Liz Taylor: Virginia Woolf by Wayne Hollowell
Tomorrow night at 365 Grand Street, a new gallery will bloom in the basement of Essex Flowers — one that harks back to the Lower East Side’s “scrappier days,” according to Gallerist. The kickoff, at 5 p.m., features the work of nine local artists in their early 30s who will curate subsequent shows at the space (which has a very minimalist website).
For more of this week’s openings and closings, see the B + B art calendar, or have a look at the highlights below.
EAST VILLAGE
Drama Queen
Southern pop artist Wayne Hollowell’s saturated color portraits are filled with “more drama than any queen should have to take,” depicting tragically fabulous characters throughout history and literature, from the Edies of “Grey Gardens” to Liberace to Elizabeth Taylor’s liquor-slinging Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”
Michael Mut Gallery, 97 Avenue C; closing Sunday, 6 p.m.
Boxcutters in Brown Town
Conrad Carlson (aka DJ Dirtyfinger), known for his tall-bike tomfoolery with the Black Label Bicycle Club, makes art out of cardboard boxes he finds on the street. This is his first solo show.
Fuse Gallery, 93 Second Ave., opening reception July 3 at 7 p.m.
LOWER EAST SIDE
It’s Boring to Die
Swedish artist Johan Wahlstrom fills enormous canvases with graphic, unsettling heads and torsos in blues, greys and reds.
Van Der Plas Gallery, 156 Orchard Street; opening reception tonight at 6 p.m.; exhibit on view through July 29.
Nature Sublime
Woodsy landscape paintings filled with trippy light and color by New Jersey-based artist Todd LW Doney.
The 155 Project, 155 Orchard Street; opened yesterday; on view through July 28.
Resurfaced Realms of the Unreal
East Village artist duo Contemporary Adult Music, whose whimsically gruesome mural you may have spotted on the wall of Ideal Glass on East Second Street, will hold its first solo show at Senaspace Art Gallery, which doubles as a tattoo parlor. The collection is inspired by the reclusive Henry Darger’s 15,000 page fantasy novel.
Senaspace, 299 Centre Street; opening reception tonight at 6 p.m.; exhibit on view through July 14.
Exhibit Q: Queer Bodies Public Performance
Performance artist Tim Miller ends his week-long residence at the New Museum and kicks off Pride Weekend with a collaborative live set about “navigating the treacherous gap between self-representation and the viewer’s gaze.”
New Museum, 235 Bowery; Friday at 7 p.m. Tickets $15.
BUSHWICK
Phaedo
Named after the Platonic dialogue about Socrates’s death and the immortality of the soul in an afterlife, this exhibit showcases 10 artists who explore unsolvable phenomena through abstract art.
Storefront Bushwick, 16 Wilson Avenue; opening reception Friday at 6 p.m; exhibit on view through July 28.
Solid Pull
A “whimsical, sensual, sculptural, textural and immersive” exhibition of intricately painted ceramics by contemporary artists.
, 44 Stewart Ave, #49; opening reception Friday at 7 p.m.; exhibit on view through August 4.
“Its Boring To Die” exhibition by Johan Wahlstrom is extended until August 15th at
Van Der Plas Gallery, 156 Orchard Street, Lower East Side, New York
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