Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. See them below.

Monday, April 30

The artist Jason Moran in a work by Stan Dougals, Luanda-Kinshasa (2013). Photo © Stan Douglas, courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, NY.

1. “Jason Moran: Staged” at the Cooper Union
Pianist, composer, and artist Jason Moran will give free, public lecture as part of CU’s intra-disciplinary lecture series. Moran, who is currently the subject of a solo exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, is a jazz musician and performer whose collaborations with artists include Julie Mehretu, Kara Walker, Adam Pendleton, and Stan Douglas.

Location: Cooper Union’s Frederick P. Rose Auditorium at 41 Cooper Square
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.–8 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Monday, April 30–July 30

Nicholas Mangan, Ancient Lights (2015) detail. SculptureCenter, New York, 2018. Courtesy the artist; LABOR, Mexico City; Sutton Gallery, Melbourne; and Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland. Photo: Kyle Knodell.

2. “74 million million million tons” at the SculptureCenter
A group show featuring 10 international artists, who each approach sculpture as a conceptual term for accumulating information, intercepting ideas, and creating work that re

flects upon it. Artists include Shadi Habib Allah, George Awde, Carolina Fusilier, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Hiwa K, Nicholas Mangan, Sean Raspet and Nonfood, Susan Schuppli, Daniel R. Small, and Hong-Kai Wang.

Location: SculptureCenter, 44-19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens
Price: $5 suggested donation for entry
Time: Thursday–Monday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Wednesday, May 2–August 19

Aaron Fowler, Black Flag (2015). Courtesy of the artist and the Rubell Family Collection.

3. “Aaron Fowler: Bigger Than Me” at the New Museum
Aaron Fowler is quickly ascending the ranks of contemporary artists to watch. His work is marked by a painterly approach to collaging found materials. With a solo show opening at the New Museum, he is conquering the East Coast, and in June he’ll be a part of the biennial exhibition “Made in L.A.” at the Hammer Museum.

Location: New Museum, 235 Bowery
Price: $18 general admission
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein 

Wednesday, May 2–Sunday, May 13

Rebecca Leveille, Peacocks (2018). Courtesy of the artist and Untitled Space.

4. “Rebecca Leveille: The End of Love” at Untitled Space
Leveille’s paintings employ formal techniques of artists whose work she admires, from Fragonard’s cotton-candy-colored Rococo paintings to the loose brushstrokes of contemporary artists like Eric Fischl and John Currin.

Location: Untitled Space, 45 Lispenard Street Unit 1W
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Tuesday, May 1, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; open daily, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Thursday, May 3–October 28

Stanley Kubrick’s photographs for Look magazine. Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York.

5. “Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs” at the Museum of the City of New York
Fifty years after Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Museum of the City of New York is giving fans a glimpse at the young Kubrick’s highly cinematic eye. As a photographer for Look magazine from age 17 to 22, he captured the denizens of New York City, infusing the still photographs with a dramatic intensity that eventually became the cornerstones of his films.

Location: Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street
Price: Suggested admission, $18
Time: Open daily, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Friday, May 4–October 21

Eliza Douglas, In My Dream (2017). Image courtesy of Air de Paris, Paris. Photograph by Ivan Murzin.

6. “Eliza Douglas” at the Jewish Museum
For a commission in the lobby of the Jewish Museum, Eliza Douglas has a series paying tribute to her great-grandmother Dorothy Wolff Douglas. The elder Douglas was a respected professor and chair of economics at Smith College before the politics of the McCarthy era and anti-communist panic cast her and her life partner, scholar Katherine DuPre Lumpkin, as “un-American.” In the series, the legacy of Douglas’s great-grandmother is held in the noodle-like embrace of a cartoonishly long arm that follows the canvases frame.

Location: The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street
Price: $18 general admission, pay what you wish Thursdays, 5 p.m.–8 p.m.; Saturdays, free
Time: Saturday–Tuesday, 11 a.m.–5:45 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m.–4 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Saturday, May 5

“Bring Down The Walls.” Vocalist Patrick Gordon during a project recording session in NYC. Photo: Siniša Mitrović. Courtesy of Creative Time.

7. “Bring Down the Walls” at the Firehouse, Engine Company 31

Every Saturday this month, Creative Time will host a series of collaborative events meant to combat mass incarceration through activist education and raucous celebrations. “Bring Down the Walls” sees the organization teaming with The Fortune Society and Turner Prize-nominated artist Phil Collins to stage events using house music as a tool for change. Afternoon programs will include panel discussions and workshops for mind-expansion, while nighttime festivities turn to DJs and performers for release. The first edition features an in-depth daytime look at the prison-industrial complex’s tangled roots, before Soul Summit Music—the masterminds behind Fort Greene’s annual Soul Summit Music Festival—take over from dark to dawn. In the immortal words of James Brown: Get up, get into it, get involved.

Location: The Firehouse, Engine Company 31, 87 Lafayette Street (between Walker and White Streets)
Price: Free; advance registration recommended
Time: School for Radical Thought (all ages), 2 p.m.–9 p.m.; Nightclub (ages 21 & up): 10 p.m. Saturday– 6 a.m. Sunday

—Tim Schneider

Saturday, May 5

Installation view of Sarah Peters’s “Figureheads” at Van Doren Waxter.

8. “Sarah Peters: Artist Talk” at Van Doren Waxter
Contemporary artists including EJ Hauser, Jennifer Coates, and Sarah Peters—whose solo show “Figureheads” is on view at Van Doren Waxter’s downtown outpost—will be speaking with writer Dan Nadel.

Location: Van Doren Waxter, 195 Chrystie Street
Price: Free
Time: 4 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Saturday, May 5 

Doug Argue, Footfalls Echo in the Memory (2017). Courtesy of the artist and Marc Straus Gallery.

9. “Doug Argue” Gallery Show & Artist Talk with Donald Kuspit at Marc Straus Gallery
Art critic Donald Kuspit will be in conversation with artist Doug Argue, on the occasion of Argue’s first solo show with the gallery. Argue’s large-scale paintings begin with universally recognizable images and scenes of iconic artworks—Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon, for instance—but with a veil of abstracted letters superimposed on top.

Doug Argue’s solo show at Marc Straus is on view through May 20. 

Location: 299 Grand Street
Price: Free
Time: Artist talk, 3 p.m.; Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein