ALL | TOGETHER | DIFFERENT – A survey of Lower East Side Artists

Opening Reception Thursday, February 12, 2015, 7-9 PM

This exhibit is a survey of current Lower East Side artists — those still engaged in a forever changing and a forever the same neighborhood; of those still making art, all together, different. ALL | TOGETHER | DIFFERENT brings together nearly 100 Lower East Side artists and arts organizations actively working in the community.

Jewish Art Salon members Cynthia Beth Rubin, Yona Verwer and David Wander are participating. Each incorporated the Jewish Lower East Side in their work.

Wander ‘s features a semiabstract painting of 3 men in prayer shawls in a local synagogue. Rubin and Verwer collaborated on a work that combines manipulated digital Lower East Side images with painted tableaux of the Stanton St. Synagogue. The piece is embedded by Rubin with “augmented reality”: with the aid of a smart phone or tablet the viewer can access video and sound recordings.

MANNY CANTOR CENTER

197 East Broadway, New York, NY 10002

www.MannyCantor.org/art   F-train to East Broadway.

On view will be paintings, drawings, photography, sculpture, prints, installation, and video from artists aged 29 to 92, including Richard Hambleton, Kim Keever, Mark Kehoe, Kembra Pfahler, Rick Prol, Kiki Smith, Jim Radakovich, David Sandlin , Judith Simonian, Anton Van Dalen, Roger Welch, Hans Witschi, Susannah Coffey, and John Copeland.

“We are excited to bring together the artists and organizations of the Lower East Side with work that ranges from minimalism to radical archiving, by those who set the tone for expressive freedom and the subsequent arrivals who inherited a culture that was unique to the area,” said Linda Griggs, co-curator, with Yona Verwer, of the exhibition.

“Although we lost many neighborhood artists to the AIDS epidemic, to drugs, and to rising rents, many stayed, fought for tenant rights for themselves and their neighbors, created communities, kept the spirit and attracted the next wave of artists who inherited the disjointed, yet allied individuality,” added Verwer.

The exhibition will be held on the occasion of the grand re-opening – after several years of construction – of the Educational Alliance Art School at the Manny Cantor Center. The school, which has offered high-quality instruction in the visual arts for nearly a century, is now entering a new era with an exceptional facility, renewed educational offerings, a refined vision for programming, and a commitment to serving a great diversity of students.

Throughout the decades, millions of people who have arrived and made a home on the often messy and tumultuous Lower East Side also found a safe place; an odd and wonderful place where they could be individuals — but they weren’t alone.

“For artists, the Lower East Side has always been a neighborhood where you could do as you pleased – with your art, with your life. This show pays tribute to the countless artists who have made and continue to make the Lower East Side an epicenter of creativity and of art,” said Emily Aldredge, Director of the Educational Alliance Art School.

Yona Verwer working the iPad, with Cynthia Beth Rubin in the foreground. (Photo: Lindsey Smith). Courtesy Bedford+Bowery 

FEATURED ARTISTS

Jan Baracz | Sarah Beatty | Linda Byrne | Kathleen Casey | Chico | Susanna Coffey | Marguerite Van Cook | John Copeland | Jamie Dalglish | Daria Deshuk | Elizabeth Dworkin | Ula Einstein | Steve Ellis | Erik Foss | David Friedman | Day Gleeson | William Graef | Robert Grant | Linda Griggs | Dominick Guida | Fred Gutzeit | Richard Hambleton | Allen Hansen | Daniel G. Hill | David Hochbaum | Kylie Heidenheimer | Bruno Jakob | Tom Jarmusch | Else Kahane | Kim Keever | Marc Kehoe | Tine Kindermann | Lisa Lebofsky | Susan Leopold | Wayne Liu | Bonnie Lucas | Yuri Masnyj | Bill Massey | Everett McCourt | Mary Jane Montalto | Molua Muldown | Joe Heaps Nelson | Angel Ortiz | Andrei Petrov | Kembra Pfahler | Philly aka Kondor 8 | Jim Power – The Mosaic Man | Mark Power | Rick Prol | Jim Radakovich | Louis Renzoni | James Romberger | Cynthia Beth Rubin | Samoa | David Sandlin | Phyllis Sanfiorenzo | Karen Schifano | Mary Schiliro | Larry Silver | Judith Simonian | Kiki Smith | Nico Dios Smith | Flavia Souza | Robin Tewes | Miguel Trelles | Anton Van Dalen | Mary Jo Vath | Rafael Velez | Yona Verwer | April Vollmer | Melanie Vote | Pauline Walsh | David Wander | Roger Welch | Amy Westphal |Scott Williams | Hans Witschi | Jimmy Wright | Jeffrey Cyphers Wright | Guang Zhu | Anthony Zito

FEATURED ORGANIZATIONS

The Clemente | ABC No Rio | FusionArts Museum | Culture Push | Le Petit Versailles / Allied Productions, Inc. | PS 122 | Gathering of the Tribes

IN MEMORIUM

Carlucci Bencivenga | Edward Brezinski | Craig Coleman | Sean Early | Blake Ferris | Luis Frangella | Greer Lankton | Tom Murrin | Chris Twomey

PUBLIC PROGRAMS 

• Clayton Patterson Captured hosted by cultural partner The Clemente,
  Thursday, February 16.The Clemente, 107 Suffolk Street, 1st Floor Gallery, NYC 10002

• Celebrate Poetry Month with a reading from Gathering of the Tribes | Wednesday, April 1, 7-9
  Manny Cantor Center, 6th floor, 197 East Broadway, NYC 10002

Please visit mannycantor.org/exhibitions for public program schedule.

See exhibit images here

THE CURATORS

Linda Griggs (MFA Hunter College, BFA Virginia Commonwealth University) has curated or assisted on 12 exhibitions and two art fair booths. She directs E32, an on-going Lower East Side crit/discussion group. As an artist she has had solo exhibitions at Hampden Gallery – UMASS Amherst and Carolyn J. Roy Gallery. Group shows include the Iwami Art Museum, Masuda-shi, Shimane-ken, Japan,Wustum Museum, the Leubsdorf Gallery – Hunter College, Gahlberg Gallery at the College of Du Page in Illinois, Cuchifritos, Albany International Airport Gallery, the New York Public Library, Vox Populi/American Fine Arts, Bullet Space, and at galleries in Philadelphia, PA, Tennesee, Ohio, Virginia, Connecticut and New Mexico. Fellowships include the MacDowell and Millay Colonies. She has received grants from Change, Inc and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Her work is included in public and private collections including JP Morgan Chase, Peter Klein/Obac Corporation, Ann Partlow/ Earthrise Capital, Sheila Curran Bernhard, Dr. Kennith Meisler, David Harris, Eileen Schwab and Therese Lictenstein.

Yona Verwer (MFA Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, The Netherlands ) has curated or assisted on 23 exhibitions and dozens of art events. She directs the Jewish Art Salon, an international organization of artists and scholars. As an artist she has had solo exhibitions at the Evergreen Arts Center, Evergreen CO, (2015) in conjunction with the Mizel Museum, Denver; the Tribeca Synagogue for the Arts, New York, NY and the Russian American Cultural Center, NYC. Group shows include the Y.U. Museum, NYC; The New Museum, New York, NY; the Mizel Museum, Denver; The Bronx Museum; Holocaust Memorial Center, Farmington Hills, MI; Reginald Lewis Museum, Baltimore, MD. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Daily News, the Jewish Week, and others. She has received grants from COJECO and Vector Artists Initiative.

ABOUT THE MANNY CANTOR CENTER

The Manny Cantor Center, a project of Educational Alliance, is a state-of-the-art, 103,000 square-foot, six-story community and cultural center located at 197 East Broadway on the Lower East Side. The newly renovated Center offers high-quality services for people of all ages, backgrounds and income levels including: a new health and fitness center, a Jewish preschool, Head Start and Early Head Start programs, parenting programs, a senior center, an Art School, a Teen Center and cultural programs. For more information on the Lower East Side’s new hub, visit www.MannyCantor.org. Follow the Center on Twitter and Facebook: @MannyCantorNYC

ABOUT THE EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE ART SCHOOL

Founded in 1917, the Educational Alliance Art School is a Community Arts School headquartered in the Manny Cantor Center. The School’s modernized facilities provide a supportive environment for creative development and arts study where students enjoy spacious, well-lit painting and drawing studios, a newly-equipped ceramic and sculpture studio, a multidisciplinary studio, and two gallery spaces. Courses include drawing, painting, ceramics, and sculpture, as well as workshops in jewelry-making for all skill levels and at affordable prices. Notable alumni and faculty include Chaim Gross, Peter Blume, Elias Newman, Jacob Epstein, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko and Louise Nevelson.  To learn more or register for classes, visit www.MannyCantor.org/Art

This exhibition is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council.