1020 not cutting it on Friday nights anymore? Bwog nightlife correspondent James DeWille is your tour guide to a better weekend. Here, he provides a user-friendly guide to Every 2nd Friday in Williamsburg.

Friday night is starting early this weekend, so prepare to don your dumpiest and head on over to the Bedford L stop for Williamsburg’s Every 2^nd Friday.  Every gallery in the ‘hood will be open until at least 9pm (most later) for a smattering of paintings, Pabst, and plaid.  Expect a lot of debauchery and stumbling from gallery to gallery, as most are within walking distance of each other and beer and wine will run freely till they run…empty (which reminds me, don’t be cool and show up late.  At least for tonight you’ll be in the wrong neighborhood for that kind of attitude; drink up and early).  Keep the night open and organic: follow invitations (except to Bushwick) and interesting people/sounds to hunt out after parties, impromptu band performances, and chilly but pretty rooftops.

For those who still need a guide map, here’s a round up a few shows definitely worth hitting up: 

Black & White Gallery: The indoor/outdoor space adds to the architectural nature of “Compass: New Directions”, a group show of women artists curated by Jill Conner.  The show takes over the gallery and examines the living, industrial jumble of architectural decay and rebirth that has defined the neighborhood and lured people to it. 

Capla Kesting Fine Art:  You may have seen the “MIST” tag on buildings around Manhattan.  Guess what?  A disgruntled kid made them in the early 80s from the Upper West Side.  Guess what?  He’s totally a businessman from Miami now.  Capla Kesting opens B-Boys; Miguel Paredes’ show of paintings that hark back to his spray can days. 

Cinders Gallery: Sto, Cinders’ owner, brings a puzzling, eerie yet somehow still storybook-cute show with “My Prayer for You”.  Following the semi-narrative of a town after a strange meteor crashes near it, “My Prayer for you” features blunt paintings and sculptures that grab at the paranoia, fear, nightmare, and supernatural enveloping the fictional Greenpoint town. 

Front Room: Philip Simmons’ new show, “Crash” showcases a series of glossy, sharp silhouette sculptures in bomb-in-your-face colors.  They detail 50’s Americana, cowboys and Indians, and farm animals that are so confrontational you may jump back a little. 

Jack the Pelican: Once you shuffle out of Front Room, consider hopping over to Jack the Pelican’s precious show of Yale MFA student Elisheva Levy’s “Oh!”.  Her curious paper creations have created cars and pianos in the past.  For Jack, she’s made a graffitied skyscape with a sloppy black “Oh!” scrawled across, and the tagger’s old spray cans sitting nearby.  Cute, but just wait, you’ll be all smiles when you find out the cans are actually made of paper too.  

NURTUREart Gallery: For those looking for something more lively and performance-oriented, heat to NURTUREart, where “Bodies of/at Work” promises a live performance of Holly Faurot and Sarah Paulson. 

Klaus von Nichtssagend: At this mouthful gallery, Rindfleish/Rapedius’ “Monte Vera” acts as an intrepid and multi-faceted little travelogue for their recent time in Argentina.  Most impressive is the giant, upright rolls of white paper, cut to mimic an Argentine mountainscape. 

 

Hogar Collection: Hogar Collection follows in the performance vein with an improv soundscape by Jeremey Slater accompanied by the sound of steel sculptures. 

So get out there, do some exploring, partake in some wandering and the night will be even better.  The amount of galleries, openings, and performances is dizzying.  If you’re still looking more to alch than art, head to the restaurant Taco Chulo, which is offering 2 mixed punch drinks to anyone saying they’re with “Every Second Friday”.   Just be sure to pace yourself, it may be dark at 7 but that doesn’t exactly mean excessive drinking is okay…yet.  Remember, you still have to make it to the after parties, or at least back to the island.  In any case, you’ll have to look out from behind your cup a few times to see some art and maybe even make some new friends.  Try and say something intelligent.