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.)

Wednesday, October 20

Luisa Roldán by Catherine Hall-van den Elsen. Photo courtesy of Lund Humphries.

1. “Luisa Roldán — Online Discussion and Book Launch” at Lund Humphries, London

Catherine Hall-van den Elsen has published the first English book dedicated to the Spanish Golden Age sculptor Luisa Roldán, a master of polychromed wooden and terracotta sculptures who learned at her father’s workshop. She’ll talk with sculpture historian Holly Trusted about Roldán’s work, her talent, and her unlikely success as a woman artist. You can also see five works by the artist at New York’s Hispanic Society of America, which, after nearly five years of renovations, has reopened its lower gallery space with “Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh,” a stunning showcase of polychrome Hispanic sculpture from 1500 to 1800 (through January 9, 2022).

Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Sally Tallant, Kimaada Le Gendre, Catherine Grau, and Julian Louis Phillips. Photo courtesy of SVA MA Curatorial Practice.

2. “The Year of Uncertainty at the Queens Museum” at the School of Visual Arts, New York

SVA’s MA in Curatorial Practice hosts a talk with Queens Museum executive director Sally Tallant, public programs manager Catherine Grau, director of education Kimaada Le Gendre, and artist-in-residence Julian Louis Phillips on how institutions can embrace the unknown in our uncertain times, strengthening their connections with the community despite the challenges of modern life.

Price: Free with registration
Time: 2 p.m.–3 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

3. “Indigenous Communities and Environmental Justice” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Met is holding a webinar to offer a contemporary perspective on “Jules Tavernier and the Elem Pomo” (through November 28), its exhibition exploring the intercultural exchange between ninth-century French American artist Jules Tavernier and the Indigenous Pomo community of Elem at Clear Lake in Northern California. Robert Geary of the Elem Pomo tribe and artist Meyo Marrufo of the Eastern Pomo tribe will speak with the Met’s Patricia Marroquin Norby, assistant curator of Native American art, and Elizabeth Kornhauser, curator of American paintings and sculpture, about how European settlement shaped both the physical and cultural landscape of tribal lands in Northern California, and how that legacy continues today.

Price: Free with registration
Time: 6 p.m.–7 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

The Christopher Columbus statue erected in Columbus Circle in 1892. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design.

4. “Facing Columbus” at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

Artist Sheila Pepe couldn’t show at the Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle—where “Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe: Tabernacles for Trying Times” is on view through February 13, 2022—without addressing the elephant in the room: the 1892 statue of Christopher Columbus that gives the circle its name. In a panel moderated by Gabriela López Dena, architect and manager of public programs at MAD, Pepe will talk with three other New York sculptors with Italian heritage (Nancy Azara, John Monti, and Don Porcaro) about issues of representation and assimilation, as well is the history of the site.

Location: Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, and streaming online
Price: $15 in person tickets, $10 online tickets
Time: 6 p.m.–7:30 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Thursday, October 21–Saturday, November 13

Fahren Feingold, Being Boujie Courtesy of Untitled Space

5. “Fahren Feingold: Wet Dreams” at Untitled Space, New York

Untitled Space presents a solo exhibition by artist Fahren Feingold, the third since her representation in 2017 but the first for which the artist paints nude portraits of women that she personally knows, as opposed to her usual practice of using vintage photographs as subjects. Using the wet-on-wet watercolor technique, Feingold creates an ethereal array of figures that seem at once to leap out from the surface and disappear into it. “I explore the relationships between beauty, sensuality, and nudity through my own female narrative lens,” Feingold wrote in her artist’s statement. “I want my viewer to feel the colors of that expression. I want my watercolors to wash over them, gently inviting them to sink deeper into the subjects, not just in the erotic sense.”

Location: Untitled Space, 45 Lispenard Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.

—Neha Jambhekar

Friday, October 22–Saturday, December 18

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (Loverboy), 1989. Photo courtesy of the Judd Foundation.

6. “Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Inbetweenness” at the Judd Foundation, New York

Flavin Judd curated this exhibition of work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres in response to the architecture of the Judd Foundation’s Soho headquarters. The show, which features just two works, is part of a series of exhibitions continuing Donald Judd’s practice of staging public exhibitions in the ground floor of his home and studio. “Untitled” (Loverboy) (1989) is an installation of sheer light blue curtains, while “Untitled” is a billboard—normally seen on the street, now brought indoors—showing two birds against a dark sky.

