Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Monday, August 15
Marlon Riggs, Black Is, Black Ain’t (1994). Courtesy of the IFC.
1. Queer/Art/Film: R. Erica Doyle presents “Black Is…Black Ain’t”
Tonight, an important 1994 documentary on black identity in the aftermath of the AIDS crisis gets a special screening at the IFC Center. Poet R. Erica Doyle will be presenting Marlon Riggs’s final film, from 1994, at the invitation of IFC’s Queer/Art/Film committee. It’s fitting that a poet should introduce the work, as Riggs learned from and loved so much about the form while making his 1989 semi-documentary, Tongues Tied.
Location: IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas
Price: $15 adult
Time: 8:00 p.m.
—Rain Embuscado
Thursday, August 18
The poster for Downtown 81, starring Jean-Michel Basquiat in a semi-autobiographical role. Courtesy of Zeitgeist Video.
2. Cinema Under the Influence & Young Women in the Arts present Downtown 81 at Fordham Lincoln Center
Cinema Under the Influence and Young Women in the Arts (full disclosure: I co-founded the latter) are teaming up on this screening of Edo Bertoglio’s Jean-Michel Basquiat-starring Downtown 81, which remained unreleased for roughly 20 years after it was filmed. A post-screening discussion featuring Basquiat’s first gallerist, Annina Nosei, and friend and collector, Lenore Schorr, will examine the role of women in the downtown 1980s art scene.
Location: Veronica Lally Kehoe Studio Theatre at Fordham University Lincoln Center, 113 West 60th Street
Price: $10 tickets available here
Time: 7:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Friday, August 19
3. The Black Art Incubator at Recess
This is your last chance to see this “social sculpture” by four young black women working in the arts (Taylor Renee Aldridge, Jessica Bell Brown, Kimberly Drew, and Jessica Lynne), which has been called a “much-needed art-world intervention” by Isaac Kaplan at Artsy and a “respectability politics” farce by artist Winslow Laroche on Facebook, for the group’s decision to include an open crit with ARTnews editor Andrew Russeth. (Andy Warhol’s retort would be: “Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.”)
The Black Art Incubator, located in Soho, may seem an odd place to “build and sustain public and community-driven practices,” as is its aim, however. There are tangled webs between “in” crowds and actual communities that should be unraveled. The space itself feels more like a clubhouse (as Mallika Rao puts it in the Village Voice) than a place for real engagement, but if nothing else, it’s a start. Let’s hope the incubation leads to new groups hatching ideas, rather than just a way to build personal brands.
Location: Recess, 41 Grand Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 12:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.; Thursday, 2:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.
—Kathleen Massara
Saturday, August 20
Niko de La Faye, M2B, Beijing-New York. Courtesy of Niko de La Faye.
4. Summer Streets
This week marks the last of three consecutive Saturdays that New York’s Department of Transportation closes nearly seven miles of Park Avenue and Lafayette Street to cars for Summer Streets, now in its ninth year. This year’s event headlining attraction is a giant waterslide, but there are plenty of art-related activities on tap as well.
In addition to opportunities to make art with artist Taliah Lempert and Arts Gowanus, Niko de La Faye will be riding M2B, Beijing-New York, his mobile tricycle sculpture, which he previously rode between Hong Kong and Beijing, along the avenue. The work “depicts an abstract representation of the balance and geometry of the cosmos in the universe.”
For the festival’s last weekend, the NYC Department of Parks + Recreation Temporary Art Program will team up with artist Juanli Carrión to explore the history and symbolism of the mighty corn plant.
Location: From the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park, along Park Avenue and connecting streets
Price: Free
Time: 7:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, August 20
Simone Leigh. Photo Robin Cembalest, courtesy New Museum.
5. Guided Meditation for Black Lives Matter as part of Simone Leigh’s New Museum exhibition, “The Waiting Room”
With protests following the police shooting of a black man in Milwaukee this past weekend, artist Simone Leigh’s guided meditations, offered in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, are all the more needed. Sessions occur weekly throughout the show’s run (until September 18); leading the session is Mona Chopra, a board-certified and licensed acupuncturist who integrates hypnosis, yoga and meditation into her practice. All meditation sessions are free and open to the public. Reserve a spot by writing to waitingroom@newmuseum.org with “meditation” and the requested session date in the subject line.
Location: New Museum, 235 Bowery
Price: Free
Time: 10:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m.
—Brian Boucher
Saturday, August 20
Dance at Socrates. Courtesy of Socrates Sculpture Park.
6. Dance at Socrates at Socrates Sculpture Park
It’s your last chance to see the fruits of this summer’s Norte Marr’s Dance at Socrates residency and performance program, now in its fourth season. The waterfront sculpture park offers a unique stage, tucked away amid a grove of trees, for residents Ephrat Asherie and Aaron McGloin, who will perform with Nora Gibson and RudduR Dance.
Location: Socrates Sculpture Park, 32-01 Vernon Blvd, Long Island City
Price: Free
Time: 4:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Sunday, August 21
Channa Horwitz, Selected Works from Inbox: New Acquisitions (2016). Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art.
7. Inbox: Channa Horwitz New Acquisitions at MoMA
After acquiring her work, the Museum of Modern Art is featuring Channa Horwitz’s geometric drawings dating back to the 1960s. Horwitz was fascinated with graph paper, and brightened her lines with vivid colors. Her 1975 work, Slices, Top to Bottom, dances in place.
Location: MoMA, 11 West 53rd Street, New York
Price: adults $25, seniors $18, students $14
Time: Saturday–Wednesday, 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10:30 a.m.–8:30 p.m.; Friday, 10:30 a.m.–8:00 p.m. (Free hours on Friday, 4:oo p.m.–8:00 p.m.)
—Daniela Rios
Through Sunday, August 21
Stephen Powers, Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (To a Seagull) (2015). Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum.
8. Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (To a Seagull) at the Brooklyn Museum
When sign painting came to Coney Island, it sparked a new kind of artistic exchange. Stephen Powers, along with contributing artists, gathers this range of influences in one tidy location, so that visitors can see the spirit of Coney Island and all its residents.
Location: Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
Price: adults $16, seniors and students $10
Time: Wednesday and Friday–Sunday, 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.; Thursday, 11:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m.
—Daniela Rios
Through Friday, August 26
Margot Bergman, Wilma Rose (2012). Courtesy of Anton Kern Gallery, New York and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago.
9. Margot Berman and Brian Calvin: Early Work at Anton Kern Gallery
If, like me, you have been seeing all the intriguing Instagram posts emanating from Anton Kern Gallery’s joint Margot Berman and Brian Calvin show, but have not yet made it to 20th Street space, now is your chance. The exhibit, which has been extended through next Friday, August 26, pairs Berman’s recent portraits with Calvin’s “Popeye” series, made in Chicago in the early 1990s. Both artists portray the human figure “and all its grotesque facets,” according to the gallery, while also showing the spirit of Chicago’s signature Neo-Expressionist style, namely heavily layered and worked paint that tends toward dramatic, emotional color palettes.
Location: Anton Kern Gallery, 532 West 20th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Friday, 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella