All posts tagged: Swoon “Submerged Motherlands”

Skiing Cities of Serenissima : Swoon Vessels in the Snowy Woods

Skiing Cities of Serenissima : Swoon Vessels in the Snowy Woods

Swoon has sent her vessels out to the countryside to reunite with the soil and trees.

Most art conservators and archivists make it their business to preserve a piece for posterity. Once art is created and collected it can be a vexing task for estates and institutions to make provisions enabling art to outlive the artist and it’s caretakers for decades, generations, even centuries.

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon’s iconic rafts, or boats, or ships, or vessels of fantasy, however you may call them – these floating statues created for communal waterfaring made of discarded materials, cut paper, hand paint, gossamer sails and dreams are now completing their mission here in the snowy foothills, their recycled lives continuing their voyage back into the earth, not preserved for the ages.

Only last summer you could see these vessels in Submerged Motherlands, a record-setting exhibition at Brooklyn Museum that featured these rafts made of salvaged materials that once sailed on the direction of a rotating crew of captains and dreamers down the Missippi from Minneapolis to New Orleans, down the Hudson River and East River in New York, across the Adriatic from Slovenia to Italy to arrive shimmering and victorious at the Venice Biennial at night.

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Maybe it is because most people don’t have space enough to store a once-sea-worth D.I.Y. raft, maybe it’s because Street Artists are accustomed to their work being worn down and destroyed by the elements, or perhaps it is a philosophical outlook that recognizes that life and death are part of one cycle.

Swoon decided the final docking place for these vessels would be this wooded area away from the city and nested in by birds, trod upon by deer, eventually covered by moss. On the day we hiked here the smallest field mouse, no bigger than the palm of your hand, darted out from under a rudder onto the snow for a few feet, looked at us and quickly ran back into a hole so small as to be nearly imperceptible, submerged.

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

When they were in use, these were near mythical conglomerations of sculpture, performance, shelter, community, fantasy, inner-fighting, lovemaking, maritime exploring, … untethered and in a sort of extended state of disbelief apart from the codified rhythms of a time-obsessed age on land.

When they stood still in the museum, stately and under-lit by a wallowing blinkering light meant to emulate water and moonlight, they began to take on a certain sense of lore and fantasy, a rallying point for the eclectic alumni who gathered there for music and word performances, reunion, reflecting and revisiting their common history.

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Here in these snow-quieted woods these rafts are at peace, still showing the signs of human activity but instead of exploring they are ready to be explored, open fantasies discovered in children’s play, inviting sparrows and chicadees and finches to fly through, an inhabitant of the terrestrial, each year more a part of it.

If there is a cycle that Swoon is honoring by allowing these vessels to float back to the land, she will tell us in due time, or not. Like many artists she is not going to ruin some stories that you’ll make but allow individual interpretation of her art in context, and here is a new one.

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Join BSA @Brooklynmuseum with SWOON April 24th (Open Late!)

Join BSA @Brooklynmuseum with SWOON April 24th (Open Late!)

| #BSAatBKM | @BKStreetArt | @Brooklynmuseum |

In Conversation: Brooklyn Street Art

Hello BSA Readers!

We’d like to invite you to join us at the Brooklyn Museum for “Street Art Stories”,
a presentation and conversation with Swoon on April 24th.
It’s going to be a scintillating, entertaining and fun night
and the museum is staying open late for us so you can see
the brand new Swoon: Submerged Motherlands installation
in person with other BSA friends and fans.

We look forward to meeting you there!

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Along with Swoon we are excited to welcome as our guests photographer and graffiti/street art enthusiast Luna Park and curator Keith Schweitzer, who will lend us some of their expertise and insights for our “Street Art Stories” theme.  We are honored that our event will be moderated by none other than Sharon Matt Atkins, the Managing Curator of Exhibitions at The Brooklyn Museum and the curator of Swoon: Submerged Motherlands.

The reception will be regaled with the eclectically funky musical stylings of DJ Sleptember!

In Conversation: Brooklyn Street Art, April 24th

 539
Brooklyn Street ARt
Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington,
Brooklyn Street Art Founders

On Thursday, April 24 at 7 p.m. the Brooklyn Museum presents

In Conversation: Brooklyn Street Art. Brooklyn Street Art founders Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo lead a dynamic, multimedia conversation that explores the evolution of street art stories as told by the earliest graffiti writers to today’s D.I.Y. artists. They’ll reveal secret backgrounds, show what stylistic themes are recurring today, and hint at the future of street art in New York.
They are joined in conversation by artists Swoon and Luna Park, and curator Keith Schweitzer.
A reception with a DJ, cash bar, and a guest-inclusive art-making project will follow. Presented in conjunction with the site-specific installation Swoon: Submerged Motherlands, on view from April 11 to August 24 in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery on the 5th Floor.

