The Grand Street BID is proud to announce (be)longing: Art on Grand Street. (be)longing is an Art exhibition activating storefront windows on Grand Street, from June 29th - July 23rd in seven different locations. The exhibition will showcase artwork from locally based artists from New York and abroad, reflecting the different types of people our neighborhood comprises. (be)longing aims to understand the different perspectives of feeling what it means to belong to the community. Partnering with curator Emily Markert, we’re proud to bring seven different artists' work to our neighborhood.
We are excited to offer two walking tours of (be)longing with the Grand Street BID and the exhibition curator on Saturday, July 15th and Saturday, July 22nd. Tours will begin at 1:30pm at 760 Grand Street outside of Williamsburg Animal Clinic. You can click the button below to RSVP.
Curatorial statement - emily markert
Although the land between Union Avenue and Bushwick Avenue has been occupied for thousands of years, the stretch we know as Grand Street has been so named since c. 1858. Whether they are pre-war or were built just before the Covid-19 pandemic, the buildings here today have witnessed and held people through myriad unprecedented moments, providing spaces for food, shelter, livelihood, and joy. But what do we see when we catch our reflections in their storefront windows? How do we fit into this neighborhood; this history; this city? (be)longing begins to answer this question by investigating the complexity and challenge of finding one’s place. Featuring the work of seven emerging artists, this exhibition considers varied definitions of home and explores what it means to be part of a community or to yearn for one. While they are all based locally, these artists’ backgrounds are as varied as the materials they use; for example, some grew up in Brooklyn or Long Island, while others hail from as far as Taiwan or Spain. As a result, their artworks present numerous perspectives on finding or creating a feeling of belonging. Through site-responsive installations, their works—some newly created for this exhibition—convey relatable experiences while speaking with and to the specific context of Grand Street.
Whether by chance encounter or deliberate engagement, seen through storefront windows, these works offer viewers moments of literal and metaphorical reflection. By placing artwork that approaches familiar yet intimate struggles in this context, (be)longing brings private thoughts into public space. Thus just as the artworks blend the personal with the universal, the exhibition itself blurs the boundaries between interior and exterior, inviting viewers to consider the possibility of Brooklyn being a place for all.
ARTIST DIRECTORY
Bird song (selections from archive, 2014–2023)
35 mm photography, printed on vinyl
Helena Goñi’s photographs offer quiet, poetic glimpses of bodies and gestures frozen in time. Yet, when and where each photo was taken is deliberately unclear. Some viewers might immediately recognize a city or individual in the images, while others may make their own associations based on personal memories of completely different people and places. As a result, these images transition from timestamped to timeless, alluding to the universality of our cravings for tenderness and intimacy.
@helena_goni | helenagoni.com | Located at: 774 Grand Street (Vacant)
night shades, 2023 | Untitled (windows with gingham shades), 2023
Pinewood, cotton cloth, embroidery thread, poplar dowels, ring pull
25 x 19 x 3/4 inches each
Blending vocabularies of minimal art, domestic architecture, and textile embroidery, Katie Levinson’s night shades and Untitled (windows with gingham shades) are at once familiar and peculiar. Small and delicate, and framed within the Williamsburg Animal Clinic’s own sturdy, industrial windows, these sculptures raise questions around what windows show and conceal, drawing our attention to the sometimes arbitrary nature of divisions between private and public space. Newly created for this exhibition, these works build upon Levinson’s ongoing interest in and experiments with the window form.
@levindottir | katielevinson.com | Located at: 760 Grand Street (Williamsburg Animal Clinic)
Excerpts from Secret Identities, 2023
Digital photography, archival inkjet prints
These photographs come from Joseph O’Malley’s series Secret Identities, which centers on two individuals dutifully executing mundane, everyday tasks around the city, all while wearing Batman masks. In the artist’s words, “The series draws a stark parallel between the gender identities of the characters and the so-called ‘secret identities’ of superheroes…Secret Identities aims to challenge viewers’ assumptions, asserting that what the cis-het majority sees as a performative spectacle may actually be the most placidly truthful expression for others.” While the images read tongue-in-cheek at first glance, O’Malley’s evocation of Batman has a poignant purpose: asserting the “inherent heroism in authentic expressions of self.”
