Soap bubbles at Bogart Street. The night of the citydrift may begin! (all photos and a video by the author)

Soap bubbles, tiny tequilas, violently damaged Golem of Bushwick, poetry, industrial landscape, multi-person ping pong, Joy Ride…and I have barely started to describe how was the Friday night in the name of citydrift.

Citydrift is a project created and produced by Peter Hopkins (who wrote a great essay on letting go about it) and Meenakshi Thurikode, both from The Bogart Salon. After Bushwick, citydrift will take place in other cities of the world.

On Friday night, small groups of about 2 to 10 people began to drift from one of the drift sites. Experiencing accidental or intentional art of the night Bushwick landscape was the goal of the Friday night drifting, and participants were sharing their experience on social media using the hashtag #citydrift. I joined the drift of Meenakshi Thurikode and naturally I couldn’t pass a drift organized by Mama Joy’s titled Joy Ride. Mama Joy’s hired an awesome car illuminated by crazy LED lights and was offering free rides to Mama Joy’s. Meenakshi, referencing an old Indian myth, was prompting her drifters as well as other randomly encountered people to whisper a wish in her ear that was promised to come true. Other drifters on her experience team included poets Modesto Flako Jimenez, Zohra Saed, Kiran Chanda,  and artists Soek Hyun Han and Ken Kocses.

Saturday and Sunday were dedicated to various panels and artist discussions that all had one basic underlying question in common: “What are we building in Bushwick? Can we create a model that serves to the good of all?”

Here is what we experienced:

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By Katarina Hybenova

“Bushwick collage is not only popular, but increasingly amazing!” This was my conclusion recently made after numerous art-exploring adventures in Bushwick.  Collage being a combination of elements from different sources reflects the time we live in so accurately. Magazines, postcards, fliers… Stimuli coming at us from every direction, combined with artists’ own imaginary world reflect everyday subconscious battle with overload of impulses. While some artists work with physical elements and cut outs, others work with images compiled exclusively from the Internet, and create collages in Photoshop. I believe that this speaks loud about the spirit of the time, and the vanishing importance of print and physical objects in favor of the Internet…

Here is a selection of 10 extraordinary artists from the Bushwick area who work in collage listed in alphabetical order.

#1 Nate Anspaugh

photo via nateanspaugh.com

Nate Anspaugh lives and works in Ridgewood. A large part of his body of works is formed by poster collage. He scrapes of posters from the walls as if he was taking parts of the city home with him. Afterwards, he layers them frantically creating abstract objects, a collage of city impressions…

#2 Paul D’Agostino 

Photo via nortemaar.org

One of the number of the activities of Paul D’Agostino, a Bushwick’s renaissance man, is collage making. Almost forgotten memories, narratives and concepts are common to Paul’s works. Paul uses old postcards, cut outs from the magazines, advertising fliers, newspaper articles, or headlines…

#3 Andrew Hurst

Photo via storefrontbk.com

Collage and assamblage is the medium of Andrew Hurst. This sophisticated Bushwick artists creates imaginary worlds frequently balancing on the edge of the dark side.

#4 Kenna Kindig

Photo by Sean Alday

Kenna Kinding is a young artist who in addition to typical cut outs and drawing uses also artificial hair. Her imaginary worlds are altered consciously with borrowed elements from elsewhere, such as a typical manga eye on a character in her piece.

#5 Ken Kocses

photo via bushwickgallery.com

Ken Kocses, a Ridgewood-based artist combines drawings and collage. Characters from the 1990s TV shows, basketball stars, kid commercials – Ken’s pieces are full of pop culture references. He searches the Internet for images from the decade to print them and glue them onto his trippy drawings.

#6 Ellen Letcher

Ellen Letcher’s minimalism and brutality combined with tenderness are striking. She combines cut outs from (fashion) magazines with paint, result of which are intensely unsettling pieces.

#7 JP Marin

Photo via JP Marin's facebook

 JP Marin’s collage art is a trippy journey of the Internet. As a reflection of the stream of JP’s consciousness feel also his collages. He uses quirky, odd elements; his collage art is full of pop cultural references and insider jokes.

#8 Kevin Regan

Photo via Kevin Regan's flickr.

A journey through Kevin Regan’s body of work is adventurous, and if you set for it, you will most likely feel like a kid discovering new fantasy worlds. I personally enjoy his sense of humor and self-irony, which are leaking through  his narratives.

#9  Austin Thomas

Austin Thomas lives and works in Manhattan, but her numerous Bushwick activities, from exhibiting, curating, mentoring to supporting the community, qualify her for a honorary title of a Bushwick artist (at the very least). Her gentle collage pieces are an exquisite gate to her dreamy worlds. She frequently uses subtle shapes, pale colors, using mostly paper, her collage pieces belong to the most important of the list.

#10 Vahge

photo via Vahge's Facebook

Vahge is a Bushwick-based self-taught collage artist, which is pretty much absolutely amazing. She works in small scale with a surgeon-like precision. Her objects are usually women placed between romantic and unsettling reality.

By Terri Ciccone

It’s kind of hard to sit back and then remember what it’s like being a kid. Not your “childhood,” but being “a kid” specifically. A friend slaps a bracelet on your wrist that immediately curls up. Your brother yells that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon is on, but your sister is occupying the TV watching 90210. You conquer your Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo as you sit among metallic Pogs and trippy Lisa Frank folders, snacking on War Heads and Fruit Roll-Ups. All the while a toy is beeping somewhere in your closet (you assume it’s the Tamagotchi you have been neglecting.)

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By Katarina Hybenova

Photo by Rafael Fuchs. From the bottom to the left: Paul D'Agostino from Centotto, our own Terri Ciccone, Ashley Zelinskie from The Active Space and our Katarina Hybenova.

…. simply awesome! The art opening and the 90s dance party was crafted in the kitchen of BushwickGallery.com, our artsy lil’ sister, and brought to life thanks to our dear friends 950 Hart Gallery.  Last Friday night has proved once again that the power of creative collaboration is amazing.

To sum it up, BushwickGallery.com is the 1st Bushwick gallery based purely in the virtual space. Its mission is to endorse emerging artists of the area, and to bring art closer to young people using the power of the Internet. In monthly (usually small group shows), is BushwickGallery.com focusing on discovering the talent! The L Magazine named BushwicGallery.com 1 of the Top 5 New Galleries in Brooklyn of 2011!

Photo by Katarina Hybenova. From the hanging process.

However, every online art show begins with an offline opening, every time at a different Bushwick art space.

Mushroom Universe is an art show, which explores the spotty memories, bringing forward the perceptions, images, shapes and colors of the lavish decade of the 1990 in the works of Andrea Bergart, Matthew Mahler and Ken Kocses. For the offline opening Bushwick Gallery teamed up with 950 Hart Gallery, which are a great chill art space located in a duplex loft complex off Dekalb stop (L train). These guys have been around since 2010, and Mushroom Universe was their 20th art show. We can’t thank them enough for the relaxed vibe and great atmosphere of their home they shared with us… Oh, and the dance party was amazing. About 150 people showed up and a bunch of them joined us for absolutely rad dance party in the 1990s style after 10pm. Apropos, the dance party was insanely good. DJ Jojo Soul was spinning and spinning hard. You are probably imagining amazing, so we now need you to close your eyes and multiply this feeling by 1000. Yes, now you’re close to how amazing he was.  You will definitely hear more of this guy on Bushwick Daily soon.

The art was fresh! Energetic colors, geometric patterns, collages, pixels, Super Mario Mushroom, all was there…. Andrea Bergart with her geometry 90s styled oil paintings was a great bridge between totally insane Ken Kocses and geometry clean Matthew Mahler. For those of you who missed it, and would like to see the physical art, we have some good news. The show will be hanging at 950 Hart Gallery until the end of this week. If you want to see it, email us, and we can make it happen every day after 6pm. If you want to enjoy the art, but you can’t close your laptop and leave (we can understand these moments), just go to BushwickGallery.com and browse endlessly!!

Photo by Terri Ciccone. Happy kids playing Nintendo at the opening.

Detail of art work. Ken Kocses: Super Mario World.

