Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Monday, February 12
Laure Prouvost. Photo by Gene Pittman, courtesy of the Walker Art Center.
1. “Laure Prouvost: The Smoking Image” at the Cooper Union
Turner Prize-winning artist Laure Prouvost is pretty upfront about what she’s offering at this talk: “Ideally these few words are a good description of what might happen when Prouvost is coming to share a few things, as it HEAt, HITs Her that grand dad is lost in the tunnel of history while grand m’s dreams are coming to reality, reliques have appeared as some magic electronics are activating these smoking words.” All clear?
Location: Cooper Union, 41 Cooper Square (on Third Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets)
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.–8:30 p.m.
—Brian Boucher
Tuesday, February 13
A large crowd of people participating in the Women’s March makes its way down 6th Avenue in Manhattan on January 20, 2018, in New York City. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Keith/Getty Images.
2. “Politics, Alumni, and Effecting Change” at Thoughtworks
Rhode Island School of Design presents a panel considering how design can respond to our current political climate.
Location: Thoughtworks, 35 Wooster Street
Price: $10
Time: 6:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, February 14
Vincent van Gogh played by Robert Gulaczyk. Courtesy Good Deed Entertainment and Loving Vincent.
3. “Loving Vincent” at the New York Public Library
Some details to whet your appetite for this groundbreaking film on the life and death of Vincent van Gogh: 65,000 frames, each one consisting of a unique oil painting on canvas; 125 artists collaborating to create all those works; one Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature; zero dollars to see it. If those figures aren’t enough to intrigue you, consider the counter-programming value of spending Valentine’s Night stewing in the mesmerizing possibility that Van Gogh’s demise could have been a homicide, not a suicide. Eat your heart out, Cupid.
Location: Seward Park Library, Community Room, 192 East Broadway
Price: Free
Time: 6:15 p.m.–7:45 p.m.
—Tim Schneider
Wednesday, February 14–Sunday, May 13
Iskandar and his retinue meeting with a hermit who then opens the gates of the Fortress of Darband by his prayer, “Khamsa”, Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209), India, 17th century, detail. From the collections of the National Library of Israel/Photography by Ardon Bar-Hama.
4. “Romance and Reason: Islamic Transformations of the Classical Past” at Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
The National Library of Israel has loaned a selection of manuscripts from Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Turkey showing how medieval scholar, scientists, and artists, drew upon and expanded on the intellectual accomplishments of the ancient Greeks, setting the stage for modernity.
Location: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 15 East 84th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, February 15
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1982). Image courtesy of Sotheby’s New York.
5. “Tribute to Basquiat” at the Brooklyn Museum
To celebrate “One Basquiat,” on view now at the Brooklyn Museum, artists and collaborators of Jean-Michel Basquiat will speak about how his work, and life, influenced their practice.
Location: 200 Eastern Parkway
Price: $25 ($20 for mezzanine), includes Museum admission
Time: 7 p.m.–9 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Tom of Finland’s TOM. Image courtesy of Capricious Publishing.
6. Sylvia Prada x Tom of Finland Book Launch Party at Participant Inc.
The Tom of Finland Foundation celebrates the release of its new book from Capricious Publishing, TOM, by Sylvia Prada, featuring collages and other works from the archives of Tom of Finland, known for his homoerotic artwork.
Location: Participant Inc. 253 East Street
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, February 15–Saturday, March 24
Barkley Hendricks’s The Sugar (DATE). Image courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery.
7. “Barkley Hendricks: Them Changes” at Jack Shainman Gallery
This marks the first-ever exhibition of works on paper, by Barkley L. Hendricks, an artist best known for his portraits of stylish African Americans. These newly discovered bodies of work highlight the fundamental features of Hendricks’s practice with a mode of representation that is distinct from his better-known paintings.
Location: 513 West 20th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Thursday, February 15–Saturday, March 24
Gordon Parks’s At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile Alabama, (1956). © The Gordon Parks Foundation and courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery.
8. “Gordon Parks: I Am You | Part 2” at Jack Shainman Gallery
Just down the street at the 24th Street gallery outpost, Jack Shainman opens part two of a show featuring the late photographer Gordon Parks’s stirring images documenting contemporary life in America from the late 1940s through the 1960s, especially within the fight for civil rights issues.
Location: 524 West 24th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Thursday, February 15–Sunday, April 22
David Austen’s Ocean. Image courtesy of TOTAH.
9. “David Austen: the stars above the ocean the ocean beneath the stars” at TOTAH
London-based artist David Austen gets his first New York solo show, featuring his watercolors, text paintings, and two film pieces.
Location: TOTAH, 183 Stanton Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, February 15–Friday, June 8
“Defend Puerto Rico.” Image courtesy of Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute.
10. “Defend Puerto Rico” at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute
In the wake of the devastation left behind by Hurricane Maria, this exhibition, featuring 26 artists and two community-based organizations from Puerto Rico, looks to increase awareness of the island’s ongoing economic and humanitarian crisis worsened by the storm. It’s the first show of the year at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, which has dedicated its 2018 programming to considering the idea of home as it relates to concepts of race, myth, justice, and art.
Location: Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, 120 East 125th Street
Price: General admission $5
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; second Saturday of the month, 11 a.m.–3 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Sunday, February 25
Anna K.E.’s Profound Approach and Easy Outcome (2017). Photo by Hai Zhang, courtesy of the artist.
11. “Anna K.E.: Profound Approach and Easy Outcome” at the Queens Museum
It’s the closing days for Anna K.E.’s 140-foot-wide piece on the Queens Museum’s Large Wall, the third in a series of site-specific commissions by women artists. Drawing on art historical references—K.E. recasts herself in portraits by Otto Dix and Balthus—the piece touches on issues of artistic production, feminism, and power.
Location: Queens Museum, New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens
Price: General admission $8
Time: Wednesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through February 25
Alicia Grullon. Photo courtesy of BRIC.
12. “Reenactment” at BRIC
The tradition of living history, in which history buffs look to reenact the battles of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, does not often include the experiences of minority groups. Six artists of color—Ken Gonzales-Day, Crystal Z. Campbell, Marisa Williamson, Maria Hupfield, Alicia Grullón, and Farideh Sakhaeifar—look to expand our cultural mythologies to include these alternate experiences, in performance, video, and photographic works.
Location: BRIC, 647 Fulton Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Sunday, 12 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Saturday, March 17
Carolyn Carr’s Kenny on Peachtree (2016–2018). Courtesy of the artist and Marisa Newman Projects.
13. “Carolyn Carr: Andalusia” at Marisa Newman Projects
The suite of haunting photos that make up the majority of Carolyn Carr’s exhibition reads like a fragmented short story—which is appropriate, given it was shot at the former home of author Flannery O’Connor. Carr’s show, which also includes painting, ceramics, and a woodcut sculpture, explores the cultural wars being waged over iconography and identity politics in the south today, as well as the antagonistic relationship she has with her own family history, which has deep roots in the region.
Location: Marisa Newman Projects, 38 West 32nd Street, Suite 1602
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday through Friday, 1–6 p.m. and by appointment
—Taylor Dafoe
Through Wednesday, August 31, 2018
Nobuyoshi Araki. Courtesy of the Museum of Sex.
14. “The Incomplete Araki: Sex, Life, and Death in the Work of Nobuyoshi Araki” at the Museum of Sex
Looking for an art-filled way to spend your Valentine’s Day? The first major US retrospective for Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki opened at the Museum of Sex last week, featuring his often sexually explicit images of the female body. The museum is also celebrating the holiday with special ticket packages that include tickets for two and various extras including cocktails and admission to Bompas & Parr’s Jump for Joy, a bouncy castle full of giant breasts.
Location: Museum of Sex, 233 Fifth Avenue at 27th Street
Price: $17.50, Valentine’s Packages $85–125
Time: Sunday–Thursday, 10:30 a.m.–10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10:30 a.m.–11 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone