I generally spend a decent amount of time in Gowanus, but weaving through the neighborhood’s streets and buildings for Open Studios on Saturday really demonstrated how the stretch of water has shed its sardonic designation of “Lavender Lake” and turned into a bizarro landscape of glimmering apartment buildings. The canalside Whole Foods is one thing, but the “luxury” high-rises boasting an “iconic” view of the waterfront in its funky fluorescence are still a head-scratcher for me.
Now, I’m neither a chemist, an architect, nor a physician, but I’m willing to bet that everyone probably would have benefitted from waiting for water remediation and sewage overflow prevention efforts to be completed instead of developers speedrunning the area’s sublimation from a Superfund site with a petering industrial profile to a bunch of towers offering studio apartments starting at $3,200/month.
Unless there’s a large band of civilians seeking front-row seats to Gowanus’s next poonami … Because they’re literally installing permanent picnic tables and reclining deck chairs along the banks of the canal.
At landscape painter Elizabeth O’Reilly’s studio on Union Street, I commented that she and a few other artists I’d dropped in on were kind for drawing inspiration from the neighborhood as it is. I find it endearing that they’re able to extrapolate beauty at both ends of the spectrum of devastating human impact — from a life-threateningly toxic pollution hub to a shiny new playground for gentrification to mall-ify eventually — and help others appreciate the importance of archiving it.
Keeping things coastal, contributor Aaron Short dropped in on the open studios programming in Red Hook and Sunset Park respectively. Short reports that Red Hook’s creative community barrels forward unabated 13 months after a five-alarm fire tore through a historic warehouse filled with converted artist studios, and that spaces in Sunset Park are somehow still affordable. On the other end of the borough, local artist Jazmine Hayes details the historical, spiritual, and environmental symbolism throughout her Percent for Art commission at the new Brownsville Multi-Service Center.
Since we’re talking about the environment, let’s add some animals to the mix, too. Those who foolishly missed the annual Tompkins Square Dog Halloween Parade can peruse some highlights courtesy of staff writer Anna Lee, who dropped to ankle level for Pup Leo and Santa Paws, among other costumed canines. There are also only a few days left to catch Cannupa Hanska Luger’s American Traditional, which is closing on the 24th at Garth Greenan Gallery’s new location on Greene Street. The show was highlighted in our round-up of New York exhibitions embodying Indigenous survivance, and Editor-at-Large and Co-Founder Hrag Vartanian attests that it’s Luger’s “strongest work yet.”
Lastly, take a glance at our “What Else is Happening?” section — I’ve got some neat stuff lined up for you.
While I can't promise it'll hold a candle to the Dog Parade, Hyperallergic's own Halloween Party next Wednesday is just the place for your niche, art-world costume to shine during an open bar. Calling all Kusama pumpkins and Magritte apple-faced individuals to the fore! (Discounted tickets available for members. RSVP here!)
13 Art Films to See at DOC NYC
I’ve never put much thought into how I want to be portrayed after I die. Perhaps I’d opt to be plastered on Etsy mugs, tea sets, and journal covers, à la Frida Kahlo (though I doubt I’d have many buyers, or that Kahlo would’ve enjoyed how her self-image is often nowadays detached from the politics and life behind it), or I would begin things early by enlisting an artist to paint their best guess at my posthumous body. Maybe I’d like to be dipped in ink and stamped onto rice paper, as Molly Tenzer does with the roadkill she finds on New York City streets.
The lineup at this year’s DOC NYC, which returns to venues throughout the city from November 11 through November 29, offers many reflections on this question. | Anna Lee
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A Hyperallergic Halloween
Join us on October 28 in Brooklyn, NY for an evening of spooky cocktails, devilish delights, an art-themed costume contest, and more.
From Our Critics
Hrag Vartanian
Cannupa Hanska Luger: American Traditional at Garth Greenan Gallery
"The artist sets aside the participatory, ceramics-heavy projects he’s best known for and arrives at something more declarative — a synthesis of wood, ink, and archive that is his strongest work yet."
Channelle Chevelle Russell
Deana Lawson: Edge Control at Gagosian
"Lawson’s newest series provokes a fraught ethical question: Who truly has the power to authorize or deny access?"
Gregory Volk
Tanya Merrill: Land animal, house animal at 303 Gallery
"Merrill decisively challenges a pervasive anthropocentric worldview that deems humans superior and animals lesser. She foregrounds local animals as sentient beings with their own motivations and desires."
