Elida Paiz Pineda took her shoes off and knelt next to them, then began banging on the floor with one of them. For the crowd assembled at 26 Mill St., it was like a judge calling a court to order.
Necks craned. An audience gathered, weaving its way among enormous sculptures of lint, bandannas, and plastic.
And as Pineda continued her performance piece, Rabia Mistica, Rabia Eterna, and more people came to take it in, it brought home that this exhibit’s opening day had created a real sense of community.
Brian Slattery Photos
Jimenez.
Pineda’s piece was part of “Mill Street,” a group show of over 40 artists whose work is on exhibit at 26 Mill St. from now until March 21. As the accompanying program notes, “the exhibition was instigated by OkieDokie, a social club that organizes art projects and skateboard happenings throughout New Haven, and is supported by arts patron Julie Bernblum.” Julie and Steve Bernblum manage several properties in New Haven, including 26 Mill St. The idea for the Mill Street exhibit, said artist Noe Jimenez, emerged from a previous event at 770 Chapel St. in the summer of 2019.
“It actually started with me and Ben Berkowitz skateboarding in there,” said Jimenez, “and that grew into thinking about doing art shows…. When I walked into the space, I fell in love with it. I could envision all sorts of projects I could do in there.” That art show came to fruition. Berkowitz then showed Jimenez the Mill Street space, which the Bernblums also own. “‘Let’s do something else here,’” Jimenez recalled saying. “And then we just talked to our artist friends and it grew from there.” In autumn 2019, curators Berkowitz, Jimenez, Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez, Joseph Smolinski, and Amanda Valaitis did an open call asking for artists to respond to the theme of monumentality. “We got 90-plus submissions. We whittled it down to 30 and ended up with about 40 in the end,” Jimenez said.
Then it was time to prepare for the show. “I cleaned and mopped all the rooms four different times and there was cosmetic stuff to fix, but the building was in really good shape and beautiful,” Jimenez said. Once made part of the show, many of the artists began working on their pieces inside the space in early 2020. “Some were painting their works here. Some were planning out their sites,” Jimenez said.
“For me personally, it makes the work more alive, more real — not so much something that’s on display, but something that’s incorporated with your environment,” Jimenez said. “When we did the show at 770, the work that I made was very much made to integrate itself in the … unfinished-ness of that space.”
“I think some of those same opportunities were here for artists, and … I think that’s what made people really excited about it when we put the call out — just that there’s so much space to do maybe something you don’t usually do.” “The work I put in is very different than what I usually do, and not all the artists, but a lot of the other artists branched out and tried something different.”
That much seemed clear even without explanation. From the moment exhibit seekers entered the building, they were greeted with Margaret Roleke’s End Gun Violence, enormous, draped sculpture made from spent shotgun shells. It functioned almost as a welcoming bead curtain, even as it reminded viewers of its intent.
The large scale of Natalie Westbrook’s Untitled and Hotbed worked to great effect, lending the images an extra sense of menace without taking away from their beauty.
Then there was Howard el-Yasin’s Grey Matter, a bulbous tower that would never fit in a regular gallery space. The site-specific installation was made from lint collected from the dryers of 15 area laundromats. “It’s meant for this space,” Jimenez said, and provided an extra layer of meaning. “This was originally a textile factory, so there’s a little bit of connection there.”
But the thoughtful layout of the pieces also made enough space for people to have quieter moments with the art on display, even as the crowd bustled around them. For a few viewers, Amy Jean Porter’s meditative Monument to a Lost Snake/Last Snake could be all theirs, for a few minutes.
And Susan Clinard’s Lights Gone Out: Drowning in America’s Opioid Crisis radiated quiet but undeniable power from its corner on the second floor.
“I love spaces like this. It’s more relatable,” Jimenez said. Perhaps no pieces were more interactive than David Borawski’s you go forward i go forward somewhere we will meet, which invited everyone in the room — including Pineda, whose performance piece continued upstairs — to walk over the block letters he had taped to the floor. It was a quote from artist Robert Smithson: “Instead of causing us to remember the past the monuments seem to cause us to forget the future. They are not built for the ages but rather against the ages.”
That got at another point Jimenez made about using the space — the way it felt like a small mark in New Haven’s history. “This building is old and unused, but at some point it was heavily used. I’m sure the surrounding neighborhood has changed from that time to now. And here we are, doing an art show. It’s a different use, but we’re still in this space and occupying it.”
“I feel so local, like I really belong to this city, when I’m able to use spaces like this,” he added.
“Mill Street” is currently running at 26 Mill St. There will be tours of the exhibition on Feb. 29, March 1, March 7, March 8, March 14, and March 15, by appointment. Then OkieDokie will throw a closing party March 21 from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.