The Bushwick arts scene is finally old enough to vote.
On a soggy weekend in late September, scores of artists in the once-industrial enclave welcomed visitors to their workspaces for Arts in Bushwick’s 18th annual Open Studios. In its heyday a decade ago, the free event attracted press coverage well beyond arts sections and thousands of art denizens who hobnobbed in cluttered studios amid the converted loft buildings.
Interest in Bushwick Open Studios waned thanks to a series of indomitable L-train shutdowns followed by the pandemic. In the past few years, the event appeared haphazardly put together, with few outward signs of its sprawling presence throughout the neighborhood.
But enthusiasm has quietly returned as Arts in Bushwick organizers have found their footing. This year, the group put together an interactive online map of sites to visit and distributed a 24-page physical booklet with a directory of participating artists in Bushwick, East Williamsburg, and Ridgewood.
The artists seemed in better spirits too, despite the rain and a truncated subway line that didn’t run into Manhattan.
Julia Sinelnikova, who co-organized the festival from 2009 to 2014, showed off a rotating sculpture made of resin, acrylic, dichroic film, and thin sheets of mica she whittled as guests streamed into her second-floor studio on a former textile factory on Troutman Street.
“I feel like the energy in the neighborhood is picking back up,” she said. “The corporatization of Bushwick has been intense, but a lot of art studios prevail and new people like my studio mate Nina [Lavezzo-Stecopoulos] keep coming in and bringing new energy.”
Down on Johnson Street in the Active Space building, Joanne Unger welcomed a crowd who gathered around her work table to look at wood panels she made of small unfolded cardboard boxes covered with layers of encaustic wax. In Ridgewood, Kerry Law assembled an array of patterned, multicolored sculptures and paintings of gravestones inspired by nearby cemeteries.
On Starr Street, artist Ad Deville sold graphic t-shirts and plywood cutouts of Converse sneakers that he has flung on telephone wires in cities around the world. He converted his backyard garage into a street art gallery called Skewville and featured a 25-year retrospective of his sneaker project this weekend.
“My favorite thing people say is, ‘I walk by this place all the time and never knew that there was a gallery back here,’ he told Hyperallergic. “They are always amazed. I love that, when people stumble upon Skewville and seem in awe. You can’t get that reaction from a social media post.”
Discovering something beautiful while exploring a corner of the art world that you don’t normally see remains the central appeal of an open studios event. But what sets Bushwick apart is the ecosystem of artist-run galleries and nonprofit arts organizations that has supported artists’ careers for more than two decades.
A handful of those galleries are still around. On the first floor of 56 Bogart Street, spaces like Amos Eno and Fuchs Projects still champion many Brooklyn artists. On Willoughby Avenue in Bushwick, Transmitter featured an intriguing group exhibition about “twin-works” by Emily Davidson, James Parker Foley, Maria Stabio and Natale Adgnot, while Tiger Strikes Asteroid finished presenting Vladimir Cybil Charlier and Marina Gutierrez’s two-person show exploring the concept of alchemy with references to Haitian and Puerto Rican culture. Alas their neighbor, Underdonk, is moving to Henry Street on the Lower East Side after 11 years and more than 70 exhibitions in the neighborhood.
Other institutions have decamped to Manhattan, but Norte Maar relocated further east to Cypress Hills. Jason Andrew and Julia Gleich’s interdisciplinary arts organization, an early Bushwick Open Studios participant, showcased several bright abstract works by Bushwick painter Brooke Moyse in celebration of the festival.
Moyse started working with central geometric figures in 2011 but now makes larger shapes that draw from her own physical and emotional experiences and relationship with her body.
“It’s a very intuitive process to find the central shapes, so I don’t necessarily approach them with a concept, but I have to have a particular feeling either physically or emotionally, or both, mixed with a sense of movement, joy, and silliness,” she said.
Andrew was impressed with Moyse’s sensitivity toward how she uses her paints and how she composes her work.
“You really get this sense of immediacy and almost feel the spontaneity in how the paint was applied,” he said. “It’s easy to overwork a surface, but she has a way of being able to say ‘That’s enough,’ and back away.”
The organization is celebrating its 20th year this year, which made Andrew reflect on his role in shaping the Bushwick arts scene.
“I’m lucky to be one of the people passionate about supporting artists, finding new artists, and finding a place in my life where I have the opportunity to show the work and have cool people come out and hang out and look at it,” he said.
