Each week, Artful spotlights an art experience or destination that speaks to us right now.
An art fair/exhibition hybrid that’s made for summer day-tripping, NADA House 2021 presents 66 exhibitors in and around three colonial-revival buildings that once housed naval officers on New York City's Governors Island. This third edition of the event contrasts the turn-of-the-century architecture of "Colonels Row" with brand-new art, military history with contemporary political statements.
Inside one of the homes artist Camille Hoffman (showing with the gallery False Flag) transforms what was once a colonel’s dining room into a naval landing site in the Philippines, where her family is from, in tribute to her “seafaring Filipinix ancestors.” In another house along the row, two Russian artists, Dagnini and Alexander Shchurenkov, have staged an installation titled “Date with America” that interprets the American Dream from a post-Soviet perspective and reflects on the building’s history as the site of the Governors Island Summit, a meeting of Reagan, Bush, and Gorbachev, in 1988.
Outdoor projects include Adam Parker Smith’s Sarcophagus, exhibited by The Hole, which resembles a sleeping bag standing on end, and a sculpture/assemblage by Jeff Williams (Jack Hanley Gallery) that combines a matte gray geometric slab and a shiny aluminum stockpot.
The art is less than a ten minutes’ walk from the ferry that connects the island to Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and is on view until August 1 (Fridays through Sundays only).
