Community: bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Photos by Leah Golubchick

I am excited to announce Dawn Mostow as the winner of our Cosplay Costume Contest that was held at Target First Saturday on April 5^th. The theme of the evening was “Japanimated! The Arts and Culture of Japan,” which related to our two exhibitions of Japanese art, © MURAKMI and Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770–1900. Cosplay (which comes from the words “costume” and “play”) is very popular among anime and manga fans in both Japan and the United States. We chose to have a Cosplay Contest because in planning the program we were looking for an activity that would engage visitors and encourage them to participate celebrating the unique, creative cultures coming out of Japan. For this contest we invited visitors to come dressed up as their favorite anime or manga character and have their picture taken by our volunteer photographers Priscilla Vazquez and Leah Golubchick. Many people dressed up and you can see their fabulous costumes on our flickr stream. It was hard for our panel of judges to pick a winner from the many wonderful costumes, but all chose Dawn’s as one of their favorites.

Rei Ayanami from Evangelion, left, with Dawn at Target First Saturday, right. Photo by Leigh Paris.

Dawn is dressed up as Rei Ayanami, a character from the anime series Evangelion. Dawn chose Rei Ayanami because, “I wanted a popular character that is easily recognizable to anime fans, but also holds a visual interest to people not familiar with Japanese animation, thereby creating an interest in the genre.” Dawn has been involved in Cosplay for ten years and made her costume herself. She has a background in costume design, and is currently studying for an MFA at Pratt Institute. She remarked that making the costume was challenging because she had to work on bringing a two-dimensional character to life. Thanks to Dawn and everyone else who participated in the contest and made April’s Target First Saturday memorable! I hope you can all join us again in May.

This Saturday, April 12, to celebrate our two exhibits of Japanese art we will host an academic symposium entitled “Love and Pop: Contemporary Visual Cultures in Japan and Beyond.” This is the first symposium held in a many years at the Brooklyn Museum that specifically highlights the work of graduate students. It is the first of what I hope will be an annual event. I think it is a unique event because the material that will be presented is both academically rigorous and accessible to all. The day will start off with a keynote address by Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the US. It will continue with a panel entitled “Consuming Desire: Superflat, Otaku, Kawaii and the Grotesque,” moderated by Eugenie Tsai, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The second panel, “Visual Release: Gender, Art, Representation and Exchange,” will be moderated by Aiko Nakagawa. Aiko is a street artist and founding member of the artist collective Faile. Incidentally, the work of Aiko and Faile was very popular on our Flickr page during the Graffiti show during summer of 2006. I chose these moderators for their particular takes as a scholar, curator and artist (respectively) on Japanese and American culture and contemporary art.

A collage of works of art by Aiko Nakagawa

In organizing this symposium I hoped to create a platform for students producing scholarship related to visual culture to share their work with a wider audience. I initially imagined the symposium would attract local students. To my surprise and delight panelists are flying in from as far away as London and California. The panelists are: Kaori Hoshino, Brooklyn College; Meghen Jones, Boston University; Maya Kimura, California College of the Arts, San Francisco; Marci Kwon, New York University; Cindy Lisica, University of the Arts, London; Dawn Mostow, Pratt Institute; Pennylane Shen, New York University. If you join us on Saturday I would love to know what you think!

One of my favorite parts of my job as a museum educator and public programmer is witnessing the conversations that visitors have in the galleries and or during public programs, such as performances and panel discussions. The works of art in Infinite Island have stimulated a lot of discussion, especially around questions of identity, culture, nationality, history and community. We are continuing to highlight these themes with two upcoming public programs that will give Infinite Island a proper send off.

Roger Bonair-Agard in Masquerade. Photo by Peter Dressel

The first is a performance this Saturday, January 19, at 2 p.m. by Brooklyn-based Caribbean members of spoken-word collective louderARTS Project. It is hosted by Def Poetry Jam’s Roger Bonair-Agard, and features poets Hallie Hobson, Rich Villar, and Cheryl Boyce Taylor.

Next weekend, on January 26, we will be collaborating with the organization Domestic Workers United to present their short film “Work and Respect” in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Members of Domestic Workers United, many of whom are from the Caribbean, will talk about the film making process and their experience organizing for their rights as domestic workers in New York City.

I am really looking forward to both these programs which highlight many important voices from our community and, if you join us, we would love to know what you think.

I am very excited that Patrick Amsellem, curator of photography, is working with us on a web project in conjunction with the Goodbye Coney Island? exhibition he curated in the Luce Visible Storage-Study Center. We have created a Goodbye Coney Island? Flickr group which photographers can join and submit their best photo of Coney Island. From this pool Patrick will select four photos to feature in his posts on our blog throughout the run of the show.

This idea came about because the other day I joined Patrick for a discussion of Goodbye Coney Island? and he spoke about the popularity of Coney Island throughout the years as a subject for both American and International photographers. I am a casual photographer, and his comment reminded me how much I enjoy going to Coney Island to take pictures with my Polaroid, Holga and digital cameras. Every time I am there I see countless other photographers strolling the boardwalk in search of the perfect shot to capture the Coney Island’s essence. What a better way to pay homage to this fabled part of New York, I thought, than to engage some of the photographers in our community in conjunction with this exhibition of more than fifty photographs from the Brooklyn Museum’s holdings that traces its evolution over the past 125 years. We look forward to seeing the photographs everyone will choose to post!

To participate please join the Goodbye Coney Island? group on Flickr: (more…)

Art handlers installing Miguel Luciano’s Platano Pride and Miguel Luciano himself.

