Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Monday, January 3–Saturday, January 28
Francine Perlman, Doors Open, Doors Close. Courtesy of Ceres Gallery.
1. “Women Under Siege/It’s Happening Right Here” and “Francine Perlman: Doors Open, Doors Close” at Ceres Gallery
New York’s non-profit feminist art gallery is all the more vital with the impending inauguration of President Donald Trump. Curated by Susan Grabel, “Women Under Siege” features work by 25 women artists based laws currently in effect across the country that infringe upon and threaten women’s rights.
In Gallery II, an installation of doorways by Francine Perlman offers an insightful view of the struggles of women who trade domestic violence for a life of poverty, a path that often leads straight to the shelter system.
Location: Ceres Gallery, 547 East 27th Street, Suite 201
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Thursday, January 5, 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.
Thursday, January 5–Saturday, February 4
Hannah van Bart, Untitled (2016). Courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery.
2. “Hannah van Bart: The Smudge Waves Back” at Marianne Boesky Gallery
Dutch painter Hannah van Bart’s fifth solo show at Marianne Boesky is named for a line in David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: “The figure on the watchtower is an indistinct smudge. Jacob waves. The smudge waves back, with two smudged arms, in wide arcs.” In response, the artist offers a series of insightful portraits of imagined figures.
“Here the smudge has become extraordinarily meaningful—a keystone, a monument in itself,” said van Bart in an artist’s statement.
Location: Marianne Boesky Gallery, 509 West 24th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Thursday, January 5, 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Rita Lundqvist, Flowering Tree (2016). Courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.
3. Rita Lundqvist at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
For her third solo show with Tanya Bonakdar, Swedish painter Rita Lundqvist shares new paintings that read like illustrations pulled from some kind of vaguely unsettling children’s book. Her mysterious, bleak landscapes inspire the imagination, leading the viewer to wonder at the details of some untold story.
Location: Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, 521 West 21st Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Thursday, January 5, 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, January 5–Sunday, February 5
Sinister Feminism. Courtesy of A.I.R. Gallery.
4. “Sinister Feminism,” A.I.R. Gallery’s 12th Biennial Exhibition
“We fortify veneer into armor. We appropriate from misogynist sources. We exceed the cinematic ideal. We vibrate the sound of the city. We endure.”
So reads the description of “Sinister Feminism,” the Piper Marshall and Lola Kramer-curated group show of women artists. This edition’s participants are Lucas Berd, Dora Budor, ceramics club (cc), Kerry Downey, Dolores Furtado, Nicolás Guagnini, Caitlin Keogh, Chelsea Rae Klein, Lizzy Marshall, Whitney Oldenburg, B. Quinn, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Torbjørn Rødland, Karin Schneider and Leigh Ledare, and Bailey Scieszka.
Location: A.I.R. Gallery, 155 Plymouth Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Sunday, January 7, 4:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, January 5–Saturday, February 18, 2017
Martine Gutierrez, Martine Part V, video still. Courtesy of Ryan Lee Gallery
5. Martine Gutierrez, “Martine Part I–IX” at Ryan Lee Gallery
Ambitious 28-year-old multimedia artist Martine Gutierrez, who lives in Brooklyn, gets her third solo show at Ryan Lee Gallery this week. Her nine-part video work, titled, Martine Part I-IX (2012–16), is an exploration of gender and identity, and includes her own original score.
Location: Ryan Lee Gallery, 515 West 26th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Thursday, January 5, 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.
—Kathleen Massara
Friday, January 6–Sunday, February 12
Phoenix Lindsey-Hall, “Never Stop Dancing.” Courtesy of VICTORI + MO.
6. “Phoenix Lindsey-Hall: Never Stop Dancing” at VICTORI + MO
“The only imperative is to be transformed, transfigured in the disco light,” the author Justin Torres wrote in the Washington Post, following the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. “To lighten, loosen, see yourself reflected in the beauty of others.” In line with this idea, Phoenix Lindsey-Hall uses 49 cast porcelain disco balls as a tribute to the mainly queer Latino victims of the massacre, which occurred last June.
Location: VICTORI + MO, 56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Friday from 6:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m.
—Kathleen Massara
Saturday, January 7–Saturday, February 11
Sergei Eisenstein, Untitled (1942). Courtesy of Alexander Gray Associates.
7. “Sergei Eisenstein: Drawings 1931–1948” at Alexander Gray Associates
As the director of Battleship Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein is securely in the pantheon of all-time film greats, and the subject of any intro level film course. Get ready to have your mind blown, then, as Gray presents a very different, more intimate side of the man via this rare suite of Eisenstein’s “sexual drawings,” racy black-and-red cartoons, made during his sojourn from Russia in the US and Mexico, and informed equally by his own bisexuality and sources ranging from Mexican muralism to Walt Disney.
Location: Alexander Gray Associates, 510 West 26th Street
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11:00: a.m.–6:00 p.m.
—Ben Davis
Saturday, January 7–Sunday, February 12
Jim Torok, Radio Free Albemuth (2015). Courtesy of Pierogi.
8. “Jim Torok: The New Age of Uncertainty, Portraits and Storyboards” at Pierogi
The exhibition title for Jim Torok’s timely new show of paintings comes from economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s name for the period between World War I and World War II—as summed up from the vantage point of Watergate-and-Vietnam-roiled America circa 1973. Combining the veteran painter’s hyper-realistic portraits and stick-figure storyboards, the show promises both affecting and alternately black observations about the state of the world today.
Location: Pierogi, 155 Suffolk Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Sunday, January 8, 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.
—Christian Viveros-Faune