by Joseph Sutton

(Photo: Gallery Cruise at Smack Mellon, via Franziska Lamprecht)

We recently went sniffing around Brooklyn to find hot galleries with promising exhibitions still occurring within the next couple of weeks. Check out our selection of favorite exhibits happening right now throughout the borough.

Smack Mellon | 92 Plymouth Street | DUMBO
Lucky for us and our readers, Smack Mellon extended their two solo exhibitions, Gallery Cruise (by eteam) and The Uneven Intensities of Duration (by Charlotte Schulz) another two weeks until November 21. Upon first entering the gallery, visitors are whisked away to high tea in a cruise dining room, where they may be served tea, biscuits and cucumber sandwiches. Ask the waitress how much it costs and delight in the answer: “You are on the gallery cruise. It is all complimentary with your stay.” The exhibit is a beautifully atmospheric experience for those quiet conversations between friends. When finished with their tea, visitors may step to the back of the gallery for Schulz’s exhibit of charcoal drawings on bent and carefully constructed paper that challenges perspective and surfacity akin to dreaming. In Smack Mellon, you are transferred outside of reality upon your visit.

Lumenhouse | 47 Beaver Street | Bushwick
Until December 21, Lumenhouse will serve as example of the recycling trend taken to its extreme. Their current group exhibit, Convergence, features art made entirely out of waste materials. The exhibit dutifully portrays how we may create interesting and beautiful designs out of the billions of plastic materials we consume and throw away each year, rather than create landfills or pollution that otherwise might endanger the ecosystem. Anne Percoco bundled hundreds of plastic containers together to create a surreal, cloud-like shape; Annie Varnot cut up and glued together plastic drinking straws, assembling them into a winding sort of coral reef, illuminated from below by a light bed. The pieces are generally very abstract, serving to show how far the imagination can go to beautify something we otherwise find useless.

Lumenhouse also provides photo studio rental rich with amenities such as various lights, umbrellas, a bathroom area with large slop sink, kitchenette, wardrobe racks, among others; and equipment rental from Scheimpflüg Digital.

(Photo: Spring Gift Shop, via Joseph Sutton)

Spring | 126a Front Street | DUMBO
While Spring just finished their latest show Breaking the Mold, this beautiful gallery/shop hybrid shouldn’t go unnoticed. Spring sells fine art across a broad price range. Visitors to the store may find affordable and beautiful posters of the Brooklyn neighborhood borders for $32, as well as other fine art for sale that you won’t find anywhere else. Haven’t you ever wanted a full bookcase to show off your intellect?  Check out Spring’s “bookshelf wallpaper,” allowing any room to instantly become a library with a quick slap on the wall. Spring is definitely the place to go to find surprise takes on otherwise mundane objects from daily life.

Cinders Gallery | 103 Havemeyer St | Williamsburg
Cinders aims to “[replace] the often cold and intimidating atmosphere of normal galleries.”  Their current show, that until November 14, Plain Air, is put together by Apenest, an art book publishing collective that aims to create affordable art books by selling the works of contributors to fund their self-publishing. The artwork focuses on landscapes and space real and imagined. But Cinders is not just a gallery; they house a dedicated shop section with books, prints, records, and other goodies available to buy, and is sure to be an interesting stop along the way the next time you’re in Williamsburg.