Brooklyn Public Library (Central) - Past Events
Below is a list of all past events for Brooklyn Public Library (Central). Current and upcoming events, as well as other details, are available on the venue's page.
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Heinrich Spillmann “What Do You See When a Tree Falls?”
Carved vases and chairs made from old and historic trees that have fallen around Grand Army Plaza. The storms we’ve experienced in the past years have felled many beautiful old trees at Grand Army Plaza....More »
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Lourdes Bernard “Eastern Parkway Vignettes”
Works on paper in black and white inspired by daily walks along Eastern Parkway right before dusk. These images reflect the poetry of the Brooklyn sky. The works exhibited are the fruits of a mini-marathon,...More »
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Mary DeVincentis “One Hundred Not Famous Views”
A series of monotypes inspired by meditative walks in Prospect Park paying tribute to the tradition of the Romantic landscape and to Hiroshige’s woodcut series, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Where...More »
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“Brooklyn’s Rescued Bestiary” Exhibition
Original artwork and compilation of stories from Brooklyn’s Rescued Bestiary, based on Sean Casey Animal Rescue and created by Strike Three Press. This display shows the process of producing the book...More »
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Suyeon Na “Drawing Outside the Lines”
Collages of Western urban environments and Asian culture through fantasy-driven images. My work portrays life as a nomadic journey by employing various lightweight paper and fabrics that are easy to...More »
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John Denninger “When You Look, What Do You See?”
Natural and human-made collages of texture, light, shadow, shape, and composition. I have been photographing the small and large, smooth and rough, light and dark, as well as reflections of reflections...More »
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Fred Bendheim “Full Circle: Sculpture”
Abstract, small-scale sculptures assembled from wood and other materials found in nature. These sculptures were made from found materials, mostly scrap wood found in the park and from the lumber yard....More »
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Bryan Collier “It Starts with Just a Seed”
Original collages created for children’s books, including artwork from his latest book, Knock, Knock: My Dad’s Dream for Me, I, Too, Am America, and others. I am really fanatical about all textures...More »
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Elizabeth Felicella “An Open Book”
New photography produced by Brooklyn Public Library’s first artist-in-residence, Elizabeth Felicella, exploring the Library archive, with particular attention to its Central Library holdings. Unique...More »
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“Celebrating a Century of Girl-Scouting: 1913-2013” Exhibition
In Girl Scouts, girls discover the fun, friendship, and power of girls together. Through a myriad of enriching experiences, such as extraordinary field trips, sports skill-building clinics, community service...More »
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“The 27th Annual Ezra Jack Keats” NYC Department of Education Bookmaking Competition Exhibition
The 27th Annual Ezra Jack Keats / NYC Department of Education Bookmaking Competition Exhibition From the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation: Did you know that over the past 26 years, New York City public schoolchildren...More »
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So Yoon Lym “Dreamtime VI”
A series of acrylic on paper paintings, represented as archival pigment prints documenting hair and braid patterns based on actual hairstyles worn by students whom this artist knew while a full-time art...More »
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“Cutting Edge: Contemporary Paper Art by Doug Beube, Danielle Durchslag, Irwin Susskind, and Thomas Witte” Exhibition
A group exhibition that celebrates the renaissance of cut paper as an artistic medium, including artists who choose to draw with a knife, saw, or scissors as an integral part of their practice. Doug...More »
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“The Manga Life of Misako Rocks!: From Japan to America by Misako Rocks!” Exhibition
“My art style is influenced by Japanese manga and American graphic novels. I love the soft and delicate style of manga and the bold and dynamic brush strokes of American graphic novels. I’m a self-taught...More »
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Jamel Shabazz "Men of Honor and Women of Distinction"
The very idea to document groups and distinguished individuals came from viewing photographs from a renowned member of one of the most notorious street gangs of their time—the Jolly Stompers in Brooklyn,...More »
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Jamel Shabazz "Pieces of a Man"
My father—a professional photographer—has had the greatest in influence in my decision to pursue photography as a career option. As a child coming of age, I was always surrounded by a host of art and photography...More »
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Hugh Crawford "Passage: The Memory Palace"
