With ‘Unmoored/Unbound’ at Powerhouse Arts, BWAC rises from the ashes

If you go to Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus—that imposing, rust-red fortress dominating the canal—and make your way up to the second floor, you’ll find yourself confronted by a startling sight: a corpse, lying fully naked in an operating theater. 

This is not, of course, a real corpse. It is a very convincing facsimile, made of silicone by the artist Chella Man. So convincing, in fact, that when I first saw it, I assumed a very still, very patient performance artist was lying there. Only when I got closer to the body did I realize my mistake, but the level of detail, down to the individual whorls etched onto each fingertip, was certainly complex enough to fool anyone who might walk by. 

The corpse—titled “Autonomy”—is just one of more than 56 artworks currently on view at Powerhouse Arts as part of the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) group show “Unmoored/Unbound” (on view until Aug. 9). This kind of sprawling, formally ambitious show is nothing new for BWAC, which normally hosts three annual exhibitions alongside an outdoor sculpture show, but what distinguishes “Unmoored/Unbound” is the fact that it’s the coalition’s first show since a fire last September devastated BWAC’s warehouse studios on 481 Van Brunt St. In the aftermath of the fire, which lasted all night and required more than 200 firefighters before it could be stopped, BWAC’s future hung in the balance. “I wonder every day if BWAC will make it,” Alicia Degener, the organization’s president, told the Star-Revue. 

BWAC, which was founded in 1978, currently includes over 400 members. In 1990, the property developer Greg O’Connell offered BWAC 25,000 square feet of warehouse space on the waterfront—rent-free. The deal allowed the coalition to flourish; in turn, it brought new life—small businesses, tourism, a briny, off-beat sensibility—to Red Hook. 

O’Connell passed away last August. A month later, the fire left BWAC’s studios in ruins. But the blaze, in Degener’s telling, seems to have acted as a galvanizing force, both for BWAC and the greater Red Hook community. Donations flooded in. Engineers and volunteers from the American Institute for Conservation worked round the clock to restore some 800 artworks. 

“Unmoored/Unbound” came together fortuitously. The obvious metaphor for a show like this one might be that of a phoenix rising from the ashes, BWAC beating the odds to put together an exciting, eclectic exhibition scarcely nine months after disaster. But the reality points to the strength of the city’s artistic community. “I was looking to find us temporary space,” Degener explained, “and applied to rent the space from Powerhouse.” By chance, Powerhouse Art’s executive director Eric Shiner was friends with Hisham Youssef, one of BWAC’s members. The two were both from Pittsburgh and knew each through the arts community there. When Eric reviewed applications to use Powerhouse’s space, BWAC’s stood out. He decided to offer up the space for free. 

“Unmoored/Unbound” displays dozens of artists’ paintings, sculptures, video installations, collages, mobiles, and photography, but despite the show’s range, throughlines emerge. The theme of unmooring “came entirely in response to the fire.” “We were talking about how it felt like someone cut our rope and BWAC just floated out to sea,” Degener said. 

Walking through the space, I noticed that many of the artworks included seemed to deal with the frustrations of being a working artist in New York City—a livelihood that for many of BWAC’s members has become much more precarious since last September. A piece by Beth Campbell, “My Potential Future based on Present Circumstances,” presents an artist’s roadmap, flowing from one simple and relatable problem: “I’m having a hard time posting on Instagram” leads to “I hire a young artist to assist me,” “I meet with a life coach,” and grimly “Eventually I stop making art.” 

Other pieces tackle the theme more obliquely. A video installation, also by Chella Man, features a striking shot of the artist falling into a dark pool of water. Man, who is deaf, made the film about his relationship with his cochlear implant, a device that both links—and isolates—them from the hearing world. “Wave Piece,” by Kristin McIver, gives plain words to the months after the fire: “Waves crashing, one embrace, into infinite waves,” the piece reads in neon letters. 

Elsewhere, a playful artistic spirit prevails. A balloon hangs from the wall, “Sorry, we’re STONED” cheerfully printed across it. A series of mobiles by Sasha Dothan hangs from the ceiling, turning the center of the exhibition into a nursery room. 

Opening night, on May 21, was well-attended and far from somber. The room was packed with Brooklynites dressed in their best. Eric Shiner welcomed the event’s attendees and reminded us that “of course, everything here is for sale!” He noted that he himself had picked up a candelabra by the artist Joshua Ice, which had sold for the modest sum of $300. Other artworks were on offer for far more. A painting by Ajamu Kojo titled “A Portrait of George Washington & His Slaves” had a $30,000 price tag on it. 

BWAC won’t be a vagabond for much longer. Degener told me she expects to sign a new lease in August and “let BWAC run its course for another fifty years.” This is, quietly, a bold ambition. Fifty years is a long time to sustain anything in New York City, especially a nonprofit artists’ coalition, through untimely deaths, fires, and the relentless pressure the city puts on its members of the creative class. But leaving Powerhouse Arts that night, walking past Chella Man’s unnervingly lifelike corpse, I found it hard to bet against them.