Gowanus Open Studios Turns 30 as 'Lavender Lake' Gives Way to Towers

Gowanus Open Studios marked its 30th anniversary on Saturday, amid luxury towers renting studio apartments from $3,200 a month along a canal still known to old-timers as "Lavender Lake." Rhea Nayyar, reporting for Hyperallergic, called this year's iteration "a love letter to the neighborhood and its craftsmanship amid an era of remediation, development, and gentrification."

The neighborhood walk laid bare the transformation. The canal has shed its sardonic nickname and become, in Hyperallergic's phrasing, a landscape of glimmering apartment buildings. The writer's wager is blunt: everyone would have benefited from waiting for water remediation and sewage overflow prevention to finish before developers built. Permanent picnic tables and reclining deck chairs now line the banks of a waterway once infamous for its sewage overflows.

What do the artists make of it?

At landscape painter Elizabeth O'Reilly's studio on Union Street — where her work "Wind and Water, 3rd Street Gowanus" was on display — the visiting writer noted that she and other artists draw inspiration from the neighborhood as it is. Their practice, the account suggests, finds beauty at both ends of devastating human impact: from a life-threateningly toxic pollution hub to a new playground for gentrification, and archives both for others to appreciate.

The open studios trail ran wide across Brooklyn:

• Red Hook — Contributor Aaron Short reports the creative community barrels forward unabated, 13 months after a five-alarm fire tore through a historic warehouse of converted artist studios.
• Sunset Park — Spaces here remain somehow affordable, with studios available for under $600 in converted factories, warehouses and three-story walk-ups.
• Brownsville — Local artist and community educator Jazmine Hayes details the historical, spiritual and environmental symbolism of her Percent for Art commission at the new $128 million multi-service center, unveiled by three New York City agencies.
• Bushwick — Danielle De Jesus found towering paintings of the inner child, diasporic tributes to Filipina culture, and light-filled portraits of an artist's trans community.

Luger's closing show leads the reviews

Only a few days remain to catch Cannupa Hanska Luger's American Traditional, which closes on the 24th at Garth Greenan Gallery's new Greene Street location. The exhibition appeared in Hyperallergic's round-up of New York shows embodying Indigenous survivance. Editor-at-Large and Co-Founder Hrag Vartanian calls it Luger's "strongest work yet," writing that the artist "sets aside the participatory, ceramics-heavy projects he's best known for and arrives at something more declarative — a synthesis of wood, ink, and archive."

Other critics weigh in this week. Channelle Chevelle Russell reviews Deana Lawson: Edge Control at Gagosian, where "Lawson's newest series provokes a fraught ethical question: Who truly has the power to authorize or deny access?" Gregory Volk finds that Tanya Merrill's Land animal, house animal at 303 Gallery "decisively challenges a pervasive anthropocentric worldview that deems humans superior and animals lesser." John Yau reviews David Reed: Terrible Idea at Rodder, tracking five decades of the artist's pursuit of color interactions and dialogues with artists from different epochs.

Institutions and poster history

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée du Louvre will co-organize a major exhibition on Greco-Roman and biblical influences throughout Rembrandt's practice. NYC Health + Hospitals' Arts in Medicine department has completed conservation of three New Deal-era murals and a John Rhoden sculpture at its Harlem hospital. Poster House opens "Designed to Be Red: Native American & Indigenous Poster Works," on view through February 21, 2027.

The week's calendar fills quickly:

• Pablo Helguera builds Fonoteca, a public vinyl library for Latinx music, trading limited-edition works for donated records at CUE Art on Wednesday, October 21.
• Performance artist Asia Stewart becomes a table in "any experience with men and alcohol" at Smack Mellon on Thursday, October 22.
• Creative Time's symposium Of Life, Liberty, and a Pursuit of Happiness at Brooklyn Museum convenes Sky Hopinka, Viva Ruiz, Qween Jean, Mariame Kaba and Chelsea Manning on Friday, October 23.
• Jack Halberstam, author of Anarchitecture After Everything (2026), joins Avgi Saketopoulou at BAM on Tuesday, October 27.
• On Self-Respect, rooted in Joan Didion's 1961 essay, runs at Land to Sea cafe through December 18.

For filmgoers, DOC NYC returns November 11–29 with thirteen art films, including Anna Lee's glimpse of Molly Tenzer stamping roadcast in ink onto rice paper. And the Tompkins Square Dog Halloween Parade delivered Santa Paws, Vincent van Doge and the papal Pup Leo — a reminder that the art world's costume moment, Hyperallergic's own Halloween party on October 28, follows close behind.