Joshua Zucker Pluda’s work at 3rd Ward’s “Group Show.” — Photo courtesy of 3rd Ward website.

Nothing like free booze to gather a crowd in Bushwick. I came up from the L at Morgan Ave Friday night to find myself, for the first time, distinctly not alone on the walk up to 3rd Ward. It is usually a desolate walk, one in which you find yourself quietly walled in by those abandoned buildings, and where you only occasionally meet local passersby. But on this night hoards of people were descending upon the arts complex — quite literally like several lines of ants who’ve been tipped off about a discarded piece of watermelon below a picnic table.

The evolution of 3rd Ward continues, and I daresay reaches a new plateau with Friday’s “Group Show”, by far the most mature exhibition they have offered in the last year. This is not because of the wine sponsorship — not entirely — but more directly because of the showing itself. It is billed as the Ward’s first-ever Group Show, a display of “twenty-six of the World’s Best Emerging Photographers”. Several entries have been judged, by experts including Alexandra Niki of Resource Magazine, and Sean Fader of FIT, and the resultant selections represent a spectrum of tastes just varying enough for the Ward’s clientele and geography, but also – and here is where I see growth – remains quite grounded.

It has been a tendency of past 3rd Ward shows to be over-saturated. This summer’s Sex Cells exhibit, to take an example, displayed all the seventy-plus images that were submitted, giving us an unsurprisingly sloppy and cluttered presentation of unframed printouts. It was too much, and too little.

The Group Show not only features fewer photographs (by professional photographers, no less), but the presentation is — and the whole showing felt — quite simple. That this subtlety matches much of the work itself is quite satisfying. Joshua Zucker Pluda has been named the Top Photographer of the show, and rightly so (though I also very much liked “44 Maujer St.” by Bernadette Torres). His opaque landscapes — dark, obscured, exposing only hints of color — did not feel out of place on the walls of the Ward’s gallery, and those familiar with the boisterous venue may recognize this as an applaudable achievement of display.

But perhaps at the end of the day, most did come for the free wine (courtesy of Bear Flag) and Colt 45. It was a packed house, the highest volume I’ve seen there yet, and so one assumes 3rd Ward might continue this hike of maturity, if only to secure future stores.