By Katarina Hybenova
Julie Torres once told me she can’t just organize a regular art show. “I just can’t…” Julie has been largely involved with the artistic community in Bushwick for a couple of years now, and she had organized and curated several notable art events. At AIRPLANE she created durational experiment Cult Logic; she made a bunch of painters work and exhibit their work within 48 hours at Camel Art Space; and for BOS2011, she organized nights of collaborative drawings and showed the results at Norte Maar.
Neither this year did Julie fail to come up with an interesting, community driven concept. She invited a dozen artists she has never met in person, but she has been in vivid contact through social media and art blogs. Many of them came from over seas, just to meet energetic Julie Torres and the rest of the group of abstract painters. They flew in their work, but they also participated in a collaborative drawing night with the Bushwick artist held at Hyperallergic HQ. The show titled ALLTOGETHENOW at a pop up location at Starr and Wycoff, The Coin Locker featured all of these works, and certainly belonged to the most interesting shows during BOS2012. The works in the show were beautiful, colorful abstract paintings that furthermore reflected the energy and friendship, pure joy of being and creating together in Bushwick…
Shortly before the opening night, I asked Julie a couple of questions about the show and her friendly folks.
How did the night of collaborative drawing go? Did your international entourage clicked with Bushwick artists? Are you happy about the art you created?
Collab night was amazing. So many people came out! It was a lot of fun and we were all incredibly focused– We made lots of beautiful work. It was tough to narrow it down for the show…….. I can’t wait for you to see it!
Can you explain us how did you come to almost a dozen out-of-town painters friends who were in addition willing to come to Bushwick?
Haha! I love that you say ‘willing to come…..’ They were so happy to come! Some of us take what’s going on in Bushwick for granted sometimes– but the truth is— it is real. People can see that there are things happening here. I’m not talking about the hype of the neighborhood, the ‘trends’ and all that– cuz that’s all pretty annoying. I’m talking about—- If you want to put a show together, you can put a show together. Artists will participate and people will come. It’s a really wonderful environment to play and experiment in and I’m completely unembarrassed to say that I love that. You can’t get that a lot of other places. I genuinely love the attitude that anything is possible– and whatever people may say— I really get that here. And it’s fantastic.
How do they like Bushwick so far?
They love it! All of our Brooklyn friends have been so welcoming and kind– I am having so much fun just watching all the connections and interactions. Oh– and they love the food! The tacos and margaritas at Mesa Azteca on Wyckoff have been particularly popular…….. The most exciting part will be when everyone gets to see all the shows and studios. I can’t wait.
[box]ALLTOGETHERNOW was a pop up art show held at The Coin Locker organized by Julie Torres that featured Brian Cypher (Washington), Brian Edmonds (Alabama), David T. Miller (Pennsylvania), Ian White Williams (Philadelphia), Inga Dalrymple (Sydney, Australia), Julie Alexander (Seattle), Justine Frischmann (San Francisco), Peter Shear (Bloomington, Indiana), Stephen Wright (Los Angeles), Vincent Hawking (London, UK), Yifat Gat (Aix-en-Provence, France).[/box]