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

Monday, August 19

Jacob Ciocci and Shana Moulton, screenshot of Whispering Pines Zero (2003/2010). Courtesy of the Drawing Center. ,

1. “Inverted Eyeball” at the Drawing Center

The Drawing Center presents video works selected by Theodore Darst, Jonathan Ehrenberg, and Young Joo Lee, three of the artists featured in “Open Sessions 2018–2020: What’s Love Got to Do With It?” (through September 15).

Location: The Drawing Center, 35 Wooster Street
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 6:30 p.m.–8 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

The Concorde. Image courtesy of the Cooper Hewitt.

2. “Supersonic: The Design and Lifestyle of Concorde” at the Cooper Hewitt 

Lawrence Azerrad will speak about his 2018 book Supersonic: Design and Lifestyle of Concorde, with Debbie Millman, host of the podcast Design Matters. Active from 1976 to 2003, the Concorde was the world’s first, and to-date only, luxury supersonic airliner. Known for its speed—it could make the Atlantic crossing in less than three hours—the Concorde was also a marvel of industrial design, with interior elements from notable designers including Terence Conran, Roger Excoffon, Raymond Loewy, and Andrée Putman. All guests at the talk will receive a limited-edition box of Concorde memorabilia designed for the occasion by Neenah Paper and Azerrad’s studio, LADdesign.

Location: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2 East 91st Street
Price: $15 general admission
Time: Doors, 6:30 p.m.–8 p.m.; talk, 7 p.m.; book signing and cash bar, 8 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Tuesday, August 20

Christopher Parrott, Imperial Pathways, 2017, Courtesy of the artist

3. “Truth Lies Beyond” at Foley Gallery

Curated by artist Christopher Parrott, “Truth Lies Beyond” groups together works very relevant in 2019, tackling themes of gender, power, reality, and fiction. All proceeds from this show go to support the campaign of Jaime Harrison, the South Carolina democratic candidate looking to unseat Lindsey Graham. The candidate will also be in attendance during the opening.

Location: Foley Gallery, 59 Orchard Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.; Wednesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

—Neha Jambhekar

Ulay: Project Cancer, directed by Damjan Kozole in 2013.

4. Screening of Ulay: Project Cancer at signs & symbols

The Dutch performance artist Ulay was in the midst of moving to Ljubljana, Slovenia, and planning a new film when, in the midst of it all, he was diagnosed with cancer. The film turned into a documentary of his disease, beginning in a Slovenian oncology ward in 2011, where Ulay was undergoing chemotherapy, then following the artist as he travels to Berlin for the premiere of a new film by his ex-collaborator and lover Marina Abramovic, then on to New York, and home to Amsterdam. According to the gallery, “Ulay treated his illness as the biggest and most important project of his life.”

Location: signs & symbols, 102 Forsyth Street
Price: Free
Time: 7:30 p.m.

—Rachel Corbett

Wednesday, August 21

March of the Penguins directed by Luc Jacquet. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

5. March of the Penguins at Socrates Sculpture Park

Visitors to Socrates Sculpture Park will enjoy live music from Eleanor Dubinsky with Benhur Oliveira and Wesley Amorim followed by a screening of the touching nature documentary March of the Penguins (2005), set to the back drop of the supper show “Chronos Cosmos: Deep Time, Open Space,” on view through September 3.

Location: Socrates Sculpture Park, 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Wednesday, August 21, 2019–February 2, 2020

Isamu Noguchi with plaster model for Contoured Playground (1941) and model for a jungle gym element for Ala Moana Park (circa 1940). Photo courtesy of the Noguchi Museum Archive, ©INFGM/ARS.

6. “In Search of Contoured Playground” and “Models for Spaces” at the Noguchi Museum

The Noguchi Museum takes a look at Isamu Noguchi’s unrealized design for Contoured Playground (1941), with a ten-foot square enlargement of the artist’s scale model for the project. A second exhibition, “Models for Spaces,” will feature five little-known models for other projects that Noguchi designed, including a garden for the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (1956/57).

Location: The Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33rd Road at Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens
Price: $10 general admission
Time: Wednesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; –Saturday/Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Thursday, August 22

Marsha P. Johnson. Photo by Johnny Romanek.

7. “Celebration: Happy Birthday Marsha!” at the Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum celebrates Marsha P. Johnson, the pioneering AIDS activist and advocate for gay rights who died in 1992, with screenings of Happy Birthday, Marsha! (Sasha Wortzel and Tourmaline, 2018) and Pay It No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson (Michael Kasino, 2012). Afterwards, enjoy cake from Butter & Scotch and a champagne toast with music from queer hop-hop party DJ extraordinaire Roze Royze. It’s all in honor of Johnson’s 74th birthday, which would have been this week.

Location: The Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
Price: $16 general admission, which includes museum entrance
Time: 7 p.m.–10 p.m.

—Tanner West

Thursday, August 22 and Thursday, August 29

Leonard Cohen with the Red Needle in his Los Angeles home in 1999. Photo ©Jarkko Arjatsalo, the Leonard Cohen Files.

8. “Cocktails With Cohen” at the Jewish Museum 

If you haven’t made it to “Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything” (on view through September 8) yet, the following two Thursday nights are as good a time as any—or maybe even better, since the museum is serving up $10 cocktails inspired by the musician’s drink of choice. The singer songwriter came up with his signature cocktail, the Red Needle, back in 1975, in Needles California. Made with tequila, cranberry juice, lemon, and ice, the refreshing beverage will be for sale in the museum lobby courtesy of Russ & Daughters.

Location: The Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave at 92nd Street
Price: $18 general admission, $10 Red Needle cocktails
Time: 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Friday, August 23

Marcy Learner, Thomas Hurlburt, Laura Gorman, and Jenny Ulloa at the New Museum Members: “Hell, Yes!” Party. Courtesy photographer Hunter Abrams/BFA.

9. “Kitsuné X New Museum: Sunset Series” at the New Museum

All summer, the New Museum has been throwing rooftop member parties with clothing brand and music label Maison Kitsuné. The last date in the series will feature a performance by Young Franco and a DJ set by Penguin Prison. Tickets come with one free drink, followed by a cash bar, plus the chance to see exhibitions by Mika Rottenberg, Marta Minujín, Lubaina Himid, and Diedrick Brackens after hours.

Location: The New Museum, 235 Bowery
Price: $10 general admission is sold out, a $70 annual membership is good for two tickets and two drink tickets
Time: 6 p.m.–9 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Friday, August 23

Basia Goszczynska, Alien Nation. Photo courtesy of ChaShaMa.

10. “Basia Goszczynska: Alien Nation” at One Brooklyn Bridge 

ChaShaMa presented “Alien Nation,” a plastic-filled installation by Brooklyn-based artist Basia Goszczynska that looks to highlight the absurdity of politicians’ inability to stop arguing and take definitive action in the face of the disastrous effects of climate change. The artist takes aim at both sides of the aisle, with two figures, one in a MAGA hat, the other a pink pussy hat, lying on their backs in piles of rainbow-colored shredded plastic, seemingly succumbing to the crisis despite being equipped with safety goggles and a respirator.

Location: One Brooklyn Bridge Park (360 Furman Street), Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.; Wednesday–Friday, 2 p.m.–7 p.m.; Saturday/Sunday, 12 p.m.–8 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Through Friday, August 23

Kurt Schwitters. Courtesy of Nahmad Contemporary.

12. “Kurt Schwitters: A Selection of Collages” at Nahmad Contemporary

Nahmad Contemporary presents a selection of Kurt Schwitters’s abstract collages made between the 1920s and ’40s, often using materials salvaged from the garbage. As Dadaism swept Europe, Schwitters sought to establish a style all his own. “I called Merz this new process whose principle was the use of any material,” the artist later explained. “It was the second syllable of Kommerz. It first appeared in Merzbild, a painting in which, apart from its abstract forms, one could read ‘Merz,’ cut and pasted from an advertisement for Kommerz- und Privatbank. … I was looking for a term to designate this new genre, for I could not classify my paintings under old labels such as expressionism, cubism, futurism and so on.”

Location: Nahmad Contemporary, 980 Madison Avenue, Third Floor
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Saturday, August 24–Saturday, September 7

Work by Simon Paul. Photo courtesy of SVA.

11. “Cut + Paste” at the School of Visual Arts

A jury of SVA students has selected work by six of their peers around the theme of “Cut + Paste,” inspired by the sensory overload of 21st-century life and the necessity of making choices and selections about what we chose to focus on. The works from Gabriel Byrro, Esmé C. Eldridge, Sadia Fakih, Jihyun Han, Barbara Owen, and Paul Simon include such wide-ranging mediums as photography, painting, sculpture, paper-craft, and video.

Location: SVA Flatiron Gallery, 133/141 West 21st Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception Wednesday, September 4, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Nan Stewert

Through Saturday, August 31

Dave Pollot, Calorie Composition III. Courtesy of the artist and Guy Hepner.

13. “Dave Pollot: Calorie Composition” at Guy Hepner 

These lush paintings send up the genre of stuffy still-life paintings with a contemporary twist: Artist Dave Pollot finds oil paintings at yard sales and thrift stores, and then adds what the gallery calls “embellishments,” riffing on modern consumer culture.

Location: Guy Hepner Gallery, 520 West 27th Street, Suite 303
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Through Friday, August 23

Installation view of For Mario, 2019. Courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery.

14. “For Mario” at Tina Kim Gallery 

When you peek into the Tina Kim gallery from the street you may think the space is closed for installation—but no, it’s actually cotton muslin, lavishly draped everywhere, across walls, floors, pooling here and there. The fabric creates a classicizing and decidedly romantic backdrop for this transportive group exhibition of modern and contemporary art and design, curated by the architecture firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero. A 1920s lamp, a watercolor by Cynthia Talmadge, Katie Stout’s pink porcelain cabinet with a tea set nestled inside are all presented with a ceremonial delicacy. You feel as though you’ve been handed the key to a shut-up apartment. The “Mario” of the title makes references Mario Praz, a critic of art and literature whose detailed study of every object in his Roman apartment became his 1964 The House of Life, an autobiography told through object and space. To both the writer and to the life of objects, the exhibition is a touching homage. 

Location: Tina Kim Gallery, 525 West 21st Street
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Friday, 10 a.m-6 p.m.

—Katie White

Saturday, August 24

Photo by Mary Kang. Courtesy of MoMA PS1.

15. “Warm Up: THE MARTINEZ BROTHERS/Shigeto/NOODLES/P-Lo/Djrum/Grace Ives/DJ Osh Kosh” at MoMA PS1

Headlining the penultimate “Warm Up 2019” show at MoMA PS1 are the Martinez Brothers. With residencies in Ibiza and sold-out shows at clubs worldwide (including the legendary, now-defunct, Output Club in Williamsburg) these Boricua, Bronx-natives are one of house music’s biggest names. While you’re there, be sure to check out the James Turrell Skyspace that re-opened earlier this month, as well as the Gina Beavers and Simone Fattal exhibitions that close in a couple of weeks.

Location: MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
Price: $18 advance, $22 at the door, free for Long Island City residents
Time: 12 p.m.–9 p.m.

—Cristina Cruz

Saturday, August 24–Sunday, August 25

Erin Blackwell in Streetwise. Courtesy of Janus Films.

16. “Streetwise and Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell” at the Museum of the Moving Image

Between 1983 and 2016, director Martin Bell, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and journalist Cheryl McCall united to produce two searing documentaries about the day-to-day struggles of life on the socioeconomic fringes. Streetwise explores easily overlooked hardship through multiple young people forced to survive on the streets of Seattle. Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell follows the most memorable of the subjects from Streetwise more than 30 years later, showing how societal neglect and the cruelty of circumstance can force even the most determined to relive patterns of addiction, desperation, and difficulty—often, through their own children.

Location: The Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Avenue, Astoria
Price: $15 Adults; $11 Seniors (Age 65+) and Students (Age 18+); $9 Youth (Ages 3–17)
Time: Saturday, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.; Sunday, 1:30 p.m.

—Tim Schneider

Through Sunday, September 29

Installation view of “Book as System: The Artists’ Books of Sol LeWitt” at Printed Matter, 2019. Courtesy of Printed Matter.

17. “Book as System: The Artists’ Books of Sol LeWitt” at Printed Matter

Though he’s known for his conceptual installations and sculptures, Sol LeWitt was also a prolific maker of art books—a medium well-suited for his interests in sequence and reproducibility. “Book as System,” a heavily researched exhibition produced with the LeWitt estate, surveys the artist’s book experiments across his 50-year career. Printed Matter also teamed up with Brooklyn-based publisher Primary Information to reprint one of LeWitt’s most famous books, Four Basic Kinds of Lines & Colour (1977), for the occasion.

Location: Printed Matter, 231 11th Avenue
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Wednesday/Saturday, 11 a.m.–7 p.m.; Thursday–Friday, 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.

—Taylor Dafoe