RIVAA Readies
Organization’s Sixth Annual “Vernissage”
by Bonnie Goodman

RIVAA arranged for this group art “happening” as part of the 2006 Fall for Arts event. A variety of Islanders and visitors added their work to multiple billboards that started out blank. Harry Small

Gallery RIVAA and the Roosevelt Island Visual Arts Association (RIVAA) are celebrating their Sixth Anniversary with Vernissage 6, an exhibition of members’ work. The opening reception is next Saturday (March 31), 6-9 p.m.

Six years ago, the former Bigelow Pharmacy site was transformed by members of the Roosevelt Island Visual Arts Association into the present gallery. Since then, the name "Vernissage" has been adopted for every Gallery RIVAA Anniversary exhibit. Literally, it means "varnishing," in French, and by extension, the ceremonial start of an art exhibition.

Gallery RIVAA has held some 50 member and guest exhibitions. The opening receptions provide an opportunity to have one-on-one discussions with the artists about their work. At the gallery, RIVAA has also hosted the work of patient artists from the Island’s Coler- Goldwater Hospital, an exhibition of the Louis I. Kahn plan for a Southpoint Park monument to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and an international ideas competition for the renovation of the Renwick Ruin at Southpoint spearheaded by the Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA) and the AIA (American Institute of Architects).

Gallery RIVAA, which is manned by members of the organization, is open Saturday and Sunday, 11-5, plus Wednesday and Friday, 6-9. Additional information is available at www.RIVAA.com.

Vernissage 6 will continue through May 20.

 

Esther Piaskowski Cohen Izumi Tokuno