Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
When I moved to New York in 1980, most artists lived in Manhattan.
For some time now, the bulk of the artists in the city have lived and worked in Brooklyn.
Everything at the Brooklyn Museum is done on a shoestring.
To mark its 200th anniversary (who knew an American museum could be this old?
The artists may technically live or maintain studios in Brooklyn, but they could really be from anywhere.
The show is salon meets flea market a beautiful mess bombarding you with stuff.
Its a great cement mixer of styles, materials, processes, mediums, and approaches.
Theres a lot of controlled, craft-based art.
Rather than individual artists, the sheer varieties of forms and ways of making are the real stars here.
But overall the visual tropes feel familiar, be they geometric, biomorphic, or abstract.
Theres a lot of the requisite figurative work painted from life, much of it deadeningly photorealistic.
As for subject matter, there are a lot of contested bodies from many identities and sub-groups.
We get ideas of urbanization, ecological decay.
Were we to read the backstories of much of this work, we would learn it was socially minded.
A handful of pieces stand out.
My favorite thing here unfortunately has a sound component.
All these artists deserve more exhibition attention.
