ALONE ONE's blog – AloneOne.com

I got a few pieces and some installation in..

“Work To Do”
112 Greene St, NYC (SoHo).
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 26, 2009 6-10pm
 

The Combine and Royce Bannon of NY’s Endless Love Crew are co-curating a benefit event March 26 at newly opened 112 Greene St. Studio space in NY’s Soho section. 

The theme of the show is “Work To Do,” inspired by President Obama. 
The proceeds will be donated to NYC Public High School art programs. 

Afrika Bambaata and Soulsonic Force will be performing their new song at the show’s opening.

112 Greene St Studio space was one of the first conceptual art galleries in the 1970’s, showing artists like Gordon Matta-Clarke, Chuck Close, Richard Serra, Dennis Oppenheim and Joseph Beuys. It later moved and was renamed White Columns but the lower level of the original space remained and became the legendary Greene Street Recording Studios where many of the seminal hip hop records of the 1980’s were recorded. 

Right now it’s 4000 sq ft of raw space with eleven-foot ceilings.

A LITTLE MORE HISTORY ON THE SPOT..

Before Greene Street Recording, 112 Greene Street was the home of the 112 Workshop, a collective that began in 1970 when Jeffrey Lew, an artist with boundless energy and charisma, opened his raw ground floor and basement space at 112 Greene Street in Soho, to a loose knit community of artists, known and unknown.

The artists had complete control over their shows and the freedom to do anything to the space itself. What resulted was an anarchic flow of installations and events that acted like a magnet, bringing in dancers, musicians, poets, filmmakers, video and performance artists. Conventional distinctions between art making and art exhibiting naturally dissolved. Disciplines were shared and new forms evolved in the casual but charged ambience of 112’s decrepit, elegant space.

The artists who participated, reads like a who’s who of contemporary artists including: Joseph Beuys, Chris Burden, Philip Glass, Dennis Oppenheim, Gordon Matta-Clark, Richard Serra, Marisol, James Rosenquist, Italo Scanga, William Wegman, Laurie Anderson, Billy Apple,  Jacki Apple, Al Loving, Kate Millet, Richard Mock, Michael Balog, Chuck Close, Larry Rivers, Patrick Ireland, Joanne Leonard to name but a very, very few.

Eventually the 112 Workshop became White Columns gallery.

In 1980, Steve Loeb opened Greene Street Recording – a state of the art recording studio in the heart of Soho. While most recording studios were located in busy commercial districts, such as Midtown Manhattan, Steve bucked that trend by moving into a location where the streets were virtually deserted by day AND by night.

And in those streets, a movement began. Old factory buildings were converted into lofts and galleries, and the work of so many now legendary artists, was created and shown in those cavernous spaces. And while Soho became the
 mecca for those artists, Greene Street Recording rapidly became the mecca for recording artists with singular visions and voices. The list of those who passed through its doors is too big to mention in this space but it would include:

Public Enemy, James Brown, Dave Matthews, Run-D.M.C., Sean Lennon, New Order, Sonic Youth, Salt n’ Pepa, Chaka Khan, Joe Cocker, Keith Richards, Vanessa Williams, Vernon Reid, A Tribe Called Quest, Ice Cube, Third Base.

If anyone wants to see a really good history book with lots of pictures of workshop events in the space, it will be at the space to look at.