Artists

Cedar Grove Beach by Alexander Rabb

cedar-grove-beach-club

 

trunk

 

beach-house

 

beach-closed

 

fence-with-red-signs

 

danger-keep-off

 

 

Artist Statement

I learned about Cedar Grove Beach reading Underwater New York and immediately made plans to go visit. I wanted to see the area the way I like to photograph our amazing city – in the early morning light, when nobody else is around and everything is quiet and still. The next morning I was up before dawn to ride the bus from Flatbush to Bay Ridge to New Dorp. These 35mm shots were taken using my well worn Nikon F SLR and Canonet rangefinder.  I don’t do much digital processing, so the colors you see here are the happy result of film reacting to early morning light filtered through a dense fog.

About the Artist

Born and raised in New York City, Alexander Rabb now lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. Alex spends his days as a lawyer for labor unions and progressive political organizations, working to make the city a little more decent for the people who keep it going. At night and early in the morning, he can be found exploring and photographing New York’s lonely and forgotten corners.

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Tuesday, May 8th, 2012 Alexander Rabb, Cedar Grove Beach Comments Off

The Fish Building by Gabriela Bertiller

The Fish Building

The Fish Building
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Picture 1 of 13

Editors’ Note

Although the Bronx is the only one of NYC’s five boroughs attached to the mainland, it is bordered on three sides by water, as well as traversed by the Bronx and Hutchinson Rivers and dotted by lakes and ponds. It is possible to kayak along sections of the Bronx River, surrounded by trees, and feel a world away from highways, high rises, Highbridge. Conversely, walking along the Grand Concourse, the Bronx’s most famous thoroughfare, it is almost impossible to feel that water is anywhere close by. But—at 1150 Grand Concourse, right by the Housing Court and the Bronx Museum, there is a building lovingly referred to as The Fish Building. The Art Deco facade’s iridescent underwater mosaics are a striking reminder that, while the Grand Concourse is a conduit for people, buses, bikes and cars, other nearby channels are, at the very same moment, being traveled by bass, bullhead catfish, blue gills, turtles and carp.

Underwater New York has been enthralled with 1150 Grand Concourse for quite some time. After discovering that the artist Gabriela Bertiller had done a community-oriented project on the building for the Bronx Museum, we were delighted to invite her to share her work on the site.

About the Project

Adapted from a press release on The Fish Building by Gabriela Bertiller written by Madre Buenos Aires who sponsored the project.

Supported by The Bronx Museum of the Arts AIM program (Artist in the Marketplace), Argentine-born artist Gabriela Bertiller developed The Fish Building, a project that highlighted and contributed to the dialogue between the Museum and its community.

The Fish Building is an Art Deco structure, appropriately named after the aquarium mosaic flanking its entrance. Bertiller, inspired by the building’s unique details and its loss of appreciation over time, transported stunning visual elements of The Fish Building into the exhibition. The artist used it as a vehicle to highlight and facilitate an exchange between the Museum and the Bronx community.

During the exhibit, Gabriela honored the emblematic construction, giving it a new appreciation in a fine art setting by replicating some of the buildings interiors in the lobby of The Bronx Museum. The artist included The Fish Building’s tenants as a fundamental part of her work. The bond she proposed to stimulate materialized on the opening day when the tenants of the building formed a symbolic line in matching red t-shirts reading “Proud Tenant of The Fish Building” from The Fish Building’s entrance to the Museum Hall. This active participation of the tenants, the neighbors and museum’s visitors turned The Fish Building into not only a piece of art but a collectively constructed one. The exhibition at the Bronx Museum ran from June 26th through September 5, 2011.

About the Artist

Gabriela Bertiller was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, studied at Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyredón and received her MFA at School of Visual Arts, New York.

In 2011 she was selected for the AIM program at The Bronx Museum of the Arts. She has been artist-in-residence at Changdong Art Studio run by the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, (2005), Red Gate Gallery in Beijing (2004) and The Banff Centre in Canada (2004). Gabriela Bertiller has exhibited at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Hyogo Museum of Art, Japan and Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires.

