Mott Haven Herald

Mott Haven art tour attracts the curious

Posted on 20. Jan, 2010 by Sergey Kadinsky.

Barry Kostrinsky paused near the place where the bond trader Sherman McCoy took a wrong turn to the Bronx and disaster in Bonfire of the Vanities, the Tom Wolfe novel that cemented the South Bronx’s reputation as a terrifying place.

Some people still ask him “whether it’s safe here,” Kostrinsky said. But he wants to polish a new image for Mott Haven, showing it off to curious art lovers who may still be a bit timid about walking the streets alone. (more…)

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Show uses Mott Haven streets to tell story of the Bronx

Posted on 05. Dec, 2009 by Christina Herrera.

Experiencing the recent performance of a show about the South Bronx was like looking at a double-exposure.

When the audience for “The Provenance of Beauty” took a bus tour through the streets of Mott Haven and Hunts Point, this Fall, they viewed the neighborhoods’ streets through the window and its past on video monitors.

And the spectators were also the spectacle. (more…)

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Blast from Mott Haven’s past recalls an artistic keystone

Posted on 05. Nov, 2009 by Lindsay Lazarski.

Hundreds of people pass by Third Avenue and 147^th Street each day without a second glance at the storefronts that house a nail salon, a hair braiding salon and, hidden from the street, a training school for security guards.

There’s no sign that 30 years ago, this was one of the hippest spots in New York City.

For 13 years, the graffiti covered storefront known as Fashion Moda, housed a collective of innovative artists, break-dancers, performers and other creative minds who painted, printed and sculpted, silk-screened T-shirts and sometimes just hung out, feeding on the energy each brought to the spot.

But for 11 days during September, Bronx-based multimedia artist Hatuey Ramos Fermin brought together the work of artists from the past and the present to pay homage to the former artist space and concept known as Fashion Moda.

The name incorporates the word for fashion in four languages–English, Spanish, Chinese and Russian. The idea behind Fashion Moda is that art can be created, shown and appreciated by anyone, anywhere.

So using the walls of On Time, the security guard training school, Fermin curated an exhibit at the former Fashion Moda with the work of 20 artists, five from the past and 15 from the present.  

“We are doing a tribute to the space,” said Fermin. “It was a place for a lot of experimentation, street art and also fine art.  A place where a lot of different artists met and got their names out.” 

When he started Fashion Moda, Stefan Eins, fashion aimed to be trendsetting, something that was current and of the time–an appropriate concept, he believed, for his pioneering and chic art space. 

Born in Austria, Eins founded Fashion Moda in 1978, fixing the broken windows in the front of the building and inviting both neighbors from the community and artist friends from downtown to use the space.  

Eins added that graffiti artist, Keith Haring, was the first to design a T-shirt for Fashion Moda, and used Fashion Moda as a place to show his early work.  

Craig Howard, who owns the On Time Security Guard Training School said he agreed to have his school transformed back into an art gallery for a few weeks because he remembered growing up in the area with friends who painted graffiti throughout the Bronx.

“I just thought it was something good to do and show people out there something different than the regular norm,” said Howard.

As part of the exhibition, one artist created a bust of Howard that now hangs on the wall above his desk and just over a colorful drawing by his 9-year-old daughter. 

“I’m ecstatic,” said Howard with a smile about his sculpture. “Now when things go wrong I don’t really have to look in the mirror because I can look right up on the wall and see myself.”

Jeremy Nadel, an art teacher at a high school nearby, showed his work at Fashion Moda in 1986.  He recalled Fashion Moda as a place that brought together the melting pot of New York City, a place where he felt safe. 

The black and white photographs that hung on the walls of the retrospective, depicting a 1970’s boom box on a rickety park bench and of an oil drum fire reminded Nadel of a different era, a time he remembered when fireworks were lit the sky during the art shows at Fashion Moda and “regular folks” would listen to old school hip-hop music in front of the building. 

Stefin Eins, Hatuey Ramos Fermín, and Sandra Skurvida gather at the opening night of the exhibit Refashioning Moda

Bronx Artist Libertad Guerra, who moved to Mott Haven five years ago from Brooklyn, said she too appreciates the history of Fashion Moda. 

Among the paintings, the hooded sweatshirts covered with graffiti and a collage of Xeroxed prints, Guerra contributed a video installation piece that juxtaposed images from the Bronx with images from the movie Metropolis.  