@josephomalleyarts | josephomalleyarts.com | Located at: 537 Grand Street (Little Lion Salon)
Atardecer, 2021
Oil paint, spray, raw pigment on canvas. 61 1/4 x 67 1/4 x 1 1/2 inches
This large-scale painting by Estefania Velez Rodriguez features a pair of flower-trimmed archways that do not quite mirror each other; instead, they overlap, as if offering two pathways to the same alternate world. Born out of the artist’s ongoing experiments with pure pigments and other materials, the painting’s palette evokes the vibrant colors of her home of Puerto Rico. Like a bridge between Puerto Rico and New York, the painting serves as a dreamy portal to a hybrid world conjured from memory and imagination, perhaps a place where both cultures coexist in perfect harmony.
@estefaniavelezart | estefaniavelezart.com | Located at: 692 Grand Street (Vacant)
Untitled (0); Untitled (1, 2, and 3), 2021
Dunnage bag, pencil, canvas, digital embroidery
This series of sculptures by wei commandeers the form of the dunnage bag, a type of airbag used to stabilize cargo transported via ships, trucks, and railcars. Emblazoned with words like “fragile,” these untitled works instantly evoke global interconnectivity and codependence through the lens of trade. Yet, positioned upright at an almost human scale, the sculptures also suggest bodies of migrants who may arrive to new places via the same routes as merchandise, but who must then adapt to new cultures and stigmas. In this way, by elevating this everyday yet rarely seen material, these bags stand “composing a scene that brings the often secondary narrative to the foreground,” as wei describes it.
Untitled (Photo Booth), 2021
Copper pipe, massage lightbulb, red flush lightbulb, modeling strap, cinder block
wei’s Untitled (Photo Booth) is constructed with utilitarian materials and bold, red lightbulbs, two of which are massage lamps typically used to warm the body and increase circulation. These mass-produced materials come together to create not a recognizable image but an intimate space of enveloping warmth. Questioning what a photobooth can “capture” and acting as a stand in for both the camera and the subject, the sculpture allows viewers to project their own images and ideas of comfort and closeness onto this pseudo body heat.
@_.wei | itswei.me | Located at: 790 Grand Street (Philomena's)
Learning x3, 2018/2023
Chalkboard, oak frame, chalk. Postcards freely available. 2 x 3 feet
Daniel Shieh’s Learning x3 turns viewers into performers. Presented in the style of an instructional schoolhouse chalkboard, the work invites two people—be they strangers, friends, lovers—to speak various questions aloud, but while the performance is for two people, each question appears three times. This imbalance creates an unexpected yet productive space in which one can feel truly heard.
Like much of Shieh’s work, Learning x3 explores ideas of otherness and navigating spaces where one feels like a foreigner or outsider. As the artist writes about this work: “I’m thinking about ADD, about not being focused, about not remembering, about feeling anxious for asking someone to repeat; I’m thinking about my mother, deaf in one ear, and her trouble with hearing; I’m thinking about my partner’s grandmother who has dementia, who asks the same question every few minutes. I’m thinking about not being fluent in English in the United States. I’m thinking about the third time you ask someone the same question, they start to wonder what is wrong with you. I’m thinking about forgetting someone’s name, about forgetting someone’s birthday.”
@danielshieh | danielshieh.com | Located at: 588 Grand Street (The Last Call)
Headstrong, 2019
Woodcut, muslin fabric. 55 x 48 inches
Vee Tineo’s Headstrong is a quilt of printed portraits that form an inverted pyramid. Building upon imagery Tineo began exploring in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, this work explores notions of power, especially the power held by—or owed to—women of color. Like a triumphant flag, the work’s upended, triangular shape invites us to imagine a world where hierarchies of authority and gender are reversed. Also legible as a funnel, Headstrong uplifts the relationship between the many and the individual, positing that one cannot exist without the other.
@la_vaina_es | veratineo.wixsite.com/vtineo | Located at: 679 Grand Street (BK Jani)