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Monday, February 20th, 2012 Artists, Body of Water, Bronx River, Fish, Gabriela Bertiller, Hutchinson River, Objects Comments Off

Florida (Hurricane Andrew)

 

Editors’ Note

As the title of George Boorujy’s piece, Florida (Hurricane Andrew), underscores, we do not usually expect to see deer in New York City, let alone in the waterways of New York. And yet, in October 2011, three deer were found, frantic, at the foot of the Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn, the first seen in the borough in many years. Naturally strong swimmers, they likely made their way over from Staten Island, but the circumstances of their journey are suspect: one of deer’s hind legs were bound with twine. Team UNY had no idea upon first encountering George’s show-stopping drawing at PPOW gallery this summer that we would soon have cause to publish it, but if we’ve learned anything in our two years at the helm of Underwater New York, it is that NYC’s waters work in mysterious ways.

About the Artist

George Boorujy was born and raised in New Jersey. Intending to pursue a career as a biologist, he ended up with a BFA from the University of Miami in 1996. This gateway degree predictably led to a MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2002. He has exhibited widely, was a 2010 NYFA fellow in painting, and was a 2009-10 Smack Mellon resident. He is represented by P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York, and lives and works on the far western tip of Long Island. With all those other artists. Visit his website to see more of his work.

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Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 Artists, Body of Water, Deer, George Boorujy, New York Harbor Comments Off

Floating Island by Maggie Tobin

I moved to Brooklyn in 1991 from Nebraska. Having spent my entire life landlocked in the Midwest, it was thrilling to spend my early days in New York meandering the coastline. I didn’t have a job or friends to occupy my time so it seemed like an interesting way to pass the days. One day in March of ’91 as I trudged through the melting slush along the edge of Coney Island Creek, I spotted a corked green bottle with something in it. I brushed off the ice and mud and discovered a rolled up piece of aged paper inside. After plucking the cork out, I carefully removed the somewhat fragile piece of paper initially hoping it to be a map of a sunken treasure or the like. Instead, it was a drawing of a boat pulling an island of sorts behind it. Very curious. I had spotted the “barge island” about 30 yards away and figured some kooky person had tried unsuccessfully to float it but had abandoned ship when it didn’t work out. It didn’t seem that strange or significant at the time as I had come across so many interesting things on my coastal walks.

I liked the drawing and put it back in the bottle as a ” keeper” artifact for my little collection of goods. When I got home I decided it was frame-worthy and hung it on my wall.

Years passed and it became part of my home like a cat or an old book. I didn’t much look at it anymore but surely would have noticed had it gone missing.

In 2005 I had the wonderful pleasure of seeing the “Floating Island” dawdling about the tip of Manhattan not far from the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. I was unaware of this work by Robert Smithson as it was not brought to fruition (by others) until 32 years after his death. I came home and googled it and immediately discovered a very similar drawing to the one hanging on my wall. Unlike my drawing, it was signed, dated (1970), and had the NYC skyline as the backdrop. The mark, however, was practically identical. I decided to keep mum as I was afraid that the “estate” of Mr. Smithson might try and claim the drawing as their own.

With all due respect, the drawing is still hanging on my wall with several other little curiosities I have gathered over the years. I love this little drawing regardless of who made it.

Is it an actual Smithson or a well conceived prank? I don’t know. Recently I have had several people ask me “Why not authenticate it? If it is a Smithson, it is probably worth some money.”  I lived with this drawing for almost 15 years before I had any clue that it might be anything more than what it is: a beautiful sketch of an unfulfilled dream. Its as though someone informed me that my child may have been switched at birth and that a DNA test could verify whether this child I have come to love is actually really mine or not. Would I love that child less if it was determined not to be? Or more if it was? I don’t know but I’d rather not find out. I have no intention of selling it so it doesn’t matter. If my children choose to someday (if it does happen to be real), so be it .

Is this a rock turned to gold or gold turned to rock?

For me, the question alone has become the elixir.

About the Contributor

Maggie Tobin was born in Omaha Nebraska. She is an artist, teacher, and community organizer in Brooklyn, NY where she has lived for the last 20 years. She has exhibited her work throughout the U.S., Mexico, and Italy.

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Monday, October 17th, 2011 Art in a bottle, Artists, Body of Water, Coney Island Creek, Maggie Tobin, Objects Comments Off
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