Each week, we search for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events, both digitally and in-person in the New York area. See our picks from around the world below. (Times are all ET unless otherwise noted.)
Thursday, March 3–Saturday, March 19
It’s Beeple! He’s also known as Mike Winkelmann. Photo: Katya Kazakina.
1. “Beeple: Uncertain Future” at Jack Hanley
This Thursday, the man, the myth, the legend himself: Beeple is opening his first gallery show. Now, a year ago, few people beyond a niche corner of the Internet had heard the name Mike Winkelmann, and even fewer knew, or cared about, what he was doing online. Now though, the man whose NFT collection Everydays netted a staggering $69 million at Christies and helped usher in the NFT movement currently sweeping the planet, it’s sure to be a true event.
Beeple’s work often takes on a sci-fi-esque landscape populated by monstrous versions of world leaders and Transformer-style robots, and, according to the press release, in his own words: “TLDR: things are gonna get weird.”
Location: Jack Hanley, 177 Duane St.
Price: Free
Time: opening reception, Thursday, 4–8 p.m.;Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.;
—Caroline Goldstein
Thursday, March 3–Saturday, April 16
Tabboo!, Big Pink and Purple Cityscape (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.
2. “Tabboo! Cityscapes” at Karma and Gordon Robichaux
In the largest survey to date, downtown galleries Karma and Gordon Robichaux are showing visitors New York cityscapes through the eyes of the artist known as Tabboo! The colorful paintings are love letters to the city, which itself has become the backdrop of so much of the artist’s life and artwork. A resident of the same Alphabet City apartment for four decades, the paintings are expansive in their range. “I made art about what was around me, what I knew… I know my plants. I know all my tchotchkes, my puppet collection, and New York City…. So that’s my subject matter,” the artist says.
Location: Karma, 188 and 172 East 2nd Street, and Gordon Robichaux, 41 Union Square West.
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Thursday, 6–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Tanner West
Thursday, March 3–Sunday, July 24
Bridget Riley, New Day (1988). © 2022 Bridget Riley. All rights reserved.
3. “Bridget Riley: Perceptual Abstraction” Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A major survey of the seven-decade career of British artist Bridget Riley, who first made her mark in the U.S. as part of “The Responsive Eye,” the Museum of Modern Art’s landmark 1965 survey of Op Art, is coming to Yale. The exhibition, which includes more than 50 works, all of them approved by the artist in close collaboration with the museum, opens with Current (1964), which was shown at MoMA, and dedicates an entire floor to the artist’s early black-and-white works, which toy with visual perception. Her later, more colorful pictures, including examples like New Day (1988), follow, and are supplemented by, a significant group of prints. The show will be accompanied by a free digital catalogue.
Location: Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut
Price: Free
Time: Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sundays, 12 p.m.–5 p.m.
—Pac Pobric
Friday, March 4
4. “On the Edge: An Event with the Archives of American Art and Bakersfield Museum of Art” at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C.
Liza Kirwin, interim director of the Archives of American Art, and Rachel McCullah Wainwright, curator of collections and exhibitions at California’s Bakersfield Museum of Art, will join with journalists Joan Agajanian Quinn and Amanda Quinn Olivar for a virtual tour of the museum’s “On the Edge: Los Angeles Art, 1970s–1990s, from the Joan and Jack Quinn Family Collection” (through April 2). A conversation will immediately follow with Matthew Simms, a professor at California State University at Beach, featuring selections from the archives with personal anecdotes from the Quinn family. Participants can send any questions to EventsAAA@si.edu.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 3 p.m.–3:45 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Through Saturday, March 19
Alix Vernet, Veil, 1B, East Broadway (2021). Courtesy of Helena Anrather.
5. “Alix Vernet: And They Earned Eternity in a Brief Space of Time” at Helena Anrather, New York
Every once in a while I’ll be walking around the city and notice some high-up ornate architectural detail that I wish I could get a better look at. For anyone with similar inclinations, Alix Vernet’s first solo exhibition at Helena Anrather is a dream fulfilled, bringing just these sort of peripheral and often overlooked urban elements into focus. In works that span photography, sculpture, and social practice, Vernet focuses her attention on the ornamental flourishes that adorn the city’s late-19th century tenement buildings. A strange synthesis of an era caught between traditional handicraft and industrialization, these buildings took elements of neoclassical stone and terra cotta decorative motifs associated with wealth and included them in buildings that housed working-class immigrants. Many of the works on view are sculptural impressions Vernet created with the help of local residents who allowed her to climb through windows and up fire escapes in order to cast these ornate facades, which, like her delicate sculptures, are fragile and seem under threat of disappearing.
Location: Helena Anrather, 28 Elizabeth Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Katie White
Through Tuesday, March 15
Farah Mohammad, Unfettering, 2021 Courtesy of Nyama Fine Art
6. “Farah Mohammad: Interference” at Nyama Fine Art, New York
Make sure to see Pakistani artist Farah Mohammad’s solo show “Interference” at Nyama Fine Art. In this exhibition, Mohammad explores “migrational intersectionality and resilience” as they relate to urban living through a series of mixed-media installations and monotype prints. She finds a connecting pathway between her hometown of Karachi, Pakistan, and her current neighborhood of Harlem, New York, through issues of urban sprawl and gentrification.
Location: Nyama Fine Art, 507 West 27th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Friday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m. and by appointment
—Neha Jambhekar
Through Monday, September 5
Installation view of “Multitudes” at the American Folk Art Museum. Photo courtesy of the American Folk Art Museum, New York.
7. “Multitudes” at the American Folk Art Museum, New York
The American Folk Art Museum is celebrating its 60th anniversary with an exhibition of 400 stellar works from its collection, including William Edmondson’s Martha and Mary, a recently rediscovered Folk Art masterpiece donated to the institution by street artist KAWS. The show exemplifies the depth and breadth of the museum’s holdings, which include everything from work by neurodivergent individuals to examples of longstanding folk art traditions, such as works by renowned itinerant portraitist Ammi Phillips.
Location: American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, New York
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, 11:30 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone