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# The Bushwick Art Community Gathers for a Group Portrait
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/the-bushwick-art-community-gathers-for-a-group-portrait/
- Published: 2016-06-02T22:25:54.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:47:34.000Z
- Description: Calling puppet-makers at Castle Braid, Myrtle Avenue storage unit-dwellers, cosmic puke sculptors, and Matthew Silver: The Bushwick Documentation Project wants you to gather for a group portrait this weekend.
- Author: Carey Dunne
- Tags: News, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

![panero_behnke_meisler_test005](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/06/panero_behnke_meisler_test005.jpg)

Meryl Meisler, James Panero, and Paul Behnke, organizers of Bushwick Documentation Project (2016) (image courtesy Meryl Meisler)

Calling puppet-makers at Castle Braid, [Myrtle Avenue storage unit-dwellers](http://gawker.com/theres-a-storage-unit-in-brooklyn-where-you-can-do-anyt-1642214112?ref=hyperallergic.com), [cosmic puke sculptors](http://hyperallergic.com/212865/8-artists-to-watch-from-the-2015-bushwick-open-studios/), and [Matthew Silver](http://hyperallergic.com/195855/fooling-around-at-a-participatory-performance-party/): The [Bushwick Documentation Project](https://www.facebook.com/events/1074958169242475/) wants you to gather for a group portrait this weekend.

Inspired by Nina Leen’s 1950 portrait of the Abstract Expressionists in “[The Irascibles](http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2008/julyaugust/feature/the-critical-moment?ref=hyperallergic.com),” as well as Art Kane’s 1958 portrait of jazz musicians in “[A Great Day in Harlem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%5FGreat%5FDay%5Fin%5FHarlem%5F%28photograph%29?ref=hyperallergic.com),” the project seems to anticipate a future in which the current Bushwick art scene will have ascended to near-mythic status. What more could an artist’s [ego](http://hyperallergic.com/87229/want-to-be-an-artist-try-a-little-narcissism/) want?

“We are seeking to create a permanent record, or at the very least a snapshot in time, of the Bushwick artist community and would like you to be a part of it,” write the project’s organizers, photographer [Meryl Meisler](http://www.merylmeisler.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) and curator [James Panero](http://www.jamespanero.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com), in an open call for participants. “Why? Because we are our own art history.” An invitation to all participating Bushwick Open Studios artists, gallerists, journalists, and organizers offers details:

> On Saturday, June 4th at 11am sharp, we hope you will join us for a group portrait of the BOS16 community by stopping by 55 Meadow St, where Meryl Meisler will create a street photograph of all those assembled. Then, in October 2016 over BOS, [Stout Projects](http://www.stoutprojects.net/?ref=hyperallergic.com) will exhibit Meryl’s photographs and James’s writing as part of our exhibition of Bushwick documentation.

“When I was a public school teacher in Bushwick during the 1980s & early 90s, on the surface the art scene seemed limited to the graffiti and wall murals dedicated to lives lost too soon,” photographer Meryl Meisler said in a statement.

> I thought, back then, that Bushwick had beautiful light — and I carried my camera with me daily to capture the light, the struggles and joys of life I witnessed. It did surprise me that those snapshots are now appreciated as both art and history. It didn’t surprise me decades later; the same open spaces light would attract artists. The huge numbers of artists who have come make Bushwick their home and/or studio is amazing.

It’s hard to talk about the Bushwick art scene without talking about the neighborhood’s [gentrification](http://hyperallergic.com/73855/bushwick-artists-ponder-ways-to-fight-gentrification/) — the two are inextricably linked — but, hopefully, the shoot will reflect the full range of artists from all the communities that call Bushwick home.