Picturing the Constitution
On View: October 20, 2023-January 14, 2024.
Katherine Gressel, Curator
Check back for the virtual tour page.
Featured image by Morgan O’Hara.
Opening Reception: October 22, 2023, 4-6pm
Open Hours: Friday-Sunday 12-4pm, or by appointment
Picturing the Constitution features artists’ responses to the United States Constitution, including its origins, contents, and interpretations throughout history. Installations, workshops and performances in diverse media by 17 artists and art teams ask: to what extent do these founding documents still serve us (equitably)? What could we add or amend? As we approach the 2024 presidential election, it is an important time to reflect on the history and current state of democracy in America, our rights and responsibilities to our communities today, and the role of artists in depicting and facilitating these ideals.
Participating Artists were selected via an open call to both past OSH exhibiting artists and the general public, and selected by a committee that included artists, historians and constitutional scholars.
Participating Artists:
how to perform an abortion (Maureen Connor & Jason M. Leggett)
Dread Scott (Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York)
Public Programs:
Saturday, October 21, 1-2pm: Ecofeminist Fashion Walk with Iviva Olenick
Sunday, October 29, 11am-3pm: Remedy for a Constitutional Crisis: Constitutional reading and discussion with Maya Ciarrocchi outdoors in the North Garden (rain date November 4).
Friday, November 10, 7:00pm: Aftermath: A New Musical. Aftermath is new pop musical that follows the aftermath of a school shooting. This work-in-progress-sharing will include a talk back and an opportunity to engage with the writers, director, plus artist Ileana Doble Hernandez and her installation: “Postcards for Gun Control (Mommy, what is this?)”.
Monday, November 13, 6:30-9:30pm: Handwriting the Constitution session with Morgan O’Hara
Sunday, December 3, 1-3pm, Penumbra Kit: a workshop on reproductive rights and the Constitution, presented by artist Maureen Connor (of How to Perform an Abortion) and legal scholar and educator Jason M. Leggett.
Visit back or follow @oldstonehousebklyn for more information and additional public programs to be announced.
This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Artist Selection Committee: Steven Mazie, Professor of Political Studies at Bard High School Early College-Manhattan and Supreme Court Correspondent, The Economist; Katherine Toukhy, artist and art educator; Jennifer Wingate, Professor of Fine Arts, Chair, Interdisciplinary Studies, St. Francis College; Katherine Gressel, Contemporary Curator, Old Stone House & Washington Park; Kim Maier, Executive Director, Old Stone House & Washington Park
Permanent Exhibition
The Old Stone House: Witness to War – An Exhibit Exploring Conflict from Kieft’s War through the Battle of Brooklyn and the Occupation, 1643-1783
Old Stone House: Witness to War is a self-directed exhibit that takes visitors on a journey from the Lenape village of Marechkawick through Dutch colonization and the Revolutionary War era in Brooklyn. Ten themed areas allow visitors to explore this history and consider how war and displacement impacted the community, what choices people had to make at the time, battle strategies, and what makes these issues relevant in today’s world.
Historians
Patricia Bonomi
Edwin Burrows
Barnet Schecter
Dylan Yeats
Content Development
Ellen Snyder Grenier
Janet Rassweiler
Dylan Yeats
Exhibit Designers & Fabricators
May & Watkins
Interactives
Moey Inc.
Panoramic Studios
Past Exhibition Archive
Family Ties
On View: August 14 – October 9, 2023 see our calendar for visit hours.
Curated by Jeremy Dennis
Visit the virtual tour page for more information.
Featured image by Jamie John.
Mother Nature/Human Nurture
On View: April 27 – June 26, 2023
Visit the virtual tour page for more information.
Featured image by Dara Oshin.
