A Postcard from New Yorkshire  New works by Doktor A.
myplasticheart
October 12th 2012 (Through Nov 11) 

While you are enjoying your spoils from the upcoming NYCC 2012 weekend, make sure to take a break from the Javits Center mayhem for a spectacular evening at the opening of A Postcard from New Yorkshire, featuring new artwork by Dok A. The steampunk extraordinaire is getting adventurous with his work in the show, pushing boundaries and showcasing newly acquired skills. Anticipate intricate details in custom toys as well as ink drawings. Show opens on Friday, October 12 from 7 – 10pm. Dok A will be in attendance at the opening and make sure to welcome him because this will mark his first visit to NYC. Show runs until November 11.

Octopus Project/The Vandelles
Sat, October 6, 2012
Mercury Lounge

A group of young noise-rock musicians moves into a old, ghost-filled house and sets up shop. Though the spooks are at first rattled by the blasts of guitar feedback and unhinged drummery, they soon begin to share their own beautiful, otherworldly melodies with the band and discover a musical common ground. As the group, ghosts included, fills the neighborhood with strange, electrifying sounds, curious neighbors and passers-by find themselves drawn to the rumbling, hypnotic rhythms emanating from the old dwelling. And so you find yourself here, outside the house, where a sort of Tim Burton block party is unfolding. Come on inside. The Octopus Project is just getting started…

The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science
Powerhouse Arena
Thursday, October 11, 7–9 PM

A science book like no other, The Where, The Why, and The How turns loose 75 of today’s hottest artists onto life’s vast questions, from how we got here to where we are going. Inside these pages some of the biggest (and smallest) mysteries of the natural world are explained in essays by real working scientists, which are then illustrated by artists given free rein to be as literal or as imaginative as they like. The result is a celebration of the wonder that inspires every new discovery.

The Butterfly Conservatory
NHM
October 6, 2012 – May 28, 2013

This is one of the museum’s most popular annual seasonal exhibitions. Butterflies and moths make up a large group of insects known as the Order Lepidoptera (lep-i-DOP-ter-ah). The name–from the Greek lepido, “scale”, and ptera, “wings”–refers to a prominent feature of adult butterflies and moths, the tiny scales that cover the wings and the rest of the body.

Daniel Temkin, 98.1034 Bottles of Beer
Devotion Gallery
Opening Friday, October 5th, 7 – 11pm

98.1034 Bottles of Beer on the Wall provides drunken encounters with compulsive systems. A program continually preens itself, inserting lines of code to change its visual representation, but along the way, introducing glitches and new patterns of behavior. A therapist program tries to dispense advice as her logic slowly breaks down. Sound editing software turns simple geometric shapes into hallucinatory landscapes. Photoshop generates intricate patterns in an attempt to hide visual compression. A book displays the abuses and absurdities of the DNS system, an addressing apparatus that has seemingly exhausted meaningful combinations of English words.

Picasso Black and White
Guggenheim
October 5, 2012–January 23, 2013

Picasso Black and White is the first exhibition to explore a remarkable focus that occupied the great Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, throughout his prolific career: the use of black and white. Few artists have exerted as considerable an influence over subsequent generations as Picasso, one of the most recognized figures in 20th-century art. While his work is often seen through the lens of his diverse styles and subjects—his Blue and Rose periods, pioneering investigations into Cubism, neoclassical figurative paintings, and explorations in Surrealism, for example, or the forceful and somber scenes depicting the atrocities of war, the allegorical still lifes, the vivid interpretations of arthistorical masterpieces, and the highly sexualized canvases of his twilight years—the recurrent motif of black, white, and gray is frequently overlooked.

Continue reading →