Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Monday, May 21
Omar Mismar, Schmitt, You and Me (2016–17). Photo courtesy of the artist.
1. “An Evening with Omar Mismar” at the Museum of Modern Art
MoMA will host a medley-style screening of three recent films by Beirut-born artist Omar Mismar, all of which foreground the process of translation and its consequences—good, bad, and occasionally ugly. The subject matter ranges from the verbal translation of political theory in a New England gun store (Schmitt, You and Me, 2017) to the visual translation of military action in Gaza (I will not find this image beautiful, 2015). After the films, Mismar will headline a panel discussion on these themes with writer and translator Omar Berrada and art historian Anneka Lenssen.
Location: Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Theater 2
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.
—Tim Schneider
Installation view of “Heavenly Bodies” at the Cloisters, Cuxa Cloister. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
2. “Inside ‘Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination’” at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute curator, Andrew Bolton, and C. Griffith Mann, curator of Medieval art and the Cloisters, chat with the Father James J. Martin, consultor for the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communication, about the Met’s current fashion blockbuster, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” Given that a Jesuit—who worked as a liaison on the show, and was in attendance for the star-studded Met Gala and all its controversial red carpet looks—is monitoring the talk, there could be some interesting discussion surrounding recent criticisms that the exhibition is disrespectful toward the Vatican and Catholicism.
Location: The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture, 18 Bleecker Street
Price: $20
Time: 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Annual Mass for Artists 2016. Photo courtesy of the Catholic Artists Society.
3. Annual Mass for Artists at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament
The Catholic Artists Society holds its annual mass calling for a blessing for artists. The Most Reverend Bishop James Massa, Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn, will preside.
Location: Church of the Blessed Sacrament, 152 West 71st Street
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Tuesday, May 22
The 2018 Whitney Studio Party. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
4. 2018 Whitney Studio Party at the Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney throws a reliably lively party, and the proceeds benefit the institution’s exhibitions and educational programming. Attire is “festive,” and DJs Kindness and Like will handle the evening’s music.
Location: Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street
Price: $250
Time: 9:30 p.m.–1 a.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Irene Monat Stern, Untitled (circa 1968–78. Courtesy of Hollis Taggert Galleries.
5. “Just Off Madison: An Open House” on the Upper East Side
This initiative, timed to coincide with New York’s American Art Week, takes place at various Upper East Side dealers spanning a dozen blocks of Madison Avenue. The walkabout provides a chance for clients and colleagues to have a leisurely stroll along the avenue while popping in and out of galleries and viewing heavyweight American artworks in an intimate setting. Participating dealers include: Michael N. Altman Fine Art & Advisory Services; Avery Galleries; Jonathan Boos; Conner-Rosencranz; Debra Force Fine Art, Kraushaar Galleries; Betty Krulik Fine Art; Menconi + Schoelkopf; James Reinish & Associates; Hollis Taggart Galleries; Taylor|Graham; David Tunick; Lois Wagner Fine Arts; and Meredith Ward Fine Art.
Location: Various galleries, see website for map
Price: Free
Time: 5 p.m.—8 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Owen Land (George Landow), Film in Which There Appear Sprocket Holes, Edge Lettering, Dirt Particles, etc.. Film still courtesy of Anthology Film Archives, New York.
6. “Waiting for Commercials: Found Footage in the 1960s” at Ortuzar Projects
Thomas Beard has put together a program of 1960s-era films made from found footage, from Bruce Conner’s take on the assassination of John F. Kennedy to Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut’s embrace of Japanese commercials. The screening is timed to the gallery’s current film-centric exhibition, “Peter Roehr: 1963–66,” on view through June 16. Before his death at just 24 in 1968, Roehr created an astonishing 600-plus works of art.
Location: Ortuzar Projects, 9 White Street
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, May 23–Sunday, September 2
Mickalene Thomas, Angelitos Negros (detail), 2016. © Mickalene Thomas, Courtesy the artist and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
7. “Multiply, Identify, Her” at International Center of Photography
A survey of photographic work made by women from the late 1990s through today, touching on themes of identity through the use of analog, digital, collage, and assemblage.
Location: ICP, 250 Bowery
Price: $14 general admission
Time: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Wednesday, May 23–Sunday, September 23
Antonio Canova, Modello for George Washington (1818). Photo by Fabio Zonta, courtesy of the Gypsotheca e Museo Antonio Canova, Possagno; Fondazione Canova onlus, Possagno.
8. “Canova’s George Washington” at the Frick Collection
Antonio Canova’s lost sculpture of George Washington, a monumental marble carving that was tragically destroyed in a fire just a decade after its 1821 unveiling at North Carolina’s State Capitol building, gets its due at the Frick, which brings together preparatory drawings and a life-size plaster modello of the work that has never before left Italy. North Carolina’s budget for the commission was unrestricted, and it was Thomas Jefferson who selected the artist, and suggested Washington be outfitted in ancient Roman garb.