Finding My Folk
Seven immigrant artists reshaping rituals and customs informed by “home”
On View: March 3 – April 10, 2023
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Belonging
A Textile Arts Exhibition with Kimberly Bush, Stephanie Eche, and Traci Johnson
Opening Reception October 13, 2022
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Temple of Acacia
A solo exhibition by Dario Mohr
On view: August 21 – September 30, 2022
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Brooklyn Utopias: Along the Canal
On view: April 10 – June 26, 2022
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Struggling Toward A Better World: Bev Grant Photography 1968-1972
On View: February 13 – March 27, 2022
Descendants
Artwork by Dianne Hebbert
On view: October 16, 2021 – January 30, 2022
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Land Markings
Artwork by Dennis RedMoon Darkeem, Jeremy Dennis, Ella Mahoney, & Natasha Smoke Santiago
On view: August 22, 2021 – October 11, 2021
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Nature Contained
Artwork by Jessica Dalrymple, K. Haskell, & Suzy Kopf
On view: May 15, 2021 – June 25, 2021
View the virtual tour page for more information.
Sun Seekers
Artwork by Amy Khoshbin & Jennifer Khoshbin
On View: April 17, 2021 – May 10, 2021.
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Against Doom TV (Fall 2020-Winter 2021)
A project by Amy Khoshbin & Macon Reed
October 25, 2020 – January 31, 2021. Gallery hours by appointment Friday-Sunday, Noon – 3 pm.
View a virtual tour of the Exhibition.
Stay tuned for events planned throughout the run of the Exhibition.
Against Doom TV is an interactive variety show bringing together artists, organizers, and candidates to make dismantling harmful systems and imagining the future we want more fun and radical. Artists Amy Khoshbin and Macon Reed explore the potential of collaborative performative and video practices to promote both activism and healing during this tumultuous time leading up to and in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Flipping the script on the drudgery of online platforms and passive TV watching, they tap into the history of artists using the absurd and play.
In the first episode, “Against DOOM TV: Abolitionism + Electoral Politics,” the artists tackle abolition and electoral politics as harm reduction. What does abolition mean? How can we use art, direct action, and policy making to create a world without prisons, punishment, and other forms of control? And how do we use abolitionist art making and direct action to bring people to the polls and help us envision a world beyond the current electoral systems? Speaking with a City Council candidate and abolitionist organizers, Khoshbin and Reed uncover answers with a live online audience through interviews, dating shows and more. Additional virtual and outdoor programming will respond to the outcome of the November 3 election and to Inauguration Day in January, with the goal of an ongoing series.
The exhibition includes video, sets and objects from the TV episode; and related artworks, including outdoor banners. Through these works both artists investigate corporate control, American idealism, and constructed ideas of success. They sometimes meditate on death to call for more active engagement with the present and a rejection of past mythologies.
About the Artists:
Macon Reed is a queer multidisciplinary artist who creates objects that are activated through performance and public participation, creating rituals and discourse around social and political issues. Her work is guided by a set of central concerns around power, collective consciousness and belonging, providing an inclusive platform for exchange. Using simple and accessible materials, working with a consistent palette of unapologetically bright colors, which allow the inconsistencies of her hand to show. Her work has been exhibited in New York at venues such as PULSE NYC Special Projects, BRIC Media Arts, ABC No Rio, and Abrons Art Center. Nationally, at San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), and Every Woman Biennial (Los Angeles). Internationally, at Transmediale Vorspiel (Berlin), La Patinoire Royale (Brussels), Five Years Gallery (London), Athens Museum of Queer Arts (Greece), Palazzina Liberty (Bologna), and Royal Academy of Arts Schools (London), and the University of New South Wales Gallery (Sydney). Reed completed her MFA at the University of Illinois at Chicago as a University Fellow in 2013 and received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007. She has completed many residencies and fellowship programs including at the Royal Academy of Arts (London), Eyebeam Center for Art+Technology, A.I.R. gallery, Amherst College, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has received mention in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Artnet News, Huffington Post, ArtFCity, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, BK Reader, The Gothamist, Art F City, Huffington Post, Arte TV France, and Arte TV Germany, among others.
Amy Khoshbin is an Iranian-American Brooklyn-based artist, activist, and educator. Her practice, as an artist and pedagogue, builds bridges between disparate communities to counteract fear with a collective sense of empowered radical acceptance. She pushes the formal and conceptual boundaries of artmaking to foster progressive social change through performance, social practice, video, rap music, installation, tattooing, teaching and writing. She has shown at venues such as The Whitney Museum of American Art The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Times Square Arts, Artpace, The High Line, Socrates Sculpture Park, VOLTA Art Fair, Leila Heller Gallery, Arsenal Contemporary, National Sawdust, BRIC Arts, and festivals such as River to River and South by Southwest. She has received residencies at spaces such as The Watermill Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Project for Empty Space, Anderson Ranch, and Banff Centre for the Arts. She has received a Franklin Furnace Fund and a Rema Hort Mann Artist Community Engagement Grant. Khoshbin received an MA from New York University in Tisch School of the Arts and a BA in Film and Media Studies at University of Texas at Austin. She has collaborated with Laurie Anderson, Karen Finley, House of Trees, Tina Barney, and poets Anne Carson and Bob Currie among others.
About the Curator: Katherine Gressel, the Old Stone House & Washington Park’s Contemporary Art Curator, is a New York‐based curator, artist, and writer focused on site‐specific art. She earned her BA in art from Yale and MA in arts administration from Columbia. Katherine’s previous exhibits dealing with such topics as income inequality, urban agriculture, and parks have been recognized by the New York Times, Time Out New York, Hyperallergic, News 12 Brooklyn, and DNAInfo. In addition to organizing eleven major exhibitions to date at the Old Stone House, Katherine has curated for FIGMENT, No Longer Empty, St. Francis College, and Brooklyn Historical Society, and was the 2016 NARS Foundation emerging curator. She was selected for the 2015 Independent Curators International (ICI) Curatorial Intensive in New Orleans. Katherine has written and presented on public and community art issues for Createquity, Americans for the Arts, and Public Art Dialogue, among others. Katherine also served as Programs Manager at Smack Mellon Gallery from 2010-2014, and has worked and consulted for diverse nonprofits.
Against Doom TV is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Brooklyn Utopias: 2020 (Summer 2020)
Online exhibition launches August 20. Opening reception on Instagram Live @oldstonehousebklyn August 20 6 pm. Gallery hours by appointment; please call 718-768-3195 Friday-Sunday, Noon – 3 pm.
We hope you will join us for our free public events hosted by participating artists.
Utopia: An ideal place or state, usually imaginary; any visionary system of political, social, environmental, or moral perfection
Brooklyn Utopias: 2020 addresses Brooklyn’s past, present and future by inviting artists to consider differing visions of an ideal Brooklyn. Participating artists also explore how Brooklyn has continued to change over the past decade, and if/how it can serve as a model for urban and American living on a national scale as we navigate a global pandemic in a time of unprecedented social, political and environmental turmoil. Brooklyn Utopias also implies the possibilities (or limitations) of art in creating a better world.
In 2020, in the midst of a tense national election season, COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd and others have brought heightened attention and urgency to the need to address Brooklyn’s persistent socioeconomic and racial inequities. Brooklyn Utopias: 2020 responds to our current moment with artworks that implicitly or explicitly suggest that a Brooklyn Utopia, especially in the COVID era, must involve not only a safe, healthy and affordable physical environment that nurtures the borough’s diverse communities and landmarks. It also demands a greater collective spirit and the rejection of “unhealthy levels of independence,” in the words of artist Jody Wood, who has created a virtual Independence Treatment Center to mitigate this condition. Diane Exavier’s Every Body Remains a Miracle installation and book-making workshop asks, “How do we care for our neighbors when the amenities of new construction seduce tenants into exceedingly more private life?” (and when those with the means may choose to abandon Brooklyn for suburban and rural alternatives?)
Together, these and other artworks investigate complex topics such as gentrification and environmental justice and experiment with creative ways to engage with and care for local communities, even with current social distancing measures. Many of the projects include online or outdoor components that can be experienced by a wide audience. We invite the public to submit photos of their own Brooklyn Utopias with the hashtag #BrooklynUtopias2020 and by tagging @oldstonehousebklyn. Visit our online exhibition to learn more about the artists and events.
Brooklyn Utopias: 2020 corresponds with the 10-year anniversary of the original Brooklyn Utopias? exhibitions series developed by curator Katherine Gressel and presented at both OSH and Brooklyn Historical Society in 2009-2010.
Participating Artists: Asha Boston, Elan Cadiz, Fontaine Capel, Nate Dorr and Nathan Kensinger, Diane Exavier, Tamara Gayer, Amir Hariri, Human Impacts Institute, Anna Lise Jensen, David Kutz, Robin Michals and Lynn Neuman, Jan Mun, Iviva Olenick, Rochelle Shicoff, Jody Wood, Ezra Wube, Betty Yu.
Artist Selection Committee: Heather Bhandari, independent curator and co-founder of the Remix Project and the Art World Conference; Desiree Gordon, Director of Programs and Strategy, Brooklyn Arts Council; Katherine Gressel, Contemporary Curator, Old Stone House & Washington Park; Kim Maier, Executive Director, Old Stone House & Washington Park; Maggie Weber, Director of Education, Old Stone House & Washington Park; and Harry Weil, Director of Public Programs & Special Projects, Green-Wood.
About the Curator: Katherine Gressel, the Old Stone House & Washington Park’s Contemporary Art Curator, is a New York‐based curator, artist, and writer focused on site‐specific art. She earned her BA in art from Yale and MA in arts administration from Columbia. Katherine’s previous exhibits dealing with such topics as income inequality, urban agriculture, and parks have been recognized by the New York Times, Time Out New York, Hyperallergic, News 12 Brooklyn, and DNAInfo. In addition to organizing eleven major exhibitions to date at the Old Stone House, Katherine has curated for FIGMENT, No Longer Empty, St. Francis College, and Brooklyn Historical Society, and was the 2016 NARS Foundation emerging curator. She was selected for the 2015 Independent Curators International (ICI) Curatorial Intensive in New Orleans. Katherine has written and presented on public and community art issues for Createquity, Americans for the Arts, and Public Art Dialogue, among others. Katherine also served as Programs Manager at Smack Mellon Gallery from 2010-2014, and has worked and consulted for diverse nonprofits.
Brooklyn Utopias: 2020 is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Image credit: Ezra Wube.
Online Project, Digital Programming, & Future Gallery Exhibition
Regeneration in Place
Projects by the Environmental Performance Agency (EPA) & Gowanus Swim Society (GSS)
Online Project & Digital Programming Launches April, 2020
Gowanus Swim Society Exhibit Component Postponed to 2021
Regeneration in Place is the Old Stone House & Washington Park (OSH)’s newest contemporary art programming, featuring the artist collectives Environmental Performance Agency (EPA) and Gowanus Swim Society (GSS). Originally scheduled for Spring 2020, the format for the exhibition has shifted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent mandated social distancing. We are pleased to announce the launch of the participatory online project by the EPA, as well as a series of digital programs with GSS. Our exhibition component Nature Contained with Gowanus Swim Society will be postponed to 2021.
Each artist group encourages deeper engagement with specific places that support plant life, from the Old Stone House garden to our own windows and backyards, to catalyze individual and collective rejuvenation. The term Regeneration suggests repairing what is lost or damaged, or a process of renewal and growth in organisms or ecosystems that makes them resilient to both natural cycles and events that cause disturbances. In the midst of a global pandemic, national election, and climate crisis that all threaten to permanently change life as we know it, these artists aim to help us find solace in the cyclical beauty of nature and look critically at our relationships with our environment and each other. We hope this perspective can inform our observance of Earth Day on April 22 as we continue to shelter in place. Regeneration in Place is curated by Katherine Gressel.
Online Project & Digital Programming:
Click here to participate in the Multispecies Care Survey, an interactive feature project by EPA.
GSS artist Jessica Dalrymple will host a virtual Botanical Drink ‘n’ Draw on Friday, April 24 at 7 pm on Zoom. Click here to register.
GSS members Suzy Kopf and Mary Negro will host a virtual workshop for artists based on their article “Put Your Anxious Energy to Work for You: 9 Art Admin Tasks You Can Do Right Now” , on Saturday, April 25 at 1 pm on Zoom. Click here for full details and Zoom information.
Over the next two months, EPA members will host online Multispecies Community Care Circles, dates TBD.
More programming to be announced.
About Nature Contained & Gowanus Swim Society:
For their future exhibition at OSH, Nature Contained, Gowanus Swim Society member artists K. Haskell, Suzy Kopf and Jessica Dalrymple respond to growth and death in the Old Stone House garden. Inspired by visits the artists made to the garden in summer and fall of 2019, a series of new mixed media pieces represent the artists’ first time merging their signature styles together to make a body of work. They ask viewers to contemplate all aspects of the flora of an urban garden, including the high season of full color and bloom as well as the low season where the potential for rebirth resides below ground. In high contrast to the surrounding neighborhood, OSH and its grounds harken back to an older Brooklyn where people subsisted, at least in part, on food they could grow and forage themselves. During this time of social distancing, the public can experience in-progress images of the new work online, and virtual workshops with the artists.
About Multispecies Care Survey & The Environmental Performance Agency:
The Multispecies Care Survey was created by EPA members Catherine Grau, Christopher Kennedy, Andrea Haenggi, Ellie Irons. The survey is a public engagement and data gathering initiative meant to provoke and articulate forms of environmental agency that de-center human supremacy and facilitate the co-generation of embodied, localized plant-human care practices. This continues the EPA’s work in response to the dismantling of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the 2016-2020 presidential administration. With this project, the collective asks for public input: In a time of pandemic crisis, how do we re-value what care means for all living beings? An online survey and series of protocols, as well as facilitated Multispecies Community Care Circles (online and, when possible, in person), will integrate the need for social distancing with the encouragement of new discoveries, connections and understanding of diverse nonhuman life along the margins. With the data gathered through this survey, EPA will ultimately work towards drafting a new piece of policy, The Multispecies Act. This Act aims to offer a set of embodied, actionable principles for centering spontaneous urban plant life as one means (among many) of contending with the failure of our environmental regulatory apparatus to deliver policy that protects and values life both human and non-human.
About the Curator:
Katherine Gressel, the Old Stone House & Washington Park’s Contemporary Art Curator, is a New York‐based curator, artist, and writer focused on site‐specific art. She earned her BA in art from Yale and MA in arts administration from Columbia. Katherine’s previous exhibits dealing with such topics as income inequality, urban agriculture, and parks have been recognized by the New York Times, Time Out New York, Hyperallergic, News 12 Brooklyn, and DNAInfo. In addition to organizing eleven major exhibitions to date at the Old Stone House, Katherine has curated for FIGMENT, No Longer Empty, St. Francis College, and Brooklyn Historical Society, and was the 2016 NARS Foundation emerging curator. She was selected for the 2015 Independent Curators International (ICI) Curatorial Intensive in New Orleans. Katherine has written and presented on public and community art issues for Createquity, Americans for the Arts, and Public Art Dialogue, among others. Katherine also served as Programs Manager at Smack Mellon Gallery from 2010-2014, and has worked and consulted for diverse nonprofits.
Regeneration in Place is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
Presence (Spring 2020)
The Artwork of Alicia Grullón
Presence is an exhibition curated by Katherine Gressel which explores the evolution of artist Alicia Grullón’s socially-engaged work over 15+ years.
Grullón describes her performances, both live or for photography or video, as “critiques of the politics of presence – an argument for the inclusion of disenfranchised communities in political and social spheres.” By inserting her own body in spaces “that have historically not been meant for [her] or designed so [she has] little control over how [she is] represented in them,” Grullón aims to disrupt mainstream historical and cultural narratives. This includes collecting and performing the stories of individuals whose voices might otherwise be absent. Her interventions have included public spaces, cultural and academic institutions, the dominant history of the United States, government policy, environmentalism, feminism, the United Nations, and the mass media.
