Tag Archives: Art Exhibition

Dyckman Farmhouse: Opening Reception “Spot P!”

Come and celebrate the opening of Spot P! by Kasper Klop, Deron Gopie, and Morwenna Spagnol. Free and open to the public.
Peter Stuyvesant is often credited with laying the foundations for what became New York City.

Today, this man of Dutch origin is celebrated all around town: statues, neighborhoods in his name, cigarette brand…
Yet, if we take a closer look, he was a trader and owner of enslaved Africans in the United States.  Bolstered by his fortune and his influence, he sold enslaved people at public auction, held and expressed deeply antisemitic views, violently oppressed the Lenape, and actively suppressed religious minorities.

Dutch artist Kasper Klop asked himself: what is my responsibility to reckon with this history as a Dutch person, and what would happen if the full story got told, rather than a partial one, as so often happens in our commemorative landscape?

In collaboration with his long-time artistic partner Morwenna Spagnol, and videographer Deron Gopie, Kasper and the team created a multiple choice survey investigating how much New Yorkers really know about Stuyvesant, and once they know the facts, what they think about them.

Where did the team investigate? At three sites celebrating the old colonial officer: Stuyvesant Square in Manhattan with his very own statue, Stuyvesant Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant (Brooklyn), and outside a smoke shop – because yes, Peter even had a cigarette brand named after him, whose branding was often based on white people discovering and appropriating exotic frontiers, looking very cool and smoking Stuyvesants while doing so.

Who got interviewed? Whoever happened to pass the place celebrating Stuyvesant at the moment in time that the team was there. People walking their dog, coming back from work, dropping their kids at school… In other words, the collective. The team questioned the life of a place with the history behind its name.

The exhibition at Dyckman Farmhouse Museum showcases New Yorkers’ fascinating replies to the survey, their knowledge (or lack thereof), views, astonishment, powerlessness, indifference, outrage and nuanced responses that grapple with holding multiple contradictions at once. Also on view are extracts from primary source materials – that is, what Stuyvesant wrote in his own hand about his dark deeds, as well as original letters addressed directly to him.

Spot P! will be on view at Dyckman Farmhouse Museum from October 29, 2026 to January 30, 2027.

Word Up Recirculation: Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s DAYLIGHT COME

Word Up welcomes Publisher’s Weekly Director of Publishing Joshua Jelly-Schapiro to discuss his new book Daylight Come: Harry Belafonte and the World He Made (Significations), a vibrant, revealing portrait of the “King of Calypso,” whose extraordinary performing career and activism helped remake America through the civil rights era and beyond.

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with a maximum of 100 attendees. Please register in advance.

ABOUT THE BOOK  Even three years after his death, Harry Belafonte is everywhere. You can’t go to a wedding, or to a sports arena, without hearing “Day-O,” “Jump in the Line,” or “Jamaica Farewell.” The Harlem-born son of Caribbean immigrants, Belafonte turned the folk music of the islands into American pop—and shaped the fantasy of Caribbean life that endures as an ideal and as a multibillion-dollar tourist industry. Belafonte released the first million-selling LP in history. He was America’s first Black movie star, the first Black person to produce a prime-time special on network TV, and the first to win an Emmy Award. He was once the highest-paid Black performer of all time, beloved by Black and white fans alike, even under segregation. His artistic career helped create the pop culture of the twentieth century—and his political activism reshaped the course of American history.

In this sparkling new biography, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro brings Belafonte’s personality and music vibrantly to life, following him from rags to riches and from Harlem to Jamaica to the March on Washington. Jelly-Schapiro takes us inside Belafonte’s lifelong brotherhood with Sidney Poitier, his friendship with Fidel Castro, his collaboration with Nelson Mandela, and the sometimes shocking therapeutic relationships his difficult upbringing necessitated. At the heart of the story is Belafonte’s bond with Martin Luther King Jr., whose cause Belafonte would champion for the rest of his life. That commitment to the greater good would sustain him and benefit untold numbers—and would come at a cost.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer and writer whose books include Names of New York: Discovering the City’s Past, Present, and Future Through Its Place-Names; Island People: The Caribbean and the World; and, with Rebecca Solnit, Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas. His work appears regularly in publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The New York Review of Books. Jelly-Schapiro teaches journalism at New York University and is director of publishing at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, where he hosts the popular Author Talks series and is coeditor in chief of Pioneer Works Broadcast.

Inwood Art Works: Paintings by Pablo Caviedes Opening Celebration

Paintings by Pablo Caviedes – Opening Celebration October 8 at 7pm.

Born in 1971 in Cotacachi, Ecuador, Pablo Caviedes has been exhibiting his work for more than thirty years. In fact, since 1990, his amazing images have graced prominent venues in Paris, France, Poland, Germany, and the United States, just to name a few.

In 1998 in Paris, he was one of ten artists, under 40 years-of-age, selected for the critically acclaimed, art historically significant, comprehensive and pivotal exhibit titled Emergent Artists from Latin America and the Caribbean, identifying a new generation of important up-and-coming Latino artists.

After moving to Manhattan in 2001, he’s been regularly displaying his animistic work throughout New York City, along with participating in critically acclaimed group and solo shows within the greater metropolitan area.

Free and open to the public on view Thursday, October 8 – Sunday, November 1

Word Up Recirculation: Gallery Opening for Alfredo Jimagua’s SEEDS OF REVOLUTION

Kick off your Friday night at this opening gallery reception celebrating Alfredo Jimagua’s Seeds of Revolution, celebrating all of New York in Washington Heights.

This photo series titled Seeds of Revolution started the day after Zohran Mamdani won the election for mayor last November. That’s when Alfredo Jimagua posted flyers in working-class corners of the city, casting locals for a photoshoot in their homes, asking: Who are the real people living here, and how do they make NYC home? The result is a mosaic of 27 New Yorkers across Upper Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, serving as a pulse check on a collective moment that’s been building on the ground for years. These portraits capture artists, immigrants, families, and lovers as the seeds of revolution sprouting here in that quiet New York winter.

Alfredo Jimagua is a queer Afro-Caribbean writer, photographer, and community organizer based in NYC. He is also releasing a graphic novel based in New York later this year published by an artist-owned cooperative label he founded called Honey Mummy.

More of his work can be found at alfredoshots.com and honeymummy.co

Gallery up from September 25 to October 25, 2026.

 

Inwood Art Works: El Alto – Chronicles of the Heights

What does it mean to leave home and still carry it with you?

El Alto: Chronicles of the Heights by Francis Mateo brings together poetry, photography, and music to explore the Dominican-New York experience, between the half-island and New York, memory and the present, what we leave behind and what we build here.

September 28th – October 3rd, 2026

Celebration: October 3 at 7pm. — Please RSVP.