(flyer via Checks Cashed / Facebook)
Neu Show
Opening Thursday, April 26 at The Living Gallery, 7 pm to 11 pm. One night only.
Sometimes you want to go to a Chelsea gallery to silently stare at art alongside a bunch of people who probably have more money than you, and sometimes you want to stay in Bushwick and see some art while a local trans punk band plays. You can do the latter on Thursday at The Living Gallery (which just celebrated its sixth anniversary) at Neu Show, a showcase of nine local underground photographers, painters, experimental mixed-media artists, graphic artists, and more, with live tunes from local punk outfit Library and tracks from DJ Drew Redmond to keep the mood nice and energized. There is a $5 cover at the door, but the show is a mere one night only, and these artists need to be supported somehow.
(flyer via Superchief Gallery / Facebook)
Mike Diana
Opening Friday, April 27 at Superchief Gallery, 7 pm to midnight. On view through May 9.
A lot of art is provocative, but not many artists actually end up getting legally charged with obscenity for something they created. Cartoonist Mike Diana did, however. It happened in 1994 when Diana was living in a conservative part of Florida, and the material that got the underground cartoonist in trouble was Boiled Angel, a zine featuring plenty of purposefully-shocking violence, sexual depravity, larger-than-life genitalia, and open critique of religion and authority figures. That may not seem like enough to warrant a literal criminal charge, a drawing ban, and a state-supervised program intended to “rehabilitate his thinking,” but now you can come to your own conclusion. Diana’s vibrant and in-your-face work will be on view at Ridgewood’s Superchief Gallery, in all its obscene glory, starting Friday.
texas isaiah, my name is my name iii, 2018 (image via Sargent’s Daughters)
We Buy Gold: Four
Opening Sunday, April 29 at Sargent’s Daughters, 2 pm to 6 pm. On view through May 27.
First of all, please do not bring your big heaping bags of gold bars to this gallery show, if you’re somehow the type to possess such a thing. They will probably just take up too much space and get in the way of the art. We Buy Gold is in fact not one of those storefronts seeking to snap up your shiny stuff, but a “roving art space” and shop that has previously presented three exhibitions in Bed-Stuy. Now, they’re taking up residence for about a month at Lower East Side gallery Sargent’s Daughters, which has previously shown work like Jennifer Rubell’s ceramic pantsuit and Girls actress Jemima Kirke’s wedding-centric paintings. Appropriately, We Buy Gold’s show Four displays the work of four artists working in photography, sculpture, video, and installation, all of whom use their work to explore themes of race, subjectivity, gender, loss, and more.