Blakely Dadsons What Tha Bumboclaat?, on view at Chambers@916
  • Chambers@916
  • Blakely Dadson's "What Tha Bumboclaat?," on view at Chambers@916

Erotic comics. Creepy children. Stuff about “bumboclaats” and post-apocalyptic silver linings. Video essays displaying “continuities so familiar as to be invisible.” That's right, it's First Thursday time!

If you're gonna be checking out any art openings West of the river this evening, click on past the jump for a handful of exhibits that sound promising.

Onward!

Floating World Comics is hosting the release of Thickness #2, a collection of erotic comics compiled by Michael DeForge and Ryan Sands. Thickness “highlights different proclivities, orientations, and depictions of 'sex.'” Ryan Sands and local contributor Angie Wang will be in attendance, and the release is accompanied by an art show composed of both originals and prints by Thickness artists Angie Wang, Lisa Hanawalt, True Chubbo, Katie Skelly, Jonny Negron, Zejian Shen, Mickey Zacchilli and Derek Ballard. 400 NW Couch St, 6-10 pm.

Across the street at Hellion Gallery, Hikari Shimoda from Nagano, Japan is November's featured artist. Shimoda's work centers around demonic minors— evil-looking children rendered in soft illustrative techniques— unsettling in their dissonance between subject and style. Also on view at Hellion are illustrations from local tattoo artist, Joanne Slorach. 19 NW 5th ave, #208 (above Hamburger Mary's), 6-9 pm.

Blakely Dadsons Jezebel, on view at Chambers@916
  • Chambers@916
  • Blakely Dadson's "Jezebel," on view at Chambers@916

Chambers@916 has once again brought in new work from mixed-media artist Blakely Dadson. The show is titled Werd Scho Wida. That tongue twister, according to press release, is “a Franconian colloquialism”— and it translates, “things will get better again.” The work in Werd “confronts the cyclical themes of death and resurrection, destruction and hope.” 916 NW Flanders, 6-8:30 pm.

For November, Appendix Project Space is guest curating over at @ 937. The show they've put together is titled Target Language, and it's composed of videos from Andrew Norman Wilson (Chicago), Anne de Vries (Amsterdam/Berlin), Harm van den Dorpel (Amsterdam), and Oliver Laric (Berlin). The press release describes Target Language's thematic framework:

Appropriating visual material from tech marketing, Disney movies and the decorative arts, language from pop culture and philosophy, and even cannibalizing their own work, these artists investigate continuities so familiar as to be invisible. History repeats itself, images are torn down and redeployed, and evolutionary strategies move freely between the natural and the technological. Taken as guided meditations or video essays, these are conceptual lenses on a world that is both wildly interconnected and awash with competing perspectives on what has come before.

937 NW Glisan St, 7-11 pm.