In the tradition of deconstructionist philosophy, Grullón’s work challenges traditional binaries between past and present, and presence and its typical opposite, “absence.” In her photographs, “what is alluded to within the frame is largely informed by what is not in the frame.” In addition to evoking missing narratives from past, current, and future events, the work selected for this exhibition focuses on Grullón’s use of costumes, props and other methods of obscuring her own identity (leading to the absence of a uniform artist figure throughout the work), sometimes to augment the voices of others. In her essay “The Missing Body: Performance in the Absence of the Artist” Cindy Baker argues that through this type of physical obfuscation, “risk, transgression, and a false illusion of distance are taken on by both artist and audience member, expanding a capacity for intimacy between artist/art and audience that few artworks can.” Through inhabiting a world of her own creation, Grullon also subverts a traditional European, male gaze.
In keeping with OSH’s mission to make local history relevant, Presence is comprised mainly of works rooted in Grullón’s native New York City and that address such topics as gentrification, immigration and community preservation. Several works on view were inspired by OSH itself and its Dutch Colonial and Revolutionary War past.
Presence is the first in a series of four 2020 OSH exhibitions exploring how contemporary artists encourage participation and civic engagement.
About the Artist:
Alicia Grullón’s work has been shown at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, El Museo del Barrio, Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, BRIC Arts, Spring/Break Art Show, and Performa 11, among others. Grullón is also a contributing author to Rhetoric, Social Value and the Arts: But How Does it Work?, ed. Nicola Mann and Charlotte Bonham-Carter (Palgrave Macmillan, London) and Bridging Communities Through Socially Engaged Art, ed. Alice Wexler and Vida Sabbaghi (Routledge, New York). Grullón is an Artist in Residence at The Hemispheric Institute of Performance And Politics at New York University. Other Recent activities include the Shandaken Project inaugural artist residency on Governors Island and the Bronx Museum of the Arts AIM Alum program at 80 White Street. Grullón is the recipient of the inaugural Colene Brown Art Prize for 2019. Grullón is an adjunct professor at The School of Visual Arts and City University of New York (CUNY). She is from and based in New York City.
About the Curator:
Katherine Gressel, the Old Stone House & Washington Park’s Contemporary Art Curator, is a New York‐based curator, artist, and writer focused on site‐specific art. She earned her BA in art from Yale and MA in arts administration from Columbia. Katherine’s previous exhibits dealing with such topics as income inequality, urban agriculture, and parks have been recognized by the New York Times, Time Out New York, Hyperallergic, News 12 Brooklyn, and DNAInfo. In addition to organizing eleven major exhibitions to date at the Old Stone House, Katherine has curated for FIGMENT, No Longer Empty, St. Francis College, and Brooklyn Historical Society, and was the 2016 NARS Foundation emerging curator. She was selected for the 2015 Independent Curators International (ICI) Curatorial Intensive in New Orleans. Katherine has written and presented on public and community art issues for Createquity, Americans for the Arts, and Public Art Dialogue, among others. Katherine also served as Programs Manager at Smack Mellon Gallery from 2010-2014, and has worked and consulted for diverse nonprofits.
Presence is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
SALLY (Winter 2019/2020)
Curated by JoAnne McFarland and Sasha Chavchavadze, SALLY was a collaborative project which brought together artists, writers, and performers intrigued by the narratives of women, like Sally Hemings, whose destinies are inextricably interwoven with those they knew, and whose lives have often been erased or forgotten.
At this critical juncture, with women’s autonomy once again under siege, another meaning of sally seems particularly relevant: a sudden charge out of a besieged place. SALLY showed how artists, through their methodologies, confront myriad issues of agency, and use community and collaboration to undercut the status quo, and construct lives of integrity and purpose.
