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+image: y-3 bling. jayson keeling.
3rd Wave Exhibition
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+intro
nat creole presents....
3rd wave: the planet of brooklyn transitions
group art show
oct 13.06 - jan 12.07
brooklyn arts council
111 front street, suite 218 (alternate entrance @ 55 washington st.)
opening reception : friday. october 13. 2006
curator talk: thursday. december 7. 2006
6-8pm
admission: free
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| 3rd Wave: The Planet of Brooklyn Transitions offers a window into contemporary Brooklyn. Looking into history, one finds that much of the substantial conversation on Brooklyn centers on nostalgia despite the fact that New York’s most populous borough is one of the most dynamic and diverse communities the world has to offer. The Brooklyn Dodgers left in 1957, the last bridge into Brooklyn was finished in 1964, soaring Manhattan real estate prices have helped dispel the “bedroom community” title, and the mix of cultures that resulted from the historically documented 1st and 2nd Waves of immigration have been superseded by new waves of immigrants from non-European nations who have added their own distinct cultures to the social fabric. 3rd Wave captures this “new” Brooklyn through the eyes of the Borough’s artists and looks to update the discussion on where Brooklyn stands at the cusp of the 21st century. |
| featured artists |
Scott Andresen
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn
Betty Alexandra Bastidas
Steven Bornholtz
Martin Brecht
Delphine Fawandu Buford
Samantha Casolari
Linn Edwards
Cacy Forgenie
Lucy Fradkin
G Grippo
Akintola Hanif
Jayson Keeling |
Nsenga Knight
Youme Landowne
Erica McDonald
Ocean Morisset
Lori Nelson
One9
David Pham
Joan Reutershan
Misty Rice
Tom Russotti
Hidemi Sato
Rachel Wells
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| + profile. 3rd wave timeline |
3rd Wave: The Planet of Brooklyn Transitions presents a peak into contemporary Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Dodgers left in 1957, the last bridge into Brooklyn was finished in 1964, soaring Manhattan real estate prices have helped dispel the “bedroom community” title, and the mix of cultures that resulted from the historically documented 1st and 2nd Waves of immigration have been superseded by new waves of immigrants from non-European nations who have added their own distinct cultures to the social fabric.
3rd Wave captures this “new” Brooklyn through the eyes of the Borough’s artists and looks to update the discussion on where Brooklyn stands at the cusp of the 21st century.
This timeline represents many of the events that have converged to form the Brooklyn brought to life by
the artists of this exhibition.
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1646: The Town of Brooklyn is chartered by the Dutch West India Company.
1820: Weeksville, an independent Black community, is founded by James Weeks, the first Black landowner in what is now the Bedford-Stuyvesant area.
1834: The Village of Brooklyn becomes The City of Brooklyn.
1840: The 1st Great Wave of European immigration arrives in Brooklyn. The immigrants come largely from Ireland and Germany.
1880: 2nd Great Wave of European immigration arrives in Brooklyn.
1883: The Brooklyn Bridge Opens.
1898: The City of Brooklyn merges with New York City.
1917: The Jones-Shafroth Act confers American citizenship on all citizens of Puerto Rico. Many Puerto Ricans begin settling in the New York area, including Brooklyn.
1920's: The first ideologically orthodox Jewish rabbis established themselves in Brooklyn. These rabbis established the religious network that the Satmar and other Hasidic sects would follow after World War II.
1930’s: Southern Blacks begin migrating rapidly to Brooklyn and other points north during the
“great migration.”
1947: Jackie Robinson leaves the Negro Leagues to join the Brooklyn Dodgers and becomes the first African American to play in Major League Baseball.
1965: The Immigration Act of 1965 (Hart-Cellar Act) changes the standards for immigrating into the United States and brings a wave of immigrants from South and Central America, Asia, the Caribbean and Africa to Brooklyn. The 3rd wave unofficially begins.
1966: Brooklyn Heights is designated as New York City’s first historical district.
1968: Shirley Chisholm is elected by the 11th Congressional District, a voting district created by the1965
Voting Rights Act, to a seat in the United States Congress. The district, composed of the Park Slope, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Brownsville and Prospect Heights sections of Brooklyn, make Chisholm the first African American woman to hold a seat in the Congress.
1969: West Indian/American Day Carnival parades along Brooklyn's Eastern Parkway for the first time; for
many years the festivals had been held in Harlem.
1971: The Brooklyn Navy Yard reopens as an industrial park with a wealth of available studio space for future artists and designers. |
Scott Andresen
Greene Acres, 2006
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"This quilt is based on an aerial view of the Fort Greene / Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn where I live. The quilted pieces are based on the city blocks of the neighborhood while the fabric that makes up the quilt has been collected from those in the neighborhood. The fabric was compiled from friends, neighbors,
tailors, artists, business owners, etc. and is a literal representation of the fabric that makes up this diverse
and changing neighborhood."