Two related shows, “Canova e la Danza” at the Italian Cultural Institute, and “Antonio Canova by Fabio Zonta” at the Consulate General of Italy, open the same day and are on view through June 28.
Location: The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street at Fifth Avenue
Price: $22 general admission
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, May 24
Andrea Fraser and the cover of 2016 in Museums, Money, and Politics (2018). © MIT Press, courtesy of the artist.
9. “Andrea Fraser Book Launch: 2016” at the New Museum
Polymath Andrea Fraser will be at the New Museum to speak about her new dossier-style book, 2016 in Museums, Money, and Politics (previously excerpted here), which considers the deep and tangled links between members of museum boards and the political campaigns they support.
Location: 235 Bowery
Price: $15 general admission
Time: 7 p.m.
—Caroline Goldstein
Thursday, May 24–Saturday, July 28
Quimetta Perle, Self Defense. Courtesy of the Weeksville Heritage Center.
10. “Forward Ever! Sacred Ground & Sovereign Space” at Weeksville Heritage Center
“Forward Ever!” a contemporary art exhibition curated by Monica Montgomery, describes itself as a celebration of the “creative resilience [of African American artists] that seeks to reclaim sovereign spaces where we can be brilliant, Black and free.” Opening concurrently, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the museum, which dedicated to preserving the history of Weeksville, a 19th-century community of free African Americans, is “In Pursuit of Freedom Now!,” a history exhibition tracing the roots of black activism, also curated by Montgomery.
Location: Weeksville Heritage Center, 158 Buffalo Avenue, Brooklyn
Price: Free, RSVP for VIP opening
Time: VIP opening, May 24 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; opening reception, May 25, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.; Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Wednesday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Saturday, May 26
Harmony Hammond, Lesbian Dreams (1992). Courtesy of Alexander Gray Associates.
11. “Harmony Hammond: Inappropriate Longings” at Alexander Gray Associates
A major figure of New York’s feminist art movement in the 1970s, Harmony Hammond offers a series of works from the 1990s, including mixed-media paintings and works on paper, as well as an installation, at her third solo show at Alexander Gray. “The fact that most of these materials have been discarded in some way references the lives and creative histories of those who have been relegated to the margins of culture,” the artist, known for her interrogation of queer themes, told ArtForum.
Location: Alexander Gray Associates, 510 West 26th Street
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Monday, May 28
Corning Museum of Glass GlassBarge rendering by McLaren Engineering Group. Photo courtesy of the Corning Museum of Glass.
12. Corning Museum of Glass GlassBarge at Brooklyn Bridge Park
The Corning Museum of Glass’s GlassBarge, fully outfitted with electric glass-making equipment capable of reaching 2,100 degrees, is docked in Brooklyn through Memorial Day, offering glass blowing demonstrations and teaching visitors about the importance of canals in 19th-century New York. Part of the Erie Canal Bicentennial celebrations, the GlassBarge also commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company’s move, via canal barge, to Corning, New York, which became a major center of glass artistry and innovation.
Location: Brooklyn Bridge Park, ONE°15 Brooklyn Marina, Pier 5, 334 Furman St
Price: Free with reservation
Time: 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Saturday, June 2
Installation view of Al Freeman’s “More Comparisons,” 2018. Courtesy of Bortolami, New York.
13. “Al Freeman: More Comparisons” at Bortolami
On view in Bortolami’s viewing room, Al Freeman’s small show “More comparisons” comprises 51 collages, each of which features just two images—usually, an image of a well-known work of art next to a visually similar picture culled from the corners of the internet. For instance, in one, an Albers square homage is juxtaposed with a pair of wrestlers whose interlocked arms suggest the painter’s layered shapes. In another, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is positioned next to photo of naked bros flexing next to a hot tub. The collages—a follow up to a book of similar works Freeman published in 2017—are clever and comical but also strangely unsettling.
Location: Bortolami, 39 Walker Street
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.
—Taylor Dafoe
Through Saturday, June 16
Installation view of “Danielle Gottesman: Elevations.” Photo courtesy of the artist.
14. “Danielle Gottesman: Elevations” at 90 Morton Street
Curator Lolita Cros has taken over the ground floor of 90 Morton Street, a construction site for new high-end condos, with a site-specific sculptural installation by Danielle Gottesman. The artist’s wooden sculptures blur the lines between abstraction and figuration and are inspired by architectural diagrams.
Location: 90 Morton Street
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Installation view of “Joel Otterson: The Excited Eye” at Jason Jacques Gallery. Photo courtesy of Jason Jacques Gallery.
15. “Joel Otterson: The Excited Eye” at Jason Jacques Gallery
Don’t call Joel Otterson a sculptor; he prefers the term ceramiphile. In pursuit of creating a Gesamkunsterk, the artist creates his own versions of household objects, a reimagining of what he has dubbed “The Domestic Landscape.” I don’t make a distinction between high and low,” Otterson said in his artist’s statement. “I find the cache of bronze age farming tools at the British Museum just as fascinating and beautiful as a Velazquez painting.”
Location: Jason Jacques Gallery, 29 East 73rd Street
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone