Closing June 3: Public Access at Naval Cemetery Memorial Landscape

The Brooklyn Naval Cemetery Landscape is 1.7-acre publicly accessible landscape that now servesas a point of respiteand reflectionalong the length ofa 14-milewaterfront greenway in Brooklyn. As a part of the Navy Yard, the sitehadbeenlargely off-limits and out-of-sightto the public since its use as a cemetery was decommissioned in the 1920’s.

After a recent renovation, the natural grove has become a setting for art exhibits, educational programs, and group activities, establishing links between the localresidents.  For New York's design week, local designer Jean Lee of Furnishing Utopia has created an exhibition of public-oriented design at the Naval Cemetery Landscape in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Called Public Access, the exhibition features projects designed for public use and comprises two sections, a physical outdoor component and an indoor installation with documentation and references at Brooklyn gallery and bookshop Head Hi.

These outdoor projects range from bird feeders and seed libraries to benches and community fridges, all made from simple materials meant to show "how can design serve more as like a point of empathy" according to curator Jean Lee. A public notebook is placed under a bench for individuals to leave their thoughts or sketches in a quiet place for contemplation. A sketch of the landscape from the notebook (photo courtesy Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

The indoor portion of the exhibition features photography and documentation of the remaining projects, with a map showing the various international locations where they are located. Photos by John Daniel Powers. More photos here

Head Hi Bookstore/Café at Brooklyn Navy Yard

Head Hi is dedicated to art and design specializing in publications and cultural programming, along with a laptop/tablet-free espresso bar. Located adjacent to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, in Ft. Greene, the shop features a selection of publications from around the globe, and hosts the Architecture + Design Reading Club as well as events such as the annual Lamp Show. 

Above: Owners Alvaro Alcocer and Alexandra Hodkowski  (photo:Jonathan Hökklo)

Working with local and international artists, designers, publishers, community members and organizations in various fields, Head Hi is a space for exploration and interaction that also hosts talks, book launches, music performances and other events. Read the feature in The Architects Newspaper

Head Hi, 146 Flushing Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY Info

Continuing: SVA | A Brush with Fashion on Madison Avenue

Another element of NYCxDesign Week that continues is Art History 101: A Brush With Fashion, a series of art history-themed installations created by 21 BFA Design students in SVA's 3D Design program. Each work is displayed within an eight-foot Lucite case and features descriptions of the period of art history for which the “dress” was inspired. Students were inspired by art periods and movements like Analytical Cubism, Arts & Crafts, Baroque, Brutalism, Outsider Art, Sumi-E, and Surrealism, among others.

As part of the Madison Avenue BID's first Madison Avenue Design Week (which concluded last week), this installation will be up for the next few weeks so there's still time to take a stroll and go check them out.

SVA Design in partnership with Madison Avenue BID, located on Madison Avenue between 57^th and 86^thStreets, New York, NY Info

Opening Thursday, June 1, 6-8 pm: Scribbles at Carter Burden Gallery

An open call by jurors Lois Bender and Amy Chang posing the idea of Scribbles as evolving choreographies of visual thinking and feelings flowing in space. They ask: Do scribbles allow something to develop and take shape as a “becoming?" The nature of scribbling can be chaotic, noncommittal, ambivalent, tentative. It can also be intentional, commanding, finished. Is scribbling where ideas come from? Is it intuitive and non-thinking? A random exploration? Is it play, or a series of what-ifs? Can it be serious and mindful in the most profound sense of the word? Is it uncensored?

The selected artists have articulated and unraveled the Scribble, answering the call with strong variations in innovative techniques and surprising materials liberating the Scribble as a vibrant phenomenon, apart from its historical image as a subsidiary non-serious form of art making serving an artist’s finished art. Come and see for yourself!

Carter Burden Gallery, 548 West 28^th Street in New York, NY Info

Closing June 3: In New York, Thinking of You  at Flag Art

The second of a two-part group exhibition features new or never-before-exhibited artworks by over two dozen female, female-identifying, and nonbinary artists. Centering on painting, the exhibition highlights a range of formal disciplines, conceptual practices, subject matters, and approaches to art making. Taking inspiration and its title from the song hornylovesickmess, 2022, by Norwegian singer-songwriter Marie Ulven aka girl in red, In New York, Thinking of You features work either selected by the artists or made specifically for the exhibition. Photo © Steven Probert

Artists explore the often-conflicting emotions and experiences laid bare in the song such as desire, longing, sex, melancholy, tenderness, vulnerability, power, alienation, quiet reflection, and the like. Featured artists: Cecily Brown, Julie Curtiss, Yuan Fang, Natalie Frank, Lubaina Himid, Shara Hughes, Danielle Orchard, Anna Park, Hiba Schahbaz, Finnegan Shannon, Antonia Showering, Jeni Spota C., Lesley Vance, Hana Ward, Anna Weyant, Issy Wood, and Hiejin Yoo.

Flag Art Foundation, 525 West 25^th Street, New York, NY Info