The Lower East Side has always been at the center of New York’s prolific art scene. After all, rebellious punks and storied artists have called the neighborhood home over the years from Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat to Dash Snow and Ryan McGinley. While chances of finding a cheap rental on the lower east side are slimmer than ever, making it a less likely place for creatives pressed for cash to settle and commune, a number of galleries have since made it their home.
Luckily for us, gallery owners have banded together to organize Lower East Side Art Week, encouraging casual gallery goers and art connoisseurs alike to explore the impressive collection of work they’ve amassed. The inaugural event is extra special in that the the 24 participating galleries, all in walking distance from one another, are solely featuring the work of emerging female artists. Looks like your weekend plans are sorted. Here are i-D’s favorite shows at Lower East Side Art Week.
Freight + Volume (97 Allen St.)
Spanish-born artist Bel Fullana’s UN MOHITO, DOS MOHITOS consists of primarily bubblegum, pastel paintings done in oils and spray paint. The irresistible childlike naiveté and sweetness in her renderings often clash with some of the dark, perverse themes under the surface. “Marlboro Pink” gives an everyday pack of cigarettes a girly makeover and “Mamading in the Swimming Pool” depicts a scene of sexual depravity with flowing rainbows and a smiling sun.
Denny Dimin Gallery (261 Broome St.)
This enchanting solo exhibition, Muse, by Jessie Edelman presents large scale, brightly colored paintings, all done in accordance with the golden ratio. Edelman asks us, who is the muse? In her presentation of nine lush goddesses, Edelman turns the idea of the passive muse on it’s head — reimagining the muse as the ultimate artist — and reinventing her in the 21st century.
LMAK Gallery (298 Grand St.)
The FemFour is a a group of Ohio-based artists and arts advocates, including Cal Cullen, Maria Seda-Reeder, Jaime Thompson, and Sara Vance Waddell, who’ve together collected over 270 protest signs from the Women’s March. Still They Persist presents a collection of these signs as prolific art and documentation, in the hopes of continuing the conversation and political change they incite.
Perrotin (130 Orchard St.)
Perrotin gallery spotlights two Brooklyn-based artists, painter Emily Mae Smith and sculptor Genesis Belanger, in their new exhibition. Smith’s photorealistic works, though surreal in content are placed mise en scène with Belanger’s sculptures. In one of her works, a sculpted vase full of flowers takes on human features — sprouting a a mouth agape, tongue, and fingers. The two mediums respond to one another perfectly and work in conversation, one bouncing off the other.
James Cohan Gallery (291 Grand St.)
Grace Weaver’s vibrant paintings are “emotional self portraits” that exist “halfway between reality and fable,” she says. The James Cohan Gallery brings us BEST LIFE, a collection of new paintings and drawings, featuring her signature Mannerist inspired, larger than life figures done in psychedelic hues. Each brings to life an element of the everyday in modern America.
Lower East Side Art Week runs from Thursday the 17th to Sunday the 21st of October. For a full schedule of events, check out their website .