Art Under the Bridge Festival in Dumbo

If you're looking for something different to do tomorrow, I highly recommend heading over to Dumbo for the 11th Annual Art Under the Bridge Festival. I had such a good time there this afternoon, wandering around and chatting with artists and feeling the sun and just enjoying the friendly, festive atmosphere.

There are open artists' studios and galleries galore if you're so inclined—and, of course, plenty of high-end, designy stores to browse, as well as lots of food and drink—but I mostly stuck with the event- and site-specific stuff, the performance art and sculptures and interactive pieces, which easily filled two and a half hours or so of my day. Anyway: just go. Here's a look at some of the things you may see (as always, click on any image to enlarge)...

Ianthe Jackson and Pauline Marcelle's "Floating Picnic". Got me seasick just watching them.


"Keep Off the Grass" by Myk Henry and Cynthia Rise. Not really, though... you can go on it.


"The Poetics of Night Soil", for which smudge studio invites you to "use the loo as you normally would", then add a cup of compost to the box. Needless to say, I declined to interact with this piece.


Cabbage football. Team Cole Slay won.



I spent many minutes loving the work at the Museum of Modern Arthur—or, MOMAR—before I realized that the Arthur in question was in fact Joseph Arthur, the excellent musician. So cool.

I thought this "painting" elephant was ridiculous (the old hippie guy is clearly moving that poor beast's trunk!), but it sure was a crowd-pleaser.


"The Tub Project", by Chloe Douglas and Fred Brehm. Occasionally, people did things in these cast iron tubs, all restored by hand, as below...



John Bonafede's "Clean Cream(a lot) Cave". That's all shaving cream on the walls and ceiling; in the interior is a video in which someone gets... can you guess?... a shave. I didn't see the piece which goes with the Cave, but I wish I had: apparently it involves three cream-covered performers dragging two business women atop a manhole cover through the streets.


Plastic-bottle chickens, in the dramatic beauty of Empire Fulton Ferry State Park.


Matt Pych laid down his "Dispersed Arguments" using individual letter stencils and birdseed... so I'll guess they'll last about as long as the importance of most of the arguments in which we've been reduced to using lines like these!

Sponsored by the Dumbo Arts Center, the Art Under the Bridge Festival continues tomorrow, Sunday, September 30. I took the F train to York Avenue (the first stop in Brooklyn) and that puts you right where you want to be, but there are, of course, other travel options. For a complete schedule, map, directions and such, you can download a guide here. Or do what I did and just show up and explore.