If moseying around and about last week for Frieze, Nada, Pulse and the like wasn’t quite enough of an art pilgrimage for you, and if you haven’t the patience to wait for summertime’s various Open Studios events to make more such rounds, then, well, you’re insane.
Or if your pockets were too shallow for such affairs, then, well, you weren’t the only one.
Whatever the case, you’ve reason to feel fortunate this coming weekend. There’s plenty more such activity on the horizon, and plenty of it is art pilgrim-friendly. And if that’s not enough, it’s also free.
Still not enough? It’s educational, too. You need only make it out to Queens.
Billed as a ‘historic art crawl’ and part of the Queens Museum’s Queens International 2012: Three Points Make a Triangle, the museum’s annual exhibition of artists living or working in the borough, this weekend’s event, Actually, It’s Ridgewood, shines a spotlight on a number of the borough’s more or less newish galleries.
And it will kick off with a history lesson—not to mention a good dose of NYC-style territorialism—at The Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, where you’ll learn about a 1769 border dispute between Brooklyn and Queens that took place at Arbitration Rock, i.e. at a currently fenced-in stone in the rolling backyard garden of the historical residence. It’ll be an interesting lesson on lovely grounds, and there will be free beers and franks as well. And live music. And house tours. And cardboard crowns?
What’s more, a self-descriptive exhibition, Sculpture Garden, is there for your viewing enjoyment as well. Co-curated by Deborah Brown and Leslie Heller—and thus also something of a collaborative effort between Storefront Bushwick and Leslie Heller Workspace, the curators’ respective galleries—the exhibition features sculptures by 13 different artists and sprawls splendidly all about the grounds. The opening last weekend was full of all kinds of bucolic pleasantries, and all the work is very strong, much of it crafted with site-specificity. One such piece, dangling from tree limbs, sways lightly in a way that brings to mind graceful cursive handwriting, some invisible script left behind by the wind.
But all that is only the beginning. Grab a ‘passport’ and keep it handy at the 8 or so other spaces you can visit over the course of the day, and you’ll be able to barter with it for goods at the afterparty. More information here and below.
Incidentally, it seems drinks will be available start to finish. Not much to be disputed there.
You can follow Paul D’Agostino on Twitter @postuccio