancy foods.
Unlike Williamsburg’s long main stretch, Bushwick has many pockets, each vital with its own great restaurants, bars and shops. Different scenes grow around various stops along the L train with stretches of nothing in between. Four busy blocks in Manhattan can be four long, desolate, industrial wastelands in Bushwick. A short distance on the map can suddenly feel drawn out when walking past windowless buildings with loading docks filling large brandless Mac trucks. Crowds center during the festival within particular busy points, and going from one to the next usually includes other wanderers, but every once and a while you’ll have the same experience of every Bushwick resident when you wonder where am I, and should I be going in this direction? The barren emptiness is a reminder of Bushwick’s slow rise out of destitution.
Arts in Bushwick hopes to keep the neighborhood a space for artists in all media to live and work, so that they don’t get pushed out of yet another neighborhood. The Bushwick Open Studios festival encourages work across the arts to help cement a general arts community. After the noon to seven period when most studios and galleries are open, the BOS night offers a range of happenings. Galleries have dance parties, but there are many performance events as well. Artists who’ve been inside studios spill out of their buildings, and the streets overflow as groups head to a dance show or a theatrical, a poetry reading or a music concert. Sunday will launch the first CinemaSunday, screening the efforts of local filmmakers. Unlike the rest of BOS, CinemaSunday works will have gone through a selection process and has been scheduled as the closing event of the festival. The screening will be held at Bat Haus, followed by a barbecue and dance party.
Bushwick likes to party and Bushwick Open Studios revels in presenting the enthusiasm of today’s lesser known artists. Irony is prevalent in New York and the art world, except among those who can’t afford to be blasé about their passion. Producing art has never been easy but the rising costs of New York make it ever more difficult. Certainly the neighborhood has its share of pretenders–any art scene will. Those indifferent hipsters may be a crime against Fashion and Reason but they keep the restaurants and bars in business while the real artists work behind industrial walls that haven’t yet been zoned residential, that haven’t yet become yuppy havens. For now, Bushwick artists offer a refreshing breath of earnest pleasure in the real struggle that is making art. The 2013, 7th Annual Bushwick Open Studios is a weekend long opportunity to observe art so fresh the paint’s still wet, to be inspired by the effort these artists make to keep their work real, to participate in a community committed to art.
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