English Kills Art Gallery in Brooklyn is presenting a show of Don Pablo Pedro‘s scroll paintings, powerful compositions depicting scenes of deranged sexuality, mutation, and pain. The painted muslin scrolls, with titles such as Eve Rips Her Face Off, Jesus’s Vagina and Shit, and Boy and His Heads, feature figures with anatomical abnormalities, extra orifices, and sexual oddities. These characters are situated in a blank space, alone or engaged with others in orgiastic and violent activity. With their extreme physical irregularities and bizarre behavior, these maniacal creatures agonize but entice the viewer.

In the first room of the gallery, Sarah H. Paulson and Holly Faurot are displaying video documentation of performance works from the years 2004-2009. Their collaborative pieces combine contemporary dance, conceptual art, and installation art in works that “relate to voyeurism, shifts in power-positions, and translation through different media,” as stated on their website. Paulson and Faurot performed a new piece for the opening night titled I’ll _____ You When I’m Out of Town.

The exhibition will remain at English Kills until August 23, 2009.

Lawrimore Project in Seattle opened a new group exhibition yesterday titled Spite House. The exhibition, which features nine national artists, explores the invisible territories of spite that exist in both common land and property disputes as well as with works of art within group exhibitions. Citing the Richard Spite House in Manhattan, a five foot strip of land that was developed into an apartment building in order spitefully block the view a neighboring building, the Spite House exhibition investigates how this principle extends into the gallery setting conceptually and aesthetically, as well as between the artist, artwork, and audience. Works will be on view by Matt Browning, Andrew Dadson, Eli Hansen with Herman Beans and Joey Piecuch, Christian Kliegel, Bert Rodriguez, Sutton Beres Culler, and Aaaron Young.

Spite House will be on view through September 12th, 2009.

Last fall, during a forty-five day residency at Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, South Carolina, artist Josef Kristofoletti created a massive mural depicting a cross section of the CERN particle accelerator, the world’s largest and most dynamic laboratory for particle physics. The mural project at Redux was sponsored in part by DailyServing.com.

CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research situated in the Northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco-Swiss border. Once CERN discovered Kristofoletti’s impressive mural at Redux, the artist was invited by the group to visit the site and evaluate possible locations for a new mural. After initial meetings and discussions with project coordinators, a newly proposed large-scale mural of ATLAS, the largest generator where particles collide, on the outside of the prominent building above the underground detector was approved and slated to begin in late 2009 / early 2010. This will be an unprecedented major art project of its kind on the CERN site. However, due to the major economic constraints of CERN’s science laboratory, they do not have a budget for any art projects; therefore the completion of the mural requires funding from outside sources.

Kristofolletti and CERN are currently seeking financial sponsors to assist with the completion of this permanent large-scale mural. The proposed image of the painting is depicted above and will illustrate a dynamic cross section of ATLAS, perhaps the most important scientific experiment of our life time. The experiment at CERN is probing deeper into the invisible regions of matter, and Kristofoletti, like generations of muralist before him, will use visual art to express the complex and abstract ideas of CERN.

If you are interested in helping to ensure that is particular project is released, please contact Josef Kristofoletti.

Melbourne, Australia-based Skye Kennewell‘s architectural installations examine the tenuous elements of constructed security, in both the physical and emotional realms. The spaces that she creates incorporate rigid building materials as well as technical drawings, and when on view playfully engage with lighting, adding elaborate shadows to the overall spectacle. Kennewell’s interests lie in “issues of isolation, high-density urban living, public fear and the illusion of safety,” according to her artist’s statement, and her work desires to investigate these themes by constructing faux safety shelters, much the same way as one builds a house to protect her family, or maybe even as one builds an emotional wall to protect against being hurt in another way. It seems that Kennewell explores the idea of shelter as it exists in duality, as in “I need shelter from the rain” or “the children are too sheltered.” Currently, Kennewell’s work is on view in a solo presentation called Widow’s Walk at The King’s Artist Run Initiative in Melbourne, in Gallery 1.

Skye Kennewell earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne in 2005 and is currently a studio resident at Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts in St. Kilda. Her work has been exhibited widely in Victoria, including at First Site Gallery; West Space, Inc.; Seventh Gallery; Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces and La Trobe Street Gallery.

Synchronicity is a multifaceted art space on Melrose Avenue in the Los Angeles neighborhood of East Hollywood. Bravely (or otherwise, depending on how you feel), they opened their inaugural show at the end of 2008, during the crux of the American economic collapse. Yet Katie Vonderheide and Chris Gere– the diligent duo of the Millenial cohort that run the gallery–remain hopeful and excited about their eclectic program. DailyServing’s Allison Gibson first met the team at the opening of Synchronicity’s show The Sensual World, after a cone of vegan Scoops ice-cream from across the street, and recently caught up with them both again to discuss the surprises and realities of running a gallery, the jam-packed roster of events they host and their convenient location to said ice-cream shop.

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Federal Art Project (FAP) in downtown LA recently hosted Mixtape Volume 1, a show featuring artists who use music subculture as impetus for their work. Shizu Saldamando‘s 5′ x 3′ graphite on wood piece, Maria Daniela y su Sonido Lazer Concert, Azusa, CA, was hung in the forefront of the gallery, begging viewers to take a closer look at her skilled draftmanship. With fluid strokes, Saldamando delivers accurate textures of hair, clothing, gestures, and expressions as well as the overall energy of a moment. According to Saldamando, the musician’s role is subsidiary while the collective spirit of the audience is key.

Three of Jacob Rhodes‘ quilt series, Candy Skins, were also included in Mixtape. Candy Skins are Rhode’s fictional characters whose subculture is influenced by that of Skinheads with a heightened fashion sense (Candy Skins make all their own clothing.) Rhodes uses embroidery floss to stitch Candy Skin scenes onto quilts made out of denim, nylon, and gingham–the fabrics of the Candy Skin’s everyday lives.

In some cases, specific songs, lyrics, or rock ‘n’ roll sayings were referenced by the exhibit’s artists. For example, in a 30″ x 30″ piece of steel, Rich Shelton plasma cut the words, “It’s better to burn out than fade away” and seamlessly installed the steel along with the kino flo lights that backlit the script into the gallery’s wall.

In addition to the artists mentioned above, the exhibit included digital installations by Irina Contreras, Marco Dimas Sanchez, and Juan Capistran as well as Xerox and Light Jet Prints by Sandra de la Loza and Hazel Mandujano.

Currently on view in the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago‘s third floor gallery is Elements of Photography. Organized by MCA Curatorial Assistant Michael Green, Elements of Photography presents photographic and video works from the MCA Collection with a focus on elemental materials of nature: light and water. Also the fundamental elements of traditional photography, the works included in the exhibition foreground the inherent relationship between the photographic process and the natural world.

With these elements, artists like Hiroshi Sugimoto, Luisa Lambri, Melanie Schiff, Walead Beshty, and Adam Ekberg create ephemeral works that explore the foundation of the photographic image: the play of light through half opened shutters; haunting seascapes reduced to a gradation of elemental material; and luminous circles of light formed by the interplay of sunlight and the camera’s lens. Contributing to the exhibition as the sole video work on view is Ekberg’s a disco Ball in the woods from 2006, depicting just that. Bringing the natural world to near or complete abstraction, these photographs and one video emphasize their own material composition. At the same time, they invite the viewer to reflect on themes inherent to photographic medium, such as the passage of time and the nature of perception.

The exhibition will remain on view through October 4, 2009.