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.)
Monday, May 31
Lee Blalock, Ev3ryd4y Cyb0rg (Season 1, Episode 3: L0:F1 loop) (2019).
1. “Navigating Digital Identities: Translation, Bodies, and Paratexts” at the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery
Lee Blalock, a Chicago-based artist known for his techno-mediated explorations of post-human anatomies, will sit down with professor Dima Ayoub, director of the Middle East Studies Program at Middlebury College, for a conversation about digital bodies. The dialogue accompanies “Not in, of, Along, or Relating to a Line,” NYU Abu Dhabi’s ambitious exhibition of artists and collectives who “employ technology for self-expression and self-fashioning.”
Price: Free
Time: 7:30 p.m.
—Taylor Dafoe
Thursday, June 3
Installation view of “Jose Dávila: The Circularity of Desire” at Sean Kelly, New York. Photo by Jason Wyche, courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.
2. “Curator Conversation: Jose Dávila and Pedro H. Alonzo” at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York
In conjunction with Jose Dávila’s exhibition, “The Circularity of Desire” (though June 19), Sean Kelly Gallery will host a virtual conversation with the artist and Pedro H. Alonzo, adjunct curator at Dallas Contemporary, about the works on view. Made during the pandemic, these paintings, sculptures, and silkscreens on cardboard grew out of Dávila’s research into the iconography of the circle in 20th- and 21st-century art history.
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 3 p.m.
—Tanner West
Thursday, June 3–Friday, July 2
Dana James, Homecoming (2021). Courtesy of Hollis Taggart.
3. “Dana James: Something I Meant to Say” at Hollis Taggart, New York
In her first show at Hollis Taggart, Dana James presents abstract oil-and-acrylic paintings “The strips [of canvas] act as a panorama of linear time; they serve as a reminder that we are small and predictable creatures, incessantly creating and shedding beautiful accounts of the earth and its elements. Upon completion, they are visual diaries that speak to contradiction,” the artist said in a statement.
Location: Hollis Taggart, 521 West 26th Street, New York
Time: Opening reception, 5:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m. with RSVP; Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Appointments recommended.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, June 3–October
Grada Kilomba, Creon (2020), from the series “Heroines, Birds and Monsters”. Photo courtesy of the artist, the Amant Foundation, and Goodman Gallery, ©Grada Kilomba.
4. “Grada Kilomba: Heroines, Birds, and Monsters” at Amant, Brooklyn
The Italian art nonprofit Amant from the Tuscan village of Chiusure is inaugurating its East Williamsburg campus with the first U.S. show of Berlin-based artist, psychologist, and theorist Grada Kilomba. A cafe and performance space will follow in June, with an international residency program kicking off in the fall.
Location: Amant, 315 Maujer Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Friday, June 4
Siah Armahani’s work at Waterfront Plaza outside Brookfield Place in New York City. Photo courtesy of the Battery Park City Authority.
5. “Curator Walking Tour: Public Art in Lower Manhattan” from the Museum of the City of New York
Museum of the City of New York curator Lilly Tuttle will lead this walking tour exploring the ways in which public art and architecture helped transform Lower Manhattan from an industrial, maritime port neighborhood to the bustling waterfront business district of the 21st century.
Location: Lower Manhattan (starting point TBD)
Price: $25
Time: 4 p.m.–5:30 p.m.
—Nan Stewert
Saturday, June 5–Friday, July 2
Gabriel Mills, Our Last Night Together, (2021).
Image courtesy the artist and Lyles & King
6. “In Praise of Shadows” at Lyles and King Gallery, New York
This group show curated by Ebony L. Haynes, now a director at David Zwirner gallery, is an iteration of the Yale MFA painting and printmaking 2021 exhibition that was installed in New Haven at the start of the year. It features works by Vamba Bility, Brianna Rose Brooks, David Craig, Danielle De Jesus, Nathaniel Donnett, and Leyla Faye, among others.
