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.)
Tuesday, March 8
Tabitha Soren, Emotional Wreck, “Some Blows Are Heavy” (2021). Photo courtesy of the artist ©Tabitha Soren.
1. “International Women’s Day Festival 2022” at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
NMWA is hosting a day-long virtual event in honor of International Women’s Day. Events include a conversation between photographers Rehab Eldalil and Tabitha Soren, a shadow drawing workshop with Emily Fussner, and a livestreamed happy hour with R&B singer Afi Soul and D.C. bartenders Kapri Johnson and Denaya Jones, who have provided recipes for two spiked tea cocktails for viewers to make at home.
Price: Most events free with registration
Time: 10 a.m.–6:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power by Susan Page. Photo courtesy of Twelve.
2. “Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power” at the New-York Historical Society
Perfectly timed to International Women’s Day, author and journalist Susan Page speaks with Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian for CNN and the New-York Historical Society, about her bestselling book, Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power.
Location: The New-York Historical Society, Robert H. Smith Auditorium, 170 Central Park West at Richard Gilder Way (West 77th Street), New York
Price: $44 for in-person tickets, $30 to attend via livestream
Time: 6:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, March 9
Isolde Brielmaier. Photo courtesy of the New Museum.
3. “2022 Badass Art Woman Awards” at Project for Empty Space, Newark
This week marks the return of BAWA, beloved Newark art nonprofit Project for Empty Space’s gala honoring women in the arts who have not gotten the recognition they deserve from leading cultural institutions. The 2022 edition, which takes the ecofeminist work of Ana Mendieta as its thematic inspiration, is recognizing Fayemi Shakur, cultural affairs director for the city of Newark; Isolde Brielmaier, deputy director of New York’s New Museum; and Michi Jigarjian, partner, curator, and chief social impact officer in the 7G Group.
Location: Rutgers University, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hall, 15 Washington Street, Newark
Price: general admission $150
Time: 6 p.m.–10 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, March 10
Tristan Rescuing King Arthur (detail), about 1320–1340, unknown illustrator. Tempera colors, gold paint, and silver and gold leaf. Image courtesy Getty Museum
4. “Art Break: Re-Imagining Medieval Camelot for Today” at the Getty Center, Los Angeles
The rich history of the Middle Ages has captured creative minds throughout history. In this virtual talk, Kiersten White, author of Camelot Rising, and manuscripts curator Larisa Grollemond draw connections between medieval illuminated manuscripts and White’s adaptation and reinterpretation of medieval literature for young adult audiences—with a special focus on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. White and Grollemond will discuss why medieval tales and imagery continue to have such resonance for contemporary audiences.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 12 p.m. PT (3 p.m. ET)
—Eileen Kinsella
Thursday, March 10–Saturday, March 19
Artist Rafaella Braga in front of one of her works. Courtesy of Processa Gallery.
5. “Rafaella Braga: The Sky Made Me A Reality” at Processa Gallery, Queens
Processa Gallery, formerly known as Artsy Window, presents Rafaella Braga’s first solo exhibition in New York. Born in Brazil and now based in Berlin, Braga started her artistic journey in graffiti. Her monumental works are both physically intensive and spiritual, involving offerings, a large broom, and a variety of media and fabrics. Braga activates her works with performances, sculptures, and installations. RSVP for the opening at the gallery’s website.
Location: Processa Gallery, 1563 Decatur Street #1A, Ridgewood, Queens
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–9 p.m. (RSVP here); gallery visits by appointment
—Cristina Cruz
Thursday, March 10–Saturday, March 26
Louis Armstrong poster. Collection of Ralph DeLuca. Photo courtesy of Salon 94, New York.
6. “Caldonia: Concert and Film Posters From the Collection of Ralph DeLuca” at Salon 94, New York
For its final show before merging with Lévy Gorvy and Amalia Dayan to form LGDR, Salon 94 pairs artworks by African American artists including Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Lyle Ashton Harris, and Stuart Davis with historic posters featuring music and films by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, the Shirelles, and Little Stevie Wonder. Taking its name from a 1945 poster advertising Louis Jordan’s song Caldonia, the exhibition is a celebration of the history of Black performers and a call to recognize how their important cultural contributions are in danger of being forgotten.
Location: Salon 94, 3 East 89th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Private opening reception, 7 p.m.–10 p.m. Wednesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, March 10–Saturday, April 16
Awol Erizku, Lion (Body) I, 2022 Courtesy of Gagosian
7. “Awol Erizku: Memories of a Lost Sphinx” at Gagosian, New York
Awol Erizku’s work aims to connect African and African-American cultures. Gagosian presents the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery, organized by Antwaun Sargent. The show consists of six lightbox photographs in a black-painted interior, along with mixed-media sculptures examining the sphinx through a cross-cultural lens beyond familiar Egyptian, Greek, and Asian mythology by incorporating imagery from hip-hop and pop culture.
Location: Gagosian, 821 Park Avenue, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 4 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
—Neha Jambhekar
Thursday, March 10–Saturday, April 23
Jen Dwyer, Genevieve, 2022 Courtesy of Dinner Gallery
8. “Jen Dwyer: Garden of Archetypes” at Dinner Gallery, New York
Make sure to see Jen Dwyer’s new sculptures and paintings in her solo exhibition at Dinner Gallery, which tells a story of a woman getting ready to emerge into public life after a long hiatus. Implementing motifs from antiquity, the Rococo, and Surrealism, and meshing them with modern life, Dwyer makes the viewer ponder the complexities of adult life. “Her whimsical and dream-like scenes blur the lines between reality and fantasy, private and public, and taste and value, while revealing the external factors that have helped shape these choices while also alluding to a private world of the imagination,” the gallery notes in its statement.
Location: Dinner Gallery, 242 West 22nd Street, New York, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening Reception, Thursday, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Neha Jambhekar
Jarrett Key, We Were Sleeping, 2022 Courtesy of the artist and 1969 Gallery
9. “Jarrett Key: from the ground, up” at 1969 Gallery, New York
Jarrett Key’s first solo show at 1969 Gallery offers paintings, frescoes, and monotypes inspired by the folklore and oral histories from their Alabama upbringing. The title is a reference to Black freedom and liberation, to the sense that nothing can hold a Black person down. The artist prominently employs Haint blue in their works, traditionally made using crushed indigo leaves, and used to signify spiritual values such as peace, death, and immortality, from the Renaissance to the American South.
Location: 1969 Gallery, 39 White Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening Reception, Thursday, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Neha Jambhekar
Thursday, March 10–Sunday, May 22
Fernanda Laguna, Bebé con rayos (Baby with sunbeams), 1994. Courtesy of the artist and Galería Nora Fisch, Buenos Aires.
10. “Fernanda Laguna: The Path of the Heart” at the Drawing Center, New York
Born in Buenos Aires in 1972, feminist artist Fernanda Laguna is a writer, curator, activist, and cultural agitator. Over the last 20 years, much of her work—which incorporates found materials such as toilet paper, stickers, and bottle caps—has endeavored to connect art to the community, often through avenues like the community art gallery, art supply store, and DIY publishing space Belleza y Felicidad. This major survey show features 70 works, some dating back to the mid-1990s.
Location: The Drawing Center, 35 Wooster Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m. Wednesday–Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Sunday, March 13
Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Construction of a Black Circle and Burgundy, Red, and Blue Segments (1942). Photo by Mick Vincenz, courtesy of the Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck,
Remagen, Germany.
11. “Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
This week is your last chance to catch the first in-depth Sophie Taeuber-Arp exhibition in the U.S. in nearly 40 years. The show features about 300 works that showcase her incredible talent in a wide range of mediums, from textiles and paintings to furniture and marionettes, as well as architectural designs, photographs, and relief sculptures. Taeuber-Arp seemingly did it all, working as an applied arts teacher and a magazine editor, helping shape the Dada movement, and even making stained glass windows, translating her artistic vision across genres and disciplines with an effortless touch that would impress even the most ambitious 21st-century multi-hyphenate. (Note that Sunday is a “member last look” for MoMA members only.)
Location: Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York
Price: general admission $25
Time: Sunday–Friday, 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Saturday, 10:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Sunday, March 13–Sunday, August 14
Suzanne Lacy and Julia London with Jan Chattler, Joya Cory, Natalia Rivas, Ngoh Spencer, and Carol Szego, Freeze Frame: Room for Living Room (1982), performance view, Roche Bobois furniture showroom, San Francisco. Photo by f-stop Fitzgerald, courtesy of Suzanne Lacy Studio.
