Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Tuesday, July 18–Saturday, July 29
Alan Vega, courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch.
1. “Alan Vega: Dream Baby Dream” at Jeffrey Deitch
A year after the passing of Alan Vega, a.k.a. Alan Suicide, Deitch Projects presents “Dream Baby Dream,” a memorial exhibition in honor of Vega’s life and body of work as a musician and visual artist. Vega, who is best known for being part of the seminal electronic punk duo Suicide, is considered a harbinger of the punk movement in the ’70s. The exhibition will feature videos documenting performances by Suicide, as well as Vega’s sculptures and works on paper.
Location: Jeffrey Deitch, 18 Wooster Street
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Friday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m., July 18–July 28; Tuesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m. from September 5–30.
—Caroline Goldstein
Wednesday, July 19
Images © Liana Finck via Instagram.
2. “Liana Finck: Passing For Human” at Equity Gallery
An exhibition of New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck’s drawings, originally posted via Instagram, will be on display at Equity Gallery in the Lower East Side. Finck manages to capture the full gamut of human experience with just a few pencil lines, in work that has been hailed as both “gently savage” and “bleakly hilarious.”
Location: 245 Broome Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Wednesday, July 19–Friday, July 21
Alexander Calder’s Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere (1932/33). Calder Foundation, New York; Mary Calder Rower Bequest, 2011. © 2017 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson.
3. Christian Marclay and Okkyung Lee performance at “Calder: Hypermobility“
Artist and composer Christian Marclay and cellist Okkyung Lee are teaming up to activate Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere (1922/33), Calder’s first hanging mobile. What many don’t realize—and what the performance will reveal—is that this work is as much for the ears as for the eyes. Calder invited the viewer to place cast-off objects around two hanging spheres and then set the spheres in motion. When they knock into the objects around them, the spheres create an unpredictable—and original—score. Marclay and Okkyung will put their own twist on Calder’s work by adding new objects to the array and a cello accompaniment. The project is just one of a series of performances by contemporary artists responding to the work in the Calder show.
Location: Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street
Price: $25
Time: July 19 and 20, 8 p.m.; July 21, 1 p.m.
—Julia Halperin
Wednesdays, July 19, July 26, August 2, and August 9
Uptown Bounce 2016 at the Museum of the City of New York. Courtesy of Filip Wolak.
4. Uptown Bounce at the Museum of the City of New York and El Museo del Barrio
This annual summer block party series at these neighboring uptown museums, now in its fourth year, runs for four consecutive Wednesdays. The event brings live music, art, and film to the streets of East Harlem. The respective themes for each night in 2017 are “Rhythm and Power,” “I Love the ’90s,” “Icons of the ’80s,” and “Latin Disco.” It’s also a great time to check out current shows like El Museo’s “NKAME: A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón” and MCNY’s “Rhythm & Power: Salsa in New York” after hours.
Location: Museum of the City of New York, 1220 5th Avenue at 103rd Street, and El Museo del Barrio, 130 5th Avenue at 104th Street
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.–9 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, July 19–Sunday, September 10
Everett McCourt, William Eggelston, Memphis TN 1989. Image courtesy of Robin Rice Gallery.
5. Summertime Salon at the Robin Rice Gallery
As is her tradition, this summer gallerist Robin Rice has selected 100 images by 51 artists to comprise her salon-style photography exhibition. Paying homage to the salon-hang of early art exhibitions, Rice wallpapers the interior of her downtown gallery with photographs that range in style and subject.
Location: 325 West 11th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Wednesday–Sunday, 12 p.m.–7 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Thursday, July 20–Sunday, January 7, 2018
Jacob Lawrence, The Architect (1959). Courtesy of the Studio Museum in Harlem.
6. “Their Own Harlems” at the Studio Museum in Harlem
Jacob Lawrence, who died in 2000, would have turned 100 this year. In honor of his centenary, the Studio Museum has mined its collection for works inspired by Harlem’s urban landscape, often depicted in Lawrence’s oeuvre. The exhibition will feature some 15 artists, including Dawoud Bey, Jacob Lawrence, Julie Mehretu, Wardell Milan, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
The show is one of three openings at the Studio Museum that night, joined by “Harlem Postcards: Summer 2017,” and “Impressions: Expanding the Walls.”
