(photo via Brandon Perdomo / Facebook)
MVMT: a solo exhibition by Brandon Perdomo
Opening Monday December 5 at The Living Gallery, 7 pm to 10:30 pm. One night only.
Multidisciplinary artist Brandon Perdomo presents a one-night-only exhibition, which includes photography and performance work. Though this is a solo exhibition, he has enlisted the help of two performances to fill the night: at 8 pm, Another Lopez, who is the subject of a photo series by Perdomo, will perform a live dance installation piece and at 8:30 pm the silly, catchy, trash-loving band Pinc Louds will be leaving their home base of the NYC subway underground to play a colorful set. There is an $8 suggested donation, vegan dumplings may make an appearance, and BYOB is welcome.
Aidan Koch (image via Picture Room / Facebook)
Capture by Aidan Koch
Opening Wednesday December 7 at McNally Jackson’s Picture Room, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through January 31.
In 2014, indie bookstore McNally Jackson opened Picture Room, an art-book shop and exhibition space around the corner from their Nolita bookshop. This Wednesday, they will be having an opening reception for the work gracing their walls for the next two months, a series of sketches from artist and graphic novelist Aidan Koch. Koch’s comics tend to focus less on narrative and more on tone, so it makes a lot of sense to display her drawings outside of that context, letting the tone and imagery reign on walls without expectation of any narrative at all. The series focuses on notebook sketches done while at museums; most are sheets of paper containing multiple drawings per page, conjuring comparisons to a flash tattoo sheet. Koch has taken this association and run with it, even going as far as to poke holes into some of the drawings, like the spectre of a stick-and-poke. Gaze upon these soft and intimate drawings while also browsing Picture Room’s art book and print collection, for you might find something you like, or maybe even something you can afford.
(image courtesy of Vasileia Anaxagorou)
Precarious Constructs
Opening Friday December 9 at Venus Knitting Art Space, 7 pm to 10 pm. On view through December 18.
This group show curated by Etty Yaniv and Levan Mindiashvili is located in the same bustling building as Porterspace, a studio shared with a painter that offers free rehearsal and workshop space to emerging artists. But rather than performance, Precarious Constructs is all about sculpture, from the miniature to the massive. They span a range of subject matter and materials: some are human-animal hybrids made from instantly-setting plaster, others “apocalyptic trophies” constructed from the hardwood ebony, and some are cobbled together from items left behind. There will also be a performance component, entitled Mis-readings / Drafting A Strand, a collaboration between artists Amanda Thackray and Milcah Bassel where one constructs a rope out of long strips of paper and one utilized and deconstructs text from Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto.
John Dante Bianchi
Installation view of John Dante Bianchi’s studio, 2016 (image via Denny Gallery)
Unavoidable Encounter
Opening Friday December 9 at Denny Gallery, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through January 22.
In that one Spongebob episode, the beloved titular character tries many tactics to ready himself to make a sculpture out of marble. He has to embrace the marble, wash the marble, date the marble. You could argue that he is treating this slab of marble like a human being. In John Dante Bianchi’s new solo show at Broome Street’s Denny Gallery, opening this Friday, pieces of art are treated in a similar fashion. Bearing names like Bruised Panels and Torqued Panels, Bianchi’s sculptural works are created using the idea of the piece as a body with skin that can be affected and modified. Thus, Bruised Panels features colors and patterns that recall bruises blooming on human skin, and so on. They have layers too, like skin does, created pieced by piece and sanded down in areas along the way, sometimes to the point where it looks like they are almost falling apart. And in due time, perhaps we all will be too.
(image courtesy of Dress Shop Gallery)
Stay
Saturday December 10 at Dress Shop Gallery, 6 pm to 9 pm. One night only.
Bushwick’s Dress Shop Gallery will be showing art for a good cause this Saturday for an evening-long silent auction, joining the ranks of the many artistic initiatives that have cropped up in the wake of the election that are striving to make a difference. A variety of artists “who stand with immigrants and their families” have donated pieces to the gallery to be auctioned off. While you bid, you can sip beverages from Descendant Cider Co., an NYC-based cidery. 100% of proceeds made will benefit UnLocal, Inc., an organization that offers free or low-cost legal and social services to New York City immigrants.