Arts and Entertainment Park Slope

The Park Slope art show with snail mail submissions

Ground Floor Gallery’s biennial is receiving submissions from all over the world.

July 31, 2019 Lore Croghan
This is a detail from “Bird Brain” by Jeanne Tremel, which is included in Ground Floor Gallery’s “Priority Mail: Our 2019 Mail Art Biennial.” Eagle photo by Lore Croghan
This is a detail from “Bird Brain” by Jeanne Tremel, which is included in Ground Floor Gallery’s “Priority Mail: Our 2019 Mail Art Biennial.” Eagle photo by Lore Croghan
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A Park Slope gallery owner is using an old-fashioned means of gathering works for a new art show: snail mail.

Through Aug. 6, Krista Scenna is accepting submissions to a Ground Floor Gallery exhibition called “Priority Mail: Our 2019 Mail Art Biennial.”

She’s expecting to receive artworks from Chicago, Block Island, Montreal and Brazil for the gallery show at 343 Fifth St.

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If you mail her a 5-by-7-inch piece by the deadline, she will include it in the exhibition. The pieces can be as large as 6-by-9 inches if they’re framed. Prints and photos must be limited-edition works.

Ground Floor Gallery is displaying about 60 works it has already received for its mail-in biennial. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan
Ground Floor Gallery is displaying about 60 works it has already received for its mail-in biennial. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

Just one submission per artist is allowed.

She’ll include your art in the exhibition even if it arrives late if problems with the postal service caused the delay.

This method of gathering submissions gives Ground Floor Gallery a “rare opportunity” to show works from artists who live outside New York and in other countries, Scenna told the Brooklyn Eagle. Usually, the gallery focuses mostly on Brooklyn-based artists.

“It’s exhilarating to be able to show 100 to 200 artists in our little space,” she told the Eagle via email. “We also pride ourselves on accepting all submissions (not our usual practice), which provides an opportunity for dozens of emerging artists to show at a Brooklyn-based, commercial gallery space — something many of these artists would not have access to otherwise.”

This is a detail from an acrylic gouache work by Anitia Zilis called “Inside Out,” which is in the mail-in biennial. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan
This is a detail from an acrylic gouache work by Anitia Zilis called “Inside Out,” which is in the mail-in biennial. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

About 60 paintings, drawings and prints have already arrived at the gallery and are on display.

Scenna and Jill Benson, who were both independent curators, founded Ground Floor Gallery in 2013. Their aims were to create a comfort zone for people who are new to art buying and to advance the careers of up-and-coming but under-represented artists.

The biennial makes contemporary art accessible to Brooklyn residents by zeroing in on small, modestly priced pieces, Scenna told the Eagle.

As a democratizing gesture, she’s pricing each work in the biennial at $125. The gallery will donate 10 percent of its profits to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Whether you have a slim budget for art, live in a studio apartment — or both — you can still buy original artwork while supporting a living artist,” she said. “The backstory involving who sent the work from where makes it a true conversation piece that Brooklyn residents want to live with, look at every day and discuss.”

This portrait appears on an envelope that an artist used to mail a biennial submission to Ground Floor Gallery. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan
This portrait appears on an envelope that an artist used to mail a biennial submission to Ground Floor Gallery. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

Ground Floor Gallery held mail-in biennials in 2015 and 2017.

The opening reception for “Priority Mail: Our 2019 Mail Art Biennial” is set for Aug. 8., and the show will run through Sept. 15.

Follow reporter Lore Croghan on Twitter.


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