Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Tuesday, June 5
Jeff Koons talking about his new Snapchat collaboration. Screenshot courtesy of Moshe Isaacian via Snapchat.
1. “Jeff Koons: David Rockefeller Lecture on Art and Business” at the New York Institute of Technology
For better or for worse, Jeff Koons has teamed up with the likes of Snapchat and and Louis Vuitton, so he’s well equipped to talk about arts and business collaborations for this annual lecture from Americans for the Arts. He’ll be joined by Laurent Gaveau, head of the Google Arts & Culture Lab, which tapped Koons to make a line of phone cases.
Location: NYIT, Auditorium on Broadway, 1855 Broadway
Price: $35
Time: Reception, 5:30 p.m.; lecture 6:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Tuesday, June 5–Friday, August 17
Genevieve Gaignard, Counter Fit (2018). ©Genevieve Gaignard. Photo courtesy of the artist and Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles
2. “Genevieve Gaignard: Counterfeit Currency” at the FLAG Art Foundation
A highlight of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s recent show “Fictions,” Genevieve Gaignard exploits her mixed-race background in works that upend expectations about beauty, race, and class. In her first New York solo show. For the occasion, the Los Angeles-based artist created new self-portraits and collages addressing the malleability of personal identity, which is all too often a cultural construct.
Location: FLAG Art Foundation, 545 West 25th Street, 10th Floor (in the Chelsea Arts Tower)
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Wednesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.; summer hours Tuesday–Friday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, June 6–Sunday, September 9
Still from Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa’s Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm (2016). Courtesy of the New Museum.
3. “Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa: The House at Kawinal” at the New Museum
In his first solo exhibition in the US, Guatamalan-born artist Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa explores a construction project from the 1980s, where the government’s quest to build a dam in the Chixoy River Valley resulted in brutal and widespread massacres, and the displacement of thousands of the Achi Mayan people. The lasting effects of the trauma are still visible in the families and local communities, and the artist has created a series of sculptures and a video on the subject of domestic displacement, and the fractured remains of the indigenous heritage.
Location: New Museum, 235 Bowery
Price: General admission $18
Time: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday–Sunday: 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.–9 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Thursday, June 7
Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway and Mindy Kaling, from the cast of Ocean’s 8 attend a press event for the film held in front of the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images.
4. Young Members Party and Preview Screening of Ocean’s 8 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
In honor of the upcoming Ocean’s 8, in which an all-female squad of thieves attempts to rob the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the swanky Met Ball, the museum has dubbed this year’s Young Members Party “The Heist of the Summer.” Attendees have the option to catch the star-studded film a day before its release before dancing the night away in their best summer-chic attire.
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing, 1000 Fifth Avenue; pre-party screening at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13, 1998 Broadway
Price: $200, or $300 including movie screening
Time: Pre-party screening, 6:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m.; party, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, June 7–July 1
Nick Cave, The Let Go. Photo by Da Ping Luo, courtesy of the Park Avenue Armory.
5. “Nick Cave: The Let Go” at the Park Avenue Armory
Nick Cave invites viewers to embrace the cathartic power of dance with his new installation and performance art piece Let Go, which transforms the Park Avenue Armory Drill Hall with a 40-foot-tall, kinetic, multi-colored Mylar sculpture. There will be weeknight performances, featuring the artist’s sculptural soundsuits, and DJ sets on the weekend, when visitors are able to explore the installation.
Location: Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue
Price: $35 for performance tickets, $17 for installation visits
Time: Performances Wednesday–Friday 8 p.m. with installation visits 7:30 p.m.–11 p.m.; Installation hours Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, June 7–Friday, August 10
Lucas Samaras, Self-Painted, 7/6/73 (1973). Photo courtesy Craig F. Starr Gallery.
6. Lucas Samaras: Photo-Transformations at Craig F. Starr Gallery
In 1973, after the Polaroid Corporation gifted him its new SX-70 camera model, Lucas Samaras discovered that the emulsion on an instant photograph remained wet several minutes after the image was made. It didn’t take the artist long to exploit this fact, interrupting the film’s development and altering the captured imagery. The resulting body of work, Samaras’s landmark “Photo-Transformation” series, feature strange, often unsettling self-portraits that feel as much like paintings as they do photographs. A new exhibition at Craig F. Starr Gallery brings together 68 pictures from this group, chosen in collaboration with the artist himself.
Location: Craig F. Starr Gallery, 5 East 73rd Street
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Saturday, 11:00 am – 5:30 pm
—Taylor Dafoe
Friday, June 8
Darren Walker. Photo courtesy of the Frick Collection.
7. “Samuel H. Kress Lecture in Museum Education: Reimagining New York City’s Monuments” at the Frick Collection
Darren Walker, co-chair of the Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, which recently announced plans for how to deal with statues honoring controversial figures such as Christopher Columbus, gives a talk about the role of the monument in 21st-century America. The event is currently wait-listed, but you can catch a live stream on the museum website.
Location: Frick Collection, Music Room, 1 East 70th Street
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 4 p.m.–5 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Rene Ricard by Allen Ginsberg (1986). Photo courtesy of the Allen Ginsberg Estate.
8. Book Party for Rene Ricard 1979–1980 at Printed Matter, Inc.
Celebrate the re-release of the first poetry collection by art critic and painter Rene Ricard, who appeared in Andy Warhol’s films, with an evening of readings by Rijard Bergeron, Raymond Foye, Shiv Kotecha, Matt Longabucco, Eileen Myles, Coco Fitterman, and Joseph Henry. The bilingual French-English edition is published by Éditions Lutanie (Paris).
