“E.T.” is a temporary artist collective, comprised of seven artists who have united forces ‘to take over the art scene’ in Berlin for a short moment of time. “E.T.” will be working on site at Okazi Gallery and will be also holding events on behalf of Month of Performance Art, in Berlin.

The root of their collaboration will be in the method of the ‘exquisite corpse’, a technique invented by the Surrealists in the early 1900’s, which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to the composition in a sequence either by following a rule or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed. “E.T.” uses this process as the starting point for their collaboration, which began several months before arrival to Berlin.

“E.T.” is also a participant of Month of Performance Art –Berlin, a month-long platform dedicated to highlighting, promoting and interconnecting the wealth and diversity of independent, contemporary and experimental performance art practices thriving in Berlin. E.T. is offering “Esprit De Corps”, a series of events to promote, encourage and motivate all ages to become physically active as a means to participate in Art.

The members of “E.T”. are Øh1Øm1ke (NYC), Yannis Angelopoulos (Berlin), Laura Arena (NYC), Bittertang (NYC and Guadalajara), Stephanie Homa (London), TJ Hospodar (NYC), and Tina Schott (Antwerp).

Opening Ceremony of “Esprit de Corps” will commence at 7pm on May 18th at Okazi Gallery. All the people of Berlin are encouraged to attend and participate. The opening ceremony will include various performances and programs will be handed out listing “Esprit De Corps” events happening at various times throughout Berlin.

For more information visit luckygallery.com/EspritDeCorps email laura@luckygallery.com or info@okazigallery.com.

Lucky Gallery invites you to our first fundraiser/art event called Pierogi Party on Saturday, May 12, 2012, from 2 – 6 pm, at 136 Lawrence Street in Brooklyn.

Pierogi Party will feature a feast of fresh pierogi made by Lucky Gallery staff and artists on site, live music, live art, and a silent auction. Guests will get to taste a variety of pierogi, both meat and vegetarian available at different filling stations.

Pierogi Party will raise funds to support Lucky Gallery’s first international exhibition and performances in Berlin this May 2012. Lucky Gallery formed an international art collective called “E.T.”, comprised of seven multidisciplinary artists from New York City, Berlin, London, and Antwerp. “E.T.” will exhibit at the Okazi Gallery and are participants in Month of Performance-Berlin. Three of the NYC-based artists from “E.T.” will be participating in this event, Øh1Øm1ke, Bittertang, and TJ Hospodar.

Music will be provided by Comadante Zero, Tim Shipman, Marshall Moran, and DJ Spacey Sissick.

Special performance “Color Cycle1″ provided by John Bonafede.

Artists participating in the silent auction:
John Bonafede
Kate Fauvell
Jonnie Flatbush
Diana Ho
Hannah Kasper
Kate Murray
Adam Sperling
Sam Strzelec
Heather Phelps-Lipton
Petros Pappalas
Liz Tomasetti
Elizabeth Turnock

Business sponsors:
Brooklyn Icehouse
Dry Dock Wines + Spirits
Kulushkat
Max Piersol’s Stoked Wear
Perelandra Natural Food Center
Raaka Chocolate
Red Hook Lobster Pound
Sixpoint Brewery

Please join us for this festive event, there will be a sliding scale of $10-20 donation at the door, which will allow guests access to food, drink, and entertainment. For more info email amy@luckygallery.com.

Lucky Gallery and collective members of “E.T.” are hosting a Pierogi Party at 136 Lawrence Street in Downtown Brooklyn, on Saturday, May 12, 2012, 2 – 6pm. “E.T.” is an art collective, formed by Laura Arena, artist and director of Lucky Gallery, comprised of eight multidisciplinary artists from New York City, Berlin, Guadalajara, London, and Antwerp, who have united forces ‘to take over the art scene’ in Berlin, Germany for a short moment of time. “E.T.” will be hosting numerous events in Berlin as part of Performance Month in May. Øh1Øm1ke, TJ Hospodar, and Michael Loverich (Bittertang) are three NYC-based artists from the collective participating in the Pierogi Party. For more information on “E.T.” exhibition read the press release.

“The preparation and cooking of the the pierogi is a collective effort between myself and the artists” say Amy Weng of Lucky Gallery. “The audience experience each participant’s unique interpretation of the pierogi in this performance.”

The Pierogi Party will feature live preparation of handmade fresh pierogi, live music and art, a silent auction of artwork and gifts from local Brooklyn businesses and artists. Øh1Øm1ke, TJ Hospodar, Michael Loverich, and Amy Weng of Lucky Gallery, will each produce fresh pierogi of different fillings at designated stations on site. Meat and vegetarian pierogi will be available for purchase. Music will be provided by Timothy Shipman, Marshall Moran, and Comandante Zero along with other musical guests yet to be announced.

The collective at 136 Lawrence Street has generously opened its doors to us to host the Pierogi Party. This special space emanates creativity and is easily accessible from anywhere in the City. The seven writers, musicians, innovative thinkers, and mind, body & heart healers, who live there cooperatively own and run a bed and breakfast out of their home called 3B. For more information, check out www.3bbrooklyn.com.

Please join us on Saturday, May 12 for a day full of festivities from 2-6pm. Tickets can be purchased at the event for samplings from the different pierogi stations. Drinks and food will be available.

All funds raised will help support travel expenses for “E.T.” participating artists to Berlin and gallery support. More information about this exhibition and performances can be found at www.luckygallery.com.

Animamus Salon will feature the work of twelve artists, Karla Carballar, Andy Cavatorta, TJ Hospodar, Jason Martin, Tessa Mauclere, Mihaeko, Kathryn Moise, Mariette Papic, Max Piersol, and Justin Orvis Steimer including a performance by The Push Pops, a radical, queer feminist art collective, and an interactive performance by artist Laura Lee Gulledge.

Celebrate April Fools Day with Animamus, a night full of performance and presentations. Please visit https://www.facebook.com/AnimamusArtSalon for Animamus information. For more information regarding this event email laura@luckygallery.com.

Lucky Gallery invites you to a book release party for Here in Red Hook, a photography book from Red Hook photographer, Andy Vernon Jones, at 360 Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, on Thursday, November 17, 2011, 7 – 10pm. After a long hiatus Lucky gallery is pleased to be hosting this event in the community of which the book reflects and having this opportunity to work again with artist Vernon-Jones.

Here in Red Hook presents a body of work that Vernon-Jones has been working on for nearly five years and presents the series in its entirety for the first time. The book is composed of photos taken in the streets, alleys and abandoned lots of the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook and combine a documentary approach with an art-photography sensibility. The photos express the beauty and struggle of life in Red Hook. Many of the portraits are of young people who are at the cusp of adulthood; their gazes show their toughness and their hope for the future.

Vernon-Jones manages to capture the many layers of the neighborhood that the average person does not see traversing the main street. There is a sense of nostalgia and romanticism in this work a sense of timelessness; it is hard to tell the time frame of when this work was made. He is so at ease with his subjects and the neighborhood he unobtrusively captures their spirits and weaves together a narrative, through desolate landscapes and candid portraits, of one of the most unique neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Red Hook.

The party will include food, drink, music, and book signing with the artist. There will also be limited editions of photos for sale of Vernon-Jones imagery from Here in Red Hook. For more information email laura@luckygallery.com.

This event is sponsored by, The Good Fork, Steve’s Key Lime Pies, Sixpoint Brewery, Baked, Brooklyn Ice House, Esser Vineyards, and Breuckelen Distilling.

And special! special! thanks to Scott Pfaffman for the use of 360 Van Brunt Street!

The installation conveys the progressive nature of western technology juxtaposed with the organic world and the affect it has on today’s modern lifestyle. It questions the benefits and detriments of the Western world’s techno-scientific advancements in relation to the natural world. Presented in a lighthearted fashion, the installations borrow and relate to the pace, aesthetic and feel of contemporary Western media.

The installation includes sculpture, video, music, painting, poetry, and photography, from artists Benjamin Ayers, Jeremy Holmes, Michael Kondel, Emily Gosweiler, Timothy Shipman, Andrew Rowley, A.M. Breakups, Krystal Kaler, Claire Dickinson, Patrick Lamothe, Ani Sevag, Kelsey Bozler and Kipton Hinsdale. The installation transforms the Lucky Gallery space to create discussion within the community about the ongoing topic.

“Arc Angle” is directed and curated by Yagil, in collaboration with Amy Weng.

On June 19th from 7-10PM, Lucky Gallery is pleased to host opening reception for “Front End to Back End” a Lucky Gallery Artist in Residence Exhibition, a group show presenting the work of three Lucky Gallery artists residents, Maria Baraybar, Stephanie Homa, and Kathleen Murray and special guest artist Hiroshi Shafer.

In keeping with our mission statement, Lucky Gallery’s Artist in Residence program provides affordable studio space and an opportunity for artists to interact with the community and with each other, sharing creativity and ideas in a supportive environment, and an opportunity to showcase their work in a gallery setting.

“Front End and Back End” a computer science and technology concept, is a generalized term that refers to the initial and the end stages of a process. The “Front End” is responsible for collecting input in various forms from the user and processing it to conform to a specification the “Back End” can use. The “Front End” is an interface between the user and the “Back End.”

“Lucky Gallery’s resident studio behind the gallery is the ‘Front End’ in this analogy,” says Laura Arena the Director of Lucky Gallery. “The studio is where the artists are creating and collaborating in preparation for the ‘Back End’, which is the actual gallery itself. Even our guest artist, Hiroshi Shafer will have his studio webcasted with the other artist’s working spaces. The exhibition in Lucky Gallery will act as the interface between the public and the artist.”

Maria Baraybar’s works for this show involve a juxtaposition of her own poetry and Artie, her comic-style drawings. Her search for meaning and absurdity shares one space whether it is comfortable or distressing to the human mind.

Stephanie Homa’s work aims to explore the endless rigid things that spook her with their insignificance, lightness and disappearance, carrying the simple title “reality”. Her practice as a painter transforms thought to a sort of visual copy, revealing emotions and ideas that are neither right nor wrong, mean everything and nothing and in the end, create a fraction of the whole, like a missing piece of a puzzle.

Kathleen Murray’s prints and paintings are all of urban environments with the benefit of the absence of people. Murray re-interprets urban structures as clean, crisp landscapes of muted colors and abstracted lines, breaking them down to their simplest components (a square, a rectangle, a curved line) then rebuilding them, removing whatever feels unnecessary. In the end, we are left with a simple structure that can be understood at its most basic levels.

Hiroshi Shafer, a Japanese artist now living in Brooklyn, is the guest artist for the resident exhibition. His conceptual use of video, sculpture, the human body and movement compliments the resident’s artist’s two dimensional works. Shafer’s most recent work “Your Future Camera” mixes playfulness, fantasy and function, with the debut of his wearable and functional camera obscura.

A special Lucky Gallery evening featuring paintings, words, music and libations.

Saturday evening, May 15th, from 6-9PM, Lucky Gallery hosts an evening that will be a feast for your senses. See fresh new works from painters Valerie Kelemen and Maureen O’Leary, both DC transplants now working in New York. At 6pm, hear the words of six New York-based writers, reading poetry and fiction, Elizabeth Chakkappan, Julie Novacek Godsoe, Travis Godsoe, Susanna Kohn, Michael Novacek, and Michele Serros. At 8pm, because you are so Lucky, take in the guitar work of famed world jazz composer and performer Francis Jacob. All the while drink deep the taste of sparkling prosecco and feel the good vibes around you.

The concept behind the exhibition is to introduce to the public the wide range of artistic capabilities of local artists and to provide an atmosphere to encourage the exchange of ideas between artists and the public. The artists’ production is presented through different mediums including photography, drawing, video, book making, collage, painting, contemporary crafts and sculpture.

“Made in Red Hook” is curated by gallery director and participating artist Laura Arena and Ana Bogdanovic, who plan to transform Lucky Gallery into the traditional setting reminiscent of Salon de Paris, the annual public exhibition of the French Royal Academy in the 18th and 19th century that displayed the actual artistic production and presented the cities most established artists at the time.

Artists’ works will be exhibited floor-to-ceiling and the artists and visitors are invited to spend time in our seating area where there will be literary materials and videos to view.

Its our anniversary, it is Brooklyn Open Studios, it is “Made in Red Hook” – get yourself here get LUCKY in Red Hook!