fee's LIST / through 4/17

WEDNESDAY
NYC
* Charles Atlas "Ocean" screening @ Whitney Museum / 945 Madison Ave (6 to 77th St), 2/4p. Have you seen Atlas' video installation inaugurating Luhring Augustine's Bushwick gallery? This one is totally different!: a feature-length recording of Merce Cunningham's ambitious public performance "Ocean" (1994), set at the bottom of Minnesota's Rainbow Granite Quarry and involving a 150-piece orchestra, Cunningham's dance company, and some 4,500 audience members. Atlas filmed three performances from this production, among the final living record of Cunningham's work. ALSO THU 12/4p, SAT 12/2p, SUN 2/4p.

* "L'uccello dale plume di cristallo/The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" (dir. Dario Argento, 1970) screening @ MAD Museum / 2 Columbus Circle (CE/123 to 59th St/Columbus Circle), 7p. All Argento, all the time! The MAD Museum's eye-dilating fest on the brutally creative film family continues w/ giallo maestro Dario Argento's directorial debut. And no matter how spacey ("Four Flies on Grey Velvet") or weak ("The Mother of Tears") he got, no matter how many other directors copied those black leather gloves and sharp objects, there will always be "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage"—stalked women, sadomasochism, and visionary cinematography.

* The Aislers Set + Pipas + Bridget St John @ Bell House / 149 7th St, Gowanus (F/G/R to 9th St/4th Ave), 7p/SOLD OUT!. For the love of pop! The classic (i.e. circa '92) indie-pop 'zine "chickfactor" turns 20 and they're throwing a mega-massive three-night residency at Bell House, feat. legendary and local bands. Night two is a biggie: Bay Area combo The Aislers Set headline, plus chickfactor-approved duo Pipas (from both sides of "the Pond"), and Brit folk-pop artist Bridget St John.

AUSTIN
* "Breathless" (dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. There's never been an American in Paris film quite like JLG's Nouvelle Vague forerunner, pairing wide-eyed Jean Seberg w/ rakish Bogart wannabe Jean-Paul Belmondo, played out in truly cutting-edge jump-cuts as they evade the police until, like the film's title, "a bout de souffle".

* Real Estate (NJ) @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 7:30p/$15. In the wave of surf-rock that crashed into the northeast a few years back, no one played it sunnier or smarter than Ridgewood four-piece Real Estate. Which is why they're still around today, and better than ever. w/ The Twerps

TOKYO
* Eikoh Hosoe @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). Part 5 and the penultimate installment of the gallery's season-long series on the modernist photographer focuses on Hosoe's portraiture.

* Naoko Majima "Fey" @ Mizuma Art Gallery / 2F 3-13 Ichigayatamachi, Shinjuku-ku (Yurakucho/Nanboku Lines to Ichigaya Station). A milestone exhibition for the mid-career artist, whose large-scale, ominous drawings took on a renewed vitality in the wake of last year's devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. She pairs these works with new sculptures.

* tokyoDOLORES 「赤頭巾」/"Dear my red hunter" @ Atelier Fontaine / 5-13-13 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station), 6&8p/4000 yen. Actress and dancer Cay Izumi leads her contemporary dance troupe tokyoDOLORES in a retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood" that puts the psychological realm of human darkness front and center. Mesmerizing and very sexy. ALSO THURS

THURSDAY
NYC
* Honey Bunch + Stevie Jackson (Belle & Sebastian) + The Softies @ Bell House / 149 7th St, Gowanus (F/G/R to 9th St/4th Ave), 7p/SOLD OUT! For the love of pop! The classic (i.e. circa '92) indie-pop 'zine "chickfactor" turns 20 and they're throwing a mega-massive three-night residency at Bell House, feat. legendary and local bands. The final night goes off w/ a velvet-wrapped bang, courtesy early Slumberland band Honey Bunch, Londoners The Pines (feat. chickfactor co-founder/Black Tambourine singer Pam Berry), self-titular The Softies and Belle & Sebastian's Stevie Jackson (the guy who wrote a song called "chickfactor").

