Image: Nkiruka J. Oparah, study n° 080415, 2015, digital collage
Exhibition Dates: November 10, 2016 – January 15, 2017
Exhibition Location: Gallery at BRIC House
647 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
The BRIC Biennial: Volume II, Bed Stuy/Crown Heights Edition is the largest and most ambitious exhibition to date organized by BRIC. This second edition of this initiative will be centered at BRIC House, with portions of the show also on view at important cultural institutions and art spaces in the neighborhoods being covered by the show: Weeksville Heritage Center, the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and FiveMyles.
The work of hundreds of artists based in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights were reviewed in order to select the approximately 40 included in this exhibition. Overall, the BRIC Biennial highlights the significance of Brooklyn as the place where New York artists create work and develop their careers. By focusing on a small geographic area, comprehensive research can be undertake on artists in the selected neighborhoods, highlighting those who are making important creative contributions with their work. This edition of the BRIC Biennial at BRIC House will focus on the theme “Affective Bodies,” drawing from affect theory, which places emphasis on bodily experience rather than on learned knowledge. Artists exhibited at Weeksville Heritage Center will be grouped under the theme “The Lived City,” considering how people’s lives and experiences endow urban spaces with emotional resonance. The exhibition at the the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, “Translations and Annotaitons,” will include the work of five artists who use existing texts and documents as source material. By processes of alteration, annotation, translation, and reinterpretation, these artists endow these texts with new, emotional quality, relevant to their lives and to the time in which we live. (On view at BPL January 31, 2017.) And finally, FiveMyles will focus on presenting a series of performance artists.
EXHIBITION ARTISTS INCLUDE:
BRIC House: Lala Abaddon | Aisha Tandiwe Bell | Jen Bervin | The Black Lunch Table | Brooklyn Hi Art Machine | Brandon Coley Cox | Zachary Fabri | Rachel Frank | Aaron Gilbert | Asuka Goto | Phoebe Grip | Ilana Harris-Babou | Maria Hupfield | Sara Jimenez | Rachelle Mozman | Kambui Olujimi | Nkiruka J. Oparah | Rachel Ostrow | Macon Reed | sol’sax | Jakob Kudsk Steensen | William Villalongo
Brooklyn Public Library: Kumasi J. Barnett | Aaron G. Beebe | Asuka Goto | Hidemi Takagi | Chris Nosenzo
FiveMyles: Jonathan Allen | Keisha-Gaye Anderson | Anti/Matter Collective | Asylos Company | Bell and Clixby | Hot Hands | Andrea Haenggi | Maiko Kikuchi | Grey Mcmurray | Sari Nordman | Renegade Performance Group | Malik Nashad Sharpe
Weeksville Heritage Center: Chloe Bass | The Black Lunch Table | Adrian Coleman | Adama Delphine Fawundu | Russell Frederick | Duron Jackson | Olalekan Jeyifous | Mckendree Key | Baseera Khan | Stan Squirewell | sol’sax
Exhibition Credits
Curated by Elizabeth Ferrer, VP of Contemporary Art; and Jenny Gerow, Assistant Curator; BRIC.
BRIC Biennial 2016 Exhibition Catalogue
About BRIC
BRIC is the leading presenter of free cultural programming in Brooklyn, and one of the largest in New York City. BRIC presents and incubates work by artists and media-makers who reflect the diversity that surrounds us. BRIC programs reach hundreds of thousands of people each year.
In addition to making cultural programming genuinely accessible, BRIC is dedicated to providing substantial support to artists and media makers in their efforts to develop work and reach new audiences.
BRIC is unusual in both presenting exceptional cultural experiences and nurturing individual expression. This dual commitment enables BRIC to most effectively reflect New York City’s innate cultural richness and diversity.