Location: The Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th Street
Price: Suggested donation $7
Time: Wednesday, 5 p.m.–7 p.m., (members only); Thursday and Friday, 12 p.m.–8 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, July 20
“Eva Papamargariti: Precarious Inhabitants” installation view. Courtesy of TRANSFER.
7. Artist Talk: Eva Papamargariti inside “Precious Inhabitants” at TRANSFER
On the occasion of her exhibition at Brooklyn’s TRANSFER (on view through July 22), Eva Papamargariti will speak with gallery director Kelani Nichole about the video work on view, which explores concepts of symbiosis and transformation between humans, artificial intelligence, and animals.
Location: TRANSFER, 1030 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, July 22–ongoing
Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog on the set of The Muppet Movie. Courtesy the Jim Henson Company.
8. “The Jim Henson Exhibition” at the Museum of the Moving Image
At long last, the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) is unveiling its permanent tribute to Muppet creator Jim Henson (1936–1990), based on over 500 objects from his archives donated by his family. Among them will be 47 historic puppets for such beloved characters as Big Bird, Elmo, Kermit, Piggy, and the Swedish Chef, as well as characters from the TV show Fraggle Rock and the 1982 film The Dark Crystal. The exhibition, funded in part by a successful Kickstarter campaign, has been four years in the making, and is the eagerly awaited sequel to MoMI’s 2011 “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World” exhibition.
Location: Museum of the Moving Image is located at 36-01 35 Ave, Astoria, Queens
Price: $15
Time: Wednesday–Thursday, 10:30 a.m.–2 p.m.; Friday, 10:30 a.m.–8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11:30 a.m.–7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, July 22–Saturday, August 26
Marino di Teana, Liberté, Monumental Sculpture (1988/2013). Courtesy of Maison Gerard.
9. “Marino di Teana, Sculptor, Architect, and Philosopher: A Lifetime of Passion and Expression” in South Hampton
New York gallery Maison Gerard heads east for its first off-site exhibition, and first show featuring architect and sculptor Marino di Teana (1920–2012), who saw his two practices as one, employing industrial materials such as steel in his art. The show is being held on the manicured grounds of a Southhampton mansion designed by American architect Grosvenor Atterbury that currently belongs to Michael Bruno, founder of 1stdibs.
“Not only has his work never been available to an American audience in such a comprehensive exhibition, but, presented against the brilliant backdrop of an Atterbury home and its grounds, we can at last experience the breadth and scope of this incredible artist’s vision in a way the artist intended: in the open and on its own terms,” said gallery principle Benoist F. Drut in a statement.
Location: Grosvenor Atterbury mansion, Southhampton
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.; open by appointment
—Sarah Cascone
Through Saturday, July 29
Alan Vega, photograph: Ari Marcopoulos, courtesy of Invisible Exports.
10. “Alan Vega: Keep IT Alive” at Invisible Exports
Before it closes, check out another tribute to the late Suicide frontman and visual artist, Alan Vega, in this exhibition at Invisible Exports. The show includes a series of paintings that Vega finished just before his death in July of 2016. The large-scale paintings depict blurry figures that recall Francis Bacon’s tormented subjects. The work also harkens back to Vega’s time as a student of painters Ad Reinhardt and Kurt Seligmann. The show will also feature three of Vega’s sculptures, assembled from discarded electronics and light fixtures, which critic Simon Reynolds described as “trash-culture shrines from a post-cataclysmic America of the near-future.”
Location: 89 Eldridge Street
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Through Sunday, August 20
“Priority Mail” at Ground Floor Gallery. Courtesy of Ground Floor Gallery.
11. “Priority Mail” at Ground Floor Gallery
Ground Floor’s summer biennial is back for 2017. Billed as a “grand and inclusive gesture,” the gallery promises to exhibit the first 250 artworks it receives in response to its open call. The only requirement is that each piece cannot be more than five by seven inches. All works will sell for just $100 each, and half the proceeds will go to the artists.
Location: Ground Floor Gallery, 343 5th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Thursday, July 20, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 2 p.m.–6 p.m.; Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m.–5 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone