New York

Knockdown Center: Why You Should Go to Queens for Art That’s Not at PS1

Strangely enough, I had no idea that I was going to Knockdown Center until I arrived. A talented friend of mine (artist Serban Ionescu) let me know that he was having an opening on a Saturday afternoon around Halloween. I love to support him and check out his work whenever I can, so I decided to trek to whichever address he’d provided me with. I was up for an adventure!

From Manhattan, I took the L to the Graham stop, where I got on the Q54 bus and headed about 10 stops toward Queens.*

I got off the bus in a deserted suburban area and walked down a few blocks of broken sidewalk until I reached an industrial archway hovering over the entrance to an expansive parking lot. I had arrived! But where was I?

The art show I’d traveled to see that day was playfully titled Things With Claws, and featured unique works created by Serban and a group of 5 other sought-after contemporary artists including, J McDonald, Carlos Little, Olga Sophie Kauppinen, John Furgason and Jonah Emerson-Bell.

The gallery space for Things With Claws was a simulated living room inside a one-of-a-kind mobile trailer parked in a corner of the parking lot. The trailer is a work of art in and of itself, created by J McDonald for his project, A Way From Home. McDonald constructed the trailer using “an industrial steel tank from a local defunct furniture finishing factory, and pre-fab cheap housing materials like fake brick and engineered siding.”

McDonald also added details like a sculptural doorway, flower boxes filled with a curious mixture of live and plastic plants, and a hearth. Not exclusively constructed for Things With Claws, the A Way From Home trailer was intended to house multiple art installations, and even has its own residency at Knockdown Center.**

While I’d planned to visit for only an hour, I ended up staying for four. Not only was Things With Claws worth the journey to Queens, but I discovered the actual Knockdown Center event space which was the large, anonymous, low-rise brick structure that the parking lot belonged to.***

Inside Knockdown Center that day, there was another incredible exhibit going on called Sous Observation/Spaces Under Scrutiny, created in partnership with Quebec Digital Arts, NYC, which featured noteworthy pieces by eight Quebec artists: Free-Fall of Possibilities (2009-2010) by Catherine Béchard, & Sabin Hudon, Tourner de l’œil [Spin-Off] (2014) by Martine Crispo, Objets de cris et de vents [Objects of Cries and Winds] (2014) by Manon Labrecque, TV Tracker (2015) by Lorraine Oades, Dérive (2010-2015) by François Quévillon, and Coincidence Engine One: Universal People’s Republic Time (2008) by [THE USER] Thomas McIntosh & Emmanuel Madan. I highly recommend clicking your way through the above links if you’d like a fuller idea of some of the fascinating work coming out of the Quebec Digital Arts, NYC group.

One memorable highlight of my day included experiencing [THE USER]’s Coincidence Engine One: Universal People’s Republic Time, and later discussing it with J McDonald. According to [THE USER], this project:

consists of a precisely fabricated expanded polystyrene foam construction whose form evokes an amphitheatre. Within this structure, twelve hundred clocks of identical design are arrayed in concentric arcs. These battery-powered timekeeping devices are among the most generic mass-produced analog clocks available, purchased in wholesale quantity from their manufacturer in Fuzhou, China. A single spectator/auditor participates most fully in the work by standing at its centre, entirely surrounded by the clocks and immersed in their sound.

After viewing the piece, I spoke with J, who noted that with Coincidence Engine One, [THE USER] is “dematerializing time.” I don’t recall the exact words of our conversation, but they were along the lines of: “even if all of the clocks are set to be the correct time, they are all slightly different. Therefore, time disappears; it becomes superfluous.” What an amazing thought!

I didn’t think that my day could get any better, but then, I got to experience art via Oculus Rift for the first time (thanks to François Quévillon’s Dérive). Petite Mort.

Moral of the story? Don’t only go to Queens for art at PS1. Knockdown Center is currently showing the tail ends of BLOCH and Temporary Allegiance, as well as Suspended Forest by artist Michael Neff (on view through January 31, 2016). I wouldn’t hesitate to return repeatedly to this hidden gem of a culture hub, and after you make your first visit, I don’t doubt you’ll feel the same!

Notes:

*If you’re a Brooklyn neophyte planning to check out Knockdown Center via public transit, be aware that the trip is worth it but it’s not glamorous.

**The “A Way From Home” trailer is on view at Knockdown Center through January 13th, 2016, now featuring Nick Normal’s Temporary Allegiance flag workshop for the Autonomous Nation of THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU.

***As you may be able to tell from the photos in this post, the inside of Knockdown Center is a gorgeous industrial-style loft space.

Santiago Villanueva, Y Gallery

I first met Artist Santiago Villanueva in 2010 in Buenos Aires. We were inside of the University of Buenos Aires social sciences campus, called “Marcelo T. de Alvear,” spending the day hijacking social and political student protest posters that would later be utilized in another artist’s exhibition in Scotland. That university campus is known as the most activist campus in the city.

At that time I was very wide-eyed and excited, witnessing first-hand this incredibly palpable activist energy in Buenos Aires. I was noticing the strong sociopolitical commentary both in the city’s daily life, as well as in art and expression in Argentina in general. It was coming from students and citizens of all walks of life, as well as from the top contemporary artists in the country.

I’m thrilled to share that Villanueva, one of the influential contemporary artists I had the privilege of spending time with there, is currently exhibiting at NYC’s Y Gallery on the lower east side with a show titled “First Impressions.” The exhibition comprises a series of recent works that reflect his continuing revision of Argentinian history and art history.

“First Impressions” combines a mid-19^th century Argentinian visual tradition called the “disorderly table,” or, “mesa revuelta” (imagine it as a messy still life), with the results of Villanueva’s past two years of research about Argentinian art history. For the project, Villanueva worked with a variety of media including papers, threads, letters, documents and images selected from both the mass media and the works of specific artists. The result is a personal map or atlas of Argentinian art history that both changes the usual visual expectations of a still life, and provides a unique, non-linear methodology for the understanding of art history that breaks from traditional pedagogic approaches.

This exhibition marks another success in Villanueva’s exciting career. In recent years he has received a consistent stream of honors from prestigious organizations, including scholarships at the Center for Artistic Research (Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas – CIA) and the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (Fundación Cisneros Fontanals – CIFO), as well as appearances in museums and institutions including the General Argentine Consulate in New York, the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires (MAMBA), and the Museum of Latin American Contemporary Art (MACLA).

Stop by Y Gallery (319 Grand St.) to see “First Impressions,” open through November 15th, 2015.

Theresa Byrnes, TBG

I’m privileged to have spontaneously met Australian performance artist Theresa Byrnes a few weeks ago while strolling down East 9^th Street. What a remarkable person. I was walking home from an estate auction in Greenwich Village, and popped my head into what appeared to be an open gallery space called TBG (Theresa Byrnes Gallery). I entered the bright, colorful room, filled floor to ceiling with an abundance of kinetic paintings created by Theresa Byrnes and her mother and fellow artist Lorraine Byrnes.

Lorraine warmly welcomed me into the gallery. I felt like she was my mother, too! She and Theresa had recently debuted “Offspring,” their joint exhibition, with an opening reception that took place at TBG on July 30^th.

It wasn’t until I’d made my way to the back of the gallery that I met Theresa. She told me that the back portion of the space was her studio.

Theresa was one of the coolest-dressed people I’d seen all day. I immediately fell in love with her style and arresting smile. She was wearing a funky black hat, a pale pink punk-rocker style T-shirt, black jeans, and a set of badass red high-top kicks. Finally, there was her most unique accessory: her wheelchair.

Theresa and I spoke for close to an hour, getting to know each other. After reading more about her following our meeting, I found out that she has a degenerative disease called Friedrich’s ataxia, that causes progressive damage to the nervous system. I am incredibly inspired by how clear it is, from both meeting Theresa and reading about her, that she doesn’t allow the disease she lives with to define her or control her. She finds freedom in her work and nothing seems to hold her back from being her full, powerfully talented creative self. This fascinating article from The Villager can tell you a bit more about her story. I’m in awe of her.

Theresa’s infant son, Sparrow, was with her in the gallery space. I loved the way her passion came through so clearly when speaking about art, creating, and her son. Her palpable joy and refreshing attitude toward life and art made me feel happy.

I am pleased to share a preview of her piece, “Being Two,” shown below. I also invite you to watch this video interview, conducted with Theresa last year on ABC (Australia). It will give you a sneak peek of the amazing person and artist that I had the opportunity to meet face-to-face. Finally, I hope that if you’re planning to visit Alphabet City any time soon, you take a moment to stop by TBG at 616 East 9^th St. between Avenues B & C to check out her work.