Sarah Schmerler » Red Hook

AM next day

sarah — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:48:28 +0000

Life. Goes. On.

Mosquito shows Trailer Park ‘realness’

sarah — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:55:04 +0000

Mobile public artwork, parked in Carroll Gardens, outside WORK Gallery.

Yes, there were actual mosquitoes that bit; strange, since I encountered not one all day–outside.

Weird reality. Needed watering…
But a nice, James Turrell-like moment to be had.

Stuart Nicholson, Man of Our Time

sarah — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:51:22 +0000

..was memorialized yesterday by many many loved ones in his home/gallery on Van Brunt Street. It is an understatement to say that he is sorely missed.

This is a detail of some of the work he was doing just before he passed away. Seems he picked up a piece of this wire while he was diagnosed with cancer; then went on to make an amazing series of graphic work based on the/featuring the image.

Everyone pretty much admitted that he was in the room with us. People drank and smoke and told stories and the night went on.

I’d have to say that, though we weren’t close, he played a really important role in my getting out on my own after Pratt Institute. He started a gallery on the LES while it was a no-mans-land of drugs, back when no one went there. (Showing at Ridge Street Gallery was a really special thing, regardless. The vibe was grassroots–and good.) He organized numerous shows in other spaces, including his own.

Stuart was ever building community, for artists around him.

He was a gentleman and a talented guy. and his art rocked.

Honored to know him.

I hope everyone who was there takes note and does something great (a show? a documentary?) about him. This isn’t the last you’ll hear of Stuart Nicholson.

Street Art, (dis)course: Discuss

sarah — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:28:18 +0000

As a writer, I’ve long been dedicated to Fine Art (painting, sculpture, installation, video) and perhaps, always will be. But I also think that this art—what’s commonly known as Graffiti Art or Street Art—deserves to be talked of in the language of high art, indoor art. (Hey: do you think I’m the person to do it? : – ) )

Kosice Slovakia street art fiasco

If I can go to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum, and see a Rudy Gernreich dress with a sexy hole placed right between the breasts (don’t have an exact pix here, but you get the idea), and then look down at the wall label and see that sexy hole described as a “fenestration”;

Gernreich, from debutanteclothing.com (from Philly exhibit)

if I can go to the Lower East Side, and read a press release on some abstract drawings and paintings in charcoal that first compares them to cinematic theory of the highest order, and then describes them as … architectonic…crystalline forms that seem to rise up and break past a horizon to converge…a network of vectors…,

Raha Raissnia show at Miguel Abreu Gallery, les, 2009

then why can’t I darned well walk around Red Hook, and tell you that the stuff I see on a wall on Delavan Street, for instance, is about “rupture” in the Frenchiest, most theoretical, and yet most real sense?

Aby Warburg could re-write art history. (well, at least he tried to before he died.) Maybe we should re-write ‘Writing.’

out y’all.

Post Passeggiata report. A July night on Van Brunt Street—indoors.

sarah — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:27:40 +0000

Well, It was 103 degrees outside. And instead of walking, we sat on our buts, and looked at the cool, copper-penny skins that Andrew Coates made (by melting the zinc out of actual pennies) and drank a LOT of wine courtesy of Fosco, who, I must say, has a great palate. Reds and whites from La Marche, and Sardegna, and a bubbly Lambrusco…

In attendance were such stellar artists as Lori Ellison

Lori Ellison's Green Hatches

and Lawrence Swan
and Jim Osman
and Eric Cherry (of the 1st “Passeggiata“), and restlus.com’s Kurt Strahm, and Ellen Letcher

Ellen Letcher composite media piece

and Kevin Regan of “Famous Accountants” (yay, Bushwick!)

As for me, I’ve more than a bit of a hangover, sitting in a deli sucking down coffee and trying to decide whether to get an Advil. Heck, it’s only 98 degrees out! *sigh*

I’m not done with La Passeggiata. Just resting; feeling sort of content that new art now hangs on walls thanks, in part, to the fact that I took a walk and people read about it.
But the real praise goes all who came out (I neglected to mention too many) and to Alessandro and Francesca.

No Advil for me, after all. But, hey, a bearded man just walked into the deli wearing a kilt. So life is good.
Even when you don’t walk far, interesting things come to You.

day 1 of the show I thought would be part of La Passeggiata; 104 degrees; it’s true: it takes courage to walk this “walk”

sarah — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:42:09 +0000

But will you?

i actually used the coffee cup for coffee this morning. what was I thinking? now it has water in it, bound for an art show i seem to have thought was a good idea. boy, you have to be intrepid to walk around sometimes.

passing a mural on my way and i decide to wait for a bus to take me only 5 blocks further

Fair Warning: that’s the door, next-door to the art show.
So Don’t go in the Wrong One.

Come see: Andrew’s art, my sensibility; drink wine; This Tuesday 6–9PM

sarah — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 01:44:05 +0000

Come see: art by Andrew Coates

Andrew Coates' snow globes, on view this Tuesday!

Location: O’BArone restaurant, at 360 Van Brunt. Time: 6–9PM

Why: It’s a Locavore Art thing (my idea)

How: I’m choosing art within walking distance of me in Red Hook, and if you come by, I’ll tell you about it, and maybe even take a walk with you.

What: drink amazing wine from Sicily; sit down at a communal table with friends and chat. I’m brining one of my favorite NYC walking books: E.B. White’s, of course. what’s yours?

