{"id":5245,"date":"2016-06-09T12:58:42","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T12:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=5245"},"modified":"2016-06-09T13:48:11","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T13:48:11","slug":"coney-island-reimagined-at-the-brooklyn-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/coney-island-reimagined-at-the-brooklyn-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Coney Island Reimagined at the Brooklyn Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just a couple of stops on the train from Manhattan through Downtown Brooklyn is the Brooklyn Museum. Having spoken to several New Yorkers who hadn’t ventured there yet,\u00a0curiosity beckoned.<\/p>\n

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The Brooklyn Museum<\/a> is packed full of rich and diverse collections of international work over five floors, from the Ancient Egyptians, to complete 18th Century American interiors, to European and\u00a0African art and finally\u00a0to\u00a0Contemporary art, with so much more in the middle. The place is almost a mini-Met: the grandeur of the\u00a0Beaux-Arts Court, the steel and glass pavilion at the entrance and the sheer size and scale of the space was breathtaking and somewhat\u00a0unexpected.<\/p>\n

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However, the exhibition that stole the show was stumbled upon by accident. Taking an elevator up to the 5th floor, one walks straight\u00a0into\u00a0Stephen Powers’s ‘Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (To a Seagull)’<\/a>.\u00a0Based on the memory of a past and present flashy Coney Island, the artist Powers worked from a travelling sign shop ICY SIGNS with a host of other\u00a0artists to produce this site-specific series of works. The immediate hit of colour and scale\u00a0is too hard to ignore.<\/p>\n

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In the four corners of a beautiful atrium, stand four colossal,\u00a0vertical\u00a0installations, each the same size and shape but vastly different in colour and appearance. The works are overwhelming; they feel like they close in on you and your eyes struggle to find a singular point at which to rest. When you finally make peace with one installation, you begin to read – and not logically. The installations are made up of hundreds of beautiful eye catching hand painted typography, symbols and signage that\u00a0to the casual observer\u00a0look like commercial branding and sale signs. However, the signs sell nothing but nostalgia and emotion. At the centre of the four installations stands a singular binocular, the kind you might find atop the Empire State Building or overlooking Niagara Falls. The human expression of the binocular eyes makes the piece seem lonely – which feels somewhat relatable when surrounded by the intensely colourful and noisy installations.<\/p>\n

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Accompanying the installations, on the\u00a0four\u00a0walls surrounding the atrium are large paintings. Sometimes inspiring, other times dark, the works are a blast of colourful creativity and typography. Filled with popular slogans, logos\u00a0and play on words, everything seems a little overwhelming. There is no singular\u00a0voice\u00a0in the work or the words painted, but the bright colours\u00a0signal the voice of entertainment – you must have fun. The paintings are delightful – in composition and colour, they are aesthetically beautiful. In the series above, each frame denotes a day of the week, including ‘Thirsty’, ‘Saddersday’<\/em> and ‘Someday’<\/em>, depicting pop cult references alongside everyday imagery, relating directly to a new Coney Island artistic culture.<\/p>\n

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If you do anything this weekend – head on up to the 5th floor at the Brooklyn Museum and\u00a0immersive yourself in colour!\u00a0Stephen Powers runs through to August 21, 2016<\/p>\n

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Currently on at the Brooklyn Museum:<\/p>\n

Agitpop!<\/a><\/em> Through August 7, 2016<\/p>\n

Tom Sachs: Boom Box Retrospective, 1999 – 2016<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>Through August 14, 2016<\/p>\n

Disguise: Masks and Global African Art.<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>Through September 18, 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just a couple of stops on the train from Manhattan through Downtown Brooklyn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,23,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}