12. “Suzanne Lacy: The Medium is Not the Only Message” at the Queens Museum
Over the course of her four-decade career, public performance and social practice artist Suzanne Lacy has made work about violence against women, racism, labor rights, and other hot-topic issues. This survey show at the Queens Museum includes some of Lacy’s earliest solo performances, as well as recent large-scale community-based works, all informed by her commitment to intersectional feminism.
Location: The Queens Museum, New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Friday, 12 p.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Monday, March 14
Guild Hall, East Hampton. Courtesy of Guild Hall.
13. “Academy of the Arts Dinner” at Cipriani 42nd Street
The 36th annual benefit for East Hampton’s historic visual and performance art center Guild Hall will honor longstanding supporters Marty and Michele Cohen, as well as the latest inductees into its Academy of the Arts, including RoseLee Goldberg, Rashid Johnson, Robert Longo, Julianne Moore, Questlove, and Ugo Rondinone, among others. The evening features a cocktail hour, dinner, and a performance by members of the New York Philharmonic.
After the event this spring, Guild Hall will begin construction on its century-old building to upgrade the physical space and its technology as part of a $25 million capital improvements project. For the next year, its programming will take place offsite around the region until the museum completes the renovation in 2023. Led by Peter Pennoyer Architects, the changes will include a new art-handling facility, as well as improvements to staff offices, the education center, and theater.
Location: Cipriani 42nd Street, 110 East 42nd Street, New York
Price: $500–$35,000
Time: 6 p.m.–10 p.m.
—Rachel Corbett
Through Saturday, April 2
A still from Cristine Brache’s “Bermuda Triangle.” courtesy of Cristine Brache and anonymous gallery
14. “Cristine Brache: Bermuda Triangle” at Anonymous Gallery, New York
Swimming pools conjure up all sorts of memories—romantic, nostalgic, and cinematic, or sometimes all of those sensations at once, as is the case with artist Cristine Brache’s exhibition “Bermuda Triangle” at Anonymous Gallery. Entering the gallery, visitors descend the gallery stairs to a dimly lit gallery space, where, in the middle of the gallery floor, a blue inflatable pool sits filled with water. Looking closely, one notices that a Super 8 film is projected, blurrily, on the water’s surface. In the film, a man and a woman are shown embracing in a pool, seemingly enamored of one another, but things take a turn, and later in the film, the man is shown on a pool deck performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the woman.
The moody film was inspired by a photograph the artist found of her parents in their youth, pictured kissing in a swimming pool. Brache’s parents would divorce when she was 10 years old and, having been raised in a devoutly Catholic home where divorce was a sin, the trauma of this separation led the young Brache into a profound spiritual reckoning.
“I thought divorce defied the laws of physics, like unbreaking glass,” the artist writes. “I went down a spiral questioning whether anything was real. I even tried to summon Satan, to prove God existed. But Satan never came and my walls of perception collapsed along with my belief in a Christian god.”
On the gallery walls surrounding the pool, we see paintings based on negatives from the film made on silk organza, as well as stills from the film. Like the Bermuda Triangle of the exhibition’s name, these works create a mysterious space, one that continuously evokes a ritualistic act of searching and never finding. We’re left to wonder, and wonder again, why love sometimes disappears.
Location: Anonymous Gallery, 136 Baxter Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Katie White
Through Thursday, April 21
Nathaniel Aric Galka, there is more to the story. Image courtesy the artist and Leila Heller Gallery.
15. “Nathaniel Aric Galka: rebellious nature” at Leila Heller Gallery, New York
This just-opened show (March 1) marks the debut solo exhibition for Nathaniel Aric Galka at the gallery. These exquisitely rendered paintings invite close-up and careful examination, and reflect the artist’s passion for history and nature. Galka’s works are created using Renaissance techniques with personally made marble plaster gesso applied to jute or linen wrapped panels. The choice to embellish the work with contemporary spray enamel and shellac India ink applied with dipped pen has wide-ranging references, from East Asian woodblock prints to contemporary master paintings of today.
Location: Leila Heller Gallery, 17 East 76th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella