Each week, we search for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. In light of the global health crisis, we are currently highlighting events in person and digitally, as well as in-person exhibitions open in the New York area. See our picks from around the world below. (Times are all EST unless otherwise noted.)
Monday, April 19–Sunday, May 9
Julius von Bismarck’s Irma To Come In Earnest (2017). Courtesy the artist and Alexander Levy, Berlin.
1. Daata Fair
One year in, it turns out that digital art platforms tend to work best when they are tightly curated and highly focused. In this sense, the online-only fair Daata, which is about to have its third edition with a small group of galleries showing digital and video art, has always been promising. This round, it features Berlin’s Esther Schipper (showing work by Rosa Barba) and London’s Pilar Corrias (showing Mary Reid Kelley), among others. The event kicks off with an intriguing webinar that sets out to demystify digital art collecting, featuring Julia Stoschek and Zoe Whitley among the speakers.
Price: Free with registration
Time: On view daily at all times
—Kate Brown
Tuesday, April 20
Provenance Research Today: Principles, Practice, Problems by Arthur Tompkins. Photo courtesy of Lund Humphries.
2. “Provenance Research: Where Scholarship Meets Diligence” at the International Foundation For Art Research
This IFAR conference on the importance of provenance—both as a confirmation of attribution and as a way to identify rightful owners—celebrates the publication of its new book by Arthur Tompkins, Provenance Research Today: Principles, Practice, Problems. Three of the evening’s six speakers contributed to the publication, which will be available for 30 percent off to conference attendees.
Price: $10
Time: 5 p.m.–6:45 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Tuesday, April 19—Sunday, June 20
Installation view of “Unbroken: Cross Currents and Contemporary Time,” at ArtEmerge. Image courtesy of ArtEmerge.
3. “Unbroken: Cross Currents and Contemporary Time” at ArtEmerge
This is the inaugural exhibition for ArtEmerge, one of the first artist-owned virtual galleries for under-recognized artists. ArtEmerge is motivated by a range of factors including lack of gallery representation, art fair cancellations, and shuttered physical galleries. The first show, curated by Jennifer Chi, explores the concept of time and its multiplicity of meanings. It includes recent works by Justin Garcia and paintings by Todd Williamson, who is co-founder of ArtEmerge.
Price: Free
Time: On view daily at all times
—Eileen Kinsella
Wednesday, April 21
Aaron Gilbert, Nightshift b15 (2020). Courtesy of P.P.O.W.
4. “‘1981–2021‘ Panel Discussion” at P.P.O.W., New York
As part of the gallery’s current show of works by contemporary Brooklyn painter Aaron Gilbert and the late artist Martin Wong, P.P.O.W. is hosting a Zoom talk with Gilbert, scholar and curator Rich Blint, and graffiti artist Chris Daze Ellis, a close friend of Wong’s. The exhibition draws parallels between Wong and Gilbert’s experiences living in New York through the AIDS crisis, and the current pandemic.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 5 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Marie-Denise Villers, Young Woman Drawing (1801). The painting was the cover image on ARTnews for the 1971 publication of Linda Nochlin’s article “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
5. “50th Anniversary of Linda Nochlin’s “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” at the Museum of Modern Art
MoMA hosts a virtual forum on critic Linda Nochlin’s groundbreaking essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” published in ARTnews in 1971. On the occasion of the article’s 50th anniversary, Roxana Marcoci, the museum’s senior photography curator, and Julia Trotta, a filmmaker, curator, and writer, will look at the barriers to art world success that women have historically faced, and the recent effects of the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements. Speakers include artists Ming Smith, Legacy Russell, and Zoe Leonard; Myriam Ben Salah, executive director of Chicago’s Renaissance Society; and Wanda Nanibush, curator of Indigenous art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, among others.
Price: Free for MoMA members
Time: 1:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, April 22
Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver.
6. “NFTs: WTF?” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver
If you’re wondering how NFTs fit into art history instead of just this manic moment in the market, you can find answers in this virtual talk between MCA Denver director Nora Burnett Abrams and renowned blockchain researcher Amy Whitaker of NYU’s Steinhardt School. The duo will discuss NFTs’ relationship with early strains of conceptual art, past art-market boom-and-bust cycles, and potentially radical redefinitions of what producing and consuming artwork could mean in the future.
Price: Pay what you want
Time: 7:30 p.m.
—Tim Schneider
Najja Moon, Your Momma’s Voice in the Back of your Head. Photo by Zaire Kacz, courtesy of The Bass, Miami Beach.
7. “A Conversation With Najja Moon” at the Bass, Miami Beach
Art Mamas Alliance founders Helen Toomer and Katy Donoghue will lead this Zoom conversation with artist Najja Moon about her new public artwork at the Bass in Miami Beach, which is the museum’s inaugural “New Monuments” commission (up through January 2022). The iridescent dichroic glass sculpture, titled Your Momma’s Voice in the Back of your Head, features an audio component of recordings of the artist’s mother and family members, as well as local residents, offering both advice and admonitions to their children.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 8 p.m.–9 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Adrienne Raquel, Where Dreams Lie (2020). Photo courtesy of Fotografiska, New York.
8. “Adrienne Raquel, ONYX Preview & Discussion with Nandi Howard” at Fotografiska
For the opening of her show “Adrienne Raquel: ONYX” (on view through September 26), Adrienne Raquel will speak with editor Nandi Howard about photographing Black women working at the Onyx strip club in Houston. The photos seek to break accepted stereotypes about exotic dancing by creating intimate and glamorous portraits of women that celebrate both their vulnerabilities and strengths. “I wanted these photographs to reflect an enticing, timeless, bold visual style—all while capturing the essence of each entertainer from an empowered, artful perspective,” Raquel said in her artist’s statement.
Location: Fotografiska, 281 Park Ave South at 22nd Street, New York
Price: $34
Time: 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Friday, April 23
Architect David Adjaye at the 2019 Venice Biennale, May 9, 2019. Photo by Simone Padovani/Awakening Getty Images.
9. “Rome Prize Ceremony” at the American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome announces its 2021–22 Rome Prize winners, a select group of artists and scholars given the opportunity to pursue their work together in community in Rome. The virtual program will include architect David Adjaye in conversation with AAR director Avinoam Shalem.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 1 p.m.
—Nan Stewert
Friday, April 23—Friday, April 30
A Shaker knitted rectangular rug (circa 1890) attributed to Sister Elvira Curtis Hulett. Image courtesy of David Schorsch and Eileen Smiles, Woodbury, Connecticut.
The latest virtual version of the annual antique, art, and design show features more than 50 exhibitors with themed rooms and selections from VIPs along with enhanced search capabilities.
Price: Free
Time: On view daily at all times
—Eileen Kinsella
Through Sunday, May 16
Danielle McKinney, Face Mask with Prayer (2021). Courtesy of Fortnight Institute.
11. “Danielle McKinney: Saw My Shadow” at Fortnight Institute, New York
Self-possessed might be the best word to describe the women in Danielle’s McKinney’s new paintings now on view at Fortnight Institute’s new East Village space. Here, women appear by themselves in enclosed domestics spaces. Their gazes are unhurried and languid, as though they gaze into some space beyond, or, as the exhibition title suggests, their own shadows. Small touches make these works captivating—hot pink painted nails, a gold chain with a crucifix dangling between palms, a piece of sliced fruit. As Asiya Wadud writes in the exhibition text, “The long, slow focus splays time and diminishes any possible urgency. The figures’ gaze rests just beyond us and in their own way, they each seem to say I take my time.”
Location: Fortnight Institute, 21 East 3rd Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Thursday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Katie White