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This Museum Has ‘Expanded Visions’ For Queering and Preserving Art

Installation view, Expanded Visions: Fifty Years of Collecting, at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, 2017. (photo: Riya Lerner)

Despite the suffocating amount of luxury stores, there are still some small pockets of Soho that retain the neighborhood’s old gritty art spirit. As you pass The Performing Garage, where experimental troupe The Wooster Group and others still rehearse and perform, you’ll now encounter an new and improved iteration of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. After lengthy renovations, the museum has reopened and nearly doubled in size with Expanded Visions: Fifty Years of Collecting, an exhibition rich in the history and scope of queerness and the artistic expression surrounding it.

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Patron Saints of the Local Scene, and More Art Affairs This Week

F8 Tropical , 2017
28 x 21 Inches
Dye Sublimation on Aluminum

Particle Paradise
Opening Wednesday March 22 at Foley Gallery, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through April 30.

Photography is said to be a significant documentation tactic due to its ability to capture reality in its truest form. Particle Paradise, Joseph Desler Costa’s solo show at Foley Gallery, seeks to lay bare the ways one can manipulate the medium of photography to turn it into something sleeker, or even a total rejection of reality. This can happen through tactics like double exposures, cut paper constructions, in-camera editing, or even snapshots of the equipment used to create the photo in the first place.

The show is named for a video game mod that allows players to customize their experience through hacking and tweaking the existing code, allowing the gameplay experience to change oh-so-slightly or immensely. I don’t know about you, but I associate mods with either sneakily downloading sexy clothes for my Sims or that time I bought a Gameshark to use with my Pokemon and it glitched in a way it was not supposed to and I felt fear deep in my heart. Maybe this show will be something like that?

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Something ‘Terrifying’ and Four More Performance Picks

WEDNESDAY

(image via Maude Gun / Facebook)

Maude Night #4
Wednesday, March 15 at Muchmore’s, 9 pm: $5-7 suggested donation

This is decidedly not the UCB showcase, but a queer/femme/POC space for variety performance and expression helmed by witchy, culty performance-art band Maude Gun. The lineup includes “Mountain Moving Witch of the West Coast” Carissa Matsushima, “Ritualistic Serotonin Poem Witch” Tara Jayakar, “Nose Bleeding Drama Queen Healer” Holly Simple, and a closing piece by Maude Gun themselves. Though it is the name of their band, they seem to be rather generous with the term “maude,” referring to their booked performers and potentially everyone in the room by the moniker. In the event description is a reminder: “let’s mind our pronouns! (call everyone a MAUDE if you’re lost)” More →

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This Hip-Hop Dance Production Involves a Mascot, Wrestling, and a Senior Aerobics Class

(photo: Maria Baranova)

It could take something as simple as a step-touch to unite the generations. At least that’s the impression you might get in a room with the company of experimental hip-hop and dance group Yackez. Most contemporary dance projects are rife with young and lithe bodies, but the cast of the latest and largest Yackez production, Give It To You Stage, ranges from ages 25 to 87. More →

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Ghosts, Missed Connections, and More Must-See Art Shows

(flyer via The Living Gallery / Facebook)

Of Ghosts and Girls
Opening Tuesday March 14 at The Living Gallery, 6 pm to 10 pm. One night only.

This one-night-only exhibition (as is the norm for The Living Gallery) showcases the work of Üriel Shlüsh-Reyna, a Bushwick-based artist who creates paintings, drawings, and sculptures. She also appeared as a cast member in immersive show Houseworld in 2015, which took place in the various rooms of a Greenpoint church. Her work zeroes in on matters of mysticism, fantasy, and magic. Also, she draws and paints a lot of women, some busty, some doe-eyed, some even tied-up and split in two. Of Ghosts and Girls will show a mix of old and new works in various mediums. She also indicates on her website that she’s inspired by both sleep paralysis and ice cream, which if anything is an interesting combo. The opening reception will also feature musical performances by Mike Campbell, Ben Pagano, and Charles Mansfield. More →

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Avril Lavigne’s Ghost, a Dirty Panties Musical, and More Performance Picks

THURSDAY

(flyer via The Witness / Facebook)

The Witness
Thursday, March 9 at Superchief Gallery, 8 pm: $10

Tonight, witness this fine-tuned evening of powerhouse performance, live music, and installations from an array of artists working in movement, visual, and sound mediums. Curated by multidisciplinary gal Ariele Max (who will also be performing), the evening is comprised of hyper-sexual “inverted gospel” musician/performer Cole, choreographer and installation artist steeped in dystopian imagery Kathleen Dycaico, research and ritual-based artist Autumn Ahn, and musician/choreographer/etc Richard Kennedy.

