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redditnosleep · 7 years ago

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The Terrifying Note Addressed To My Six-year-old Son

by Creeping_dread

This story has a free audiobook available!

Carr picked up on the third ring.

Me: It’s Jay! Not Ray!

Carr: Wait, slow down…

Me: (I took a deep breath) Carrie looked at the church membership bulletin from 07. She recognized Jayson Fisher as the guy from ten years go...when she….

Carr: Okay….

Me: And he’s a tee ball ref. Umpire. Whatever you call them. He goes by Jay. And no one can reach him, not for the last several days. I think he’s got Andrew. We have to hurry…

Carr: Does your wife have an address?

Me: Address?

Carr: The bulletin. It should list an address. He may not still live there, but it’s as good a start as any.

Me: Okay, I’ll call you back.

I hung up and dialed Carrie’s cell phone. After five or six rings, her voicemail picked up. I hung up and texted her. Need Jay’s address. Check the bulletin!

I hopped off the couch and grabbed my keys in a mad rush to get to my truck. I climbed inside and waited, hand tapping on the steering wheel. I started to text Ryan to see if he knew Jay’s address, or could get it, when Carrie’s text dropped down at the top of the screen.

15 franklin dr

I texted her back: Thank you. Is Kyle okay?

Nursery at church. Fine.

I called Detective Carr as I whipped my truck out of the garage. When he picked up, I was almost shouting.

Me: 15 Franklin Dr. That’s his address.

Carr: Okay, got it. I’ve already radioed it in and I’m heading that way. Dean, are you on the road? (I turned down the radio, which was blasting some shitty pop song I’d heard a million times.) Look, you know this guy is extremely dangerous. (I heard his siren start its piercing wail). You and Carrie need to stay where you are and…

I hung up and tossed my phone onto the passenger seat. I knew he was right, but there was no way I was sitting this one out. Carrie and I had gotten Andrew into this mess and I had a sinking feeling he’d need at least one of us to get him out.

I called Carrie twice more on the way. This is Carrie! Leave a message. The second time, I did. Carrie, where are you? Are you okay? Please call me back.

Franklin Drive was only about ten minutes from our house, per my GPS, but I made it in about eight. The streets were always empty on Sunday mornings and I hit almost every green light. If Carr was anywhere near the police station, that meant he’d be several minutes behind me.

As soon as I turned onto Franklin drive, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Carrie’s white SUV was parked in front of a small brick house about three quarters of the way down the street. I recognized it immediately by the purple sticker on the back window. It was from Kyle’s school. In that moment, for some weird reason, the only thing I could think was: at least I told her I loved her. And that’s a brutal thing to have to think about someone you love.

I pulled in behind her and jumped out of the truck. I thought I could hear sirens blaring in the distance, but I couldn’t wait. Carrie was inside somewhere.

I made my way toward the front door, which was closed, but then I heard some shouting coming from the back of the house, and I saw the gate on the side of the house was wide open. I ran around the side and barreled into the backyard.

Jay was standing in the center of the yard, but he didn’t quite look how I expected. He was tall— over six feet—and had a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes. The beginning of a wispy beard was showing on his jaw and neck and the hint of a belly protruded through the bottom of his one-size-too-small t-shirt. He stood as if his legs could barely hold him up anymore, like a prize fighter after a losing bout.

Andrew stood next to him, atop a box which sat on a tall kitchen stool. Duct tape was wrapped around both his eyes and mouth. He was standing perfectly still, hands at his sides, as Jay screamed at Carrie to stay back.

There was a noose around Andrew’s neck, tied to the branch of a sycamore tree which hung many feet above his head.

Carrie was standing in front of me and to the left, still in her dress from church. It billowed in the breeze around her thin frame.

When Jay saw me, he narrowed his eyes.

Jay: I wondered when you’d show up, Deano! Such a rude one, you are! Didn’t your mother tell you that wasn’t nice?

Carrie glanced back at me, but kept her body turned toward the threat in front of her. She mouthed I’m sorrybefore swinging her head back around.

Me: Just let him go, Jay! (I held my empty hands up). I’m sorry for being rude. No one needs to get hurt.

Jay: No one needs to get hurt? It’s too late for that, bucko.

Carrie: What do you want?

Jay: You, Carrie. It was always YOU!

Carrie: Why the note to the paper, then? Surely there was a better way to have me. Instead, you ruined me. And you outted yourself.

Jay: Because you lied to me! And I didn’t want you to lie anymore. If I’d come looking for you, you never would have had to tell Dean about our little affair. So, I pushed you. And then you had a choice! Tell Dean about your little secret, so he could put the pieces together, or keep it from him and let little Andrew die. Since you’re here, I guess it means you came clean. And what a wonderful little moment that must have been! Now everyone will know, and no one will want you, not even your husband! (He turned away from her). How's that wonderful marriage now? Do you like my sloppy seconds?

Me: Okay, you won, Jay. You won. What do you want to hurt Andrew for?

Jay: I don’t want to hurt Andrew! (He rubbed a shaking hand through his hair.) All this time. I’ve been good allthis time! When you’re good you’re supposed to get a treat! (He looked back at Carrie). You TOLD me you didn’t want to have kids. You said that! And then I heard them call Kyle’s name at his tee ball game, and I saw you in the stands, and I just…

He swayed a bit, and when his hip bumped the stool it almost went toppling over. Andrew reached out his arms, balancing himself, and the stool righted. But not before something fell from the back of the box—behind Andrew’s feet—onto the ground. Jay leaned down and picked it up. It was a large kitchen knife.

Me: You just what, Jay?

I needed him to keep talking. I’d heard the sirens for a moment, but they’d stopped. The police were outside.

Jay: Carrie was supposed to be MINE. And so was Kyle.

Carrie: How can we fix it, Jay? (She took a step forward).

Me: Carrie….

Carrie: Jay, how can we fix it?

Jay: We can trade.

Carrie: Okay, fine. Trade what?

Jay: Your life, Carrie.

I took a step forward, but stopped when Jay pressed the knife against Andrew’s side and shook his head. Then, he pointed the knife at Carrie.

Jay: Your life for Andrew’s. That’s the deal. That’s what all of this has come to! If I can’t have you, no one can. It’s the only way. And if you refuse…. (He brought the knife back and pressed it against Andrew’s side, harder this time). You’ll have to live with….

Carr: Drop the knife! Now!

Carr was standing in the gate, his service weapon drawn. Jay wobbled to his left and hid himself behind Andrew, putting his foot on the first rung of the stool like he was going to kick it over. Andrew was standing pretty high off the ground and I realized that if he fell, he’d probably break his neck before he had time to suffocate.

Carr: Touch him and you die, Jay! Listen to me! Put the weapon down!

There were two other officers beside him now, both with their weapons drawn.

Carrie: No, wait!

Jay paused, ignoring everyone but Carrie. His foot was still on the rung.

Carrie: It’s my fault, Jay. I know that. (She took another step).

Me: Carrie, what are you doing?

Carr: Both of you, stay where you are!

Jay: (A hint of a smile had crept onto his face). Do we have a deal?

Carrie: I can’t ever take it back. But I can make up for it.

Me: Carrie! It’s not your fault! I know he drugged you!

Jay: DO WE?

Carrie: I love you, Dean.

Me: Carrie!

Jay: DO WE HAVE A DEAL?

When Carrie said deal and charged at Jay, the entire world seemed to screech to a halt. It felt like she was running in slow motion, her tight blonde ponytail floating behind her as if gravity had no dominion over it.

I ran then, too, but I was several steps behind her. And I was too late.

Carrie— barely 120 pounds—who believed she’d made a terrible mistake and was now going to right it, and Jay Fisher—the 200+ pound tee ball ref—who had killed before and thought he owned the life of the one who’d gotten away, collided with a force that I swear was more than the sum of its parts. Ten years of shame and guilt and vengeance exploded underneath that sycamore tree, and as their bodies twisted and fell to the ground, a wayward arm knocked Andrew from his stool.

In that moment, which is now frozen in my mind, I had a choice: grab Andrew before he fell, or dive onto the pile and save Carrie. I don’t remember making a conscious decision. All I know is the next moment I was holding Andrew, the rope tightened around his neck just enough to make him cough, but not to cut off his airway, as I screamed for Carr to help Carrie.

Then I heard two shots, one right after the other.

When I looked down, I saw blood. So much blood. I wondered if Carr had missed and hit Carrie. But when Jay rolled onto his back, I could see both bullet holes. One in his chest and one in his stomach. So why was there blood on Carrie?

Once I freed Andrew, I knelt down beside Detective Carr. He was applying pressure to a wound in Carrie’s abdomen, where a red stain was spreading.

When I heard her cry, it was the greatest sound I’d ever heard. She was alive.

Yesterday, my entire world almost ended. Today, things seem a little brighter, but we still have a ways to go.

I’m sitting in Carrie’s hospital room with my laptop, watching her sleep. The knife pierced her large intestine but missed all other major organs. So far, there are no signs of infection, and the doctors believe with rest and time, she’ll make a full recovery.