Location: The Judd Foundation, 101 Spring Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Thursday–Saturday, 1 p.m.–5 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Sunday, October 24

Alex Strada and Tali Keren, Proposal for a 28th Amendment? Is it Possible to Amend an Unequal System? in “Year of Uncertainty (YoU) — Phase I: Participate & Build.” Photo courtesy of the Queens Museum.

7. “We the People? // Nosotrxs la gente?” at the Queens Museum

Alex Strada and Tali Keren, two of the artists-in-residence for the Queens Museum’s current exhibition “Year of Uncertainty (YoU) — Phase I: Participate & Build” (through October 29), will host an interactive workshop with CUNY Law associate professor Julia Hernandez. They will discuss their participatory installation, Proposal for a 28th Amendment? Is it Possible to Amend an Unequal System?, inspired by the exclusionary history of the U.S. Constitution, encouraging participants to think about ways in which we might change this foundational document.

Price: Free with registration (email [email protected] with your full name and the title of the workshop)
Time: 1 p.m.–4 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Jordan Seiler, SUGAR CUBE 2020. Photo courtesy of Postmasters Gallery, New York.

8. “Parasite – a Negotiation of the Public’s Space” at Postmasters Gallery, New York

In conjunction with Jordan Seiler’s solo exhibition “Parasite” at Auxiliary Projects in Greenpoint (through October 31), the artist will host a talk at the Downtown Biennial about the prevalence of advertising media across our cities—and how cultural organizations can co-opt those mechanisms for their own ends. Karen Wong, Nick Colvin, and Aymann Ismael will join the discussion.

Location: Postmasters Gallery, 54 Franklin Street, New York
Price: Free with registration
Time: 4 p.m.–6 p.m.

—Tanner West

Through Sunday, October 31

“Onyedika Chuke: The Forever Museum Archive_Circa 6000BCE” at the Arts Center at Governors Island, New York. Photo courtesy of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

9. “Meg Webster: Wave” and “Onyedika Chuke: The Forever Museum Archive Circa 6000BCE” at the Arts Center at Governors Island, New York

This summer was the first full season for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s new Governors Island art center, and while the island will now welcome visitors year round, you only have until the end of the month to check out the current exhibitions. Onyedika Chuke has transformed the lower galleries into a labyrinthine maze formed by Quaker church pews that functions as a condemnation of the prison industrial complex, with a network of plastic pipes pumping liquid soap through the space into a large pool surrounded by larger-than-life bone sculptures. A pair of massive winged feet sits amid the sudsy solution, which was produced by incarcerated individuals working for 16 cents an hour for Corcraft Industries, the business name for New York State Division of Correctional Industries.

Upstairs, Meg Webster has paired the five delicate blown glass orbs of Largest Blown Spheres (1987) with two new living sculptures, including a 54-foot-long plant nursery, Growing Piece (2021) that contains seedlings for her Pollinating Garden (2021), located across the island at GrowNYC’s Teaching Garden. But even more striking is Moss Mound (2021), a springy array of verdant green moss that rises to eye level in a perfect circle from the gallery, tended daily by an attendant armed with a watering can backpack and a delicate mister.

Location: Arts Center at Governors Island, Soissons Landing, Governors Island, New York
Price: Free
Time: Thursday–Sunday, 12 p.m.–5 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Through Thursday, November 4

Andy Warhol, Flowers (8 of 10 in Suite from Flowers Portfolio), 1970.From the Bank of America Collection. ©2021 the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

10. “Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop | Works from the Bank of America Collection” at the National Arts Club, New York

Andy Warhol spent 40 years mastering the art of photographic silkscreen printmaking, examples of which are on loan to the National Arts Club from the Bank of America’s art collection. The two floor-exhibition features works from a number of the artist’s print portfolios, including “Sunset” and “Endangered Species.”

Location: The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York
Price: Free
Time: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

—Nan Stewert

Through Friday, December 4

Pablo Picasso,Les demoiselles d’Avignon: Nu jaune (Étude) [Lesdemoiselles d’Avignon: Yellow Nude (Study)] Paris, (June-July 1907) Collection of Gretchen and John Berggruen,San Francisco. Photograph by Phocasso / J.W. White.Courtesy Berggruen Gallery.

Drawing was the foundation of Picasso’s practice throughout the many phases of his artistic development. Curated by art historian Olivier Berggruen, this survey of significant drawings features over 80 drawings spanning seven decades of the artist’s career, including works in an array of mediums such as charcoal, crayon, colored pencil, collage, graphite, gouache, ink, pastel, and watercolor.

Location: Acquavella Galleries New York, 18 East 79th Street
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturdays 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Eileen Kinsella