Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Monday, February 26
Ariella Azoulay. Courtesy Ariella Azoulay.
1. “Plunder: the Origins of Modern Art,” a lecture by Ariella Azoulay at the Cooper Union
Scholar, author, and curator Ariella Azoulay will address the looting of colonized cultures to furnish the colonizers’ museums. She argues that this is not just one facet of plunder, but that, in fact, “From the beginning, art has been imperialism’s preferred terrain.” A Brown University professor, Azoulay has published books on subjects like the ontology of photography and photographic evidence of Israel’s destruction of Palestine, and has curated shows at venues including the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Reina Sofía, in Madrid.
Location: Cooper Union, 41 Cooper Square (entrance at 7th Street and 3rd Avenue)
Price: Free
Time: 7:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.
—Brian Boucher
Tania Bruguera during a working session of the Hannah Arendt International Institute of Artivism, Havana, May 2015. Photo courtesy of the artist and Plataforma Yo También Exijo, Havana; by Pablo León de la Barra.
2. Considering Tania Bruguera’s Untitled (Havana, 2000) at the Museum of Modern Art
Artist and activist Tania Bruguera’s installation, Untitled (Havana, 2000), shut down by the Cuban government within hours of its opening but recently acquired by MoMA, is on view there through March 11. Stuart Comer, MoMA’s chief curator of media and performance art, will moderate a discussion about the work with the artist, art historian Claire Bishop, and Cuban curator and critic Gerardo Mosquera.
Location: Museum of Modern Art, 211 West 53rd Street
Price: $15
Time: 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Tuesday, February 27
Elia Alba, The Dreamweaver (Chitra Ganesh) (2013). Courtesy of the 8th Floor and the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.
3. ARTNOIR: Critical Sound Boarding with Elia Alba, Firelei Báez, and Saya Woolfalk at School of Visual Arts
Curator and ARTNOIR founder Larry Ossei-Mensah moderates a discussion with artists Elia Alba, Firelei Báez, and Saya Woolfalk on their practices and how they incorporate social commentary in their work.
Location: School of Visual Arts, 131/141 West 21st Street, Room 101C
Price: Free
Time: 6:30 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Tabboo!, Gerard Little, unknown performer, Jean Hill, and John Sex (1983). Photograph courtesy of Ande Whyland.
9. MoMA and Visual AIDS Present Love, Loss, and Life at Club 57 at the Museum of Modern Art
As part of the programming for “Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983,” on view through April 1, participants in the Downtown New York scene will reminiscence about Club 57 and those who part of it who lost their lives to AIDS.
Location: The Museum of Modern Art, Theater, 211 West 53rd Street
Price: Free with advance registration
Time: 6:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Tuesday, February 27–Saturday, April 7
Paul Feeley’s Untitled (1955). Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery.
4. “Paul Feeley: The Other Side” at Garth Greenan Gallery
A selection of brightly colored abstractions and related watercolors from 1954 to 1959 offers a window into the early years of Paul Feeley’s professional career.
Location: Garth Greenan Gallery, 545 West 20th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues)
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Wednesday, February 28
Paul Davis’s illustration of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara on the cover of the February 1968 issue of the Evergreen Review. Courtesy of the Evergreen Review.
5. A Celebration of the Evergreen Review at the Poster House
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the creation of the iconic image of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, designed by Paul Davis for the cover of left-leaning literary magazine the Evergreen Review in 1968. Ahead of the opening of its 23rd Street space, the Poster House will host an evening of readings, music, and libations with the publication. They are also currently holding a storefront installation dedicated to to Davis’s work, organized in collaboration with the American artist.
Location: Poster House, 119 West 23rd Street
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, February 28–Saturday, April 14
Martial Raysse’s Portrait de Gabriella la jolie venetienne (1963). © Martial Raysse, 2018. Image courtesy of Lévy Gorvy.
6. “Martial Raysse: Visages” at Lévy Gorvy Gallery
The first show since Levy Gorvy took over US representation for Martial Raysse includes works by the French artist dating from 2008 to the present. In “Visages,” portraits of inscrutable men and women stare out from the canvas, rendered in the artist’s preferred palette of neon colors. A selection of works created in the last decade reveals a newly intimate approach to portraiture, but maintains the elbow-nudging references to popular culture and mass media.
Location: 909 Madison Avenue
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Sean Scully’s Wall of Light Red Yellow (2012). Courtesy of the artist and Mnuchin Gallery.
7. “Sean Scully: Wall of Light” at Mnuchin Gallery
In “Wall of Light,” Sean Scully’s dexterity with geometry is in full force—unlike some of his more rigid compositions.
Location: Mnuchin Gallery, 45 East 78 Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Wednesday, February 28–Saturday, May 5
Per Kirkeby,
Untitled (1989). Courtesy of Michael Werner Gallery.
8. “Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Bronzes from the 1980s” at Michael Werner Gallery
A rare deep dive into Per Kirkeby’s work of the 1980s, inspired by his travels in Greenland, the Arctic, and Central America, includes over 20 paintings and bronze sculptures.
Location: Michael Werner Gallery, 4 East 77th Street
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, March 1–Saturday, April 14
Barnaby Furnas, The Rally (2017–18). Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. © Barnaby Furnas. Photo credit:Object Studies.
10. “Barnaby Furnas: Frontier Ballads” at Marianne Boesky Gallery
In this new series of paintings, Barnaby Furnas explores and challenges myths of American identity, including recent imagery from the tumultuous 2016 US presidential election. Using digital devices and robot technologies developed to his specifications, Furnas’s new paintings include portraits of woody buffalo to scenes of travelers crossing the rugged terrain of the western states.
Location: Marianne Boesky Gallery, 509 West 24th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception 6 p.m–8 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Tuesday, February 27–Sunday, May 20
Vajriputra Arhat (17th century), possibly Kham (East Tibet). Courtesy of the Museum of Civilisation/Museum of Oriental Art “Giuseppe Tucci,” Rome.
11. “Unknown Tibet: The Tucci Expeditions and Buddhist Painting” at the Asia Society
Buddhist paintings collected by Italian scholar and traveler Giuseppe Tucci on expeditions to Tibet from 1926 to 1948—accompanied by striking photographs of his extensive travels—are on view for the first time in the US, on loan from the National Museum of Oriental Art in Rome.
Location: 725 Park Avenue
Price: $12; Senior $10; Students with ID $7; Members and people under 16, free. Free on Friday from 6 pm-9 pm.
Time: Tuesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Friday 11 a.m.–9 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Friday, March 2
Craig Owens and Joan Simon at an Art in America office party on a sailboat rented from South Street Seaport, New York, date unknown. Photo: Elizabeth C. Baker.
12. Craig Owens: Portrait of a Young Critic Book Launch and Panel Discussion at the New Museum
Intellectual heavyweights will gather on the Bowery to pay tribute to Craig Owens, the postmodernist art critic who left his mark on the journal October as well as Art in America magazine and taught at Yale and Barnard. They’re celebrating the publication of Craig Owens: Portrait of a Young Critic, which reproduces a video interview conducted in 1984 by artists Lyn Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield, co-founders of the Video Data Bank. The book’s publisher, artist Paul Chan, and the museum’s own Johanna Burton will moderate a panel with Light Industry co-founder Thomas Beard, artist Kate Horsfield, and novelist Lynne Tillman.
Location: New Museum, 235 Bowery
Price: $15; members $10
Time: 7 p.m.
—Brian Boucher
Saturday, March 3
Entrance to MoMA. Courtesy of Spencer Platt/Getty Images.
13. “Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Art + Feminism” at MoMA
If you’re sick of just reading or talking about the under-representation of women artists, this Saturday MoMA is giving you a golden opportunity to help re-balance the public record. For the fifth consecutive year, the museum will host a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon where all comers can join together to add, augment, or refine entries about gender, art, and feminism in (arguably) the connected world’s default knowledge base. Admission is free, but be sure to register here in advance and BYOL (bring your own laptop). Kickstarter is holding their second-annual edit-a-thon on the following day at its headquarters at 58 Kent Street, Brooklyn, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
Location: Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street
Price: Free with registration
Time: 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Tim Schneider
Through Wednesday, March 7
Lucas Foglia’s Vanessa and Lauren Watering, GreenHouse Program, Riker’s Island Jail Complex, New York (2014). © the artist and courtesy Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, New York.
14. “Prison Nation” at Aperture
America has a well-documented and vastly outsize prison population relative to the size of its population overall. The phenomenon of mass incarceration is garnering welcome attention via books like Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, and even the art world has stepped up, with an initiative led by Agnes Gund to fund organizations that advocate for inmates and the wrongly imprisoned. In this show at Aperture’s Chelsea gallery, you’ll see photographs by artists like Sable Elyse Smith, Deborah Luster, and Emily Kinni that address this urgent theme. The show coincides with the appearance of Prison Nation, the spring issue of Aperture magazine; a rich schedule of public programs accompanies the show.
Location: Aperture Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
—Brian Boucher