I’ve replayed that moment right before Andrew fell in my brain a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. My heart tells me if I’d chosen Carrie, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten stabbed. My brain tells me Andrew would have died if I had. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to reconcile that choice, but one thing’s for certain: now I know how Carrie felt all those years.

It's a tough to look deeply within yourself, admit your sins (or mistakes) and seek redemption for them. I think that's exactly what Carrie did yesterday beneath that sycamore tree. She made up for the past. And I'm proud of her.

Andrew was returned to his father’s care completely unharmed. From what I’ve heard through Ryan, Andrew’s dad doesn’t believe any trauma—sexual or otherwise—occurred. This should mean that Andrew will be just fine, too. And that’s going to make Carrie very happy when she wakes up. Once their tee ball season gets started again—oh yes, the dads are already trying to get it going—I need to remember to sit down with his dad and explain what Jay’s note about Andrew meant. I hope he’ll understand.

Detective Carr visited the hospital earlier this morning. Jay Fisher is dead, of course, and the prevailing sentiment in the community is shock and disbelief. Apparently, Jay hid is true nature pretty well. He did use to be trim and clean cut, but word was he’d let himself go over the last couple years. Oh, and he never was an accountant. He’d applied to be an accountant, at the only tax firm here in town, but got rejected. He didn’t turn out to be a mall Santa or Easter Bunny either—so Carr got that part wrong—but they did find wigs and face paint in his home at 15 Franklin. He definitely had a thing for being a clown. And they found some other strange stuff, too. Other poems, just like the ones written to us, except about other people. Some written on paper, some in the white space of magazine pages, and some even on the walls. Carr’s checking into the ones that contain first names and other identifying information, but I doubt I’ll be privy to what he finds out. If I do, I’ll let you know.

We talked about 3 Orange Circle, too. Turns out there WAS a body buried down there, in a shallow grave about two feet deep.

Only problem was, it wasn’t Suzanne Kerrington.

Carr chuckled after he broke the news and he saw my face, but I knew it wasn’t mirth behind his smile. It was bewilderment. In a town like ours, you rarely come across monsters like this. For some reason, they gravitate to more highly populated areas, I guess so they can blend in with the crowd.

I asked him how they knew it wasn’t her. Turns out, Susie had fractured her left arm pretty badly cheerleading in junior high. Her Dad—who Carr said he’d called, although he hated to, asking for any features he could use to identify her— thought it was her ulna. I didn’t need those records, though, Carr told me. When someone gets a bad fracture, it leaves a mark when it heals. Like a scar on the bone. Whoever was buried down there in the basement had never broken either arm.

I asked him whether he thought Jay was the one who killed the woman (it WAS a women, Carr said, you could tell by the shape of the pelvis) and whether he thought he'd ever find out what happened to poor Susie, and Carr said We'll try to identify the bones, but we'll probably never hear the whole truth, now that Jay's dead. And maybe that’s for the best.

Who knows how many people Jay Fisher terrorized. Or how many he killed? There will be an investigation, and people will wonder, how did we miss this monster? Living right under our noses. And maybe there will even be some answers, despite what Carr thinks, but I think most of them are buried in the dirt with Jay.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your help and advice. Carrie, Kyle, and I WILL have scars from this. Not on the bone, like Susie, but deeper. And after Carrie wakes up and gets back to her normal self, I’ll think we’ll all be able to go on, despite them. +

#creepy #horror story #kidnapping #stalker #series #author: Creeping_dread #terrifying notes series

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floggingink · 8 years ago

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Riverdale: “Chapter Eight: The Outsiders”

have you ever felt pastels to be sadistic? lime-sherbet green nail polish? Grace’s incredible cover of Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me,” both produced by Quincy Jones? ...the Coopers

Alice raises Betty’s chin

“beautiful daughters”

I am intrigued by the emotional politics of Betty wearing her hair in a ponytail vs. down. she seems to prefer it up for everyday wear, down for social functions. but would Alice allow it up for a semi-formal family picture, different from Polly’s hair?

the Blossom corpse: I continue to love how Flashback Jason looks more like an eerie ginger Ken doll, too pale and coiffed to be a real person. of course, it’s not really “Actual Footage of Flashback Jason” so much as it’s “Jughead’s Imaginatory Flashback of Jason,” and Jughead puts everyone in like an exaggerated hyper-characterized limbo

Cheryl’s “Bitchy” baseball tee, red leather heart clutch

Nana Rose met Jason and Polly out in the woods to give them her ring, in her wheelchair, she ships them so hard

“Damn good coffee”: INTERESTING insertion of Jughead at Pop’s in the background watching J&P planning to run away? actually watching, or putting himself there as if he had watched them, imagining some more? he is lounging pretty brazenly, like he’s watching a TV show

Jughead eats: WITH his burger

please tell me Nana’s heirloom ring is going to mysteriously return

Hermione graciously rises and pats Sheriff Keller’s shoulder until he leaves Polly alone

Veronica was rich: the plants and decor around the Lodge apartment are pretty bland, except there’s a very sweet purple and white flower arrangement behind Polly

“Gooooootta stop blowing me up. You’re doing it. What’re you doing—”

certainly it is Archie who “keeps killing” Jughead, not the other way around, themes and such

Jughead would be the guy who falls in love with No Man Sky and Archie would be the guy who’s like, “It takes TEN MINUTES to fly to the other planet?” also consider: Until Dawn, and the new Zelda

Fifth period is AP English: “No, Archie. Hell is other people.”

does Archie know Sartre? he laughs, but maybe it was a Veronica’s-Capote-references laugh. does this poor boy understand a word out of anyone’s mouth?

“It’s like Archie and I are just roommates in a college dorm.” absolutely: the floor and the bed are a mess, bags of chips, so many blankets it’s where they forgot whose is whose, kicking their socks off without putting them in the laundry, staying up too late playing Witness, watching Monster Factory, practicing kissing

Fred is thoroughly decent to acknowledge that it might be hard for Jughead to have the construction job brought up

Jughead’s only half-facetious “As long as you build something beautiful in its place.”

Archie’s bright blue Henley, Veronica’s little grey textured sheath, Betty’s powder blue ribbed pullover, Cheryl’s red and black criss-crossed sweater

Cheryl is sitting with them! fascinating! presumably after helping Polly escape Penelope, she got hugged by Veronica and that was that

does Archie know what a Gordian knot is?

Veronica has been “percolating” on the Polly problem and comes up with a “hellishly” simple solution

Jughead’s “Am I expected to come to this thing?” is a gentle joke for Betty and the room at large, Your Honor, acknowledging that he does not like casual gatherings but will most definitely be attending because he “has to.” Veronica takes the reins of the conversation back by telling him soberly that he will be because he’s Betty’s boyfriend

the look Betty and Jughead share at the first public drop of the word “boyfriend” between them is precious, little smiles

Every triangle has three corners, every triangle has three sides: Archie continues to feel strange about them, which is fine as he does not do anything strange about them

although Valerie is sitting right next to him. are they dating? just making out? Archie, get your shit together

Betty’s spit take: “Mom?”

how is a construction team made up? crews can just pick up and leave? Fred hires a foreman who comes with his own crew? the foreman speaks for the crew? are they like a union? Hermione?

Alice interrogates the girls in the Spanish classroom

Best costume bit: Alice’s amazing wool trench, beige-on-beige-on-brown, the puffy sleeves

all three ladies end up with their arms crossed

Alice was not ready to be called a grandmother

apparently Archie and Val went out and got pizza, are actually dating. okay Archie, continue to mind your own dating business. Jughead got his girl. you got yours. eyes forward. eyes on your own test.

I LOVE the Andrews’ kitchen! I think there’re string lights behind the window curtains!

oh these two Andrews men. Fred is so stressed and quiet and trying to hold himself together. Jughead is I guess at Pop’s, splitting a milkshake with Betty, two straws, fingers intertwined

the Lodge breakfast seems to consist largely of orange juice and croissants

Betty and Veronica hoping against hope that “the Blossoms” just means “...Cheryl’s. On the guest list.” “Yeah, Cheryl.”

Polly’s Grecian Vestal Virgin headband

“Mother-to-mother?” “Oh, yeah. No.”

Fred screeches his Ford pickup to a stop but feet from Clifford’s Bentley coupe

how he got his truck past the gates in the first place is probably a good cocktail party story

Clifford is so rich that he can buy off Fred’s crew to have them actually work on a real, second construction site so that he can buy back the first construction site that he actually wants

Clifford Blossom is undeniably a “pompous ass,” but I agree with him in the sense that I have no idea what Fred’s revenge against him would likely be, am forcibly reminded of Jughead’s “What? What are you gonna do?”

“Go park somewhere else.”

the sheer number of flannels on Fred’s construction site, breathtaking

anytime Jughead wants to stand with his hip cocked to the side, holding a toolbox, jacket open, I endorse

What damn high school in America: are these boys missing school right now? Jughead already took an absence for running around the Catholic asylum with Betty

God bless Moose: “We’re bruiser studs, Mr. Andrews.” I don’t know what that is, but it’s adorable

Moose does not think Jughead counts as a “bruiser stud.” clearly Jughead’s fleece lapels are blocking the view of his pecs from Moose’s peripheral vision

Bulldog #1, the not-Moose, tells Keller he looks “buff” without caveat, nice guy

Gay.: “I prefer my contact sports one-on-one. Like. Boxing.”

LOVING the appreciative laughs from the bros. Kevin is simply funny and gay and has gay sex(ual moments) and it’s awesome. no no-homos from his friends. Moose smiles. big grin from Jughead

the female gaze: speaking of, what the fuck?

presumably this is why Jughead wears so many shirts, so he can walk down the hallway and not get attacked

the reversal of Archie and Jughead’s typical wardrobes, Archie now in the multiple layers and Jughead just in an hourglass tank top, a button-down tied low on his hips to play up his tiny waist. although Archie’s T-shirt definitely falls into the Chris Evans school around the chestal region

“He works his ass off for me, bro.”

truly Jughead does not have an ounce of fat on his body. Jughead. Jughead. BETTY.

if Riverdale were on HBO, Moose would be beaten to within an inch of his life and they would have to wait until he came out of his coma to tell them about the crowbar dudes

the truck they speed away in has a “Don’t Tread on Me” bumper sticker, so you know they’re some bullshit

oh great, Sheriff Keller is here. he’ll fucking figure it out.

Archie is probably right in that Sheriff Keller is disproportionately effective towards the Blossoms, but Fred is the most right when he tells Archie to just cut it out

Polly’s pink top with the flower decals!

Summer + Blair = Veronica: Veronica never thought she would live to see the day when something would make her as soft inside as Polly asking Betty to be the baby’s godmother

is not Polly’s line of “if anything were to happen to me, I only trust YOU with my baby” EXTREMELY foreboding? isn’t this the moment we knew Remus Lupin would die?

poor Valerie telling Archie to slow down had no chance against Archie setting his mind to do something stupid to assuage his own anxiety

Valerie’s boots??

“Dude, what the hell? I’ve been texting you.” Jughead has been ignoring Archie’s texts because he knows some dumb shit is coming

Jughead nods at the Serpents being “dangerous” but is like, affronted that Betty calls them drug dealers? Jughead, you sweet, gentle, down-soft baby-faced spider, what do you think the Serpents do?

Jughead doubts it: he sums up everything succinctly, though, with just, “Archie, going into that bar is a bad idea.” no shit! it’s a fucking biker gang bar! has Archie completely forgotten Rust Cohle’s undercover stint in True Detective?

Archie’s pissy “Thanks for having my back” is such a dick move. such a dick move. everyone at the table is like, Jesus.

Red shows up in his effing letterman jacket? Christ Almighty.

HELLOOOO, JOAQUIN!

Fwoopy hair is the best hair: JOAQUIN!!!

Moose looks at Kevin and nods at Archie’s plan to call Kevin’s dad. is Moose fucking in love with Kevin Keller? right here, in front of Kevin’s pretty-boy bf who’s so cool he’s in a non-racist biker gang (my edit)? does Moose PINE? MOOSE?

the bar is so cool that it has a banana python in a tank

These students are legally children: would they have all been allowed IN? maybe Joaquin could’ve gotten Kevin in, but three underage non-members?

I would’ve been fine in there, for the record, because I would’ve worn my Slytherin pin on my checkered Charlotte Russe blazer lapel, as badasses do

“We’re all gonna die.”

Moose SAID he couldn’t remember what the guys looked like, so Archie MUST HAVE convinced him he MIGHT if he just came along to this bar and LOOKED AROUND. Archie is like, a danger to others???

to kill time, Joaquin hustles Kevin at the pool tables

Mustang could take a few lessons about how to wear beanies from his boss’s son

Archie...was not expecting to see FP

FP looks familially disappointed at Archie being so irresponsible on Fred’s behalf

“Man, you got a bigger imagination than Jughead. And that’s saying something.” how much can I love FP’s thing about Jughead’s storytelling

the job Fred is doing on his truck’s brakes

“I called him. The second you walked into the bar.” FP dad points!!

the 2001 Josie and the Pussycats movie was a masterpiece: Valerie, in a velvet top, and Melody come to the baby shower because they’re fantastic

this cover of “Our House” is perfect

Jughead absolutely ditched Archie to help the girls put the baby shower together, and he loved it. Betty in her little skirt? he loved it.

Veronica, gently buzzed on mimosas in the back of the Lodge driver car: I’m registering Polly at Tiffany’s. Would Baby Cooper rather have the ironstone ceramic three-piece dining set with the dancing chicks detail or the little polka dot earthenware piggy bank except it’s an elephant?

Betty, opposite, head in Jughead’s lap, playing with the lowest buttonhole on his shirt: Sweetie, you know you don’t have to help put all this together. You can just come when it starts.

Jughead, brushing her hair: I am ORGANIZING the baby shower.

Betty: Oh! Oh okay!

Jughead: I will GET the BALLOONS.

he plops the cupcake tier down with such a look on his face. his whole thing this whole time is like a beautiful meta-joke about how he and Betty are obviously a socially mismatched couple and he must be lolling behind her not wanting to go to her fancy parties because that’s his whole constructed persona but in actuality he’s fucking just LOOK at how he looks at her. I’M CALM

Betty cups his elbow and kisses him because she is also calm

“You’re sweet to be here. I know this isn’t exactly your scene.” “What?”

and his soft red sweater?

Alice Cooper wore a pink coat in a gesture of neutrality towards Hermione, affection towards her daughters, and contrition towards Polly

“WE’RE HERE!!!”

the vintage Victorian pram Cheryl bequeaths on Jay-Jay’s baby

Cheryl’s sheaths: her baby-pink 50’s skirt, with a slit!, her bosomy black top, gold bag, her sparkly sparkle-necklace

Cheryl’s hair: GOD I LOVE CHERYL WITH HER HAIR DOWN

oh my god Penelope wheeling in Nana Rose

Cheryl owning Nana Rose: “Let’s get you a good spot by the food.”

Please protect Betty: Betty to Alice: “Think happy thoughts.”

Cheryl’s pins: okay Penelope AND Alice are BOTH wearing flower pins, dueling flower pins

FP is like, I’m an alcoholic whose personal life has imploded and I’ve gone back to the gang that I left after I couldn’t work anymore but I’m not PETTY

Fred and FP are both in charge in their own worlds, both bosses. both have “guys”

Lord, PLEASE do not let this happen to Archie and Jug. PLEASE let Jughead be okay.

Nana Rose dangles a crystal over Polly’s palm, reading the baby’s aura. Cheryl: “Nana has dementia. And gypsy blood.”

Penelope’s red short-sleeved dress is very Cheryl. is she trying to look less threatening?

Polly is genuinely surprised at the idea that she might be having twins? has this woman not had a damn sonogram yet? does Riverdale have a Planned Parenthood?

“This is occultism at its most ludicrous,” says the woman who burned sage in Betty’s room after Cheryl Blossom was there for three hours

I WANT the baby lambs mobile.

Archie fucking SERIOUSLY hauls in there and doesn’t even wait for the conversation to start back up before—he SERIOUSLY—

God bless Jughead was just standing off to the side, eating cupcakes, minding his own damn business, like, That’s a good mobile. Aw. The lambs. Look at that. fuck’s sake!

he takes a fraction a moment to be horrified that Archie knows about his dad and the rest of the moment to have a DAMN HEART ATTACK that now Betty knows. Archie said this not to him, but TO BETTY, right in front of him. “Did you know Jughead’s dad is a Serpent?” isn’t a dig at Jughead’s father. it’s a dig at Jughead. Archie. Archie.

Betty’s isn’t grossed out or anything, but she knows the Serpents are such bad news that she’s proportionately uncomfortable for a hot second

Veronica tells them to shut up

Cheryl’s a psychopath: Cheryl’s “Oh, Polly! Come live with us at Thornhill!” is SO perky, sitting next to her mother, it must be fake. although I infinitely love Cheryl consistently, constantly, consciously putting on a show

bit tacky, ALL AWESOME to pitch Polly moving in with the Blossoms in front of Alice

“a bedbug-infested Trojan horse”

Alice didn’t “send me away” so much as she had grown men haul her into a VAN like she’d reneged on a ransom

apparently we can’t say “abortion” on the CW?

Fred is sitting alone in his kitchen with a cutting board full of like, arugula

Certified pedigree: his voice shakes as he tries to explain to Archie how their lives are about to fall apart

Archie > Dawson: ugh I guess Archie makes his dad feel a little better, which is nice, I guess

Jughead genuinely went off and sat in a room by himself, temporarily traumatized at being outed and yelled at in front of strangers, his delicately-new girlfriend, #introvertproblems

Betty’s clacky heels on the hard floor, #asmr

Betty is already over FP being a Serpent, wants to ask him about Jason. “I want to know who you are. All of it.” Jughead can’t believe his fucking luck. this fucking girl.

he cups her back at they walk out

whoa, is that Fred’s truck? is Jughead driving Fred’s truck?

