Art This Week: Bushwick Open Studios and Black Femmes

The Future Is (Black) Femme
Opening Friday, September 22 at 329 Broome Street, 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm. On view through October 3.

While the rest of our art opening recs for this week correspond with the return of Bushwick Open Studios, this show is happening in Manhattan. Lower Manhattan, so you Brooklyn dwellers don’t have to travel very far, don’t worry. The Future Is (Black) Femme is, unsurprisingly, an art exhibition of work by black femme artists. For the uninformed, “femme” is a term that describes a feminine-presenting person that may but doesn’t necessarily have to conform to the binary identity of “woman.” It can also mean a feminine-presenting lesbian, used as the opposite of “butch.”

Enough about semantics, on to the art. The exhibition is curated by Jessica Pettway, Josette Roberts, and Miranda Barnes, and features the work of 14 artists, including Roberts and Barnes. Though every artist identifies as a black femme and an artist, the show’s content spans a wide variety of artistic disciplines and themes, as every artist has something unique to say about existing in this country as a black femme. These lived experiences can often be painful, but the exhibition’s description notes that “similar themes of kinship, tenderness and rejoicing” are present throughout all the works.

Wise Blood
Opening Friday, September 22 at Paradice Palase, 6 pm to 9 pm. On view through September 24.

Bushwick Open Studios is among us once again. While it’s not quite the same as it was several years ago, it’s still chugging along mightily with art shows aplenty. This one comes from a relative newcomer to the neighborhood, Paradice Palase. In fact, it’s only the third show the art space has held. However, the exhibition itself isn’t showcasing newbies, but rather seven woman artists who have been practicing art for literally decades.

Drop by for some “snacks and bevvies” and get to know the work of found-object and bricolage artist LaThoriel Badenhausen, geometric paper constructionist Nancy Baker, painter and installation artist Avy Claire, photographer Catherine Kirkpatrick, multidisciplinary artist Bernice Sokol Kramer, multicultural creator Tricia Townes, and Jaynie Crimmins, who makes art from her shredded financial statements and junk mail.

Mapping Bushwick
Opening Friday, September 22 at In-Case Art Project, 6 pm to 9 pm. On view through September 28.

If one show of women artists isn’t enough for you, you can see another on the same night in the same neighborhood at Mapping Bushwick, an exhibition at Brooklyn Fireproof gallery space In-Case Art Project presented as part of Bushwick Open Studios. Mapping Bushwick is curated by Etty Yaniv and Jaynie Crimmins, the latter of whom is a participating artist in the aforementioned Wise Blood exhibition. It features 15 female artists from varying disciplines currently working in Bushwick, but notably the selected artists do not count creative output as their only pursuit. They also work in other capacities in the Bushwick arts community, performing roles like curator, gallerist, and community organizer.

Sassy Circus and Creepy Clowns
Opening Friday, September 22 at Bizarre Black Box Gallery, 8 pm to 11 pm. On view through November 22.

As we mentioned last week, clowns are very in right now. Whether they be cinematic clowns, leftist Juggalos, or plain old silly clowns, the red-nosed characters are definitely having a moment. If you’ve been on the lookout for even more clown content to consume, look no further than photographer Meryl Meisler’s latest show at Bizarre Bushwick’s downstairs gallery, Sassy Circus and Creepy Clowns.

The exhibition combines two similar-but-different subject matters: the circus and the current political administration. While this surely has been done before in a more metaphorical sense, Meisler’s show actually contains photographs she took of The Greatest Show On Earth, the long running show by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. She first photographed the circus in 1977 and published the images in one of her photo books, but returned to capture the show’s final days in May 2017. These images will be on view, and the 1977 photos will be “reinterpreted” to illustrate the artist’s perspective of today’s political leaders as nothing more than creepy clowns themselves. The show opens Friday night, but another party for the show happens on Saturday from 7 pm to 9 pm, and includes an open bar.