The Invisble Dog Art Center

Spent last Saturday evening at an opening at the new(-ish) art space in Cobble Hill, The Invisible Dog Art Center. A fascinating find! It's simultaneously sleek, exciting and tongue-in-cheek. Let me explain.

According to the center's website, the Frenchman/theater professional/recent New York transplant Lucien Zayan discovered the building at 51 Bergen Street in 2008, and, with the support of its owners, converted the rundown former factory into an art space. It's a beautiful, stripped-down, high-ceilinged building, still very much in the raw state of its 20th century production history.

If you know the Smith Street area in Cobble Hill, you'll know that stumbling upon a rustic gallery run by a charmingly ironic group of artists is something of an aberration there. (In recent years, Smith Street has come to personify precious, boutique-filled, fine-dining Brooklyn.) This place is more Bushwick chic than anything else.

"Prana"

"Work/Space"

Last weekend's opening welcomed two new exhibits, Chris Klapper and Jen Lukker's light sculpture "Prana" and Julien Gardair's projection installation "Camera Locus 2." It also opened its fascinating working studio spaces to public viewing in a project called "Work/Space."

Best yet, the art was largely interactive, and during the open studio, many of the working artists were on hand to chat about their work - be it sinewy wire sculptures, life scenes in miniature, or charcoal slashes on brick. If you're looking to have a very different evening from the usual downtown gallery-going scene, head to this place and sniff around.


Addendum: What did the factory at 51 Bergen originally produce, you ask? None other than the famous gag gift, the Invisible Dog Walking Leash! OK, so I still don't really get this joke. Apparently, however, in 2009 a flash mob of some 2,000 Brooklynites walked their invisible pets through the streets as part of an Improv Everywhere event, egged on by none other than the Art Center folks themselves.