1 Year GRATEFUL GRAPEFRUIT: Presenting THE NEW YORK ART LEAGUE
It often happens that people compare Berlin in 2010 to New York in the 1970s and 1980s – because of the city’s flourishing art and fashion scene, free spirit, crazy night life and overflowing creative energy. But forget about Berlin now, it’s all about New York. The first association you have when you think about art and New York is usually connected to names like Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and even Madonna (before she turned into a pop shitting machine) During the 1960s and 1970s, Soho became the cutting edge center for up-and-coming artists. Then, things shifted and the East Village and Lower East Side became the place where artists lived and worked. During the past decade, Williamsburg has become important and in the last couple of years, artists live in Bushwick.
The faces, just like the venues, have also constantly changed. Nevertheless, there has been a slightly long idle period in the NYC art world. It was the sequence of physically, spiritually and economically shocking events – starting with 9/11 and ending with the financial turmoil that paradoxically breathed new life into the scene in the City. Although a lot of the non-profit art organizations have experienced cut-backs during the past few years, due to the economic crisis, lack of money ironically tends to revitalize the art scene and right now, New York is full of artists, galleries, museum shows.
Hand-picking 5 artists who are the current portrait of the New York art scene is hard – especially when it’s a scene where new artists are born every day we are talking about. However, there is a creative core consisting of interconnected artists with similar aesthetics, likes and dislikes, but varying media of choice. They build the avantgarde indie art scene in the city. You can meet them in the same bars, the same clubs, having a blast in East Village, Williamsburg and Brooklyn. And this week you can see them on Grateful Grapefruit too.
Get ready for 5 x unabridged feature interviews originally published in One magazine Autumn 2010. First off is Slava.
