citydrift/Bushwick is a nocturnal meta-event, bringing together non-traditional practices, organized under the philosophical umbrella of the derive.

Over a continuous, three-day period from September 7th – 10th 2012, there will be a series of intrusions by artists in the Bushwick neighborhood surrounding the gallery collaboratively organized by artist Peter Hopkins with several Bushwick galleries. Attempting to circumvent the standard hermetic interior presentation of art, Citydrift will locate art in unpredictable and unannounced exterior locations, effectively engaging the viewer as an active seeker and participant in the process of looking. On the opening evening, several galleries will serve as an empty starting point for “drifters” to enter the grid of Bushwick; to walk, find gestures, and then return to it over that night and the following days to discuss and relate their experiences.Citydrift is an investigative/interconnective event that utilizes the Situationist concept of the “drift” or derive, as a starting point for re-engaging the art act as “simple play” or as a series of unplanned actions. The “drift” itself, as the founding member Guy Debord describes it, is an authentic experience, or as “a mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances, usually urban. Today we re-evaluate this concept, questioning the ability to locate “authenticity” itself within the contemporary world, and in this manner Citydrift will serve to critically test this historic concept through action and discussion. Created over the past three years by artist Peter Hopkins in a partial homage to his original gallerist Colin De Land, and the groundbreaking American Fine Arts Co. Citydrift treats the gallery not as a “container of meaning”, but rather as a starting point for creating meaning through direct individual convergences.

Citydrift is designed as a means for galleries themselves to connect to each other in this process. It will engage several Bushwick galleries (Momenta Art, Studio 10, The Bogart Salon, NurtureArt, Ethan Pettit Contemporary and more…) as host “nodes”, so that the participants will be leaving from and moving to other sites inside this urban “grid”. Panel discussions will follow on the weekend of the 8th and 9th that will focus on the curatorial initiatives that compose citydrift, allowing the event to act as a launching point to re-inspect what it means to make, exhibit, or write about art in this moment of doubt and uncertainty. Finally, Citydrift is imagined as a wandering art event that will start moving around the world in coming months and years, to Detroit, India and parts yet unknown.

(All Images Taken by Meenakshi Thirukode)