This Week in Art Openings: Totally Rad, Pretty Ugly and The Shallow Curator

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Kenny Scharf, 'Agua Pollination' from 'Totally Rad'

Totally Rad: New York in the 80s
Take a journey back to a New York City where every other storefront wasn't a bank and downtown wasn't overrun with frat boys at Paul Kasmin, which boasts a gallery full of paintings, sculptures and works on paper from our favorite rose-tinted, fetishized art decade. It’s not just a group exhibition, but rather the group, with artists including Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Jeff Koons, Kenny Scharf, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. You might be considered totally not rad if you miss it.
Paul Kasmin Gallery, 293 Tenth Ave., (212) 563-4474. Opening private view July 10, 6–8 p.m. Through Aug. 22.

Pretty Ugly
Not only is beauty in the eye of the beholder, but apparently, so is ugliness -- and perhaps both can be reversed. “Pretty” and “ugly” have been in flux since the beginning of time, and this group exhibition naturally challenges our established notions of the concepts until our perceptions of aesthetics are virtually ambiguous. A marvelous notion, but good luck applying it to the exhibition’s poster image: an even-more-distorted-than-usual four-eyed Michael Jackson clutching the slimy claw-hand of E.T.
Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, 620 Greenwich St., (212) 627-5258, and Maccarone, 630 Greenwich St., (212) 431-4977. July 10–Aug. 29.

The Shallow Curator
Finally, an exhibit that lets us relax and do exactly what we want to during the summer: not think too hard. Per the press release, these isolated pieces -- fashion sketches by painter-turned-designer George McCracken, photographs of canines shredding fine handbags by product photographer Gisel Florez -- are deemed “intellectual cul-de-sacs.” Perfect! Appreciate the aesthetics, the artists’ sense of style, and then leave, feeling only refreshed and ready for, say, a brew, some shopping or an outdoor concert.
Winkleman Gallery, 637 W. 27th St., (212) 643-3152. Opening reception July 11, 6–8 p.m. Through Aug. 15.