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Bushwick's Biggest Art Fair Planned for Queens Canceled

By Meredith Hoffman | April 11, 2013 1:20pm

BUSHWICK — So much for the "Bushwick mentality" being shipped to Queens.

Bushwick's biggest art fair yet, slated for Maspeth's 3-acre Knockdown Center and outdoor grounds, has been canceled, gallery owners said. The organizer of Bushwick Basel called off the giant festival late last week, they added.

The blog Bushwick Daily first reported the story.

The dozens of galleries planning to show work at the new space in Queens received an e-mail from Jules de Balincourt — the event's organizer and a renowned artist — that he was too busy to plan the second annual June fair, curators said.

The weekend-long fair planned during Bushwick Open Studios would have imported the neighborhood's artwork and even its pizza (with catering by Roberta's), gallery owner Deborah Brown previously told DNAinfo.com New York.

And to many gallerists the event would have transformed the Queens spot into Bushwick for a weekend.

"Much more than a physical location, Bushwick is a state of mind," gallerist Julian Jimerez Howard of OUTLET Fine Art gallery previously said. "The Bushwick mentality is anything associated with the do it yourself movement...and a boldness, a willingness to buck tradition or to reflect that tradition in an alternative way."

De Balincourt did not respond immediately to e-mails requesting comment.