Bushwick Open Studios can be exhausting — just try poring through the 616 listings in the general directory without dying a bit on the inside. If you hit up only one event in the neighborhood this weekend, make it the NEWD Art Show, an expertly curated and concise presentation by nine exhibitors who’ve set up shop at 592 Johnson Avenue. NEWD organizers Kate Bryan and Kibum Kim said they aligned themselves with fairs like the Independent, Seven, and Spring/Break, and that same spirit shines through here in Bushwick. “The last thing the world needs is another art fair,” Kim admitted, but luckily NEWD is something more than that — more like a crash course in the neighborhood’s contemporary scene (with the option to buy).
At the booth for Regina Rex— currently one of several galleries now homeless after a run-in with the landlord at 17-17 Troutman— sculptures by Dave Hardy shared the space with mixed-media paintings by EJ Hauser. Hardy’s works are all about material play — there are few people who can achieve such poetic effects with glass, foam, and other common materials. The small-scale work at the booth has an almost human pathos to it, and with it Hardy conjures a D.I.Y. image of the body in much the same way that Sarah Lucas does. Hauser, who originally trained as a sculptor, makes paintings and drawings that incorporate words or broken bits of text. While she no longer works in three dimensions, her paintings are still conceived as “piles of marks,” a gallerist explained.
Signal gallery gave its booth over to three artists working within a sculptural frame. John Bianchi showed floor sculptures of painted-and-sanded MDF as well as incredible wall-pieces of foam and acrylic. The artist first traces out an intricate pattern on the foam’s surface in acrylic paint; he then blasts the surface with spraypaint, which chemically corrodes the areas of foam not coated in acrylic. The stark whiteness of the works pairs well with Hayden Dunham’s ceramic sculpture on the floor — a series of enigmatic forms resting on plain white tiles, with an eerie edge that reminded me of Mike Kelley’s “Lumpenprole.” Signal also had two works by Sophie Hirsch that must have been an epic struggle to transport and install — they’re massive, unwieldy things composed of latex-coated bubble wrap, rubber straps, an entire door, and other items — and abstract compositions of latex-house-painted wood and metal by Bennet Schlesinger.
Other highlights (although there are shockingly few lowlights at NEWD): Holly Coulis’s gentle, arresting paintings at Sardine, which recall William Scott’s still life compositions; a Jon Rafman sculpture incorporating shirts printed with the image of David Hockney’s “Big Splash,” at American Medium; and Alex Eagleton’s installation of small paintings (and one tiny glass sculpture) at a booth curated by Marina T. Schindler.
NEWD has a full schedule of talks planned from Friday through Sunday. Today at 2 p.m. Artspace’s Andrew Goldstein chats with Josh Baer and others about the “$1 Billion Contemporary Art Market,” and Saturday at 2 p.m. Franklin Boyd schools emerging artists on the potentials of negotiated resale rights (akin to an American version of the European droit de suite). Visitors should also treat the fair as a springboard to go see what the participating galleries have up at their brick-and-mortar locations — like the group show “Demo” at Signal; Ann Hirsch at American Medium; and Mitchell Wright at Sardine.
The show’s organizers are hoping to bring in attendees from the far side of the river. It’s the fair’s inaugural year, so it’ll be interesting to see if that migration to the Jefferson stop actually happens — but collectors who place any value on new discoveries beyond Lucien Smith should certainly hop on the L train.
