by Matt Tanner

Fanny Bostrom’s “activity” at 31GRAND

hroughout the month, 31GRAND is displaying Picnic, a solo debut by self taught Swedish-born artist Fanny Bostrom. Features painting, sculpture, and mixed media, the show explores Bostrom’s "urgent faith in activity," but the most salient feature of Bostrom’s work is its scope. Her vast, brightly-colored landscapes are populated by dozens of tiny androgynous (and seemingly naked) figures working and wandering, busily going about their lives. It’s part Bosch, part The Smurfs.

Closing June 28, Tuesday-Saturday 12-7 p.m., 31GRAND, 143 Ludlow St.

Sweet Oblivion

Running throughout June, Sunday LES presents Tenderly. Gallery owner Clayton Sean Horton says his aim for the show was to display "artists whose work often softens or tenderizes life’s darker moments." Kirk Hayes’s A-Bomb is child’s portrait of a mushroom cloud, a white blob rising from brown dirt horizon into a candy pink sky.

Closing June 29, Wednesday-Sunday 12:00-6:00 p.m., Sunday L.E.S., 237 Eldridge St.

Climbing Up the Walls

On June 7, MF Gallery invites you to witness their own fun-loving brand of depravity live in the making. More than 20 artists will fill the space, painting murals on the gallery walls. Visitors are encouraged to walk around, have drinks, and watch as the artists’ demented visions take shape. Dress is black-eye optional.

June 7, 7-10 p.m., MF Gallery, 157 Rivington St.

Who Is That Masked Man?

Adam Helms’s Untitled Portrait (Srebrenica) is a murky grey, halftone image of a soldier in battle fatigues standing at parade rest. He could be an American infantryman, a symbol sacrifice and patriotism, but for the dark hood that obscures his face. This and works by eight other artists will be on display at Smith-Stewart in a new show called Warlord opening June 13. Gallery owner Amy Smith-Stewart says, "Warlord will explore the strange and unsettling phenomenon happening now in many of the world’s battlefields, the ominous figures whose identities blur the line between national hero and gangster, soldier and mass murderer."

Opening June 13, Wednesday-Sunday 12-6 p.m., Smith-Stewart, 55 Stanton St.

The Apocalypse Will Be Televised

If the press from last year’s Boston exhibition is to be believed, Cliff Evans’s Empyrean is a current affairs fever dream, the sort of thing you might experience while watching Fox News and having a bad reaction to cough medicine. Opening June 13 at Luxe Gallery alongside sister work Road to Mount Weather, Empyrean is a five channel video collage of material culled from the internet, among other sources. In Evans’s Armageddon, the end begins with Brad and Angelina writing a camel through the Sahara.

June 13-July 27, Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Luxe Gallery, 53 Stanton St.