South Williamsburg Tour

An afternoon of special studio visits with Rob Hickman, Matt Blackwell, and Steve Montgomery and a tour of the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Jersey City

Join SHINE NYC ART in collaboration with CURIOUS MATTER on
Saturday, May 5, 2012 from 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.for a walk through Jersey City's streets and explore art around several corners of the Historic Downtown area and beyond.

A Radical Fairie, a retro hair salon, a famous architect, and 25
artists on a fool's quest--what do they all have in common? Downtown
Jersey City! Art expert and top tour guide, Mary-Beth Shine will explain
it all. From the South Bronx to Red Hook, the Lower East Side to Long
Island City Mary-Beth Shine's popular art tours have explored places you
may not know about, as well as hidden gems right around the corner. This
time Mary-Beth turns the spotlight to Downtown Jersey City. The tour
will include stops at some of JC’s most interesting and inspiring hubs
of art and expression.

Co-founder of the downtown art gallery Curious Matter Raymond E. Mingst
says, "Mary-Beth is smart, insightful and pretension-free. We were
thrilled she was interested in exploring Jersey City and jumped at the
chance to collaborate on one of her famous tours. At Curious Matter
we've created an environment where every visitor feels comfortable
enough to talk about art and ask questions. Mary-Beth brings that
quality to entire neighborhood explorations and she makes it a
tremendous lot of fun. Her tours are absolutely terrific and we have a
community eager to engage with and talk about art."

Curious Matter is an exhibition venue for contemporary visual art
located in downtown Jersey City. Curious Matter is a sponsored project
of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.
Contributions for the purposes of Curious Matter must be made payable to
Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Behind the Scene(s): Red Hook Art Tours

A tour of Red Hook galleries, art spaces and studios, maybe a drink, and a dose of Red Hook's past and present. Each tour promises to be unique. Red Hook is special for its New York Harbor views and breezes, and the tours promise behind the scenes glimpses into the community's thriving arts scene.

Red Hook is a neighborhood that has rebounded after having Life magazine deem it one of the worst neighborhoods in the United States and as the crack capital of America in the early 1990's. It is now a mix of artists, working class families and individuals, restaurants, bars, shops and some long-standing and more recently opened galleries. Street art is here too. Come with me to explore that neighborhood that the big box store is in - the one you can't get to by subway alone.

Long Island City Art Spaces Tour

Long known as home to factories and bakeries (Tom Cat bakery lends a heavenly smell that wafts throughout the area), Long Island City, just over the East River from Midtown Manhattan, now hosts a thriving arts community including several thought provoking art spaces and fresh public art. The pioneering PS1 (now MoMA PS1), as well as its equally engaging neighbor, the 5pointz building, call Long Island City home, as well as other, less trafficked spaces that are equally worth the visit.

Lower East Side Gallery/Art Space Tour

New York City past and present coexist like no other neighborhood as in the Lower East Side. As a destination for visual art, the Lower East Side is one of the most diverse and community based in the city. Get a glimpse on this tour of the galleries and non profit spaces that call the Lower East Side home.

Bushwick Art Spaces Tour

An introduction to Bushwick, Brooklyn galleries and art spaces. With a diversity of artists and art spaces that dot the landscape of this working class, industrial neighborhood, Bushwick is at once low-fi and dynamic.

The right tour to discover new artists, and galleries with a fresh approach to presenting their work.