It’ll cost you $10 to get in, but the price includes a full day of exploring Superchief Gallery, plus wine and the mysterious notion of “edible art.” Why touch the art when you can eat it? More →

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Women’s Day Art, Global Peace in Williamsburg, and More Art Goings-On

(image via The Living Gallery / Facebook)

BYO Art for International Women’s Day
Opening Wednesday March 8 at The Living Gallery, 9 pm. One night only.

If you’re a woman creator, walk yourself over to The Living Gallery this Wednesday for the International Women’s Day edition of their recurring BYO Art exhibition. The idea behind BYO Art is simple: just bring your art to the gallery and set it up. If there are any interested buyers present, you’ll get the full amount without the gallery taking a percentage. Since the art present will be contingent on who arrives with stuff they’ve made, there’s really no telling of what you’ll see. It could be something amazing.

This BYO Art is for women artists only in honor of Women’s Day, and will also host a variety of live music and poetry performances starting at 10 pm, including a short set by my band Squidssidy, so come say hi. Anyone can come, of course, despite the creators being only women. The event requests a $5 suggested donation that will go toward the Bushwick Exchange Zine, a publication dedicated to sharing free resources in and around Bushwick.

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Performance: A Detention Center’s Fate, Improvised Dystopia, Comedic Coconut

THURSDAY

(image courtesy of Blake Zidell & Associates)

Villa
March 1-April 1 at Wild Project, 7:30 pm: $35 general admission, $15 advance student tickets, $10 rush 

The Wild Project will be hosting The Play Company’s English-language premiere of Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón’s play Villa. It’s a piece for three actors that places us in a room with three women, who just so happen to be charged with determining the fate of the Villa Grimaldi. The Villa Grimaldi was a significant complex that DINA (the Chilean secret police) used during the Pinochet government to torture and interrogate political prisoners, and was in operation from approximately 1974-1978. What do you do with land that has previously been used for cruelty? The play originally premiered at the actual site of the now-demolished Villa Grimaldi outside the city of Santiago, which will be an interesting thought to keep in mind when you’re sitting in a comfortable East Village theater watching it now. More →

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This Week: Art Fair Affairs, Club Kid Portraits, and Anything But Trash

(image via Volta NY)

Volta NY
Opening Wednesday March 1 at Pier 90, 7 pm to 10 pm. On view through March 5.

Now is the time for art fairs aplenty, and Volta NY is just one of many. Volta stands out singularly (ha) because they focus on solo artist projects only. Though they’re all about solo stuff, by no means are they taking a minimalist route. At Pier 90 you can catch not only the water, but the work of artists from 38 nations shown by 96 galleries and art spaces across 5 continents and 36 cities. You needn’t be a math whiz to figure out that is a lot of art to place your eyes on. Only not literally, that could cause vision issues and probably a lot of side-eyeing. If you stop by on the first night, it’s free to enter, but any other day it’ll cost you $25.

This is Volta’s tenth year of existence, so you can expect they’re pulling out all the stops this time. This week you can also catch The Armory Show (ticket bundles are available, which get you into Volta and Armory) and SPRING/BREAK, in a new location in Times Square. If you wish, you can pop around the piers all weekend for a veritable art adventure. The art doesn’t stop there: the Architectural Digest Design Show will be from March 16-19, also on the pier. And we can only wonder: will The Mars Volta be at Volta NY?

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Performance Picks: Communal Reading for the ACLU, Space Travel Blues Cabaret, and More

WEDNESDAY

(flyer by Phoebe Randall, via The Silent Barn)

This Is How You Talk To People
Wednesday, February 22 at The Silent Barn, 7 pm: $5

Tonight, Bushwick mainstay The Silent Barn will welcome a “communal reading” of a play by Rachel Davies, who has written for outlets such as Rookie, Complex, Nylon, and The Le Sigh. This Is How You Talk To People is Davies’s first play, and chronicles a variety of women from a talk show host  to a student who are collectively trying to navigate shifting friendships and relationships. The reading will be done communally in “an attempt to make the performance more accessible,” and profits from the evening will be donated to the ACLU.

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