Frieze New York – and all the posse fairs that come with it – is upon us! But why should Randall’s Island have all the fun? This weekend, many Bushwick galleries will be open late on Saturday to celebrate the week’s special devotion to the art world. Below are some must-see openings happening Friday and Saturday, along with other shows not to miss as you take advantage of Saturday’s late night open doors!
#1 Disintegrator @ Studio 10 (FRI 7-9)
Finally, you get to use the word “simulacrum” in a sentence! On Friday, Studio 10 will be exhibiting works by John Avelluto from his new series, Disintegrator. At first glance, the series appears to be a kind of origami show, where objects are made from folded graph paper. Upon a closer look, however, we realize these objects are in fact paint. The objects are a facsimile, so carefully painted that only the object’s weight and feel betray’s the apparent substance. Avelluto, known to “complicate the act of looking” has surely done it again in this body of work.
#2 Out All Night @ Outlet Fine Art (FRI 7-10)
In the Bushwick art community, we are happy to accept newcomers, and celebrate newness, up-and-comers, the outcasts and the unique. However, it’s also a place that respects the art and innovators who came before. We can pay that homage on Friday at Outlet Fine Art, where photographer Alan Kleinberg’s black and white images of New York City’s downtown creative scene from 1973-1981 can be viewed frozen in time. Kleinberg captured the characters from Warhol’s Factory, The Mudd Club, and other downtown hot spots, with delight and respect in his photos, and immortalized moments in history that continue to have an impact on the art world today.
#3 Demo @ Signal Gallery (FRI 7-10)
Both the topics and materials used in this show, are quite heavy. Demo is a group show of site-specific work by artists Andrew Laumann, Jesse Hlebo, and Nicholas Gottlund. Each artist explores what happens to people when our societal systems, both socially and mechanically, are interrupted, through the use of processed industrial and architectural materials.
#4 Allan Wexler. Sight Lines: 35 Years of Drawing @ Schema Projects (FRI 6-9)
You’re familiar with Schema Projects if you’re the kind of person that’s more interested in an artist’s sketchbook than the final product. Without fail, the gallery is producing another hit show, this time of artist and architect Allan Wexler’s drawings. Wexler uses conventions of architecture, sketching, and orthography, to produce finished drawings. In this retrospective of his work, we will see Wexler’s noted exploration of human rituals through physical space as he draws kitchens, living rooms and bathrooms. These drawings do not result in architectural designs ready to be built, but rather artistic renderings that explore the spaces we need to sleep, bathe, and dine.
#5 Lorem Ipsum @ Interstate Projects (SAT 7-9)
Lorem Ipsum is the made up language that one can argue is the foundation of our virtual landscape. Based in Latin but intentionally fully of grammatical errors, Lorem Ipsum is the placeholder text that coders and developers use when crafting digital space, in order to ensure no distraction from content. But literally, it translates to “pain itself.” Artist Justin Berry, who is always on the hunt to explore language, photography, and the digital world, uses the premise to turns word documents into gelatin prints of video-game-like landscapes, and create a narrative “where the only characters are time and place.”
#6 Soap @ Microscope Gallery (SAT 6-9)
What looks like a piece of nostalgia art, actually has a much deeper meaning. In his 16mm celluloid film, SOAP, and sculptural installation of the same name, artist Matt Town creates a vessel for the body — his body — that races through the streets of his neighborhood. As Town rides through his neighborhood in the stark white box car, we are made to think of a bar of soap, scooting through the streets. We soon find out that the boxcar is representational of the obstacles one must overcome when trying to make it in the city. As the white box zooms around the hispanic neighborhood, we realize it seems to be representing a “cleansing” of the streets in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.
#7 More-Than-One-and-Less-Than-Two at Gordilloscudder (SAT 7-10)
What are we anyway, but a bunch of tubes and cells? This group show connects a number of artists work to an anthropological conversation about the body. This show uses sculpture, paint, technology, and music, to blur the lines between everything from the tubes that make us breath to the tubes that bring your house electricity. The show will also feature a musical performance of the Chroma Color Organ by Camissa Forrest at 8pm.
#8 Vapors and Squalls, or Mediums Closing reception @ Centotto (SAT 7-9)
If you missed Centotto’s group showing of works by Kate Teale, Karen Marston, Jonathan Quinn and Wendy Klemperer, you have one last chance to see them as the gallery stays open late for Bushwick Frieze Night. Paying homage to the beauty and wrath of mother nature, the show exhibits paintings and sculpture of water and animals who have perhaps succumbed to it, alongside texts about weather from famous authors.
#9 Seventh Anniversary Group Show @ English Kills (SAT 6-10)
English Kills gallery will be open late as part of Bushwick Frieze Night, so stop by to see the space’s spectacular anniversary show! As it celebrates its seventh year in operation, English Kills showcases work by neighborhood art rock stars like Jason Andrew, Judith Supine, Deborah Brown, Brent Owens and Paul D’Agostino among a number of others.
#10 Souvenir @ Regina Rex (SAT 6-10)
Tragically, this is the last exhibition in the 17-17 Troutman Building for the beloved, artist-run gallery Regina Rex. They will also keep their doors open late one last time thanks to Bushwick Frieze Night. Saturday night will be your last chance to catch the current show, Souvenir, which exhibits work from artists Sarah Gerats, Julia Hechtman, Tina Kohlmann, and Karla Wozniak. Each artist explores our moment of impact upon meeting new places and spaces, through the use of our desire to commemorate occasions with mementos. “Through video, painting, sewing, and carving, they mediate environmental experience that is alternately mundane, hallucinatory, and sublime.”