A passage is many things. It is an architectural space, a movement from one place to another, a journey by air or by sea; the process of time elapsing; and, of course, it is a segment of a written work. The...More »
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Jamel Shabazz "REPRESENT: Photographs from 1980-2012"
Since picking up my first camera nearly thirty-five years ago, I was intrigued with how people within my community represented themselves. As time passed, I embarked on a self-imposed assignment to document...More »
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"Fashion Illustration: A Contemporary Look" Exhibition
Brooklyn Public Library presents an exciting new exhibition featuring the latest in contemporary fashion illustration. Some of the top New York- and Brooklyn-based fashion artists in the field today will...More »
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The 26th Annual Ezra Jack Keats / NYC Department of Education Bookmaking Competition Exhibition
From the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation: Did you know that over the past 25 years, New York City public schoolchildren have written and illustrated enough books to fill a small library? These are no ordinary...More »
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Sophie Blackall "Drawn From My Father’s Adventures"
I have always loved my father’s stories: the grim ones from boarding school during the war, the exciting ones from being the son of a spy, the exotic and bizarre and beautiful ones from traveling to unpronounceable...More »
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Sophie Blackall "Stories-Pictures-Books"
Original illustrations and sketches including work from The Crows of Pearblossom, Edwin Speaks Up, Spinster Goose, Wombat Walkabout and the Ivy Bean series. Additional artwork from Ruby’s Wish, Big Red...More »
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"Released with Conviction by the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO)" Exhibition
Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library houses a new multi-media exhibition, Released with Conviction. Created by The Center of Employment Opportunities (CEO), the new photo and audio exhibit follows...More »
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Giuseppe Luciani "Brooklyn Views"
Aiming to create a visual account of the everyday, my immediate surroundings have been the subject of recent paintings. This body of work articulates an effort to reinterpret my impressions of both the...More »
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Bob Rothstein "The Other Bushwick"
This artistic study combines old photos and present day collages to capture the feel of the Bushwick I knew as a young child. It actually speaks more about my own response to the old neighborhood. One...More »
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"Reading Images" Exhibition
We now straddle book culture and cyberspace. Because we have a foot in both worlds, we are granted a glimpse into the way these technologies shape how we derive meaning from what we see. But it is like...More »
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Isabel Hill "Building Stories"
This exhibition is an offshoot of my recently published book, Building Stories. Reproductions of color plates from the book are an architectural exploration of some of the symbols and icons on a variety...More »
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Martha Lewis "Various Bookworks"
These are selected book covers and interior drawings from my published work with Columbia University Press, Oxford University Press (UK) and others. Shown here is a mix of printed works, original art and...More »
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Youth Wing "The Art of Charles Tang"
This is a unique look into children's book illustrations. It reveals the stages of illustration, from concepts drawn for approval by editors and art directors to the finished paintings. Some of the paintings...More »
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"Street Scenes Relief prints that capture the time within a moment" Exhibition
The works I am presenting are relief prints based on my observations and experiences of the Brooklyn street scene. I try to create a uniquely urban picture in which all of the various human and architectural...More »
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Fred Becker "Photographers' still-life creations inspired by Brooklyn and beyond"
My found object series was a serendipitous event. In 2003 I was fishing at Dead Horse Bay, which is located at the southern end of Flatbush Avenue. Around the bend, I could hear what sounded like wind...More »
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Ellen Driscoll "Spill"
These drawings imagine a future world in which our present resource consumption results in the refugee camp atop the water tower, detritus floating near an outdoor field hospital with an oil rig on the...More »
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Mark Brennan "Elegies"
This body of work consists of allegorical "portraits" of people buried in Green-Wood Cemetery. Beneath every stone lie the remains of a real human being who once walked the same ground and breathed the...More »
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"Brooklyn's Bridges: Engineering as Art & Inspiration" Exhibition
Marianne Moore was referring specifically to the Brooklyn Bridge when she wrote in her poem "Granite and Steel": way out; way in; romantic passageway first seen by the eye of the mind, then by the...More »