Detail of Art Work: Andrea Bergart: Untitled 1

Detail of Art Work: Matthew Mahler: Synth Magic

It seems like the spring has reached our beloved pigeon town prematurely; and even though it might feel confusing at times (“are we reading and baking cookies or are we partying and celebrating spring?”), it doesn’t really feel bad. The events in Bushwick this week are all pretty awesome, and here are the 5 coolest according to Bushwick Daily….

#1 Mushroom Universe (Art Opening + 90s Dance Party) @ 950 Hart //Friday 7-10PM

BushwickGallery.com is our sister project, and the 1st Internet-based art space in Bushwick focusing on endorsing emerging artists, and using the power of the Internet to introduce the art from Bushwick area to the young people all around the world. The December launch of the project featuring four brilliant artists (Julie Torres, Eric Trosko, Nate Anspaugh and Over Under) has been super-successful! We made it to the Top 5 New Brooklyn galleries of 2011 according to The L Magazine, got some praise from ARTINFO, completely sold out Julie Torres pieces, and last but not least had a supercool opening party at Paper Swan Loft that was widely attended and remembered long after. This all gave us a lot of motivation for the second show and for its offline opening! This times BushwickGallery.com has teamed up with 950 Hart Gallery, a new Bushwick art space with a great chill vibe located in a duplex loft right off the Dekalb L stop.

Together, 950 Hart and BushwickGallery.com are bringing you an offline pop up art opening of Mushroom Universe.

‘Mushroom Universe’ takes a tour through the spotty memories, bringing forward the perceptions, images, shapes and colors of the lavish decade of the 90s. Mushroom Universe is a celebration of this subconscious but overt return to the cultural references, symbols, and colors of the 1990′s in the works of Andrea Bergart, Matthew Mahler and Ken Kocses.

On February 10, from 7 to 10pm, you have a unique chance to see the physical art from Mushroom Universe, and to meet the artists, totally offline…Also DJ Jojo Soul will be spinning 90s music, and 90s outfits are totally encouraged.

RSVP on FB

#2 Reptar, Fort Lean, Tiny Victories, and Casual Curious @ Shea Stadium //Monday 8-11PM

It hasn’t been too long since we convinced our crush on Bushwick band Fort Lean. With a Bushwick-based duo Tiny Victories we are openly madly in love. Casual Curious are pretty cool as well. This combination of bands doesn’t leave us with anything else that to absolutely recommend stopping by Shea Stadium tonight for a dance! Music will be rad!

RSVP on FB

#3 Status Update @ Vaudeville Park //Thursday 7-9PM

Vaudeville Park presents a really interesting social media-related art show on Thursday. Artists Adam Eckstrom, Bonnie Pipkin, Jen Rodewald, Brina Thurston, and Ian Umlauf used their photography to tell diverse stories about their lives, interests and creative spheres on their Facebook pages.  When removed from their original context the images stand on their own as autonomous works of art with strong narrative and emotional content. The arrays of images document their way of thinking and moving through the real world, while playing with the mechanisms of the social media platform.

RSVP on FB

#4 Bushwick Movie Night @ Tandem //Tuesday 9PM

A popular bar Tandem is presenting their second of movie night on Tuesday night. They will be screening Bridesmaids! Do we need to say more?

RSVP on FB

#5 We Are Cinema: 50 Years of Film-Makers’ Co-op Exhibit & Screenings @ Microscope Gallery //Saturday 7-9PM

We Are Cinema is a month-long exhibit and screening series celebrating 50 years of the Film-Makers’ Co-op in NYC. It was in January of 1962 that filmmaker Jonas Mekas called an urgent meeting of about 20 avant-garde/independent filmmakers including Stan Vanderbeek, Rudy Burckhardt, Jack Smith, Ken Jacobs, and Gregory Markopoulos to discuss taking the means of exhibition and distribution into their own hands. Within months the Film-Makers’ Co-op was born. Under the stewardship of filmmaker MM Serra since 1991, the organization is now the oldest and largest artist-run cooperative in the world and membership continues to be open to anyone with a film or video work.

