In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, education and art is becoming the name of the game. On a chilly Friday night, House of Ladosha hosted an opening night to remember at The Bruce High Quality Foundation University’s new location.
Work by House of Ladosha has a stunning handmade realness feel paired with high art chic. Mind you, there’s nothing dirty, per se, about Ladosha… it’s not found art. But it’s satisfyingly approachable and totally fun. Tucked away on the 6th floor of an anonymous, unflinching structure in Brooklyn’s Industry City, the new exhibit “This is UR Brain” is just right, it’s as annoyingly campy as it is simply breakthrough. A pile of video displays and televisions show the same thing, an apparent television station turned sketch show. Not entirely comedy; consider it an airing of grievances, against brutality, shitty men, hopeless romance, clips of queer classics, a study in icons and culture. After a few minutes, it repeats. While the video content plays into known gender politic taboos and near stereotypes, it’s ultimately a celebration of the culture and it’s signature sense of ironic and satirical humor. The opening night was a thoroughly Brooklyn affair: dim and neon lights, fog machines (THE new must have), narrow halls, cigarettes on the stairs, pleasant thumping music, bottles of Oktoberfest filling a help yourself trash bin. With clever after-party DJ work by ABBY and transgender advocate and poet Juliana Huxtable, the night was a celebration of education and art.
BHQFU is “New York’s freest art school, a learning experiment where artists work together to manifest creative, productive, resistant, useless, and demanding interactions between art and the world.” A nonprofit that focuses on programs and lessons in art, for anyone interested. Free goes a long way here, both horizontal and vertical in scope.
House of Ladosha at Bruce High Quality Foundation University (33 34th St., 6th floor, between Second and Third avenues in Sunset Park, www.bhqfu.org). Jan. 15 at 8 pm. Show available by appointment until Feb. 28. Free.
IMAGES Courtesy of The Bruce High Quality Foundation (Photo Credit: Stephen Faught /BHQF)