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Michael Albert "An Artist's America"
This exhibition is a retrospective of two decades of art, which includes selections related to the art featured in my book An Artist's America, along with newer works that were created in the six years...More »
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Joey O'Loughlin "One World, Many Stories"
A multi-media photography exhibition by Joey O'Loughlin celebrating Summer Reading at Brooklyn Public LibraryMore »
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Jay Brady "Reading Faces"
I have been drawing all my life. Some of my influences are: playing in the woods; playing on a construction site; imitating people, animals and objects; watching water pool and flow; watching and listening...More »
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Christian Tuempling "Botanica"
I have come to see nature as a curiosity. Confined to the city most of my life, my knowledge of the natural world has been shaped by exhibitions at various institutions: giraffes in a painted landscape...More »
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Esther Pam Zibell "Jewish Family Life in Crown Heights and Elsewhere"
This body of work deals mainly with different aspects of Jewish life in Crown Heights, with an expressionism and imagination that show an insider view. Other prints and monotypes in the exhibition describe...More »
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Carole Turbin "Memories of Home"
This exhibition consists of works on paper, tonal drawings and lithographs of domestic interiors and urban scenes from my Brooklyn home and neighborhood. They are familiar to people living in urban neighborhoods...More »
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Erin Beaver "Uninterested Europeans"
Exhibited in the Foyer Cases: paintings and sculptures inspired by David Clark’s Superstars, which mentions a spectacular new star that even “uninterested” Europeans could not ignore in AD 1006. [Image:...More »
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Suzanne Coley "The Life of a Book 'of a Life'"
Exhibited in the Second Floor Balcony Cases: The artist’s original sketchbooks, as well as the final book, relief prints and lithographs that were created from her sketches, poems, photographs and drawings. [Image:...More »
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Takayo Seto "Behind the Rain"
Exhibited in the Foyer Cases: Minimalistic oil paintings that explore the idea of another space behind the rain or underneath the cleft. [Image: Rain, 2006 © Takayo Seto]More »
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Brian Floca "Drivers, Dancers, Mice & Moon: Children’s Book Art"
Exhibited in the Youth Wing: Illustrations and sketches by this award-winning author and illustrator, including work from The Racecar Alphabet, Ballet for Martha, Poppy, Moonshot, Lightship and The Hinky-Pink. [Image:...More »
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"ATTITUDE: Brooklyn Portraits by Brooklyn Photographers" Exhibition
Photos of the diverse faces of Brooklynites who tell it like it is. Exhibition presented in the Grand Lobby. [Image: Delilah, 2009 © Walker Esner]More »
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John Spinks "Letters from Wallsend"
Exhibited in the Second Floor Balcony Cases: Mixed-media collage/paintings using actual handwritten letters sent by the artist’s father from Wallsend, a small town in northern England. [Image: Rose at...More »
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"MoMa Lecture Series: Art in New York: From Jackson Pollock to Andy Warhol and Beyond" Lecture
Discover the groundbreaking artistic innovations that have taken place in New York by such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and others. Fill out a survey after the lecture...More »
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Sophie Blackall "Drawn in Brooklyn Art Workshops: Leaves for Winter"
llustrator Sophie Blackall and participants will draw, paint, cut, fold and create mythical, enchanted, mysterious, fantastical trees with Chinese ink and collage. These workshops can only accommodate...More »
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Pat Cummings "Drawn In Brooklyn Meet the Illustrator"
Pat Cummings will read and discuss the artwork from her book Ananse and the Lizard. Come early, as limited space is available.More »
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Selina Alko "Drawn in Brooklyn Art Workshops: Transportation"
Make Your Own 3-D Train with Selina Alko. She will begin by reading her book, My Subway Ride and showing classic subway cars from NYC Subway trains book with 3-D traditional trains. Kids will have the...More »
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John B. Marciano "Drawn In Brooklyn Meet the Illustrator"
John B. Marciano will read and discuss his artwork from his book Madeline and the Cats of Rome. Come early, as limited space is available.More »
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John Rocco "Drawn In Brooklyn Art Workshops: The Art of the Book Jacket"
John Rocco is the illustrator of over thirty book jackets, including the covers for the bestselling Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, John will explain his own process for creating jackets and then...More »
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"Drawn in Brooklyn" Exhibition
