Marcin Ramocki's film Brooklyn DIY opens at MOMA tonight.
Am curious to see it for the involvement of various friends but describing art in terms of neighborhoods can be problematic.
Did a "Brooklyn School" ever develop, after artists began settling the region? Do critics talk about it?
Answer: no, the New York critics mostly snub Brooklyn galleries.
So, did the artists develop a style or philosophy that is contrary to the Chelsea style, the way "downtown art" challenged uptown in the 60s or graffiti came to be identified with the East Village?
No, after 1997 or so (the demise of Soho, which mingled artist and gallery lofts), Brooklyn became the region where artists lived and Chelsea became the region where the same artists showed.
Waves of "frissons of difference" came not from within NY but from London, Los Angeles, Asia...
Will watch the film with an open mind and report back with any changes to the above.
Update: Good movie, and most of the people interviewed disavowed a "Williamsburg style." The archival footage of past art shows and present-day glimpses inside studios suggests much trash-picking and bricolage. Amy Sillman comments throughout but I don't think you ever see one of her (non-bricolage) paintings, just quick details.
Critic Sarah Schmerler, interviewed in the film, offers the best "reason for Williamsburg" but it is esentially faint praise. She compares art to the gold in Fort Knox that backed US currency at one time. She feels that for New York to be a credible art center, tangible evidence of actual, vigorous artmaking should be on display somewhere in the city, otherwise galleries are just sterile delivery systems for culture happening out of town. This is a sophisticated variant of the "at least someone's doing something" declaration I used to hear in Dallas when I lived there years ago. Something is better than nothing but that doesn't make it important. Ironically the director of the film did much to advance art into the 21st Century with his Williamsburg gallery vertexList but computer and cyber-discourse is almost completely absent from the movie. For the next Billburg doc someone will need to talk about Ramocki.