It’s the first day of summer, which means it’s about to get real slow in the art world. Take advantage of the gallery shows before they break for the season, then move on to the air conditioned goodness of the museums come the heat of August.

>> Project 4 breathes life into a razed electrical switch room in Ireland that had been abandoned 25 years earlier in Building. A group of Belfast and Brooklyn artists explored the old building and created pieces that document the role it used to play, from Christopher Heaney’s photographs (pictured) to a fascinating video by Duke Riley, compiled from surveillance footage of houses whose residents called to lodge complaints during a 1985 political strike that led to power outage. See the exhibit at the opening reception this Saturday Friday from 6 to 8 p.m.

>> On Saturday, attend the opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. and meet the artists in Randall Scott Gallery’s new show. Hiroyuki Hamada makes complicated three-dimensional paintings with any material he can get his hands on, resulting in intricate designs that speak to his frustration and confusion from his early life as a Japanese-born teenager displaced to West Virginia. In the back gallery, find Elena Volkova’s photographs that attempt to deal with complicated reality by focusing out until it becomes an expansive, serene “Void.”

Photo courtesy Project 4 Gallery.