VERGE: ART BROOKLYN

COURTNEY J. WENDROFF
Courtney J. Wendroff is the Visual Arts Director at Brooklyn Arts Council, where she established BAC Gallery, a not-for-profit gallery space featuring works by Brooklyn based artists in exhibitions curated by emerging and mid-career curators. Courtney joined BAC in August 2005, having worked for five years as Assistant Director of Jeffrey Coploff Fine Art Ltd. in Chelsea and as a consultant to Margaret Thatcher Projects. Courtney is also an artist who has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. Prior to running a gallery she spent many years as an art teacher and artist assistant in New York and San Francisco. Courtney also devoted her early career to helping start up the successful not-for-profit glass facility, Public Glass in San Francisco, California, where she also taught glass blowing classes. Courtney attended the Arts Leadership Institute, sponsored by the Arts and Business Council of New York at Columbia University. She has studied at the world renowned Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington and has been a teaching assistant at Penland School of Crafts. Courtney has an MFA in Sculpture from Parsons School of Design, and a BFA in Glass from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts).

DANIEL "DANNY" SIMMONS JR.
Daniel "Danny" Simmons, Jr. is an abstract-expressionist painter. Older brother of hip-hop impressario Russell Simmons and rapper Joseph Simmons ("Reverend Run" of Run DMC), he is the founder and President of the Rush Arts Gallery. In addition, Simmons converted part of his loft in Brooklyn into the Corridor Gallery. Along with his brother Russell, Simmons established Def Poetry Jam, which has enjoyed long-running success on HBO. Simmons is also the founder and Vice-President of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, a non-profit organization. In 2004, Simmons published Three Days As The Crow Flies, a fictional account of the 1980's New York art scene. He has also written a book of artwork and poetry called I Dreamed My People Were Calling But I Couldn't Find My Way Home. Simmons is the son of Daniel Simmons, Sr., a truant officer and black history professor who also wrote poetry, and Evelyn Simmons, a teacher who painted as a hobby. He earned a degree in social work from New York University and a master's in public finance from Long Island University. He began painting after he realized how much he hated his job with the Bureau of Child Support. Simmons, an abstract-expressionist painter, has had his work shown nationally. Chase Manhattan Bank, the United Nations, and the Schomburg Center for Black Culture all show his work as part of their collections. He is also an avid collector of African art and comic books. Simmons also sits on the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Brooklyn Bridge Park. He is the Chairman of the Board of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), and the Chairman of the NYC chapter of the National Conference of Artists.

STEVEN KAPLAN
Steven Kaplan writes about art and film, both in print and online. He has curated art exhibitions, edited magazines, served as a juror on film festivals, and was the creative director of an art fair in New York. He once moderated an online calendar of New York art events, and worked both coasts of Florida as a shrimp fisherman. Based in New York, Mr. Kaplan also has a residence in Miami.

STEPHEN MALLON
Most people look at work sites and machinery and see nothing more than concrete and steel. Stephen Mallon looks at them and sees both a surreal beauty and the wonder of their engineering. In the past since, he has traveled everywhere from Africa to New Jersey, searching out artificial landscapes and industrial footprints. His work has been exhibited widely, and he has been commissioned by a wide range of commercial clients, including the Sunday London Times, Publicis, Sudler & Hennessey, MAYTAG, and AARP. In 2009, Mallon made a big splash with his stunning “Brace for Impact: The Salvage of Flight 1549,” a series of photographs documenting the salvaging of the US Air flight that, amazingly, airline captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger had managed to safely emergency-land in the Hudson River in on January 15, 2009. The images Mallon produced during the two-week effort by maritime contractor Weeks Marine have since been exhibited in New York and featured at numerous websites, in print, and on TV, including Wired.com, New York magazine, NBC, Resource Magazine, Vanity Fair, and CBS News. In the spring of 2012 “Brace for Impact: The Salvage of Flight 1549” will be exhibited at Webster University in St.Louis. In September 2010, his solo exhibitiion “Next Stop Atlantic opened with great response from National Public Radio, A Curator, The Heavy Light, The L magazine, Stella Kramer, Sara Rosen’s blog, and Photo District News. Mallon, whose photos have been honored by Communication Arts 2008 and 2009, the New York Photo Festival 2009, the Lucie Awards 2009, is also a leader in the photo community. Since 2002, he has been a board member of the New York chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers and served as president from 2006 to 2009. He lives in New York with his wife and their young daughter.

Loren Munk

LOREN J. MUNK / JAMES KALM
"The James Kalm Report"and "James Kalm Roughcuts" have a worldwide cult following, with over 500 programs and over 1,500,000 views. His reports have been featured on numerous websites, art blogs, and online magazines like ARTFORUM.com, Art Daily, Art Fag City and Saatchi Online. His report on Jeff Koons at the Metropolitan Museum was recently the subject of a feature article in the Los Angeles Times by Thomas Mulligan, and James Panero has written a feature article appearing in February 2011 issue of The New Criterion on Munk's practice. His art production for the last decade has evolved out of his theory “The Physics of Aesthetics” which involves the documentation, mapping and charting of the New York art world, with a special focus on the Williamsburg and Brooklyn scene. With frequent tours and a long term critical focus on this neighborhood, and his development of an archive and artist’s file, James Kalm may be the preeminent art historian of the Williamsburg and Greater Brooklyn Community. He is married, with two adult children, paints and writes in Brooklyn.