KICKSTARTER PROJECT: GRAND & LORIMER

Grand and Lorimer-Photos of Brooklyn's Art and Music Scene 1997-2005.
by Emily Wilson
An eight-year photographic history of Williamsburg, Brooklyn's vastly influential creative community during its defining years of 1997-2005.

BROOKLYNs 'THE NATIONAL' w/ MATTHEW RITCHIE COLLAB AT B.A.M.

Quoting The National: "Hi everyone! We wanted to let you know that tickets have gone on-sale today for the "The Long Count" at Brooklyn Academy of Music on October 28th, 30th and 31st. The Long Count is a collaboration between Aaron and Bryce Dessner and the artist Matthew Ritchie. The 70-minute piece features an animated film by Ritchie, a 14 piece ensemble and songs developed with Matt Berninger, Kim & Kelley Deal (Pixies/ Breeders) and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond). The piece is loosely based on the Mayan creation myth Popol Vuh which features twin brothers. We hope you'll come check it out! You can find information and tickets here."

Quoting BAM: "In an inspired collision of creative worlds, three inexhaustibly original artists—brothers Bryce Dessner and Aaron Dessner of indie rock royalty The National and omnivorous visual art phenomenon Matthew Ritchie—combine talents to create a song-filled myth about the beginning of time. A feast of images, instrumentals, and songs thick with primordial mystery, The Long Count pairs Ritchie's protean forms with a twelve-piece orchestra and the Dessners' gothic mix of electric and orchestral sounds."

BAM
30 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn, NY
11217-1486
718.636.4100

OLDEST (or at least one of) GRAFFITI ARTIST: DAIN AT BROOKLYNITE GALLERY

Hey, New York! Dain aka 'I AM DAIN' is back with a show at Brooklynite Gallery this September 2009. If you know DAIN's work, then you know this geeezer is the Original OG Graffiti artist. When I say OG, I mean OG. DAINs been graffiti-ing since the 1950s. No joke!

Brooklynite Gallery, 334 Malcolm X Blvd, Brooklyn, NY, 11233, 347.405.5976

WORLDS YOUNGEST GRAFFITI ARTIST: BROOKLYN

Dig the video that Brooklynite Gallery posted. Lil' Ruby shows y'all how graf artists roll in Brooklyn!



Brooklynite Gallery, 334 Malcolm X Blvd, Brooklyn, NY 11233, 347.405.5976

DASH SNOW: NYC ARISTIST, 27 AND DEAD

Dash Snow, NYC rock-star photographer & artist, dead of a heroine overdose at 27. He was also a graffiti writer (aka SACER) who ran with the infamous NYC IRAK CREW.

"His death has shocked anyone who had any contact with him or knew his work. The drugs were all there in the artwork (and the rumours), but so was a sense of real beauty and honesty. It wasn't necessarily the aesthetic of his work, but its independence that made it so influential. He simply didn't give a shit." * guardian.co.uk

I AM DAIN: THE VIDEO

A behind the scenes look at DAIN. Thanks goes to the Brooklynite Gallery for putting this video together.

DAIN: OLD SCHOOL GRAFFITI

A few images from NYCs OG graffiti artist DAIN. Brooklyn's DAIN has been doing graffiti since the 50's and has recently shown at the Brooklynite Gallery.

THE GREAT DAIN: ABOUT AS OLD SCHOOL GRAFFITI AS YOU CAN GET

Dain, mad props to the OG Brooklyn Graffiti artist.

DARK DAYS: NY SUBWAY MOLE PEOPLE

Deeply moving and surprisingly entertaining, Dark Days is an award-winning documentary by Marc Singer, who abandoned his life on the outside to live in the tunnels beneath New York City for two years. It is an eye-opening experience that shatters ... Full Descriptionthe myths of homelessness by revealing a thriving underground community and capturing their resilience and strength as they struggle to survive.

DARK DAYS, a groundbreaking documentary from British director Marc Singer with a moving soundtrack from DJ Shadow, shows a way of life that is unimaginable to most people. The film focuses on a group of homeless people that live deep underground in an abandoned New York City railroad tunnel. During the daytime they scavenge for food on the streets of New York. At night, they retreat to the tunnel where they have built homes out of scrap metal, plastic, and plywood. They have electricity, furniture, and working kitchens, not to mention community, comradery, and the support of each other. Some of them have lived in the tunnel for 25 years. Shot in vivid black and white, capturing both the grit (chicken wire, concrete walls, all precisely detailed) and the honesty (the residents have hit rock bottom and admit it) of the tunnel, Singer's film consists of candid conversations with tunnel residents, who are intelligent, funny, optimistic, and above all, human. One man confesses that he once had a wife and a child, and that he lost both to his drug addiction (crack cocaine), while one teenage boy living in the tunnel explains that he was abused by his family in Florida and simply ran away, finding life in the tunnel more redeeming. In the film's emotional, understated conclusion, Singer turns to New York City's Coalition for the Homeless for help.

Theatrical release: August 25, 2000 Filmed on location in a tunnel underneath Penn Station in New York City. Singer, who was working a regular day job in the fashion industry and had no prior film making experience, became fascinated by the people living in the tunnel and decide to move underground himself. After two years, he convinced his friends--the tunnel residents--to help him make the film, which was done entirely with borrowed equipment and donated film. Because of the extreme conditions of the tunnel--pitch blackness and rat infestation, primarily--director Marc Singer had the tunnel's residents serve as the crew for the making of the film, as he decided they were most familiar with the tunnel's terrain. When Amtrak tried to evict the residents of the tunnel, it was Singer who intervened, going to the Coalition for the Homeless for help. They cut a deal with the federal government and got funding to relocate the tunnel's residents. Each of them was given an apartment and a job in a work program. DARK DAYS was named Best Documentary of 2000 by the Village Voice and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.