A Really Big 'Really Big' Show in Red Hook

The biggest artist-run art exhibition in New York will get "really big" later this month. The second show of the season by artists in the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, called the Really Big Show, will feature outsized work by some 150 of BWAC's 500 members. The show will also include smaller works.

(PRWEB) July 25, 2007 -- "A big, joyous celebration of summer and art", is how Show Chair Dawn Robyn Petrlik describes the upcoming BWAC art show. The biggest artist-run art exhibition in New York will get "really big" later this month. The second show of the season by artists in the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, called the Really Big Show, will feature outsized work by some 150 of BWAC's 500 members. The show will also include smaller works.

Like other BWAC shows, it will be in Brooklyn's exciting Red Hook section.

All sorts of good things are happening here -- restaurants, bars, galleries, Water Taxi access and a gourmet supermarket. And BWAC has been a pioneer here.

"We have this great big space in a Civil War-era warehouse, and we thought it was time to really make use of it by showing works consistent with its size," said BWAC President John Strohbeen. "We expect to have some works as big as 70 feet wide. You can stand back and really appreciate their scale in this setting." The Really Big Show will include paintings, sculpture, photographs and installations, almost every media. Most of the art in the show will be for sale. Buyers will be able to take their purchases home with them immediately; the artists will then hang replacement works.

As in BWAC's previous shows, the Really Big Show will use the cavernous brick warehouse made available by owner Greg O'Connell. "BWAC and Red Hook are thriving together," O'Connell said. "All sorts of good things are happening here -- restaurants, bars, galleries, Water Taxi access and a gourmet supermarket. And BWAC has been a pioneer here."

A new feature of this year's show will be the spotlighting of two BWAC artists and their work.

Gary Heller, a photographer raised and living in Brooklyn, says his work can be described as "pleasantly weird." His exhibition, "View from Within," is a series of compositions that "bring a sense of being inside a building and having a glimpse of the world outside," he says.

The second featured artist is the painter Richard Todd. For Richard, painting really big is not much of a stretch. An Abstract Expressionist and student of both Philip Guston and Willem de Kooning, his enormous paintings glow with power. Vivian Raynor of the New York Times reviewed an earlier solo exhibit and agreed "the pictures are vivacious ..."

The opening day of the show, Saturday, July 28, will be brightened by live entertainment in keeping with the era when the warehouse was built, including stilt-walkers, clowns and jugglers. "We're still looking for a fire-eater," said Petrlik. "And maybe some dancing bears. Or dancing painters."

Opening Day Meet the Artists reception features the jazzy latin music of Ray Rivera, who has sung and played with greats from Hank Jones to Billy Taylor and will treat visitors to a special afternoon of jazz cabaret songs, with works by Gershwin, Porter and Ray's own compositions.

Opening Weekend Sunday, July 29, will be the third annual Summer Show production of one of Shakespeare's plays by the Communicable Arts Group. Comedy of Errors is this year's selection.

The award-winning UnPlugged in Red Hook acoustic music series and other special events are planned for each weekend.

Many of the artists in the show contribute work to a silent auction, the Affordable Art Auction, which is open during the run of the show. Opening bids may be as low as $35. "For less than the price of a parking ticket, you can take home an original artwork and start your own collection," said Auction Chair, Tom Vega. "Charles Saatchi had to start somewhere, too."

The Brooklyn Crafts Festival with their 19th century style pushcarts is an exciting complement to the show. Open the same hours as the art show, it is a juried craft show on the waterfront esplanade. Local artisans will be showing and selling their handmade-in-Brooklyn crafts.

The show is at 499 Van Brunt Street, at the very end of Van Brunt. "If you keep going, you'll be at the Statue of Liberty," said Strohbeen. The site is easily accessible by subway and bus, and by the New York Water Taxi, and is next to the new Fairway supermarket. Directions are available on the Internet at www.bwac.org/directions.

BWAC was founded in 1978 to help artists -- professional and non-professional -- make their work available to the public.

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brooklyn arts artists waterfront fine art van brunt street bwac red hook communicable arts group gary heller richard todd

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