Over the past few months of teaching university students in Infinite Island, I have found that students instantly respond to works of art that incorporate ideas and images referencing popular culture. Pieces in the show such as the one by Miguel Luciano, Platano Pride, start conversation before I even have a chance to ask any questions because the students understand immediately the visual language with which the artists are working. This Saturday, November 17, at 2 p.m. we will host the third panel discussion in the Infinite Island discussion series which will focus on the role that music and popular culture play in contemporary Caribbean art and culture. I look forward to hearing more from the panelists about how popular culture and music can serve as sites for creativity and resistance in the Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora communities. I know that the insights they share will enhance my teaching and the discussions I will have in the galleries with my students.

Panelists include Sujatha Fernandes, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queens College, City University of New York and author of Cuba Represent! Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures; Raquel Z. Rivera, Research Fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, and co-editor of an forthcoming anthology Reading Reggaeton: Historical, Aesthetic and Critical Perspectives; and Infinite Island artist Miguel Luciano. The discussion will be moderated by Infinite Island curator Tumelo Mosaka.

If you join us we would love to know what you think!

As an Academic Programs Coordinator my job involves connecting members of our local academic community with the resources that the Brooklyn Museum has to offer. This often takes the form of a conversation, because what I really need to know is how professors would like to use the Museum with their classes. To facilitate this and to get to know representatives from the local academic community a little bit better, Deirdre Lawrence and I worked together to plan and host the first ever open house for professors and academic representatives in mid-October. We put together a Friday afternoon program focused on Infinite Island that included a curator talk by Tumelo Mosaka and a short presentation and discussion about academic resources including tours and internships for university students.

I felt the open house was a way to make the concept of “academic resources at the Brooklyn Museum” more personal. I was very pleased that many of the professors who attended hailed mostly from institutions in the Museum’s immediate community such as Pratt Institute, Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn College, Long Island University and Kingsborough Community College. They represented a range of disciplines from art history and studio art to English and Social Sciences. Their questions for Tumelo during his talk ran the gamut of questions about the formal qualities of K. Khalfani Ra’s work to wondering about the difficulty of finding art and artists from the Caribbean who were not producing work for the tourist market. From my perspective as an educator, I really enjoyed seeing how this diverse group of academics interacted with the works of art in Infinite Island and the questions and ideas they were able to draw out of it. This event was only the start of a larger conversation between the Museum and the higher education institutions in our community. Deirdre and I plan to host these open houses for professors and academic representatives once a semester, so if you are interested in attending the next one, please email academic.programs@brooklynmuseum.org.

As an educational programmer I am always on the lookout for organizations with which we can collaborate to bring innovative and diverse programs to the Museum. I am especially excited about our upcoming film programs this weekend that are a partnership with Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century. Art:21 offers a unique perspective on contemporary art by giving viewers an often unseen look of artists working in their studios, installing, and reflecting on their works in progress. On October 13 and 14 we are showing a special sneak-preview of the episodes “Protest” and “Paradox” from their upcoming 4th season.

The episode “Protest,” showing Saturday, October 13 at 2 p.m., features artists Jenny Holzer, Nancy Spero, Alfredo Jaar and An-My Lê. The artists in this episode employ visual art as a means to provoke personal transformations and social revolutions. This episode is particularly relevant to the exhibitions featured in our Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art because it speaks to the themes of The Dinner Party and Global Feminisms Remix. Following the screening, Brooklyn-based artist An-My Lê will discuss her work (see above for a clip from “Protest” featuring An-My Lê).

On Sunday, October 14 at 2 p.m, we are screening the episode “Paradox” as part of our Caribbean Film Series. “Paradox” features the artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, whose video and photographs are featured in Infinite Island. The episode explores artists responding to paradoxes between global and local realities, and engaging with uncertainty in the art they create. Following the screening Eve Moros Ortega, Art:21’s Series Producer, will discuss the episode.

As I am committed to closely linking public programs to themes and questions that are raised by the works of art in our exhibitions, I am enthusiastic about the two Art:21 episodes that we are screening and the talks that accompany them. If you join us we would love to know what you think!

Artist Steve Ouditt installing his Infinite Island work, “Excerpts From the Propagandist’s Diary of L. Padre Grande,” 2007.

What happens after an exhibition opens? Even after the works of art are displayed in the galleries, activity behind the scenes at the Museum does not stop. In the case of museum educators and educational programmers like me, our work really begins after an exhibition opens, but starts many months before. To prepare for Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art, I have been working closely with curator Tumelo Mosaka to decide what kinds of public programs related would offer innovative perspectives and interesting experiences for our visitors. After months of preparation, our inaugural public program for Infinite Island will take place this Saturday, September 22nd at 2 p.m.

Visualizing Caribbean Art and Culture in the Twenty-first Century includes five dynamic speakers who come from a variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise: Aisha Khan, Associate Professor of Anthropology at NYU and Director of Undergraduate Studies; Infinite Island catalog essayist Annie Paul, Associate Editor of the journal Small Axe and Head of Publications at Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Research at University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica; and Infinite Island artists Jean-Ulrick Dèsert, Deborah Jack and Steve Ouditt (pictured above). Tumelo Mosaka will moderate the event.

This is the first in a series of three panels and it should be exciting to hear the discussion of contemporary Caribbean art and culture with these artists and scholars. If you attend, let us know your thoughts.

Update 9/26/07: Photos posted to our Flickr account.