Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. We are currently highlighting events and exhibitions that are available digitally. See our picks from around the world below. (Times are all EST unless otherwise noted.)
Monday, July 6
Frida Kahlo, Me and My Parrots (1941). ©2019 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
1. “Virtual Happy Hour: Frida Kahlo Birthday Celebration” at the National Museum for Women in the Arts
Mix up the Frida Kahlo cocktail from the book Free the Tipple: Kickass Cocktails Inspired by Iconic Women—which consists of tequila, lime, and hibiscus syrup, garnished with fresh flowers, naturally—and tune in for a birthday celebration of the artist which delves into the museum’s archive and library. Researchers will share letters written by Kahlo to her mother and share little known facts about the artist.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 5:30 p.m.–6:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Tuesday, July 7
Jeffrey Gibson, All for One, One for All. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
2. “Jeffrey Gibson and María Magdalena Campos-Pons in Conversation with Dorothy Moss” from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
Tune in as National Portrait Gallery curator Dorothy Moss sits down with artists Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and Jeffrey Gibson for a conversation about identity and reinserting BIPOC histories into museum spaces. Both Gibson and Campos-Pons have participated in the museum’s performance series, and they’ll also discuss how performance art can be used as a tool for change at institutions, from representing the experiences of those who have historically been excluded to forcing the institutions to implement structural change.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 5 p.m.
—Katie Rothstein
Barbara Jones-Hogu, Nation Time (1969). Courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art.
3. “One Nation: Unraveling the Symbolism of Flags,” a Zoom discussion with the Blanton Museum, Austin
Fourth of July weekend might be over, but that doesn’t mean that the national conversation around patriotism and national symbols is. The latest edition of the Blanton Museum’s “Curated Conversations” series is taking on the topic in a talk featuring Blanton curators Carter Foster, Vanessa Davidson, and Genevra Higginson, with Phillip Townsend, a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas, Austin, focused on modern and contemporary art of the Black Atlantic. The talk will focus on artists within the museum’s collection, including Charles White and Barbara Jones-Hogu.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6 p.m. EST
—Caroline Goldstein
Baron Wolman, view from the audience: The Rolling Stones at Day on the Green Oakland Coliseum Stadium, Oakland, California, 1978. Photo courtesy of Iconic Images/Baron Wolman.
4. “Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution” Virtual Presentation at the New-York Historical Society
Experience the New-York Historical Society’s show on legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, who worked with acts such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones, from the comfort of your own home with this virtual tour from a museum docent featuring psychedelic posters, oral history audio clips, and rare backstage photographs.
Price: $10 (free for members)
Time: 4 p.m.-5 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
5. Thomas J. Price with Legacy Russell at the Studio Museum in Harlem
For the newest iteration of the Studio Museum’s Studio LIVE series—an ongoing program that sees the institution turn over its digital platforms to artists, scholars, and other thinkers—British sculptor Thomas J. Price will speak with curator Legacy Russell on Instagram. The two will tackle the discourse around the function of monuments today, straddling the lines of public art and historical landmarks.
Price: Free
Time: 2 p.m.
—Tanner West
Wednesday, July 8
The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition is hosting a series of virtual Artist Survival Kit meetings. Image courtesy of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition.
6. “Art/Work with Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jennifer Scanlan” from the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition
Curator and author Heather Darcy Bhandari will talk with curator Jennifer Scanlan as part of the Artist Survival Kit virtual event series. They’ll offer advice on pursuing an art career, and how artists might increasingly find success outside of major art hubs like New York and Los Angeles.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 7 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Jammie Holmes, My Neck Hurts (Dallas) (2020). Photo by Mark LaBoyteaux, courtesy of the artist and Library Street Collective.
7. “Looking Forward: Art and Change in Dallas” at the Dallas Contemporary
Following Jammie Holmes’s public art activation They’re Going to Kill Me, the Dallas Contemporary set up an online exhibition featuring documentation of the work, which saw planes fly banners featuring George Floyd’s dying words over five US cities. Darryl Ratcliff, an artist, poet, and cultural organizer in Dallas, will moderate a Zoom panel responding to the work. The discussion will examine systemic racism and how the art world can work to dismantle it through grassroots action and dialogue.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 11 a.m. CST
—Sarah Cascone
Chamber musician Shelley Monroe Huang and Asia Society Triennial composer-in-residence Huang Ruo. Photo courtesy of the Asia Society.
