On October 4th, we opened My Land, My Village, My Heart at Gallery Particulier, a beautiful group exhibition.
We decided to make the opening part of Artmageddon, the Art Walk in Brooklyn founded by Rob Elstienn, so there was plenty happening around Brooklyn. But inside the gallery, things felt intimate. The artists were there, people lingered, talked, looked closely at the work, and the evening had that feeling of a gathering rather than an “opening”, so different from what one might experience at an opening in Chelsea.
The work really does talk to each other.
There is a fascinating dialogue between the different ways the artists imagine land, belonging, memory and place. The work of Indigenous artist Sarah Gibeault sits alongside the Palestinian symbolic landscape by Ronen Gamil, Noah Bassman’s imagined scenes, and Yoshiko Mukai Williamson’s textile worlds. They’re very different practices and perspectives, but put together, they create a powerful language.
That’s one of the things we love about putting exhibitions together at Gallery Particulier: seeing what happens when artists who might not normally be shown together are given the chance to have a conversation.
Last night, that conversation happened not only on the walls, but between the people in the room as the artists talked about their work, and visitors asked them questions.
It was friendly, diverse, relaxed and very much alive. Artists, neighbors, friends, art people and people who simply wandered in were all part of it.
A good opening, we think, is one where people don’t just look at art, they talk to each other, they have fun, they also feel seen and heard.
Our mission is to offer an intimate experience of visual arts, and to directly connect artists with people in our communities. We’ll continue working at it!
