“Something Possible Everywhere: Pier 34, NYC 1983–84” Exhibition

Weinberg, Jonathan and Sterzing, Andreas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2118-8589 (2016) “Something Possible Everywhere: Pier 34, NYC 1983–84” Exhibition. NY Art Beat, ?. ISSN 0000

Text (Review in 'New York Art Beat' of the exhibition "Something Possible Everywhere: Pier 34, NYC 1983-84") 479C - Published Version Restricted to Repository staff only Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (35kB) | Request a copy

Abstract / Summary

Exhibition curated by Jonathan Weinberg
Featuring the photographs of Andreas Sterzing
Something Possible Everywhere: Pier 34, NYC 1983–84 is the first exhibition to revisit the extraordinary place and time when David Wojnarowicz, Mike Bidlo and many of their friends [...], effectively seized a city-owned pier and filled it with art.
Andreas Sterzing’s remarkable photographs, along with related images by Peter Hujar, Marisela La Grave, and Dirk Rowntree, document how these artists turned the Ward Line shipping terminal at the foot of Canal Street, into a series of makeshift art galleries and studios.
As rumors spread in the spring of 1983 of what was happening on the waterfront, Bidlo and Wojnarowicz released a statement in the press that explained their resistance to the gallery system and the aim to create an opportunity for anyone “to explore any image in any material on any surface they chose. It was something no gallery would tolerate…” Above all, they claimed that Pier 34 forged a community: “People who lived in this city for years said it was the first time they experienced fulfillment in terms of contact with the art scene and strangers.”

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