Artists Riff on Gowanus Water Tower at Annual Show

By Paul Frangipane and Kirstyn Brendlen, Brooklyn Paper

How much can a water tower mean to a neighborhood?

Quite a bit, according to the artists of Gowanus. In March, Arts Gowanus opened its fourth annual “Tower Show,” featuring nearly 170 individual works of art all depicting the same object: the old water tower that serves as the org’s logo.

The premise of “Tower Show” is the same every year: Artists purchase a $20 11-by-17-inch template of the water tower from Arts Gowanus and make it their own with their medium of choice. There are only two rules: They have to use the template, and the final piece can’t extend beyond the edges of the frame.

When they’re done, the artists return their pieces to be displayed side by side, all for sale for $200.

This year’s exhibit, which opened for a two-weekend run at Gowanus Wharf on March 28, was the largest Tower Show yet, said Johnny Thornton, executive director of Arts Gowanus. The roughly 170 towers lining the walls of the space were decorated with all manner of materials — glass, tiles, fabric pieces, found materials, and more.

One had been turned into an interactive picture book, complete with miniature photos of Thornton and Arts Gowanus program director Emily Chiavelli. Local artist Tom Fruin set up one of his massive and colorful glass water towers in the exhibit as well.

The show is sort of an homage to Arts Gowanus, and to the neighborhood’s roots. The nonprofit adopted a falling-down water tower at 420 Carroll Street as its logo years ago, and Thornton and Chiavelli have matching tattoos of the structure.

“It’s like a kind of celebration of our neighborhood … and the arts community that’s in it,” Thornton said. “I’m very biased but I think we have the most wonderful arts community. It’s very collaborative, it’s a little bit like Sesame Street. Gowanus — it really is an arts and culture neighborhood.”

It’s also a way for artists to show off their skills and style.

“With everyone starting from the same point with the template, it really makes it very clear … the diversity of creativity that we have in the neighborhood,” Chiavelli said.

Every year, artists go bigger and wackier with their ideas, she said, and they “really brought it this year.”

The show was particularly fun, Thornton said, because of how large it was. After Arts Gowanus curated an exhibit at Union Channel — the first of three residential buildings at Gowanus Wharf — developers offered to let the group use the space until it gets rented out by another tenant.

That allowed the Arts Gowanus to accept many more artists than usual. Previously, the largest Tower Show had featured just about 50 artists, Thornton said. The 2025 version comprised over 100 more.

Carving out space for local artists in new luxury developments is a key part of Arts Gowanus’ work, Chiavelli said. Gowanus has long had a thriving arts scene, thanks to its industrial character and cheap studios. But the neighborhood has changed dramatically in recent years, forcing artists to abandon ship as rents crept up.

In 2021, the Gowanus rezoning promised even more change in the form of dozens of new residential buildings, like Union Channel.

“When we realized the rezoning was gonna happen, we really focused on advocacy to keep artists in the neighborhood and keep the neighborhood affordable for artists,” Chiavelli said.

In addition to working with developers to carve out spaces for exhibitions and public art, Arts Gowanus negotiated to have 11 buildings that take advantage of the rezoning provide affordable artist studios. The lottery for the first six studios went live in January.

Editor’s note: A version of this story originally ran in Brooklyn Paper. Click here to see the original story.

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