The following is an interview with artist Dustin Yellin, founder of Pioneer Works. RHSR: What’s the genesis of your work? Yellin: The works in this building are of the three hands: the Descriptive, the Prescriptive, and the Impossible. The Descriptive being how do you use different mediums to tell stories, narrative stories, and that’s what you see happening in the […]
Pioneer Works
Pioneer Works’ Community Lunch is the best deal in town
From May to September, typically on the second Wednesday of the month, the arts organization Pioneer Works hosts $5 first-come-first-served lunches in its garden at 159 Pioneer Street. The series started in 2017, but I went for the first time this June. For each gathering, Pioneer Works hires a new chef to cater the event. When I attended, the food […]
Sally Saul creates her own mythos at Pioneer Works
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 […]
Red Hook High Schoolers’ Passion for Fashion and Tech Grows in Afterschool Programming
Thirteen South Brooklyn Community High School (SBCHS) students had the opportunity to develop and hone their tech and fashion skills this past year. The Fashion Tech Program, which was divided into Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 timetables, has been held afterschool in collaboration with Pioneer Works. The program’s concept and curriculum, developed in part by Tiffanie Harris (Pioneer Works’ Director […]
Red Hook Streetscape Embodies Paranoia in Local Short Film
On January 9, the NewFilmmakers Series at Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan screened Followed, a short by local filmmaker Georg Schmithüsen. New York’s longest-running year-round film festival, NewFilmmakers holds weekly events in the East Village, showing hundreds of movies a year by up-and-coming directors. A cryptic, visually expressive portrait of psychological instability, Followed begins at night at Pier 44, where […]
January Art Events
Jan 2 Start 2019 right with a visit to Peninsula Gallery. Curator Johnny Mullen has put together a smart exhibition of upcoming artists. “Strange Form of Life” features Lars Fisk, Clare Grill, E Hause, Matt Kleberg, Jim Lee, Meg Lipke, and Graham Wilson. Open weekends 1-7pm. Through Feb 3. 352 Van Brunt St. And while you’re in the vicinity, Pioneer […]
Theater of the Oppressed focuses on Hostile High School experiences, by Nathan Weiser
Theater of the Oppressed gives teenagers an opportunity and an outlet to share stories and life experiences that they might not be able to otherwise. This program chose to partner with the Red Hook Justice Center because they they both engage young people in social justice issues. They will be wrapping up their third session of the year at the […]
Solar Empowerment at Pioneer Works
Pioneer Works holds workshop to educate artists on science of solar panels By Diehl Edwards Accomplished multimedia artist, A/V engineer, curator, and educator, Alex Nathanson, led an interactive workshop at Pioneer Works on the use of solar power in art projects on one hot yet stormy Saturday in August. Most attendants had little to no experience working with solar panels, but […]
Retro Library Open to Red Hook Residents
Hidden from passerby on Van Brunt Street is a mobile library of motley images and bizarre archival knowledge. It’s called Reanimation Library, and its towering shelves have over 2,000 discarded books published from the 1930s to the 1970s with titles likes “Procedural Advertising”; “Space Age Fight Fighters”; “The Mystic Art of the Ninja”; “A Study of Splashes”; “Inkblot Perception […]
Pioneer Works’ Garden Offers a Haven in the Heat, by Sarah Matusek
Pioneer Works’ garden entrance. Photo by George Fiala. Pioneer Works’ public garden offers visitors a space for summer zen. For a moment, the rumble of trucks beyond the wooden lattice fence nearly disappears. A brief walk from the NYC Ferry and Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, the garden sprawls next to the art nonprofit’s 150-year-old red brick building at 159 Pioneer St. […]