Tickets are $12; include Museum general admission and can be purchased at www.museumtix.com. Free for Museum Members; to reserve please email membership@brooklynmuseum.org.

About the participants

Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo are the Founders of the influential art blog BrooklynStreetArt.com. Proud New Yorkers, artists, and cultural workers for more than twenty-five years, both are experts on the evolving street art scene in New York as well as globally. With daily postings on Brooklyn Street Art (BSA), over 175 articles on The Huffington Post, and tens of thousands of followers on social media, the two have shown and discussed street art, graffiti, murals, and public art in more than 100 cities over the last few years.

Swoon, born Caledonia Dance Curry, currently has an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, Swoon: Submerged Motherlands. Swoon studied at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn before bringing her art to the streets in 1999, wheat pasting her large linoleum and woodcuts on the sides of industrial buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Her art is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, and Tate Modern, among others.

Katherine Lorimer (aka Luna Park) is a Brooklyn-based graffiti and street art enthusiast, photographer, curator, librarian, and co-founder and regular contributor to The Street Spot blog. Her photographs have been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago and have appeared in leading street art books and magazines.

Keith Schweitzer is the Co-Founder/Director of MaNY Project (Murals Around New York) and the Co-Founder/Director of The Lodge Gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He is also Director of Public Art for Fourth Arts Block, the non-profit leadership organization for Manhattan’s officially designated Cultural District in the East Village.

GENERAL INFORMATION
Admission:
Contribution $12; students with valid I.D. and seniors $8. Free to members and children under 12 accompanied by an adult. Group tours or visits must be arranged in advance by calling extension 234.
Directions:
Subway: Seventh Avenue express (2 or 3) to Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum stop; Lexington Avenue express (4 or 5) to Nevins Street, cross platform and transfer to the 2 or 3. Bus: B41, B69, B48.
On-site parking available.
Museum Hours:
Wednesday and Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; first Saturday of each month, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.
200 Eastern Pkwy, New York, NY 11238

From BSA: “Swoon: Submerged Motherlands”, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Museum

 

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Images of the Week: 04.13.14

Images of the Week: 04.13.14

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Street Artists have been exhibited in museums before so Swoon’s “Submerged Motherlands” doesn’t break ground because of its presence inside a grand institution, even if said institution also holds one of the largest collections of Egyptian art, and is also hosting the largest US exhibition of Ai Weiwei next week, for example.

What surprised us most this week as the Brooklyn Museum threw open its doors to a seven story installation that includes a tree, a gazebo, and two boats that sailed the Adriatic was the rapid rate that this artist has gone from running the streets under cover of night of Brooklyn plastering her linotypes to being invited inside to spray the walls of the Brooklyn Museum with a fire extinguisher. The total time elapsed between her first hand cut paper wheat paste on tattered walls and Friday’s opening was a decade and a half. That is noteworthy in itself, and worthy of someone’s exhaustive examination, but suffice to say that you have to have vision and commitment to pull this off.

Here are new images from the exhibit along with our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Cost, Elbow-Toe, London Kaye, Myth, Nick Walker, Paul Richard, Swoon, and Tava.

Top Image >> Swoon “Submerged Motherlands” exhibition now open to the public at the Brooklyn Museum. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon “Submerged Motherlands” exhibition now open to the public at the Brooklyn Museum. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon “Submerged Motherlands” exhibition now open to the public at the Brooklyn Museum. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon “Submerged Motherlands” exhibition now open to the public at the Brooklyn Museum. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Read our interview with the artist this week – “Swoon: Submerged Motherlands”, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Museum.

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Artist Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Elbow Toe goes over himself and he feels a bit nostalgic. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nick Walker. Dona Isabel is a member of the undead. She is coming home after a night of blood hunting on the LES.  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown. A new tribute to SAMO and Andy Warhol. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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London Kaye calling it right. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Have You Seen Me? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Paul Richard. Discuss (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Tava (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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“Her face carried some unseen burden as she swallowed down her shot and our eyes connected from across the room,” Eduardo Jones (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Lord have mercy. COST (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Artist Unknown. Save the bees peeps! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Untitled.  NYC Winter 2013 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

 

<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA

Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA

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