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 5
IV Castellanos. Photo by Nina Isabelle.
1. “Sexual Justice Symposium” at the New School, New York
As part of its 2021 Gender Matters Symposium, the New School’s Gender & Sexualities Studies Institute is staging a panel on sex, power, and justice with an emphasis on intersectional art and activism. The speakers are artist Christen Clifford, writer Masha Tupitsyn, and curator Jasmine Wahi of the Bronx Museum of the Arts and Project for Empty Space in Newark. Artists IV Castellanos and Ayana Evans will also perform, with appearances by artists Spandita Malik and Lauren Gregory.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Monday, April 5–Saturday, April 10
2. “Meta vs. Crypto”
In what seems like an inevitable development, this virtual event is pretty much an NFT art fair, with 30 galleries selling digital art—available for purchase in dollars and cryptocurrency—on the blockchain. (The event’s full name “META_VS: A CRYPTO ART EXPERIENCE IN 3 METAVERSES.”) Three separate virtual worlds have been built to present work by over 50 artists, with an opening party hosted by Bootsy Collins. Accompanying Clubhouse programming will include a Monday night talk with newly minted NFT legend Beeple, and a Tuesday conversation about crypto art history and the Rare Pepe NFT that made headlines at the first-ever major NFT auction back in 2018 with a then-record $39,000 sale. The event is also accompanied by an NFT debut on MakersPlace featuring street artists from the popular traveling exhibition “Beyond the Streets.”
Price: Free
Time: On view daily at all times
—Sarah Cascone
Tuesday, April 6
Jordan Casteel. Photo by David Schulze.
3. “Painting Portraits: A Conversation with Jordan Casteel” at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York
As part of the programming for “David Hockney: Drawing from Life” (through May 30), the Morgan presents a conversation about portraiture with Jordan Casteel—known for her stunning large-scale paintings of Black men and women, many of whom she encountered on the street—and Isabelle Dervaux, the museum’s curator of Modern and contemporary drawings.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 5 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, April 7
The conversation is part of the Bass’s “Curator Culture” series.
4. “Recovering Black History” at the Bass, Miami Beach, and the Studio Museum, Harlem
Performer and Hamilton alumnus Leslie Odom, Jr., musician and author Questlove, and author and editor Jessica Harris will gather together to discuss how their work champions, recontextualizes, and preserves Black narratives. The conversation, which will be held on the Bass Museum’s YouTube Channel, is presented by the Bass and the Studio Museum in Harlem and moderated by the Bass’s own Tom Healy.
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 6 p.m.
—Julia Halperin
Wednesday, April 7–Monday, November 8
Rashid Johnson, The Crisis (2019) installation view at Storm King Art Center, courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Stephanie Powell, courtesy of Storm King Art Center.
5. “Rashid Johnson: The Crisis” at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York
Beloved outdoor sculpture park Storm King opens for the season with Rashid Johnson’s site-specific installation of a 16-foot-tall, yellow pyramidal steel structure titled The Crisis amid a field of native grasses. “When I was making this work in 2019, there was so much talk about a ‘crisis at the border’—but now, in 2021, there is even more at stake,” the artist said in a statement. “The world has endured a year of struggle defined by the global pandemic, compounded by ongoing social unrest. My presentation at Storm King prompts us to reflect on how we move through our own daily lives as the world around us continues in crisis.”
Location: Storm King, 1 Museum Road, New Windsor, New York
Price: Per vehicle admission, starting with $20 for one person
Time: Spring hours Wednesday–Monday, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Friday, April 9
Tracey Robertson Carter, co-chair of Artist In-Residence in Everglades (AIRIE). Photo courtesy of Art Funders Forum.
6. “Art x Climate Change” at the Art Funders Forum
For the latest event in its “Remake the Model” virtual conversation series, the Art Funder Forum is partnering with EXPO Chicago to answer one of the most pressing questions facing the art world: “How can cultural philanthropy help solve climate change?” Tracey Robertson Carter, co-chair of Artist In-Residence in Everglades (AIRIE), and Sarah Sutton of the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative will speak with Art Funders Forum founders Sean McManus and Melissa Cowley Wolf about how artists are increasing awareness of climate change and helping inspire philanthropists to invest money into fighting it.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 12 p.m. CDT
—Sarah Cascone
Through Saturday, May 1
Jotham Malavé Maldonado,
El loco (Visiones del Cerro), 2019. Courtesy of Anna Zorina Gallery.
7. “The Privilege of Getting Together” at Anna Zorina, New York
Anna Zorina Gallery is hosting part 2 of Regular Normal’s 2020 group show, “The Privilege of Getting Together.” Curator Danny Baez has organized an amazing line-up of 15 artists, including Danielle de Jesus, Estelle Maisonett, Jotham Malavé Maldonado, and Miguel Payano. Each artist addresses themes of community and relationships in the age of Covid.
Location: Anna Zorina Gallery, 532 W 24th St, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday: 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Cristina Cruz
Through Sunday, April 25
Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack, Kings Blue (I’ll Be Seeing You), 2020. Courtesy of Alyssa Davis Gallery.
8. “Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack: Domesticity Forgotten: The Art of Assemblage ” at Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York
Alyssa Davis Gallery has extended Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack’s solo show, “Domesticity Forgotten: The Art of Assemblage,” through April 25. The show presents sculptural installations (which the artist calls “conceptual performance assemblages”) and photographs, some of the artist’s performances. You can see more of Gaitor-Lomack’s found-object sculptures at Lyles & King through May 2.
Location: Alyssa Davis Gallery, 2 Cornelia Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: By appointment
—Cristina Cruz
Saturday, May 8
Emily Marie Miller, Envy in the Wings (2021). Courtesy of Monya Rowe.
9. “Emily Marie Miller: If I Cannot Bend the Gods Above, Then I Will Move the Infernal Regions” at Monya Rowe, New York
In new large-scale works, painter Emily Marie Miller depicts a fantastical, nighttime world filled only with women in theatrically staged scenarios engaging in various erotic entanglements. Partly inspired by Liz Greene’s 1996 book The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption, Miller reimagines the Neptunian archetype’s desire to return to a worldly paradise within these images of seeming abandon. The women that populate these scenes appear slightly blurred, as though hazily recalled in a dream, and it seems possible that just one protagonist appears multiplied again and again. Allusions to fairy tales and films reverberate—a reappearing pair of scarlet slippers bring to mind the 1948 technicolor film The Red Shoes, while the stage-like interior scenes call to mind choreographed ballets, particularly Giselle. Humming with dark blues and burning reds, the paintings are a kind of one-woman burlesque, performed primarily for oneself and to delightfully lurid effect.
Location: Monya Rowe, 224 West 30th Street, #1005, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.– 6 p.m.
—Katie White
Through Sunday, May 16
Nicholas Galanin, Never Forget. North of the Palm Springs Visitors Center at Tramway Road. Courtesy Desert X.
10. “Desert X 2021” at various locations, Coachella Valley, California
The latest edition of this sprawling mega-show, which takes place in the great outdoors of the Coachella Valley in California, picks up where the latest editions left off. The show is organized by Desert X artistic director Neville Wakefield and co-curator César García-Alvarez and includes works by artists such as Nicholas Galanin, whose Hollywood-like sign reminds viewers about whose land it really is; Judy Chicago, whose fireworks offer a stunning and colorful display; and Alicja Kwade, whose powerful, sometimes difficult works combine industrial materials with biomorphic forms. Timed tickets can be reserved for those who are interested.
Location: Various locations, Coachella Valley, California
Price: Free
Time: Sunrise to sunset, Monday through Sunday
—Nan Stewert
Through Sunday, July 11
Lillian Bassman, A Report to Skeptics, Suzy Parker, April 1952, Harper’s Bazaar. Gelatin silver print. Collection of Eric and Lizzie Himmel, New York. © Estate of Lillian Bassman. Image via The Jewish Museum.
11. “Modern Look: Photography and the American Magazine” at the Jewish Museum, New York
Dive into the world of the mid-century American magazine with the Jewish Museum’s latest show honoring the legacy of postwar avant-garde design. As artists and designers were forced out of Europe during the war, many of them landed in America, bringing with them an “unmistakable aesthetic” that marked the pages of magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Featuring photographs, layouts, covers, and more from the archives of designers and photographers like Richard Avedon, Lillian Bassman, Margaret Bourke-White, Gordon Parks, and Paul Rand, the show shapes up to be a print lover’s dream.
Location: The Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave, New York
Price: $18 for adults
Time: Monday 11 a.m.–4 p.m., Thursday 11 a.m–8 p.m., Friday–Sunday 11 a.m.–4 p.m.
—Katie Rothstein