Each week, we search for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events, both digitally and in-person in the New York area. See our picks from around the world below. (Times are all ET unless otherwise noted.)

Wednesday, April 27

Image courtesy IFAR.

1. “Ukrainian Cultural Heritage: What’s Damaged; Destroyed; Documented; and Being Done,” at the International Foundation for Art Research, New York

In addition to the tragic toll the Russian invasion of Ukraine has taken on human life, there have been significant attacks on cultural heritage. Experts will discuss what’s imperiled in Ukraine, and what initiatives could help; a Q&A session will follow the talks. IFAR executive director Sharon Flescher will serve as host and moderator of the panel, which includes art historian and journalist Konstantin Akinsha; director at the Museum of Books and Printing of Ukraine Valentyna Bochkovska; co-founder of Saving Ukranian Cultural Heritage Online Quinn Dombrowski; president and CEO of the World Monuments Fund Bénédicte de Montlaur; and director of the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative Corine Wegener.

Price: Free with registration
Time: 2 p.m.

—Eileen Kinsella

Thursday, April 28–Saturday, June 4

Catherine Haggarty, We got Natural Light Here, 2022 Courtesy of Geary Contemporary and the artist

2. “Catherine Haggarty: Living” at Geary Contemporary, New York

Don’t miss Brooklyn-based painter Catherine Haggarty’s first solo show at Geary Contemporary this week. In something of a departure from her abstract style, the paintings and works on paper in this show consist of figurative elements that give an “honest and fractured view” of her life since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a statement. She depicts scenes from her bedroom where light and shadows play, which have the distinct effect of inviting the viewer inside her intimate space, which she fills with personal references to art history, psychology, grief, and loss experienced during this time.

Location: Geary Contemporary, 208 Bowery, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening Reception, Thursday, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.

—Neha Jambhekar

Robyn O’Neil, American Animals (2022). Photo courtesy of Susan Inglett, New York.

3. “Robyn O’Neil: American Animals” at Susan Inglett Gallery, New York

Emilie Louise Gossiaux, London, Midsummer, 2022. (2022). Image courtesy the artist and Mother.

4. “Emilie Louise Gossiaux: Significant Otherness” at Mother Gallery, New York

This marks the second solo show for artist Emilie Louise Gossiaux with the gallery, and it features recent sculptures and drawings that explore interspecies bonds between humans and nonhumans. Since losing her vision in 2010, Gossiaux’s altered perceptions of the world have inspired her practice, including the ways she experiences sight through dreams, memories, and verbal descriptions. Her work was included in the most recent version of “Greater New York” at  MoMA PS1. See her recent project for “Open Call” at The Shed here.

Location: Mother Gallery, 368 Broadway #415, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Eileen Kinsella

Friday, April 29

Installation view, “Sam Bornstein, Variety Loft”, 2022, at Charles Moffett. Courtesy of the artist.

5. Poetry Reading at Charles Moffett, New York

This Friday, artist Sam Bornstein and poet Mary Reilly are hosting a poetry reading at downtown gallery Charles Moffett to coincide with Sam Bornstein’s exhibition “Variety Lofts.” In the spirit of Bornstein’s childhood growing up in New York City among creatives, the salon-style evening will feature works by MC Hyland, Chukwuma Ndulue, Dorothea Lasky, and Suzanne Goldenberg.

Location: Charles Moffett Gallery, 431 Washington Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.–8 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Friday, April 29

Emily Oliveira, We Are At a Moment That Will Be Remembered as the Beginning of the Great Change, For Who Can Say When a Wall Is Ready To Come Down Courtesy of BRIC.

6. “Artist Talk: Emily Oliveira with BRIC curator Jenny Gerow” at Prospect Park, Brooklyn

BRIC Contemporary Art presents artist Emily Oliveria in conversation with BRIC curator Jenny Gerow. Oliveira will be discussing the creative processes and influences behind her new mural at the Lena Horne Bandshell at Prospect Park, which spirals from the center of the bandshell and depicts figures, insects, and goddesses in striking color and detail.

Location: Lena Horne Bandshell, Prospect Park
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: Friday, 5 p.m.–7 p.m.

—Neha Jambhekar

Through Saturday, April 30

Nathan Ng Catlin, TO HAVE LIVED AND TO HAVE SUFFERED IN SOME ONE BESIDES MYSELF (2022). Courtesy of Davidson Gallery.

7. “Nathan Ng Catlin: What Goes on Behind a Windowpane” at Davidson Gallery, New York

Two years ago, going outside felt perilous. Locked in our own little lazarettos, windows offered an aperture through which we might view the wider world, so eerily empty, so fraught with invisible threat.

Windows are everywhere in Nathan Ng Catlin’s new exhibition at Davidson Gallery, a show that evokes the uncertainty of that moment. Embedded in the artist’s painted, black-and-white scenes of domesticity and nature are colored stained-glass panes—each a membrane through which we’re offered a small glimpse of another space.

In Beyond the Waves of Rooftops (2022), for instance, a group of tree-perched magpies look in on the home of a silhouetted couple. In Are You Sure Your Story Is the Real One (2022), the perspective is flipped and we see, from the vantage point of a man reading at home, the birds outside in the distance.

The titles of both of those artworks—like the name of Catlin’s exhibition—reference Charles Baudelaire’s 19th-century poem Windows. “He who looks out at the world from an open window never sees as many things as he who looks at a closed window,” the poem begins, suggesting a message about perspective. But the piece ends on a more solipsistic note: “What does it matter what reality dwells outside of me, if the story helps me live, helps me feel that I am and what I am?”

Location: Davidson Gallery, 521 West 26th St., New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday,11 a.m.–5 p.m.

—Taylor Dafoe

Through Sunday, May 1

Mosie Romney, No Parking (2022). Courtesy of Gern en Regalia.

8. “Mosie Romney: Old, Used & New” at Gern en Regalia, New York

Gern en Regalia presents a solo exhibition of Queens-based artist Mosie Romney. The show consists of paintings and sculptures that bring together Romney’s use of spiritual elements. According to the gallery statement, “their work stems from visions and utilizes talismans and archival imagery. It encompasses painting and poetry and finding the connectivity between the two.”

Location: Gern en Regalia, 246 East 4th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, 1 p.m.–6 p.m. and by appointment

—Neha Jambhekar

Through Thursday, May 12

Hend Samir, Hide and Seek (2020–2022).

9. “Hend Samir: Hide and Seek” at Harkawik, New York 

Egyptian-born emerging artist Hend Samir’s first New York exhibition, “Hide and Seek” with Harkawik, brings together a group of her characteristically turbulent, yet decadent, paintings in which interior worlds are seemingly frozen in a moment of perpetual collapse. Ornate architectural spaces or structures often anchor the works, providing structure amid the tempest of her brushwork. Women, men, and most frequently children occupy these vignettes, which seem to flow one into the next in a whirlwind of energy. Chaotic energy tends to permeate Samir’s canvases, hinting at a kind of trauma, yet, the details of the images don’t depict moments of chaos but playfulness, idleness, and sex, hinting perhaps at the dailiness of the experience of societal collapse.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is Hide and Seek (2020–2022), a 17-foot canvas showing an ambiguous scene of children rollicking through a sprawling yellow and black interior space, which is oddly reminiscent of a medieval Renaissance painting in which multiple narrative episodes can be read simultaneously across one canvas. 

Location: Harkawik, 30 Orchard Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Katie White