John Yau
David Reed: Terrible Idea at Rodder
"For more than five decades, he has continued to explore the brushstroke in all its possibilities … In these explorations, one can track his pursuit of color interactions as well as his dialogues with other artists from different epochs."
New Poster Exhibition Showcases the Importance and Impact of Indigenous Designers
“Designed to Be Red: Native American & Indigenous Poster Works” is now on view at Poster House in New York City through February 21, 2027.
Features
Let’s Give a Round of A-Paws to These Tompkins Dog Parade Participants
Santa Paws, Vincent van Doge, and the papal Pup Leo were among this year’s fierce competition. | Anna Lee
Read MoreWhy Pageant Is Suddenly All the Rage
In a world skewed toward artifice, the East Williamsburg performance space’s commitment to confronting, rather than escaping, one’s conditions in art feels like a renaissance. | Phillip Pyle
Read MoreThe 98-Year-Old Pop Art Queen Behind an Iconic Lichtenstein Billboard
Ahead of her memoir’s release, we talk to Joan Kron about Andy Warhol, beating Sidney Janis to the punch, and why she calls herself a “renegade housewife” of Pop Art. | Isabella Segalovich
Read MoreOpen Studios
Sunset Park, Where You Can Still Get an Artist Studio for Under $600
At the Brooklyn neighborhood’s Open Studios festival, artists showed off the works they make in converted factories, warehouses, and three-story walk-ups | Aaron Short
Read MoreGowanus Open Studios Turns 30
This year’s iteration of the artistic assembly was a love letter to the neighborhood and its craftsmanship amid an era of remediation, development, and gentrification. | Rhea Nayyar
Read MoreRed Hook Open Studios Rises From the Ashes
Dispelling fears that last year’s blaze pushed artists away for good, this year’s edition proved that the Brooklyn neighborhood’s artistic community is as strong as ever. | Aaron Short
Read MoreA Bushwick Kid at Bushwick Open Studios
During my first visit to the annual event, I found towering paintings that explore our inner child, diasporic tributes to Filipina culture, and light-filled portraits of an artist’s trans community. | Danielle De Jesus
Read MoreNews
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan and the Musée du Louvre in Paris are joining forces to co-organize a major exhibition exploring Greco-Roman and biblical influences throughout Rembrandt’s practice.
- NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arts in Medicine department wraps up conservation work on three New Deal-era murals and a John Rhoden sculpture held at its Harlem hospital.
- Three New York City agencies unveil a new $128 million multi-service center in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood, featuring an extensive public art commission by local artist and community educator Jazmine Hayes.
What Else is Happening?
- Pablo Helguera needs your help in building Fonoteca, a new public vinyl library for Latinx music! This Wednesday at CUE Art, Helguera is trading limited-edition works and original drawings for donated or loaned vinyls across salsa, bolero, cumbia, merengue, tango, Latin jazz, and more. (Wed Oct 21) [cueartfoundation.org]
- This Thursday at Smack Mellon, performance artist Asia Stewart becomes a table in “any experience with men and alcohol,” an experiential endurance work dissecting service and power through audience participation. (Thu Oct 22) [smackmellon.org]
- Of Life, Liberty, and a Pursuit of Happiness is a one-day symposium at Brooklyn Museum, in which participants including Sky Hopinka, Viva Ruiz, Qween Jean, Dean Majd, Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez, Mariame Kaba, and Chelsea Manning reckon with the most urgent issues in our sociopolitical landscape. (Fri Oct 23) [creativetime.org]
- The Center for Art, Research, and Alliances is hosting a launch party for the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop's inaugural publication, Common Ground, celebrating master printer Mohammad Omer Khalil's earlier namesake exhibition. (Sun Oct 25) [rbpmw-efanyc.org]
- At the Brooklyn Academy of Music, queer theorist Jack Halberstram, who authored Anarchitecture After Everything (2026), and Avgi Saketopoulou will discuss the radical reenvisioning of the body and the structures and systems it operates in through the lens of transness. (Tue Oct 27) [bam.org]
- It's still early days for On Self-Respect, a group exhibition at Land to Sea cafe showcasing a variety of work on identity, self-perception, and memory, rooted in the namesake 1961 essay by Joan Didion. On view through December 18! [instagram.com]
ICYMI
Hyperallergic Fall 2026 New York Art Guide
From Brancusi’s modernism to Krasner and Pollock’s midcentury stylings to Arthur Jafa’s contemporary lens, there’s something for everyone this season.
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