Currently on view at the Deitch Project’s Long Island City warehouse gallery is a massive new installation by artist Swoon. As a printmaker, sculptor and installation artist, Swoon’s exhibition Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, features countless objects and images that reference urban decay and the darker, albeit romantic, side of city life. However, the installation is only a one part of the exhibition. Swoon, directing a crew of over seventy-five collaborators, also created seven full size boating vessels which set sail on down the Hudson River on August 15th and landed on Deitch Projects via the East River for the first time on Sunday September 7th. A crowd of hundreds welcomed the ships, and the combined crew of 40, as the band Dark, Dark, Dark played in the middle of the excited crowd.

Swoon began her artistic career as we know it today producing works on the streets of New York City. Since, the artist has exhibited internationally and collaborated with groups Glowlab, Black Label and the Barnstormers. Her work has been featured at PS1and in several exhibition with Deitch Projects.

One of the fathers and pioneers of the American Urban Art movement, born out of New York City’s late 70’s and early 80’s graffiti heyday is the legendary artist Futura. Opening this weekend in Los Angeles will be a four day event and exhibition featuring the artist and his new works in what will be the artists first ever solo show in LA, titled KRUNK. The exhibition, which was previous listed to be in an sercret location has been stated to be held in Downtown Los Angeles on the corner of 6th and Main.

Futura, also known as Furtura 2000, has developed an international career over the past 30 years working as a prolific artist, illustrator, graphic designer, and custom toy designer. He as worked with companies such as Phillie Blunt, Zoo York, and Nike.

Opening this evening in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at Dam Stuhltrager Gallery will be a two person exhibition featuring the work of Chris Coffin and Jonathan Brilliant. Coffin’s show New Work Off Dry Land, features a 300 ft line of bouys that have been actively used by lobster fisherman in Newport, Rhode Island. The artist strapped the line to his body and carried out a performance in which he swam in the ocean with the line trailing behind him. Coffin received his MFA from Pratt Institute and has been featured in The New York Times and Addict Magazine. The artist currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Jonathan Brilliant, whose work is pictured above, has created his latest installation featuring thousands of coffee house stir sticks that are woven together and held by tension only. The Goldsworthy of The Coffee Shop Project presents organic and formalist sculptures which cleverly create a dialogue between a natural and consumer-based landscape. The artist also illustrates the possibilities inherent in a simple object once multiplied and arranged by the thousands. Brilliant received his MFA from San Jose State University. He has recently exhibited at Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, SC and the Elliot Center Gallery at the University of North Carolina. Brilliant currently lives and works in Charleston, SC.

Miju, the artist collaboration of Michele Muennig and Juan Carlos Quintana, is currently exhibiting at Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco. Though the work of the collaboration is thought out and purposeful, a clear dialogue of spontaneity exists among the paintings. Each artist adds his and her own artistic technique while collectively they maintain a polished aesthetic of drawing and painting. In their show, Effigies and Demagogues, the San Francisco-based artists reveal themes of destiny, nature, delight and desire, the subjects of fairy tales, and political and historical figures. Muennig’s own imagery borders on the surreal, where freely associated objects, characters, and themes (femininity being a focal point) powder her vibrantly colored canvases. Quintana’s work shows the influence of political satire, his latino ethnicity, as well as youth and classic children stories.

Both Michele Muennig and Juan Carlos Quintana were educated at Tulane University in New Orleans and have shown extensively as solo artists, though they are making a name for themselves as a collaborative throughout the Bay Area. They have have also exhibited as a duo at art fairs in Miami and New York as well as a recent show in Quezon City, Philippines. The paintings of Miju can be seen at Jack Fischer Gallery until September 27.

Currently showing at the CCA‘s Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art is a new exhibition titled, The Wizard of Oz, the second in a string of exhibitions that are influenced by a classic novel, children’s book, or short story. The Wizard of Oz includes an impressive array of work from twenty-two artists, including Andy Warhol, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Steve McQueen, and Bruce Conner. Each work has either been created as a reaction to the original novel (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum and published in 1900) or selected among an artist’s existing work which demonstrates the show’s theme. The show also features various artifacts such as a first edition of Baum’s novel, original illustrations by W.W. Denslow, and the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the famous 1939 film. The exhibit portrays a mixed assemblage of works in technique, material, and concept, and it is brilliantly successful as a poignant collective body. The motifs explored in the exhibition are those of the American landscape, rural life and home, as well as fairy tale, utopia, and dream. The exhibition was curated by Wattis Institute curator, Jens Hoffman and will be on display until December.

Deitch Projects‘ 18 Wooster St. Gallery is currently exhibiting a new installation by artist Chris Johanson. Totalities in the title of the new show which has been described as a “contemporary living installation” that includes plants, animals, and people as well as more traditional paintings and sculpture. The artist, who is known for works that are inspired from his own life, has decided to simultaneously focus on the macro and micro, meditating on the planet’s position in the universe as well as the natural world of earth. Most of the material for show has been found or salvaged near the artist’s Brooklyn studio or from friends and fellow artists.

Johanson currently lives and works in New York City and San Francisco. In addition to Deitch Projects, the artist has also exhibited with Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco and Georg Kargl Fine Art in Vienna, Austria.

Diamonds and Rust is a new exhibition which opened just last night in Los Angeles, as the debut solo exhibition for the artist Sarah Cromarty with Circus Gallery. The artist’s paintings reflect “new visions of the American landscape and American Dream. She brings her simmering and dreamy ideas and style to cowboys, ravers, motorcycle riders, sports cars, and Los Angeles.” The exhibition acts in part autobiographically, as she uses images of herself and ex-lovers within the work, while also carefully referencing elements of art historical painting through appropriation and defacement.

The artist is a BFA graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California and has recently exhibited with Sixspace, High Energy Constructs and The Balmoral, all in Los Angeles. The artist currently lives and works in LA.