Events
A Commerce Story with Storyteller & Mythologist Martin Shaw
Monday, October 20, 7pm
Admission: $10
Join mythologist and storyteller Dr. Martin Shaw as he tells the eastern European story of “Faithful John” and provides commentary and discussion on its many layers. Shaw will pay particular attention to the relationship between initiation, commerce and the living world. Within these vivid, ancient tales we find an economy of the imagination – a fluid bargaining between humans and animals, wisdom and ambition, eros and sobriety. The old stories claim that there’s no such thing as a free lunch! [continue reading…]
Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid
Friday, October 17, 7pm
Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid is a 1995 documentary about exactly what it says. Bill Drummond and Jimi Cauty, former members of the former techno music group The KLF, disband the band and form a new “art collective” named the K Foundation. They decide to burn 1 million UK pounds of their own money in a shack on the Isle of Jura while being taped by their roadie, Gimpo. Bizarre and surprisingly intriguing.
Money-Folding with Esther K Smith – CANCELLED!
Sunday, October 12, 4-6pm THIS WORKSHOP POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE TBD
To launch our Commerce year workshop series, book artist Esther K. Smith, author of Magic Books & Paper Toys and How to Make Books, will teach you how to transform your money…into wearable rings, shirts, elephants and other oddities. Bring your own US dollars to fold. If you think your dollars are continually losing value in the marketplace, give their value a boost by turning your bills into priceless works of art! …. Esther K Smith, author of Magic Books & Paper Toys and How to Make Books, makes collaborative limited editions and artist books at Purgatory Pie Press. These works are in many international collections from MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) to The Miniature Book Museum of Azerbaijan. Exhibits include the libraries of the Metropolitan Museum and London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. When she was in high school she was the origami club TA and carried a candy tin of paper squares and folded tiny cranes under her desk.
Opening Reception for Currency
Saturday, September 6, 6-9pm
Join us for free wine, risky money making and magical money laundering at the opening of Currency, the first show of the COMMERCE theme year. Currency is an exhibition of art, artifacts and books examining the representation of value and its relation to social consensus. The exhibition includes displays of alternative currencies, artist-made currencies and art objects made from currency. We will also examine art’s role as a form of currency. [continue reading…]
Proteotypes Launches New Book, ‘Painting at Dora’
Friday, June 27, 6-8pm
FreePlease join us as we launch the latest Libellula from Proteotypes, the publishing arm of Proteus Gowanus. Painting at Dora was written by François Le Lionnais in 1945, months after his escape from the forced labor camp at Dora-Nordlingen. The memoir movingly describes the game (or spiritual practice) he played with a comrade, in order to keep from despair in brutal circumstances. In 1960, Le Lionnais went on to found, with Raymond Queneau, the OuLiPo — the French association of writers and mathematicians dedicated to producing constraints for literary and other sorts of [continue reading…]
Océans, the documentary
Thursday, May 29, 7pm
This screening of the gorgeous, award-winning film, Océans, is a follow-up to the fascinating March talk at Proteus with Jesse Ausubel, creator of the Census of Marine Life. Océans is a 2009 French nature documentary directed, produced, co-written, and narrated by Jacques Perrin, with Jacques Cluzaud as co-director. Filmed throughout the globe, the documentary is an ecological drama, part thriller, part meditation on the vanishing wonders of the sub-aquatic world. [continue reading…]
Water Works Opening Reception
Saturday, May 31, 6-8pm
Join us for wine and New Orleans music at the opening reception of Water Works, a group exhibition featuring the work of 16 visual artists from New Orleans along with music critic and occasional DJ John Swenson spinning the history of New Orleans music from Gottschalk to Galactic!
The title of this exhibition is derived from the board game, Monopoly. It invokes the infrastructures and agencies that deliver water to our sinks and tubs while also serving as a metaphor for tears. But Water Works is not another hard-luck Katrina show. We asked this group of New Orleans artists to consider water in all its complexity and universality. [continue reading…]
Combined Overflow Roundtable Discussion
Friday, May 23, 7-9pm
Free wine and refreshments
Join us for a roundtable discussion with several artists from our current Water exhibition, Combined Overflow. They will discuss creative collaborations on the Newtown Creek and Gowanus Canal and consider new ideas for how to engage with Superfund Sites, urban waterfronts and environmental pollution in Brooklyn and beyond.
Participants include George Trakas, designer of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk; artist Willis Elkins of the Newtown Creek Alliance and North Brooklyn Boat Club; engineer Jeff Laut of the Brooklyn Atlantis robot project; photographer Mitch Waxman; media artist Jan Mun; and artist/scientist Jenifer Wightman. [continue reading…]