Guerra, who founded her own artist collective out of her home on Alexander Avenue called Spanic Attack, hosts poetry readings, film parties and even academic discussions about urban issues.

“Fashion Moda is very important–what it meant historically and the imitations that came out of it,” said Guerra, who studied art history at New York University.  “Many of the things that define the canon of alternative art of the New York scene in the 70’s and 80’s were started by Fashion Moda.”

Another Bronx artist who became involved with Fashion Moda in the later years was, Miguelangel (Miky) Ruiz. He walked past the nail and hair salons twice before he realized where the retrospective was. 

“What I like about it is how anonymous it is,” said Ruiz.  “It’s a change of pace from the downtown scenes and the New York cliques.”

The exhibition at the one-time art space brought together the older generations of artists with the newer generations of artist.  

And although Eins, with a feather in his hair, remembers fondly the artists and his work of Fashion Moda’s past, he remarks,  “there is no reason to be nostalgic, because this is happening now.”

A version of this article appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of the Mott Haven Herald.

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Artists fret as tourists beat a path to their studios

Posted on 27. Jul, 2009 by editor.

By Azriel James Relph
Azriel.james.relph@gmail.com

“Ask about my art, not my rent” reads the sign posted at the door to Edwin Gonzalez’s apartment on Third Avenue and East 134th Street.

As Gonzalez pours wine and fixes lunch for friends and visitors who wander in for the third annual Mott Haven Open Artist Studio Tour, Melissa Calderon, one of the artists displaying paintings, photographs and sculpture in Gonzalez’s studio, explains the sign. “Last year people kept asking ‘What do you pay?’” she says.

This year they hoped the art alone would be the center of attention, but in a place like Mott Haven, the conversation inevitably turns to the neighborhood itself.

Calderon – who has a solo show in June at the Longwood Art Gallery at Hostos Community College – used to have a studio of her own in Mott Haven. She had to move to Norwood when the rents shot up.

“Artists come here for a year or two and have to leave,” she laments. “There is a history that is totally gone, but those of us who remember hold the torch.”

Despite the rising cost of space in the area, Mott Haven remains an attractive place for artists to work, as evidenced by the many studios open during the May 2nd tour put together by the Bronx Council on the Arts. The Bronx Culture Trolley ferried visitors to more than 15 studios and galleries.

Gonzalez, whose work depicts mythological figures like fairies, points out what makes the area so attractive to artists: “There are less distractions than places like Williamsburg, which I appreciate.”
“If you are a Bronx artist,” agrees Calderon, “you are here because you’re working – not because there is a scene here.”

The comparisons and contrasts to Williamsburg continue a couple of blocks away in the shared studio of the newlywed artists Darcy Dahl and Beth Brideau, above the Bruckner Bar and Grill.
“I wanted a nice quiet spot that’s not Williamsburg,” says Brideau. “On Sunday it’s quiet here.”

At the same time, Brideau – who has been working in the studio for five years on sculptures based on topographical images of forests, and who has a piece on display at the Museum of Modern Art– sees the other side of the coin: once a neighborhood becomes “this hip place where you’ve got to be,” she warns, “they raise the rents and then no one can live here.”

In a way, Dahl’s paintings reflect the changing neighborhood. He says his pieces are never finished, and he constantly adds new colors and shapes to them. He also projects videos with abstract images in pulsating kaleidoscopic loops, as in the three-month show he had at the Bronx Museum of Art.

A Dahl piece – like the neighborhood where he created it – never looks the same as it did the last time you saw it. “Everything has to do with context and the situation of the moment,” he says.
For this couple, the situation of the moment led them to begin to share their tiny studio space when they got married a year ago. They could no longer afford their own separate work spaces –even in the South Bronx.

Gerhard Frommel, an Austrian artist who has been in New York for eight years, had a hard time finding a place he could afford anywhere in the city. “The spaces I was offered as art studios in Mott Haven were more expensive than Manhattan,” he exclaims. “People are really greedy here.”

After two years of searching, Frommel finally walked up to some ironworkers to ask if they knew of any affordable work space. They pointed him toward a large brick warehouse near the mouth of the Third Avenue Bridge, where, in a piano repair shop, he created a tiny studio reached by a meandering path outlined by hundreds of dust-collecting and broken pianos.