RSVP on FB

…do you know what you are doing this weekend? I surely know what Julie Torres and 13 other artists will be doing… They will all be part of an insane art experiment 48 HRS, during which they will be creating artwork, sleeping, and finally having a party!

Participating artists will meet up in Camel Art Space (722 Metropolitan Ave. Second Floor, Brooklyn) on Friday October 21, at midnight. They will be creating art work for the following 24 hours straight (!!!). After this creative insanity, they will have time to rest for 12 hours, i.e. from midnight on Saturday to noon on Sunday. On Sunday at noon to midnight, the doors of Camel Art Space will be open, and everyone is welcomed to take look at the artwork created during the experiment, and to join the creative bunch celebrating the last third of 48 HRS!

Here, take a look at this helpful timetable of 48 HRS:

Don’t despair! Thanks to Twitter you can also witness the first 36 hours of the experiment. Look for hashtag #48HRS or simply come to the Bushwick Daily website. We will be displaying every tweet containing hashtag #48HRS throughout the entire experiment. The artists will be tweeting and posting pictures right from the site.

Also Bushwick Daily’s Katarina Hybenova, will be photographing and videotaping the entire process. In regular intervals, some photographs will appear on Bushwick Daily, and in the end the photo and the video documentation will be exhibited as part of the art show!

Artist Julie Torres is a big fan of painting marathons and the mastermind behind 48HRS. Julie has herself undergone several “mini” painting marathons, and a 24 hour-long one, which took place at the headquarters of popular art blogazine Hyperallergic. We asked her what to expect.

1. You are a big fan of painting marathons. Where did you get the idea to start with them?

Geddes Levenson first introduced me to painting marathons, which she began doing about a year ago with her friend, Annie Blazejack. I’ve also done a bunch with Austin Thomas. And yes- I love them! Thank you, Geddes!

2. Why do you think that painting marathon as a creative method works for you?

They encourage me to push myself. I tend to paint for long periods, but working in such a focused way with another person is much more intense. And also, you sort of absorb what the other person is doing. Last time with Geddes, she was drawing these bees- and next thing you know- I’ve got these black and yellow stripes going through my piece (see photo.) That sharing of energy and experience thrills me.

Painting by Julie Torres created during a 15hour-long marathon with Geddes Levenson. Photo by courtesy of Julie Torres.

3. I know that you have been gearing up for 48HRS by doing shorter painting marathons with your close friends. Can you tell us more?

The longest I’ve gone with Geddes is 15 hours. We were pretty fried at the end. But she’s gone 24-hours straight with Annie, so I know that it’s possible! I’ve painted for 15 hours on my own, but there’s something different about hunkering down in one room with another person. When I work from home I take breaks, check email, make a phone call, etc– but this experience is different. It’s very concentrated. So yeah- that’s the longest I’ve gone, 9 hours short of the goal! But it helps.

Paiting by Julie Torres created during a painting marathon with Austin Thomas. Photo by courtesy of Julie Torres.

4. How do you perceive the role of the public that will come to the show after you finish a painting marathon?

That’s a tough one. I don’t know that it’s up to me to say what a viewers’ role is, but I do have some ideas about enhancing interaction with people who come to the show. I can’t wait. I won’t give it away…

5. Are you excited to have more people doing a painting marathon with you? How do you expect the group to affect the outcome?

I’m really excited to try this with a big group. I have no idea how, but I do expect the experience will change the way we all work in some fundamental way. You know that proverb, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ That sums it up I guess.

6. If any of the artists participating in 48 HRS are concerned about how they’ll work in a group and for such a long time, what would you like to tell them?

Don’t worry, we’ll have a Safe Word.

48HRS will be held from  the midnight on Friday to midnight on Sunday. Join us by posting tweets with #48HRS, and by coming on Sunday October 22, 2011, 12pm-12am at Camel Art Space!

Artists include: Lauren Collings, Julie Curtiss, Rebecca Goyette, Erin Haldrup, Katarina Hybenova, Warren King, Ken Kocses, Geddes Levenson, Rebecca Litt, Chris McGee, Joey Parlett, Jamie Powell, Babette Rittenberg, Julie Torres