News
Our Thanks to Twig Terrariums
Our current exhibition, Object Migrations, contains a number of small, unusual and rather rare objects which we have displayed in wonderful little orbs that were donated by our new Gowanus neighbors, Twig Terrariums. Twig, created by two old friends, Katy and Michelle, moved into 274 Third Avenue at the corner of President Street in September and are a most original addition to the community. They create and sell moss terrariums and other small worlds in antique, vintage, and new glass containers, apothecary jars, science glass, kitchenware, and any odd glass objects they find on our travels. They also give terrarium-making classes and workshops. We thank them for their generosity to Proteus and hope you will visit them!
Reanimation Library Travels to MOMA
Lock, stock and barrel, the Reanimation Library has moved temporarily to MOMA as part of Print Studio, an interactive space that explores the evolution of artistic practices relating to the medium of print. Be sure to visit Andrew and the Library at MOMA from January 23-March 9. Meanwhile, back at Proteus, in partnership with our Project-In-Residence, The Museum of Matches, we will be launching a new temporary project in the Reanimation space. The Berlin Tunnel Project, opening January 28, will be an installation inspired by a declassified CIA document. Stay tuned for more on this.
Do You Have an Object with a Migratory Story?
When we think about migration (as we have been doing all year), we tend to focus on people and creatures, the mobile inhabitants of the planet. But life and motion create products and byproducts: tools, waste, the implements of culture. These are often the things that drive us onward in our migrations. [continue reading…]
New Addition to the Migration Exhibition
We are pleased to present a new addition to the current exhibition of our Migration year. Evidence: the Ninth Ward, a video montage by Andrew Garn spies on the new “immigrants” who have moved into the abandoned homes of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward after the Post-Katrina mass abandonment of the devastated neighborhood. [continue reading…]
Take a Shadow Walk Along the Gowanus
Viv Corringham, British sound artist and vocalist, has created an audio accompaniment for visitors to listen to as they walk the Gowanus. Visitors borrow a CD player and earphones, pick up a map, and set off, accompanied by the sounds of local residents describing their own Gowanus walks, interspersed with ambient sound and Viv’s improvisational songs. [continue reading…]
Migration collaboration with Museum Library
Proteus Gowanus is pleased to announce a Migration collaboration with The Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives. The Museum has loaned us a facsimile excerpt of an archive manuscript by Wallace Goold Levison, written in the early 20th C. for a book (never completed) on the early history of the Brooklyn Institute, the Museum’s predecessor. The notes recount a fascinating account of the Institute’s role in importing the English sparrow to Brooklyn in the 1850’s, a tale who’s outcome is visible to us every time we go outdoors. To see the bibliographic citation that tells more about the manuscript, click here.
As an off-site collaboration with the Migration year at Proteus, the Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives has also created a small Migration library of its own books which is on view in the Brooklyn Museum Library Reading Room. [continue reading…]
Yamasaki’s feather installation
You are invited to visit Proteus Gowanus from Sept 6-16, from 12-5 pm to observe the installation of the “Voices-Feather Composition” by Ami Yamasaki. This installation is a project of Reanimation Library and Proteus Gowanus, as part of the Migration exhibition.
Ami, a Tokyo artist and musician, is making a music-feather installation at Proteus by pasting millions of feathers made of torn paper to the walls, following a pattern dictated by the acoustical changes she perceives as she sings. Each feather works as a sound reflector or music instrument, changing the acoustics of the space. She sings, pastes, listens and, as she says, “little by little, the space starts to play its own music.”
During the process, Ami “feels herself completely vanished and becomes to the particles like electrons and neutrons for melting into the feathers and the music of the space. She feels both absence and existence, she feels she can travel everywhere.”
Ami needs paper donations to complete the projects. Please bring clear, white paper if you can. Off white and textured paper also welcome.
Study Hall Re-Opens Sept. 6
Summer is ending and it’s time to get back to work. If you are a solitary worker tied to a laptop or a pad of paper, perhaps you would prefer not to work alone at home but rather in quiet community with other writers.
We invite you to join Study Hall for quiet contemplation, study and work. Study Hall turns our galleries into writing rooms so that members can work in a communal setting filled with art, artifacts and books.
For $50 per month, Study Hall is open to members on weekdays from 10am-6pm.
Opening Reception for Migration
Proteus Gowanus is pleased to announce the yearlong theme for 2011/12. For the next nine months, we will examine the many aspects of the word, MIGRATION, employing art, artifacts, books and events as the tools of our investigation. The first exhibition of the year opens with a reception on September 17 and will include the following contributors:
Aileen Bassis, Meredith Bergmann, The Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives, Lola Bunting, Marie Cieri, Viv Corringham, Dillon de Give, Sarah Lederman, Portia Munson, Lance Rutledge, Randall Stoltzfus, Lorena Turner, and, in partnership with Reanimation Library, Ami Yamasaki.
