Opening Reception: December 2nd, 2011 from 6-9pm

305 E. 140th St. Bronx NY 10454

Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) is proud to announce Shifting Communities: Action Club; Hatuey Ramos-Fermín & Elizabeth Hamby. This is the third of four exhibitions and continuation of the roundtable dialogue series from our 2011-2012 gallery program.

Shifting Communities highlights dynamic initiatives in culture and the arts currently at work in the margins of the art world and American society. The goal of this project is to create a paradigm where community-centric contemporary art and artist think-tanks can be a tool for public service; a language for the exploration and investigation of the broader aspects of culture and society; and a magnet that can bring different cultures and ideologies together in order to strengthen a more inclusive definition of community.

In the third exhibition of the series, Bronx based artists Hatuey Ramos-Fermín & Elizabeth Hamby, and collective Action Club use the South Bronx record shop, Casa Amadeo, as a launch pad to explore ideas of community, collaboration and culture.

The artists in this exhibition have chosen to work together to address challenges they find individually in their work and their collectively shared concerns of socially engaged art. Action Club, Hatuey Ramos-Fermín, and Elizabeth Hamby have given each other assignments that speak to Casa Amadeo’s presence as a cultural treasure trove preserving the history and vitality of Latin music in the South Bronx. These assignments will formalize themselves as a collaborative installation inspired by the record shop’s visual and audio styling and its place as a physical hub for a global community.

This exhibition will also feature Los Angeles based artist, Jules Rochielle, and her Social Practices Art Network (SPAN). SPAN is a site created to be an online resource and archive for individuals, organizations, community groups and institutions that are interested in new genre arts forms and practices. As an extension of this online archive, Jules will install and moderate “Listening Station a Digital Community Archive.” She will offer a series of site-specific “Listening Sessions” allowing her to tune the archive into the rich cultural community/history of the Bronx by creating of a set of interviews with socially engaged Bronx artists. These Bronx “Listening Sessions” will allow the audience to look deeply in on the history and creative happenings of the South Bronx, a neighborhood that has a deep roots and history in collective artistic practice and socially engaged artwork.

Image Captions:

1. Shifiting Communities Promotional Graphic. 2011. Courtesy of Bronx River Art Center.
2. Mike Amadeo of Casa Amadeo Records. 2011. Courtesy of Action Club, Hautuey Ramos-Fermín, and Elizabeth Hamby
3. Listening Sessions at Congress of Collectives. 2011. Courtesy of Jules Rochielle and Douglas Paulson
 

This exhibition is made possible with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Additional support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., Majority Leader Joel Rivera, the Bronx Delegation of the New York City Council, New York State Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation’s Arts & Enterprise Place-Based Revitalization Program, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Beer has been lovingly provided by Brooklyn Brewery