+scott andresen |
1975: New York City falls into financial crisis. Polish, Italian, Hasidic and Hispanic community organizations flourish in the effort to support their communities during bleak times.
The majority of the Al Pacino film Dog Day Afternoon is filmed in Windsor Terrace, a largely residential Irish
and Italian American neighborhood near Prospect Park.
1977: Fulton Mall, a sprawling outdoors mall, opens in downtown Brooklyn.
Director John Badham directs a young John Travolta in the film Saturday Night Fever. The movie, set in Bay Ridge, an Italian neighborhood in south Brooklyn, becomes a massive box office hit and explodes the disco scene into mainstream culture.
1980: Two Trees Management Company begins shifting its development interests from SOHO to DUMBO,
the section of Brooklyn formerly known as Fulton Landing. Two Trees begins fashioning the neighborhood
as a residential and commercial waterfront district.
1982: The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) produces its inaugural The Next Wave Festival. The popular festival features cutting edge performance artists from around the world and works to build Brooklyn’s
growing reputation as an artistic haven.
1983: The centennial anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge is celebrated.
1984: Brooklyn, along with Queens and Staten Island, is given the 718 area code number, thus creating another barrier between the outer boroughs and Manhattan.
1985: The Board of Estimate authorizes residential use of commercial loft space in the Williamsburg
section of Brooklyn, clearing the way for a massive influx of artists into the neighborhood.
1986: Brownsville, Brooklyn born boxer Mike Tyson becomes the youngest heavyweight champion in history.
1987: Metro Tech Center, a new commercial high rise development opens in downtown Brooklyn and foreshadows the coming rush of commercial development in the borough.
1989: Brooklyn-born filmmaker Sheldon “Spike” Lee releases his third film, Do the Right Thing. The movie,
set in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, sheds light on the relationships between differing cultures in a gentrifying Brooklyn.
The Supreme Court of the United States declares the New York City Board of Estimate unconstitutional on
the condition that Brooklyn, the most populous borough in the city of New York, had the same representation
as Staten Island, the city’s least populous borough, a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court’s 1964 “one man, one vote” decision.
1990s: The migration of professionals to the Park Slope area reaches a high point but the 5th Ave.
Committee and other community organizations work to keep the neighborhood economically diverse.
1991: Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as the Soviet President thus signaling the official end of the USSR. The
US Government recognizes the independence of the former Soviet republics and opens its doors to immigrants from the largely Eastern European nations.
Delayed emergency reaction to a car accident in which a Hasidic man accidentally killed a young Black boy erupts into a 3 day race riot in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.
Essence Magazine publishes an article entitled “The Happening 'Hood -- Brooklyn: The New Black Mecca,“
by Elsie B Washington. It is the first article in a national publication that documents the migration of artists
and musicians into the Fort Green and Clinton Hill neighborhoods of Brooklyn.
1993: Christopher Wallace, aka. Biggie Smalls appears on a remix of singer Mary J. Blige’s single Real Love. The Bedford-Stuyvesant born hip hop artist would later change his name to The Notorious B.I.G and become an iconic Brooklyn figure.
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akintola hanif
no religion
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"Gentrification is killing the spirit and soul of what was once authentic and poetic. NO RELIGION speaks to this fast moving trend . Under gentrification, religions (subcultures) have changed drastically, especially in
the Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant sections of Brooklyn. I remember when these neighborhoods were known for their distinct street culture and style. Now these identifiers are practically non-existent. They have been replaced by a more pop-like European aesthetic and culture that is quickly stripping the communities
of their oneness (natural order or religion)."
+akintola hanif |
1994: Rudolph W. Giuliani becomes the first Republican mayor of New York City since 1965. Giuliani begins instituting a “Quality of Life” campaign designed to clean up the city for tourism and corporate investment.
The resulting hike in real estate prices drives many to look for affordable housing in Brooklyn.
1997: Haitian immigrant Abner Louima is arrested outside of a nightclub and is later beaten and sodomized
by the arresting officers at the 70th Precinct House in Brooklyn.
2001: The Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league baseball team, begins playing in Coney Island, bringing baseball back to Brooklyn 43 years after the defection of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The Mark Morris Dance Group opens the three-studio, 30,000 square foot Mark Morris Dance Center in the
Fort Greene section of Brooklyn and inaugurates its dance school.
2003: The New York Times reports an announcement of a $2.5 billion development plan called “Atlantic Yards,” a projected 2.1 million square feet of commercial space and 4,500 residential units (including 17 towers designed by architect Frank Gehry). The announcement intensifies an ongoing debate on the gentrification of Brooklyn.
2003: Author Jonathan Lethem publishes the semi-autobiographical novel The Fortress of Solitude. The
book tackles the rise of gentrification in the Boerum Hill neighborhood during the late 1970s
2004: Real Estate Developer, Bruce Ratner announces that he has purchased the NBA franchise, New
Jersey Nets, with plans of moving them to Brooklyn.
2005: New York City Council passes a large scale rezoning of the North Side and Greenpoint Waterfront to make way for residential and commercial use as well as a set aside for open waterfront park space.
Author Noah Baumbach releases The Squid and the Whale, a best selling book that explores the everyday
lives of Park Slope intelligentsia
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are 2,486,235 people residing in Brooklyn. The number, up
from 2.3 million people in 1990, would qualify Brooklyn as the 4th largest city in the United States if it were a separate entity from New York City.
2006: 3rd Wave: The Planet of Brooklyn Transitions group art exhibition opens at the Brooklyn Arts Council
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| +profile. 3rd wave artists |
in their own words.
artists of the 3rd wave |
When we put the call out for artists for the 3 rd Wave: The Planet of Brooklyn Transitions exhibition, we were uncertain of what to expect. The initial thought was that artists who called Brooklyn home or spent a lot of time in the borough couldn’t help but turn their attention to their environment. The idea was that the dynamic quality that seems to so thoroughly inhabit “The Planet” couldn’t help but provide inspiration for those who are looking for creative stimulation. But an open call is, by definition, contrary to any attempt to impose control so we waited to see just what would turn up.
And what turned up was beautiful. Artists from every corner of King’s County helped enforce the reputation Brooklyn has as an artistic haven. Unfortunately we were not able to include them all so we had to concentrate on the works that represented a particular dimension of the cultural make-up of present day Brooklyn and best fit into a larger mosaic of images.
And this too turned out beautiful. By visually translating the effect that immigration, migration, miscegenation and gentrification are having on the cultural, social and economic make-up of “the planet of Brooklyn,” the artists of 3 rd Wave provide a visual entrée into a world where cultures intersect across national, racial and social boundaries and form a unique and vibrant community. |
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"The saturated colors represent the vibrant life of the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, and the juxtaposed layers of functions that co-exist in the architectural containers. The intention is to show these urban corners as they appear to the artist’s eye, in brightly contrasting blocks of colors, empty and filled with casual elements at the same time. Graffiti writings photographed separately are incorporated in the compositions as another element that is part of the urban vision, usually in the form of clouds. The iconic image is named “watertank”, to simply refer to the actual place where the experience of recognizing a situation happened to the artist."
+G Grippo |
"In Utah I didn't know we could ever live like this. In Brooklyn, we watch each other through the windows when we first move in and then eventually ignore each other and go about our business. Naked."
+Lori Nelson
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"Mostly frequented by African-Americans and Latinos, the Sun Summit parties in Fort Greene Park are where old friends from NYC's bygone house music club days chill, sell art, eat, dance and recall past times, while dancing and sweating under the stars. In the last two years some white folks have been showing up; some to browse and participate; while others have complained about the noise.
I am interested in the language and colors employed by urban music and graffiti. Contemporary New York
City informs my paintings and fuels my photography."
+cacy forgenie |
"This work was taken during a walk last year exploring the shore line of Williamsburg (Brooklyn)."
+steven bornholtz
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"Brothers on route to a wedding at Eglise Baptiste D'Expression Francaise Church on Clermont Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn."
+betty alexandra bastidas |
"Rhythm in the City."
+one9
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"In order to understand this all-too complex world I study different cultures in different communities. Photography is my medium and for three months I photographed a series called “Laundromat”, all the while observing a small slice of the daily grind of America at work. This photo essay gives the viewer a rare behind-the-scenes look at the lives of a Chinese husband and wife team, owners and operators of a local laundromat in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn."
+misty rice |
"This image is from a series of photographs exploring the effects of delayed adulthood, a generational trait of some individuals in their late 20's and early 30's living in Brooklyn. These people have moved to New York to pursue careers in creative fields, opting to follow their ambitions over settling down into financially and emotionally stable careers, relationships, or starting families."
+linn edwards
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lucy fradkin. mixed emotions |
"This is a kind of opening statement on the relationship between Brooklyn and Vietnamese immigrant. After the opening pleasantries things become more complicated."
+david pham |
"These works reflect the diversity of the new families visible on the streets of Brooklyn."
+lucy fradkin |
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"This collage is inspired by my favorite place in
Brooklyn - everybody’s backyard- the Park. The
colorful layers celebrate both its beauty and the
diversity of our neighborhood. People come to
Fort Greene Park to walk their dogs and play with
their children. Others come to play soccer or tennis.
