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, September 1

Vanessa German. Photo courtesy of the artist.

1. “Listening as an Act of Love/Dispatches from the Future With Vanessa German” at the Ford Foundation Gallery, New York

At her home/community art hub for local, often-troubled children in Pittsburgh, Vanessa German has turned listening into an art. In the first of a series of three monthly online performances with the Ford Foundation, the artist invites the public to share their frustrations and negative feelings with her on Zoom. German will respond by composing a poem on the spot, turning the moment into an opportunity for healing and to envision a better future.

Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 3 p.m.–4:30 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Tuesday, September 1–Friday, October 2

Thaddeus Mosley, Illusory Progression (2016), True to Myth (2019), and Rhizogenic Rhythms (2005). Presented by Karma for Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center.

2. “Frieze Sculpture” at Rockefeller Center 

To celebrate the second iteration of the Frieze Sculpture program at Rockefeller Center, which transforms the landmark space into a free sculpture park, curator Brett Littman will host an online talk with participating artists Andy Goldsworthy, Ghada Amer, and Thaddeus Mosley. Other artists whose work is featured in the exhibition, which was originally scheduled to take place in May during the ultimately cancelled 2020 edition of Frieze New York, include Beatriz Cortez, Lena Henke, and Camille Henrot.

Location: Rockefeller Center between West 48th and 51st Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues
Price: Talk is free with RSVP; exhibition is free
Time: Virtual talk, Tuesday, 10 a.m.; exhibition is open daily at all times as of 11 a.m. Tuesday

—Eileen Kinsella

Wednesday, September 2—Monday, September 7

Artist Linjie Deng with his painting Gone With Cloud. Image courtesy the artist and Walter’s Cube.

3. Hamptons Virtual Art Fair

It’s not too late to get your summer Hamptons fix—or your summer art fix, for that matter, even if the experience is virtual. Paris-based designer Christofle is hosting the first Hamptons Virtual Art Fair featuring 100 exhibitors, mostly hailing from the US as well as a few from Europe and South America as well. Look for Linjie Deng, a New York-based Chinese artist whose works focus on personal identity and cross-cultural experiences, fusing styles including Chinese calligraphy, abstract ink, and multimedia presentations.

Price: Free
Time: Art patrons preview, Wednesday, 6 p.m.–12 a.m.; open daily at all times

—Eileen Kinsella

Wednesday, September 2—Sunday, November 1

Michael Bell-Smith, still from Podcast Paperwork (2020). Courtesy the artist and Foxy Production, New York.

4. “Graphica” at Foxy Production, New York

Featuring works by Michael Bell-Smith, JODI, Cindy Ji Hye Kim, and Glendalys Medina, this group exhibition traces its title to “De Arte Graphica,” a 17th-century poem in which Alphone du Fresnoy simultaneously elevates visual artists above mere artisans and argues that painting’s apex form is a classics-indebted simplicity, not the complex stylings of Baroque taste. The works in the show satisfy both of du Fresnoy’s conditions while also foregrounding present-day social tensions and the artists’ own internal wrangling. The results interpolate mainstream graphic forms such as cartoons and advertising, as well as canonized movements such as Constructivism and Pop, to arrive at a destination with meaning that extends beyond the studio.

Location: Foxy Production, 2 East Broadway, Suite 200, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening day, 12 p.m.–7 p.m.; Wednesday–Sunday thereafter, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Tim Schneider

Yuken Teruya, We belong here (2020). Photo courtesy of Piero Atchugarry.

5. “Piero Atchugarry Gallery & SAPAR Contemporary: Backseat Driver” at Sapar Contemporary, New York

In 2019, Piero Atchugarry launched PA Takeover, a series of satellite exhibitions staged at other gallery’s spaces around the world with a show in Venice during the biennale. Now, as the New York art world looks to ramp up its reopening with a slate of fall exhibition, the art dealer, who typically operates in Garzón, Uruguay, and Miami, is taking up residence in Tribeca at Sapar Contemporary with “Backseat Driver.” The show pairs work by Yuken Teruya and Kameelah Janan Rasheed that explores systemic oppression within Western culture.

Location: Sapar Contemporary, 9 N Moore Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Nan Stewert

Wednesday, September 2–Sunday, October 4

Shohei Fujimoto’s Intangible Forms. Photo courtesy of ARTECHOUSE.

6. “Intangible Forms by Shohei Fujimoto” at ARTECHOUSE, New York

ARTECHOUSE, the experiential digital art space that opened a New York space last year, reopens with “Intangible Forms,” Japanese multimedia artist Shohei Fujimoto’s kinetic audio-visual laser performance-cum-installation. The piece is inspired by the peacefulness of a Shinto shrine, deploying rotating, half-transparent mirrors to direct the meditative laser light show, designed to alter viewers’ perception of time and space.

Location: ARTECHOUSE, 439 West 15th St., New York
Price: General admission $25, get $5 off if you book online
Time: Monday–Thursday, 12 p.m.–8 p.m.; Friday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m.

—Tanner West

Wednesday, September 2–Sunday, October 11

Cheyenne Julien, Trini Slangs, 2020. Courtesy of Chapter NY.

7. “Cheyenne Julien: Phantom Gates and Falling Homes” at Chapter NY

Bronx native and Rhode Island School of Design grad Cheyenne Julien will show new paintings and works on paper at Chapter NY. Last showing in group shows at the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Mitchell-Innes & Nash in 2019, Julien’s vibrant style and celebratory depiction of black and brown bodies come at a time where representation is more necessary than ever before. Influenced by Adrienne Brown’s “The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race,” Julien “considers the ways in which we perceive and experience race in a contemporary urban context.” In Trini Slangs, the artist depicts a young woman posing in front of a crosswalk with a hand on her exposed hip. Her long, lime green nails and colorful, knotted t-shirt echo the equally as colorful street view she’s placed in. The artist will also exhibit at Gladstone Gallery in New York this fall.

Location: Chapter NY, 249 East Houston Street
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Sunday: 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Appointments recommended

—Cristina Cruz

Thursday, September 3

© BrusselsGalleryWeekend. Marcin Dudek from his exhibition “Slash&Burn I” at Harlan Levy Projects.

8. “New Alliances: Revaluing the Local” at HART & Brussels Gallery Weekend

A panel of Belgian dealers will discuss how, through the local, the art market can become more sustainable, especially in the face of the current economic-ecological crisis. The panel includes Brussels dealers Harlan Levey from the eponymous gallery and Helene Dumenil from Ballon Rouge Collective, as well as Bart Vanderbiesen from Base-Alpha Gallery, and Oliver Barbé/Christophe Urbain from Barbé Urbain Gallery, Ghent.

Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m. UTC+02

—Kate Brown

Sunday, September 6

9. “Tony Cokes: Of Lies & Liars” at the Shed, New York

For the past four Sundays, the Shed has been releasing Tony Cokes’s new body of work, “Of Lies & Liars Studies,” in weekly installments on YouTube. The videos, the latest “Up Close” commission from the Shed, pair quotations from David Frum’s Atlantic article “This Is Trump’s Fault,” displayed on alternating red and blue backgrounds, with catchy pop music by the likes of the Postal Service. Like the article, the piece is an excoriation of the president’s mishandling of the global health crisis, which has thus far killed over 184,000 people in the US while infecting six million. The fifth and final installment in the series, which is a study for a future work by Cokes, drops Sunday night.

Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone