Five Galleries With Weird Creatures Inside
Fantastic beasts, you might say, and where to find them
By Wayne Alan Brenner, Fri., July 15, 2022
No, we don't mean a painting-filled venue that also happens to have, say, a fish tank with a two-headed coelacanth on a shelf somewhere. We're talking about exhibitions that showcase an artist's creature-fabricating skills, collections that feature three-dimensional examples of imagined biology – whether ultimately cute, horrific, or some combination thereof. We've uncovered at least five such places where you can encounter such … things.
Really Small Museum: The Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata
The tiny outdoor walls of this neighborhood treasure display arcane objects from one of our favorite cultural entities in Austin. Yes, it's a mini-show from that oversized wunderkammer known as the Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata.Through July 31. 1311 Harvey. instagram.com/reallysmallmuseum_atx
Butridge Gallery: Creature Comforts
In addition to paintings by Nora McMillen Burke, this excellent new show features ceramic work by Marianne Levy, who often brings fabulous fauna into being, but more to our point offers an array of sculpture by Jon Nelson – a man who's all about making the inhabitants of nightmares and dreams share this more mundane world with us. Through July 23. Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd., 512/974-4000. austintexas.gov/jcbgallery
The SARF: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Stuffed
Leave it to our still intermittently weird city to harbor the Stuffed Animal Rescue Foundation, an organization that rehabilitates and recontextualizes – in the cutest ways possible – stuffed animals. This current exhibition reveals a literary homage in which "stuffed writers display original work and new takes on old classics." For instance: Virginia Wolf. Yes, that's W-O-L-F. Through Aug. 28. Sat.-Sun., noon-4pm. 2825 Hancock #111. $5. thesarf.org
Guzu Gallery
That emporium of graphic exuberance next door to Austin Books & Comics is a retail wonderland that's chockablock with plushies and Dunnies and fantasy figurines of all kinds, whether from the vaults of Kidrobot or UglyDolls or Good Smile or, hell, who knows what embodiment of eldritch energy manager/artist Vince Torres and his crew have in stock for you in these demon-haunted times? 5000 N. Lamar, 512/454-4898. guzugallery.com
Women & Their Work: One Bad Monkey
Not just creature-centric but also locally focused, Steef Crombach's soft sculptures and draping foam relief tapestries examine the secret life of local icons like the Wheatsville Raptor and the Big Star Bingo Gorilla, exploring each character's evolution as its identity morphs over time and place. Through Aug. 4. 1311 E. Cesar Chavez, 512/477-1064. womenandtheirwork.org
