Celebrating Community
Hook Arts Media, the nonprofit formerly known as Dance Theatre Etcetera, is working to train a new generation of filmmakers in Red Hook. On May 18, a screening of short films directed by high-schoolers and young adults took place at the organization’s Van Brunt Street loft, concluding a seven-week afterschool filmmaking program, “In Transition: Media,” led by Jordan Campbell. The […]
Filmmaker Matty Rich was a 19-year-old kid from the Red Hook Houses when Straight Out of Brooklyn won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991. Without Hollywood connections or rich relatives, he’d gathered enough money from donations, investments, and maxed-out credit cards to make a feature film, for which he served as writer, director, producer, and […]
There was a time when Brooklyn was an artist’s bedroom community: many musicians only moved here to flee the oppressive Manhattan rents. In the ’80s and ’90s, you and your significant other would tell everyone you were moving out to Brooklyn to a great place with a huge backyard. Friends would come to your first party, agree how cool it […]
At Pioneer Works, the Germantown-based artist Sally Saul shares whimsical objects of clay and glaze that create a mythos around subjects that are by turns precious and nefarious. The name of the exhibit, “Blue Hills, Yellow Tree,” captures the sort of winding up and down these 34 works curate. It’s a pleasant ride, whose occasionally puzzling pieces remain amusing and […]
In 1978, on the 25th anniversary of the CIA coup that re-installed the Shah of Iran, four men doused the Cinema Rex theater in the city of Abadan with jet fuel, and burned the building down. As many as 800 people died. Prior to 9/11, it was the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the planet. Even 40 […]
The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC – be cool and pronounce it Bee-Whack) opened its sprawling warehouses in the middle of May. Don’t miss your chance to absorb works from Brooklyn’s largest artist-run gallery. I recently strolled through and passed several gems: Unlike just about every gallery in Manhattan, the works here are reasonably priced. You’ll find spectacularly composed street […]
The title “Capernaum” (Capharaüm) comes from the Biblical city condemned to hell in the book of Matthew. The film is set in Beirut, a city also without order or peace. And certainly without mercy. The resulting chaos swirls in a world created by Nadine Labaki, one of harrowing circumstances, brought to life by the honesty and charisma of one little […]
“Live in your world / Play in ours” is a group exhibition that will present works by New York-based emerging artists who work with different media. This exhibition, curated by Red Hook artist Kyoko Hamaguchi, is meant to simulate common elements of a living space. For example, pedestals will be replaced by a dining table on which several artworks will be displayed. “In this […]
It’s a classic Revolutionary War battle tableau — formal ranks of fearsome Redcoats square off against a ragtag bunch of… mermaids? It’s the kind of thing one might expect from Duke Riley, the Brooklyn-based artist who produced Semper Defier, the mural that will hang above the bar at Red Hook restaurant Fort Defiance. Riley, whose work is exhibited in several museums […]
Extreme Kids and Crew is holding their sixth annual fundraiser on May 15 at 501 Union Street in Gowanus. Doors open at 7. Extreme Kids and Crew is a nonprofit that provides a welcoming and supportive space for children with disabilities. They have a play space at PS 15 in Red Hook where a ball pit and sensory gym equipment […]