On Sunday June 6, 1999, a new performance and exhibition space opened its doors in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Its founder, Hanne Tierney, and the curator Heidi Riegler invited neighbors and artists to a performance marathon featuring more than 20 young artists, while a few barbecue experts were grilling on the sidewalk.
Ten days later on June 16, FiveMyles presented its very first exhibition, For Myles. Curated by Marian Griffith, the former director at the Sculpture Center, the show was dedicated to the memory of Hanne Tierney’s son, Myles, an Associated Press journalist killed in Sierra Leone that same year. Six emerging artists were chosen for “the elegiac and spiritual concerns that characterize their work”, in Griffith’s own words. These artists were Terry Boddie, Maria Elena Gonzalez, Cathleen Lewis, Jack Pospisil, Michael Lee Poy, and Veronica Ryan.
That first year also marked the creation of St. Johns Place on Stage, a dazzling gathering of local talents, who rivaled to interpret the plot of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet through live music, stand-up comedy, hip hop dance, and spoken word on FiveMyles’ large sidewalk. St. Johns Place on Stage became a much-anticipated annual event on the block. Over the years, glittery costumes were sown for the neighborhood girls who practiced their dances very seriously (culminating in 2007 with an invitation to perform at the Brooklyn Museum!), backdrops were built for street operas, and crowds have gathered for this un-missable rendez-vous.
Twenty years later, FiveMyles is still standing. Its walls and floors are still painted grey, and it still shows the work of beginning, emerging, and established artists who still find a home in the space. A lot has happened over all these years, and FiveMyles gained and retained a reputation for the excellent work that it shows, the eclectic nature of its programming, and the welcoming atmosphere it always maintains.
So please join us in 2019 to celebrate FiveMyles, its past and its future! This year, we will have many modern echoes from FiveMyles’ past programming, you might recognize some of the artists’ names, but we guarantee that just like every year since its first opening, the work shown at FiveMyles will live in that perfect spot where excellence and excitement meet.
The original FiveMyles graffiti, executed by Rusley (on the right) in 1999
The flyer for “Pigeon Party”, FiveMyles’ first event, on June 6, 1999
One of the cardboard shadow portraits (Duke Ellington) by Raymond A. King included in the exhibition entitled “Cardboard Images”, shown in conjunction with photographs by LeRoy Anderson, entitled “Black Women: A Place in History”. 2006
A scene from How Wang-Fo Was Saved, a performance by Hanne Tierney. 2001
Artist Musa Hixon in his installation of weather balloons, Time Harvest, 2012
A Summer afternoon at FiveMyles in 2016.
Confluence, an exhibition of artist books curated by Marian Griffith in March 2000, with work by 21 artists, including Terry Boddie, Sanford Biggers, Matt Freedman, Yoko Inoue, and Maura Sheehan.
At the premiere of Hanne Tierney’s Salome, an object-based adaption of Oscar' Wilde’s play, Hanne (left) poses with collaborators Jane Wang (double bass) and Sabir Mateen (saxophone). 1999
Exhibition view of There Goes the Neighborhood, a sound installation of “voices from the other side of Brooklyn’s real estate boom”, shown alongside photographs of Crown Heights by Michael Britto. 2007
Two members of the public try out one of the musical sculptures included in Helene Brandt’s exhibition, Bicycle Music. 2003
The postcard for Fortune Tellers, an exhibition curated by Kimberly Mayhorn, with work by Sandra Brewster, Torkwase Dyson, Kimberly Mayhorn, Jasmine Murrell, Marisa Swangha, Simone Leigh, and Adjua Williams. 2009
Sam Tufnell’s piece, Large Still Life, was included in the seven artist exhibition “Short Stories”, in 2011
FiveMyles’ gate in 2005.
Bolero Chambers, a.k.a Pope, one of St. Johns Place On Stage’s most impressive performers, reciting poetry from memory and improvising stories.
The flyer for “Kenya Art”, exhibitions, programs, and performances curated by Judy Ogana and Carol Lees, of artwork from Kenya. The Collaborating venues were the Brooklyn Public Library, FiveMyles, the Salena Gallery at LIU, Welancora Gallery, and Kentler International Drawing Spate. Artwork on the flyer by Beatrice Wangeci. 2004
The opening for Maura Sheehan’s exhibition, Night Flight, an installation of hundreds of paper cutouts. 2005.
The flyer for St.Johns Place on Stage in 2007.
Breathing, an installation by Chin Chih Yang, “to communicate a conservational aesthetic in our society of waste”. 2012
FiveMyles’ gate in 2012