In the meantime, Art Capades is willing to take out the tension on unsuspecting flaneurs. Your not entirely undeserved penance? A guide to Not First Friday, a rough prod to take the art road less trammelled this weekend. It’s not all neatly contained in a former warehouse space, we’re asking you to commit two days, and as Steven DaLuz’s open-studio announcement recommends, you should eat and drink before or after; these aren’t bars, after all, but you’re sure to see some provocative art.
— Elaine Wolff
6-8 p.m. Friday: Jill Pankey and Dennis W. Smith, Fact to Fiction
Galería Ortiz Contemporary, 4026 McCullough
Fans of Danville Chadbourne’s totemic ceramic and wood sculptures may feel a similar attraction to Smith’s nature-inspired clay works, but the latter’s are more organic and less primitive-spiritual. Pankey’s naked human figures look like enticing Cirque du Soleil escapees. (OK, cocktails, hors d’oeuvre and live music included, but don’t be a pig.)
6-10 p.m. Friday: Sarah Higgins, Afield
Salon Mijangos, 1906 S. Flores, Salonmijangos.com
Using a variety of media, including photography and embroidery, says the press release, Higgins considers the way cultures pursue and fetishize the idea of adulthood, from loaded-gun rights of manhood to cherry-poppin’ prom night. This is a closing reception, so it’s your last chance to catch the show. Music by Hyperbubble and Moth!Fight!
6-10 p.m. Friday, Kelly Pierce
one9zero6 Gallery, 1906 S. Flores, 1906Gallery.com
Overlooked in the Mark Mothersbaugh crush at Fl!ght on May’s Second Saturday (and working as a sort of counterpoint to Higgins’s theme) Kelly Pierce’s paintings and mixed-media illustrations are constructed from the basement detritus of two generations of American childhoods — finally a chance to grill National Geographic, the Flying Aces, and Betty Crocker about the way your young psyche was abused (without Mr. Rogers around to intercede). This show also closes June 1.
1-5 p.m. Saturday: Potentialities
Unit B (Gallery), 500 Stieren at Cedar, Unitbgallery.com
In this low-key but loaded show, New York and Chicago collaborators Dominick Talvacchio and Matt Irie bank on the tireless appeal of an enduring human theme, free will vs. determinism, by turning assumptions and various media upside-down — literally in the case of the paint drips in the Kitchen Gallery, more poetically with graph paper whose perfect blue grid is quietly exploded by water stains, and a draped cloak of frozen metal folds. Take time to view the video, too, in which a series of actors recreate quotidian activities in crowded urban spaces; it’s art as meditation.
6-9:30 p.m. Saturday: Steven DaLuz and Andy Tschoepe, Open Studio
1100 Broadway, 3rd Floor, Ste. 305
Figurative painters DaLuz and Tschoepe join other artists in the old Southern Music Building at Broadway and Jones for an impromptu evening of open studios. DaLuz, winner of the Fiesta 2007 official-poster contest, tends to work in a more ethereal style, while what we’ve seen of Tschoepe’s canvases look beautifully moody as well, but with earthier, harder edges.
7-10 p.m. Saturday: Charlie Morris, Open Studio
1100 Broadway, Ste. 209
In the same building, but miles away aesthetically, Charlie Morris’s mixed-media output takes its cue from our aggressive (to the point of troops) consumer culture. In addition to variations on his recent sculptural work, like his cartoon versions of cheap electronics that were included in this year’s Texas Biennial, Morris is showing new photography and painting.
