Are we experiencing a summer of love for ceramic sculpture?  In the last couple of months there has been a critical mass of shows by sculptors that exploit, in vessel-free form, the timeless medium with zany, inventive, lusciously glazed and chromatically exuberant results on view in New York. We’ve seen exquisite essays in eccentric dexterity from Kathy Butterly at Tibor de Nagy; sumptuous, monumental biomorphs by the late Ken Price at Matthew Marks; restrained yet insouciant clay reliefs by Joyce Robins at Theodore:Art in Bushwick. Not to be missed in this rich, sweet vein, in a somewhat under the radar gem of a show at a stunning little space in Williamsburg, Ventana 244 at 244  North 6th Street on the corner of Roebling, through June 14 — is Californian ceramic sculptor Annabeth Rosen in her second New York outing since 2010.  These monumentally goofy tours de force of constructional complexity and formal singularity include sculptural personae that are as defiantly present as they are elsusive or ambivalent to characterize.  A garden gnome that  could a scholar’s rock; a Guston painting come to life that is also an explosing of loo rolls and fruits; and in Mallo, 2013, a crackle-glazed and cracking up (what a riotous conceit) molten snowman who is revealed to have a heart of bubble-gum.  DAVID COHEN

Annabeth Rosen, Mallo, 2013.  Ceramic, 14 x 13 x 12.  Courtesy of the Artists and Ventana 244

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This weekend sees a significant expansion in the stunning and sprawling annual three-day festival, Bushwick Open Studios, put together by the volunteer Arts in Bushwick organization.  In addition to the 677 shows on offer, some in labyrinthine studio complexes, others in storefronts and private dwellings around the eastern Brooklyn neighborhood, this year sees the launch of a new art fair in conjunction with the festival, one that promises the literal opposite of business as usual.

NEWD brings together artist collective, project spaces, nonprofits and artist-run galleries in a show sharing 7000 square feet of industrial space.  As befits its acronym, the fair strives for a new level of transparency.  Besides bringing collectors into less mediated contact with artists, NEWD is introducing “negotiated resale royalty agreements” with the sales that take place under its roof.  The event takes place at the 1896, an historic warehouse space at 592 Johnson Avenue close to the Jefferson Street L.

Participants in NEWD are naturally open for business in their own premises, too, over the weekend.  At 56 Bogart Street, for instance, hub of such galleries and alternative spaces as Momenta Art, NURTUREart, and Life on Mars, THEODORE:Art, the latest gallery incarnation of Soho veteran Stephanie Theodore, continues a sensational show of sculptor Joyce Robins that emphasizes her roots in painting—by actually including stunning early 2D works alongside her pigmented clay reliefs.  Upstairs from these galleries, meanwhile, are good old-fashioned open studios by individual practicing artists.  Check out luminous abstractionist Delfina Nahrgang,.

Another sculptor active since the 1970s, Paris- and New York-based Alain Kirili,  inaugurates splendid new premises of ArtHelix at 299 Meserole Street, near the Montrose Avenue L.  Describing Kirili’s new steel wire and rubber tubing drawing-in-space sculptures in the brochure accompanying this show, artcritical’s David Cohen detects “an almost fugue-like relationship between elements chasing and embracing each other like lovers.”

Cutting edge new media artists Man Bartlett and Carla Gannis are part of a five-person open studio at Studio 303 at 41 Varick Avenue.  While their work engages in literally splicing together traditional and innovative techniques and protocols, a group show with an emphasis on painting draws on splice as its organizational metaphor. MIXTAPE, curated by Sophia Alexandrov and Todd Bienvenu, draws a parallel between curatorial efforts and the making of a good party compilation.  Their show, at 195 Morgan Avenue, No. 4 Studio, brings together the likes of Katherine Bradford, Margrit Lewczuk, Gili Levy, Sangram Majumdar and Kyle Staver.

And talking of parties: Twenty-Three Artists From In and Around, in the garage at 386 Jefferson Street, which includes Paula DeLuccia, Lori Ellison, Lawrence Swan and Richard Timperio in their number, has an opening Friday sponsored by Hendrick’s Gin, as if such company weren’t sufficient guarantee of a wild time!

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