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Arts & Entertainment

Celebrating the Year of the (Invisible) Dog

The popular gallery kicks off the season with a grandiose collection of shows and performances.

on Bergen Street touts itself as an all-inclusive space where all kinds of art and media colorfully collide.

And this weekend won't be any different.

The Dog kicks off its third season and second successful year with a grandiose event that will combine three distinct shows, and a performance, over one weekend, celebrating the start of a new season and the gallery's commitment to an interdisciplinary approach to art and creativity.

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In the main room, Brooklyn-based Korean mixed-media assemblage artist Chong Gon Byun will display a forty-year body of work made out of found objects, arranged wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling, and corner to corner. His sculptures and creations explore provocative themes about religion, politics, consumerism and pop culture. From Mickey Mouse to the Pope, it seems like there's nothing from the past 50 years Byun hasn't touched.

A common theme in Byun's work is female mannequins and busts, repeated in many of his sculptures. On one exposed brick wall, one of his busts has sprouted golden wings; on the other side of the room, another has been launched into space. Byun's relationship with these objects is a personal one, and each and every one of them has a life and personality of its own.

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Byun had a residency at the Invisible Dog. Last year, owner and director Lucien Zayan was approached by Byun, who asked to do his first New York solo show at the space. Zayan says he was totally blown away.

"When he told me, 'Lucien I'd like to make a show,' I thought he was talking about somewhere else," he said.

"It's difficult to describe the show, his universe," said Zayan of Byun. "He talks to his objects, he takes care of his objects... each one has it's own life."

In the back room on display is the photographic and multi-media works of 2Fik, a Moroccan artist, model and photographer born and raised in Paris to Moroccan Muslim parents. Also making his New York debut, 2Fik will tell a narrative through a series of suggestive and provocative photographs that explore ideas of feminism, sexuality, extremism, identity and culture. 

"The concept is that they all meet up in Montreal because it is a very multicultural city, and everything we see in [the] photos is the cultural clash.. clash of the beliefs, cultures, experiences," he said. There's Marco, the Italian stallion and closeted homosexual; Fatima, a Muslim woman who finds her ambitions stifled by the roles imposed on her by her culture. There's a friendly, quirky 11-year-old boy with large teeth, an aspiring hip-hop artist and happy-go-lucky, comfortably naive Francine, all created, photographed and rendered by 2Fik himself, who spends countless hours editing in Photoshop and Final Cut pro to insert his face into even the smallest details of the photos like the spine of a book or a smutty website on a computer screen.

2Fik feels the raw and large space of the Invisible Dog is the place to be for his U.S. debut.

"It's my beginning here in the U.S., which is the perfect place – seriously," he said, his face lighting up.

Happening in the musty, dungeon-like basement is the group show Hermaphrodite, curated by Nikita Vishnevskiy and featuring more than fifteen artistic collaborators, including Vishnevskiy. Hermaphrodite is a collective visual and sensory exploration of hermaphroditism as a concept of love and unity, often referencing Greek mythology and cultural studies.

Chaos Manor will occupy the third floor of the Invisible Dog, and will even utilize the cargo elevator for a jazz band that will move up and down through the building while playing. Chaos Manor is based on Sam Stephenson's 2009 book, The Jazz Loft Project, and draws parallels to W. Eugene Smith’s Sixth Avenue “jazz loft” adventures of the 1950's and 60s.

There will be dance performances, sound clips from Smith's tapes will be played over loud speakers and the whole block will become a venerable audience; from within and outside the building, visuals will be projected on both sides of the windows, onto white fabric.

"The whole building is going to be like a canvas," said Stephenson, pointing to strips of fabric placed behind the windows of the third floor loft space. 

This weekend's opening is expected to be a celebration of sorts for Lucien and Invisible Dog – after pulling in more than thirty thousand visitors last year during their second season, and now opening the Dog up to other collaborations in Brooklyn and Manhattan including the French Alliance, Affordable Art Fair and the newly-established Roulette Performance Space, the Dog is ready to take their next big leap into an exciting future.

"The first year, everything new and funny... the second year was like confirmation," said the smoky-voiced Zayan, with a smile. "This year is a very important year."

Byun, Objet Trouve will be on view from September 17 to November 6 and 2FIK OR NOT 2FIK and Hermaphrodite from September 17 to October 9. Chaos Manor will be performed on September 16 and 17 at 8:30 p.m. Admission is free for all shows and performances.

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