AUSTIN
* Rebecca Jane Rodriguez & Dustin Kilgore "Sacred Land Grab" @ Co-Lab / 613 Allen St, 8p. The artists host a Super 8 video installation and two-channel slideshow that blend footage of the American West with ambient audio for a self-reflective road trip.

TOKYO
* Oreskaband @ Club Quattro / 5F 32-13 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station), 7p/2800 yen. A Kansai-area all-grrrl ska band sounds right up my alley, and Oreskaband are super dope, too. They perform a sorta-rare local show before heading back west for a bunch of dates. Don't miss it!

FRIDAY
NYC
* Joanna Malinowska "Fieldwork" @ Whitney Museum / 945 Madison Ave (6 to 77th St), 7:30p. The Polish-born artist's contribution to this year's Biennial relates around American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier (a "smuggled in" canvas), plus a video installation of the artist juxtaposing indigenous culture with art via some "chic de yucca" elixir. Her performance this evening, in collaboration w/ NY's Hungry March Band, examines de-contextualized rituals, from transcendentalism to the Native American Ghost Dance.

* "Il gatto a nove code/The Cat o' Nine Tails" (dir. Dario Argento, 1971) screening @ MAD Museum / 2 Columbus Circle (CE/123 to 59th St/Columbus Circle), 7p. Rejoice! The MAD Museum is smartly showing the full edit of Argento's second directorial effort, which has less to do w/ whips and felines than NINE leads used by a journalist and "puzzle solver" to catch a knifer of women.

* Black Pus @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$7. Brian Chippendale, the kinetic half of local trash lords Lightning Bolt, once again decimates my favorite indie Brooklyn venue under his noisier personal, Black Pus. How one guy in a knit mask can cause that much devastation on a tricked-out drumkit is anyone's guess…but Chippendale brings it every damn time. w/ Mounds & Alien Whale (both ex-usaisamonster)

AUSTIN
* "Cabin in the Woods" (dir. Drew Goddard, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. Ever since last December, I've been hearing how dope this film is, how it's a gamechanger in the horror realm, one of THE BEST American horror films in a long while. So I've done my best to block out every/single/trailer/image/review/Q&A whatever and go into this chiller totally fresh. I cannot wait any longer.

* "The Kid with a Bike" (dirs. les freres Dardenne, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. They should subhed this "starring Cécile de France" and BAM I'm there. But really, this 2011 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix winner is a delightful turn for Belgian bros Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. It could almost be a decade sequel to their heart-wrenching film "L'enfant", w/ the abandoned baby now a preteen boy befriending sweet Cécile.

* "Juan of the Dead" (dir. Alejandro Brugués, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse Village / 2700 W Anderson Ln, 10p. Fantastic Fest 2011 favorite from a right-likable director, this isn't just Cuba's first proper horror film, it's also a damn fine tale of zombies! If you're thinking "Shaun of the Dead", you're mostly right: that level of creative humor and disgusting wit.

TOKYO
* Aki Yamamoto "Cut" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Yamamoto returns to the gallery with her abstract color acuity, incorporating collage into her paintings to reconstruct particular worldly observations.

SATURDAY
NYC
* "Bad Girls of 2012", organized by Jamie Sterns @ Interstate Projects / 56 Bogart St, E. Williamsburg (L to Morgan). What does it mean to be a "bad girl" in contemporary art? Marcia Tucker (New Museum founder/director) organized the original "Bad Girls" exhibition in '94. Now Sterns takes it on, culling eight bleeding-edge talents, incl. Croatian-born duo Dora + Maja, painter Denise Kupferschmidt, and LIST-favorite (and participant in MoMA PS1's "Greater NY") Amy Yao.

* Ernesto Neto @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery / 521 W 21st St. The Brazilian artist achieves the most beguiling atmospheres via "just" crocheted netting and spices, transforming dull white-boxes into exciting, emotive environments. He has free reign over both floors of Bonkadar's gallery this time and puts them to good use: via a monumental installation on the ground floor, a bridgelike structure that visitors can climb inside, and biomorphic interventions on the stairs and second floor.

* Mike Kelley: video tribute @ DIA Art Foundation / 541 W 22nd St (CE to 23rd St), 10a-10p. Clear your schedules, art-lovers: DIA and Electronic Arts Intermix organized a 12-hour tribute to the late, great artist, feat. screenings of his seminal films incl. "The Banana Man" (1983), "Heidi" (1992, w/ Paul McCarthy), personal favorite "Day is Done, Part 1" (2005-6) and recent work "A Voyage of Growth and Discovery" (2011, in collab w/ Michael Smith).

* "Quattro mosche di velluto grigio/Four Flies on Gray Velvet" (dir. Dario Argento, 1971) screening @ MAD Museum / 2 Columbus Circle (CE/123 to 59th St/Columbus Circle), 7p. Among Argento's most batshit films—and that's saying something—is this bloody web of blackmail, masked assassins, and a truly stunning slo-mo car crash (and that's not counting the "image caught in the retina" plot device).

* Miguel Migs + Mark Farina @ (le) poisson rouge / 158 Bleecker St (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St), 11p/$20. OK so this is like taking it back to '02, but you pair Migs' sun-drenched deep-house jams (see "Colorful You") and Farina's smoked-out "mushroom jazz" (see titular series), you'll have a damn good time.

AUSTIN
* Leif Low-beer @ Okay Mountain / 1619 E Cesar Chavez. The artist collective reopens its doors to a Brookynite, the supremely mind-blowing Low-beer (I've seen his work in Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens), who contributes new collaged drawings, sculpture, and photography to this exhibition.

* Frankie Rose (Brooklyn) + DIVE (Brooklyn) @ Red 7 / 611 E 7th St, 9p/$10. Brooklyn's indie-rock mainstay Miss Frankie Rose traded drumsticks for the mic, but luckily her charisma and knockout songbird vox followed her. Her second LP "Interstellar" is starry-eyed cool and just gorgeous to hear. She's joined by Beach Fossils' guitarist Cole Smith's young psych-rock outfit DIVE, who are just doing everything right and have an LP on the way.

* The Pharcyde (LA) @ Beauty Ballroom / 2015 E Riverside Dr, 9p/$25. South Central alt-rap all-stars The Pharcyde reunited! Meaning both charismatic Tre (aka Slimkid3) AND storyteller Fatlip. Gonna be a bizarre ride indeed. w/ ZEALE

* Artificial Music Machine 10th Anniversary party #2 @ Space Tower / 3410 E. Pennsylvania Ave, 7p/FREE. The local alt-electronic label celebrates a decade of drone and ambience, w/ live sets by Thomas Fang, Daze of Heaven, Smokey Emery, Spagirus, and R. Lee Dockery, w/ special guests.

TOKYO
* Mats Gustafson "Trees and Rocks" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). Not to be confused w/ Mats GUSTAFSSON, the futuristic sax player, this is the NY-based Swedish artist Gustafson, whose cool palette and silky figurative style contribute a scintillating mono-no-aware to the Tokyo gallery.

* TETTA "incloud" @ Gallery MOMO Ryogoku / 1F 1-7-15 Kamezawa, Sumida-ku (Toei Oedo/JR Sobu Line to Ryogoku Station). The Kanagawa-born artist presents a contemporary take on Kannon imagery and Buddhism in this series of ink and oils on plywood.

* 昭和な夜 @ Bar 9259 / 2F 1-1-2 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku (Fukutoshin/Toei Oedo Lines to Higashi-shinjuku Station), 11p. Get past front-door security and you'll be ushered into this fetish bar's take on the glorious Shojo Period, meaning the Swingin' '20s through, uh, Japanese Nationalism and the 2nd World War, up into prosperity and the postwar bubble economy in the '80s. Expect excess, decadence, and deviance, w/ special guests Aloe (of pole-dancing artisans tokyoDOLORES and go-go girls Nasty Cats) and AV actress and stripper Miho Wakabayashi. Tantalized much??

