Dedalus Foundation & Industry City's Hurricane Sandy Exhibit Opens 10/20

To commemorate the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy and celebrate the resiliency of New York City's arts community, which was hit especially hard by the storm, the Dedalus Foundation and Industry City present a nearly 100,000-square-foot exhibition, including more than 300 artists, titled Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Year 1, on view October 20 through December 15, 2013. The exhibition is curated by artist, writer, and publisher of The Brooklyn Rail, and independent curator, Phong Bui, who previously served as a curatorial advisor to MoMA PS1.

The exhibition will take place at Industry City, located at 220 36th Street in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, a historic manufacturing and innovation center. Industry City has been involved with Hurricane Sandy relief since Sandy hit. At the time of the storm, Industry City, which itself suffered extensive basement flooding and infrastructure damage, donated the use of 18,000 square feet of space to volunteer conservators who worked on the recovery of hundreds of works of art.

During the course of the exhibition there will be many events, including music and dance performances, screenings of documentary films, panel discussions regarding the conservation of works of art and preventative measures with regard to future natural disasters, and readings by poets who have been commissioned to write about their experience of Sandy.

Participating artists include Shoja Azari, Rachel Beach, Rackstraw Downes, Deborah Kass, Alex Katz, Ben Keating, Ronnie Landfield, Josiah McElheny, Chris Martin, Jonas Mekas, Donald Moffett, Shirin Neshat, Rona Pondick, Joanna Pousette-Dart, Alexander Ross, Michelle Segre, Richard Serra, William Schuck, Mark di Suvero, Gary Stephan, SUPERFLEX, Daniel Turner, Lee Tribe, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Lisa Yuskavage, Nicole Wittenberg, and Joe Zucker. The complete list of artists, events and viewing hours, including holiday closures, is available atwww.cometogethersandy.com.  

Many of the works in the exhibition will be for sale, with a portion of the proceeds to be donated to a charitable fund benefiting both Sandy relief and arts education in the local community. The Dedalus Foundation will match the amount raised, up to $25,000.

"The Dedalus Foundation is proud to be engaged in helping to bring together the New York arts community after last year's devastating events," said Jack Flam, President of the Dedalus Foundation. "We are especially pleased to be working together with the extraordinary Phong Bui, who is so deeply committed to artists working in so many different mediums, and with Industry City, whose involvement with relief from Sandy goes back to the aftermath of the storm. This remarkable exhibition is the beginning of a long-term collaboration between Dedalus and Industry City, which will include exhibitions, educational programs, and various cultural events."

"In the year since Sandy wreaked havoc, the many artists who lost use of their studios or significant parts of their life's work, have struggled to recover," said Phong Bui, the curator of the exhibition. "This event is about the arts community, the Sunset Park neighborhood, and the city as a whole coming together in the spirit of solidarity to celebrate resiliency through art and expression."

"This exhibition is a cathartic moment for both Industry City and the Sunset Park community which sustained major damage during Sandy," said Andrew Kimball, CEO of Industry City. "Given the exhibition's theme of resiliency, Industry City was a good fit to host this event. We are proud to bring people together under our roof for this significant commemoration of a storm that truly impacted us all."

The exhibition marks the beginning of an ongoing partnership between the Dedalus Foundation and Industry City. After this inaugural event, exhibitions and educational initiatives at Industry City will be programmed by the Dedalus Foundation on an ongoing basis.

Photos by Taylor Dafoe