Some are passing through for fresh air while others
are tossing down a blanket for a picnic or just to
hang out. Music, dancing, and performances are planned and spontaneous. "
+martin brecht |
"This is a picture of a Polish beauty salon next to a Chinese store in Bensonhurst, a traditionally Italian neighborhood that has seen a dramatic increase of Eastern European and Chinese immigrants in the past 15 years."
+tom russotti
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joan reutershan. arrangement 87: ashland/fulton |
"These photos are part of an ongoing series of the current and ever-changing face of Brooklyn, with a focus on children and the Latino population."
+erica mcdonald
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"The vernacular urban fabric of New York City, the metaphorical language of paint/space, and the construction of vision in the artist/observer- these interests spiral through my work.
The ordinary landscape I reference in my painting is an ensemble under continuous creation and alteration, and the present Brooklyn landscape is contested space. Its particular quality – the conversation between low rise architecture, trees, sky and light- is being transformed by large scale development. "
+joan reutershan |
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nsinga knight. by design |
"This is a portrait of a girl in total calm. Being from Brownsville, Brooklyn, I wanted to show the kind of beauty and calm that can be found in what many people consider a "dangerous area" but is really a beautiful community."
+laylah amatullah barrayn
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"By Design features Nzinga, an emerging Muslim designer born, raised, and residing in the Caribbean neighborhood of Flatbush, Brooklyn. Her designs are based on the Islamic dress code. Her parents, both migrated to Brooklyn from the Caribbean and South America, with the wave of immigrants originating from this area in the early 1970's, and converted to Islam in the late 70's and 80's. In Brooklyn American Muslims, most of whom converted to Islam in the 70's and 80's (Black, White, and Latina), are often times noted for their style and By Design exemplifies the vibe of young 1st and 2nd generation Muslim women in Brooklyn, while also depicting some of the pride that Caribbean people are noted for and the enthusiasm of artists both originating from and residing in this borough."
+nsinga knight |
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"The Peoples Democratic Republic of Brooklyn Passport Project is 111 passports to be distributed and personalized in the Fall of 2006. Shown simultaneously in various locations, some will be sold and some will be exchanged for goods and services. The Passports address individual and collective responsibility for our connection to home. The project evolves as passport holders commemorate their travels. The Brooklyn Passports are a place to document and explore personal connection to physical place, urban envelopment and borderless image nations."
+youme landowne |
"Blender Project: This is about immigrants, communities and food culture in New York.
I have been researching how many communities exist in New York, visiting and taking pictures of the area, culture and get imported goods especially "food" that came from their countries at the local groceries store. Shot in Brighton Beach (former Soviet Union) neighborhood."
+hidemi sato
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"This image was taken during a celebration at the annual Tribute to the Ancestors of the Middle Passage in Coney Island. It captures both the beauty and pagentry of the event while highlighting the primary wishes of the dancers...to give praise."
+delphine fawundu buford
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"One of my main areas of focus is Jamaican youth and their willingness to internalize and appropriate other culture’s transmitted stimuli (Internet, cable and magazines). In the 21st Century, fashion and style play a large role in the desire to immigrate. This portrait balances hip hop's global style and appeal...mainly the fascination with bling and logo mania... with the culturally familiar Rastafarian movement's use of clothing (especially military influenced style), confrontational gaze and posture. This young man could be on the streets of Kingston, Jamaica or on Flatbush Avenue Brooklyn, bordering both worlds through style."
+jayson keeling |
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"People and Places of Bushwick: Bushwick Series III,
is a project on the neighborhood of Bushwick, made up mostly by Ispano-Americans who are being displaced by artists, people from Manhattan, and the consequent increase in rent and cost of living. As it always happens, everywhere in NYC, neighborhoods change as soon as emergent artists and students move in, then become trendy and their whole social texture quickly transforms. I am trying to document the phase in-between, where these two groups of people meet and can still live together, one welcoming the other, everyone fearing the numberless new lofts and fancy houses being built everywhere. Still its colors, its rhythm, its genuine life remains intact, but who knows for how long…. "
+samantha casolari |
"This photo was taken at the 17th Annual Tribute to the Ancestors of the Middle Passage. The event takes place every July at Coney Island, Brooklyn. The "Middle Passage" was the journey of slave trading ships from the west coast of Africa, where the slaves were obtained across the Atlantic, and were sold or traded for goods. Descendants of slaves gather yearly at Coney Island and pay tribute to the ancestors by drumming, dancing, singing, praying and the placing of flowers and fruits into the Atlantic Ocean."
+ocean morisset
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| 3rd Wave: The Planet of Brooklyn Transitions will be on display at the Brooklyn Arts Council (111 Front Street Suite 218 | Brooklyn, NY 11201) until Jan. 12.2007. Drop by on Dec. 7th for the 3rd Wave Artists | Curator Talk @ 6pm featuring the Tereasa Vinson Duo. |
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