Bushwick's got the beat

By Aaron Short

Catch some of the neighborhood’s most exciting emerging artists when Bushwick’s elusive art spaces open simultaneously for Bushwick Beat Nite on Friday.

The Friday night event is Bushwick-based curator Jason Andrew’s attempt to coordinate the neighborhood’s gallery scene, similar to Chelsea’s Thursday openings or DUMBO’s open studios nights.

“Bushwick has been around for a while, but there are a lot of people who don’t know what’s going on out here,” said Andrew, who has organized five Bushwick art crawls so far.

Since 2007, a handful of galleries have sprung up in former factories, empty storefronts, and living rooms of lofts near Flushing Avenue, the main industrial strip that separates Bushwick from Williamsburg.

This month, three art spaces are featuring openings, including the grand reopening of Laundromat, which was once on the fourth floor of a Boerum Street building above — you guessed it — a Laundromat.

The space, which will feature video works of artist Walsh Hansen and Alexa Hoyer’s performance piece of conversations she recorded on the subway, has moved to gallery director Kevin Curran’s living room on Wyckoff Avenue.

“You go through a rigmarole to get in, but it’s going to look a little bit nicer in there,” said Curran. “Initially doing these shows, it was just people I know and immediate friends. This process is about branching from that.”

And at Famous Accountants, the basement of a three-story row building on the border of Brooklyn and Queens, artist Meg Hitchcock has been affixing the walls of the space with a collage using words cut out of an English translation of the Koran’s book of revelations.

“We’re probably going to get a few letters about that,” said Famous Accountants founder Kevin Regan.

Bushwick Beat Nite is at various locations on Feb. 18, 6–10 pm. For info, visit www.nortemaar.org. 

Photo: Storefront manager Kate Watkins shows off "One Chapter in the Book" by Lauren Demitzio. Photo by Stefano Giovannini