Now this sucks…After last year’s super successful first Bushwick Basel, organized by a prominent artist and a Bushwick resident Jules de Balincourt, this year’s art fair has been cancelled.
Last year Jules de Balincourt personally invited nine Bushwick galleries to participate in a semi-ironic art fair in his Starr Space. The fair held during Bushwick Open Studios was nothing like Basel or even Miami Basel. The booths were made of plywood, and both galleries and visitors agreed that it was a major success. Jules tried to repeat the success of Bushwick Basel this year with 30-40 Bushwick galleries in a new, larger space. The new location was supposed to be at Knockdown Center, which is a wonderful, renovated, high-ceilinged industrial space of 40,000 sq ft. The space successfully hosted the last Rubulad party about a month ago. We could say that everything about the space was amazing, except the location: Maspeth, Queens. Not that we don’t love Queens but it was a little far away – especially for a festival like Bushwick Open Studios, which is already widespread enough. Knockdown Center was promising shuttles from Bushwick, and an after party organized by Roberta’s.
However, last Thursday, on April 4, 2013, the galleries received an email from the lead organizer Jules de Balincourt, in which he announced that “due to time constraints” he will be unable to prepare Bushwick Basel this year. So far, we have not been successful in reaching Jules for further comments. According to Jules’ email, he hopes to continue this tradition next year. Jules also mentioned in the email that Knockdown Center has offered to continue to move forward with this project. Knockdown Center has declined to comment at this time.