* CAUCUS @ Minami-ikebukuro Music.Org / B2 1-20-11 Minami-ikebukuro,Toshima-ku (JR Yamanote/Tokyo Metro lines to Ikebukuro Station, West Exit), 7p/2000 yen. A night of primo dream-pop. I'm smitten w/ Tokyo darlings CAUCUS ever since I saw 'em at NYC Popfest 2011 (the sole Japanese band there, though they share members w/ Smilelove) and their prowess for catchy indie-pop spans both covering intriguing underground '90s acts (Rocketship) and their own unique arrangements. w/ Hello Hawk

* SUNDAYS @ Shinjuku Marble / 2-45-2 Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, Kabukicho Exit), 6p/2500. SUNDAYS frontwoman Fuyumi Kobayashi is like a much cuter, female version of Iggy Pop, sashaying about the stage while shouting her vocals and flinging sweat into the mouths of adoring fans. Who's harder-core than SUNDAYS? A: in Tokyo? Nobody. w/ toitoitoi & Menoz

SUNDAY
NYC
* Sylvia Kastel + Ninni Morgia, Marcia Bassett @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$10. Local free-rock guitarist Morgia and avant synth goddess Kastel pair beautiful sonics together and in their "two couples" collabs w/ neo-Dadaists Mama Baer and Kommissar Hjuler. Marcia Bassett is a former member of psychedelic noisicians Double Leopards. w/ Licker (Pengo)

TOKYO
* RECORIDE @ Shibuya Glad / 3F 2--21-7 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6:30/3000 yen. Celebrate gritty '80s style in local electroclash punks RECORIDE's debut LP release party! The lead video for track 「星屑のmp3」 (uh, "stardust mp3") is so untrendy that it's actually super-cool and sexy.

* BORZOIQ @ Shibuya Milkyway / 3F 4-7 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6p/3500 yen. BORZOIQ is a local supergroup of sorts, comprised of members from local indie-rock mainstays TRICERATOPS and Jake stone garage, and anchored by Mellowhead guitarist Motoaki Fukanuma and vocalist/force-of-nature Lucy. Their debut LP release party coincides w/ RECORIDE's and you gotta ask yourself: do you want melodic alt-rock that cuts deep? If so, BORZOIQ is the answer.

* 住所不定無職 @ Shibuya O-Nest / 6F 2-3 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6:30p/3200 yen. "Sound and Smile Chemistry" is the name of this showcase. You put art-rock grrrls 住所不定無職 (lit. "No job nor permanent address") on that roster, and I'll believe it! w/ THIS IS PANIC and WEEKEND

MONDAY
NYC
* Asobi Seksu @ Highline Ballroom / 431 W 16th St (ACE to 8th Ave), 8p/$30. The 5th Annual Roe on the Rocks Benefit for Planned Parenthood of NYC, with local dream-pop darlings Asobi Seksu headlining. It's a good thing in so many ways.

TUESDAY
NYC
* Atari Teenage Riot @ Highline Ballroom / 431 W 16th St (ACE to 8th Ave), 8p/$25. 1-2-3-4! Digital hardcore—ATR's signature blend of roiling sonics and shout-and-response vocals—made a lot of anarchic sense 15 years ago. And yet, with last year's LP "Is This Hyperreal?" and the surrounding economic and social climate, they prove they're as relevant as ever. Plus, noisician-turned-frontwoman Nic Endo can scream AND sing. w/ Otto Von Schirach

AUSTIN
* "Two Ships Passing: w/ David Heymann" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity, 6:30p. Pastelegram collaborates w/ the VAC in organizing this conversation w/ architect and professor Heymann, on thinking about and reacting to landscapes.

* "The Incubus" (dir. John Hough, 1982) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. A demon that rapes women. If you've seen Hough's harrowing "The Legend of Hell House" you /might/ be negligibly prepared for this lurid film. Though if you go into it knowing only Hough's Disney stuff ("Escape to Witch Mountain" and its inconceivable sequel), then you're totally on your own.

* Chairlift (NY) + Nite Jewel (Cali) @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 6:30p/$12. You might not peg me for a Chairlift fan—their particular brand of Brooklyn indie-pop skews from my general listening habits—but I dig their second LP "Something" w/o embarrassment. It's fun to be upbeat! Plus I've been into singer-songwriter Ramona Gonzalez, aka Nite Jewel, since her 2010 EP "Am I Real?". A: she totally is.

