The Skylight Gallery Announces Crown Heights Gold Exhibition, July 28 – October 31, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Center for Arts & Culture Skylight Gallery
1368 Fulton Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, New York 11216
Phone: 718-636-6949 / Media Inquiries: 646-820-1159
Website: www.RestorationPlaza.org
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Friday 11AM to 6PM
Saturday from 1PM to 6PM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Skylight Gallery Announces Crown Heights Gold Exhibition, July 28 – October 31, 2011
Contemporary art exhibition revisits the Crown Heights Riot, as the city approaches its 20th anniversary; schedule of related public programs planned to foster community dialogue and involvement
Opening Reception: Thursday July 28, 2011 6pm – 8pm
New York – July 18, 2011 – The Skylight Gallery, operated by the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition Crown Heights Gold: Examining Race Relations and Healing in Crown Heights, Brooklyn During the 20 Years Since the 1991 Riot, curated by Dexter Wimberly. Using contemporary art as a vehicle to foster dialogue and remembrance, this exhibition commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Crown Heights riot, and explores the changes that have taken place since the harrowing incident, as well as the challenges that lay ahead for the community. The multi-media exhibition will feature painting, drawing, photography, mixed media, video and sculpture created by roughly twenty New York-based visual artists. The title of the exhibition was inspired by a recent work created by artist, Monique Schubert, a resident of Crown Heights and one of the artists to be exhibited in Crown Height Gold.
The featured artists will present new works that examine and explore the relevance of the Crown Heights riot from a human perspective. Included pieces will deal with issues related to the immediate impact of the incident on the residents of the area; the ongoing process of healing on an individual, family, and community level; and the historical effects the riot has had on the race relations and community cohesion in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Artists featured in the exhibition include Kimberly Becoat, Valerie Caesar, Kiran Chandra, Elizabeth Colomba, Oasa DuVerney, Delphine Fawandu, Fiona Gardner, Tahir Hemphill, Musa Hixson, Herman Jean-Noel, Yashua Klos, Hiroki Kobayashi, Jerome Lagarrigue, Jennifer Mack, Tim Okamura, Kambui Olujimi, Gabriel “Specter” Reese, Kenya (Robinson), Monique Schubert, Jamel Shabazz, Alexandria Smith, Sharone Vendriger, and Sam Vernon.
To compliment the exhibition, a calendar of public programs is being planned in collaboration with community leaders and organizations that have been working in Crown Heights during the past 20 years. The aim of the public programs is to foster community dialogue as well as revisit the work begun in the riot’s aftermath and to encourage, promote and support the interracial effort it heralded to encourage continued inter-group communication and understanding. Recognizing the changing population demographics in Crown Heights since the incident, these programs will look beyond just assessing current black-Jewish relations, but will also include issues in relation to the other growing ethnic communities in the area.
Crown Heights Gold will be on display from July 28 – October 31, 2011 at the Skylight Gallery, located at 1368 Fulton Street, Brooklyn; the schedule of public programs is forthcoming.
About the Curator
Dexter Wimberly, a life-long resident of Brooklyn, New York, successful artist consultant and marketing executive, is the curator of Crown Heights Gold. A patron of the arts and collector, Wimberly maintains a critical dialogue with emerging artists throughout the world by way of career management, seminars and lectures presented at such cultural institutions as The Brooklyn Historical Society, The Savannah College of Art and Design, and The Brooklyn Arts Council. In February 2010, Wimberly curated the lauded exhibition, The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks at MoCADA, the Museum of the Contemporary African Diaspora Arts.
About Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
The nation’s first community development corporation, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation’s mission is to improve the quality of life for Central Brooklyn families by fostering economic self-sufficiency and family stability, promoting arts and culture and transforming the neighborhood into a safe, vibrant place to live, work, and visit. Restoration was established in 1967 with the bipartisan support of Senators Robert Kennedy and Jacob Javits at a time of major inner city disinvestment and population flight. Since that time, Restoration has remained an anchor in the community and the first place residents turn for help finding a job, attaining social supports, or appreciating quality cultural performances and exhibits.
About Skylight Gallery
Restoration’s Skylight Gallery is Central Brooklyn’s premiere visual arts exhibition space and welcomes an estimated 2,000 visitors annually. Under the umbrella of Restoration’s Center for Arts & Culture, the Gallery is committed to preserving and promoting the rich heritage of the African and Caribbean Diaspora and to informing the artistic development of the Central Brooklyn community. Located at 1368 Fulton Street in the heart of Bedford Stuyvesant, the Skylight Gallery boasts 2,000 square feet of exhibition space and typically mounts between 4 and 6 major exhibits each year.
