Partially anonymous artist collective The Bruce High Quality Foundation is having it’s last ever Brucennial, appropriately entitled “The Grand Finale,” from March 7 through April 4. BHQF’s packed biennial event has previously received enamored reviews like these:
You might view the jampacked, multifloor installation of works by close to 400 artists as a populist, radically inclusive survey of what artists in New York are really creating outside the filtering systems of galleries, museums and curators.
The Bruce High Quality Foundation collective acts as one of the most important artist resources, communities, and anti-systems in New York. “The Brucennial began in 2008 in our first studio, a former weed growing operation next to the High Times Deliverance Church on the edge of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy under the JMZ…” And then things change. Since then, BHFU gained hundreds of members around the world, had a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum and were featured in the 2010 Whitney Biennial.
BHQF’s last Brucennial will only be featuring women. This BHQF email blast forwarded to the Gallerist addresses the choice as leaning more towards focused inclusion, as opposed to exclusion. Considering the scope of the show, it feels justified.
We’ve grown this show big enough to command an audience of thousands and thousands of visitors, not to mention media attention. So for The Last Brucennial, we will spotlight all women artists. We see The Last Brucennial as a chance to focus on this crucial energy within the wider community. We won’t focus on this aspect of the exhibition in advertising the show as we think it will speak for itself. But if you have recommendations for other women artists to include, definitely send them our way!
BHQF’s most exciting announcement is their shift of focus on the Bruce High Quality Foundation University in the East Village, a place we love.
We started a free art school now located in the East Village, BHQFU, with this exact mission. And going forward that’s where we’re going to put our resources: expanding our class offerings and residencies, building a communal studio program, and creating student exhibitions, publications, and other showcases.
“The Last Brucennial” presented by Vito Schnabel and the Bruce High Quality Foundation, Mar 7 – Ap 4, 837 Washington St, New York, NY 10014 (Image Jonah Emerson-Bell, “Utopia is Gay” at Brucennial 2010 via @hragvartanian)
