Bushwick has changed rapidly into a 24-hour nightlife destination in recent years, yet there are still a few remnants of the neighborhood’s once-vibrant art scene that offer groundbreaking exhibitions every month. Two of those galleries, Transmitter and Tiger Strikes Asteroid, happen to share the second floor above an Asian fusion restaurant on 1329 Willoughby Avenue, where they have featured hundreds of shows from emerging artists across the world for the past 10 years.
Early on, they redesigned their 2,000-square-foot floor into two connected art spaces with concrete floors, white walls, and fluorescent ceiling lights that nevertheless manages to feel inviting.
“Our space is a little jagged, but we tried to make the split as fair as possible,” Tiger Strikes Asteroid Co-Director Sun You told Hyperallergic. “I love having another gallery next to each other. For many practical reasons, we coordinated our openings and closings.”
It all started in May 2014, when the owner of 17-17 Troutman evicted a smattering of galleries from the former Ridgewood textile factory that had become a home to scores of artist studios.
One of them, Parallel Arts Space, was run by artists Rob de Oude and Enrico Gomez, who wanted to remain in the neighborhood. Fortunately, Tiger Strikes Asteroid — known informally as TSA — had outgrown its home on Stewart Avenue, so they teamed up and moved into a quaint industrial space a few blocks east as Parallel rebranded to Transmitter.
The neighborhood had already become a thriving art hub thanks to spaces like Norte Maar, Sardine, Schema Projects, and Koenig & Clinton as well as an annual open studios festival. Microscope, known for featuring large-scale installations and video art, moved into their building a few months earlier just as Underdonk, another 17-17 refugee, relocated next door.
Both TSA and Transmitter are collectively owned although they are managed in slightly different ways. At TSA, nine co-directors pay yearly dues and each have curatorial control over their shows (TSA has sister locations in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, and South Carolina). Transmitter’s co-directors have input into each of their shows and used to pay dues before they entered a contract with Memorial Sloan Kettering to supply artwork to the hospital.
Transmitter co-founder Carl Gunhouse tries to visit other shows and artist studios in the region whenever someone sends a request.
“I try to find work from those who are not like me on some level that I’m not interested in, so I often reach out to people cold and ask, “Will you have me over for a studio visit?”
Their members scour Instagram and their own networks to populate their shows, which has led to breakout stars. A few months after TSA displayed Didier William’s mixed-media paintings in 2017, the Philadelphia-based artist showed work at a special exhibition for Volta NY during Armory Week in 2018, as well as at James Fuentes gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami.
Other exhibitions have involved sound and photography installations, dance performances, religious shrines, and seances. The past few months alone included Filogonio Naxín’s large-scale mural paintings of Mazateca Indigenous culture from his native Oaxaca, Mexico at Transmitter; multimedia artist Sungsil Ryu, who built an elaborate memorial for a fictional deceased South Korean influencer at TSA; and Pennsylvania-based artist Alma Star, who created an installation dedicated to a spirit she channels and hosted a live channeling session at TSA in February.
“Everyone was welcoming and supportive of the work I created,” Star said. “To be spirited can be tough, and I have faced dead ends and strained professional relationships in my career due to the nature of my work, but after the TSA experience I am more confident to be myself and continue making art that does have support and an audience.”
This year, the galleries collaborated on a six-month artists residency in a studio behind both spaces that will culminate in an open studio event or exhibition in the studio space. The application deadline for the next residency occurring between July and December is on March 16.
TSA and Transmitter’s members briefly considered alternative locations as their other neighbors moved out of the neighborhood or dissolved. Once they realized how expensive other locations were, they decided to stay put.
“We feel pretty good about what we’re doing. It’s mostly about our sustainability,” Gunhouse said. “If you’re still making art and you’re still in New York, you’ve succeeded.”
