Five Reasons Why Brooklyn Is Capital of the U.S. Art World

Eugenie Tsai remembers the first time she realized that Brooklyn had become a mecca for artists. It was in 1988, and an artist she knew was moving to Williamsburg. Two decades later, she says, Brooklyn has become “the art capital of the U.S.” and “there are artists everywhere in the borough.”  

Tsai, now curator of contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum, wanted to offer a glimpse into the works emerging from this capital. The result is Raw/Cooked, a yearlong series of five exhibitions by “under-the-radar” Brooklyn artists who have never had a major show. The first one, displaying the work of whimsical sculptor Kristof Wickman, opens Friday.

The five artists Tsai selected were among those recommended by an advisory board of five more established Brooklyn artists. Where the emerging artists live and work offers credibility to the claim that artists have migrated all over the borough: Two are in Bushwick, one each in Carroll Gardens, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Sunset Park.

The wall labels for Raw/Cooked claim that Brooklyn is host to more artists than anywhere else in the country; Tsai believes the borough as artist capital reached critical mass about five years ago.

That begs the question: Will there be a Brooklyn School in same vein as the New York School developed in the post-war era? “There are too many artists in Brooklyn to say there is a Brooklyn School,” replies Tsai. But she did notice some trends while visiting the studios of emerging artists in order to select those who would be receiving their debut exhibitions. "There seems to be a great interest in making things. These are very skilled craftspeople, who are very hands-on, rather than sending their ideas to others to fabricate.”

That certainly describes the first artist in the series, Kristof Wickman, whose work will be on display in the museum’s mezzanine from Sept. 16 through Nov. 27.

The curator was taken with Wickman’s transformation of “unremarkable objects”—a rock, a pumpkin, a bulletin board, parts of his own body—into art that is “different, a little odd, a rearranging of the familiar.” His “Self-Portrait” is a sculpture of his arms hugging a big purple ball made of neoprene, the arms a cast made of silicone. In another work, he cast his face and stuck it on a cast of a pumpkin.  The piece entitled, “Don't Let It Get You Down,” which looks to be made of glittering rocks and wood, is actually made of plastic.

All five artists of Raw/Cooked were invited to use art from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection for inspiration, and Kristoff eagerly, if somewhat subversively, accepted. He took a tiny 19th century wooden chair made by the Pueblo Zuni, and stuck crushed donut holes from Dunkin Donuts at the bottom of the legs—with the "donuts" made out of bronze.

Kristoff took a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin entitled “Damned Women” and constructed a gold platter with a dog’s head on it. Inspired by a mahogany bust of a boy by Emile Robert Zettler, he “took a cast of my girlfriend’s butt but made it grow out of a rock” and applied non-edible handmade sprinkles. “If I only used traditional art materials, it would be pretty boring," he said.

He arranged the works from the museum’s collection with his newly created responses to them on top of a folding table that he made himself out of wood (so it doesn’t really fold.)

Wickman makes a living as a carpenter, although he also had a seven-month gig working on the new electronic voting machines. He moved from Madison, Wis., where he was born in 1981, to enroll in Hunter College’s MFA program, attracted by “the urgency of the art scene.” He has lived in Gowanus, Clinton Hill, South Williamsburg, and now Bushwick. “I can’t be sappy about living in Brooklyn—there’s lack of personal space, and little nature—but I do love being here. It’s a gravitational place like Berlin or L.A. because people pay attention to the art.”

Still, he did not expect attention quite so quickly. “I’ve never had a show before.” Indeed, Wickman seems so astonished to be getting a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum so soon after graduating that, in asking him when he first realized he was going to be an artist, he replies: “The realization is just unfolding for me.”

Raw/Cooked, a series of five exhibitions by emerging Brooklyn artists, will be shown at the Brooklyn Museum. Kristof Wickman, Sept. 16 – Nov. 27. Lan Tuazon, Nov. 4 - Jan. 15. Shura Chernozatonskaya, Jan. 27 – April 8. Heather Hart, April 13 – June 24. Ulrike Müller, June 29 – Sept. 9.