CO-OP at b.j. spoke Gallery [TONIGHT!]
Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 01:03PM 
Occupy with Art and B.J. Spoke Gallery in Huntington, Long Island are pleased to announce the launch of CO-OP, an experimental collective art exhibit and exchange, on view from September 5-30, 2012. A reception will be held at the gallery on Saturday, September 8, from 6-8 PM. CO-OP will feature an array of OWS photos by Steve O'Byrne, works on paper by Konstant and Isaac Moylan, and 4D animations, paintings and multimedia pieces by Paul McLean. CO-OP will introduce a model gift-barter of art for food, prototyping the direct integration of the local art and cooperative food networks.
Konstant
- Download the CO-OP book HERE.
- Download the CO-OP stencil HERE.
- See the CO-OP photoset HERE.
- Paul McLean's new essay for the Brooklyn Rail, "WTF America!"
- Steve O'Byrne's OWS photos at Flickr.
CO-OP installation view at bj spoke gallery.[EXHIBIT CONCEPT, NARRATIVE and DESCRIPTION]
CO-OP/Occuburbs/Occufest began in December 2011 as an Occupy with Art (OwA) initiative to bridge the apparent divide between Occupy Wall Street and artist-activists living in the suburbs of New York City - specifically, those who make Long Island their home. OwA co-organizers Paul McLean and Christopher Moylan, a Long Island-based educator, artist, poet and Occupier, discussed a range of measures they hoped might activate and unite Occupy with those sympathetic to the movement in Long Island, measures that included community-building cultural events and art exhibitions, in addition to mobilizing or organizing efforts. In so doing McLean and Moylan hoped to model innovative programs for sustainable, alternative art economies for the 99%, and to inspire those who engaged in activism in the past several decades to get involved with OWS actions, now.
Drawing from Moylan's experience in co-operative food networks, the co-organizers developed the CO-OP concept into an exhibition with an art and food exchange component. Through the CO-OP exchange, OwA is developing a simple template for in-kind or barter-based markets that will help artists become more integrated in communities that lack accessible or available retail infrastructure for affordable art. After a search and inquiry phase, McLean and Moylan, found great partner organizations in Huntington - The Cinema Arts Centre, which hosted an OwA screening program on July 25th featuring the films of Liza Bear, and B.J. Spoke, a member-supported gallery with deep roots in Long Island, dating to the 70s.
Moylan and McLean have written essays to platform the issues underpinning CO-OP, which have either been published in The Brooklyn Rail or the Occupy with Art blog. These include Moylan's CO-OP/Occuburbs/Occufest series, McLean's "ENOUGH [BASTA]!" and, more generally, McLean's "Soul of Occupy" sequence, which maps the sometimes (for the author) discomfiting parameters and expectations for art situated in the OWS protest movement, in its initial anarchic emergent state.
[ABOUT OCCUPY WITH ART]
The CO-OP production builds on OwA programs and initiatives, such as "Occupy Printed Matter," OwA's collaboration with Yoko Ono entitled "Wish Tree for Zuccotti Park," the Spatial Occupation at Hyperallergic, "Wall Street to Main Street," "Low Lives: Occupy!" and the soon-to-open Occupational Art School Node #1 at Bat Haus in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NYC. Occupy with Art was founded in late September as Occupennial, and until recently existed as an affinity group for the Arts & Culture Working Group of the New York City General Assembly for Occupy Wall Street. Over the past ten months, OwA has operated in constant transition, serving initially as a nexus for communications and documentation of OWS-related arts and culture, then shifting into production and program development. Over its brief life span OwA has generated many opportunities for Occupy artists to share ideas and work, facilitated important discourse on the disposition of art and artists in the Occupation, and presented diverse programming exploring a spectrum of meaningful creative action.
BJ Spoke Gallery, co-op, occuburbs, occufest in exchanges, exhibition, games 
