Tag: brooklyn museum

Miguel Luciano in ‘Crossing Brooklyn’ at the Brooklyn Museum

A shaved ice cart, community notice board in the form of an equestrian sculpture and more project-based artwork characterizes Brooklyn Museum’s brief survey of some art trends coming from local artists. Miguel Luciano’s ‘Amani Kites’ – pictured here – originated in a kite-making workshop he directed for kids in Nairobi, Kenya. (Through Jan 4th).

Installation view of ‘Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy and Beyond,’ at Brooklyn Museum, Nov 2014. Featuring: Miguel Luciano, Amani Kites, paper, string, wooden dowels, photograph on vinyl, Kanga cloth, video, 2012-14.

Ai Wei Wei at Brooklyn Museum

In response to the disastrous 2008 Sichuan earthquake that killed thousands of school children in their shoddily constructed schools, Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei constructed this snake of backpacks as a memorial. Below, a pile of porcelain river crabs indirectly stands in for censorship and recalls a huge feast of crab initiated by Ai Wei Wei as a protest against limitations on free speech. (At the Brooklyn Museum through August 10th).

Ai Wei Wei, Snake Ceiling, backpacks, 2009. He Xie, 3,200 porcelain crabs, 2010.

Swoon at the Brooklyn Museum

Shredded and twisted fabric create the bark on a 60-foot tall tree by renowned street artist Swoon that fills the Brooklyn Museum’s fifth floor rotunda. The tree anchors a stunning installation that features huge portraits of the artist’s friends and family along with rag-tag boats that once plied the waters in New York and Venice. (On view through August 24th).

Swoon, installation view of ‘Submerged Motherlands,’ at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, April – August, 2014.

‘The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gautier’ at the Brooklyn Museum

You don’t have to be into fashion to appreciate the spectacle that is ‘The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier’ at Brooklyn Museum.  A moving catwalk, mannequins with animated faces, and more turn the normally sleepy Brooklyn Museum into a carnival celebrating Gaultier’s extravagant, gender-bending vision, which germinated in childhood when he fashioned a conical bra for his teddy, some 30 years prior to his designs for Madonna’s ‘Blond Ambition’ tour.  (At Brooklyn Museum through Feb 23rd).  

Jean Paul Gautier, ‘Nana’ from 1957; ‘chest of drawers with integrated vanity,’ prototype, 1992; and “Black Swan Collection,” modele Saut de l’Ange, Haute couture fall/winter 2011-12.

Valerie Hegarty at The Brooklyn Museum

Known for crafting historical art and furnishings as if they’d been partly destroyed, Brooklyn artist Valerie Hegarty has astoundingly transformed several rooms in the Brooklyn Museum’s Cane Acres Plantation Dining Room to look as if disaster has struck, turning a gentile space into a riot of gunshot holes, destroyed food and flapping crows.  (In the 4th floor Period Rooms at the Brooklyn Museum through Dec 1st).  

Valerie Hegarty, installation view of ‘Valerie Hegarty:  Alternative Histories’ at the Brooklyn Museum, July 2013.