Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Tuesday, September 27–Saturday, November 5
Courtesy French Comics Framed Festival.
1.“French Comics Framed” at the Cooper Union Foundation Building
Coinciding with this year’s edition of New York Comic Con is “French Comics Framed,” a month-long festival organized by the French Comics Association. The exhibition, which is currently on view at the Fourth Avenue Colonnade of the Cooper Union’s historic Foundation building, features over 50 graphic novel illustrations that provide an overview of “the history of Franco-Belgian comics art.” The show kicked off in late September and runs through November 5; but if you plan on hitting the comic book convention at Javitz Center this week, you’ll want to swing by their booth for illustration workshops.
Location: East 7th Street
Price: Free
Time: 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
—Rain Embuscado
Saturday, October 1–December 3, 2016
Renee Cox Chillin With Liberty (1998). Courtesy of the artist. © 2016 Renee Cox.
2. Black Pulp! at the International Print Center New York
Spanning over a century, “Black Pulp!” covers 21 black artists working from 1912 to 2016, including Kerry James Marshall, Pope.L, Alexandria Smith, and Renee Cox, among others. Curated by William Villalongo and Mark Thomas Gibson, the works are placed alongside “rare historical books, comics, newspapers, and related ephemera,” such as Alain LeRoy Locke’s The New Negro (1925) and Jackie Ormes’ comic strip Torchy in Heartbeats (1953).
Location: 508 West 26th Street, 5th floor
Price: Free
Time: Opening Thursday, October 6, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
—Kathleen Massara
Wednesday, October 5
Workers restoring the ceiling at the Rose Main Reading Room at the New York Public Library. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.
3. Reopening of the Rose Main Reading Room at the New York Public Library
One of New York city’s most stunning interior spaces will reopen this week after two years of repairs and restoration. The Rose Main Reading room was abruptly closed in May 2014, after a plaster rosette fell from the 52-foot-tall ceiling.
During the renovations to the ceiling, EverGreene Architectural Arts has also treated James Wall Finn’s 27-by-33 foot mural on the ceiling of the adjacent Bill Blass Public Catalog Room. The rooms are meant for research and studying, but the library will hold tours twice a day.
Location: New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
Price: Free
Time: Tours at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, October 6
Helen Toomer. Courtesy of PULSE Contemporary Art Fair/ Photographer: Emily Johnston.
4. Pulse Art Fair Presents “Leaning In: Olympics of the Art World”
Pulse director Helen Toomer will moderate a panel exploring the challenges and opportunities faced by women in the art world. Panelists include: Sarah Cascone, associate editor, artnet News; Marina Garcia-Vasquez, editor in chief, the Creators Project; Justine Ludwig, director of exhibitions, Dallas Contemporary; Bahia Ramos, arts program director, the Knight Foundation. A reception follows.
Location: 37 East 12th Street New York
Price: Free with RSVP necessary
Time: 6:30 p.m.–8:00 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Thursday, October 6–Sunday, January 8, 2017
Jean Honoré Fragonard, Rinaldo in the Enchanted Forest (circa 1763). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
5. “Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant: Works from New York Collections” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Too often seen as a preparatory stage for a more fully-realized work, drawings are masterpieces in their own right in the hands of French 18th-century artist Jean Honoré Fragonard. Nearly 100 works on paper, some being shown publicly for the first time, demonstrate his artistry and imagination, as well as his skill as a draftsman.
Location: Met Fifth Avenue, 1000 Fifth Avenue
Price: Suggested admission $25
Time: Sunday–Thursday, 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Friday–Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
September 13–Saturday, Oct 8
View of Paula Crown’s Freezing Rain(2016). Courtesy of PAHC Studio/ Photographer Javier Bosques.
6. Paula Crown “Freezing Rain” at Marlborough Gallery
This is the last week to catch Paula Crown’s show of new works at Marlborough Gallery. The small but powerful exhibit packs a punch, starting with the namesake Freezing Rain work, an eight-by-twelve foot installation that was conceived from photographs of rainstorms taken by the artist.
From printed digital images, she makes freehand drawings of individual rain drops, then used high-res scanners and software to enlarge and map the drawings. The resulting sculpture, comprised of hundreds of pieces of “Super Mirror” stainless steel suspended at intervals on invisible monofilament, mimics the image of a sheet of rain, frozen in time. The second body of work on view is “Anemos” or Greek for “wind.” In an attempt to represent the elemental force, the artist sculpts chain mesh into undulating forms that are frozen with invisible resin, heightening the dramatic effect.
Location: 40 West 57th Street
Price: Free
Time: Monday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Saturday, October 8
Courtesy of Skowhegan.
7. Symposium: What the Feminist Body Wants + Why Explicit?
This is one of five panel discussions being hosted by the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in honor of their alumna Ellen Cantor (1961–2013), who currently has work on view in four New York venues. “What the Feminist Body Wants” will explore the artist’s use of explicit sexuality.
The second half of the afternoon will be dedicated to artist Lorraine O’Grady‘s 1993 essay “Why Explicit?,” about the place of sexually-explicit work by female artists of color within the field of art.
Location: Skowhegan NY Program Space, 136 West 22nd Street
Price: Free
Time: 3:00–6:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Friday, September 9–Sunday, October 9
Doreen Garner, Full Body (2016). Courtesy of the artist.
8. Doreen Garner, “Removing the Veil: Vanity as Material for Incision” at Essex Flowers Gallery
Swing by before this exhibition closes this Sunday. Between Pearl Necklace, a silicone sculpture of a woman’s head blown off with pearl necklace intact, to Small, a severely bruised and unidentifiable organ caged and suspended from the ceiling, Doreen Garner’s exhibition, “Removing the Veil: Vanity as Material for Incision,” transforms expectations of beauty into grotesque sites of violence and exploitation.
“When you think about vanity, it’s very complicated—especially for women,” Kendra Jayne Patrick of Essex Flowers told artnet News over the phone. “I think the success here is that [Doreen Garner] has figured out a way to make work that is clearly punctuated. She packs these ideas into these objects, and clearly conveys them while still being beautiful.”
Location: 19 Monroe Street
Price: Free
Time: Saturdays and Sundays, 12:00–6:00 p.m.
—Rain Embuscado
Monday, September 17– Sunday, October 16
Elise Ferguson Grapevine (2016). Courtesy of the artist and 106 Green.
9. “Elise Ferguson “Flippity” at 106 Green
Inspired by mathematical puzzles and pattern variations, Brooklyn-based artist Elise Ferguson’s textural paintings expresses a new momentum towards modern painting. Her geometric works convey patterns in nature, via layers of pigmented plaster, suggesting an interest to illusionary space, color theory, and a fascination with materials. Make sure to check out “Flippity” before it closes on Oct 16th.
Location: 104 Green Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Sundays, 12:00–5:00 p.m and also by appointment.
—Kevin Umaña