Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Tuesday, January 9–Sunday, January 14
Courtesy the artist and MoMA PS1. Photo: Derek Schultz.
1. “Moriah Evans: Figuring” at the SculptureCenter
In Moriah Evans’s piece, three females are both the subject and the object of performance; their gestures, or absence of gesture, are a study of contemporary dance and movement. It’s part of the ninth edition of the American Realness festival.
Location: SculptureCenter, 44–19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens
Price: $25
Time: 5:30 p.m.–7 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Wednesday, January 10
Artist Terry Adkins. Photo courtesy of Tom Snelgrove.
2. “Terry Adkins: The Smooth, the Cut, and the Assembled” at Lévy Gorvy
This marks the gallery’s first solo show of late artist Terry Adkins, having just announced representation of the estate in November. Adkins, who was admired for his fusion of sculpture, performance, and music, died suddenly of heart failure in early 2014. The show is curated by Charles Gaines, a close friend and frequent collaborator of the artist, and will be comprised of works spanning three decades of Atkins career (1986–2013).
Location: 909 Madison Avenue
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Wednesday, January 10–Friday, January 12
Ryan McNamara. Courtesy the Guggenheim Museum.
3. “Battleground: Ryan McNamara” at the Guggenheim Museum
Performance art star Ryan McNamara choreographs this event, characterized as a “Cosplay-Battle-Ballet,” in which you’ll be not only an audience member but an “embedded witness,” observing three dance squads throwing down against one another. Originally staged to critical acclaim in 2016, the performance is designed specifically for the Frank Lloyd-Wright designed theater. With most excellent tongue-in-cheek hubris, McNamara claims Wright conceived the theater to house this very performance, so that it “will realize its destiny” this week. Slow clap.
Location: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Peter B. Lewis Theater, 1071 Fifth Avenue (at East 89th Street)
Price: $40–90
Time: 7:30 p.m.–8:45 p.m.
—Brian Boucher
Thursday, January 11
Community event at 2017 a blade of Grass fellow Rick Lowe’s Victoria Square Project, part of documenta 14 in Athens, Greece, June 2017. Photo courtesy of Deborah Fisher.
4. “Not Gone Tomorrow: Fellows Freeman Word and Rick Lowe on Sustainable Community Spaces” presented by a Blade of Grass at the 8th Floor
Artist Rick Lowe and poet and teacher Freeman Word share their advice on how to create long-term, community-embedded projects. Rashida Bumbray, senior program manager of the Arts Exchange at Open Society Foundations, will moderate.
Location: The 8th Floor, 17 West 17th Street
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Nicolas Holiber, Double-crested Cormorant.
Rendering courtesy of the Audubon Sculpture Project.
5. The Audubon Sculpture Project Kick-Off Party at the American Academy of Arts and Letters
In spring 2019, artist Nicolas Holiber will install 12 large-scale sculptures of birds identified by the National Audubon Society as being seriously threatened by climate change along Broadway between West 67th and 168th Streets. The Broadway Malls Association exhibition is organized by the folks behind the Audubon Mural Project, highlighting endangered avian species with street art in the neighborhood that the great naturalist and painter John James Audubon once called home. This week’s fundraising party includes live music, drinks, and food, and is priced at $10 per bird sculpture.
Location: American Academy of Arts and Letters, 633 West 155th Street
Price: $120
Time: 6 p.m.–9 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, January 11–Saturday, February 10
Larry Poons, left, at the racetrack. Photo by Paula De Luccia. Frank Stella, right, with a small-scale model of his BMW 3.0 CSL, Munich, 1976. © BMW Group. Courtesy Loretta Howard Gallery.
6. “Racers: Larry Poons and Frank Stella” at Loretta Howard Gallery
Larry Poons and Frank Stella, friends now for more than 50 years, share interests beyond that of formalist art. Both also have a deep passion for automobile racing. Stella used to tour Formula 1 Grand Prix Races while Poons (at the ripe age of 80) still competes on the circuit with his single cylinder motorcycles. “Racers” explores the two artists’ interest in the sport through selections of their work inspired by it, both visually—such as in Stella’s “Circuit” paintings, which look like an aerial view of an urban race course—and thematically, as with Poons’s action-oriented canvases.
Location: Loretta Howard Gallery, 521 West 26th Street
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Taylor Dafoe
Thursday, January 11–Sunday, February 11
Carol Szymanski’s Stimmung-Tuned In (re.Te-10) (2017). Image courtesy of TOTAH.
7. “Carol Szymanski: Pareidolia” at TOTAH
Carol Szymanski’s new exhibition, “Pareidolia,” is comprised of photos of her previous body of work—a series of inflated Mylar sculptures shaped like letters from a lost alphabet, titled Songs of Solfège. Shot so close as to reveal only a small, abstract section of the surface of the sculptures, the “Pareidolia” photos aren’t so much a documentation of the original works as they are an addendum, further exploring the interrelationship of language, sound, and sight.
Location: TOTAH, 183 Stanton Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m. and by appointment
—Taylor Dafoe
Friday, January 12
Still from Laurie Simmons’s “My Art.” Photo courtesy of the artist and Quad Cinema.
8. My Art by Laurie Simmons at Quad Cinema
Artist Laurie Simmons makes her feature film debut—showing in New York in a limited engagement, and opening in LA on January 19—with a comedy of errors about an aging female artist who works to rekindle the creative spark by ditching the city for a friend’s country home. Following the screening, Simmons will participate in a Q&A with Robert Clohessy, John Rothman, and producer Andrew Fierberg.
Location: Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street
Price: $15
Time: 7 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Friday, January 12–Saturday, February 25
Sara Berman, I Was There and Then You No One (2017). Courtesy of Sapar Contemporary.
9. “Solitaire: Heeseop Yoon and Sara Berman” at Sapar Contemporary
This two-person exhibition pairs Heeseop Yoon’s elegant black and white line drawings, based on her photographs of largely overlooks, densely packed spaces such as land fills, thrift stores and storage units, with Sara Berman’s colorful paintings of domestic interiors, her focus on textile elements betraying her previous work in the fashion industry.
Location: Sapar Contemporary, 9 North Moore Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, January 13–Friday, February 2
Cecil Beaton’s Greta Garbo (1937). ©National Portrait Gallery, London.
10. “The Eye of the Beholder: Decade-Defining Lids, Lashes, & Brows” at 80WSE Gallery, New York University
This surprisingly historical approach to the eye make-up—its roots stretch back to ancient times—features photographs, advertisements, and the actual products that have defined the American beauty industry across the last century. Drawing on the archives of iconic brands such as Maybelline and Cover Girl, the exhibition, according to its description, will demonstrate “how companies tap into the zeitgeist of each era to perpetually create a prevailing look, often reviving past beauty styles in the process.”
Location: 80WSE Gallery, New York University
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Wednesday, January 17, 5 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Sunday, February 4
Futurefarmers at the Hunter East Harlem Gallery.
11. “Futurefarmers: Arrange” at Hunter East Harlem Gallery
How does a gallery with a modest-sized exhibition space mount an informative and engaging exhibition of the work of a social practice collective that has addressed topics ranging from nuclear power, robotics, and pollution to gardening over some 23 years? Faced with this challenge, the Hunter East Harlem Gallery invited locals to serve as performative guides to a show of the work of Futurefarmers. The guides use art objects as props and read from a script as if rehearsing lines for the very performance they’re acting out, with your participation. The two interpreters working on the day I visited made a charming and intimate presentation of a varied group of projects. I aim to go back for another round.
Location: Hunter East Harlem Gallery, Silberman School of Social Work, 2180 Third Avenue at East 119th Street
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, 12 p.m.–5 p.m.
—Brian Boucher
Through Saturday, February 10
Henry Swanson’s Michael Jordan Fugazi (2017). Image courtesy of the artist and Anna Zorina Gallery.
12. “Henry Swanson: My Mom Can Drive, If Your Mom Can Pick Up” at Anna Zorina Gallery
Henry Swanson’s first solo show opened earlier this month at Anna Zorina, mixing pop cultural references with figurative depth.
Location: Anna Zorina Gallery, 533 West 23 Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception Thursday, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein