Despite what you may think, “Tümbiverse” isn’t a weird German futuristic version of Tumblr. It refers to painter Michael Bianchino’s sweeping and immersive “technicolor portraits” that invite all types of self-expression. He won’t be the only one creating art, as Bianchino and co-curator Jasmine Williams have asked 20 innovative folk to do what they do alongside his vibrant mini-worlds. The result is expansive, featuring textiles, video art, sculpture, performance art, voguing, and even a living doll experience courtesy of Toshi Salvino.
On the last day of the exhibition, the band Confetti Armor will lead a hands-on workshop on “blanket forts as ritual practice,” which will surely justify any of the times your mom said you were wasting time making a blanket fort growing up. Uh, mom, I was doing important ritual work. And if you’re hungry for even more art in a Greenpoint photo studio, earlier in the week Point Green will also be showing How This Has To Be Told, a 35mm slideshow of photos by Martha Naranjo Sandoval that interrogates old photos and the power they have.
Hungry
Opening Thursday, July 27 at Fat Free Art, 6 pm to 10 pm. On view through July 29.
Do you ever just spend large swaths of time sitting around and thinking about all the things you could be achieving and doing and having but currently lack? Ha ha yeah, me neither. Anyway, if you find some familiarity in that feeling of longing perhaps you’d be wise to check out Kelsey S. Brewer’s Hungry, a multimedia installation made in collaboration with Jeremy Penn that explores desire and all of its tangles.
There are many ways to express the sublime frustration that comes with wanting something you know you cannot have, or at least cannot have now. Fittingly, the artistic mediums in this show reflect that: there is film, sculpture, text, vintage erotica, performance, and more. There will also be mirrors strewn throughout the space, so you can take a nice good look at yourself and all you don’t have.
Build It and We Will Tear It Down, 2017
Eric Manuel Santoscoy-Mckillip (image via Theodore:Art)
Be Your Own Puppet
Opening Friday, July 28 at THEODORE:ART, 6 pm to 9 pm. On view through August 27.
“During the presidential debate when Trump rejoined, ‘You’re the Puppet!’ to Hillary’s charge of him being Putin’s puppet, we caught a glimpse of our incoming socio-political world: an absurd and comic book-like plotline, altering earth’s trajectory and previous notions of reality,” states the description for this Bushwick art exhibition.
Inspired by one of the very, very, very many absurd utterances made by our current president, Be Your Own Puppet proposes that if America could get to a state many previously found unfathomable, what else is possible? Putting an optimistic-ish spin on the dismal orb (yes, orb) we call the world, the curators theorize that if one orange man can do what he wants, then maybe we all should start acting like we can, too. Most of the people in the show are said to have recently graduated from MFA programs at NYU, so it doesn’t exactly make a great case for the “anyone can be in a fancy art show” argument, but maybe you’ll soak up some of that institutional prestige and leave feeling a little more powerful.