Brooklyn has the greatest concentration of children's book illustrators on the planet. The 34 artists presented here do not represent the exhaustive collection, but they are a strong sampling of the borough's...More »
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"Greenpoint & Williamsburg Photographs of these neighborhoods over the past 20 years" Exhibition
As I work in the darkroom, the magic of seeing a print appear in the developer is still as fresh as it was the first time I experienced it 36 years ago. I use the photographic medium to capture metaphoric...More »
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"Unexpected Brooklyn: Neighborhood Landscape in Transition Photographs of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Red Hook and the Brooklyn Navy Yard" Exhibition
This exhibition features documentary photos shot in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Red Hook. As a Brooklyn resident, I am always talking up the many wonderful aspects of this borough, which...More »
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Bradly Dever Treadaway "Piety, Independence, Desire"
This installation was conceived initially as a response to my family's experience with Hurricane Katrina. However, the works have evolved into an exploration of lineage, the passage of culture and the...More »
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Sandra Jackman "Capturing the Spirit of the Book"
The work for this exhibition was selected by me from my earlier and current book works. In my opinion, an important part of art is to challenge, entertain and encourage a dialogue. Sandra Jackman has...More »
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Paula McCartney "Interpreting Nature: A Collection of Artists' Books"
I create photographs and photo-based artists' books that explore the intersection of art and science and the idea of constructed landscapes through the collection and creation of natural elements. I'm...More »
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Mauricio Trenard "Dance, Nana, Dance / Baila, Nana, Baila"
This exhibition of paintings features illustrations I did for an award-winning bilingual book of Cuban folktales entitled Dance, Nana, Dance/Baila, Nana, Baila, written by nationally acclaimed folklorist...More »
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"Interpreting the Brooklyn Landscape" Exhibition
From Gregory Frux: I admire the American painters who have documented urban life – Edward Hopper, Reginald Marsh and John Sloan, as well as Charles Burchfield and Rockwell Kent. Gregory Frux has exhibited...More »
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Lorraine B. Diehl "'Over Here' New York City During World War II"
This exhibition is a physical extension of my book. It is meant to summon a deep sense of nostalgia for the way we were during the war years. I grew up in Hell's Kitchen when it was a pretty tough neighborhood....More »
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Olga Rogachevskaya "Subway Journey: A Home Away from Home"
As an immigrant artist from the Ukraine, I have been fascinated in the last 10 years by the diversity of the people who share the confined space of subway cars. My artwork captures the diverse lives and...More »
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Duane Smith "Seven Miles to Freedom: The Robert Smalls Story illustrations"
These works are based on a book I illustrated in 2008 called Seven Miles to Freedom, written by Janet Halfmann and based on the true story of Robert Smalls. This ex-slave turned soldier helps his family...More »
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Trevor Brown "Ordinary Wonderful"
My work strips the familiarity from the everyday, challenging the things we take for granted and elevating the often overlooked. The work's visual depth conjures an almost tactile sensation with its richness...More »
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"Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street" Exhibition
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization, in collaboration with The Jim Henson Company and the Jim Henson Legacy, is partnering with Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) to help commemorate Sesame...More »
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Jean Shin and Brian Ripel "Transplanted Ornament"
For this site-specific installation, we negotiated the removal of hundreds of decorative wrought iron elements from Brooklyn brownstones. These ornamental "curly Qs" adorned window bars, gates and fences,...More »
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"Partners in Art and Life" Exhibition
"I am married to a literary artist, the poet Philip Fried. Our lifelong collaboration influenced my idea to curate this exhibition. According to a Romantic view of artistic endeavor, the artist is a...More »
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"Nature Seen in Brooklyn, Now and Then / An Artist's Sketchbook Journals" Exhibition
Three Photographers Looks at Brooklyn: Brainerd, Austin & Golden by Richard Golden "We usually think of Brooklyn as entirely urban, but according to the New York City Department of City Planning,...More »
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Andrew Hayes "Held / Ka kelen kelen wili (May we wake up one by one)"
The book, as an object, transports information and narrative. As I cut the pages from the binding, I sever them from their content. The pages allow me to create a mass and form that references the past...More »
