Saturday Night's Underground: Where Carnival And Erotic Art Combine

Photo by Heather Alley

Highlight of what's to come

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Saturday night's big art openings will not be your standard-issue mingle and pose affairs: Kettle Art launches its annual competitive fundraising fire sale at 7 p.m., Oliver Francis Gallery presents an interesting (and weird, because it's OFG) new exhibition with media deconstructor Michael A Morris, and at 8 p.m. the Underground takes over South Side on Lamar, turning the venue into an interactive party shell of music/art fusion.

Photo by Heather Alley

​The Underground, a massive, collaborative community art project launched annually by ArtLoveMagic is packing the cavernous venue with scores of painters, cartoonists, poets, Djs, welders, body painters, hemp jewelers and even a fire painter -- which, for the curious, is actually what it sounds like. Josh Dryk toggles between spray paint and blowtorch on his fire painting canvases, so your inner pyromaniac and art lover can finally hug it out during his live performance.

More than 100 artists opted to participate in the event that is orchestrated by local Masterminds ArtLoveMagic. Some chose to submit finished works in advance to serve as the production's rabbit hole-inspired visual backdrop. Others prefer the exhibitionist angle: openly crafting their pieces throughout the evening, and luring in party-goers to ogle their work through varying stages of its creation.

Heavy hitter Just.Us.League is representing; this posse has culled everyone from muralists to dancers to create gargantuan collaborative live spectacles at previous events around town, and we're curious to see what the charity-raising assemblage has planned for Saturday's Underground.

This handcrafted headdress and top will be parading around the Blue Room.

​The production's climax will likely take place in the Blue Room, that's where erotic art, dancers, sculptures, and body painters team up to create a visual orgy, while Dj Night Nurse drops seductive beats. If you start feeling all tingly, just think of baseball.

Tickets for ArtLoveMagic's Underground cost $15 and can be snagged at the door.