(image via Con Artist Collective)

August Summer Residency Showcase
Opening Wednesday, August 29 at Con Artist Collective, 7 pm to 11 pm. On view through August 31.

It’s the end of the summer, which means people are scrambling to get the last of their leisure time in before it feels less justifiable to do so. This often means less events and other artistic goings-on. After all, it’s hard to have an art show when you don’t want to leave the beach. But the restless vigor of Con Artist Collective continues—on any given day (including in the midst of the end-of-summer lull) you can probably find them up to something, whether that be the party-filled unveiling of a new art exhibition or something else entirely. Starting Wednesday night, the Lower East Side art space’s summer studio residents will be showing their latest creations.

Sue Havens, Detail of Brick and Mortar (Fortress), 2017. Acrylic on paper, archival glue, 133” x 76”. (image via Knockdown Center)

Brick and Mortar: MASSIVE / Carried On Both Sides: Encounter Three
Opening Thursday, August 30 at Knockdown Center, 6 pm to 9 pm. On view through December 23.

The title of this exhibition by artist Sue Havens also does a good job at describing the Knockdown Center itself: it’s a brick and mortar space, and boy is it massive. Fittingly, this piece is Havens’s largest painting yet, but her inspiration is drawn from slices of life that are a bit more bite-sized: the texture of clothing, street signs, asphalt, and other everyday observations. It’s not all small—her work is also shaped by more vast visuals, such as ancient ruins within Turkey. Combine all this and the result is a painted patchwork quilt that, quite literally, contains multitudes. The same night as the opening, you can also catch an opening of a collaborative project that “explores the visual, political, and material lineage of the @ symbol” and a sonic performance by Efraín Rozas featuring a “robotic percussive sculpture.”

(image via Moonvibez Music Festival / Facebook)

Black Art Matters
Friday, August 31 at 17 Frost Street, 1 pm to midnight. One night only.

After a successful stint in 2017, the pop-up multimedia festival Black Art Matters, founded by musician Chasity Londyn, is returning to Brooklyn once more. The event gives a platform to black artists of all disciplines, so visual art is just one component of this packed pop-up. Tickets (which will only be sold in advance) aren’t the cheapest in the land at $25, but you get nearly twelve hours of art, performances, DJ sets, film screenings, raffles, a cypher, snacks, and a bar where you need only tip the bartenders to receive booze aplenty. Sounds worth it to me.