My early-2025 plea for "more art with teeth" is being answered! Artists in Tulsa are digging all the way in right now with work that's deeply engaged with life. Here's our guide to November's art shows, plus a few opportunities to purchase art for the holidays without supporting corporate stooge operations. —Alicia Chesser
First Friday Openings
“LEAD & COAL: A SOUNDING” by NNN Cook, Nokosee Fields, Gavin Kroeber, Josh Levi, and Aaron Owens
November 7, 7-8:30pm
Tulsa Artist Fellowship Project Space, 205 E. Archer St.
Gavin Kroeber is one of the newest cohort of Tulsa Artist Fellows, a multidisciplinary adventurer who uses visual art, urban theory, and performance to uncover the cultural dynamics of power. His current project digs into post-industrial Ozark mining landscapes that turned lead and coal into instruments of the 19th century war machine. In this First Friday performance, Kroeber and four colleagues share their "soundings" from these sites, along with video and a limited-edition vinyl of recordings from the field with titles like "Subterranean Coalification; Deep Time Plant Decay" and "To Be Unaware of How Far You Can Fall; Pre-Electricity Lead Mining," performed on instruments that range from synthesizers to an ocarina to a bowed towel rack.
Tulsa Artist Fellowship Open Studios, ft. Cedric Mitchell, Franky Cruz, and more
November 7, 6pm
Tulsa Artist Fellowship, 109 MLK Jr. Blvd.
This month, TAF's open studios feature glassblower Cedric Mitchell, who returns to Tulsa with a new collection of Afro Post-Modernist blown glass wonders created at the Tacoma Museum of Glass, alongside a poster installation by Ernesto Yemena exploring the views and interactions between the Mexican communities living on both sides of the United States-Mexico border. Take your complementary Que Gusto bites and Heirloom beer to the rooftop to check out Franky Cruz's VM Dome Lab: an immersive sculpture and a living butterfly garden.
