May 11- July 31st

In 1983, Paterson initiated subsidized housing for artists in two old abandoned mills in the newly designated Great Falls / SUM Historic District.  These two, former silk mills were among many empty factory buildings in the district that had once manufactured a variety of products including locomotives, guns, silk and textile machinery. In the 1980s all types of artists were invited to apply to live in the new housing—painters, musicians, poets, photographers, and arts workers with the hopes of establishing a creative community and a shop and gallery center.  

Paterson: Art & the Mills- F. Duignan & Neighbors focuses on the visual artists who lived in the refurbished mills from the 1980s to the early 2000s and some who still live there today. This exhibition asks what artist housing does for the artists and what it can, or sometimes cannot, do for the community.  This heterogenous group of art makers shared this housing, the neighborhood, and engaged in a noisy, creative interaction.  

The work and role of painter Fred Duignan acts as an anchor for the show with his expressive views of the mills, the Great Falls, and his portraits of many of the early artist residents.  Duignan also played an occasional role as organizer of exhibitions and tenuous connections to New York City.  Many of the core artists are here in this exhibition.  Their work gives an idea of the breaking of creative boundaries fostered by this unorthodox community and period.  One finds crossovers of painting, sculpture, creative photography with poetry, music, technology, and the probing of the industrial and social/political realities.  There is the darkness and light, conscious and deep unconscious, and urban realities of this raw, energetic place.  The artists offered to the neighborhood and to the broader city artistic outreach, critical investigations, teachers, local characters, and books of photography which show the changing, deteriorating historic roots of Paterson.  Not quite a new Soho but a new ragged, significant energy center developed.  

Reception

Please join us for a special reception on Saturday, May 16th, from 1pm-4pm. 

Conversation with Guest Curator, Sara Lynn Henry- 2:30pm 

More information about Fred Duignan

More works by Fred Duignan: https://www.fredduignan.com/paintings