The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition is showing on the first floor of the Brooklyn Museum and features over two hundred artists from the borough. The show is made up of an exterior hallway surrounding a central room. The middle room is painted a bright yellow, while some walls on the exterior are a more subtle coral. As for the artwork, there are many textile and fiber based works, which is refreshing to see so abundantly in a fine arts space, and especially in a museum. The arrangement of the works is much more compact than a typical museum arrangement, the sculptures are placed together on platforms instead of separated, and the two dimensional work is hung close and saloon style in the central room.
While it is nice to see so much local work and as the museum puts it “artists at all stages”, the tight formatting seems to undercut the mission of uplifting the featured artists. Surrounded by floors of white walls and paintings five feet apart, I wish they gave the same care to the work in the show. The museum does have another room with similarly hung artwork, and others with colorful walls, however having both together painted a more elementary vision of the show.
This is further exemplified by the lack of a specific theme throughout the show, yes the work is related, but maybe too much so. With that many similar works in a small colorful space, it begins to feel like a showcase for an art class rather than an exhibition, and demeans otherwise beautiful works.
I think your critique of the Brooklyn Museum exhibition is very accurate. You were able to articulate what I was thinking about while I was experiencing it. I wish your description also included more details about then works that you have found worth noting and perhaps presented what you thought was well-executed in the exhibit. However, I think your description was overall quite interesting and reflective of the ill-organized showcase.
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