Location: Printed Matter, Inc., 231 11th Avenue
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Friday, June 8–Wednesday, September 12
Alberto Giacometti, Nose (Le nez), 1947 (cast 1949). Photo courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. ©2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP/FAAG, Paris.
9. “Giacometti” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Guggenheim brings together over 175 Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) sculptures, paintings, and drawings, for the first major US museum show in 15 years dedicated to the celebrated Swiss Modernist artist. Going beyond the stylized figurative sculptures for which he is best known, the exhibition highlights early work influenced by Cubism, Surrealism, and African, Oceanic, and Cycladic art, while also showcasing archival documents related to Giacometti’s close relationship with the Guggenheim, which hosted his first-ever museum show, back in 1955.
Location: The Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue
Price: $25
Time: Sunday–Wednesday, Friday, 10 a.m.–5:45 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.–7:45 p.m.; Tuesdays from June 19–September 11, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Friday, June 8–Sunday, February 3, 2019
M.C. Escher, Drawing Hands. ©2018 the M.C. Escher Company.
10. “Escher. The Exhibition & Experience” at Industry City
Catch over 200 works by Dutch artist M.C. Escher, known for illustrating mind-bendingly impossible spaces, in this traveling exhibition—which has attracted over one million guests at previous stops in cities around the world. It’s organized by Mark Veldhuysen, longtime curator of the M.C. Escher Foundation Collection, and Escher expert Federico Giudiceandrea, and also features Instagram-ready photo ops where visitors can pose in rooms inspired by the artist’s optical illusions.
Location: Industry City, 34 34th Street, Building 6, Brooklyn
Price: General Admission $20
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, June 9
From Harlem with Love: A Mural Project for Yuri & Malcolm. Photo by Noah Lichtman.
11. “Radical Routes Tour: Harlem’s Women Activists” at the Museum of the City of New York
Historian Dominique Jean-Louis leads a bus tour through Harlem highlighting the accomplishments of women of color. It’s part of the programming for “Beyond Suffrage: A Century of New York Women in Politics” (on view through August 5), the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibition on how the state’s women got the vote and other major milestones for women in the last century New York political history.
Location: The Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue at East 103rd Street
Price: $60
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Installation view, “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985,” Brooklyn Museum. Photo by Jonathan Dorado, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.
12. “Artist’s Eye: Paul Ramírez Jonas” at the Brooklyn Museum
Paul Ramírez Jonas earns the next slot in this ongoing series of talks featuring contemporary artists in dialogue with the museum’s special exhibitions. His contribution promises a unique angle on “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985” (on view through July 22), expressed through his experience creating participatory sculptures and mining shared histories—both valuable touchstones for the show.
Location: Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 200 Eastern Parkway, 4th Floor
Price: Free for members; $16 for non-members (includes general admission to the museum)
Time: 2 p.m.–3 p.m.
—Tim Schneider
Saturday, June 9–Sunday, January 13, 2019
Richard Landis, Signal (1976). Courtesy of the artist and Cooper Hewitt.
13. “Color Decoded: The Textiles of Richard Landis” at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum
Timed to coincide with the current exhibition, “Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color” (on view through January 13, 2019), the Cooper Hewitt is unveiling six textiles by the American designer Richard Landis. Using a grid-like pattern as the skeleton, Landis weaves intricate and optically challenging designs that use color relationships to add layers of dimensional and texture.
Location: Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, 2 East 91st Street
Price: General admission $16
Time: Monday–Friday & Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Saturday, June 9–Sunday, September 2
Groana Melendez, Untitled (Mona Lisa), 2015. Photo courtesy of the artist.
14. “DAYBREAK: New Affirmations in Queer Photography” at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art
See 12 takes on the complex subject of queer identity in this group show of emerging photographers who work in a wide range of styles and techniques. The featured artists are Kevin Aranibar-Molina, Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., Ryan James Caruthers, Ryan Duffin, Andrew Jarman, Mikaela Lungulov-Klotz, Groana Melendez, Vanessa Rondón, Alexis Ruiseco-Lombera, Matthew Papa, Jess Richmond, and Elias Jesús Rischmawi.
Location: The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, 26 Wooster Street
Price: $9 suggested admission
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.; Thursday, 12 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Saturday, June 9
Jane Freilicher, Flowers in Armchair (1956). Courtesy of Paul Kasmin Gallery.
15. “Jane Freilicher: ’50s New York” at Paul Kasmin Gallery
Paul Kasmin has taken on the estate of Jane Freilicher (1924–2014), presenting an exhibition of still lifes and portraits paintings in New York in the 1950s, as well cityscapes painted of the view from the window of the Lower Manhattan art studios where she worked during that period. In contrast to the prevailing American schools of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Pop, Freilicher painted representational scenes of domestic life and urban scenes.
Location: Paul Kasmin Gallery, 293 Tenth Avenue
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Installation view of “Five Years at Nahmad Contemporary” at Nahmad Contemporary. Photo courtesy of Nahmad Contemporary.
16. “Five Years at Nahmad Contemporary” at Nahmad Contemporary
A star-studded line up at Nahmad Contemporary gets a jump start on summer group show season with this exhibition celebrating the gallery’s fifth birthday, with work by the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lucio Fontana, Joan Miró, Sigmar Polke, Richard Prince, Mark Rothko, Egon Schiele, Rudolf Stingel, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and Christopher Wool.
Location: Nahmad Contemporary, 980 Madison Avenue
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone