SIMPLY GRAND

The new main art corridor in Williamsburg Brooklyn — Grand Street
by Arnold Walfred III

Over the past year or so Grand Street on the South side of Williamsburg has become a street rich with probably the most professional Gallery Spaces in Williamsburg. Additionally, it has a number of trendy, splashy looking eating establishments and bars. It has a number of fashion and decorative arts showrooms, sound studios and a really hot night club, the Luxx. And at the end of the block it has most of the antique shops in Williamsburg. The Northside near the L train stop on Bedford Avenue has already been established as the lively attractive area with long lasting galleries and performing arts spaces, bookstores, boutiques, restaurants and shops. However, the Southside is now becoming the tré chic area where a classier sort is establishing itself, with most of the historic architecture from the time of sugar and oil barons of the 19th century. Now luxury condominiums are being built. The Smith Gray Building on Broadway and Bedford Avenue has a penthouse available for over $1,000,000.
Grand Street on the Southside is becoming the main art corridor of Williamsburg. Here we will take a tour of the galleries starting from Wythe Avenue on the East River down to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. This is just a few of the things you can find.
31 GRAND GALLERY, 31 Grand Street (www.31grand.com). This is an absolutely wonderful space in terms of ambience on the corner of Wythe and Grand. Truly professional in feel and curatorial presentation. The show I viewed was “New York Mutation Project,” presented in conjunction with with Ad!dict Magazine, January 12 -27, 2002.
Ad!dict Magazine is a quarterly theme-based art/culture/fashion magazine originating in Brussels, Belgium, and is pulled together by a multitude of international creatives from all artistic expressions. Ad!dict made a call for participants to share their views and reactions on the mutating and new world after 9/11. Works included are expressive figurative sculptures by Stefanie Rocknak, crowd drawings by Fritz Chesnut, and video and a memorial installation by Jeph Gurecka.
Fritz Chesnut depicts crowds of common persons at events such as the Today Show and Total Request Live. He portrays the spirit of man’s devotion and fascination to celebrity and mob mentality.
Jeph Gurecka memorialized 9/11 in a beautiful double wreath installation of decaying fruits and vegetables, which was also featured at the Truck Food show.
Douglas Kelley found himself in shock and horror from the events of 9/11 and discovered that the only way he could put space between himself and the images of the day were to actually put "space" into these images, synthetically by computer.
Stefanie Rocknak captures the pain and emotion of the common man in her beautiful wood carvings.
Anna Walker captured the empty solemn feeling left behind in her quiet photos of airline terminals and the World Trade Center.
Jeff Wyckoff’s artwork “Landmark” shows the fallen World Trade Center, the imploded towers in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and the still standing Empire State Building in a scientific setting on microscopic slides.
CAVE, 58 Grand Street, (www.cavegallery.com) Curated by Shige Moriya, is considered by many to be the most exciting experimental gallery in Williamsburg.
February, 23 - March 24, 2002, Friday thru Sunday, 1-6 pm or by appointment the CAVE shows Rodney Dickson's work in a show entitled "Close to Paradise" There are two works about absence, memory and the passage of time. On the white painting, a portrait of a woman is cut out of the painting and placed somewhere else in the room: The person has gone away but her presence, in the shape that remains in the cut canvas, is still there. The huge green painting of 9 x 35 feet and the figures which have been cut out of it and are hung separately in the gallery reflects a similar idea — people leave their presence behind when they go away, at least in our memory, if not more than that.
In the end, much of this work is obliterated by the final coat of paint. "In the cases where some of it can still be seen, it gives depth and history to the work," said Dickson. "And in the cases where it can not be seen it echoes in my mind the reality of life, as many things disappear as time goes by, but we can remember it in our minds and build up this memory bank of past events and people."
Coming from Northern Ireland and being around a lot of violence, Dickson has seen people die, be killed or go away. He wondered how people cope with that kind of loss. But these days, his paintings have gone beyond war and death. They are his own experience of life, of people he has seen even though briefly, and have gone. They can be anything that happens in life. They are real.
193, 195, 197 GRAND STREET: One huge building in the middle of Grand Street contains three well presented galleries run by international art directors: Parkers Box 193 Grand (England), Studio Facchetti, 195 Grand (Italy), and Lunarbase, 197 Grand (Japan).
PARKERS BOX, 193 Grand Street, (www.parkersbox.com) This is a another professional looking storefront space. One work in the current exhibits is a large wall size canvas overview landscape of Williamsburg Brooklyn. It looks like a painting from the Ashcan school or possibly fairground art, somewhat whimsical in nature. The painting is very atmospheric. and amazingly cohesive in style in spite of the fact that it was painted in collaboration with several artists including Mike Ballou, Dan Ford, John Bjerklie, Harry de Graaf, Matt Freedman, K.K. Kozik, Wouter Von Riesen, Kara Van Woerden, Ward Shelley, Ann Thulin, Julius Kozlowski, Jim Trok, Kurt Hoffman, Jeff Reimen, and Alun Williams.
STUDIO FACCHETTI 195 Grand Street is a second floor gallery with large windows facing Grand Street. Once more the gallery space is austere and professional in feeling. The current show (Jan-Feb) is eclectic in nature, something that does not always occur there. Paul Facchetti comes from a long line of art dealers, one of whom was the first to exhibit Jackson Pollack. In the current show is the work of artist Dan Stein, whose conceptual/surrealism I admire. This show only offers a sampling of artists like Simon Lee, Ward Shelley, Auguste Garufi, Anthony Cafritz, and several others. Facchetti’s stated mission is to give confidence to the artist, to present the artist in a way that will invite viewer response, positive or negative, in a way that will help the artist evolve. Paul thinks that many larger galleries are defensive and are not doing their job in developing the individual artist. He says the curse of commercialism makes them shrink from showing art which may not be, at this time, commercially attractive. Facchetti is there to experiment. He said “respect for the artist is why I maintain a nice space!” The show in March is work by Jack Pospisil “Incomplete Models of the Universe,” in which he seamlessly incorporates organic images with industrial methods in both photographic and sculptural media. This show looks like a winner.
LUNAR BASE, 197 Grand Street (www.lunarbaseart.com) is run by Yuko Kawase Wylie from Japan. The minute you walk into her bright professional storefront space one feels a sense of excitement. I cannot say why there is that feeling of expectation. Maybe it is the art that is so stimulating. One in her stable is the Japanese artist Hisao Sakai, an artist of the Mongo movement which has stormed the international art world in recent years and been shown recently at the Brooklyn Museum and P.S. 1 in Queens. The work of Sakai is bold, brash and buoyant, audacious, colorful...charming. It is like art brut stemming from the Japanese passion for comic book or cartoon, reinterpreted as fine art. I asked Yuko why she called the gallery Lunar Base. She said, “It is to think about the future of art, how much it can evolve. We do not know where it is going. Someday we may have a gallery on the moon. Our gallery is about the excitement of new things just beyond the horizon.”
BELLWETHER GALLERY 135 Grand Street (www.bellwethergallery.com) is operated by Rebecca Smith, a fine artist in her own right. Her storefront space is bright and spacious, which lends itself to the professional presentation of her artists. The current show is “Disko Bay” by master artist Adam Cvijanovic, a floor to ceiling 360 degree hand painted roomscape of icebergs floating in an arctic landscape. There is a white faux sheepskin ‘S’ shaped chair in the middle of the room, upon which one can lounge and get the sense of floating on a boat in the middle of the Arctic sea. A fabulous and delightful presentation. I would love to have these pieces in a special room in my house. They remind one of 19th century landscape wallpapers. Adding to the effect are the translucent crystalform suspended sculptures of Kirsten Hassenfeld in the gallery windows. During the day, the bright sun radiating through the windows of the gallery turn these paper geometries into jewels, adding to the wonderful ambience of the arctic seascape. At night, from the outside, these jewels show in the windows like a holiday display. A well curated show, as usual!
If you want to visit an interesting artist’s studio, stop by 97 Grand Street where Barry X Ball uses a combination of 3-D scanning, computer-numerically-controlled milling machines and also hand polishing and carving to produce surreal, conceptual portraits. His mantra is “take a person, decapitate him, do something to his head, do something else to it.”
Another interesting venue is Dungeon Rock Studio (http://dungeonrock.com), a state-of-the-art digital recording studio. The studio was founded in 1997 by A.J. Tissian and Sam Zimmerman in the East Village and moved to 334 Grand St. in Williamsburg during the summer of 2000. The studio focuses on music recording, specializing in pop, rock, and electronica. Producers for music, radio, television and film have utilized the studio for everything from pre-production to final masters.
Some of the artists whose work has been recorded, edited, mixed and/or mastered at Dungeon Rock Studio include (among others) Action Daddy, Alien Hygiene, Collective Soul, the Corrs, Course of Nature, Craig David, The Dead Betties, D.J. Calvin Tang, The Drive, Duncan Sheik, The Flow, Kid Rock, Kung Pao, Li’l Kim, Lori the HiFi Princess, Matchbox 20, Mean Ether, Mike Wexler, Matthew Good Band, Monsters of Japan, No Need For Privacy, O.P.M., Phillip Glass, Philly's Most Wanted, Poe, Rod Stewart, Sinister Minister, St. Eve, Steven Noll, Stone Temple Pilots, The Storm, The Strugglers, Sugar Ray, Sway, The Swedes, Trick Daddy, Uncle Kracker, Unto Ashes, V.J. Honeygun, and Wendell.
While you are walking Grand, you are going to want to stop for a bite to eat. Here are some recommendations;
THE SARDINE CAN at 300 Grand Street for brunch with Eggs Benedict, Eggs Florentine, fluffy flap jacks or homemade Morrocan donuts.
IONA, 180 Grand Street for good food and the charming atmosphere of the tropics.
ALLIOLI, between Roebling and Driggs, for solid Spanish cuisine and a fine selection of wines
SOMA, 192 Grand Street, People always talk about it — I haven’t been there yet.
AZTEC RESTAURANT, around the corner on Bedford, Try the grilled cactus with sauteed onions. Most dishes around $7
Other features on the street of dreams is Therapy, a shop with stylish handmade lotions and perfumes, Cha-Wan’s at 191 Grand Street, with handmade pottery, bags, jewelry and cards made by local artists, gifts from Asia, fresh flowers and more (and the place is aromatic!), the Blue Store run by designer Paul Ballew, featuring handmade furniture, lamps, and unique lamps that hold plant which he calls “Planterns.”

	SIMPLY GRAND
		Yasu Ichige, Still from video. Courtesy Momenta
	The new main art corridor in Williamsburg Brooklyn — Grand Street by Arnold Walfred III Over the past year or so Grand Street on the South side of Williamsburg has become a street rich with probably the most professional Gallery Spaces in Williamsburg. Additionally, it has a number of trendy, splashy looking eating establishments and bars. It has a number of fashion and decorative arts showrooms, sound studios and a really hot night club, the Luxx. And at the end of the block it has most of the antique shops in Williamsburg. The Northside near the L train stop on Bedford Avenue has already been established as the lively attractive area with long lasting galleries and performing arts spaces, bookstores, boutiques, restaurants and shops. However, the Southside is now becoming the tré chic area where a classier sort is establishing itself, with most of the historic architecture from the time of sugar and oil barons of the 19th century. Now luxury condominiums are being built. The Smith Gray Building on Broadway and Bedford Avenue has a penthouse available for over $1,000,000. Grand Street on the Southside is becoming the main art corridor of Williamsburg. Here we will take a tour of the galleries starting from Wythe Avenue on the East River down to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. This is just a few of the things you can find. 31 GRAND GALLERY, 31 Grand Street (www.31grand.com). This is an absolutely wonderful space in terms of ambience on the corner of Wythe and Grand. Truly professional in feel and curatorial presentation. The show I viewed was “New York Mutation Project,” presented in conjunction with with Ad!dict Magazine, January 12 -27, 2002. Ad!dict Magazine is a quarterly theme-based art/culture/fashion magazine originating in Brussels, Belgium, and is pulled together by a multitude of international creatives from all artistic expressions. Ad!dict made a call for participants to share their views and reactions on the mutating and new world after 9/11. Works included are expressive figurative sculptures by Stefanie Rocknak, crowd drawings by Fritz Chesnut, and video and a memorial installation by Jeph Gurecka. Fritz Chesnut depicts crowds of common persons at events such as the Today Show and Total Request Live. He portrays the spirit of man’s devotion and fascination to celebrity and mob mentality. Jeph Gurecka memorialized 9/11 in a beautiful double wreath installation of decaying fruits and vegetables, which was also featured at the Truck Food show. Douglas Kelley found himself in shock and horror from the events of 9/11 and discovered that the only way he could put space between himself and the images of the day were to actually put "space" into these images, synthetically by computer. Stefanie Rocknak captures the pain and emotion of the common man in her beautiful wood carvings. Anna Walker captured the empty solemn feeling left behind in her quiet photos of airline terminals and the World Trade Center. Jeff Wyckoff’s artwork “Landmark” shows the fallen World Trade Center, the imploded towers in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and the still standing Empire State Building in a scientific setting on microscopic slides. CAVE, 58 Grand Street, (www.cavegallery.com) Curated by Shige Moriya, is considered by many to be the most exciting experimental gallery in Williamsburg. February, 23 - March 24, 2002, Friday thru Sunday, 1-6 pm or by appointment the CAVE shows Rodney Dickson's work in a show entitled "Close to Paradise" There are two works about absence, memory and the passage of time. On the white painting, a portrait of a woman is cut out of the painting and placed somewhere else in the room: The person has gone away but her presence, in the shape that remains in the cut canvas, is still there. The huge green painting of 9 x 35 feet and the figures which have been cut out of it and are hung separately in the gallery reflects a similar idea — people leave their presence behind when they go away, at least in our memory, if not more than that. In the end, much of this work is obliterated by the final coat of paint. "In the cases where some of it can still be seen, it gives depth and history to the work," said Dickson. "And in the cases where it can not be seen it echoes in my mind the reality of life, as many things disappear as time goes by, but we can remember it in our minds and build up this memory bank of past events and people." Coming from Northern Ireland and being around a lot of violence, Dickson has seen people die, be killed or go away. He wondered how people cope with that kind of loss. But these days, his paintings have gone beyond war and death. They are his own experience of life, of people he has seen even though briefly, and have gone. They can be anything that happens in life. They are real. 193, 195, 197 GRAND STREET: One huge building in the middle of Grand Street contains three well presented galleries run by international art directors: Parkers Box 193 Grand (England), Studio Facchetti, 195 Grand (Italy), and Lunarbase, 197 Grand (Japan). PARKERS BOX, 193 Grand Street, (www.parkersbox.com) This is a another professional looking storefront space. One work in the current exhibits is a large wall size canvas overview landscape of Williamsburg Brooklyn. It looks like a painting from the Ashcan school or possibly fairground art, somewhat whimsical in nature. The painting is very atmospheric. and amazingly cohesive in style in spite of the fact that it was painted in collaboration with several artists including Mike Ballou, Dan Ford, John Bjerklie, Harry de Graaf, Matt Freedman, K.K. Kozik, Wouter Von Riesen, Kara Van Woerden, Ward Shelley, Ann Thulin, Julius Kozlowski, Jim Trok, Kurt Hoffman, Jeff Reimen, and Alun Williams. STUDIO FACCHETTI 195 Grand Street is a second floor gallery with large windows facing Grand Street. Once more the gallery space is austere and professional in feeling. The current show (Jan-Feb) is eclectic in nature, something that does not always occur there. Paul Facchetti comes from a long line of art dealers, one of whom was the first to exhibit Jackson Pollack. In the current show is the work of artist Dan Stein, whose conceptual/surrealism I admire. This show only offers a sampling of artists like Simon Lee, Ward Shelley, Auguste Garufi, Anthony Cafritz, and several others. Facchetti’s stated mission is to give confidence to the artist, to present the artist in a way that will invite viewer response, positive or negative, in a way that will help the artist evolve. Paul thinks that many larger galleries are defensive and are not doing their job in developing the individual artist. He says the curse of commercialism makes them shrink from showing art which may not be, at this time, commercially attractive. Facchetti is there to experiment. He said “respect for the artist is why I maintain a nice space!” The show in March is work by Jack Pospisil “Incomplete Models of the Universe,” in which he seamlessly incorporates organic images with industrial methods in both photographic and sculptural media. This