“I didn’t find the space, the space found me,” he says, as he shows visitors his technique for mixing the paints he uses for his abstract works.

Up the street, Francisco Vallejo and Louis Nieves – two artists from Hunts Point – look up from the easels they have set up on the sidewalk.

“SoHo is no longer the sole owner of the art scene,” says Vallejo. The South Bronx art community, he says, has “been here a while, but it hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.”

He acknowledges the double-edged sword of getting that attention however, noting, “It’s gonna displace people.”

“It’s the beginning of the end,” Nieves agrees. “Gentrification is coming.”

But Carey Clark, visual arts director at The Point Community Development Corporation in Hunts Point and a Mott Haven resident who also opened her studio for the day, says it’s more complicated than that. She argues that real estate speculators, not artists, cause displacement. The only fault she finds with artists is their tendency to keep to themselves.

“Artists get the label of the first wave of gentrifiers because they don’t get involved in the communities they work in enough,” she says.

Back at the Bruckner Bar and Grill, in a gallery behind the bar, two visiting artists from the North Bronx also try to wrap their heads around what is happening in Mott Haven.

Ira Merritt and Aaron Olshan, from Amalgamated Houses in Van Cortland Village, have had their work on display in Mott Haven since March. They were surprised by what they found.
“It used to be rougher here – let’s put it that way,” says Merritt.

Still, he added, the reputation of the South Bronx hasn’t caught up with reality. When we had our opening, a lot of people we thought would come stayed away,” says Merritt with a note of disappointment in his voice.

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Trees talk on the Grand Concourse

Posted on 20. Jul, 2009 by Jeanmarie Evelly.

By Jeanmarie Evelly
jeanmarie.evelly@motthavenherald.com

The Grand Concourse, the iconic boulevard that stretches along four miles of the Bronx, has 100 years of stories to tell. This summer and fall, Bronx residents are lending their voices to share those stories—through the trees that line the street’s parks and sidewalks.

The Tree Museum is the creation of Irish artist Katie Holten, who was commissioned to create a work of public art to celebrate this year’s 100^th anniversary of the Grand Concourse.

From 138th street to Mosholu Parkway, 100 trees tell their stories. Green discs on the sidewalk bearing the Tree Museum logo identify the trees and offer a phone number that visitors can call, either from home or from their mobile phones, to hear a short audio clip about the Bronx narrated by people who live and work in the community.

“It’s kind of like an Easter egg hunt,” Holten said of the markers scattered along the Concourse.

Call tree number 6, a honey locust in front of the post office at 588 Grand Concourse, and you’ll hear community activist Majora Carter talk about growing up in the Bronx. Harry Bubbins, director of the local environmental group Friends of Brook Park, narrates for tree number 13, an American elm at the entrance to Franz Siegel Park.

Call this tree outside the post office at 588 Grand Concourse to hear Majora Carter, the founder of Sustainable South Bronx, talk about growing up in the South Bronx.

Bronx Borough Historian Lloyd Ultan, who participated in the project, said he thinks using trees is an appropriate way to celebrate the street’s centennial.

“The Grand Concourse is noted for the fact that it’s tree-lined,” he said. “That’s one of the things that makes the Grand Concourse outstanding, so it made a great deal of sense.”

Ultan made recordings for seven different trees along the Concourse, offering historical facts and anecdotes about the street.

Opened to traffic in November of 1909, the Concourse was modeled after the Champs Elysees in Paris, and soon came to mark achievement in the borough, Ultan said.

“The Grand Concourse in the Bronx was the equivalent of 5th Avenue and Park Avenue in Manhattan,” he explained. “It was a symbol that you had made it.”

Holten said she knew very little about the area when she launched the project in 2007.

“I spent about two months researching and spending as much time as possible on the Concourse,” she said.  “I kind of fell in love with it.”

Organized by the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Wave Hill and the Department of Parks and Recreation, The Tree Museum debuted on June 21st and will run until Oct. 12th.

The audio guide is available by calling (718) 408-2501 and entering the extension for any tree, numbered 1 to 100. More information, including a map of the project, can be found at www.treemuseum.org.

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A Mott Haven treasure hunt

Posted on 18. Mar, 2009 by Maria Clark.

The Mott Haven art world can be difficult to find.

It is tucked away in a dark jazz café on the corner of Alexander Avenue, up a 5-floor walk-up through a narrow apartment or in a corner restaurant hidden under the cement overpass of a major expressway.

“The arts in the South Bronx are hidden. If you don’t hear about it by word of mouth you miss out on an experience,” said Lourdes Hernandez-Cordero, 36, as she stood by her husband’s photo exhibit in the Pregones Theater lobby on Walton Avenue.

The South Bronx has blossomed into a unique artistic destination in recent years, with small theaters, galleries and alternative art spaces appearing in remote streets and apartments. The once barren warehouses in Mott Haven are drawing a generation of young artists seeking low rent and generous space.

Pejro Martin, a metal welder and Ira Merritt, a photographer and print maker, stopped by The Blue Bedroom Project on a recent Saturday, interested in finding exhibition space in Mott Haven. The  alternative art space caused a stir last year in the local art community when artist Blanka Amezcua converted her bedroom into a mixed media art space.

The small bedroom is enclosed by curtain in the doorway. Visitors crowd along the walls to watch videos projected on Amezcua’s window. They wander in and out of the stuffy room towards a table laden with crackers, hummus, wine and juice. Amezcua stands near the door greeting and bidding farewell to the constant stream of guests entering the intimate space.

Martin was visiting his friend, videographer Damali Abrams, the featured artist at The Blue Bedroom Project in March.  Although Martin has exhibited his metal sculptures in SoHo, he has come to the South Bronx seeking new and undiscovered territory.

“The Bronx is a forgotten borough. People visit it for Yankee Stadium and leave,” Martin said. “You take a look at this area and there really is much to see.”

Martin thinks the growing art world in the neighborhood is a positive change.

“Everyone knows SoHo. Hopefully people will see this and the word will spread like wild fire,” he said.

Italian artist Vittorio Ottavioni turned his back on SoHo. A 5-floor walkup apartment is his new artistic stomping ground.

Visitors who dropped by to view the Anti-SoBro art show he curated, surrounded him as he said. “I do not advertise my art in SoHo, Williamsburg, or Chelsea. I want the focus to be on my art and not of me.”

Ottavioni commanded the room as he spouted his disdain for New York’s mainstream artistic destinations. He avoided the glare of photo lenses and intrusive questions from the visitors.

“Who does he think we are: CIA?” said Vincent Beltron, a one-time Mott Haven resident.

The neighborhood has changed a lot since he lived there, Beltron, 51, acknowledged.

Some things, however, never change. The former bus driver looks forward to dusty summer parties held on construction lots by the Harlem River, a pastime only true locals know about, where illegal pina coladas and tortillas are sold from car trunks,.

“This is all new to me though,” Beltron said as he walked away from Otavioni and his elaborate speech. “I seen the little art stores, but I never know this exists.”

Since the varying art spaces can be hard to locate for the unknowing tourist or longtime resident, the Bronx Council of the Arts runs two monthly tours on the Bronx Culture Trolley. A school bus converted to look like a turn of the century trolley, it loops around Mott Haven and parts of Highbridge and Hunts Point, dropping off dozens of tourists at each location.

Hear the sounds of the Bronx Cultural Trolley

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Dom Darby, 23, rode the trolley for the first time with her sister Briana, 9, on its inaugural Saturday run.

The Darbys live in the Paterson Housing Project near the Blue Bedroom. Dom recalls  looking out her window and seeing the bright red vehicle roaming the streets.

“It was so random. I wondered why do they have that old timey trolley wandering around?” she said.

Darby stumbled across the Blue Bedroom on her way to library. A sandwich board advertising the project drew her attention.

“It’s so interesting and unique. A gallery in someone’s bedroom,” Darby said.

The galleries are a great way to bring positive attention to the neighborhood, she said, “I really wasn’t aware of all this.”

A band played live music on the sidewalk outside of the Alexander Café near Bruckner Boulevard. Couples stopped by for a glass of wine or a beer from the Café’s varied selection. Aida Vega, 81, Julia Torres, 82 and Maria Teresa Emeric danced on the street corner while they waited for the trolley to make its final loop of the day.

All three grew up and spent most of their adult lives in Mott Haven. They were there when Tito Puente and Celia Cruz performed in the neighborhood. And they saw the theaters burning in the devastation of the South Bronx.

“Things have changed here, but they are getting better,” Torres said.

A version of this story appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of the Mott Haven Herald.

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