Your Guide to Greenpoint Gallery Night

Most of the art fairs are happening in Manhattan this week, but by Friday night, you’ll need a break from the mind-numbing booths and the occasional celebrity sightings. Enter the first Greenpoint Gallery Night, which we are co-sponsoring, and which gives you a chance to catch your breath as you wander through the North Brooklyn neighborhood in search of art. There are just 15 participating galleries, which means you might actually be able to spend time with the work, plus you can throw in the opening for Seven art fair, taking place the same night at the nearby Boiler.

From what we can tell, there will be lots of good stuff on view. Here’s a short guide to help you navigate.

Three Artists: Jamian Juliano-Villani, Jan Kempenaers, Dr. Wolfgang Streeck at Beginnings (110 Meserole Ave)

Jamian Juliano-Villani is a Brooklyn-based painter with a surreal, Pop style; Jan Kempenaers is a photographer from Ghent who shoots both landscapes and abstract scenes; and Dr. Wolfgang Streeck is director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. The question is how all this will play out when put together.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dude at Booklyn (37 Greenpoint Ave)

Six self-publishing artists — not all of them actually dudes — show off personal drawings, comics, and prints. Expect humor and a healthy dose of self-deprecation.

 Disorderly Orderly at Calico (67 West St)

Nancy Baker, Janice Caswell, and Debra Hampton all start with disorder and end up at order — now there’s a metaphor for life! They use drawing, collage, and sculpture to “cut, paste, enumerate, and file” their way to cohesion.

Lester Goldman: High Wire at Dobbin Project Space (50-52 Dobbin St)

Goldman was a beloved artist and art professor in Kansas City for nearly 40 years. Dobbin Project Space is showing his late abstractions — bright, nearly neon, paintings of animated, playful forms.

What Possessed You at Fowler Project Space (67 West St, #216)

In a show that sounds incredibly timely, six artists present their takes on ritualistic traditions and the spiritual, from hypnotic footage of Pentecostal church services to work inspired by the cultures and religions of Trinidad and Tobago.

Group show at G-Spot (at Coco66, 66 Greenpoint Ave)

There’s not much information for what will be on at G-Spot — which, by the way, is located at Coco66, the site of the night’s after party — but their Facebook page says work by tfuk, autovac, subtexture, and kliknosis. From what we can tell, that means brash embroideries and paintings, and maybe some video games.

 Grand Salon Show at Greenpoint Galley (390 McGuiness Blvd)

Greenpoint Gallery is hosting a quarterly “grand salon show,” aka a whole lot of art. Juried by artist Linda Scott, the winner gets $200 and a solo show. Registration is still open until today! (Which means installation’s gonna be a bitch.)
*Note: Greenpoint Gallery will be open from 8 pm to midnight.

 Marty’s Cool Biennial at Heliopolis (154 Huron St)

Another big one, with all hands on deck: Marty’s Cool Biennial is actually a benefit show for the gallery, featuring work by more than 50 artists. So … much … art.

James Biederman: Don’t Have Red in Sight at Janet Kurnatowski (205 Norman Ave)

James Biederman’s past oil paintings have been loose abstractions filled with evocative color contrasts and lines and loops. In his newest ones, he’s shifted directions, toning down the palette and shaping the canvases instead.

 In Between Lines at Laundry Lung (67 West St, #214)

Inspired by the age-old childhood activity of coloring within the lines of coloring book, this eight-person show celebrates color and form and play. The exhibition’s strong line-up includes Robert Otto Epstein, Cynthia Hartling, Shane McAdams, and Sean Pearson.

Nurturing Nature at Theceeflat (988 Manhattan Ave, 2nd floor)

Nature-inspired art, just in time for spring. Carla E. Reyes renders the environment in textured mixed media; Ian Montgomery paints the patterns of physics into abstractions.

HollyBear: Portals at the One Well (165 Greenpoint Ave)

More springtime art, at the One Well, although these mixed-media collages by HollyBear look like much more trippy interpretations of the theme.

 Entrippy at the Yard (33 Nassaue Ave)

A Kickstarter-funded project by Drew Morrison that features four “interactive parade paintings” representing prehistory, big business, carnivorism, and the earth. Each of the 88″ x 36″ is comprised of four rearrangeable panels, which means … well, a lot (we’re bad at math) of permutations!

Greenpoint Gallery night takes place Friday, May 10, from 6 to 9 pm.