D-Structure : Manifesto, Volume 2.

Artists: Matthew Curry, Blaine Fontana, Chris Huth, Erik Otto, Mitsy Avila Ovalles, Ferris Plock, Reuben Rude, Chris Silva, Yoskay Yamamoto.

Comment by AB: Group show, urban. Prices range $25-$3000; something for everyone. There you have it.

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Femina Potens Gallery : Jackadandy and Maxx Sizeler - Changing Landscapes.

Comment by AB: Presented in conjunction with Fresh Meat Productions, Maxx Sizeler evocatively essays on the seemingly unending aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in installation and video while Jackadandy exhibits non-representational pastels and Japanese ink paintings on kozo-shi paper.

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Babylon Falling : This Means Nothing.

Comment by AB: Booksigning for This Means Nothing by Le Bijoutier aka Cavaliere Mathieu (powerHouse Books, Brooklyn, NY, 2008, 160 pages, illustrated), insightfully documenting a decade of street art in New York City via the "urban photography" of Le Bijoutier. What's interesting about this assessment of outdoor art, as opposed to the competition, is that Le Bijoutier focuses not on the traditional glamglam graffiti masterworks, but rather on the artful deployment of less pretentious yet comparably effective means of making one's mark like stickers, stencils, chalk art, markers, and wheat paste posters.

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The Barber Lounge : Anniversary & Art Party.

Artists: Sorry, can't find a list.

Comment by AB: I wasn't gonna go to this because I thought it was a bar, but I run into Ferris Plock at D-Structure and he tells me it's not a bar and that I should go, at which point he iPhones up his partner in art, Kelly Tunstall (who's in the show), and she tells me where it's at and offers up an abbreviated assessment, and I go. So here's the deal-- The Barber Lounge is like this rambling expanse of a day spa offering everything from skin care to classic barber shop haircuts to waxing to nails to massage (all of which I swore off in the seventies). And there's art all over the place and it immeasurably enhances the atmospherics and I have a delightful time. Plus they've got 3 killer vintage chrome and vinyl barber chairs on an equally vintage linoleum adjunct in one of the multitudinous sectors of this visually distinct and ample establishment. The verdict? Patronize 'em.

Oh... and I also meet Nate Van Dyke (very nice fellow, by the way) who specializes in convincingly painting and drawing apes and monkeys, and who has several pieces in the show. Why apes and monkeys, I ask? Because they're closely related to humans, he tells me, however they're far more genuine in the ways they respond to whatever situations they happen to find themselves in. We mask it; they don't. And that, as they say, is that.

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