Each week, we search 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, February 9
1. “Tuesday Night Talks: Attila Richard Lukacs” at the Audain Art Museum
For its series of Tuesday Night Talks, Canada’s Audain Art Museum takes museum-goers on a virtual visit to the studios of artists in its collection, paired with an after-hours stop at the museum for an in-depth look at their work. This week, museum director and chief curator Curtis Collins will host an episode with Vancouver-based painter Attila Richard Lukacs, represented in the Audain collection with work Painting the Lovers’ Portrait (1991), from the series “Love in Loss.”
Price: Free with registration
Time: 8 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
2. “Derek Fordjour and Jessica Bell Brown in Conversation” at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture
Derek Fordjour, known for his vibrant collaged paintings and installation addressing race and inequality, speaks with Jessica Bell Brown, associate curator for contemporary art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, for the New York Studio School’s evening lecture series.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
3. “This Long Year: In the Studio” at Madison Square Art
Artists Rachel Feinstein, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and Alison Saar speak with journalist Jacoba Urist about creativity as they look back on studio life during the pandemic and a year of political turmoil. This virtual conversation is the second in a three-part series. The next, and last, discussion will be with gallery and art fair leaders in March.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 11 a.m.–12 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Wednesday, February 10
4. “Flea and Eddie Ruscha” at Gagosian
The latest episode of Gagosian Premieres marks Ed Ruscha’s show at Gagosian New York with a star lineup featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea alongside Vernon Reid and Ed Ruscha’s son, Eddie, discussing the new work and presenting new music alongside it. In these new paintings, Ruscha revisits the motifs of flags, tires, and mountains.
Price: Free
Time: 2 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
5. “Small Talk With Isaac Julien CBE RA” at the Bass Museum
Silvia Karman Cubiñá, the Bass’s executive director and chief curator, will moderate a Zoom chat with Isaac Julien for the museum’s “Small Talk” discussion series. The artist will look back at his 2010 solo show at the museum, “Creative Caribbean Network.” Featuring works considering the cultural impact of global migration, such as the installation Ten Thousand Waves, the show remains just as timely over a decade later.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6 p.m.–7 p.m.
—Tanner West
Thursday, February 11
6. “Copyright Considerations and Use Cases: A Legal and Practical Overview for Artists” at Artists Rights Society
Intellectual property and copyright are some of the liveliest topics in art (and art law) of recent years. But if your head starts swimming when your lawyer starts talking about “assignability” and “exclusivity” and “perpetuality,” this Zoom discussion might be just the thing, as it aims to straighten artists out on just what they need to know—even if you aren’t sure what “intellectual property” actually means. The panelists are Mickalene Thomas; Katarina Feder, vice president and director of business development at Artists Rights Society (and artnet News art advice columnist); and Megan E. Noh, co-chair of art law at Pryor Cashman LLP. The talk will be hosted by Julia Fowler, managing director at CSM Capital Management.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 11 a.m.
—Brian Boucher
7. “In Conversation: Artist Ann Shelton and Critic Claire Voon” at Denny Dimin Gallery
Ann Shelton will give a Zoom talk about her current virtual show at Denny Dimin, “A Lover’s Herbal” (through March 27). The exhibition features the latest works in her ongoing “Jane Says” series, featuring plants traditionally used to treat women’s reproductive health, including natural contraceptives and abortifacients. Using the Japanese art of ikebana, Shelton creates beautiful floral arrangements, set against brightly colored backdrops, that are inspired both by political controversy that surrounds women’s health and the lost knowledge of medicinal plants as we become increasingly removed from the natural world.
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
8. “Climate Relations: Indigeneity in Activism, Art, and Digital Media” at the New School
The Vera List Center is teaming up with the Feminist Art Project, a program of the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities at Rutgers University, to present this panel on Native artists and scholars working at the intersection of activism, art, and digital media. Artist Maria Hupfield (Anishinaabek, Wasauksing First Nation); theorist Jennifer Wemigwans (Anishinaabek, Wikwemikong Unceded Territory); and two-spirit curator, activist, and historian Regan De Loggans (Mississippi Choctaw / Ki’Che Maya) will discuss their recent projects.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 3 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Friday, February 12–Monday, February 15
9. “Let Freedom Ring Vol. 2” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
In celebration of Black History Month, BAM is hosting a follow up to last month’s tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., presenting public art from Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Jordan Casteel, Kevin Claiborne, Lizania Cruz, Deborah Roberts, Amy Sherald, and Jasmine Wahi on its giant video billboard.
Location: Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, February 13–Saturday, March 27
10. “De Lo Mío” at Jenkins Johnson Projects
Jenkins Johnson Gallery presents a group show of five female emerging Dominican artists curated by Tiffany Alfonseca. The participating artists include Tiffany Alfonseca, Bianca Nemelc, Joiri Minaya, Monica Hernandez, Uzumaki Cepeda, and Veronica Fernandez, whose works shine a light on Dominican visual culture and identity. According to the gallery’s statement: “De Lo Mío envisions identity not as a definable set of associations but rather as a spectrum through which multiple personal and collective pasts as well as lived experiences come to forge how people exist.”
Location: Jenkins Johnson Projects, 207 Ocean Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Price: Free
Time: Appointments available Thursday–Saturday
—Neha Jambhekar
Sunday, February 14
11. “(Re)Love” with the Wide Awakes
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with Wide Awakes artists Amy Koshbin, Ebony Brown, Graciella Fairyhawk, Michele Pred, and Yvette Molina in a participatory Zoom event on the theme of “Radical Love.” Guests are invited to “bring an object that represents love to you or that makes you feel love or that you love,” and to take part in discussions about the history of Valentine’s Day (it’s darker than you think) love as creativity, and self love, followed by a radical love meditation and a reading of a love poem by Pred’s young daughter, Linnea Morlan Pred.
Price: Free
Time: 4 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Wednesday, February 24, 2021
12. “Friend Zone” at Half Gallery
Half Gallery has an epic group show of all your favorite artists: Leyla Faye, Eden Seifu, Jan Gatewood, Emma Stern, Katherine Bradford, Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski, Mosie Romney, Krista Louise Smith, and Brianna Rose Brooks, just to name a few. The exhibition was curated by star artist Vaughn Spann, and runs through February 24.
Location: Half Gallery, 235 E 4th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Cristina Cruz
Through Saturday, March 13
13. “Oona Brangam-Snell: Snowclones” at Mrs. Gallery
For her first solo exhibition at the Queens gallery Mrs., Oona Brangam-Snell presents an array of large woven scrolls and stretched tapestries featuring uncanny updates of time-worn iconography. The imagery acts as a visual adaptation of the show’s title, which refers to meme-ready linguistic frameworks where new words can be inserted into given slots to create a fresh take on an instantly recognizable form. (Think: “I, for one, welcome our new ___ overlords.”)
Similarly, Brangam-Snell’s textile works reinterpret image conventions still familiar to us from centuries past, even though almost no one remembers what they first meant or why we still resort to them. Come for the savvy analysis of how visual culture evolves, stay for the low-key comedy of details like a bearded baby and a cat sporting a fig leaf over its sensitive parts. (“Come for the ___, stay for the ___” is another snowclone, by the way.)
Location: Mrs., 60–40 56th Drive, Queens
Price: Free
Time: Appointments available Tuesday–Friday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. and Saturday, noon–5 p.m.
—Tim Schneider