Battle

Our theme from September, 2012 through July, 2013 is Battle. In exhibitions and events, we explore how we fight: sparring with words, attacking covertly or clashing openly on the battlefield. However it occurs, in our minds, our bodies or in our communities, conflict appears to be inevitable. Our first exhibition, opening September 15, is War of Words followed by Secret Wars in January and Battle Ground in April.

Battle Ground

April 13 – June 30
Opening Reception: April 13, 7 pm

Battle Ground, the third and last exhibit of our yearlong Battle theme, will explore the pathos of the Battle of Brooklyn, stimulating our collective memory, evoking parallels between past and present, while focusing on the complexity, moral ambiguity, and devastation of this important Revolutionary confrontation. Historical imagery, rendered meaningless by over-use and political manipulation, will be revived in new forms.

The word “revolution” circles around us, forming the early consciousness of our country. History, also cyclical, repeats itself, and when it is forgotten, it haunts us, lying dormant in our collective memories. In 1776 one such haunting unfolded across a wide swath of what is now Brooklyn. Perhaps the battle if often forgotten because it was, in the words of Walt Whitman, a “resolute defeat.”

The battle-haunting still rages around us at Proteus Gowanus. Its culminating events took place just feet from our gallery location, along what was then the Gowanus Creek. The fields and marshes of 1776 are now a post-industrial urban landscape, and the Gowanus Canal is a hotly contested Federal Superfund and development site.

Battle Ground participants include artists, educators, urban planners and writers:

Paul Benney, Peter Bonner, Sasha Chavchavadze, Eymund Diegel, Robert Gould, Katarina Jerinic, Andrew Keating, Christina Kelly, V. Komar & A. Melamid, Angela Kramer, Robyn Love, Eva Melas, Duke Riley, Lance Rutledge, Robert Sullivan

Battle History: The Battle of Brooklyn was a drama of epic proportions; an armada of more than four hundred British ships entered the harbor, looking like a “forest of trees”; a small band of Maryland farm boys lost their lives as they held off several thousand British troops; a life-saving fog descended on George Washington and his army, enabling them to complete their escape to Manhattan in the morning light in a flotilla of borrowed boats rowed by Massachusetts fishermen.

Concurrent installation at the Old Stone House: Running concurrently with the Battle Ground exhibit at Proteus Gowanus will be a mixed-media installation, Battle Pass – Revolution IV, at The Old Stone House, a museum housed in a 1699 Dutch farmhouse that played a central role in the battle. Revolution IV opening reception: April 25th, 6:30 pm at the Old Stone House, 3rd Street at 5th Avenue, Brooklyn. Revolution IV will be up through June 25th.

Secret Wars

January 12 – April 7, 2013
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 12, 7pm

Secret Wars, the second exhibition in Proteus Gowanus’ yearlong exploration of Battle, explores the cryptic ways of warfare waged behind the cloak of invisibility. From neurophysical conflict deep inside the human amygdala, to the broadcast signals used by spies and intelligence agencies, to the everyday observation of ordinary citizens by omniscient bureaucracies, Secret Wars reveals covert communications hiding in plain sight. Curated by Proteus Gowanus creative director Tammy Pittman and anthropologist Thomas Ross Miller, the exhibition brings artists from New York, Amsterdam and Berlin to trace the gaps, silences, and blackouts that conceal vital and deadly knowledge.

Who controls secret information, and who has the power to understand it? How do we protect ourselves from unseen enemies? Who wins and who loses when the battle is unending and unknowable? Through art, artifacts, books, sound and surveillance, these installations render what is absent present and what is invisible visible. Inside a special room, mysterious and hypnotic short-wave radio messages in unbreakable codes are beamed to hidden spies. Lost treasures, occult symbols and predator drones appear and disappear, closely guarded enigmas shrouded in obscure and half-forgotten codes.

Artists and works include:

Joy Garnett – Predator series
David Goren – “Atencion! Seis Siete Tres Siete Cero”: The Mystery of the Shortwave Numbers Stations
Nene Humphrey – Circling the Center with Zoe FitzGerald
Anna Livia Löwendahl-Atomic – NØbjects and Otophgraphs from The Mu{e}sum
Renée Ridgway – Revelation of the Concealed
Tony Stanzione – Safety First
Smudge Studio – TRANSCOM
Bryan M. Wilson – Canticle for Sebeok (Atomic Priesthood) with the work-in-progress, Vestments for Ten Millennia (Atomic Priest Suit), in collaboration with The Mildred’s Complex(ity)

War of Words

September 15, 2012 – January 6, 2013

Battle and war metaphors “infiltrate” our lingua franca. They are used to explain all sorts of things from existential dilemmas (“inner conflict”) to health issues (“cells attack”), sports moves (“launch a blitz”) and politics (“the war on women”) to name just a few.

Is it possible that conflict is at our very core? Do we fashion our language to reflect and represent this conflict at every turn?

War of Words grew out of these questions and presents art, artifacts and books that explore ideas of conflict of all sorts as filtered through the not-so-precise lens of language.

Artists in the exhibition are Rosaire Appel, Stephanie Brody Lederman, Carrie Cooperider, Paula Gaetano-Adi, Steve Clay of Granary Books (presenting the collaborative works of bpNichol and Barbara Caruso), Ligorano/Reese, Anli Liu, Angelo Pastormerlo, Lance Rutledge, William Powhida, Reed Seifer, and Cody Trepte.

Also included are a myriad of artists and writers who have participated in the hive-mind project entitled “Yes or No.”

And, finally, a collection of artifacts and books will be on display to explore the topic further.