Summer exhibition in the Main Gallery: August 1 - 30, 2019
Condo Conundrum
Ronen Gamil
Opening event: Saturday, August 10, 6-9pm
Condo Conundrum is a mixed-media sculpture-installation that composes a place to reflect on mass homelessness, on the context of the homeless in urban environments and on the relation between homelessness and pervasive luxury developments.
As a constructed place, Condo Conundrum portrays urban housing and planning dynamics, provokes thought about the complexity of these dynamics, and forms a space that is both disturbing and intriguing through its material contrast, altered scale, repetition and pattern. Condo Conundrum illustrates the intimate connection between insufficient supply of affordable housing as leading to homelessness and the prevalence of newly-built luxury-unit developments throughout New York City. According to three organizations working with unhoused persons, the primary cause of homelessness is insufficient supply of affordable housing; accordingly, all three organizations conclude that the long-term solution to mass homelessness is to create more affordable housing (1). We are currently in the midst of the most severe homelessness crisis since the Great Depression, 74% higher than ten years ago. By enmeshing signifiers of both homelessness and excess, Condo Conundrum engages viewers in the connectedness between mass homelessness and real estate trends. - Ronen Gamil
(1)www.coalitionforthehomeless.org, www.breakingground.org, www.picturethehomeless.org accessed November 15, 2017.
About the Artist
My practice encompasses diverse media including installation, landscape-design, sculpture, furniture-making, digital drawing and printmaking. Recently I have focused on catalyzing immersive, contemplative experiences that engage viewers in challenging issues of class inequity and underrepresented groups, both human and nonhuman.
I focus on the nexus of urban sociopolitical problems and the global environmental context of habitat for humans, wildlife and plants. Accessibility for broad audiences and the high honor of working for the public are my constant guidelines.
My public art installation Home(-) and Garden wason view at Socrates Sculpture Park until March 2019-- the culmination of the Emerging Artist Fellowship. Simultaneously and over the last five years, my public horticulture practice fuses design, craft, science and art, to produce large, educational habitat-plantings in Prospect Park as a socio-ecological public art practice. - Ronen Gamil, www.ronengamil.com
GALLERY HOURS:
Thursday through Sunday, 1pm to 6pm; or by appointment.
DIRECTIONS:
Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
FiveMyles is in part supported by the New York State Council for the Arts, Public Funds from the New York City Dept. of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Council Member Laurie Cumbo, the Greenwich Collection, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, and the Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundation.