Gallery Lombardi's Erotica 2008 is more than a meditation on sexuality. It’s a multidimensional sensory explosion that challenges our relationship to sex, the body, and creativity with fearless exploration of these themes in nearly every conceivable form. The exhibit, curated by Rachel Koper and Ron Prince, showcases over 50 adventurous works including painting, sculpture, video, installation, and mixed media....

With a name like Jesse Butcher, your art has to be a bit on the dark side. The Austin artist and Rhode Island School of Design grad combines photographs and cringe-inducing sculptural elements, like tree stumps, hatchets, barbed wire, bone and crumpled paper napkins, to evoke reactions to his themes of masculinity and death. His latest solo exhibit, We're All in Love with Dying and We're Doing it in Texas, opens Saturday at the MASS Gallery. ...

The Blanton Museum of Art is kicking off August with a special edition of their monthly celebration of the arts, B Scene. As usual, the event will feature gallery tours, appetizers, and DJs. Unique to this Friday's B scene, the Blanton will be hosting an Austin Poetry Slam reading. These savvy wordsmiths will entertain audiences with their dynamic delivery against the backdrop of the museum's current shows. The Blanton's summer exhibition, Exquisite Visions of Japan, will be on view. Check out this collection of Japanese woodblock prints before the exhibit closes on August 24th. ...

DPS releases report on security at Governor's Mansion at time of the arson; sole DPS trooper on duty named and timeline revealed. Arsonist arrested after Friday's apartment fire that ruined 12 units off Jollyville. CapMetro wants buses to have "signal priority" so that lights will stay green when a bus is close by (which means you might want to stay behind that bus after all). It's summertime and the Central Texas Blood and Tissue Center needs your blood. The floating banana may not get off the ground after all....

United States Art Authority, the mixed-use space adjacent to Spiderhouse, announced today that it is closing its doors, owing to "unforeseen issues" with the City of Austin....

Pryor and her team of pink-jumpsuited cupids will open up the Pink Love Factory on Sunday from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the United States Art Authority. The one-off event, which will include live music by The Squirrels, Damp Heat, Puff Puff and the Receivers, WinoVino, The Pelicks, and DJs Orion and Aquamanchill (aka Professah Funkensteen), seeks to help raise money for Pink's next road trip and installation in Chicago later this summer....

East Austin art studio Big Medium—formerly known as Bolm Studios—will host its first fundraising event this weekend. "Night Owl and Early Bird" is an interactive two-day affair that starts tonight and runs through tomorrow morning. ...

Tonight's your chance to check out some home-baked goodness by some of Austin’s most talented artists—Just Been Fired, an annual group show at Gallery Lombardi, will feature a bevy of new ceramic works by artists Alejandra Almuelle, Ryan McKerley, and Sunyong Chung, among many others. This “mostly ceramic” show goes way beyond basic clay, though, to include variations of the medium, such as raku terracotta, tinted porcelain, high fire porcelain, and low-fire stoneware, all of which are used to create beautiful works that stretch the boundaries of traditional ceramics. ...

When local artist Sean Gaulager arrived at his newly-rented workspace on Allen Street, he didn’t expect to find the walls transformed into a floor-to-ceiling collage, or painted, as its creator Sarah Stevens described, both “gratuitously and without hesitation.” ...

Photo courtesy of Okay Mountain The Mountain Is Alive: An Okay Mountain FundraiserSaturday, June 28Okay Mountain Gallery (1312 E Cesar Chavez)Free[info]This Saturday, Okay Mountain is opening its doors for an evening of auctions, raffles, games and music. The gallery, which is hoping to raise money to aid in operational costs, has assembled an impressive ensemble of artists to fill its walls. Works will be shown by: Kevin Bewersdorf, William Hundley, Travis Millard, Mel Kadel, Mike......

Some of Austin's most creative minds have joined forces to put together the first Austin Art Mercado. This Saturday, the self-described "anarchic open market" will provide an opportunity for artists and art enthusiasts to showcase and appreciate art in a fun environment. Set in a historic landmark home, the event will include live music, refreshments, and dancing, in addition to art for sale and temporary visual art installations. Mercado organizers and participants hope to make art more accessible while helping artists make a living....

The Opera House, on South 1st, is a venue, retail store, and has hopes of soon becoming a non-profit organization. On Sunday the 22nd they’re proving their mettle with a 3D movie release party by Jeanne Stern and Erich Ragsdale, followed by a performance by the San Marcos group Teddy and Marge. Visual artists Stern and Ragsdale have collaborated on a “stereoscopic puppet film” entitled The Isle of Cattywampus that they’ll be presenting at the event. To clarify, the film is 3D because it was “shot with two lenses, one for each eye.” Following the film, the duo will also present a 3D slide show and a few animated shorts. Teddy and Marge will perform their old-time, Tom Waits meets a drum machine tunes after the Stern and Ragsdale portion of the evening. ...

You don’t see graffiti tags popping out of ornate frames very often, but Pieced Together, on exhibit at Gallery Lombardi through July 5, showcases a vibrant collision of fine art and street art. ...

Domy Books, an independent bookseller stocked with special editions, hard-to-find periodicals and various media-related goodies, will celebrate the grand opening of its Austin store on Saturday. ...

Hungry for a little optical stimuli? Stereopticon, with its futuristic 3D stereograms, kinetic art and optical sounds, promises to weave together sound and light in ways that will fascinate (and possibly trigger a seizure or two). ...

Celebrate the heat of summer while surrounded by cool art at the Blanton's monthly B Scene party. The fitting theme for tonight's festivities is "Summer Celebration" and the museum invites its visitors to socialize and peruse art (and sip cocktails) in their many air-conditioned galleries. ...

SPOILER ALERT: Art is not about a painting. Oh sure, there’s a painting at the center Yesmina Reza’s 1998 Tony Award-winning play, and a curious painting at that: it’s a completely white canvas with barely-visible diagonal brushstrokes. But Art is not about a painting. ...

In what could be the chance you've been waiting for, Gallery Lombardi is currently accepting entries for their upcoming juried show, Erotica. Work in any medium will be accepted for consideration, and the gallery hopes to showcase at least 50 artists in disciplines ranging from painting to installation to performance art. ...

From now until June 1st, the Arthouse at the Jones Center is once again exhibiting over 1,000 diminutive works by 600 contemporary artists....

Upon returning to the United States, Wester began painting in a studio at the Pump Project in East Austin. His photos, now digitally manipulated into a high contrast two-tone reminiscent of stencil art, are combined with bold, graphic imagery such as the Red Cross logo and Arabic text. Touching, but often hopeful, Wester uses bright primary colors and images of children in many of his pieces. For Wester, capturing the images and turning them into art has been a healing way for him to discuss his feelings about the war. ...

Austin's no stranger to the printed poster—in fact, between Flatstock and the East Austin Studio Tour, we get many chances to view and purchase original art by some very talented printmakers. This weekend, our affinity for all things screenprinted, letterpressed, linocut, and block printed is being even further catered to at various galleries around town....

If you're a fan of Flatstock and, like us, consider gigposters to be an artform, today's your chance to score some awesome locally-made prints on the cheap....

Texas is hot in more ways than one, apparently. Umlauf family selling some of their sculpture pieces (not the ones donated to the city). All-female jury rules in favor of the police officers in the Ramon Hernandez lawsuit. Time Warner wants you to switch to digital cable: they are taking the weather radar channel off the basic lineup....

The week's news on arts, books, film and music....

In case you hadn't realized, music poster art and design is a a medium all its own. The creative effort that goes into each print and poster is a labor of love, artists finding new and inventive ways to combine elements from a band's own vision, their own voice, as well as actual information. ...

He’s a master of sampling and an early proponent of turntablism, but you won’t find Carl Stone working with Kanye any time soon. Instead, throughout his musical career, minimalist pioneer Stone has taken experimented with electronics and sound in a way that recalls his hero John Cage and other irrepressible avant-garde musicians of his ilk....

Austin eco-friendly designerRené Geneva will show her hemp and organic wool designs at Fashion Week in Los Angeles with support from Austin's own EcoClean and Kendra Scott jewelery....

The week's news on arts, books, film and music....

Saturday marks the opening of Wheelchair Epidemic, a group show featuring exclusive black and white photos taken at Antone’s, 80s Austin punk scene photos by documentary photog Bill Daniel, and various music-inspired drawings, paintings and mixed media collages....

Kick off this weekend early on Thursday at Antone’s with music from Black Joe Lewis, Bankrupt and the Borrowers, and The Best Love In Town on the special occasion of The Versatile Syndicate’s “Launch Party.” The entity is now open for business, and their agenda is to aid any artist in pursuing their dreams and professional development via booking/tour management, consulting, live production, and so on. This event is a part of the Austin Music Foundation’s Love Austin Music Month and cover for AMF members is $5. The rest of us mere mortals can get in for $10. The shindig also marks AMF's 6th Birthday; free cake and food (courtesy of Whole Foods Market) and free 2008 She Rocks Calendars while the goodies last....