Grief’s gallery: Art exhibit shows items dead NYers leave behind

The end was just the beginning for this Brooklyn art exhibit.

The belongings of dozens of late New Yorkers — from the mundane to the incredibly moving — are on display at Green-Wood Cemetery’s Fort Hamilton Gatehouse as part of artist-in-residence Adam Tendler’s latest exhibit, “Exit Strategy.”

Clothes, friendship bracelets, VHS tapes and even underwear are some of the items once left to surviving loved ones and donated for the project.

The exhibit features the pieces of forgotten personal history strewn over a piano and accompanied by hand-written notes from loved ones on the wall describing them.

Tendler, also a pianist and composer, told The Post that the recent death of his father inspired the exhibit, which features the “accidental inheritances” that people come into.

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“The question that looms over the project, and what the project aims to explore, is really, ‘What was I given that I didn’t ask for?’ ” Tendler said.

“Sometimes what we’re left with are these accidental inheritances that weren’t bestowed upon us but that we just sort of have,” he said. “It can be physical objects, but it can also be psychological, emotional artifacts like memories – things that were said, smells, sounds. All those can be bestowed upon us by accident.”

The artist, a Vermont native living in Brooklyn, began the project by bringing in clothing of people he lost.

“Particularly clothing of my father, which is some of the only stuff I have of his is underwear and socks and some of his pajamas,” Tendler said.

Later, he was able to source materials for the project by issuing a call-out through the cemetery’s various email systems – which connected him to a network of grief support groups and cemetery regulars throughout the spring and summer.

Tendler then met each donor in-person to hear their stories.

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“A teacher brought in a 30-something-year-old shell that belonged to a student of hers who was probably 10 or so years old [and] was diagnosed with AIDS as a child,” Tendler said. “He did a ‘Make a Wish’ trip, and he brought her back a shell, and she’s held onto it for decades, and she brought it into the installation to release it in a way.”

Although the premise of the exhibit is to part with the items, Tendler offered the teacher the rare opportunity to take the shell back after the show culminates next month.

“She had to remind me of the point of what I’m doing,” Tendler said. “She’s like, ‘No, I’m actually ready to let go of this.’ ”

The teacher’s seashell hangs on a wall accompanied by briefs and a striped shirt while a three-hour loop of an original score composed by Tendler plays somberly in the background.

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“At Green-Wood, we build relationships with contemporary artists,” said Harry Weil, Green-Wood’s vice president of education and public programs, in a statement.

“In turn, their art helps us to build relationships with our community. During his year at the Cemetery, Adam has really embraced the history of the Green-Wood and its role as a place where people seek solace.”

Tendler acknowledged that his instlation looks a bit like a “crime scene.

“I’m interested in that paradox and that juxtaposition, because our thoughts and our experiences are messy,” he said. “They’re not black and white, and this installation lives in the middle of beautiful and messy and scary and raw.”

Exit Strategy is open to the public at Green-Wood Cemetery from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. until Aug. 25.

Tendler has an “exit strategy” for the exhibit items as well – he will keep all the handwritten letters and will repurpose each physical object.

“Originally, I was really punky about it,” Tendler said. “I was like, ‘I’m going to destroy everything, and that’s going to be part of the process.’ But then I met the people and heard these stories, and I’m like, ‘There’s no way I can do that to this item.’

“I’m either going to keep [the items] as my accidental inheritance, or I’ll find a place for it, but it’s not going to be destroyed.”

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