Needing art so bad after the holidaze? We’ve been feeling the same. This weekend starts another new year with a resolute set of Bushwick art openings and collaborations with the Williamsburg galleries. With the volume of shows going on in the neighborhood, the new year may show just how much Bushwick is a neighborhood meant for art, people, growth, culture, and anything and everything we could possibly have in 2016.
#1 “Sideshow on Mars” @ Life on Mars Gallery (FRI 6-9 PM)
56 Bogart Street
Life on Mars Gallery (LOM) is partnering with Sideshow Gallery for a joint exhibition and back-to-back openings happening this weekend. LOM’s main event takes place Friday with a 10+ group exhibition, followed by “Thru The Rabbit Hole” – the 15th annual Sideshow Gallery Invitational on Saturday night in Williamsburg (319 Bedford Avenue). LOM artists Todd Bienvenu, Michael David, Brenda Goodman and Karen Schwartz will bring the cosmic Bushwick vibe to Williamsburg’s main strip in the most interplanetary way.
#2 “Methods for Breeding Urban Systems” @ Robert Henry Contemporary (FRI 6-9 PM)
56 Bogart Street
Oozes and spurts of city life are drawn into the works behind Colin Keefe’s “Methods for Breeding Urban Systems,” opening Friday night at Robert Henry Contemporary. Ink drawings reveal meticulous plans and perspectival views of the artist’s fictitious constructed environments. Inspirations from microbiology and astronomy contribute to the environmental elements, resulting in the oozing or spurting of elements within clusters of city blocks or depictions of urban growth.
#3 “Drawing for Sculpture” @ TSA New York (FRI 6-10 PM)
1329 Willoughby Avenue
TSA’s first group show of 2016 takes on 41 sculptors who’s plans, thoughts, doodles and maps called out to curator Courtney Puckett. “Drawing for Sculpture” surveys the 2-D works that support 3-D forms, revealing the ‘real’ role that drawing places in each of the artists’ final works.
#4 “Mise-en-abyme” @ Underdonk (FRI 7-10 PM)
1329 Willoughby Avenue
Mutually idiosyncratic processes of Jay Gaskill and Alyse Ronayne led to the making of “Mise-en-abyme,” a term that refers to a self-referential reoccurrence of visual forms within, or between artworks of a sole artist. The show opens Friday at Underdonk, where works by Gaskill and Ronayne address the function of illusion in visual art that are described as ‘slightly off key, with a dash of menace’ as both give in to the wishes and whims that led them to mise-en-abyme.
#5 “New Morning” @ Space776 (FRI 7-10 PM)
229 Central Avenue
Four decades of work are covered in Space776’s “New Morning” show, where the pieces created during the 1970’s and 1980’s will show next to recent works by the following artists: Frank Olt, Len Bellinger, James Prez, Jerelyn Hanrahan, Dan Christoffel, Rafael Fuchs, Wendy Foster, Mimi Gross, Tom D Duimstra, Claudia Tienan, Lori Horowitz, Michael Krasowitz, Franklin Perrell and Liz-N-Val.
#6 Sharon Butler @ Theodore:Art (FRI 6-9 PM)
56 Bogart Street
Sharon Butler investigates painting and its discontents in her new solo show at Theodore:Art, revealing works that came as a result of her last studio move. Now her practice lies on a more fixed ground, where firm structures allow for a greater investigation and the dispense of earlier installation strategies. Butler’s blog, Two Coats of Paint carries the conversation of temporary workspaces and transient artists in contrast to her latest permanent move.
#7 “Stacks” @ OUTLET (FRI 7-10 PM)
253 Wilson Avenue
The wheel-thrown ceramics of artist Jeff Schwarz have their own show in “STACKS,” opening Friday night at OUTLET. Shwarz’s carefully considered works entail color-rich slip glazes put on through aggressive gestures and square cuts. In some works you can observe the stacks taking up a physical space within the sculpture, like “continuous scrawls of text/imagery scrolled across” the surface. Messages and tags reveal an influence of street graffiti and contemporary fashion design, forming the physical meeting point of the artist’s painting and sculptural practice.
#8 “The End Papers” @ Wayfarers (FRI 7-10 PM)
1109 Dekalb Avenue
Punk rock paper marbling is all the talk over at Wayfarers – their first show of 2016 “The End Papers” features a selection of monoprints by Sto Len. The evocative patterns in these works are the result of Sto’s spontaneous action, gestural mark making and allowance of natural forces: gravity, buoyancy, tension and chance.
#9 “Stupid Cartoons to Pass the Time in the Desert” @ Transmitter (FRI 6-9 PM)
1329 Willoughby Avenue
Transmitter’s first show of 2016 is sending a message about the passing of time in relation to the traditional comic and cartoon layout. For “Stupid Cartoons to Pass the Time in the Desert” Joey Parlett, Stephanie Snider, Adam Douglas Thompson and Crys Yin focus on the spatialization of time and on space itself, some through narrative structure, drawing or comedy.
#10 “All the Walls” @ VICTORI + MO GALLERY (FRI 6-9 PM)
56 Bogart Street
The phenomena of ‘ghosting’ in concrete makes its way into the constructs of Frank Zadlo in “All The Walls,” opening Friday at VICTORI + MO. As he interprets reality through sculpture, gouache on paper and moving images, a visual manifestation takes place by which the materials appear frozen in the act of drying (‘ghosting’), forming various reliefs. The pieces are described as heavy, but appear light and floating, and contain unseen structures, processes and even ghosts.
#11 “‘Til Death Do Us Part” @ Lorimoto (SAT 6-9 PM)
1623 Hancock Avenue
“Til Death Do Us Part” opens Saturday with new collaborative works by 9 artists couples – some who had worked together before and some who created shared work for the first time. You’ll see the great spark of partnership through these 9 pairs: Joy Curtis & Mike Olin, Elisa Lendvay & Ryan Franklin, Cibele Vieira & Peter Fox, Mika Yokobori & Daniel Zeller, Allie Rex & Brian LaRossa, Jeanne Tremel & Eliot Markell, Jennifer Coates & David Humphrey. Jennifer Lukasiewicz & David Nakabayashi, Courtney Puckett & Colin O’Con.
#12 “Beyond Ruin Porn” @ The Front Room (FRI 7-9 PM)
147 Roebling Street, Williamsburg
Bushwick’s resident ruins photographer Phil Buehler joins several other photogs at Front Room for “Beyond Ruin Porn,” opening Friday night in Williamsburg. “Ruin porn” usually describes a genre of photographs of ruined, abandoned buildings; there may be no intrinsic value but audiences love to look at it anyway. We saw Phil’s documentation of the ruins of Greystone Park State Hospital in “Wardy Forty” at Valentine Gallery in 2014, and a showing of both ancient and modern ruins in ODETTA’s “Kiosk” last fall, so we should be warmed up for a viewing of these charred, burned-up buildings and their massive wreckage.