High art in the Bronx is going to be a little bit creepier this year.
Several Bronxites are teaming up to put on the scariest art show this city has seen. Visions of Horror 2, a Halloween themed-exhibition that features about nine artists, will open for all at a special ceremony on Wednesday, November 3, at the LDR Studio Gallery at 137 Alexander Avenue, Suite 10.
The show is headlined by studio owner Luis Rosado; organizer and artist, Rich Rethorn, and Jerry Landi, the filmmaker who recently wonbest horror film for Krackoon at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. It is the second year the three have teamed up to put on the show.
“I’ve always been a fan of Halloween,” Rosado said. “It’s one of my favorite days so I though, why not, since I’m grown up and can’t go house to house anymore, celebrate it by making some art, and making something cool out of it.”
The show takes up the entire fourth floor of the building and will feature several works by the nine artists.
While the show will focus on traditional painting, drawing and photography – Rosado is currently working on a photograph for the show where one person appears to be cutting another person into pieces – it is also the first time that audio-visual displays will be included in the exhibit.
Towards the back of the gallery, several short films by Landi will beplaying on a constant loop. The movies are mainly special affects experiments, stop-motion animation and outtakes made during the filming of Krackoon, which is about a raccoon that terrorizes a small Bronx neighborhood after accidentally ingesting a near fatal amount of crack cocaine.
While this may be the first year that film will be part of the show, Landi helped organize the Visions of Horror last year.
“Over the years Halloween has become a very safe holiday,” the Locust Point native, Landi, said. “I think we should go back to the days where people were walking around as bloody corpses. The whole point was to get scared, so with this we’re bringing that back.”
Last year’s show featured works by six artists and a few hundred people came to the premier. Based on the reaction last year and the interest in this year’s show, organizers are expecting a lot more for this year.
For the month of November the pieces will be available for viewing at the gallery. After that some select works from the show will be available for viewing by appointment.
“It’s going to be a great show,” Rosado said. “We figured we’d just keep it up fora while. It would be sweet to have some kind of scary scene on Christmas.”
For several months now Rethorn has been contacting the artists make sure they, and their pieces will be available for the show. He is also working on several paintings for the show – one involving a skeleton getting electrocuted and another a skeleton taking the place of Norman Bates in Psycho.
Some people may wonder what art and Halloween have to do with one another, but Rethorn, who has been a surrealist painter in the city since 1984, said he doesn’t know why there are not more Halloween-themed shows.
“It’s my favorite time of the year,” Rethorn said. “It is very art-oriented and very creative. Anybody can come up with an idea for a costume and just act goofy and have fun.”
