The Brooklyn Museum Will Showcase the Borough’s Talent in ‘The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition’

The Brooklyn Museum recently announced the artists who will participate in its inaugural “The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition,” a major group show spotlighting talent from around the borough. Specifically, it will feature work by 216 artists who have lived in or maintained studios in Brooklyn in the past five years, chosen via an open call that attracted nearly 4,000 applications and invitations issued by a committee that included Jeffrey Gibson (currently representing the U.S. at this year’s Venice Biennale), Vik Muniz, Mickalene Thomas and Fred Tomaselli.

“The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition” opens on October 4 and will occupy 15,000 square feet of the museum’s Great Hall, kicking off the institution’s 200th-anniversary celebrations, which acknowledge the rich art scene in the neighborhood and the people creatively reimagining its future.

This cohort of Brooklyn artists includes both emerging and established names. Melissa Joseph told Observer she will present Olive’s Hair Salon, one of her signature memorial scenes made of felt that she first showed last year at Art Basel Miami Beach in the UBS Art Studio presentation curated by ARTNOIR co-founder Larry Ossei-Mensah. The work shows her niece using clippers on her brother’s hair; the title refers to a Henry Taylor piece. Also weaving personal and family memories in textiles, Qualeasha Wood created a new work for the exhibition titled Brooklyn Baby, which links to a Lana Del Rey song of the same name and combines images from Wood’s Brooklyn studio. Artist Alison Kuo will present a never-before-shown sculpture made from found objects and crafted in 2022.

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Already established artists in the show include Guadalupe Maravilla, Felipe Baeza, Nancy Grossman and Nicole Eisenman. Hiba Shaba will present one of her dreamy feminine figures as part of the Mickalene Thomas curation. There will also be work by Madjeen Isaac, Athena LaTocha and Chitra Ganesh, who just had a solo show at Harper’s in Chelsea. 

The exhibition will hopefully redirect public attention to Brooklyn’s vibrant art scene and away from some recent controversies: first, a planned union staff strike that was narrowly averted late last year after officials agreed to pay increases, and more recently, pro-Palestine protests at the museum and attacks of vandalism on the homes of the Brooklyn Museum’s director and board members. The very reason the institution is so frequently a stage for public confrontation and expression is the fact that it’s a central hub for art, culture and regenerative creativity in the borough.

The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition opens on October 4 and will run through January 26, 2025. The full list of participating artists can be found on the Brooklyn Museum’s website.