The Drop

Justin Cloud, Stephen Deffet, Homeroom, Sarah Lewiecki, Abigail Regner, Jake Rosenwald, Kyle Vincent Scott

Curated by Andy Rosenwald

January 22 - February 20, 2022

Press Release

An antonymous and dichotomously derived expression, The drop, refers to both the ensuing crescendo of endorphins from a swipe of plastic or a tap of the phone and its inherent leftover, mostly forgotten. The fetish of the object grounds us in our humanity, each piece imbued with the memory of the creator who birthed it. But as memory fades, so do those who developed it, and the object’s intention is left in neglect. Though cultural waste is seldom considered by those who participate in the grandeur of capitalism, it nonetheless persists.

As Orchard Street transformed from British loyalist James DeLancey’s farm into tenement housing for immigrant populations, the economy of these city blocks was forced into self-sufficiency as the majority of the city would not engage culturally or economically with these new settlers. While these overlooked citizens fostered their own trade and financial systems, Orchard Street blossomed into an epicenter of textile production and food distribution for the surrounding community. Basement factories supplied the pushcarts on the streets. Keen frugality of shop runners and honed skill of the laborers gave way to the success of the storefront. Push carts evolved into glass vitrines for displaying the fruits of the population’s labor.

A century plus of commercial progress later, Below Grand inhabits the leftover real estate of one of these workshops. As an homage to the storefronts of Orchard street, The drop mimics the utility of its setting, camouflaging itself within the environment. Employing function driven design objects alongside artworks, the exhibition exists as a cohesive interior. In tune with the gallery’s goal of fostering the artistic community for cultural empowerment, the drop reinforces the importance of remembering what is forgotten and the appreciation of what was built.  

Justin Cloud (b. 1987 Houston, TX) is a visual artist from a family of farmers, mechanics, and engineers. Having worked as an automotive technician himself, his work often references machinery and automation and its relation with nature. He moved from Wyoming to NYC, receiving his MFA from CUNY Hunter College in 2018. While sheltering at his home in Brooklyn during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, Cloud shifted his artistic focus through cultivating a garden, growing vegetables and plants, and giving away food to his local community. The garden became a laboratory for introspection, criticality, and community activism. Cloud’s work has been shown nationally and internationally with recent exhibitions with LTD LA, Frederic Snitzer Gallery, and Thierry Goldberg. Cloud is also currently included in ‘The Drop’ at Below Grand in New York and has a Solo exhibition with Projet Pangee in Montreal. He has been featured in OFLUXO, Tzvetnik, Artviewer, Brooklyn Rail, Art News, Daily Lazy and other publications. Justin currently lives and works in New York, NY and is represented by Below Grand.

Stephen Deffet (b. 1993) is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY.

Homeroom is a New York-based design studio led by Sarah Kim (b. 1998 Los Angeles, CA) and David Zhang (b. 1997 Warren, OH). Sarah holds a BFA in Contemporary Dance from NYU, and David is an M.Arch candidate at Columbia GSAPP. The duo’s work spans from commercial and residential interiors to furniture and lighting design. The studio is currently focused on creating a collection of furniture and lighting pieces that engage with non-hierarchical modes of domestic 

life, placing the child as the lens through which the furniture pieces are seen and designed. Homeroom is built from a mutual interest in engaging with design from an unassuming perspective of naivety, which is reflected through formal play and material choice. Their work is featured in New York Magazine and is currently being shown in ‘The drop’ at Below Grand Gallery in Lower Manhattan.

Sarah Lewiecki (b. 1995 Boston, Massachusetts) is an oil painter and woodworker with current practices focusing on religious symbolism and alters. Lewiecki recently exhibited at the Torrance Art Museum in Torrance, CA and is included in the John P. Anderson Collection of Student Art at Wake Forest University. The artist lives and works in Telluride, CO and Los Angeles, CA.

Abigail Regner (b. 1997, New Jersey) is a ceramic artist based in Manhattan, New York, whose work explores themes of religion, ritual, and femininity through the functional form of vessels. She received her BFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2019, where she culminated her undergraduate studies by researching and making incantation bowls. Regner has now reoriented her current work to employ absurdity as a tool to address the position of death and dying in the perception of domestic objects. She is specifically interested in the role of the vase, a form often used as a vessel to display beauty, which she views as a vehicle housing the process of decay.

Jake Rosenwald (b. 1993 Baltimore, Maryland) is a Brooklyn-based architectural designer and artist. He received an M.Arch from Columbia GSAPP in 2019 and has been working in the architecture and urban design field since. His cross-disciplinary practice explores the intersection of art and architecture, drawing from a multiscalar interest in speculative urbanism and infrastructure, architectural materiality and construction, digital media, image-making, and fabrication. His work with LeCavalier R+D is currently on exhibition at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal.

Kyle Vincent Scott (b. Baltimore, MD 1996) BA - Tufts University, MFA - Maryland Institute College of Art. My work in large part is meant to reflect emotions that exist in a space beyond language. I create portraiture that expresses the very thoughts and feelings that may feel common to many of us but are somehow indescribable. I’ve spent the majority of my life getting tongue tied whenever I had to really express myself to another person and I aimed to have these images reflect that perpetual tug of war of knowing exactly what something is but stumbling in a way to define it.