QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, June 23, 2022 Page 20
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Ridgewood is a haven for all artists Outpost Artists Resources offers creatives the most valuable thing: space by Deirdre Bardolf Associate Editor
her art studio. “Ruth Kahn is a long time champion of exper iTucked away in an unassuming mental music and building in Ridgewood, the foundanew ba nd s a nd tion of which was built in the late young musical tal1800s and once served as a dance ents,” said hall and later a sweatshop where Weinstein. sweaters were sewn together, is a Chen rememhaven for artists of all kinds that bers the d ays has operated for over a decade. when Kahn would Outpost Artists Resources, origcook meals for the inally founded in 1991 in Manhatar tists before tan, supports creatives through ress h ow s b e c a u s e idencies and events and provides there was not technical assistance with video, much to eat in the audio and physical computingarea. She would based art projects, including editwhip up vegetariing technology, sound engineering an meals and pots and custom programming. of soup for the artThe nonprofit hosts gallery exhiists to bond over bitions, artist talks, screenings and before the show. events that pair visual art, video, O u t p o s t h a s Outpost Artists Resources, based out of Ridgewood, is located in a space that was formerly a experimental music and been a “feeding dance hall, making it the perfect place to hold concerts. PHOTOS COURTESY OUTPOST ARTISTS RESOURCES performances. ground” for upOn Thursdays, concer ts are and-coming groups, Weinstein said, the art community, either. “change in the gravitational pull of recorded in the space, which proincluding the Beastie Boys and “Ridgewood has become one of the audience to the arts” and made vides desirable acoustics due to the Sonic Youth from its early Manhat- the neighborhoods where a lot of Queens a center for new activity. 20-foot ceilings that were installed tan days. Kahn has always understood the musicians, younger musicians, are before apartments were built on top “It’s a place for people to try living now,” he said. “Parts of need that artists have for studio in the 20th century. experimenting with not so much Queens and the outer boroughs are space, which has only gotten to be The concert series, Fire Over pressure and for enough money to becom i ng more populated by more expensive in the city. Heaven, produces nine monthly make it worth their cab fare,” he younger musicians and creative Outpost previously offered artist shows a year and features said. residencies but it has given that and people.” performers from experiOutpost came to Ridgewood in Weinstein says the availability of the gallery up and is just focusing ment al, ava nt-ga rde 2009 and the music scene seemed space has made it a thriving cre- on the concerts, radio show and jazz, classical, rock, to follow suit. occasional video screening. ative community. performance art, folk “I bought the place because it Kahn, 71, is in the process of “Years ago, nobody was interestand world music comwas half a block from the L train ed in anything creative that hap- retiring and handing the 501(c)(3) munities. It is curated and I could afford it,” said Kahn. pened outside of Manhattan,” he off to another arts group. by Queens-based musi“I didn’t really think about the said. “Now, the generations that fol“If I were going to do it all over cian Che Chen, who is neighborhood ... it had this good lowed me, these people will go any- again, I would look for a building also part of the musical space because it had been a sweat- where to see a cool show. I mean, that had studios,” she said. duo 75 Dollar Bill, the second shop. There was a giant room with they’ll take the train to the Rocka“There’s much more of a need for half of which is Rick Brown. a 20-foot ceiling and plugs on the ways. They’ll go to Jersey City, work studios. There’s a lot of places “I try to program bills that are floor and tons of sewing machines they’ll go to Flushing Town Hall to for musicians to play, and there are eclectic and bring in people that are when I bought it.” see someth i ng ... that means tons of galleries. So the real need, working at the fringes of all these Those plugs were soon given a Queens isn’t so marginalized any- in my opinion, is studio space — different scenes,” Chen said. new purpose and put to good use. more. It’s not like a weird, scary cheap studio space, which because “I try to make it a space where Che says the perks of the neigh- place that people don’t understand.” of my age, luckily, I managed to the outliers from all those scenes borhood were not lost on others in He said that has caused a have t h roug hout most of my — folk, rock, classical, jazz — can career.” Over the years, grant money has dwindled, such as that from the Queens Council on the Arts, which has made it more difficult to carry out operations. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” she said. “It’s a pretty long life for a small nonprofit in New York City.” “It was just another weird miracle every year,” she continued. “You could never predict where the money would come from ... the grants are maybe one-fifth of what they were 25 years ago. They just Over the years, Outpost Artists Resources has hosted gallery exhibitions, artist talks, screenings and events that pair visual art, video, experimental music got smaller and smaller and smaller over time.” and performances. Due to a lack of funding, however, it has downsized. Screenings and concerts will continue in the space. be in one place and maybe there can be some cross-pollination. And I’ve also tried to get people from the Queens music community that aren’t maybe so tied into this world.” For example, he said, the Hindustani classical singer Dada Tapan Kanti Badya. “It’s a very artist-run and artistsupporting project,” said Chen. Outpost staff produces highquality recordings of the concerts, made available for free to the artists and broadcast on WFMU’s Ridgewood Radio stream, which airs on Wednesdays. Concerts are on hiatus for the summer but are expected to pick back up in September. Previous ones are available online. There is a sliding-scale admission for attendees so that artists can be paid. The radio show also offers restored archival tapes from private and institutional collections captured at venues large and small across the five boroughs and produced by David Weinstein in the basement of the building. Especially during the pandemic when live shows could not be recorded, he would gather material and do specials on different international music like Ukrainian avant-garde and music from the Arabian peninsula, he said. T h e y wo u l d a l s o gather recordings from places like the Knockdown Center, Flushing Town Hall and the former Queenslab as well as venues like Trans-Pecos and H0LO. Outpost founder and painter Ruth Kahn’s artwork hangs on the walls in the home base room because when concerts are not being recorded there, she uses it as
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