Untitled (Ghost Biker) Marina Berio
Am I Invisible? A Portrait of New York City Bicyclists
Opening April 8, 2014 6 – 9 p.m.
In the Great Room at The Old Stone House
Old Stone House & Washington Park
336 Third Street, bet. 4th/5th Avenues
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Directions
Am I Invisible? A Portrait of New York City Bicyclists is a transmedia project produced by Bicycle Utopia in collaboration with Recycle-a-Bicycle and The Old Stone House.
Am I Invisible? is a portrait of New York City viewed from a bicycling perspective. Artists Marina Berio, Christopher Cardinale, Jeanne Hilary, Johanna Kindvall, Sam Polcer, Justin Strauss Mike Taylor and Harry Zernike will be exhibited along with images from the Am I Invisible? Open Call, and images created during an Am I Invisible? Bike Art Party, a community event organized with Queens Museum. Am I Invisible? A Portrait of New York City Bicyclists will be on display at the Old Stone House and an interactive public art installation in locations around NYC from April 8 to June 3.
Am I Invisible? is inspired by the experience of biking in the city. Biking creates intimacy with the built environment, encourages social interactions and enhances awareness of New York City as an ever-evolving, collective cultural experience.
About the Artists
Marina Berio
Marina Berio is an artist and photographer. She has been granted a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, the Aaron Siskind Foundation Award and a Pollock/Krasner Grant, and been invited to various residencies including the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Millay, and Schloss Plüschow in Germany. She has exhibited photography and drawings internationally, including Michael Steinberg Fine Arts, Yancey Richardson Gallery, Von Lintel Gallery, Smack Mellon, and Artists Space in New York; Les Rencontres d’Arles, Galerie Camera Obscura, and the Centre Photographique de Pontault-Combault in France; her work has been published in Foam and Fantom. Berio is Chair of the General Studies Program at the International Center of Photography in New York City. She lives with photographer Jean-Christian Bourcart and their son Elio in Brooklyn, New York. More about Marina’s work at marinaberio.net
Christopher Cardinale
Christopher Cardinale is a cartoonist and muralist. While living in Guatemala and Mexico, his work was inspired by encampments of striking workers and anarchist punk collectives. He has been publishing comics since 2001 when his first graphic narrative appeared in World War 3 Illustrated Magazine. Since 1996, Christopher has led large-scale, collaborative mural projects in New Mexico, New York City, Italy, Greece and Mexico.His work addresses themes ranging from labor organizing history, cyclist and pedestrian rights, urban environmentalism and post-Katrina New Orleans. Christopher illustrated the graphic novel, Mr Mendoza’s Painbrush, by Luis Alberto Urrea, chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of 2010’s best books for teens.
Johanna Kindvall
Johanna Kindvall is a designer, illustrator and architect based in Sweden and New York City. She editss a food blog, kokblog; her illustrations appeared in The Culinary Cyclist, by Anna Brones. Her illustrations have been published on blogs such as Art of Eating, Foodie Bugle and the books The Fabulous Baker Brothers. She is currently at work on a cookbook in collaboration with Anna Brones, which will be published by 10 speed press. Her work has been exhibited widely, notably in 14th St Overlay by Walczak & Heiss in Denver, Colorado, at the Triennial of Lövestad, Sweden, at the National Art Museum of China and others.
Jeanne Hilary
Jeanne Hilary is a photographer and new media artist. She is founder of Bicycle Utopia, a public art project about New York City seen from a bicycling perspective.
Her work has been exhibited widely, notably le Centre Pompidou, le Palais de Tokyo, Le Musée Carnavalet, la Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Lilit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, The Museum of Fine Arts, Calcutta,, the Museum for Contemporary Photography, Chicago. She has received numerous grants and residencies, among these: The American Center, Paris; the Fondation Regional Pour l’Art Contemporain, Ile de France; the Ministére des Affaires Etrangéres, France; the Palm Beach County Cultural Council; the Ministére de la Culture, France. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, La Repubblica, El Pais, Le Monde, Libération, le Nouvel Observateur, l’Express, Geo, Newsweek, Fortune and many others. Her work is broadly concerned with how the built environment impacts human endeavor, and how memory and desire inform contemporary society. She has worked extensively on gangs and youth issues in Chicago and Los Angeles, women’s issues, infrastructure and housing, poverty and immigration in France’s housing estates, and a range of human rights and social issues in Egypt, Afghanistan, India, Turkey, China and Rwanda, throughout Europe and the United States. More about Jeanne Hilary at jeannehilary.com
Sam Polcer
Sam Polcer recently recently completed his first book, New York Bike Style, which will be published by Prestel in Spring 2014. (He also has a blog, Preferred Mode, that features some of the photos from that project.) His writing and photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Travel + Leisure, Hemispheres, Brooklyn Magazine, The L Magazine, among others. He is Communications Manager of Bike New York. Previously, he was a nightclub visual designer, traveling circus spotlight operator, documentary filmmaker, DJ, video editor, blueberry picker, election campaigner and event producer. When he’s not riding his bike or traveling on assignment, he spends as much time as he can in Brooklyn, NY. More about Sam Polcer at Preferredmode.com
Justin Strauss
Justin Strauss, 16, from Forest Hills, Queens is a junior at Stuyvesant High School. Justin is photo editor for both The Spectator, Stuyvesant’s student run biweekly newspaper, and The Indicator, Stuyvesant’s yearbook. His interest in cycling began in 2012, after participating in bike tours in and around New York City. The following year, Justin joined the Century Road Club Association. He competes in road, track, and cyclocross races for the club’s Junior Development team. Justin saw the opportunity to combine his two defining interests in Bicycle Utopia’s Am I Invisible? contest and he plans to continue to experiment with using photography as a medium to capture the beauty of cycling.
Mike Taylor
Mike Taylor is a printmaker, painter, writer, self-publisher and arts educator. He works in screenprinting, painting, collage, sculpture and performance. His work is narrative and autobiographical, documenting his surroundings and reflecting on culture, politics, and the human condition. While self-publishing anthologies of his own artwork, comics and writing he is also an elementary school art teacher.
Harry Zernike
Harry Zernike makes photographs and films for a broad range of commercial and editorial clients. His photographs are in a number of books as well as private, corporate, and museum collections. He has been spotted in road and cyclocross races, and toodling around New York on a single speed. A predisposition to photographing cyclists (conflating work and play) led him to publish the printed 9W- a journal of Cycling Photography and it’s online companion 9wmag.com. www.harryzernike.com
Am I Invisible? A Portrait of New York City Bicyclists is made possible with generous support from our sponsors.
