Each week, we search for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. In light of the global health crisis, we are currently highlighting events in person and digitally, as well as in-person exhibitions open in the New York area. See our picks from around the world below. (Times are all EST unless otherwise noted.)
Tuesday, June 8
The director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt. Photo by Laura Lezza/Getty Images.
1. “Directors Dialogue: Eike Schmidt in Conversation” at the American Federation of the Arts
Eike Schmidt has been making big moves as the director of the Uffizi in Florence, from adding street art to the collection to selling a Michelangelo NFT. He’ll talk about his unique leadership approach and issues facing art museums around the world today with American Federation of the Arts president Pauline Willis on Zoom.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 12 p.m.–1 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
The Museum Mile. Photo courtesy of the Cooper Hewitt.
2. “Virtual Museum Mile” in New York
Since 1978, the Upper East Side’s cultural institutions have banded together to host a free celebration once a year. For the second year in a row, this edition of the beloved Museum Mile is taking place online, with virtual tours and other live and prerecorded programming throughout the day from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Neue Galerie, the Guggenheim, the Cooper Hewitt, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, El Museo del Barrio, and the Africa Center. Highlights will include the first in a new virtual studio series at the Jewish Museum.
Price: Free
Time: 9 a.m.–9 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
3. “Panel Discussion: The New Normal” at Intersect Chicago
In this virtual panel, Lisa M. Key, deputy director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, will speak with Chicago cultural leaders Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, artistic director of the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago; Ken-Matt Martin, artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater; and Heather Ireland Robinson, executive director of the Jazz Institute of Chicago, about what “the new normal” means to their institutions.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 1 p.m.
—Tanner West
Installation view of work from “In Drawn: From the Collection of Jack Shear” at the Blanton Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art.
4. “Curated Conversation: Drawing Inspiration” at the Blanton Museum of Art, the University of Texas at Austin
The Blanton’s current exhibition, “Drawn: From the Collection of Jack Shear” (through August 22), is curated by photographer and curator Jack Shear, Ellsworth Kelly’s partner of 32 years and executive director of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation. Carter E. Foster, the museum’s deputy director for curatorial affairs, and curatorial assistant Christian Wurst will offer some insight into Shear’s eclectic vision for the show, which features nearly 100 works on paper ranging from Pablo Picasso, and Alice Neel to David Hockney and Julie Mehretu.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, June 9
Woman of the Year in Economy and Business: Katharine Graham (1973). Photo courtesy of Bettmann/Getty Images.
5. “Cover Story: Katharine Graham, CEO” at the New-York Historical Society
The New-York Historical Society offers a virtual presentation from curator Jeanne Gardner Gutierrez about its current exhibition on Katherine Graham (through October 3). She became the first woman to lead a Fortune 500 company when she took over the Washington Post, formerly led by her father, who died in 1946, and her husband, who died in 1963. The show looks to celebrate the legacy of the woman who famously ordered the publication of the Pentagon Papers despite the risk involved—and was dubbed “the most powerful woman in America” by Ms. Magazine.
Price: $10
Time: 5 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
A Polaroid film still from Jill Casid’s film Untitled (Melancholy as Medium). Courtesy of the Ford Foundation.
6. “Melancholy as Medium” at the Ford Foundation Gallery, New York
“Indisposable: Structures of Support After the ADA,” the online exhibition series from curators Jessica A. Cooley and Ann M. Fox about the lived experience of disability, returns for its fifth chapter, led by artist and historian Jill H. Casid, a professor at the University of Wisconsin. There will be performances Pamela Sneed and a reading by Pato Hebert and Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad, members of the What Would an HIV Doula Do? collective. Casid will debut their film, Untitled (Melancholy as Medium), which looks at how photography can help capture feelings of grief.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6 p.m.–7:15 p.m.n
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, June 9 and Thursday, June 10
Lizzi Bougatsos and Brian DeGraw. Photo courtesy of the artists.
7. “Agnes Martin: Music for Healing” at Pace, New York
Pace is bringing back its live program series, Pace Live—now taking place both in person at the gallery and YouTube Live. In response to the current exhibition “Agnes Martin: The Distillation of Color” (through June 26), there will be two nights of performance from contemporary musicians, with Laraaji on Wednesday and Gang Gang Dance’s Lizzi Bougatsos and Brian DeGraw on Thursday.
Location: Pace, 540 West 25th Street, New York (limited capacity)
Price: Free
Time: 6:30 p.m. (doors at 6 p.m.)
—Sarah Cascone
The Newark Museum of Art Garden. Photo courtesy of the Newark Museum of Art.
8. “Arts in the Garden: Togetherness With Daniel Bernard Roumain” at the Newark Museum of Art
While most New York museums began reopening months ago, the Newark museum remained shuttered until last week. This week, it launches Art in the Garden, a new outdoor concert series with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, featuring films and other cultural events, including nine live chamber concerts, taking place throughout the summer. Composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, the symphony’s resident artistic catalyst, kicks things off with a program featuring the world premiere of a piece by New Jersey’s Allison Loggins-Hull, as well as his piece Klap Ur Handz and selections from Mozart’s Flute Quartet.
Location: Newark Museum of Art, 49 Washington Street, Newark
Price: $20
Time: 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, June 9–Sunday, June 20
Theo Triantafyllidis, Anti-Gone (Performance Excerpt). Courtesy of Onx Studio.
9. “Onx Studio Showcase” at ONX Studio
The Tribeca Film Festival will present a high-tech movie showcase from members of Onx Studio, an incubator for virtual reality artists founded last fall by Onassis USA and the New Museum’s cultural incubator, New Inc. There will be immersive virtual and extended reality films screenings and installations each day. Theo Triantafyllidis’s Anti-Gone (Performance Excerpt) incorporates elements of interactive live performance to stage an open world video game set in a future defined by the effects of climate change and capitalism. Sarah Rothberg will speak with an audience member in a VR space to create her piece, NEW DIALOGUES, live and in real time.
Location: Onx Studio, 645 Fifth Ave, New York
Price: $20
Time: 12 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, June 10
Arlene Dávila. Photo courtesy of the Phillips Collection.
10. “Duncan Phillips Lecture: Arlene Dávila” at the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
Arlene Dávila, professor of anthropology and American studies at New York University, will kick off the 2021 Duncan Phillips Lecture series with a conversation with Vesela Sretenović, the Phillips Collection’s senior curator of Modern and contemporary art, about her book Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, and Politics.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6:30 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Nan Stewert
Friday, June 11–Spring 2022
Charlie Ahearn, Debbie Harry, Fab 5 Freddy, Grandmaster Flash, Tracy Wormworth, and Chris Stein, (1981), featured in Museum of the City of New York’s new exhibition, “New York, New Music: 1980–1986.” Photo courtesy of the artist.
11. “New York, New Music: 1980–1986” at the Museum of the City of New York
This show revisits the music scene of early 1980s New York City by examining this transformative era through the lens of emerging music genres and the influence they had on New York’s broader cultural landscape. It also marks the upcoming 40th anniversary of MTV in August. The exhibition highlights a broad range of music and artists, ranging from Run DMC to the Talking Heads, Madonna and John Zorn, to explore the broader music and cultural scene, including the publications, venues, fashion, and visual arts centered in the city during that time.
Location: Museum of the City of New York 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, New York
Price: $20; Seniors and students $14; 20 and under free
Time: Friday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. with timed tickets
—Eileen Kinsella