Art Events for 9/5-9

The Skinny on Art Events in New York:

When it rains in September it really pours, and that goes for the kickoff of the art season as well as the weather. This week the city's cultural institutions and galleries are launching the first salvo of the fall's barrage of openings—and, of course, there's Fashion Week to make things crazier still. Not even the most ambitious cultural butterfly could expect to take in all the city has to offer during this initial fall onslaught (without going into an art coma, at least). But we're here to help. Take a deep breath, screw your courage to the sticking place, and check out as many of the following shows as possible.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH

- Lower East Side Opening Night: Art + Fashion, hosted by the Lower East Side Business Improvement District (LES BID), 6 p.m. - 9 p.m., various locations throughout New York's Lower East Side

Merging the art world's back-to-school festivities with the glamor of Fashion Week, the LES BID plays host to a celebration of opening receptions for the 80+ art galleries that now dot the LES landscape. Opening night will include several in-store events—including live music and entertainment—at a number of retail fashion and accessory boutiques lining the neighborhood. For a free organized tour of the galleries at 6 p.m., contact Art LES Tours.

- Opening reception for Sandi SloneQuick Mettle Rich Blood and Shawn Bitters Yes, Yes, Yes, Now, Now, Now at Allegra LaViola Gallery, 179 East Broadway, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 6th)

Two shows opening at the increasingly buzzy Allegra LaViola Gallery translate the literary into visual narratives. Sandi Slone's sumptuously vibrant paintings take a cue from Walt Whitman's poem O-Magnet South, while Shawn Bitters finds inspiration for his mixed-media installations in Vladimir Nabokov's take on nature's language and Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez's classic discourse on the physical environment and human imagination.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH

- Opening receptions for two takes on myth in the visual arts. "Myths & Realities" at the School of Visual Arts, Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26th street, floor 15, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through September 29th), and "Searching" at Mixed Greens, 531 West 26th Street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 6th)

The slippery boundaries separating reality and illusion in the everyday and the exceptional are explored in two new exhibitions opening this week at the School of Visual Arts and Mixed Greens: "Myths & Realities" tackles the topic with works by 16 notable SVA alumni while "Searching" looks at myth through the work of Bas Jan Ader, Arianna Carossa, and Mie Olise.

- Opening reception for "Parlors and Pastorals" at CRG Gallery, 548 West 22nd Street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 6th)

A selection of lush new paintings by Angela Dufresne at CRG Gallery takes inspiration from the cinematic to reconsider notions of exterior and interior realities.

- Opening reception for "The Feverish Library" at Petzel Gallery, 537 West 22nd Street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 20th)

Artist and White Columns director Matthew Higgs takes a curatorial stab at Jorge Luis Borges's frenetic Library of Babel with a group exhibition meditating on the book as a conceptual, cultural form. In conjunction with the exhibition, each of the 30 participating artists have been asked to present their favorite book, which will also be on display in the gallery. There will also be a free exchange system library set up in the space for the duration of the show, allowing readers to swap old books for new titles during the gallery's opening hours. Participating artists include vets like Richard Artschwager and Hans Peter Feldmann, rising stars like Tauba Auerbach and Josh Smith, and a few special guests who make it a family affair, like Gavin Brown (yes, the rakish downtown art dealer Gavin Brown, a friend of Higgs's since art school) and the artist Anne Collier, Higgs's wife.

- Opening reception for Simon Starling's "Triangulation Station A (40°44'49.17"³ N 74°0'22.45"³ W)" at Casey Kaplan, 525 West 21st Street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 20th)

Casey Kaplan will be the New York home to Simon Starling's Triangulation Station A (40°44'49.17"²"² N 74°0'22.45"²"² W), while neugerriemschneider will house the artist's Triangulation Station B (52°31'39.61" N 13°23'38.64" E) "¨in Berlin. The concurrent exhibitions, which present the same works in two different locations, draw on two distinct historical narratives based on ideas of mirroring and triangulation.

- Opening reception for "Liu Ye: Bamboo Bamboo Broadway" at Sperone Westwater, 257 Bowery, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 27th)

"Bamboo Bamboo Broadway," a solo exhibition of new paintings by Liu Ye, will engage the history of modernism, while referencing the tradition of abstraction in historical Chinese painting. For his third show at Sperone Westwater, Ye introduces new genres such as landscape and still-life painting, including a nine-part abstract painting of a bamboo plant which spans the gallery's double-height wall.

- Popralley's Meta-Monumental Pre-Game event at MoMA, 8:30 p.m. - 11:30 p.m., $18 in advance $24 at door

MoMA gears up for Martha Rosler's "Meta-Monumental Garage Sale" installation at the museum with a raucous night of dancing, drinking, garage-sale-themed games, and a performance by the Postelles (with music by DJ Diggy Lloyd). Dump your attic and basement junk off at the museum to be included in the exhibition, while receiving a 20 percent discount at the MoMA Store throughout the evening. In honor of Fashion's Night Out, you'll also have access to a special screening of Rosler's work Martha Rosler Reads Vogue (1983).

- Opening reception for two solo exhibitions by Guido van der Werve at Luhring Augustine, 531 West 24th Street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 20th)

Dutch artist Guido van der Werve has two solo shows opening at Luhring Augustine: Nummer veertien, home, an exhibition of two new filmic works at the gallery's Chelsea location, and Works 2003 - 2009, a selection of eight of the artist's earlier films at Luhring Augustine's Bushwick outpost. In conjunction with these exhibitions will be two additional events: On Saturday, September 8, van der Werve will perform the third annual "Running to Rachmaninoff Run," in which the artist invites those hale of body and spirit to join him on a 30-mile run to composer Sergei Rachmaninoff's grave. The run begins at Luhring Augustine and ends at the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, N.Y., Rachmaninoff's burial place. On Sunday, October 7, van der Werve will perform his full requiem for Nummer veertien, home in a one-time performance with the American Symphony Orchestra in the MoMA PS1 Performance Dome, as part of the museum's "Sunday Sessions" series.

- Pace Gallery holds an opening reception for "Richard Tuttle: Systems, VIII-XII," 534 west 25th street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 13th)

Systems, VIII-XII continues Tuttle's interest in new forms of sculpture which expand physical space. The exhibition will feature five recently created freestanding sculptures that center on the horizontal access and the relation with the floor. New works coupling the artist's delicate drawings with wall-mounted sculptural elements will also be on view.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH

- Opening reception for "James Welling: Overflow" at David Zwirner, 533 West 19th Street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 27)

"Overflow," an exhibition of new works by photographer James Welling, looks at photography's hybrid relationship to painting, including a project that revisits sites in Maine and Pennsylvania that artist Andrew Wyeth painted during his lifetime.

- Flux Factory presents an opening reception for "Public Trust," 39-31 29th street, Long Island City, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m. (through September 30th)

The relationship between formal and informal cultural institutions and their audiences is the subject of a new exhibition at Flux Factory. A series of interventions, some sanctioned and others guerrilla, question how institutions deliver and disseminate knowledge in the context of contemporary society. Public Trust comprises artworks which will be on view at the Flux Factory gallery as well as actions taking place at various public spaces and institutions throughout New York City. Highlights to include reenacted historical protests, physical audits of the dirt inside banking institutions, and a mobile pacifist library. Participating artists and artist groups include Cassandra Thornton, the Center for Tactical Magic (in collaboration with the Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center), Daniel Bejar, Douglas Paulson, Heidi Neilson, Jo Q. Nelson, Matt Freedman & Jude Tallichet, Monica Rodriguez, Stephanie Diamond, and Valentina Curandi & Nathaniel Katz.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8TH

- "AN AFTERNOON WITH MESCALITO" at Zach Feuer Gallery, 548 west 22nd street, 4 p.m.

In conjunction with "ARTSTAR," an exhibition of new work by artist Mark Flood at Zach Feuer (on view through October 13th), the gallery is hosting "AN AFTERNOON WITH MESCALITO," a panel discussion of Mark Flood's work. Participants include Sarah Douglas, culture editor of the New York Observer, and Alison Gingeras, curator of Mark Flood's "THE HATEFUL YEARS," currently on view at Luxembourg & Dayan, with several other art-world luminaries yet to be announced. The fun-loving artist will apparently also be present.

- Opening party for "Working On It," a new exhibition at the newly-minted contemporary art space TEMP in TriBeCa, 57 Walker Street, 8 p.m. - 11 p.m.

TEMP, a new contemporary art space in TriBeCa, kicks off their inaugural group exhibition, "Working On It," with a party featuring live music by LE1F. The show features the work of 12 young artists trying to come to terms with issues of originality and identity in the contemporary art world that they are only just entering.

- Member Saturday Night at the Whitney Museum, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

The Whitney will remain open late tonight for members. Support the Whitney by investing in a museum membership and enjoy the collection after hours with drinks at a cash bar, live music, and free tours at 6:45 p.m., 7:00 p.m., and 7:45 p.m. The event is free and open to all members, plus one guest.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH

- Opening reception for "Figures, Flowers, Fruit," a solo exhibition of new paintings by Valerie Hegarty at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, 21 Orchard street, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. (through October 20th)

Valerie Hegarty's continued interest in themes of consumption, entropy, decadence, reproduction and greed will surface again in a clutch of new paintings which reengage the genres of still life and figurative painting.