Once again, Bushwick Open Studios was a chaotic weekend full of weird art, weirder people, and bumping parties. The printed guide for this celebration of local art in the world’s 7th hippest neighborhood was rather difficult to navigate (someone forgot to, you know…include street names on the maps), so the best way to experience BOS was to let yourself be carried on the winds of day drinking.
Here are some of my favorite pieces I came across as I chased thumping bass lines from rooftop to rooftop.
Well it’s hard to argue with a rooftop party featuring all-you-can drink beer and pulled pork sandwiches from Arrogant Swine – pig heads and all! But Sugarlift, a newer space on Morgan Avenue, also had some really unique pieces in the gallery beneath the party.
These crocheted kicks by London Kaye are the perfect mix of sporty and quaint. And you can have her make a custom pair for you! Slam dunk, Grandma.
The global HQ of Livestream had a unique selection of artwork up in their lobby, but this wall of pieces by Brandon Sines really stood out. Sines’s iconic Frank the Ape can also be spotted on walls all around town, but you’ve never seen him as bootylicious as this.
The Brooklyn Collage Collective’s group show for BOS caught a lot of eyes out on the street. Though the collective is expanding with shows in Australia and the UK, it still has a strong core of homegrown talent. These pieces by Lizzie Gill were particularly beautiful in their simplicity and clean handiwork.
This series of paintings by Ana Wieder-Blank, entitled Puppet Panic, was really visceral – there is this sense of violence coupled with revelry that I didn’t know how to interpret, but it worked for me. It was a real stand-out of Honey Ramka.
THE 407 BUSHWICK
The party was bumping all day long at The 407 Bushwick. Fumero, the space’s curator, had invited a slew of street artists to spray their art up on the rooftop while the rest of us partook of hibiscus tequila and tacos beneath them. It felt like a special sneak-peek to be able to witness the walls transform over the course of the day. What at first looked like a haphazard mess of color fields and splotches was, by the day’s end, a masterpiece to rival the street art of Europe and South America.
Bushwick Open Studios is one hell of a whirlwind. The neighborhood is teeming with creative energy; it’s simply a matter of navigating it.
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