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Amid the latest Amory Arts Week activity, Artist and Bushwick Art Crit Group (BACG) Founder, Christopher Stout, has put together a new group of notable local creatives for our art-loving enclave to meet this Wednesday night, March 19th @ 7:00 pm at Brooklyn Fireproof East. The March installment of BACG kicks off the Spring season and celebrates the one year anniversary of this artist run organization. Their website describes Bushwick Art Crit Group as “a networking and creative development community that seeks to give Bushwick artists a nurturing place to share about their work, and to receive feedback on work for which they’d like to hear creative opinions.”
Artists, curators, gallery owners and other art enthused guests meet on a monthly basis to view new or in-progress work, provide critiques and nurture the art-making process. To give you a better idea of what you might see at BACG, here is a recap of the February 19th session:
Linda Griggs: Awkward porn—not fun!
Linda seeks the stories behind pornographic images, sometimes finding humorous stories along the way. During the February session she shared her research into first-time experiences for young men with porn—the awkward, un-enjoyable ones. She recalled a babysitting job where she caught the 11-year old boy watching porn and gave him his first lecture on feminism.
Allen Hanson: Surprised by his own work
While sharing his series of formulaic paintings, Allen described the elements of the canvas as voids and solids, with incisions that appeared to float off the canvas surface – “So in, so out,” he narrated. Throughout the crit, he seemed surprised by his own work as it streamed from the projector, revealing an uncompromising dedication to his painting in which he allowed the art-making process to happen as it may.
Sessa Englund: The infliction of one’s self
For artist and curator Sessa Englund, her own physicality makes a presence in her work as she inflicts herself on a medium as a way to really understand it. Sessa shared a site-specific installation from the Con Artist Collective that took her own hair and splayed it across the gallery walls. Within this were feminine characteristics mixed with the violence of disembodiment as it came to take over the space.
Drew van Diest: Dropping out of life
Inspired by the aesthetic of the city and the landscapes surrounding him, Drew took the texture he feels and worked them into a series of skateboard decks that take on a paradisiacal painterly feel. The decks contain collages of scraps and cut-outs from Fashion magazines; as a freelancer in the Fashion industry, this is his rejection of the industry, his way of dropping out of life and escaping reality.
Loreal Prystaj: Screening other people’s bathtubs
You will need to see the photographs to believe it: Loreal appears in a series of photographs that take place in other people’s bathtubs. After bravely placing ads online to shoot in bathtubs that are not her own, she scouts the location and adorns it with props and decorations. She then becomes a character within this strange setting. One audience member asked, “How do you screen who’s tub you go into?”
Jenny Morgan: Manipulation in the hope of shaping reality
Jenny shared with us the intimate portraits of people she was close to at the time of her creative process, admitting to her manipulation of the image in way she believed could change the reality of the friendship or relationship with the subject. This intimate practice revealed deeper, unknown notions, especially through a portrait she took of a pregnant friend—she found within her subject how she felt about the subject of motherhood and procreation.
The March installment of Bushwick Art Crit group will meet on Wednesday, March 19th @ 7PM inside the Brooklyn Fireproof East Gallery, located at 119 Ingraham Street.