THe beginning of the end
May 3-May 31, 2025 Opening: May 3, 6-8pm
The Active Space
566 Johnson AveNUE, Brooklyn NY
On June 7th, 2023, New York City smelled like smoke. The sun was muted behind a thick orange haze that gave the gulfs and gulches of midtown Manhattan an interior glow. We were told it came from the wildfires hundreds of miles away in another country. I thought about the windways and air currents that brushed the ash and smoke particles so easily across our fortified borders. I thought about the vast forests and homes buckling under the heat. I breathed it all in and got on with my day.
In 2025, the fires are still burning. In Malibu, in the White House, inside the flickering images on our phones. The end is near: it’s a message echoing on the signs of street preachers, on the lips of pundits, and from a voice inside of us. Meanwhile, life goes on. We meet our needs and share our lives, all while resisting the inexorable pull of our crumbling society and ecosystems, distracted by shifts at our day jobs and drinks with friends. And despite —or because of all this—we keep creating.
This exhibition brings together artists who bear witness to this instability, engaging with the tension between power and powerlessness, destruction and transformation. Their works may feel raw and urgent, like the smoldering glow of the recent LA fires in Natalie Ortiz's work, or quiet and meditative, capturing the uncomfortable stillness before the next breakdown in Tracie Lee's bird's-eye paintings.
Some artists channel reckoning, others repair, bolstered by a persistent sense of curiosity. Each artist metabolizes a shared unease into form, texture, and movement. While the works themselves may not offer answers, they may point to a feeling of unspoken urgency, emotional dissonance, or the possibility of transformation.
Participating artists:
