San Diego weekend arts events: Art toys, rock music, ballet and bomba

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Drug Hunt Album Release Show

Music, Rock | Local rock band Drug Hunt has a new album, "Feast" dropping this week from new locally based label Bad Vibes Good Friends, newly created by Drug Hunt's Rory Morison. Drug Hunt's sound is vintage but fresh, with psychedelic-tinged guitar riffs, driving drumbeats and almost cinematic vocals.

The new album, "Feast," is something of a concept album, with each track offering a scenario or evolutionary situation for humankind.

"Feast to me has two different connotations. One is like, oh my God, look at this feast we have in front of us, how amazing. And the other one is, we feasted, we gorged, we took this abundance and completely defiled it," Morison said.

Drug Hunt will celebrate the new album at the Casbah on Saturday, performing with Fresh Veggies Micro Brass, Peymaar, Vermin Class and Bang Bang Jetaway.

Details: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 20. Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., Midtown. $15.

Marino Gomez: 'Spare Parts'

Marino Gomez

Visual art | Artist Marino Gomez works with a pretty unusual artistic medium: action figures. In a new exhibit at the Chicano Park Museum's Community Artist Gallery, he's showcasing a series of custom-made and modified action figures, displayed in custom-designed and built packaging.

Gomez draws on a practice called "kitbashing," where artists take apart existing toys and make something different — in some cases entirely new inventions, or bootlegging a character or item that doesn't otherwise exist in toy form.

He's inspired by the excitement and joy he felt when he saw his first "art toy."

Marino Gomez

"I want people to even have just the smallest callback to their own childhood — or maybe not even their own childhood, maybe just their own interests — and maybe feel recognized or feel seen, and have that same excitement," Gomez said. "In my own experience, people aren't as excited about things anymore. And I think with me making these, I hope that I'll make something that'll have some type of shock value within their own interests, that makes them feel something."

An example of one of the toys he's made is a landscaping truck, modified from a Hot Wheels vehicle. Gomez's work is skillful, playful, sometimes even irreverent or a little provocative, but undeniably nostalgic and niche. It opens this Saturday — just in time for next week's Comic-Con.

Details: Opening reception is 1-5 p.m. Saturday, July 20. On view through Aug. 6, 2024. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. 1960 National Ave., Barrio Logan. $3 for Barrio Logan residents; $8 general admission. 18 and under are free.

City Ballet: 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

Chelsea Penyak

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City Ballet of San Diego

Dance, Ballet | City Ballet of San Diego's summer performance features two appropriately summery works. Choreographer Elizabeth Wistrich's beloved and playful adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and Geoffrey Gonzalez's new work, the world premiere of "Summer Wind," a jazz-tinged yet traditional ballet set to orchestrations of Frank Sinatra music.

In "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the complicated plot is buttressed by occasional spoken word narration to keep the audience following along, and is set to the traditional Mendelssohn composition. This is the first time Wistrich's piece will be performed on an outdoor stage.

For "Summer Wind," Gonzalez said he has long wanted to create a ballet work using the music of Sinatra, inspired by some classic works by iconic choreographer Twyla Tharp and also his own upbringing as a dancer.

"My very first competition year, where I was performing — finally I was good enough to get on stage by myself, perform a solo — I got to perform to Frank Sinatra's 'Luck Be A Lady.' I was maybe 16, just maybe 17 at the time, and ever since then I had this connection to the music even at that young age, just feeling like there was a voice, feeling like there was a sound out there that really kind of backed me in the energy that I really wanted to bring to any one of my performances by myself," Gonzalez said.

Details: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 19-20. Epstein Family Amphitheater, 9500 Gilman Drive, UC San Diego. $39-$59.

Bomba Liberté: 'Rebellion and Movement'

Dance | Part of Free Third Thursday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, local bomba dance company Bomba Liberté will perform a free show in the Axline Court space. Bomba is an Afro-Puerto Rican dance form that involves intricate footwork and propulsive percussion.

For more, check out this excellent KQED "If Cities Could Dance" feature on bomba.

Prior to the performance, museum staff will present a movement and rhythm-themed tour of the current special exhibit, "Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s-Today," which is closing later this month.

Details: Themed tour of exhibit starts at 5 p.m.; performance is at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 18. MCASD, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. Free.

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio: 'In Blue Time'

Visual art | Visual artist and muralist Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio has completed her residency at the Timken Museum, and her site-specific installation is now finalized and on view in the museum. It's inspired by Pieter Brueghel the Elder's 1557 painting "Parable of the Sower," and also draws on Ortiz-Rubio's career-spanning fascination with time, physics and memory, playing with textures, scale and color.

Courtesy of the artist

Her striking blue-tinged mural is painted directly on the wall where the 1557 painting is installed, making for a powerful and thoughtful contrast and conversation between the two centuries-divided works. Additional pieces are installed throughout the gallery.

Details: On view through Sept. 29. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. 1500 El Prado, Balboa Park. Free.

Athenaeum Music & Arts Library

Athenaeum Music and Arts Library's 32nd Annual Juried Exhibition

Visual art | This year's annual juried exhibition at the Athenaeum in La Jolla saw 900 submissions (wow). Juror Armando Pulido selected the final 51 works, from 52 artists. Some names that caught my eye: Joe Cantrell, Aldo Cervantes, Ethan Chan, Sherry Chen, Gaby Espina, Stephen Frank Gary, Annalise Neil, Sibyl Rubottom. Rebecca Webb and Jessica Yambao … and dozens more. The exhibit opens with a reception this Friday and is a great chance to get a little taste of a lot of artists' work.

Details: Opening reception is 6:30-8:30 p.m. Friday, July 19. On view through Sept. 28, 2024. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. 1008 Wall St., La Jolla. Free.

Street Level and Allied Craftsmen

Visual art, Music, Food | Oceanside Museum of Art's summer block party series returns this Friday in honor of the current Allied Craftsmen exhibition "Hands On Design," which features unique and broad-ranging craft disciplines like fiber art, woodworking, metals and ceramics. Artists include Adam John Manley, Kathleen Mitchell, Kerianne Quick, Cheryl Tall and Joanne Hayakawa, and the exhibit spotlights dozens more.

Street Level will include music from DJ Lou Niles, and bands Spiritual Wind and Los Paisanos, and a talk and demo from textile artist Kathy Nida.

Details: 6-8:30 p.m. Friday, July 19. Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside. $0-15.

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