With the appearance of my feature essay called "What's a Museum?" in this month's New Criterion, I had to forgo writing my regular "Gallery Chronicle" column. Regrettably, this meant I couldn't take notice in print of "What I Know," a landmark exhibition for the Bushwick arts scene that has brought some of the best artists of the outer boroughs together in the heart of Manhattan.
"What I know" is the work of Jason Andrew, the Bushwick-based curator I have routinely praised for the cultivation of his neighborhood's native painterly talent, for his promotion of dance and sound performance, and for his knowledge of abstraction arising out of his work for the estate of Jack Tworkov. At the online art magazine Hyperallergic, Thomas Micchelli recently interviewed Andrew, and I was honored that some of my own writing about Andrew came up in the discussion.
"What I Know," on view at the New York Center for Art and Media Studies at 44 West 28th Street (7th Floor) through Friday, March 16, offers up the opportunity to see many of the best Bushwick-based (and Bushwick-associated) artists without taking the L Train to Morgan Street. These include several of the artists that have appeared in my recent columns: the painter Deborah Brown, the multimedia artist Rico Gaston, the choreographer Julia K. Gleich, the assembly artist Andrew Hurst, the collagist Ellen Letcher, the painter Amy Lincoln, the painter Matthew Miller, the painter Brooke Moyse, the sculptor Jimmy Miracle, the painter and gallerist Cathy Nan Quinlan, the mixed-media artists and gallerists Kevin Regan and Austin Thomas, and the sound artist Audra Wolowiec--all paired with many excellent artists I have yet to cover.
As a champion of Bushwick's art scene and the founder of the Bushwick non-profit Norte Maar, Andrew is particularly sensitive to the visual conversation occurring among these artists, and his hanging of this show is second to none. In keeping with his interest in live performance, Andrew will host a closing party tomorrow night that will feature the sound artist Tamara Yadao performing as part of Andrew's series "Cage Transmitted." Thanks to Andrew, the artistic message from the once remote redoubt of Bushwick can come in loud and clear.