SALLY Participants:
Lauren Frances Adams, Meredith Bergmann, Deborah Castillo, Sasha Chavchavadze, Maureen Connor, Katya Grokhovsky, Robin Holder, Jee Hwang, Tatiana Istomina, Fabiola Jean–Louis, Carole Kunstadt, Paula Lalala, Nancy Lunsford, Jennifer Mack–Watkins, JoAnne McFarland, Elizabeth Moran, Amanda Nedham, Ann Shostrom, Marisa Williamson, Philemona Williamson, Hong Chun Zhang.
No More Water (Fall 2019)
Curated by Katherine Gressel, this exhibit brought together emerging artists Tahir Carl Karmali and Justin Sterling to respond to the Old Stone House’s unique space. Both artists use reclaimed and abstracted vernacular materials––including used cell phone batteries and broken windows––to symbolize local and global policies that contribute to inequality and displacement. The title “No More Water” also implies our current climate emergency (characterized by increased floods, wildfires, and water contamination) and an urgent call for action.
The artists chose “No More Water” to reference James Baldwin’s 1963 publication “The Fire Next Time,” which begins and ends with the line, “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!”, quoting the spiritual “Mary Don’t you Weep” and alluding to the Old Testament story of God flooding a corrupt earth. “The Fire Next Time” is considered a galvanizing text for the American Civil Rights movement in its examination of racial injustice and its call for all people of “consciousness” to “change the history of the world.”
Funding for No More Water is made possible, in part, by the Puffin Foundation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Race and Revolution: Reimagining Monuments (Spring 2019)
Race and Revolution: Reimagining Monuments, curated by Katie Fuller, questioned the relationship between historical memory and historical monuments and the implications of the histories that remain absent. Through drawings, quilts, interactive sculptural pieces, public art and paintings artists Kimberly Becoat, Alex Callender, Maureen Connor/Institute for Wishful Thinking, DARN Studio, Damien Davis, Rose Desiano, Ayasha Guerin, Zaq Landsberg, Jennifer Mack Watkins, Maureen McNeill, Lyra Monteiro, Sal Muñoz, Marilyn Nance, Emmaline Payette, Chip Thomas and Kamau Ware were concerned less with erecting massive symbols that define a limited perspective than they were in creating inclusive, dimensional histories. Their works addressed the often debated controversies around such figures as Christopher Columbus, George Washington and J. Marion Sims, and also offered insight into how collective thinking has shaped New York’s story, confronting not only what we remember and memorialize, but how. Katie Fuller was an educator for eleven years before curating her first show, Race and Revolution: Exploring Human Injustices through Art, in the summer/fall of 2016. Her second show, Still Separate – Still Unequal, opened at Smack Mellon in summer 2017 and will finish a two-year tour at the August Wilson Cultural Center in Pittsburgh in summer 2019. She has another project titled Unbroken by Bars that addresses justice-involved women face and overcome.
Artist selection committee: Eva Maybahal Davis; Gallery and Studio Programs Manager; Smack Mellon; Katie Fuller, Independent Curator and Community Organizer; Katherine Gressel, Contemporary Curator, Old Stone House & Washington Park; Kendal Henry, Director, Percent for Art, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
Funding for Race & Revolution: Reimagining Monuments has been made possible, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Puffin Foundation.
Processing (2018)
“Processing” is defined as “a series of changes taking place in a definite manner,” including the “systematic organization, treatment or preparation of materials.” The artists in Processing all manipulate art materials through intentional, systematic procedures that sometimes incorporate chance. The resulting work teeters between representation and abstraction – teasing recognizable forms out of abstract ones or abstracting recognizable elements through stripping down or layering/obscuring. Specific works were selected for the exhibition that can trace the evolution of most artists’ work processes.