8. “A Meditation on Solidarity and Hope by Huang Ruo and Shelley Monroe Huang” at the Asia Society
The inaugural Asia Society Triennial has delayed its opening until the fall, but it is still presenting online programming, including a live performance from the exhibition’s composer-in-residence, Huang Ruo, and his wife, chamber musician Shelley Monroe Huang, on piano and bassoon. The composition is inspired by current events—both racism against the Asian community prompted by the global health crisis and the Black Lives Matter movement. Tune in on the museum’s YouTube channel to watch.
Price: Free
Time: 6:30 p.m.–7:10 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Installation view of “State of the Art 2020” at the Momentary. Photo by Dero Sanford. Courtesy of the Momentary, Bentonville, Arkansas.
9. “Digital Talk >> State of the Art 2020: Material Journeys” at the Momentary
Earlier this year, Crystal Bridges debuted the Momentary, a sister exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art in all media. For its inaugural exhibition, the Momentary’s curatorial team scoured the nation to find 61 of the most exciting artists working in the US today, with a focus on assembling a true cross-section of backgrounds and career trajectories. Three of the featured artists—Hong Hong, Suchitra Mattai, and Anthony Sonnenberg—will join Momentary assistant curator Kaitlin Maestas for a live remote chat focusing on how they repurpose found materials into compelling artworks.
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 8 p.m. EST
—Tim Schneider
Thursday, July 9
Jeffrey Gibson in his studio, 2020. Photo: Taylor Dafoe.
10. “Art History Happy Hour” at the Brooklyn Museum
For the latest in the Brooklyn Museum’s series of art-history happy hours, mix up a raspberry vodka cocktail (recipe here) and kick back for a series of Facebook Live talks tied to the exhibition “Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks.” (The show is currently on pause, but runs through January 2021.) First, art historian and Indigenous Kinship Collective cofounder Regan de Loggans discusses how his organization and other Indigenous communities are organizing in solidarity with the Black community. Then, Jeffrey Gibson will join Jami Powell, the associate curator of Native American art at the Hood Museum in Hanover, New Hampshire, to discuss his work, his approach to confronting colonial histories in museum collections, and the role of monuments in both the exhibition and the broader public consciousness.
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.–7 p.m.
—Julia Halperin
Giovanni Bellini, The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr (circa 1505–07). Courtesy of the National Gallery.
11. “On the Contrary: Bellini’s The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr” with the National Gallery, Washington, DC
Museum didactic texts can have an airtight feel of authority, but artworks, in truth, often have myriad interpretations with scholars and curators debating different perspectives. Get a glimpse of that process as the National Gallery’s Belle Smith and Marc Woodhead offer up opposing points of view on Giovanni Bellini’s epic painting The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr—and make discuss just what the Renaissance artist was hoping to convey.
Price: Free with registration
Time: Zoom, 4 p.m. BST (11 a.m. EST)
—Katie White
A still from Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, The Message is Death (2016). Courtesy of the artist and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York City, Rome.
12. “Curator Conversation: Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, The Message is Death” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
During the Smithsonian’s weekend-long continuous streaming of Arthur Jafa’s Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death in late June, viewers were invited to share their thoughts on the 2016 video work. Now, those comments will be at the center of a conversation led by E. Carmen Ramos, curator of Latinx art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; Saisha Grayson, the museum’s curator of time-based media; Stephanie Stebich, the museum’s director; and Rhea Combs, curator of film and photography at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 3 p.m.
—Rachel Corbett
Thursday, July 9–Saturday, October 10
Courtesy of Luis de Jesus Los Angeles.
13. “Peter Williams: Black Universe” at Luis de Jesus Los Angeles
Originally scheduled to open in March, Luis de Jesus Los Angeles’s second solo show with artist Peter Williams is now opening at last. The show will run concurrent to Williams’s solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and the art space Trinosophes. In this exhibition, Williams “tells an Afrofuturist tale of a brown-skinned race that escapes to outer space in search of new planet homes and an end to the cycles of oppression from which they have been subjected.”
Price: Free
Time: 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
—Cristina Cruz
Friday, July 10
ETHEL is Ralph Farris (viola), Kip Jones (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello), and Corin Lee (violin). Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
14. “ETHEL and Friends: Balcony Bar from Home” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
One of the great pleasures of visiting the Met is the weekly Friday night concerts on the balcony bar overlooking the entrance hall. The museum is doing its best to replicate that experience by streaming weekly performances by ETHEL, a string quartet that offers cutting-edge contemporary takes on classical music. Tune in on Facebook to watch.
Price: Free
Time: 5 p.m.–5:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone