Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. See this week’s picks, below:
Tuesday, October 11
Keltie Ferris A+R+G+O (2015). Courtesy of Mitchell-Innes & Nash.
1. Keltie Ferris at New York Studio School
New York based artist Keltie Ferris, known for her sprayed and hand painted patches of color, will be discussing her work and art practice at New York Studio School. Ferris uses the age of technology to create large multi-dimensional abstract paintings that resemble layers of pixelated fields. With a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an MFA from Yale, Ferris is represented by Mitchell-Innes & Nash and was recently awarded the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award in Painting by the Academy of Arts and Letters.
Location: 8 W 8TH ST
Price: Free
Time: 6:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.
—Kevin Umaña
Thursday, October 13–Saturday, October 15
Nene Humprey, Circling the Center. Courtesy of the artist.
2. Nene Humphrey, Circling the Center at 3LD Art & Technology Center
Inspired by the Victorian mourning ritual of braiding hair, Nene Humphrey’s latest performance piece blends science, music, and visual art, with the artist weaving red wire as a cellist accompanies a choir. The culmination of her artist-in-residency program at the Joseph LeDoux neuroscience lab at NYU, the multidisciplinary work claims to tap into the inner workings of the amygdala, where the brain processes emotion, to demonstrate the power of art.
Location: 3LD Art & Technology Center, 80 Greenwich Street, Studio B
Price: $20
Time: 8:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, October 13–Saturday, November 12
Brian Andrew Whiteley, Donald Trump Tombstone. Photo by Ventiko. Courtesy of Christopher Stout Gallery.
3. “Why I Want to Fuck Donald Trump” at Joshua Liner Gallery
With the election less than a month away, Donald Trump is once again in hot water again. Inspired by the J.G Ballard essay “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan,” this exhibition focuses on the social and political life of both candidates. As a press release states, “Why I Want to Fuck Donald Trump includes numerous artists whose work collectively comments on the intersection of American politics and the over-sexualized cult of celebrity, as well as the sensationalism surrounding politics, crystallized in this election.”
Location: 540 West 28th St, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening Reception 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m., Tuesday–Saturday 11:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
—Kevin Umaña
Thursday, October 13–Saturday, December 3
Kazimir Malevich,
Suprematism, 18th Construction (1915) . Courtesy of Di Donna Galleries
4. “Paths to the Absolute” at Di Donna
This is the opening reception for the inaugural show at Emmanuel Di Donna’s beautiful new gallery space on Madison Avenue (he was previously in the Carlyle Building a few blocks north). The museum-quality show traces developments in European and American abstract painting through skillfully curated side-by-side presentations of masters including Wassily Kandinsky, Kazemir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. The title pays tribute to art historian John Golding’s seminal book of the same name, in which he explored the social, political, and personal angles of abstraction, while also providing art historical context. Di Donna, who became familiar with Golding’s writing while pursuing a master’s degree at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, explains that “it has always been a dream of mine to see works by these artists together in a room, showing how the language of abstraction has many different, equally inspiring voices.” The show continues through December 3.
Location: 744 Madison Ave
Price: Free
Time: Opening Reception 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m., Monday–Saturday 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Thursday, October 13–Sunday, October 16
Carrie Mae Weems, installation detail, Ritual and Revolution (1998). Courtesy of Jack Shainman
Gallery, New York, © Carrie Mae Weems.
5. Antigone Now, the Onassis Festival of Arts and Ideas at the Onassis Cultural Center
The ancient Sophocles drama Antigone is explored by contemporary thinkers in this three-day festival, featuring over 30 free events. Opening night will feature Carrie Mae Weems’s performance-based piece Past Tense, which explores themes of social justice, violence, and gender. The festival also includes three new site-specific works by contemporary artists.
Location: Onassis Cultural Center New York, Olympic Tower, 645 Fifth Avenue
Price: Free with reservation
Time: Opening performance 7:00 p.m.–9:00; various times
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, October 13–Saturday, November 12
RICHARD ANUSZKIEWICZ,
Silent Red Square (1977 – 2016). Photo: John Small. Courtesy of Loretta Howard Gallery.
6. Richard Anuszkiewicz at Loretta Howard Gallery
A prominent figure of Op Art, Anuszkiewicz will be exhibiting “Centered Squares,” a series of paintings which occupied the artist throughout the years of 1970s–1980s, and which he returned to finish only a few years ago. Anuszkiewicz’s clean, thin lines blend in with vibrant colors to produce sensational optical illusions.
Location: 521 West 26th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening Reception 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m., Tuesday–Saturday 11:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
—Kevin Umaña
Friday, October 14–Wednesday, November 16
Tetsumi Kudo, Meditation Between Memory and Future(1978). Courtesy of Hiroko Kudo and the estate of the artist.
7. “Tetsumi Kudo” at Andrea Rosen
Andrea Rosen gallery is paying homage to the late Japanese artist Tesumi Kudo with a solo exhibition. The artist was a pioneer of the anti-art avant-garde movements in Tokyo and Paris throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s. His sculptures and installations—odd, pop-colored configurations of plastic dolls, electronic circuitry, and other found objects—took critical positions on pollution, technology, and humanity, or what he called “the new ecology.” “Kudo’s work is complex in its symbolic meaning,” artist Mike Kelley said in 2008. “[His work] is extremely metaphorical, and bears little relationship to traditional agitprop of social realist art.”
Location: 525 West 24th Street
Price: Free
Time: 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
—Rain Embuscado
Saturday, October 15 and Sunday, October 16
Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Gallery. Courtesy of Open House New York.
8. Open House New York
Over 275 architecturally-significant New York city spaces are participating in the annual Open House New York event. There are tons of art-related spaces taking part, from the National Arts Club to Harlem’s Museum of Art and Origins. While reservations are no longer available for some (you’ll have to wait until next year to tour the studio of Gertrude Whitney, the first home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, with the New York Studio School), the NoHo home and studio of Abstract Expressionist pioneers Po Kim and Sylvia Wald, a 1894 building by Cleverdon & Putzel featuring a Zen-like roof garden, is among sites open to the public all weekend.
Location: Various locations
Price: Free; some sites require advance reservation
Time: Various times
—Sarah Cascone