TOKYO
* Trevor Brown "Toy Box" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). Cutie-pie and devious, Brown's new series of gorgeous paintings are like children's "Golden Books" illustrations w/ sinister undertones. His wife contributes some adorable stuffed teddybear poppets as HippieCoco.

* Lagitagida @ Shibuya O-Nest / 6F 2-3 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 7:30p/2500 yen. Local instrumental noise-rock quartet Lagitagida fried my braincells during SXSW, and you bet they bring that same intensity to the home crowd. w/ fresh!

CURRENT SHOWS
AUSTIN
* "Memento Mori" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. I've been working off a mortality tip in these Austin-area galleries. First Tiny Park, now Grayduck. This group exhibition, w/ Suzanne Koett (photography), John Mulvany (painting), and Cherie Weaver (mixed media), features local talent adept at locking humanity in a historical context. Mulvany, Irish-born and Texas-based, achieves this by painting figures from the Irish Civil War as beatific spirits looming over the sun-bleached Hill Country landscape. Retaining the figures' sepia-toned palette against the vistas' blues, greens, and earth-tones—plus the ornate retablo/devotional halos crowning them—Mulvany comments on the cyclical presence of his subjects. As in: the recurrences of war and religious movements. Weaver utilizes a ton of vintage cabinet cards in her ageless works, but they tend to be linking points or jump-offs to larger or multi-part dialogues, like the almost titular "Momentum Mori" and its pools of sumi-e echoed in the photograph's checkerboard floor, or her composites on translucent unstretched linen. I first began digging Koett's photography at this Austin-area artist group show at Gallery Black Lagoon last year, thanks to her bracing "Sabbat" series. She includes works from "The Study of Aloneness" here, ghostly composites of same-looking girls levitating in a forest's fog ("Power For Power") or in a Brutalist garage ("Rejoice, We Made the Right Choice"). It's like her "twins" are the guides for this exhibition's ideas and imagery, ushering us between consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death, to contemplate our respective existences.

* Sarah Milbrath "Territory" @ Forus Gallery / 608 W 51st St. Pair domestic animals with their respective understandings of personal boundaries and invisible borders, and you have a very conscious, very cute photography show by the Austin-based artist. Milbrath's own connection with her subjects adds a whole 'nother layer to this series, as her nearness could elicit a dog's mournful gaze or a cat's wary stare—then she clicks the shutter.

* Conrad Bakker "Untitled Project: RECORD SHOP [45s] @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. I visited Tokyo indie gallery eitoeiko during New City Art Fair in NYC and noted they were showing artist Masaru Aikawa, whose signature style includes hand-painting CD-sized squares of canvas to expertly replicate CD artwork, only in obviously painterly style. Bakker is also re-presenting music as art, in this case rough-hewn wooden "45's" painted to mimic album jackets, but his execution feels uniquely Bakker-ish. Meaning: he doesn't go as far as Aikawa in the trompe-l'oeil effect, so his artwork, while clearly resembling LPs (Depeche Mode and Phil Collins here, Bob Marley and Joni Mitchell there), more accurately look like little paintings, down to their respective quirky, handmade essences.

CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Terry Winters "Cricket Music, Tessellation Figures, & Notebook" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 522 W 22nd St. Confession: I missed Winters' stateside debut of his layered found-photo collages, nearly a decade's worth of work at MM's tiny boutique gallery on 22nd. The reason is b/c I was totally immersed in Winters' massive kaleidoscopic new paintings, Some are watery worlds, others vaguely cosmic, a bit like Jim Rosenquist's more "Water Planet" stuff but less representational. Winters' palette is dazzling and his technique beautiful without reducing to pure decoration.

* Anne Truitt "Drawings" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 523 W 24th St. The gallery mounted a wonderful retrospective of Truitt's serene, totem-like sculpture two years ago (one my 2010 favorites). They continue the awesomeness w/ four decades of her drawings, a vital part of her daily creative activity. Some of these do resemble her gentle monoliths, but others are fields of brilliant tonal shifts or a single growing line across a white expanse. Pretty awesome.

* Mounir Fatmi "Oriental Accident" @ Lombard-Freid Projects / 518 W 19th St. Exhibition as noise show, Fatmi's second solo at the gallery is INTENSE. He pairs recordings from Maghreb during the Arab Spring in speakers sprinkled with nails and embedded into a Persian rug. Sonic squalls recur in "Modern times, a History of the Machine", a video projection in the side gallery that morphs Arabic calligraphy into a kinetic Duchamp-ian affair. Even Fatmi's static pieces threaten to attack, whether bas-reliefs of the number zero composed of coaxial antenna cables or lace loops drenched in oily black paint.

* "I Know This But You Feel Different", curated by Shara Hughes and Meredith James @ Marc Jancou Contemporary / 524 W 24th St. A pretty superb group show inspiring dialogue on interior spaces. Hughes' own large painting "My Head's Really Not In This" locks the whole idea together as she contorts and flattens multi-planar space with gusto, pairing the experience with a vivid color palette. But there's much other awesomeness as well, beginning with Hughes' oil-on-paper drawings and extending to highly textural oil on linen paintings by Clare Grill and a nook installation by Miles Huston and Jacques Louis Vidal. Jesse Greenberg's visceral homemade objects and Jacob Robichaux's deconstructed remnants keep the show's tone loose and compelling.

AUSTIN
* Tom Molloy "New World" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. Molloy strips away the noise and distractions in his historically leaning or contemporarily relevant bodies of work—oftentimes by incredibly meticulous practices—leaving a sort-of podium for us to contemplate, discuss, argue. While he's not explicitly putting his own politics behind the dozens of thrift-store framed Internet-culled b&w images of male world leaders pressing the flesh in "Shake", the works circuitous nature and site-specific installation—where "Hussein/Mubarak" slides into "Mubarak/Bush" and "Bush/Putin", until we're back at "Hussein" again—, plus the fact these nonchronological shots span from 9-11 to the Arab Spring, naturally presents some theories. How these men are friends one minute, wheeling and dealing the next, and sworn enemies separated by several frames of their "friends" after that. Molloy's nine-part titular work features nine different LP sleeves of Dvorák's "New World Symphony", the texts painted over (Molloy's analogue to Photoshop, he said) to show only benign, sunny images of the Western frontier. That "incredibly meticulous practices" bit I alluded to earlier is most clear in "Somewhere", Molloy's hand-painted sheet music to the "Wizard of Oz"'s sweetly optimistic anthem, a work that began with a black sheet of paper and lots and lots of carefully applied white gouache.

* PJ Raval + Nick Brown @ Tiny Park / 607 1/2 Genard St. Fleeting moments of our collective mortality, captured on canvas and animated on film. Austin-based filmmaker Raval eschews his notable collabs w/ local performance artist and "drag terrorist" CHRISTEENE (like the music video "Fix My Dick", part of UT VAC's "Queer State(s)" exhibition) in favor of three early, experimental videos. "Clean" goes from jittery, wince-worthy toothbrushing to kinetic, croaking bandaids that eventually cover the titular neat-freak, while "NET06" is a flickering slice of noise recalling Hans Richter and Dadaist visual arts. LA-based painter Brown looks like Troy Sanders from Mastodon and he creates a mean, visceral canvas, too. Beyond the beauty of these impasto creations is an ephemeral moment—the twin-edged bloodshed and psychedelia within a field of "Poppies", the discomfiting sleep of "South Pacific"—frozen in time. His fiery red pastel drawings are as strong as the paintings and reflect Brown's printmaking background, as etched marks couple with negative space and smears of pastel to conjure very realistic, occasionally harrowing scenes of natural demise. A very moving show within such a cute, boutique gallery.
(ENDS SAT)

TOKYO
* Etsuko Taniguchi "light" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1F 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (Chiyoda/Hanzomon/Ginza Lines to Omotesando Station). Taniguchi creates a disarming illumination in her nightlife cityscapes but cutting into lacquered canvases and then painting them over in acrylic. (ENDS SUN)