Recess
Recess creates opportunities for artists to work in a public setting, initiating partnerships among artists and audiences. By welcoming radical thinkers to take risks as they address complex questions in real time with their public, Recess defines and advances the possibilities of contemporary creative practice.
Their programs reimagine traditional studio, exhibition, and classroom platforms, offering artists, audiences, and program participants flexible frameworks in which to generate new works and ideas. The emphasis on process grants Recess artists the agency to focus on a project’s development rather than its resolution and enables them to take on ambitious goals that evolve in dialogue with an inquisitive public.
Recess is always free and open to the public in order to foster an approachable environment for the meaningful exchange of images and ideas across disparate communities.
Artists are given flexible space and resources to realize ambitious projects, while Recess remains open to the public at every stage of the project’s development. Though similar to a residency program, Session goes beyond the traditional structure to facilitate interactions between artists and audiences throughout the creative process. They encourage artists to engage with their audience in a manner specific to their creative goals while using Recess as a studio, exhibition space, stage, and/or experimental platform to generate new work.
In conversation with Recess staff, artists designate their own work hours, which must overlap with at least 20 of Recess’s public hours each week. Working during public hours allows Session artists to connect with visitors through visual, aural, and/or performance-based materials or activities. If the artist chooses to work in part when the space is closed to the public, their presence must be implied during open hours through the display of site-specific work in process.
Recess’s Session program is located at 46 Washington Avenue in Brooklyn. The Session gallery is approximately 1,000 square-feet and features high ceilings and a glass storefront window that opens to our Assembly gallery and storefront, the neighborhood, and the public. In addition, this space offers wifi, a kitchenette, tools, AV equipment, basic woodshop equipment, basic silk screening facilities, storage for project materials, and access to Assembly artist apprentices.
Recess does not provide accommodations.
The space is equipped with a kitchenette, wifi, tools, AV equipment and a storage area for project materials.