Each week, we search for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events, both digitally and in-person in the New York area. See our picks from around the world below. (Times are all EST unless otherwise noted.)
Tuesday, February 8
Vikky Alexander. Photo by Peter Bellamy, courtesy of the Audain Art Museum, Whistler, Canada.
1. “Tuesday Night Talks: Vikky Alexander” at the Audain Art Museum, Whistler, Canada
The Audain Art Museum kicks off season three of its virtual Tuesday Night Talks programming with Canada’s Vikky Alexander, whose piece Orange Ceiling (2010) was recently acquired by the institution. The photographer, sculptor, and installation artist will speak with director and chief curator Curtis Collins about her career—including her ties to the Vancouver School of photo-conceptualism as well as New York’s Pictures Generation—as well as how she finds inspiration in landscape, architecture, and design.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 11 p.m.
—Tanner West
Thursday, February 10
New York City Mayor Eric Adams in front of the Brooklyn Museum on Juneteenth Holiday, June 19, 2021. Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images.
2. “More or Less: Notes to Our Next Mayor, Culminating Panel” at More Art, New York
Ahead of last year’s mayoral election, social justice-minded public art nonprofit More Art hosted a three-part conversation series about what New York City residents need most—namely, food, shelter, and healthcare. Those discussions have been condensed into an open letter of demands from artists, activists, and community members to new Mayor Eric Adams’s administration. The moderators of the three discussions, artists Candace Thompson, Betty Yu, and Jeff Kasper, will return to talk about the intersection of art and activism, the contents of the letter, how it hopes to ensure all New Yorkers have guaranteed access to food, healthcare, and housing.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 7 p.m.–8:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, February 10–Saturday, March 12
Suchitra Mattai, Fitting In, 2022 Courtesy of Hollis Taggart
3. “Suchitra Mattai: Herself as Another” at Hollis Taggart
Suchitra Mattai is a Guyanese artist who uses imagery from her Indian heritage to comment on colonialism and patriarchy. In her solo show at Hollis Taggart, Mattai presents mixed-media paintings, sculptures, and installations to explore the theme of “othering.” The artist used The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous as the main source for her research into folklore monsters, tales that reflect the taboos and stereotypes often applied to those denied power. Through the works in this show, Mattai creates “a space to confront these misunderstandings… and to reflect on the experience and perspective of the ‘other’ as a means of fostering empathy and connection,” the gallery states.
Location: Hollis Taggart, 521 West 26th Street, 1st Floor, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Thursday, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
—Neha Jambhekar
Sarah Cunningham, In Its Daybreak, Rising. Photo courtesy of Almine Rech, New York.
4. “Sarah Cunningham: In Its Daybreak, Rising” at Almine Rech, New York
British painter Sarah Cunningham gets her first U.S. solo show, featuring her nature-inspired canvases, which straddle the line between landscape and abstraction. The artist often works late into the night, sometimes through to the sunrise, drawing inspiration from Old Master night scenes by the likes of Peter Paul Rubens and El Greco, as well as the liminal state at the boundary of sleep and wakefulness, in the in-between time from one day to the next.
Location: Almine Rech, 39 East 78th Street, 2nd Floor, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, February 10–Saturday, March 19
Asif Hoque, Music of the sun Courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery
5. “Asif Hoque: Before Sunrise” at Yossi Milo Gallery, New York
“Before Sunrise” is the first solo exhibition of New York-based Bangladeshi artist Asif Hoque. Born in Rome, Hoque moved to Florida at a young age with his family. The title of the exhibition alludes to early morning beach visits he took with his brother during his trips home, where the changing light greatly inspired the works shown here. Hoque’s new work builds on previous imagery of deified brown male and female figures, lions, and vases with the addition of a dynamic new form, the Bengal tiger, and a softening of the surface inspired by Rubens’ sfumato technique.
Location: Yossi Milo Gallery, 245 Tenth Avenue, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Thursday, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Neha Jambhekar
Friday, February 11
Iké Udé, Nollywood in Focus, still image.
6. “African Is Beautiful” at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.
Following a virtual screening of portrait photographer and artist Iké Udé’s new film, Nollywood in Focus, about the Nigerian film scene, Touria El Glaoui, founding director of 1:54 Contemporary Art Fair, will moderate a discussion with Udé and industry insiders Eku Edewor, Alexx Ekubo, Enyinna Nwigwe, and Joke Silva. They’ll consider such topics as beauty, self-love, and the power of art.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Nan Stewert
Friday, February 11–Sunday, April 10
Carlos Motta and Tiamat Legion Medusa, When I Leave This World (2022), still. Courtesy of the artist, P.P.O.W. Gallery, and OCDChinatown.
7. “Carlos Motta and Tiamat Legion Medusa: When I Leave This World” at OCD Chinatown, New York
Performance and body-modification artist Tiamat Legion Medusa has collaborated with artist Carlos Motta on a new two-channel video installation documenting Medusa’s transition from male to female to reptile. (The end goal of the artist, who goes by it pronouns, is to become a dragon.) Medusa, who explains in one of the videos how childhood abandonment and assault inspired it to reject its own humanity, bills itself as “interspecies and the most body-modified transexual in the world.”
Location: OCD Chinatown, 75 East Broadway NYC
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m. or by appointment
—Sarah Cascone
Through Saturday, February 12
“Maria Nepomuceno: Roda das Encantadas” at Sikkema Jenkins and Co., New York. Photo courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins and Co., New York.
8. “Maria Nepomuceno: Roda das Encantadas” at Sikkema Jenkins and Co., New York
Maria Nepomuceno incorporates traditions from Brazilian craft into her braided and woven sculptures, which incorporate materials such as rope, beads, ceramics, gourds, wood, and the leaves of the carnauba palm. Many of these colorful works incorporate spiral forms, with an energy and vitality that seems to pulsate from the works’ tightly bound centers.
Location: Sikkema Jenkins and Co., 530 West 22nd Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, February 12–Sunday, January 8, 2023
Chris Schanck, Banglatown (2018). Photo by Michelle and Chris Gerard, courtesy the artist and Friedman Benda, New York.
9. “Chris Schanck: Off-World” at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York
Chris Schanck’s work exists at the boundary between sculpture and furniture, straddling the line between art and design with chairs, lighting, and other functional objects produced in his Detroit studio with the assistance of local Bangladeshi craftspeople. Schanck’s forms recall objects from nature, like coral reefs, but also suggest an otherworldly, extraterrestrial origin, at times futuristic, other times reminiscent of ancient civilizations.
Location: Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m..
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, February 12
Alex Strada and Tali Keren, Proposal for a 28th Amendment? Is it Possible to Amend an Unequal System? in “Year of Uncertainty (YoU) — Phase I: Participate & Build.” Photo by Zynab Cewalam, courtesy of the Queens Museum.
10. “Defending Our Bodily Autonomy in a Broken System” at the Queens Museum
Artists Alex Strada and Tali Keren’s participatory installation, Proposal for a 28th Amendment? Is it Possible to Amend an Unequal System?, on view in “Year of Uncertainty (YoU) — Phase III: Synthesize and Reflect” (through February 13) will serve as the stage for programming addressing the ways in which many Black, Indigenous, and other people of color face reproductive and gender-based oppression. A presentation by CUNY Law professor Cynthia Soohoo will discuss the inadequacies of legal protection for reproductive rights, the likely overturn of Roe v. Wade, and how we can ensure reproductive justice for all. A hands-on self-defense workshop, led by Deena Hadhoud of Malikah, will follow.
Location: Queens Museum, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Meridian Road, Queens
Price: Free with registration
Time: 1 p.m.–3:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Monday, February 14
Walter Robinson, Angel (2019). Courtesy of Hey Check This Out Gallery, New York.
11. “Love Hurts, Yeah Yeah” at Hey Check This Out Gallery, New York
If overly saccharine Hallmark cards turn your stomach, consider this irreverent Valentine’s group show about the darker side of love an antidote. Curated by Maureen Sullivan of Red Art Projects at Hey Check This Out Gallery, located at the front of downtown vintage clothing store Quality Mending, the exhibition includes works by the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Betty Tompkins, and Walter Robinson. An editioned print from Jenny Holzer is on sale to benefit Printed Matter, while Haas Brothers and Lawrence Weiner’s contributions to the Artist Plate Project will benefit Coalition for the Homeless.
Location: Quality Mending, 329 Bowery, New York
Price: Free
Time: Closing reception, Friday, 5 p.m.–7 p.m.; 1 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through March 19
Lucia Love, BDW, 2021. Courtesy JDJ and the artist.
12. “Lucia Love: Angel at the Wheel” at JDJ Tribeca, New York
The new show of paintings by Lucia Love at JDJ World’s recently opened location in Tribeca see the artist taking a darker, more cynical turn. Love’s surrealist and often figurative paintings are inspired by fraught political situations, and she does not seem to think things have gotten much better since her last show with the gallery in 2020. As fellow artist Emily Mae Smith wrote in the press release for the show, “The figures in Love’s paintings are amalgamated bodies, often balancing on impossible podiums or floating in broken geometries that defy perspectival logic. Love captures the instability of moral ground in our time of global peril.”
Location: JDJ Tribeca, 373 Broadway B11, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Annie Armstrong