Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Monday, April 3
Courtesy The Kitchen
1. Screening of Portrait of Alice Neel, 1976–1982 at the Kitchen
Portrait of Alice Neel, 1976-1982 is an intimate record by filmmaker Michel Auder. He and Neel became friends in 1975 when the artist was based on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. A close relationship developed and Auder frequently visited her. The film draws from his extensive footage of her, at home, painting, on vacation, and in public, presenting a charming, collective portrait of the artist and insight into her daily life.
Location: The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street
Price: $10 (Tickets are sold out. However, there will be a waiting list at the box office starting at 6 p.m.)
Time: 6:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Wednesday, April 5
Alexander Calder, Five Swords (1976). Courtesy of Storm King and Calder Foundation, NY.
2. Storm King Art Center reopens for the 2017 season
After a dreary winter, where the weather seemed to mirror general public malaise, green pastures and corten sculptures are in our future once again! Storm King—a sprawling 500-acre park in the Hudson Valley—is a reminder of the triumph of publicly supported art. New exhibitions will be unveiled later in the season, but for now visitors can enjoy the permanent collection, which includes over 100 works by artists including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alexander Calder, Andy Goldsworthy, Sol LeWitt, Maya Lin, and Richard Serra.
Location: Storm King Art Center, 1 Museum Road, New Windsor, NY 12553
Price: General admission is $18
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Wednesday, April 5
Michela Martello, Victim, , 2015. Photo courtesy Pen + Brush
3. “Pen and Brush Presents… Melissa Febos, Martha Cooley, and Gwen North Reiss” at Pen + Brush
Every month Pen + Brush, a leading gallery and arts foundation dedicated to the advancement of women in the arts, holds a reading series featuring the writings of established and emerging authors. For April, they present Melissa Febos, Gwen North Reiss, and Martha Cooley reading their works.
Location: 29 East 22nd Street
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.–9 p.m.
—Sarbani Ghosh
Thursday, April 6–Saturday, May 27
Cristina Camacho, Olivia (2016). Courtesy of Praxis.
4. “Cristina Camacho: Tracing the Out of Sight” at Praxis
Colombian-born, New York-based artist Cristina Camacho has an obsession with faces; an obsession that is clear in her upcoming exhibition, “Tracing the Out of Sight.” Her work proposes an encounter with the self, a rendezvous with a canvas whose painting and cutting (and name) transform it into something concrete and relatable.
Both “characters” and “skeletons” reveal a side which is often hidden to us but is also intrinsic to our essence. The moment you find yourself facing a work (pun intended), you are made to engage in a conversation that confronts us with the dichotomy of the piece’s intimacy and its public nature at the same time.
Location: 541 West 25th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Kiki Olmedo
Thursday, April 6–Saturday, May 6
Piers Secunda, “ISIS Bullet Hole Paintings.” Courtesy of Thomas Jaeckel Gallery.
5. “Piers Secunda: ISIS Bullet Hole Paintings” at Thomas Jaeckel Gallery
During a 2015 trip to Iraq, Piers Secunda Secunda visited villages that had been liberated from ISIS. The artist made direct casts of the bullet holes and other physical damage left behind by gunfire in walls and other structures.
Back in the studio, he inserted these gaping wounds into friezes and sculptures based on ancient Greek and Assyrian art, creating, according to the gallery statement, “a body of works that succeeds as both a record of the ravages of time—aided in this case by much human brutality—and as a meditation on how fleeting and fragile even our greatest cultural achievements really are.”
Location: Thomas Jaeckel Gallery, 532 West 25th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 12:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. or by appointment
—Sarah Cascone
William Cordova, Casco 2008
April 7–May 13
6. “Smoke Signals: Sculpting in Time” at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
Following his participation in the SITE Santa Fe Biennial in July, William Cordova (b. Lima, Peru 1971) returns to New York with further musings on spirituality, nature, and design. Cordova’s practice runs the gamut from large-scale installations to audio soundscapes—layering theory upon practice, combining ancient thought and technological innovation.
Location: 530 West 22nd Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Friday, April 7–Saturday, May 20
Imperial Guardian Lion Mystery Clock, 1929. Photo courtesy Cooper Hewitt Press Images
7. “Jeweled Splendors of the Art Deco Era: the Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan Collection” at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
See over 100 delicately made vanity cases, clocks, watches, and other luxury items that Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan gave as gifts to his wife, Catherine. The exhibition, opening in conjunction with “The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s,” is an amazing opportunity to see some of the most well-crafted design objects of the Art Deco Era. The boxes and vanity cases feature bright colors, exotic visual motifs, and precious stones, all pieces that would make any luxury-lover jealous.
Location: 2 East 91st Street
Price: $18, free for members
Time: 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Sunday–Friday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.
—Sarbani Ghosh
Saturday, April 8
BLACK 2015. Courtesy of Matte Projects.
8. BLACK by MATTE PROJECTS at Brooklyn Hanger
Billed as an amalgam of music, design and contemporary art, BLACK will feature works by Hubert Dobler, Coco Lab, Paolo Montiel, and Kyle McDonald and Jonas Jongejan, whose Light Leaks features beams of light projected off of 50 mirror balls.
In between musical acts including artist and musician Tommy Genesis (“the internet’s most rebellious underground rap queen”) and Irish DJ Max Cooper, there will be a “visual art intermission.” There’s also the chance for celebrity sightings, as Adrien Grenier, Emily Ratajkowski, and Zoe Kravitz have all attended past events in the BLACK series.
Location: Brooklyn Hanger, 2-52nd Street, Brooklyn
Price: $56
Time: 9 p.m.–5 a.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, April 8–Sunday, July 9
Samira Abbassy, Department of Nuclear Medicine (2015). Courtesy of the artist.
9. “Outcasts: Women in the Wilderness” at Wave Hill
“Women have long been treated and portrayed as outcasts, banished to a literal or symbolic wilderness on the fringes of the social order, whether for political, cultural or religious transgressions.” This sad fact is the organizing principle for Wave Hill’s new group exhibition, which pairs work by Nancy Spero (1926–2009) with works by a dozen female artists born in the 1960s and ’70s.
Location: Wave Hill, Glyndor Gallery, West 249th Street and Independence Avenue, Riverdale, Bronx
Price: $8
Time: 9 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
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