The Invisible Dog Art Center is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

and arts center in

Boerum Hill Boerum Hill (pronounced ) is a small neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bounded by Schermerhorn Street to the north and Fourth Avenue to the east. The western border is variously given as either Sm ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, established by Lucien Zayan in 2009. The center gets its name from being a former ''invisible dog'' factory. Some buckles, belts, molds, and industrial fixtures remain as remnants throughout the building. The Art Center now plays host to performance and visual art,Collins, Lisa M
"Our Local, International, Not-So-Invisible Gallery"
March 16, 2013. as well as artists in residence, some of whom have taken on inspiration from the industrial nature of their surroundings.

History

Lucien Zayan pitched his idea to the owner after discovering the space in 2008. Upon taking ownership, Zayan immediately cleaned the building, collected all the remnants from the building's days as a factory, and held a flea market. He later said, "What was junk at first glance turned out to be a treasure-trove of vintage merchandise and furniture–particularly the thousands of belts on hand from the 1960s." In March 2013, American

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

and art magazine

Kill Screen ''Kill Screen'' (stylized as ''KILL SCREEN'') was a print and online magazine founded in 2009 by Jamin Warren and Chris Dahlen and owned by Kill Screen Media, Inc. It focused on video games and culture, but also included articles based on ent ...

used the building to host the 2013

two5six The Kill Screen Festival (often simply known as Kill Screen Fest; formerly two5six) is an annual video game developer conference inaugurated on 11 May 2013 in New York City by the print and online magazine ''Kill Screen''. The annual conference fo ...

conference, which is held every year in a different location throughout

Building

The Invisible Dog's location at 51 Bergen Street was built in 1863. The building was purchased in the 1950s as a factory to produce belts and jewelry. In the 1970s the novelty concept of the invisible dog was invented here. When Lucien Zayan came across the building in 2008, "the building was packed full of stuff and junk and furniture. All 68 windows were broken and needed to be replaced." The building has an operational manual

freight elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They are ...

and displays a mural by

Giuseppe Stampone Giuseppe Stampone (born in Cluses, France) is a visual artist who lives and works between Rome and Brussels. His artistic production ranges from multimedia installations and videos to drawings made with Bic pen,

along the shaft (c. 2009) of illustrated text from Dante's ''

Inferno Inferno may refer to: * Hell, an afterlife place of suffering * Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire Film * ''L'Inferno'', a 1911 Italian film * Inferno (1953 film), ''Inferno'' (1953 film), a film noir by Roy Ward Baker * Inferno (1973 fi ...

'' (in the original Italian).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Invisible Dog Art Center 2009 establishments in New York City Arts centers in New York City Boerum Hill Museums in Brooklyn