About Vorderzimmer

Vorderzimmer
280 Van Buren Street
Brooklyn,  NY 11221

(“Foahduh-Tsimmuh”) means Front Room in German. At Vorderzimmer, artists show their works in the warm setting of a private brownstone’s ground level, street-facing room in Bed-Stuy/Brooklyn. The room contains the character and scuffs of a modest 128-year-old house with its classic old moldings and wainscotings. Salon-style shows are open for 3 hours only on ONE Sunday.

 
Vorderzimmer strives to introduce viewers to the many beautiful and/or interesting things that people everywhere create - be they learned artists with day jobs, or self-taught makers of some sort. Our world is alive with such people, and Vorderzimmer shows it, in the lived-in, loved room of a lived-in, loved house.

However limited in time, space and turnout, Vorderzimmer gets creators, thinkers and appreciators together “over artwork” physically, not virtually. Intimacy is key. What does it mean to live with something that someone created? How does art affect the quarters where one eats, sleeps, thinks, and receives only those people one wants there; where one retreats from the exterior world? And how do those quarters affect the art?

Visitors enter under the stoop - the entrance historically reserved for staff who kept the house going, but were supposed to remain unseen by house owners. These workers were the unsung, everyday makers and doers of countless households.
 

Today, Vorderzimmer showcases single artists, and will launch the occasional small group show. Shows take place four times a year, on a Sunday from 4 to 7pm. Music or readings may take place in the Hinterzimmer (“Hintuh-Tsimmuh”: Back Room).

Vorderzimmer takes 25% of any sales and donates all its proceeds to Earthjustice, a not-for-profit law organization that defends the environment.

Beverages will be provided. Rock-bottom donations suggested.