Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. In light of the global health crisis, we are currently highlighting events 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.)
Tuesday, August 11
Stacy Lynn Waddell, Untitled (self-portrait under COVID 19 quarantine reflecting on my time as a graduate) (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Showfields.
Brooklyn Museum curator Carmen Hermo has put together a selection of accessibly priced artworks that “entangles the sublime with the everyday” to be offered on the Showfields website. This Tuesday, Hermo will participate in a live streaming talk about the sale, and for each person who tunes in, $1 will be donated to The Campaign Against Hunger, along with 10 percent of all sales. The artworks offered are largely priced under $1,000 and include mesmerizing burned paper and graphite drawings by Stacy Lynn Waddell, ceramics by Jamila Goods, and Rodolfo Marron III’s shrine-like mixed-media works.
Time: 5 p.m.
Price: Free
— Katie White
Through Tuesday, August 11
American photographer Robert Frank holding a pre-war Leica camera, 1954. Photo: Fred Stein Archive/Archive Photos/Getty Images.
2. “Don’t Blink—Robert Frank” at the National Gallery of Art
This 82-minute film on the American photographer Robert Frank was made by his colleague, Lauren Israel, in 2016, around the time that Frank turned 90. (The artist died in 2019, at age 94.) The movie, which includes musical contributions by Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones, benefits from Frank’s relationship with Israel, around whom he was able to relax and open up about his career and working sensibility. In all, it offers an honest portrait of an artist who is widely credited with altering the history of his medium.
Price: Free
Time: Streaming
—Pac Pobric
Wednesday, August 12
Left: Zina Saro-Wiwa/Mangrove Arts Foundation, right: Barbara London.
3. “Barbara London Calling,” a new podcast series
For the first in MoMA veteran Barbara London‘s new 12-part podcast series, the founding curator of the museum’s video program features two interviews: the first is with Berlin-based artist Anri Sala and the second is with Los Angeles-based Zina Saro-Wiwa. Podcasts will feature roughly 40-minute conversations with some of the world’s leading artists engaged with media technology and will be released biweekly via Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Price: Free
Time: Streaming
—Eileen Kinsella
Paul Chan. Courtesy of the Hirshhorn.
4. Paul Chan with Marina Isgro at The Hirshhorn
“I don’t know the future. I’m not here to tell you how this is all going to end. It may not. I came to tell you that what is new in art is a reminder of what is worth renewing in life.” This was the bestowal that the artist Paul Chan had for a group of Hunter College MFA students at the end of April. (His talk was subsequently transcribed in 4Columns.) Chan, who is as adept a writer as he is an artist, has been a surprising source of reassurance since the pandemic took hold earlier this year, preaching the good word of art—and metaphysics, aesthetics, and ancient Greek literature—as a means of thinking through this historical moment. On Wednesday, he’ll join Hirshhorn associate curator of media and performance art Marina Isgro for a Zoom talk on this topic and the trajectory of his recent work. Advanced registration required.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 12 p.m.–1 p.m.
—Tanner West
Thursday, August 13
Isabel Lewis. Courtesy of Pedro Ferreira.
5. Isabel Lewis and Lucia Pietrousti on Sensory Studies for Social Innovation
For the second episode of E-WERK’s new conversation series “The Artist as Consultant,” Berlin-based artist Isabel Lewis will be speaking with the curator of General Ecology at the Serpentine Galleries, Lucia Pietrousti. “Sensory Studies for Social Innovation” is part of a talks program aims to reorganize the current “top-down art world system” that has artists on the lowest rung under curators, directors, and other stakeholders. Artists are invited in these talks to hold cultural practitioners accountable for deep-rooted hierarchies in the art industry.
Price: Free, streaming online here
Time: 1 p.m.
—Kate Brown
Mina Cheon. Photo courtesy of the artist.
6. “Talking Dreams: Instagram Live Session 3 With Mina Cheon” at the Asia Society, New York
The Asia Society Triennial has been delayed, but it is continuing its series of Instagram Live talks with Korean new media artist Mina Cheon, who will give viewers a tour of K-Town Studios in Baltimore, which is home to numerous artists and creative nonprofits.
Price: Free
Time: 3 p.m.–4 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, August 13–Sunday, August 23
Mural by Scooter LaForge, photo: Bob Krasner. Courtesy of Howl Happening.
7. “Bringing Back Bowery: Public Art as Protest” at Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project
Once upon a time, streets along the Bowery and throughout the East Village were covered in colorful street art, often referencing political or social issues, and using art as a form of activism. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, a new generation of protest art has emerged around the city, with artists using plywood as their canvas even as the storefronts behind it remain closed for the pandemic. This show, curated by Sono Kuwayama, Bob Holman, and Howl! Happening is billed as a “re-presentation” of the works that emerged in solidarity, mourning, and celebration of racial equality and reform.
Location: 6 East 1st Street; registration upon entry along with temperature check and face masks required
Price: Free
Time: Thursday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; limited entry to 10 people at a time
—Caroline Goldstein
Friday, August 14—Sunday, November 29
In Queens, a man asks people passing by for financial help. Photo credit: Kay Hickman.
8. “Hope Wanted: New York City Under Quarantine” at the New-York Historical Society
What could be more appropriate right now than a free outdoor exhibition documenting the experiences of New Yorkers across the five boroughs during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic? Curated by writer Kevin Powell and photographer Kay Hickman, the show features more than 50 photographs by Hickman and 12 audio interviews with the photographs’ subjects conducted by Powell, gathered during the team’s intensive two-day journey across the city in early April. The exhibition takes place in the museum’s rear courtyard, providing an open-air environment for visitors to view the exhibition.
Location: The rear courtyard of the museum at West 76th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue
Price: Free
Time: Thursday (age 65+ and immunocompromised only) 11 a.m.–5 p.m.; Friday 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Saturday August 15
Andrea Mastrovito’s at Magazzino Italian Art.
9. Andrea Mastrovito’s I Am Not Legend, Drive-In Film, Cinema in Piazza at Magazzino Italian Art
Magazzino, the center for Arte Povera and other Italian art in Cold Spring, New York, is screening Andrea Mastrovito’s new animated feature film I Am Not Legend at its own drive-in theater, with the $30 ticket sales benefiting the nonprofit RxART. Although tickets are already sold out for the drive-in event, Magazzino is also hosting an online screening of the film, which is loosely based on George Romero’s cult hit Night of the Living Dead, this Saturday. An interview with Mastrovito about the film will also be released at the same time.
Price: Free online, though donations to the nonprofit RxART encouraged
Time: 8 p.m.–10 p.m.
—Nan Stewert
Through Sunday, September 13
Frank Jones, Untitled, ca. 1964. Courtesy of Shrine.
10. “Frank Jones: 114591” at Shrine
If you’re prepared to return to IRL gallery-going, put this solo show by the late self-taught artist Frank Jones on your itinerary. Orphaned, saddled with an optical disability, and raised without schooling in Clarksville, Texas in the early 20th century, Jones died in 1969 after several years spent in prison for crimes that some officials believed he did not commit. During his incarceration, he drew hundreds of intricate and powerful visions of “haints” (or haunts)—his term for supernatural beings—and the “devil houses” they would try to tempt him to enter. The show takes its title from Jones’s inmate number, which he used to sign his work for years until learning to write his name in the latter chapters of his life. The exhibition is a vivid yet captivating reminder that our personal demons don’t leave us alone even in times of external crisis.
Location: 179 East Broadway
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, noon–6 p.m. and by appointment; mask required
—Tim Schneider
Through Sunday, September 13
11. “Brandi Twilley: No Living” at Sargent’s Daughters
To celebrate the re-opening of its physical gallery space, the Lower East Side mainstay Sargent’s Daughters is picking up where it left off in the mid-March shutdown, when Twilley’s show was originally set to open. The exhibition, which marks her third solo show at the gallery and her first set of paintings set in New York City, features a series of oil paintings and a collage wall of oil-on-canvas sketches, all depicting the artist’s early years living in New York City studios. Upon her arrival to Manhattan in 2012, Twilley, short on cash, moved into an art studio rather than an apartment. The Craigslist ad for the studio space stated: “No Living.” It was 120 square feet with no shower, kitchen, or private bathroom. Twilley bathed at the gym, microwaved her meals, and hid from her landlord. In the beginning, she thought living in her studio would be temporary, but it went on for years, studio after studio. Over time, she adjusted to this way of life. As always, her intriguing figurative paintings often suggest a darker, underlying narrative. The views are from both first- and third-person perspectives, presenting scenes of isolation, sleep, restlessness, and painting that range from the quotidian to the unnerving.
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday—Saturday, 12 p.m.—6 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella