Must-Sees and Must-Dos at This Weekend's Bushwick Open Studios

Tomorrow marks day one of the city's single greatest art event of the year, Bushwick Open Studios, which continues through Sunday evening. And, yes, it will be stiflingly hot, the L train won't be running, you'll only be able to see a fraction of the nearly 400 participating artists, spaces and organizations, and the online directory of participants might crash your computer the way it just did mine. But don't stress it: here is a nearly feasible list of things you should see out there over the next few days.

Dunkle Workle at Storefront: The tiny Wilson Avenue gallery will no doubt be spilling onto the sidewalk from the moment it opens tomorrow evening at 6pm for the opening reception of this group exhibition curated by William Powhida. Maybe stop by on Saturday or Sunday, between 1pm-6pm, for a more intimate viewing experience—but still turn up tomorrow night for the party.

Purple Nurple: This group show of purple art by over a dozen local artists working across media is in a studio above English Kills (whose current show The Mother Ship you should also visit). Stop by anytime Saturday or Sunday between noon and 7pm.

Meet Me At the Market at the Moore Street Market: Seven artists including curator Austin Thomas—Liz Atzberger, Sharon Butler, Brece Honeycutt, Lars Kremer, Julie Torres and Audra Wolowiec—show their work inside the Moore Street Market at 110 Moore Street on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. If you're spending the whole day BOS-ing on Saturday, stop by here from 10-11am for free coffee, then come back at noon for an art class with Austin.

Maps n Mimosas at Norte Maar: If coffee's not the thing you need to get you in the studio-going mood, Norte Maar will be doing its traditional map and mimosa giveaway on Saturday morning, 11am to 2pm.

Surrealism and the Bushwick Art Park at Factory Fresh: On Saturday the Flushing Avenue gallery not only opens its new show of local surrealists, but takes over the adjacent alley Vandevoort Place with sculptures and street art by Bast, Leon Reid IV, Specter, Skewville, Ben Godward, Infinity, Garry Nichols, Tyrome Tripoli, Veng and El Celso.

So Happy Together at Norte Maar: Julie Torres brought together 45 artists to create the 100 collaborative paintings on view here (along with a lot of their individual work), all of which will be up for silent auction. You likely won't get to see all the work during tomorrow night's opening, from 6-9pm, but come back on Saturday and Sunday, 11am-7pm.

Landscapes Metamorphic, Topologies Chromatoplastic at Centotto: It's the last weekend for this exhibition of paintings by Cynthia Hartling, Layton Hower and Francesco Longenecker, and sculpture by MaryKate Maher, all of which evoke landscapes and topographies without portraying them strictly speaking figuratively.

Ben Godward, Harry Gold, Evan Green, Paul Saint Savage: These four on the third floor at 49 Wyckoff Avenue will make for a great studio, including blobby sculptures by Godward, precise surreal miniatures by Gold and pop-hued street art by Paul Saint Savage.

Deborah Brown: The painter's studio on the second floor at 322 Stockholm Street will be full of her beautiful oil paintings of gritty and desolate streets not unlike the ones you'll be hiking around all weekend. In fact, you will almost certainly pass a fence or overgrown lot that she has painted.

Curbs and Stoops and BushwickDaily.com: This Johnson Avenue studio and exhibition space will be hosting a huge group show featuring 18 artist profiled on BushwickDaily.com. The opening party is Saturday night 7-10pm, but you'll want to go back on Saturday or Sunday, 12-7pm.

Kyu Seok Oh: The Japanese-Korean sculptor who installed a herd of sheep made from handmade paper in Times Square earlier this year has been keeping the surviving members of the flock in his studio at #3-L 1 Grattan Street, while working on many more of his paper sculptures.

Kyu Seok Oh: The Japanese-Korean sculptor who installed a herd of sheep made from handmade paper in Times Square earlier this year has been keeping the surviving members of the flock in his studio at #3-L 1 Grattan Street, while working on many more of his paper sculptures. Another great strategy that will let you see more work, but cover less ground (and maybe see some not-so-great stuff) is to hit all the really big old warehouses that have been turned into studios and go through them floor by floor, open room by open room. Good buildings for this approach include 109 and 119 Ingraham Street, 449 Troutman Street, 1717 Troutman, 41 Varick Avenue, and the like.