Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Tuesday, November 29
Robert Kramer, Ice (1970). Courtesy of Light Industry.
1. Robert Kramer’s Ice at Light Industry
Terrible political change has a way of embellishing the “prophetic” powers of past artworks, and we should be wary of claims that certain films or novels (or whatever) have predicted our current state of affairs. Still, everyone should crowd into Light Industry this week to see Robert Kramer’s Ice (1970), which, among other things, shows an underground group fighting against a Fascist regime. Shot in black and white in New York City, Ice was thought to be the “the most original and most significant American narrative film” of the late ‘60s by Jonas Mekas. It was likewise praised by Jonathan Rosenbaum, who called it “[a] searing, unnerving history lesson,” and the great French critic Serge Daney, who called it the “anti-Nashville.”
Location: 155 Freeman Street, Brooklyn
Price: $8, available at door; box office opens at 7:00 p.m.
Time: 7:30 p.m.
—Jonathon Sturgeon
Wednesday, November 30
La flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret) (1995). Directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics.
2. La flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret) at the Museum of Modern Art
MoMA’s Pedro Almodóvar retrospective (November 29–December 17, 2016) is off to a good start. This 1995 film stars the inimitable Marisa Paredes as Leo, a romance writer who hates her job, and pens a review against one of her “pink” novels in the newspaper. As Carla Marcantonio writes in Senses of Cinema, “Made at the height of his international popularity, this satirical condemnation of the machinery of publicity becomes a thinly veiled cry for authorial freedom.” Almodóvar’s muse, Rossy De Palma, stars as Leo’s sister Rosa.
On Thursday, catch De Palma in the 1993 comedy Kika, about a makeup artist who falls for a lively corpse.
—Kathleen Massara
Thursday, December 1
Chris Kraus. Courtesy of the European Graduate School.
3. Chris Kraus Presents Biographical Friction at the New School
The filmmaker and author will read from her upcoming biography of downtown New York icon Kathy Acker, The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula: A 20th Century Fable (Semiotexte, 2017). McKenzine Wark of Eugene Lang College with moderate a discussion afterward.
—Kathleen Massara
Eli Keszler, Last Signs of Speed. Courtesy of Printed Matter.
4. Release Party for Eli Keszler’s Last Signs of Speed at Printed Matter
Hong Kong’s Empty Gallery launches the first vinyl record for Empty Editions, Eli Keszler’s new album Last Signs of Speed, with a party at Chelsea’s Printed Matter. Keszler, who describes the record as a response to his experiences playing in club environments, will perform on drums and percussion.
Location: 231 11th Avenue
Price: Free
Time: 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, December 3
Cao Fei, Un-Cosplayer Series: Bunny’s World (2004). Courtesy of artist and Vitamin Creative Space.
5. Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Contemporary Chinese Art at the Guggenheim
The Guggenheim is inviting seasoned and aspiring Wikipedia editors to expand the online dictionary’s ever-expanding database of artists. The press release assures those with trepidation that “Wikipedia specialists will be on hand to provide basic instruction and editing support,” in case you’re a bit rusty with the platform. Afterward, you can get in for free to see the exhibition “Tales of Our Time.”
Location: 1071 5th Avenue (enter the Sackler Center via the entrance on Fifth Avenue at 88th Street)
Price: Free
Time: 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
—Kathleen Massara
Until Sunday, December 11
Annie Leibovitz, Misty Copeland, New York City (2015). © Annie Leibovitz from “WOMEN: New Portraits.”
6. “WOMEN: New Portraits Annie Leibovitz” at the former Bayview Correctional Facility
Annie Leibovitz’s touring exhibition of the follow-up to her iconic 1999 “WOMEN” series, commissioned by UBS, has finally come to New York. Taking over Chelsea’s former women’s prison ahead of its transformation into the Women’s Building, a new nonprofit with an art gallery and community space dedicated to helping women, the show features new images of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, ballerina Misty Copeland, and other powerful female figures selected with input from author and feminist activist Gloria Steinem.
Location: 550 West 20th Street
Price: Free
Time: Sunday–Thursday, 10:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m., last entry 6:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Until Sunday, March 12
Velázquez, María Teresa, Infanta of Spain (1651–54). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
7. “Velázquez Portraits: Truth in Painting” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Timed to the completion of conservation efforts on two Velázquez paintings from the Hispanic Society of America in New York City, the Met presents a selection of seven formal state portraits by the Spanish Old Master. The museum contends that “freed of the restrictions that apply to state and allegorical portraiture, Velázquez was able to capture in these paintings the temperaments, moods, and inner reflections of their subjects.” See for yourself whether this was the case.
Location: 1000 Fifth Avenue
Price: Suggested donation
Time: Sunday–Thursday, 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone