On Saturday, September 21, the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) greets autumn with four invigorating new shows:
- Salon des Refusés
- Ancestral Voices of the Americas and Beyond
- Unseen Realities
- Emergence: Self Discovery from Form to Flame
Salon des Refusés 2024 is a reboot of the famed exhibition of art rejected by the French Academy of Fine Arts in their Paris Salon of 1863. This year the Brooklyn Museum announced an open call to Brooklyn artists for a fall show celebrating the museum’s 200th anniversary. Thousands of artists applied, many had to be rejected due to limited space. BWAC President Alicia Degener and co-curator Janet Morgan have opened our gallery to a selection of these artists. This exhibit intends to unite and uplift our Brooklyn arts community as well as complement the Brooklyn Museum show. It is our honor to advance a broad spectrum of the art currently being produced in our borough. Among the artists shown in the first Salon des Refusés of 1863 were many who would transform modern art in the following decades, including Manet, Courbet, Pissarro and Whistler. Will we discover such revolutionary gems in this new showcase?
Ancestral Voices of the Americas and Beyond is a national juried show which aims to celebrate heritage, ancestry, culture, traditions, and the stories of our diverse communities. The exhibit, curated by Latinx artist Tamavis D. Santiago, seeks to highlight artists who draw on their own diverse cultural backgrounds and family histories to reflect how spiritual and ancestral traditions have shaped contemporary society. The show will feature work in all media, traditional and experimental, to express the artist’s tales of migration, settlement, and the ideals that have shaped their lives.
Unseen Realities is the theme of this season’s BWAC members exhibition. Artists were invited to search within themselves to express and make visible that which is invisible; that is, to represent within their art what they consider to be those elements or characteristics which are inborn or inherited, and which have affected their lives. As with all of our member shows, viewers can expect an energetic display of a wide variety of imagery and media.
This season our solo exhibition area features Wendy Kusmaul Keeling with a presentation of ceramics entitled Emergence: Self Discovery from Form to Flame. Keeling utilizes various firing methods, including wood firing and gas reduction, and mixed media, to create primitive and instinctual figures that delve into the
central themes of the female journey. Her forms confront grief, trauma, and the need for protection, while striving towards self-discovery, empowerment, and the reclamation of identity. Keeling is a Hambidge Fellow and was recently awarded an Individual Artist Grant from South Arts. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and Japan and is part of the permanent ceramics collection at the Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences as well as a permanent public installation in Tokoname, Japan. There is a reception with the artist on Saturday, September 21 from 4 to 6 pm.
All four exhibitions open Saturday, September 21, and will remain on display each weekend between the hours of 1 to 6pm, through Sunday, October 13. The BWAC Gallery is located in the historic Beard and Robinson Stores at 481 Van Brunt St. in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Gallery hours are 1 to 6 pm, weekends only, or by appointment.
About BWAC
The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) is an artist-run organization and an incorporated 501(c)(3) nonprofit, operating the BWAC Gallery. For 45 years, BWAC has been exhibiting the artwork of local and national artists with seasonal exhibits that include national juried and local member shows. These exhibitions present a wide variety of contemporary visual arts from the traditional to the experimental cutting edge. The gallery is housed on two floors of the Beard and Robinson Stores, a massive Civil War-era warehouse on the Red Hook waterfront and boasts the best view of the Statue of Liberty in Brooklyn! The BWAC Gallery, 481 Van Brunt St., Red Hook, Brooklyn 11231, receives generous support from the O’Connell Organization and its many members and friends. Visit bwac.org for more information on membership and exhibits, or to donate, and follow us on Facebook or Instagram.
