This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Mega-Openings, Round Two

If you’re in Philly this week, go see this three-person show at Fleisher. Mixed-media artist Kay Healy, painter Daniel Gerwin, and stop-motion painted animation artist Ashley Wick all use different media to comment on painting. (Gabriela)

The title of Kallal’s new 16mm film and one-night live sound performance refers to a former name for Mercury, the only metal that is liquid in room temperature. The artist will perform with modular synthesizers and percussion, playing alongside an immersive environment created using looping 16mm film. (Gabriela)

Cleopatra’s and friends are throwing a benefit exhibition for Dependent Fair founder Rose Marcus. This June, Marcus underwent major surgery, and now the many artists she’s worked with over the years are giving back. If you’re unable to make it in person, the auction goods are available online on Paddle8. (Corinna)

Leo Koenig is now Koenig & Clinton (gallery director Margaret Liu Clinton has now been made partner). The gallery, too, has moved south to 19th street, and its first group exhibition looks promising. It’s an exhibition devoted to screens—television, phone, computer, and so forth—as a means to foil art’s current fascination with abstraction. (Corinna)

Elad Lassry’s well-chosen mix of photographs and 3-d materials have plenty of friends (Will Benedict, Lucas Blalock, and Anne Collier) and like a great DJ set, the convention is hard not to love when done really well. Is that enough? We’re not sure, so we’ll be coming with an extra-critical eye for Lassry. (Whitney)

I’m on the fence about this show after seeing it Saturday. A group show of Gabriele Beveridge, Leo Gabin, Tamar Halpern, Miranda Lichtenstein, Torben Ribe, and Julia Wachtel takes a couple of unexpected turns, but safely within the confines of high-art taste. Maybe that sounds like bullshit, but I thought it was worth a trip. It also speaks to a few shows up at the moment which seem to address how TV and video is burned in our collective brain. (Whitney)

Like last week, there’s a bunch of openings. There’s so many we can’t profile them all. Here’s a few more we recommend:

On 20th Street: Anton Kern: Jonas Wood

On 22nd Street: Andrew Kreps: Annette Kelm

On 24th Street: Susan Inglett Gallery: Allison Miller | Metro Pictures: David Maljkovic

On 25th Street: Cheim + Reid: Barry McGee

On 26th Street: Mixed Greens: Hans van Meeuwen’s “Paris-Scope”

On 29th Street: Shoot the Lobster: Bruce Pavlow

Joshua Citarella gets his first solo exhibition at Higher Pictures. His layered still-lifes are engrossing, though kind of trendy: they feature mirrors, crumpled paper, the occasional hot girl, and a fuzzy, rainbow color scheme. Still, we’re gonna check it out because Citarella’s skilled at what he does. (Corinna)

Virginia Poundstone continues her investigation of flowers with vinyl and metal. I thought they were a little too Lower East Side generic last time I saw them at Rachel Uffner, but this press release description makes me think I missed the point:

“TOTAL MELTDOWN revolves around an FTD floral arrangement once sent to the artist as a gift. Poundstone was struck by the generic and lifeless quality of the flowers, relative to both their wild origins and the industry responsible for transforming them into on demand commodities.” (Whitney)

We’re not sure what, but something’s going on with the Donut District galleries on this night. We liked the openings so much last time that that’s enough information to make us show up. Primetime has a show of Eric Amling, Ben Fain (maker of this ketchup body), Melanie McLain, and Keith J. Varadi. Know More Games has artist and music-maker Brian Bellot. This will probably be taking place at 6 PM, but no times are listed. (Whitney) [UPDATE 9/14: Times were listed in advance as 7-10 PM.  247365 and KnowMoreGames have split their spaces for “Draw Gym,” a massive drawing collaboration organized by Brian Bellot. Primetime’s group show “Side Out” (artists above) revolves around printed and spoken poetry.]

It’s been over a year now since CANADA gave over its cavernous Chrystie Street space to Horton Gallery, moving closer to the action on Broome Street. The gallery finally reopens with a show by Joanna Malinowska, and if it’s anything like her 2009 show there, it’ll be hard to miss. We can’t wait. (Whitney)

Clearing, Bushwick’s Brussels export, gives us a solo exhibition by Belgian artist Harold Ancart, who the gallery last featured in the Miami art fairs. The gallery will jointly celebrate new work by the Ancart and his first artist’s book, “Tomorrow”, released by Triangle Books. (Corinna)

We liked Dave Hardy’s last showing at Regina Rex (a two-person show with John Almanza in 2012), so we’re pretty sure his first solo outing at the gallery will be a sight to see, too. Based on the press release, expect to see some of Hardy’s squishy foam sculptures. (Corinna)

This press release sounds about as crazed and high-strung as Melgaard’s work looks, which has lately been pumped out at lightning speed, and in our experience has ended up involving a big pile of clothes and/or some tigers. This show is pink panther-themed. Maybe a little dangerous. Okay. (Whitney)