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Jamie Jimenez "Juguetes (Toys)"
Over the past decade and a half, globalization has drastically changed the everyday lives of the people in the Dominican Republic. I find that certain aspects of the culture are permanently lost. Many...More »
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Jose Gaytan "Brooklyn in Transition: A Photographic Essay of the Gowanus"
Through my photography, I have explored my fascination with New York's changing landscapes. Living in New York since 1979, I have devoted my personal work to documenting my neighborhoods, including Manhattan,...More »
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Holly A. Senn "Windows on Nature and Knowledge"
Using discarded library books as my primary material, I create sculptures and installations that explore the life cycle of ideas-the organic, non-linear process in which thoughts originate and are then...More »
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Carl Köhler "Beyond the Words: Author Portraits"
This exhibition is a retrospective of portraits by Swedish artist and sculptor, Carl Köhler. From Henry Köhler, son of the late Carl Köhler (1919 - 2006) and curator of this exhibition: During my...More »
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Lucille Nurkse "Beautiful Brooklyn"
"My art, created in the last decade, celebrates the people in the communities I know. The figure is my guiding motif. When someone's action catches my attention, I use memory and a sketch to reframe that...More »
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Richard Lubell "Public Spaces, Private Places"
"Throughout the last seven years, I have tried to authentically depict the pageant of life through the cycle of seasons in Brooklyn. My neighbors walk, scurry, play, chat and flirt among the ubiquitous...More »
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Cecile Chong "Reimagination"
In this exhibition, Cecile Chong shows her encaustic painting, which uses melted wax and resin, and mixed media juxtapose images from vintage children's books and other found and original images to address...More »
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"Got a Light?" Exhibition
Got a Light?, in the Foyer Gallery Cases, is a collection from Larry Cole and Joe DeGennaro of matches and match memorabilia dating from the turn of the century right up to the present. DeGennaro has been...More »
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Randy Jones "The Art of Politics"
The Art of Politics, in the Grand Lobby, features editorial art by Randy Jones from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Newsday, as well as illustrations from The Inner Circle Program, a charity...More »
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Josh Neufeld "A.D. : New Orleans After the Deluge & Clip-Art Comics"
A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge, in the Second Floor Balcony Cases, features nonfiction comics by Josh Neufeld that follow the experiences of six real-life people from New Orleans before, during and...More »
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Ted Lewin "At Gleason's Gym"
These illustrations are from the picture book At Gleason's Gym, which I wrote and illustrated. It is the result of a year and a half spent observing and recording events at Gleason's Gym where legendary...More »
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Rebecca Aidlin "Woodcuts and Related Images"
This exhibition features woodcut prints on handmade papers. (The papers were made by my mother, Myrna London Aidlin.) The prints either stand alone or are layered and combined with monoprint, stained paper,...More »
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Steven Hoffman "Coney Island: Beyond the Boardwalk"
My intention with this exhibition is to document the people who live in the Coney Island housing projects, in the hopes that the larger world would understand and value the lives of these people. In...More »
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Sherone Neckles "Brown Paper Bag, Beneath the Surface Wallpaper and Our Soldier Boys Series"
I am constantly fantasizing about ways to play with aspects of "truth" and questioning and drafting ideas of how to intervene in our complex history in order to shape and map it. This new body of work...More »
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Fay Ku "Fairy Tales Retold"
As an immigrant, I grew up hearing stories from my native Chinese culture. Aside from my parents' cooking and language, that was my only contact with that way of life. So, I understood from a very young...More »
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Randy Duchaine "New York Waters"
Throughout history, the working people of the New York waterfront have contributed to the expansion of the United States through their work on the New York Harbor, the Hudson River and the Erie Canal....More »
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Nathan Kensinger "Twilight on the Waterfront"
My photographs bring you inside places you may have walked by a thousand times and always wondered about. They take you into Brooklyn's industrial waterfront, a world closed to the public for decades....More »
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Chanika Svetvilas "Journeys"
In this site-specific installation, I have transformed the space covering the walls with ubiquitous plastic plaid tote bags made in China called "hong lan dan" (blue and red bag). They are also known by...More »