Photo by David Lansing, taken in Perugia

This could be us—only in Red Hook.

I’m looking forward to seeing my “La Passeggiata” blogging idea take hold in an actual hanging of real artwork. Thank you, Andrew! Thank you, ContaminateNYC!

(photo and more info on the concept of the “Passeggiata” courtesy of DavidLansing.com)

La Passegiata, Red Hook (solo) Part II: Art in the Dark at Kidd Yellin

sarah — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:52:27 +0000

Date: June 29, 2010, even later in the afternoon than before. a breeze near the waterfront.
Location: Conover Street, ‘Kidd Yellin’
Weather: See previous post. Hot. OK?
Narrative: I tell you, honestly: I’m NOT looking for “art.” I just want to take a walk.
Then this:

No, that isn’t a mezuzah taking a nap. It’s a doorbell. Thing is, I didn’t even see it at first, and I certainly didn’t bother to read that sign saying there was an exhibition inside. I just peered through the glass; saw art; gently pushed the door open.
It gave.
Inside it was dark.
It was quiet.

blurry art show, open for marauders like me, complete with red balls on...casters!

Viola. Huge show, nicely curated, full of diverse stuff in diverse media, all of which was just edgy enough—and just not edgy enough— to coexist into someone’s idea of a tongue-and-groove-constructed high concept. I was grateful for the fact that the lights were off (remember, I’m not looking for art). That way, I could feel all that Curatorial Energy on my skin, as it were, and have zero obligation to weigh in about it.

Art Critic as Fruit Bat. That’s my speed.
Time to flit out.
Ooops. I must nepotistically report on more serendipitous-ness. Good artist and good buddy Gary Peterson is in this show. See, it’s official: a checklist and everything.

Peterson et al in checklist in dark

Now how smart are these Kidd Yellin people anyway?
I’ve always like passing by the glass doors.
Nice to finally go inside.

wow to all that perfect light and cloud action again outside.

“La Passegiata”: Red Hook. Private ‘art’ walk(s), in which I don’t look for art. June. part I.

sarah — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:48:09 +0000

Date: June 29, 2010, late afternoon (with some mention of the previous night, almost at dark).

Location: Van Brunt and environs

Hot-as-heck, high humidity. Oppressive sun. Criss-cross-the-sidewalk-to-find-shade weather.

La Passegiata, “private,” Part I.

Date: June 29, 2010, late afternoon, with some reference to June 28, evening.

Location: Van Brunt and environs

Weather: Hot-as-heck, high humidity. Oppressive sun. Criss-cross-the-sidewalk-to-find-shade weather.

Valentino Street Pier (from Brownstoner)

Red Hook is behaving herself, and darn, I am without a decent camera: the beers are cold and not expensive; a guy named “Smitty” plays a steel (?) guitar for tips at what is fast becoming my favorite bar, Bait & Tackle; the temperature drops a good ten degrees out on Valentino Pier, which, after a plate of french fries at the Ice House for $3.50 is a good place to walk.

from bait&tackle website

Leaped-to conclusion: I’m wandering into Red Hook so often (and so enjoyably now), I think I deserve that “wandering-into” privileges be granted me officially—by the locals. Perhaps my new title could be in the form of “Resident-Observer,” or “RH: Chronicler-of-Note.”

In any case, the place is looking damn-near cinematic perfect, its ratio of industry-to-residential juuuust right for the casual, arty observer: huge warehouses looming over low-lying dwellings; a billboard canted at just the right angle to block the clouds, and yet pleasingly draw the eye; that “R” marooned up high, and adding funny punctuation to most every scene it kisses, in today’s case, a mixed-racial conversation I witnessed between a business-suited white man and a sun-dress-wearing African-American woman (no, I didn’t snap their picture). True, they were waiting for a bus, but they were also clearly enjoying each other’s company. As I watched them, that lone, silly letter seemed to move with me as I passed. R: For ‘right on.’

(recycling R imagery, mine)

Last night, I tried to check out real stuff, not art. Really. But I was stunned to find a film loop of a running buffalo projected for no apparent reason out of street-level window opposite Baked on Van Brunt. It’s black and white and ever ends.

unexpected wilds from storefront on Van Brunt

What I decided: “Why would someone do that?” most would wonder.

Better to ask, “Why not?”

(top image courtesy of Brownstoner.com)

Union Street Outpost: WORK

sarah — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:31:17 +0000

Interrupting this studio-visit bonanza to say (once again) that Carroll Gardens, proper, has an outpost of art as serendipitously fun as that last studio—and accessible, ’cause it’s a gallery: WORK. At the end of Union Street.

Blackberry camera, at WORK

Wandered into the open door this morning. And, in addition to these nifty stools and table altered with wooden ball/dowl-y things, took in the show by one Patrick Campbell.

Interiors that have home-like architecture within them, stacked on tabletops or makeshift mountains.

Patrick Campbell

Lots of sweet color, interesting texture, and glimmer—courtesy of actual pearls glued to the surface, and glittery-plastic coatings of I don’t know what. Hard not to like.

And the stumble-upon, serendipity factor?: Huge.

WORK is having an outdoor sale of art (somehow coordinated all over Will’sburg and other sites) next weekend. Check out the parameters of the sale of cheap (under $200) work, plus this exhibition.