Brave Brooklyn!

Open Space Alliance (OSA), the North Brooklyn non-profit dedicated to greening parks and public space in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, kicked off their Silent Art Auction last Friday. The auction items, which include approximately forty pieces contributed mostly by emerging North Brooklyn artists, as well as a few high profile notables such as Richard Serra and Fred Tomaselli, will be on display at 30 Nassau Avenue until the auction closes tomorrow evening at midnight. OSA hopes the event will not only raise funds for the group’s projects, but also heighten OSA’s exposure in the community.

“We wanted to do something that related to the community and spoke to people of different generations and backgrounds,” OSA Board Member Kimberly Burkan said. “What a lot of people really love about this area is the local art and the alternative feeling of the area, and we thought this was a good way to bring in people who might not otherwise know about our fundraisers or have kids who come to the parks. It’s just another way to reach out and expand our horizons.”

The pieces in the collection are as diverse as the neighborhood they hail from—though they all look stunningly cohesive sitting in the bright white space of 30 Nassau. The photos, paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media pieces range from gritty, to quirky, to whimsical, to inspiring; each charming and beautiful in its own way, standing amongst the others.

“We’d been talking about doing the event for a while because there are just so many great artists in the neighborhood,” Executive Director of OSA, Stephanie Thayer said. “I’m delighted with what we’ve assembled. It says a lot about our community that all of these people are donating to better our parks. I’m just stunned at how generous or community can be.”

OSA’s Julia Morrow, the main coordinator for the event, reached out to friends, colleagues, and organizations such as Trust Art, Shiny Squirrel, and Outside the Time Zone to put together the auction. The estimated value of the pieces before bidding is about $15,000.

“We focused on emerging artists as well as established artists—some of our board members are good friends with artists, whom we also invited. The Tomeselli and the Serra were great to have donated,” Morrow said. “It’s kind of interesting that they all fit so well together. I think it’s a really great mixture between young and old.”

Beside’s the pieces OSA has gathered for the auction, seven pieces have been donated by Trust Art, a Brooklyn-based organization that helps to commission and execute large-scale public art projects, both in Brooklyn, the country, and abroad.

“[The collaboration] emerged from Trust Art having a number of plans to put art in parks here in Brooklyn,” Jose Serrano-Reyes, a founder of Trust Art said. “Since we’re working with artists and OSA asked us to help bring art to the show, we naturally brought artists that were already working with them on public art projects.”

The Trust Art contributions are part of larger projects that Trust Art it organizing, such as the mixed media “Dream” work by Justin Tellian, which is a global project spanning Brooklyn, Berlin, Tokyo, Mexico City, and Johannesburg.

OSA holds meetings to gather community input regarding the use of their funds. The organization emphasizes their mission to make creating art in public spaces an easy process for artists and community groups in the neighborhood—such as visual art or music and dance performances. Other projects have ranged from the East River Park summer concert series to putting water boxes and drainage systems in North Brooklyn’s many public parks. Their next meeting will be held in January.

There will be a closing reception at 30 Nassau Avenue tomorrow, December 11. Those interested in viewing the artwork or in bidding can do so at that location until midnight, or at bravebrooklyn.com