What to Expect at February's First Friday

As San Antonians recover from bouts of Seasonal Affective Disorder (aka SAD) and pinch off the tails of flunked New Year’s resolutions, the local art scene is slowly but surely rebooting, giving culture seekers more than a few solid excuses to get out and about for First Friday.

As the longest-running art space on the Southtown circuit, Blue Star Contemporary offers a no-brainer of a starting point with the opening of “Effort Economy,” a group show that employs modern dance pioneer Rudolph Laban (1879-1958) and his movement-based theories surrounding “space, weight, time and flow” as a connective thread between choreography-related videos, drawings, sculptures, installations and performance works by Anne Wallace, Ronny Quevedo, Eric McMaster, Raul Gonzalez and Julie Favreau. In addition to exploring movement “as it relates to dance, sports, daily life, eroticism, and more,” the group show also considers “the varied definitions of the terms effort and economy in combination with one another” (free, Fri Feb. 1, 6-9pm, Blue Star Contemporary, bluestarcontemporary.org).

A few doors down at UTSA’s offsite gallery Terminal 136, Asian-American artist Jave Yoshimoto tackles the concept of “social amnesia” in the digital era via “A Modicum of Truth” a solo exhibition that blends traditional and contemporary ideas and techniques to address real-world tragedies such as the crisis in Aleppo (free, 6-9pm Thu Jan. 31-Fri Feb. 1, Terminal 136, 136 Blue Star, art.utsa.edu).

Up the way at FL!GHT, Houston-based Jordan Clough and San Antonio’s own Pat Kay joint forces to dig up “Heaven’s Trash” — a collection of paintings and mixed-media installations said to “foster rich and colorful notions of the wearisome characteristics of eternal heaven” (free, 6-10pm Thu Jan. 31-Fri Feb. 1, FL!GHT Gallery, 112R Blue Star).

And just slightly off the Blue Star campus, Presa House Gallery observes Women’s History Month with “Intersections,” a group show that “celebrates women of color through a diverse collection of 22 artists and their stories told from a variety experiences and perspectives.” Representing a collective effort between six young curators working throughout Texas (Mayra Zamora, Sandra Gonzalez, Jonathan Paul Jackson, Coka Trevino and Presa House co-directors Jenelle Esparza and Rigoberto Luna), the exhibition addresses timely topics including reproductive rights, Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement (free, 6-11pm Fri Feb. 1, Presa House Gallery, 725 S. Presa St., presahouse.com).

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