On this night the Santa Monica Museum of Art opens three new shows, a slate of related events and a unique residency project — worth braving Bergamot Station's big dig for. The main gallery not only hosts but is totally transformed by the collages, drawings, paintings, sculptural installation and site-specific murals of “Joyce Pensato: I KILLED KENNY.” Pensato's dark, gothic, enormous and frequently spooky works draw on the iconography of edgy cartoons and celebrity glitz to create expressionistic works that simultaneously transform, lambaste and celebrate memes of popular culture. “Marco Rios: Anatomy of an Absent Artist” uses film, sculpture and photography to deconstruct movies centered around “artists who were leading double lives” — the better to examine the mythology of the artist in contemporary culture. Also, a fresh iteration of the museum's education program brings high school students together with a team of socially engaged architects, designers and fabricators to create a modular system that morphs from living room to skate ramp in minutes for “Park Studio: Skaters and Makers.” And watch for random magic moments courtesy of construction artist-in-residence Bettina Hubby's Dig the Dig project, culminating with a big dinner party on July 21. Watch this space. Santa Monica Museum of Art, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica; Fri., May 31, 7-9 p.m.; free. (310) 586-6488, smmoa.org. Exhibitions run June 1-Aug. 17 (Park Studio through July 6 only); Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; $5.

Tuesdays-Saturdays. Starts: May 31. Continues through Aug. 17, 2013

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