FP is SO chill at his house on the weekends. he’s not out cavorting with the gang, he’s watching like, playoffs

okay, he is drinking, which is in direct violation of the tearful promise he made to Jughead, which everyone knows as soon as they see each other

I am very fond of the slightly accented way Cole Sprouse keeps saying the short A in “dad”

Jug’s proper introduction of “Betty Cooper” to his father, with an expression like, Guess this is happening now

he is thoroughly unimpressed at there being shenanigans between his dad and Jason Blossom

WTF, why was Jason like HOARDING drugs? did he WANT them?

FP has the teensiest smile on his face at Betty and Jughead, the pair, coming to him, together, thinking they’re going to get the slightest bit of anything from him, his son and “Is that your girlfriend?”, bring it on at this poker face

very cool, now Jughead and Betty have each asked their fathers if they’ve killed Jason. cool! cool dads!

“I believe you, Jughead.” Betty doesn’t buy FP’s denial of involvement. Betty is still thinking

hold on because she’s holding Jughead’s face. oh you know what this means

Jughead looks from her lips to her eyes to her lips to her eyes to her lips

Betty and Jug have graduated to kissing while holding EACH OTHER’S faces SIMULTANEOUSLY

oh god all of their kisses should be strongly backlit, in a penthouse or a trailer park or like, Betty’s bedroom (remember when he was in her bedroom?), but here, out in the cold air with the archangel Raphael apparently descending behind them, misting them in Chanel Mademoiselle and illuminating the silhouettes of their long eyelashes

it also seems like they’re kissing to the music from Titanic

seriously, does Betty know about the biceps?

the best part, this is a great kiss, but the best part is the thing at the end when Jughead isn’t quiiite done and leans in for a little more

@milakuniis

and the soft wet mouth kiss-noises? Betty’s heart earrings? JUGHEAD’S THUMB ON HER CHEEK?

oooooohhhh Hal Cooper is watching the same baseball game as FP, also drinking a finger of whiskey

UH ALICE BREAKING THE REMOTE?

SHOVING HIM IN THE THROAT?

Hal made Alice get an abortion?

“overreact”

“BLOSSOM BLOOD”

Mädchen Amick, MÄDCHEN AMICK: “GET. OUT.”

what is Alice capable of? what isn’t she capable of?

holy moly Alice. Alice is tender and comes apart easily with a fork. Alice is done.

why the FUCK is JUGHEAD the one apologizing to ARCHIBALD.

...why are they still sharing a room? there has to be a third bedroom in that house. could they...just not bear...being apart...

I’m writing a scene where it’s gay.: “There’s no excuse.” [rubs hands] ah but there is tension.

I want Jughead’s reluctance to share stuff about his father with Archie to come less from a place of embarrassment and more from a down-to-earth place about knowing Archie doesn’t have a lot of sense and can’t keep secrets

at least Archie’s doofusness isn’t coming from a gross sabotaging Jug-and-Betty thing, unless it’s unconscious

Gay?!: Jughead sees your earnestness, calls it out, and raises it. “You’re like. You’re like my brother.” “Nice bro whisper, Archie. You are my brother.”

how is Jason’s jacket insurance??

I’ve seen Brick like thirty times: FP’s epic coldness with Joaquin’s hesitancy about Kevin’s feelings is the first time, and it’s really good, he’s looked like a Scary Gang Guy In Charge Of Shit, Obey Him

WHAT is the part FP is playing! oh my god! is it just lying to Betty and Jughead, which makes sense, or some other shit??? is it with Fred??? oh my god FP is like fascinating to me GOD.

for the record, “Greendale” is where Sabrina Spellman lives, nbd

HE’S WAITING FOR FRED WITH A CREW OH MY GOD IS THIS HIS PART? BEING A FRIEND?

“You’ve never had a better foreman than me. I won’t leave you hanging this time.” Fred is…..so proud…..

“Who ratted you out?” VERONICA?

honestly tbh poor Polly has probably lost all nostalgic affection for “coming home” and I don’t like, blame her for not caring enough about the concept to go back there

although surely she has a plan, going to the Blossoms?

“You’ll be safe here.” is Cheryl going to freak out (privately) that Polly came to them after all?? CHERYL IS COMING.

remember in Hannibal when Mason Verger surgically removed Margot Verger’s pregnant womb and it turned out he’d kept the fetus gestating inside a sow so he could use it to inherit his father’s fortune without her? something about this is just reminding me of that. Hannibal was kind of fucked up!

next week: a really good hug

#riverdale #tropes #commentary #i say

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biofunmy · 6 years ago

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Over 40 Art Shows to See Right Now

Below and Above Canal Street

“The art world should be understood as a complex ecology with many microclimates and some macro ones,” said the curator Okwui Enwezor, who died in March. He could have been describing the geography of New York City galleries. In the 1970s, the climates were macro and few (the Upper East Side, SoHo). In the 1980s, they were joined by the East Village; in the 1990s, by Chelsea; and in the 2000s, by the Lower East Side and Brooklyn. And there are spillovers everywhere. Today, it can be hard to tag a gallery by district, as I learned when visiting a handful that straddle either side of Canal Street, a cross-island axis that runs from SoHo to Chinatown, without claiming full allegiance to either. HOLLAND COTTER

1. 56 Henry, ‘LaKela Brown: Surface Possessions’

This small storefront gallery, in Chinatown, is a distance from Canal Street, but well worth a walk for the local debut of the artist LaKela Brown. The look of her mostly white plaster reliefs is austere. The subject, ornamental bling associated with 1990s hip-hop, is the opposite: door-knocker earrings, rope neck chains and gold teeth. All are artifacts of the pop culture Ms. Brown grew up with in Detroit, her home city. Although the show’s title, “Surface Possessions,” hints at a critical remove from that culture, the work itself, exquisitely done, feels like an honoring gesture. Lining the gallery walls, the reliefs might have been lifted from an ancient royal tomb. Through June 16 at 56 Henry Street; 518-966-2622, 56henry.nyc.

2. apexart, ‘Dire Jank’

For 25 years, the nonprofit apexart has been inviting curators from across the globe to produce thematic group shows in its small space. Many of the curators have been artists, as is the case with Porpentine Charity Heartscape, the digital game designer who assembled the current show, “Dire Jank.” Keeping her checklist short, she has surrounded her own work with that of just three fellow gamers, all but one transgender. The exception, an artist who calls himself Thecatamites (Stephen Murphy), takes a sardonic look at old-school games in a click-heavy conquest narrative that goes nowhere, very slowly. Tabitha Nikolai, self-described as a “trashgender gutter elf” from Salt Lake City, offers a tour through a luxury mansion that houses a Borgesian library, a sexology institute, and opens up onto vistas of cosmic space. Devi McCallion, the rock star of the bunch, delivers a despairing, pulsating plea for environmental awareness in a music video. As for Ms. Heartscape’s work, centered on the risks of queerness, it’s startlingly soul-baring. Where most conventional games are about predation and its thrills, hers are about the evils of predation. I should mention that in the gallery I found the interactive pieces glitch-prone. (Maybe they’re meant to be? After all, jank is gaming talk for, among things, low quality.) But when I reran the show on my laptop everything worked like a charm. Through May 18 at 291 Church Street; 212-431-5270, apexart.org.

3. Alexander and Bonin, ‘Tandem: Gabriel Abrantes and Belén Uriel’

Alexander and Bonin is one of a handful of galleries that recently jumped Chelsea for TriBeCa. (Bortolami, Andrew Kreps and Kaufmann Repetto are others; more are on the way.) With the move, the gallery has gained airy duplex quarters, and filled them ambitiously. On the main floor there’s a large, intriguing photography show called “Exposures,” which uses little-seen work by some house artists to tease the line between documentary and creative nonfiction. Downstairs is the first of what will be five two-artist shows selected by the Lisbon-based curator Luiza Teixeira de Freitas. For the initial offering she’s paired cast-glass sculptures of everyday objects by Belén Uriel with a very funny seven-minute film by the young American-born artist Gabriel Abrantes about the imagined origins of Brancusi’s phallic 1916 sculpture “Princess X.” (Mr. Abrantes’s zany feature-length “Diamantino,” a collaboration with Daniel Schmidt, was a hit at Cannes last year.) Through April 27 at 47 Walker Street; 212-367-7474, alexanderandbonin.com.

4. Sapar Contemporary, ‘Ming Fay: Beyond Nature’

You get a foretaste of Chinatown in TriBeCa with the exhibition “Ming Fay: Beyond Nature” at Sapar Contemporary. Mr. Fay, who was born in Shanghai in 1943 and came to the United States in 1961, specializes in super-realist sculptures of vegetal forms — fruit, nuts, seedpods — modeled on what he finds in Chinatown’s street markets. What he adds is scale: everything in his botanical universe measures in feet, not inches — sweet peppers the size of satellites, maple seeds as big as drones. He magnifies other forms too: seashells, bird skulls (and shrinks a few in the case of some unexceptional bronze human figures). The show, organized by Alexandra Chang, looks like a glimpse into a wonderland in which Mr. Fay seems to say, nature really is. Through June 1 at 9 North Moore Street; saparcontemporary.com.

5. Bridget Donahue, ‘Jessi Reaves: II’

In her second solo show at Bridget Donahue, Jessi Reaves complicates the kind of work that made her a standout in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. Her medium is assemblage; her material is recycled furniture; her method is to puzzle that furniture together, intact or cut up, into sculptures. The joining is ingenious; the look bulky but agile. What’s most distinctive, though, is the complex mood the work generates. There’s nostalgia built into the domestic middlebrow furniture Ms. Reaves chooses; violence implied in the way she strips it of practical use; and something like solicitude in the way she gives trashed things a funky new purpose. Through May 12 at 99 Bowery, second floor; 646-896-1368, bridgetdonahue.nyc.

6. Front Room Gallery, ‘Sasha Bezzubov: Albedo Zone’

In his 2001-7 photographic series “Things Fall Apart,” Sasha Bezzubov chronicled the effects of natural disasters — hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunami — on landscapes in Asia and the United States. The series that followed, titled “Albedo Zone” and now on view at Front Room, refers to a scientific theory about climate change that has triggered such disasters. Ideally, the theory says, the earth’s surface reflects, rather than absorbs, sunlight, with ice being a protective reflector and water, an absorber. At present, global melting, caused by human carelessness, has thrown the balance dangerously off, a reality Mr. Bezzubov documents in black-and-white images of water and ice shot in Alaska. From a distance, the large-format photographs look abstract. Once you know the story behind them, they take on a very specific urgency. Through May 5 at 48 Hester Street; 718-782-2556, frontroomles.com.

7. Fierman, ‘Circus of Books’

Even smaller than 56 Henry, this storefront is packed to the ceiling with another cultural homage, this one to an excellent big group show. It’s organized by the artist Rachel Mason, whose parents until recently ran two adult bookshops in Los Angeles. Both were called “Circus of Books” and both served, since the pre-Stonewall 1960s, as unofficial social centers for the local gay community. The show evokes that community with work by nearly 60 artists, most gay, some well known (Ron Athey, Kathe Burkhart, Vaginal Davis, Tom of Finland), others (Chivas Clem, Scott Hug, Jimmy Wright) on and off the radar. Stacks of vintage porn magazines add a sex shop vibe, but it’s the art, installed salon-style, that holds the eye and kicks off still-important communal conversations in art and social history. Through May 6 at 127 Henry Street; 917-593-4086, fierman.nyc.

Some other exhibitions to visit while you’re in the area: Alan Sturm (through May 26) at Situations Gallery, 127 Henry Street, situations.us; Azza El Siddique (through June 2) at Helena Anrather, 28 Elizabeth Street, helenaanrather.com; Wendy Red Star (April 28-June 2) at Sargent’s Daughters, 179 East Broadway, sargentsdaughters.com; Katarzyna Kozyra (through June 1) at Postmasters Gallery, 54 Franklin Street, postmastersart.com.

The arc of the Lower East Side gallery scene bends toward youth. It is probably home to the greatest number of starting-out dealers showing the works of emerging artists in New York. This gives the art scene in this neighborhood and the ones developing around it — in NoHo, East Village South, Chinatown or Little Italy — a certain lightness of being. We’re often looking at first, not necessarily mature or final, artistic statements. It helps that the area lacks the dwarfing juggernaut of big-name, property-proud galleries and blue-chip artists that give Chelsea or the Upper East Side their weight. Most of the shows reviewed here emphasize youth in various forms. ROBERTA SMITH

1. Rachel Uffner Gallery, ‘Arcmanoro Niles: My Heart is Like Paper: Let the Old Ways Die’

The new work in Arcmanoro Niles’s third solo show in New York in three years and his second at Rachel Uffner comes with the vulnerable overall title “My Heart is Like Paper: Let the Old Ways Die.” The works depict members of a family, including the artist at home, usually lost in thought, even sad as suggested by titles like “Longing for Change (“I’ve Given up on Being Well),” or “Does a Broken Home Become a Broken Family.” The paintings are dark in mood, which Mr. Niles’s distinctive palette elevates with a dark, glorifying radiance that evokes a modern Byzantium. The brown skin of his figures often hints at gold, and their hair is rendered in dense coats of hot pink glitter, suggesting halos. The paintings have an unexpected gravity and grandeur that is almost religious. “My Heart is Like Paper” shows the artist alone in a gold-and-pink bathroom, wearing an orange undershirt. He is a man who has come to a turning point, a momentous choice. I’m not sure what the ghostly sex scenes outlined in red, or the gremlin-like stuffed dolls wielding knives, add, but they add something. Through April 28 at 170 Suffolk Street; 212-274-0064, racheluffnergallery.com.

2. Pierogi, ‘Sharon Horvath: Where Owls Stare at Painting’s Busted Eyeballs’

Some shows aren’t so much about youth as youthfulness, an ageless state. This seems to be the condition of Sharon Horvath’s show at Pierogi, “Where Owls Stare at Painting’s Busted Eyeballs.” Whatever the title means the artist is showing a substantial number of beautiful new paintings, which often conjure vistas in outer space, including “Out There Or In Here,” her largest canvas to date, whose green and black forms seem to show the enormous wraparound control board of a cockpit. In addition, she has transported virtually her entire studio to the gallery, laying out in vitrines everything she uses to make or inspire her art. It is a great deal of material, much of which is from her parents, who were artists, and her sister. This is a dense novelistic show that lays before us the important ways memories and especially family memories can figure in art-making. Through May 5 at 155 Suffolk Street; 646-429-9073, pierogi2000.com.

3. Bureau, ‘Julia Rommel: Candy Jail’

In Julia Rommel’s fourth show at Bureau, “Candy Jail,” she continues her brand of corrupted formalism, exploring ways to revivify Minimalist abstraction with a non-Minimalist, piecemeal sense of process. Ms. Rommel works on her paintings in stages, as they are stapled to ever-larger stretchers. This gives them an almost cinematic sense of growth and expansion. The monochromatic surfaces of earlier, smaller paintings shift about, becoming squares or rectangles within larger compositions — except that their edges are weirdly raised. The new efforts have more layers, which makes them less legible, as does the increase in arbitrary brushwork that is not related to the central process. There is sometimes an echo of the work of Richard Diebenkorn that she needs to resolve. But Ms. Rommel’s color is as beautiful as ever, especially in simpler works like “Volvo 240,” where two orange squares both divided by and edged in green rivet the eyes. Through May 5 at 178 Norfolk Street; 212-227-2783, bureau-inc.com.

4. Chapter NY, ‘Aria Dean: (meta)models or how i got my groove back’

Aria Dean, who graduated from Oberlin College in 2015, is having her second show in New York. Her works weave the gallery space into a web of intersecting, sometimes contradictory languages and perspectives, as suggested by the show’s title “(meta)models or how I got my groove back.” (Not to mention the double remove of “meta” and “models.”) A video monitor in the middle of the gallery shows a camera dancing around a pedestal made of mirrored, or two-way glass, familiar to viewers of police procedurals. This pedestal sits on a New York sidewalk, providing chaotic, fragmented views of houses, cars and pavement. It’s a “non-site” — recalling Robert Smithson’s 1970s use of mirrors in small, temporary earthworks — except urban, in danger of being broken, a pedestal awaiting an artwork. We hear what appear to be three young men, identified as D.J.’s (it’s actually a single actor), move effortlessly between street talk and a kind of Beckettian theory-talk — riddling observations about a nothing that can be something but is ultimately a void, a form of invisibility. (The dialogue borrows from, among others, the writings of Heidegger, Robert Morris and Fred Moten.) Around the screen, on the floor or attached to the wall, four vaguely figurative shapes cut from the mirrored glass add to the disorientation. They are blank nothings but they also suggest leaping ghosts, Saturday morning cartoons (Casper) and the silhouettes of the bodies of murder victims, outlined in chalk on the street. Through May 5 at 249 East Houston Street; 646-850-7486, chapter-ny.com.

5. Lyles & King, ‘Mira Schor: California Paintings: 1971-1973’

Youth in art doesn’t always mean newly made. It can also be an older artist’s early work that virtually no one has ever seen. So it is with “Mira Schor: California Paintings, 1971-73,” a stunning show of gouache on paper works that this leading feminist painter made while in graduate school at the California Institute of the Arts. She started out in Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro’s legendary feminist art program, but left to make these richly colored highly personal paintings about loneliness, longing and sexual awakening in which she frequently starred. The many works here have the flat, matte colors, deep space and lush greenery of Rajput painting and also call to mind the solitary women in the work of Leonora Carrington and Joan Brown. Historically, they form an unexpected addition to the early 1970s Conceptual offshoot known as Story Art, and also point to the return to painting the figure that transpired in the late 1970s and is once more ascendant. Through May 19 at 106 Forsyth Street; 646-484-5478, lylesandking.com.

6. Simone Subal Gallery, ‘Cameron Clayborn: Through the Wrong Tongue’

The sculptures and wall pieces in Cameron Clayborn’s New York solo debut have both historical and contemporary references. His preferred materials are leather-like vinyl and glittered vinyl sewn into stuffing-filled shapes that evoke the soft forms of Post-Minimalist sculpture of the 1970s. But he often adds gleaming sharp-pointed hardware associated with late ’80s Neo-Geo art. He pushes this combination into the present with subtle and not-so-subtle suggestions of gender, drag, race and violence. The show’s first artwork puts you on alert: “Roompiercer With Tool” might be described as a phallus of two different skin tones hanging from a sharp, shiny spike. “Toolholder” is a drape of glitter vinyl, the color of white flesh, hanging from steel clamps. In the crux of the vinyl rests a solid steel lozenge about four inches long. It suggests a man in drag, distilled to abstraction. Not everything in this show is as effective or as promising as these works, but much of it is. Stay tuned. Through May 12 at 131 Bowery, second floor; 917-409-0612, simonesubal.com.

The cockamamie real estate market has turned the good old Upper East Side into the most stimulating gallery neighborhood in New York — and as downtown stultifies and Chelsea wilts in the shadow of Hudson Yards, the old blue-blood quarter has grown manifold. Up here the big-ticket dealers in grand townhouses exhibit alongside younger galleries in walk-ups and outposts of international dealers; the last few years have welcomed Nara Roesler and Mendes Wood of São Paulo, Almine Rech of Paris, Simon Lee of London and Kurimanzutto of Mexico City. That’s not to mention the dealers in antiquities, Asian art and rare books.

On 57th Street you’ll find things to see in the gallery-rich Fuller Building, along with stalwarts like Pace and Marian Goodman (where Tino Sehgal, the Greta Garbo of philosophical performance art, opens a new show on May 3). Start there and work your way up Madison Avenue, where the galleries cluster from the mid-60s to 79th Street. If you haven’t had your fill yet, turn left and head for the Metropolitan Museum of Art; if you’re worn out, rejuvenation awaits in the hotel bars. JASON FARAGO

1. Throckmorton Fine Art, ‘Graciela Iturbide 1969-2019’

This uncommon gallery, founded in 1980, deals both in Buddhist and pre-Columbian antiquities and in contemporary photography from Latin America, all of it shown in an unpretentious space where classical music tinkles in the background. Up now is a show of Graciela Iturbide, one of Mexico’s greatest photographers, whose black-and-white images of women, children and animals combine the slippery identifications of ethnography with the glamorous precision of the film still. (Her work is also on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, through May 12.) Ms. Iturbide shot these pictures everywhere from Madagascar to East Los Angeles, but the most compelling are her photographs from Juchitán, Oaxaca — above all “Our Lady of the Iguanas” (1979), in which a Zapotec woman stares confidently into the middle distance, her head crowned, Medusa-like, by a collection of reptiles. Through May 18 at 145 East 57th Street, third floor; 212-223-1059, throckmorton-nyc.com.

2. Van Doren Waxter, ‘Moira Dryer: Paintings & Works on Paper’

Here is a show of an abstract painter ahead of her time, and whose stylistic promiscuity belied a deep rigor. Moira Dryer, a Canadian artist who came to New York in the 1970s, made her most successful works by applying wavy stripes of black, teal, jonquil, and oxblood red to wood supports; the thin application of pigment, which in places spills top to bottom in trickles or floods, emphasizes the objecthood of the wooden paintings and the artist’s careful balancing act between design and chance. This show also includes a few lovely gouaches, alive with the Mediterranean colors of Matisse, that testify to Dryer’s artistic omnivorousness and ability to surprise. Her death in 1992, at 34, deprived art history of what was already a superb career, but her example saturates the studios of New York’s contemporary painters. Through May 24 at 23 East 73rd Street, second and third floors; 212-445-0444, vandorenwaxter.com.

3. L. Parker Stephenson Photographs, ‘Claude Tolmer: Photographiques’

East Midtown and the Upper East Side bulge with photography galleries, and this one-room space at the top of a Madison Avenue walk-up is a hidden gem. Up now is a stellar show of vintage prints by the French modernist photographer Claude Tolmer (1911-1991), whose images of the 1930s include dense, high-contrast visions of airplane propellers and merry-go-rounds; spectral photograms of scissors and goblets; and still lifes montaged with squiggly hand-drawn additions that recall Cocteau. They are strikingly bold, yet many of them had commercial uses — Tolmer’s father ran a leading firm for the packaging of luxury goods, and his photographer son put these images to use on advertisements and boxes. It’s worth remembering, as Instagram savagely injects the profit motive into all photographic communication, that an earlier avant-garde found its own methods to slide between artistic activity and commercial necessity. Through May 11 at 764 Madison Avenue; 212-517-8700, lparkerstephenson.nyc.

4. Ceysson & Bénétière, ‘Pierre Buraglio: PB. 1978-2018’

This French gallery’s outpost, now two years old, is presenting the first New York solo of Pierre Buraglio, a lone ranger of European painting and assemblage. His “Masquages Vides” of the late 1970s were cunning “paintings” that, in fact, collaged the color-streaked masking tape used to make earlier works into spare new compositions. (Their quixotic emptiness rhymed with the paintings of Supports/Surfaces, a high-concept approach to abstraction that’s seen a revival in fortunes lately, though he never formally joined that movement.) Later he turned to found objects, such as fragments of window frames and even the whole door of a Citroën 2CV, whose window he infilled with an abstract landscape of blue and green. After decades of neglect in New York, postwar French painting is everywhere these days, and there’s a good reason; long before we realized it, artists like Mr. Buraglio averred that there was no necessary boundary between painterly and conceptual sophistication. Through April 27 at 956 Madison Avenue, second floor; 646-678-371, ceyssonbenetiere.com.

5. The Artist’s Institute, Tauba Auerbach

If you forced me to name the most dependably challenging exhibition maker in the neighborhood, I’d pick Jenny Jaskey — the director of this nonprofit gallery, associated with Hunter College, whose semester-long experiments push established artists outside their comfort zones. Currently Tauba Auerbach, better known for her abstract paintings, is trying out something new: her first kinetic sculpture, solar-powered, composed of twisted, tensile wires that pull away from a soap-slicked central tube and produce coruscating but evanescent diamonds. The sculpture has the childlike legibility of a game of cat’s cradle, but two mildly nasty videos here, documenting surgery to the fascia that enclose human organs, inscribe the sculpture into a trickier domain of bodies and fluids. Through June 1 at Hunter College, 132 East 65th Street; 646-512-9608, theartistsinstitute.org.

6. Henrique Faria, ‘Eduardo Kac: Inner Telescope’

Another gallery with a strong Latin American focus, this dealership is presenting a show by the Chicago-based Brazilian artist Eduardo Kac that is, quite literally, out of this world. Mr. Kac (pronounced katz) teamed up with a French astronaut on the International Space Station, whom he instructed to cut a simple construction out of white paper: a capital M pierced by a cylinder. In a video here, plus preparatory drawings and research documents, you see the construction gently tumbling through zero gravity, and spinning to resemble the letters M-O-I (“me”): a spare but memorable evocation of the self lost in space. Through May 11 at 35 East 67th Street, fourth floor; 212-517-4609, henriquefaria.com.

Art and real estate development met elsewhere in the city, but they got married in Chelsea. Tall, expensive buildings are rising around 10th Avenue, and gallery rents are rising along with them. Young art dealers arrive to try their hand in the official gallery neighborhood, and often fold-up shop quickly, as the promisingly offbeat American Medium, which started in Brooklyn, did recently. The juggernaut of mega-gallery showrooms continues, with behemoths like Hauser & Wirth mounting impressive historical shows (and starting their own bookstores, publishing houses, magazines and nonprofit foundations), and David Zwirner is planning a Renzo Piano-designed space to open in 2020. Meanwhile, the High Line looms ubiquitously overhead, like a people mover transporting tourists (mostly) from the new Hudson Yards on the north end to the gleaming Whitney Museum of American Art on the south. Contemporary art is everywhere though, including the High Line, where you’ll find a monumental sculpture by Simone Leigh, who just opened a show at the Guggenheim, along with other notable displays. Art has saturated the neighborhood, and you can see everything from work by emerging artists to the long deceased. Here are a few places to start. MARTHA SCHWENDENER

1. Jack Shainman, ‘Paul Anthony Smith: Junction’

What you are viewing in Paul Anthony Smith’s exhibition at Jack Shainman are painstakingly altered large-scale photographs that he works on in his Brooklyn studio and which he calls “picotages.” The color photographs were taken in his native Jamaica, but also other locations, including at the West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn. They have been covered with pointillist dots of paint or colored pencil. Mr. Smith studied ceramics in Kansas City, Mo., and you sense the idea of glazing in his work, of images and things being covered over — although this works metaphorically, too, and suggests covered over events, people and histories. A face, a garden, or an urban scene peak through the dots in the picotage, resembling but never fully revealing themselves. Through May 11 at 513 West 20th Street and 524 West 24th Street; jackshainman.com.

2. Pace Gallery, ‘Raqib Shaw: Landscapes of Kashmir’

Raqib Shaw’s works have not always fared well with critics, and his current paintings at Pace Gallery exhibit some of the flamboyance and excess that have raised the ire of high art’s gatekeepers. From a distance, the high-gloss, virtuosic enamel paintings look like Thomas Kinkade landscapes mixed with Hieronymus Bosch scenarios: pretty, anodyne landscapes peppered with apocalyptic micro-hells in which mythic demons cribbed from traditions in Mr. Shaw’s native Kashmir battle with contemporary humans. The best works in the show are the most self-aware, in which Mr. Shaw depicts himself tending his artwork, pets or plants in a completely focused and self-absorbed manner — an effete maestro engulfed in “flow” while the hideous violence of the real world erupts outside his colonnaded window. Through May 18 at 537 West 24th Street; 212-421-3292, pacegallery.com.

3. Gladstone Gallery, Vivian Suter

One of the highlights of the international Documenta exhibition in 2017 was Vivian Suter’s display of loosely painted canvases, unframed, fluttering like elegant laundry outdoors in Athens and brightening up a glassy storefront in Kassel, Germany. Working for over 30 years near the volcanic Lake Atitlán in Panajachel, Guatemala, Ms. Suter was an art world drop-out who never dropped out of art. “Vivian’s Garden,” Rosalind Nashashibi’s film about Ms. Suter and her mother, Elizabeth Wild, also an artist, captured their art-centered lives in Guatemala. But Ms. Suter has re-emerged in the last few years, bringing that magic-garden feeling to traditional art spaces. She has transformed Gladstone’s space in Chelsea into a kind of ethereal Eden in which canvases hang from the ceiling, lie on the floor and generally work together, like branches on a tree or petals on a flower, to create an ecology of painting rather than a discrete-object experience. (Ms. Suter also has an installation on the High Line this season.) Through June 8 at 530 West 21st Street; 212-206-7606, gladstonegallery.com.

4. The Kitchen, ‘ANOHNI: Love’

Although you’re not always sure what you’re looking at, “ANOHNI: Love” at the Kitchen looks and feels like an art installation. It’s also deeply political. Near the entrance is an enlarged death certificate for Marsha P. Johnson, a gender activist after whom the Anohni-fronted musical group Antony and the Johnsons were named, and whose death by drowning in the Hudson was deemed a suicide (but many think was homicide). Nearby is a bookshelf with the library of Julia Yasuda, a former member of the Johnsons, which also serves as a memorial and a template for the group’s ethos and philosophy. Rough sculptures, collages, a film and the theatrically lit space create a moody ambience. It’s an apt approach for an artist for whom performance is a life project and gender is a medium. Through May 11 at 512 West 19th Street; 212-255-5793, thekitchen.org.

5. Mitchell-Innes & Nash, ‘Martin Kersels: Cover Story’

Martin Kersels characteristically splits the difference between performance and objects in his exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash. Cut-up and collaged record album covers are hung as relief wall sculptures, and on May 4 at 2:30 p.m. he will reprise a performance of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (1968), the 17-minute pop song by Iron Butterfly on a tricked-out stage in the gallery. Part comedy, part homage, Mr. Kersels’s work is a reminder that, despite the emphasis on art as business, there is still room in Chelsea for the absurd. Through May 18 at 534 West 26th Street; 212-744-7400, miandn.com.

6. Paula Cooper, Walid Raad

The works in Walid Raad’s exhibition at Paula Cooper follow a format he innovated in the 1980s and ’90s: “real” photographs paired with texts that may or may not be fictional. Applied to recent history in the Middle East — and particularly his native Lebanon and that country’s long civil war — photographs here of storefronts and people accompanied by “explanatory” texts show how para-fictions often become facts or official histories. The centerpiece is a new video made up of kaleidoscopically mirrored film loops that show buildings in the Beirut Central District being destroyed to create a new and, theoretically, better postwar city. The psychedelic forward-and-reverse motion of the loops simply but effectively questions the linear march of time and progress. Through May 24 at 521 West 21st Street; 212-255-1105, paulacoopergallery.com.

1. Peter Blum, ‘Paul Fagerskiold: Flatlands’

Oil paint can be sculptural, especially if you use as much as Paul Fagerskiold does on “Flatland.” The young Swedish-born painter lays so much blackish-purple paint on this enormous canvas that the finished surface of its figure, a monochrome rectangle with a bowed bottom edge, has the definition of hammered bronze. Each ridgy brush stroke is an eddy, and the whole is a view of the ocean — but it’s a restless one that won’t subside into the easy diffidence of most two-dimensional images. Not for nothing did Mr. Fagerskiold name the painting, and the show it appears in, after Edward Abbot’s 19th-century novella of mind-bending sci-fi geometry. Through May 11 at 176 Grand Street; 212-244-6055, peterblumgallery.com.

2. Jeffrey Deitch, ‘Austin Lee: Feels Good’

Austin Lee’s analog portraits of cyberspace are strangely fascinating. After drawing floppy cartoon hearts, stumpy, grinning figures and prancing ponies on an iPad, the painter then renders the images by hand, at a much larger scale, with brush and airbrush. Maybe it’s the adeptly balanced hot pinks and neon reds, or the promise that a virtual world might someday seem as joyful and genuine as the real. Or maybe it’s just the marrying of such disparate mediums, the quiet shock of confronting computer effects in physical form, which makes it so difficult to look away. Through May 18 at 18 Wooster Street; 212-343-7300, deitch.com.

3. Team, ‘Scenes of the American Landscape’

We all know something’s askew — and the artists in “Scenes of the American Landscape,” which I was able to sneak into before it officially opened on Thursday, know it, too. Video installations by Collin Leitch and Theodore Darst channel the restless sense of imbalance in contemporary American life into a twitchy, unrelenting shifting of styles that feels very much like a new kind of rhythm. Andrew Jilka’s oil and enamel painting of sailor tattoos and cartoon Picassos puts the same effect into freeze frame. Color photographs by Lili Jamail, of an empty armchair, and Jheyda McGarrell, of a half-dressed woman seen through her window, are a deliberate tilt both jaunty and alarming. And an untitled painting by Alissa McKendrick, in which fiddly figures unspool against an intensely worked red background, is suffused with vertigo. Through June 1 at 83 Grand Street; 212-279-9219, teamgal.com.

4. Peter Freeman Inc., ‘Silvia Bächli and Eric Hattan: Between Windows’

The Swiss artists Silvia Bächli and Eric Hattan undertake a sublime exegesis of that simplest of artistic gestures: the line. A line is an emblem of sustained effort, but also a paradox. Whether as the confident green and brown stripes of Ms. Bächli’s elegant gouaches or the wonky metal poles that Mr. Hattan stands upright and sets in concrete, the line only gets richer in isolation. Mr. Hattan’s “Schnurvideo (String Video)” is a 20-minute close-up on the artist’s hands as he untangles a clump of string and winds it up again into a grapefruit-size ball. Notice how tightly he holds it, and how, when the string slips off, he simply presses an errant loop against the ball and keeps winding. Through May 25 at 140 Grand Street; 212-966-5154, peterfreemaninc.com.

5. Ronald Feldman, ‘Bruce Pearson: Shadow Language’

Bruce Pearson makes text paintings, technically. But by overlapping text and imagery in complicated patterns, cutting those patterns into foam, and painting every resulting divot a different color, he arrives at arresting compositions that evoke tropical camouflage or the inside of a psychedelic pomegranate — even when, as sometimes happens, the original text remains legible. This should be the case with “Shadow Language,” opening this weekend at Ronald Feldman Gallery. One star is likely to be “Not to Interrupt Your Beautiful Moment,” an orange-themed pixelation of an entrancingly ambiguous phrase. April 27-June 8 at 31 Mercer Street; 212-226-3232, feldmangallery.com.

It would take half the gallerists in America to make the vast expanses of Harlem into an arts district as pedestrian-friendly as SoHo, so take it in pieces. Galleries worth visiting on the east side include 1) David Richard Gallery, lately of Santa Fe, which is currently showing the brightly colored steel of the Canadian sculptor Robert Murray (through May 4); the nonprofit 2) WhiteBox next door, just relocated from SoHo, and inaugurating its new home with the thought-provoking group show “Waiting for the Garden of Eden” (through May 5); and 3) Hunter East Harlem Gallery, whose “do it (in school)” plumbs the overlap of conceptual art and arts education (through June 1).

On the west side, the former Chelsea gallerist 4) Janice Guy’s latest show at a project space called MBnB is a terrific run of photographs by Judy Linn (through May 5). Finely observed but never precious, they’re a thrilling demonstration of artistic self-reflection undertaken for its own sake — particularly a sequence that starts with an image of a photo of James Joyce taped to a foggy window and ends with the back of James Caan’s neck on a Trinitron TV. Opening this weekend at 5) Gavin Brown’s palatial establishment on West 127th Street is a show of balletic nudes in green fields and huge new landscapes roiling with stormy energy by the 92-year-old master of slick painterly flatness, Alex Katz (through Aug. 3). And at 6) Columbia University’s Leroy Neiman Gallery, on Harlem’s southern edge, is a multimedia solo show by South African artist Mary Sibande (through May 1). WILL HEINRICH

Like so much else in Brooklyn these days, the art scene there seems to be in flux. Galleries that were familiar presences have closed; others have changed names and moved to Manhattan. Neighborhoods that previously served as linchpins now have fewer dedicated art spaces; rents are high, and other parts of the city promise greater foot traffic.

Yet in a way, transition has always been central to a geographically scattered scene that’s uneven in its offerings and anchored by a handful of larger nonprofits alongside a rotating cast of small spaces run as labors of love. Even commercial operations seem to work differently here: Jenkins Johnson Gallery’s outpost aims to build a relationship with the surrounding community (and its coming show “Free to Be,” featuring Rico Gatson and Baseera Khan, should be worth a visit). Part of the thrill of seeing art in Brooklyn is that you don’t quite know what you’re going to get.

This list is just a sample of what Brooklyn has to offer. It will take you from Bushwick down to Park Slope and focuses on exhibitions that are, quite loosely, about identity. These artists are exploring how cultural, national, social and other factors shape us, even as they take very different approaches. It’s a fitting theme for a borough that, despite becoming a brand, is still a haven for those looking to make a creative life in New York City. JILLIAN STEINHAUER

1. The Chimney, ‘Sara Mejia Kriendler: Sangre y Sol’

Industrial art spaces aren’t as au courant as they used to be, but Brooklyn and Queens still have their fair share. The Chimney rightly embraces the roughness of its home by commissioning artists to create work for its brick walls and concrete floor. Sara Mejia Kriendler has even extended her solo show onto the ceiling, covering it with mounds of gold-tinted foil. Down below, broken terra-cotta hands are piled in a huge circle on the ground, like the remnants of an ancient society or mysterious ritual. Inspired by her Colombian roots, Ms. Kriendler uses simplicity and scale to turn the gallery into a space that feels simultaneously sacred and profane. Through May 5 at 200 Morgan Avenue, Bushwick; thechimneynyc.com.

2. Tiger Strikes Asteroid NY, ‘baseball show’

The seven galleries in this building have had consistently strong programs. Tiger Strikes Asteroid is one of the smaller spaces but regularly swings for the fences, focusing on solo presentations for underrepresented artists and group exhibitions with unusual themes, like the current “baseball show.” Organized by Andrew Prayzner, the show brings together an array of astute work, including Elias Necol Melad’s clever paintings of baseball cards without their figures (and thus their value) and Christopher Gideon’s incriminating scans that show dipping tobacco tins in players’ pockets. The nine artists treat the sport not simply as a beloved pastime but as a cultural phenomenon worth examining. Through May 5 at 1329 Willoughby Avenue, No. 2A, Bushwick; 347-746-8041, tigerstrikesasteroid.com.

3. Recess, ‘Lex Brown: The Inside Room’ and ‘American Artist: blue are the feelings that live inside me’

The nonprofit Recess does something different than most other art spaces: It gives artists the gallery and roughly two months to realize their projects on-site. So the work happens before the public’s eyes, and it’s best to visit multiple times to follow the progress. Right now, Lex Brown is building a studio for the production of an experimental TV show that will disregard the typical conventions of the medium — scenes and story lines will be improvised, multiple people will play a single character — to focus on human interaction. Hanging in the front room are disquieting photographs by American Artist of books from the Blue Lives Matter movement — an extension of their recent, powerful show at Brooklyn gallery Koenig & Clinton. Through June 8 and May 11 at 46 Washington Avenue, Clinton Hill; 646-863-3765, recessart.org.

4. Open Source, ‘Ronny Quevedo: Field of play’

Located in a renovated carriage house near the Prospect Expressway, Open Source is something of an outlier in a neighborhood without many art galleries. That hasn’t stopped it from mounting ambitious exhibitions. Ronny Quevedo’s current solo show continues his investigation of games and their relationship to the migration of people. On the floor, he’s placed gold and silver tiles that turn the space into a kind of board. Some of them hold concrete sculptures of misshapen sports balls, while prints on the walls turn the shapes associated with various games into evocative abstractions. With the whole gallery as a “Field of play,” as the exhibition is titled, it falls to the viewer to invent the rules for navigating it. Through May 11 at 306 17th Street, Park Slope; open-source-gallery.org.

5. Theodore:Art, ‘Peter Krashes: Contact!’

Once upon a time, 56 Bogart was the place to see art in Bushwick; today it’s no longer the neighborhood’s artistic nerve center. The galleries that remain are a mix of newcomers and longtime holdouts, of which Theodore:Art, at almost a decade old, is one. Peter Krashes’s current exhibition is a poignant reflection of the changes being felt throughout Brooklyn. The artist is a longtime community organizer, and in his gouache-on-paper paintings he captures street festivals, encounters with the New York Police Department and celebrity sightings near Barclays Center. Krashes paints with smooth, confident strokes but leaves blank specks throughout, suggesting the gaps of memory that make even the best representations of reality imperfect. Through May 18 at 56 Bogart Street, Bushwick; 212-966-4322, theodoreart.com.

6. Art in General, ‘Chim↑Pom: Threat of Peace (Hiroshima!!!!!!)’ and ‘Don’t Follow the Wind: Non-Visitor Center’

This storied nonprofit is best known for presenting conceptual shows that contain an ambitious site-specific element. The current centerpiece is the Japanese artist collective Chim↑Pom’s affecting, tunnel-like installation made of paper cranes that people from around the world have sent to Hiroshima as a gesture of peace. The city keeps the cranes — millions of them — in a special warehouse, where the collective also filmed a new video. On view concurrently is a “non-visitor center” for “Don’t Follow the Wind,” an exhibition created inside the radioactive Fukushima exclusion zone by Chim↑Pom, other artists and the curator Jason Waite (who organized both shows at Art in General). Visitors can glimpse the restricted area via a 360-degree video and contemplate the sobering past and present of our nuclear reality. Through July 13 at 145 Plymouth Street, Dumbo; artingeneral.org.

Helpful Tips

People can find visiting galleries intimidating, mysterious or irksome, but it needn’t be, even for beginners. There’s no time like our annual Spring Gallery Guide to discuss the basics (and pleasures) of this time-honored activity. My fellow critics and I have fanned out across the city to take the pulse of the scene, but before you get to our recommendations, let me offer some advice:

Galleries don’t charge admission. New York City has the largest concentration of art galleries anywhere; there’s a great deal of information and many experiences to be had, free of charge. These are welcoming places that don’t exist only to sell art. They’re also a public service, a way for artists and art students to see what other artists are up to, but also for the rest of us as well.

Be engaged. Wave or smile to the people at the front desk when you enter (and maybe say “Thank you” when you leave). Join the ritual of signing the sign-in book. (Most galleries have them.) It lets artists know you’ve been there and provides a little private moment before plunging in. You’ll also see news releases by the sign-in book. They give you the title of the show (if there is one), some whiff of the artist’s intention and a short biography. There’s a good chance there will also be checklists, almost always with photographs of the works. This provides the title, date, materials and dimensions of every artwork on view. It’s your map.

Take the process seriously. Give every show a chance. Art is never trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Walk around the sculptures; study the paintings — and their surfaces — from various distances. Examine the checklist, and think about how the art objects were made and of what. Can you identify the materials used on first sight?

Listen to yourself. Realize that you are having reactions and forming opinions even if you can’t quite articulate them. Tally up what you like or don’t like about a certain piece. Strike up a conversation with someone who seems to be looking as hard as you. Compare notes. Got questions? Ask them of whoever behind the desk looks the least busy. Keep in mind that many people in these positions at galleries are young artists or writers and usually quite smart. You never know when you’re talking to the next Huma Bhabha. ROBERTA SMITH

Top image grid, from top left: ChimPom and Art in General; Dario Lasagni; Dawn Mellor and TEAM Gallery; via Alexander and Bonin, New York; Joerg Lohse; American Artist; ANOHNI and The Kitchen; Arcmanoro Niles and Rachel Uffner Gallery; Aria Dean and Chapter NY; Dario Lasagni; Bruce Pearson and Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York; Austin Lee; Cameron Clayborn and Simone Subal Gallery; Dario Lasagni; Mark Mulroney and Mrs. Gallery; Vivian Suter and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels; David Regen; Claude Tolmer and L. Parker Stephenson Photographs; via apexart; Eduardo Kac and Henrique Faria, New York; Jessi Reaves and Bridget Donahue NYC; Greg Carideo; Sasha Bezzubov and Front Room Gallery; Sharon Horvath and Pierogi; Julia Rommel and Bureau, New York; Dario Lasagni; Mira Schor and Lyles & King; Walid Raad and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York; Peter Krashes and Theodore:Art, Brooklyn; Martin Kersels and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York; Silvia Bächli and Peter Freeman, Inc.; Moira Dryer and Van Doren Waxter, New York; Stefan Hagen; Ming Fay and Sapar Contemporary; via 56 Henry; Object Studies; Raqib Shaw, via Pace Gallery; Pierre Buraglio and Ceysson & Bénétière; Graciela Iturbide; Lili Jamail and TEAM; via Artist’s Institute at Hunter College; Paul Fagerskiold and Peter Blum Gallery, New York; Etienne Frossard; Paul Anthony Smith and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; Sara Mejia Kriendler and The Chimney; Reggie Shiobara.

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