Chelsea Openings That Will Make You Seem Relevant

Geoffrey Farmer, "Theatre of Cruelty," 2008. Installation view at Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver, CA.

Things are happening IRL tonight.  Drag your friends in town for CAA out to some openings to prove that you're relevant.

HIGHWAYS CONNECT AND DIVIDE
Foxy Production
Performance by JODI, 7 PM
623 West 27th Street, ground floor

It might seem like a stretch to compare artists like Sterling Ruby and Nam June Paik—because it is.  However, a group exhibition about how technology allows for greater human connectivity might point to how frequently Utopian desires show up in art.  I’m looking forward to what sounds like a European Modernism-meets-Junk Culture explosion in Cory Arcangel's “Mondrian-like sports-shirt design, and a modular, Coke Zero-filled humidifier.” Tauba Auerbach, Kerry Tribe, Bureau of Inverse Technology, and I/O/D will also show work. The famed net artist duo JODI will be performing tonight, releasing compressed air stored in cylinders into the gallery.

Geoffrey Farmer: Bacon's Not The Only Thing That Is Cured By Hanging From A String
Casey Kaplan Gallery
525 West 21st Street

Geoffery Farmer's puppet-like sculptures oscillate between collage-covered renditions of Alexander Calder's mobiles and Annette Messager's stuffed animals on stakes.  If puppets aren't your thing, don't worry: Casey Kaplan also promises “conceptual works with poetic narratives.”

Josh Smith
Luhring Augustine Gallery
531 West 24th Street

I have no idea what this show will look like, but the website describes canvases that depict figurative motifs—this, in contrast to Smith's usual M.O. of painting his name large on canvases. Smith's paintings occupy a self-referential position towards painting's heady history, and if nothing else, should be pretty to look at.