Participating Artists: Jessica Dalrymple, John Fisk, Natalie Fisk, Abigail Groff Hernandez, Kristen Haskell, Melissa Johnson, Suzy Kopf, Mary Negro
For Which it Stands (2018)
For Which it Stands offered a fresh take on the flags of the American Revolution and today, including the contradictions inherent in their symbolism. Participating Artists: Simone Bailey, Christina Barrera, Andrew Demirjian, Stephan Jahanshahi, Vandana Jain, Katarina Jerinic, Jeff Kasper & Christopher Spinozzi, Josh MacPhee & Jesse Purcell, Sal Muñoz, Iviva Olenick, Manju Shandler, Athena Soules-NYC Light Brigade
Image: Athena Soules/NYC Light Brigade by Nara Garber
Made possible, in part, by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Home Front (2018)
Six women artists explored public and private acts of strength and resistance by women in times of social or political upheaval— inspired by their own family and community histories as well as craft and other work traditionally associated with the home. Featuring Lauren Frances Adams, Golnar Adili, Aisha Cousins, Maya Jeffereis, Lorena Molina, Katherine Toukhy
In Search of One City explored artists’ role in investigating, navigating, and mitigating income inequality, with a focus on New York City. Check out one of the exhibit’s public programs: Creating for Hire: Supporting a Thriving Artistic Practice through Commissions a BK Brainstorm courtesey of BRICartsmedia.
Icons In Their Own Right (2018)
Icons in their Own Right seeks to remedy historic erasure, champion cultural representation, and reinforce identity and pride. Makeba Rainey’s artistry is heavily influenced by hip-hop culture and Black consciousness. She carefully chooses each photograph to reflect confidence and power; then selects an African-themed design that best contextualizes each figure’s attitude, creating an exchange of multiple layers and emotions. Co-Curated by Monica O. Montgomery, Founding Director, Museum of Impact and Katherine Gressel, Curator, Old Stone House & Washington Park.
Being Well: In Search of Utopia? (2017)
A contemporary art exhibit curated by Katherine Gressel, exploring artists’ role in defining and facilitating community health and wellness featuring work by Zoey Hart, Leslie Kerby, Anthony Heinz May, Carolyn Monastra, Shana Moulton, Carmen Papalia, Shervone Neckles, Jenna Spevack, Tattfoo Tan, and Jody Wood
Made possible with support from the Puffin Foundation, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Multilocational (2017)
A contemporary art exhibit curated by Katherine Gressel, considering how our immigrant nation has historically accommodated multiple peoples and perspectives–and the role of artists and art institutions in presenting and preserving their stories, featuring the work of artists Cecile Chong and Natalia Nakazawa.
This program was supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with City Councilmember David Greenfield.
Domesticated (2016)
A contemporary art exhibition curated by Abby Subak Exhibiting Artists: Liza Cassidy; Paul Gagnier; Sara Jones; Tara Kopp; Susan Newmark; Abby Subak and Jessica Weiss, challenging assumptions about gender roles and how these assumptions impact our views of ourselves and our partnerships.
Appropriating Revolution (2016)
A contemporary art exhibition curated by Katherine Gressel, featuring artists Lauren Frances Adams, Jim Costanzo [Aaron Burr Society], Gen Howe, Robert Gould, Alicia Grullon, and Nsenga Knight exploring how artists are incorporating (and sometimes reinterpreting) the symbols of past revolutions to inform their current socially-engaged work.
Common Ground Gowanus (2015)
Common Ground Gowanus celebrated the creativity nurtured in the neighborhoods around the Gowanus Canal.
In Search of One City: Sensing (In)equality (2015)
In Search of One City explored artists’ role in investigating, navigating, and mitigating income inequality, with a focus on New York City. Check out one of the exhibit’s public programs: Creating for Hire: Supporting a Thriving Artistic Practice through Commissions a BK Brainstorm courtesey of BRICartsmedia.
Gowanus Public Art Initiative (2014)
Gowanus Public Art Initiative presented several eleven-month-long public art installations in the Gowanus neighborhood.
Brooklyn Utopias: In TRANSITion (2013)
In TRANSITion (2013) brought together 19 artists and arts groups responding to differing visions of ideal urban transportation systems or proposing their own.
Brooklyn Utopias: Park Space, Play Space (2012)
Park Space, Play Space brought together 19 artists and arts groups to address the ideal design, planning and use of public parks.
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