The Last Hurray Closing / Opening Party. A PointB Worklodge Exhibition

Brooklyn, NY (December 11, 2015) - PointB is proud to announce the premiere of its’ Virtual Exhibition Space. The project will be launched simultaneously on pointb.org and at The Last Hurray Closing / Opening Party at PointB’s physical home for the last 20 years, 71 North 7th Street, Williamsburg Brooklyn. With the building due for demolition to make way for condos in January 2016, this will be the last opportunity to come and celebrate our past, as well as to engage with plans for our future.

“As we use this opportunity to plan for an even more internationally networked model for PointB”, says PointB founder, Mark Parrish. “The Virtual Exhibition Space is our way to preserve the memory of the actual space that will shortly be lost, as we work towards our long-term dream of connecting the greater global art, design and technology communities to a network of worklodges all over the world. Exhibitions will showcase the work of our creative global ‘worktraveler’ community, inside the architectural space with which they became so creatively connected, now realized in virtual form.” PointB recently announced that plans are in the works to establish a new worklodge in Lisbon, Portugal, and plans are afoot to continue to develop new locations in and around New York, and in multiple cities across the world. Parrish adds: “Until 2015, our Brooklyn location was a little bit like a secret club behind a blank façade: not so well known to many New Yorkers but known to artists all over the world, the doors hadn’t been open to the public because until this year, the studios were not designed to show work, but to make it.”

For the launch party, PointB has developed three virtual exhibitions with the themes: Discovery, Network, Transcendence, which will run in thirty-minute increments throughout the evening on the walls at PointB Worklodge Brooklyn, playing with the ideas that it’s now possible to open three exhibitions in the one space over one evening. The shows will continue to exist online forever. “These thematic exhibitions are intended to both document work developed by PointB’s international community of artists while simultaneously providing a peer-to-peer platform to sustain this community into the future, by promoting the exchange of creative ideas, as has happened at PointB throughout its history.” says Amanda McDonald Crowley, curatorial advisor on the project. “It is the first step towards developing a dynamic platform of future online exhibitions: as PointB also develops new physical locations, it provides a way to showcase new works and to keep conversations alive.”

On December 19 at 6pm, PointB will continue its long tradition of celebrating the holiday season with the 20th Annual Tree-trimming and ornament-making party over food and wine. In addition to showcasing the Virtual Exhibition Space (online and on the walls at PointB Brooklyn), the evening will include the release of the PointB Documentary and Q&A with filmmaker Sarah Tricker, virtual walking tours on Google Maps, music and dancing!

EXHIBITION THEMES:

Exhibition_Transcendence:
Transcendence implies the exploration of new beginnings, rebirth, revival, or the action of flourishing after a decline. For this theme, we are interested in work that explores what it means to rise above something challenging to a super-conscious state. What might expanded futures look like?

Exhibition_Discovery:
The act of discovery involves the exploration of knowledge as well as the unknown. For this thematic exhibition, artists’ work addresses travel, nomadism, exploration and discovery. As we move through space and time, how do we explore and reflect on life’s journey, how do we identify the new or the unknowable?

Exhibition_Network:
The PointB community is a network that is more than a sum of its parts. For this inaugural PointB Virtual Exhibition, artists have submitted works that address the idea of rhizomatic development, and that explore the idea that a network has nodes with dense connections. How do communities grow from a network; how do nodes become portal points; and how are artists transmitters of ideas and connections?

Exhibitions Feature the work of:

Carlos Aquilino, Jana Astanov, Sandra Becker, Sue Beyer, Louise Blyton, Gene Buser. James Carman, Luzia Castaneda, Claudia Christoffel, Lauren Comito, Maud Cotter, Hugo Curti, Jacob Dahlstrup, Uday Dhar, Maria Dorner, Hilda Ekeroth, Michael Fritsch, Jan Gilbert, HC Gilje, Erika Gofton, Eugenia Gortchakova, Elizabeth Gower, Anita Groener, Libby Heaney, Gavin Hogg, Hamu Isen, Svetlana Jovanovic, Ienke Kastelein, Michiel Knaven, Stefan Kürten, Susana Lopez Fernandez, Jennifer Macklem, Peter Martensen, Patrick Meagher, John R Neeson, Serge Onnen, Ardan Ozmenoglu, Cat Poljski, Manuel Quintana-Martelo, Arp Raph, Antje Rieck, Joerg Schwalfenberg, Julia Schwalfenberg, Andy Slater, Kari Soinio, Patricio Tasisto, Ralf Tekaat, Antoine Toniolo, Cornelius Völker, Andy Wauman, Cleo Wilkinson, Heidi Yardley, Claire Zakiewicz

Organized by:
Mark Parrish, Lauren Comito, Amanda McDonald Crowley, Sebastian Bach

About PointB
Founded in 1996 by artist, designer and architect Mark Parrish, PointB’s mission has been to enhance and enable the mobile lifestyles of creative professionals by providing flexible, ready-to-use work and living spaces and developing a global network for interdisciplinary, cross-cultural exchange. This was accomplished through the provision of a suite of 8 minimalist and comfortable live-work studio spaces in Williamsburg, which have been inhabited by an ever-changing group of visiting artists. Over 1,000 visual artists, writers, filmmakers, performers, photographers and thinkers have been in residence at PointB, many repeatedly, in stays of 1 to 4 months. PointB has always been about access to the city.

The PointB vision is a world enriched by the collaboration between global and local creative professionals questioning and transcending their familiar viewpoints while immersed in the social, scientific, and culturally enlightening challenges and inspiration of the moment.