show looks like a winner. LUNAR BASE, 197 Grand Street (www.lunarbaseart.com) is run by Yuko Kawase Wylie from Japan. The minute you walk into her bright professional storefront space one feels a sense of excitement. I cannot say why there is that feeling of expectation. Maybe it is the art that is so stimulating. One in her stable is the Japanese artist Hisao Sakai, an artist of the Mongo movement which has stormed the international art world in recent years and been shown recently at the Brooklyn Museum and P.S. 1 in Queens. The work of Sakai is bold, brash and buoyant, audacious, colorful...charming. It is like art brut stemming from the Japanese passion for comic book or cartoon, reinterpreted as fine art. I asked Yuko why she called the gallery Lunar Base. She said, “It is to think about the future of art, how much it can evolve. We do not know where it is going. Someday we may have a gallery on the moon. Our gallery is about the excitement of new things just beyond the horizon.” BELLWETHER GALLERY 135 Grand Street (www.bellwethergallery.com) is operated by Rebecca Smith, a fine artist in her own right. Her storefront space is bright and spacious, which lends itself to the professional presentation of her artists. The current show is “Disko Bay” by master artist Adam Cvijanovic, a floor to ceiling 360 degree hand painted roomscape of icebergs floating in an arctic landscape. There is a white faux sheepskin ‘S’ shaped chair in the middle of the room, upon which one can lounge and get the sense of floating on a boat in the middle of the Arctic sea. A fabulous and delightful presentation. I would love to have these pieces in a special room in my house. They remind one of 19th century landscape wallpapers. Adding to the effect are the translucent crystalform suspended sculptures of Kirsten Hassenfeld in the gallery windows. During the day, the bright sun radiating through the windows of the gallery turn these paper geometries into jewels, adding to the wonderful ambience of the arctic seascape. At night, from the outside, these jewels show in the windows like a holiday display. A well curated show, as usual! If you want to visit an interesting artist’s studio, stop by 97 Grand Street where Barry X Ball uses a combination of 3-D scanning, computer-numerically-controlled milling machines and also hand polishing and carving to produce surreal, conceptual portraits. His mantra is “take a person, decapitate him, do something to his head, do something else to it.” Another interesting venue is Dungeon Rock Studio (http://dungeonrock.com), a state-of-the-art digital recording studio. The studio was founded in 1997 by A.J. Tissian and Sam Zimmerman in the East Village and moved to 334 Grand St. in Williamsburg during the summer of 2000. The studio focuses on music recording, specializing in pop, rock, and electronica. Producers for music, radio, television and film have utilized the studio for everything from pre-production to final masters. Some of the artists whose work has been recorded, edited, mixed and/or mastered at Dungeon Rock Studio include (among others) Action Daddy, Alien Hygiene, Collective Soul, the Corrs, Course of Nature, Craig David, The Dead Betties, D.J. Calvin Tang, The Drive, Duncan Sheik, The Flow, Kid Rock, Kung Pao, Li’l Kim, Lori the HiFi Princess, Matchbox 20, Mean Ether, Mike Wexler, Matthew Good Band, Monsters of Japan, No Need For Privacy, O.P.M., Phillip Glass, Philly's Most Wanted, Poe, Rod Stewart, Sinister Minister, St. Eve, Steven Noll, Stone Temple Pilots, The Storm, The Strugglers, Sugar Ray, Sway, The Swedes, Trick Daddy, Uncle Kracker, Unto Ashes, V.J. Honeygun, and Wendell. While you are walking Grand, you are going to want to stop for a bite to eat. Here are some recommendations; THE SARDINE CAN at 300 Grand Street for brunch with Eggs Benedict, Eggs Florentine, fluffy flap jacks or homemade Morrocan donuts. IONA, 180 Grand Street for good food and the charming atmosphere of the tropics. ALLIOLI, between Roebling and Driggs, for solid Spanish cuisine and a fine selection of wines SOMA, 192 Grand Street, People always talk about it — I haven’t been there yet. AZTEC RESTAURANT, around the corner on Bedford, Try the grilled cactus with sauteed onions. Most dishes around $7 Other features on the street of dreams is Therapy, a shop with stylish handmade lotions and perfumes, Cha-Wan’s at 191 Grand Street, with handmade pottery, bags, jewelry and cards made by local artists, gifts from Asia, fresh flowers and more (and the place is aromatic!), the Blue Store run by designer Paul Ballew, featuring handmade furniture, lamps, and unique lamps that hold plant which he calls “Planterns.”