I love Knowlton Street. I always have. Ever since I first sold my old copper gutters at a scrap place there and became entranced by its Dickensian atmosphere.
I don’t think Knowlton Street in Bridgeport has changed much since Civil War days. There are lots of areas in the city like that. Not because of any preservation effort, but because no one ever valued the land enough to tear down and build something new.
Which is good, at least in the case of Knowlton Street and the building that, after some false starts that I won’t even get into, is going to house Eileen Walsh’s next gallery space. Yes, The Gallery at Black Rock has spun off The Gallery at Black Rock at Knowlton Street.
OK, let’s just agree to call the new space 305 Knowlton, shall we? I know Eileen knows how to show art in a bigger space — her Crescent Street shows have proven that. What better use for a disused industrial space than to display art. (My friend Maxine Greenberg tells me that the girders on the first floor were taken from the Third Avenue El. The building housed a car factory that built the earliest automobiles. Maxine says she found one of the Knowlton plant’s cars in London, still running.)
305 Knowlton’s grand opening will be the “Comix” show, looking at artists influenced by the comic-strip aesthetic, 6-9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12.
The announcement, about both the show and the building:
The influence of comics and cartooning has had a far reaching impact on popular culture. Artists who were raised in the generations of the fifties and sixties were raised ingesting the ubiquitous… images of Warner Brothers, Marvel Comics, and Walt Disney. Younger artists who were raised in the seventies and eighties were often exposed to a steady diet of cartoons and comic images, which could hardly avoid influencing their work and their style as artists.
Artists manifest this influence in many ways from the literal, to more subtle choice of color, composition, and even developing characters in their fine artwork. The show comix will seek to explore differing ways in which artists utilize comic imagery and techniques in their art. The shows mediums will range from Drawing to collage and 3-D sculpture.
Some artists included in the show are Ronnie Rysz, Diane DiMassa, Mark DeRosa, David Mel, Charlie Walsh, Liz Squillace, Ricky Mestre, KHyal, EFitz, Allen Wittert and Vito Bonnano.
The show is a joint venture between The Gallery at Black Rock and the 305 Knowlton Street building. It will be held in the building’s new gallery space, which is the future home of the Gallery at Black Rock.
The show will be continue to be open Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 13 and 14, from noon until 5 p.m. Tours of the newly renovated 305 Knowlton Street Artist Lofts, as well as space for arts-related businesses, will also be available during this time.
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