Location: Lyles and King Gallery, 21 Catherine Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening 2 p.m.–6 p.m.; Tuesday—Saturday 11 a.m.—6 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Through Sunday, June 20
Hawazin Al Otaibi, Softboii (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Young Space.
7. “Strange Paradigm” at Young Space
Young Space presents its 10th online exhibition, “Strange Paradigm,” a group show that explores the psychological experience of jamais vu. The inverse of déjà vu, jamais vu describes the sensation of the familiar seeming eerily unfamiliar—an experience many of us may be having as life returns trepidatiously to normal (at least in the U.S.). In this show, 16 artists take a closer look at the relationships between our emotional and physical experiences through the lens of cultural identity. Particularly intriguing are artist Hawazin Al Otaibi’s softened, almost fuzzy portraits that question depictions of gender and masculinity, as are Iranian-born artists Morteza Khakshoor’s winkingly humorous portraits in which figures appear in a variety of curious tableaux.
Price: Free
Time: On view daily at all times
—Katie White
An installation view of Katie Bell: Arena” at Spencer Brownstone. Photo courtesy of Spencer Brownstone Gallery.
8. “Katie Bell: Arena” at Spencer Brownstone, New York
Katie Bell’s can’t-miss first solo show at Spencer Brownstone gallery looks like it’s still being installed—or maybe deinstalled—and that’s exactly the point. The works on view, many of them made from materials the artist scavenged around New York, reference Classical antiquity (columns in particular are a recurring theme), but without being burdened by any awkward historical weight. Instead, these brightly colorful works, which are strewn about the gallery in the manner of Robert Morris’s Scatter Piece, suggest that heavy old things like the past can actually be colorful, joyful curios.
Location: Spencer Brownstone, 170-A Suffolk St, New York
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Pac Pobric
Through Friday, June 25
Jennifer Bartlett, Wedding (2000-02). Courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery.
9. “Jennifer Bartlett” at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
In Jennifer Bartlett’s current show at Paula Cooper, maps take the role of medium and subject. The grid structure of maps have long held appeal to the artist, but in these works, many of the maps are completely unrecognizable, transformed into dot-covered abstractions, transforming border lines into undulating forms and large countries into skewed forms. “By shifting these geographical markers… Bartlett questions the presumed objectivity of her source materials, in particular those that claim to depict disputed terrains,” the gallery said in a statement.
Location: Paula Cooper Gallery, 524 West 26th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Nan Stewart
Through Saturday, June 26
Installation view of “Jason Fox: 5 Seasons” at Canada, New York. Photo courtesy of Canada, New York.
10. “Jason Fox: 5 Seasons” at Canada, New York
Currently on view at Canada gallery is “5 Seasons,” the gallery’s third solo exhibition of American artist Jason Fox’s work. The show features seven large paintings of an assortment of pop culture icons including George Harrison, Jennifer Lawrence, Bob Marley, Joni Mitchell, and Puff the Magic Dragon. Using Ab-Ex styles and tin foil, Fox adds texture to the surface of these acrylic, oil, and graphite paintings.
Location: Canada, 60 Lispenard Street
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday: 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Cristina Cruz
Through Friday, July 23
Nick Irzyk, Baroque Promise (2020). Photo courtesy of the artist.
11. “44 Signs of the Times” at Mana Contemporary, Jersey City
Curated by Owen Duffy, director of the Yeh Art Gallery at St. John’s University in Queens, this exhibition brings together 44 works that illuminate the weirdness of recent times, made before the pandemic, during lockdown, and since restrictions have eased. “This exhibition does not aspire to offer a diagnosis of what ails the times or a prescriptive cure,” Duffy said in a statement. “Rather it is a document, an incomplete picture of our world from within.” Featured artists include Trevor Paglen, Savannah Knoop, and Cynthia Talmadge.
Location: Mana Contemporary, 888 Newark Avenue, Jersey City
Price: Free
Time: By appointment
—Sarah Cascone