Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.

Monday, October 30

Left, director Julie Taymor attends John Hardy And Vanity Fair Celebrate Legends at Le Coucou on October 24, 2017, in New York City. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Vanity Fair. Right, playwright David Henry Hwang attends the 61st Annual Obie Awards at Webster Hall on May 23, 2016, in New York City. Photo by Mike Pont/Getty Images for American Theater Wing.

1. “A Conversation with David Henry Hwang and Julie Taymor” at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
The New York Foundation for the Arts is hosting a conversation between David Henry Hwang and Julie Taymor. Taymor is directing the first Broadway revival of Hwang’s Tony Award-winning M. Butterfly. The two will discuss their collaboration, careers, and the state of the theater industry. M. Butterfly is inspired by a true story in which a French diplomat falls in love with a Chinese opera diva who has a big secret.

Location: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby Street
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.–8:30 p.m.

—Hannah Pikaart

Wednesday, November 1

Fernando Mastrangelo. Courtesy of the Cooper Hewitt.

2. “DISEÑO Lecture: The Possibility of the Inevitable With Fernando Mastrangelo” at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
New York-based designer Fernando Mastrangelo speaks with Christina De León, Cooper Hewitt associate curator for Latino design, about his practice and embrace of industrial materials such as sand, glass, and cement.

Location: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2 East 91st Street
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 6:30 p.m.–8 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Thursday, November 2–Friday, December 22

Dean Levin, Untitled (2017). Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York. © Dean Levin.
Photo by Object Studies

3. “Dean Levin: Arches” at Marianne Boesky Gallery
For Dean Levin’s second solo show, the gallery presents his first large-scale sculptural installation, inspired by the classical form of the arch, as well as new paintings.

Location: Marianne Boesky Gallery, 509 West 24th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Eileen Kinsella

Vincent Dubourg, Buffet. Courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

4. “Vincent Dubourg: Vortex” at Carpenters Workshop Gallery
The line between art and design is blurred in the furniture of Vincent Dubourg, fragmented pieces that seem to explode before your very eyes.

Location: Carpenters Workshop Gallery, 693 Fifth Avenue, Penthouse
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Thursday, November 2, 2017–Saturday, January 6, 2018

View of Bosco Sodi’s clay cubes at Fundación Casa Wabi, Oaxaca Mexico. Courtesy of Paul Kasmin Gallery and photographer Michel Zabé.

5. “Bosco Sodi: Caryatides” at Paul Kasmin Gallery
In his first show at Paul Kasmin, Bosco Sodi presents his clay cube sculptures. The cubes are made from earth, sand, and water that he gathers and blends himself, curing them in the sun at his Oaxaca, Mexico, studio before baking them in a traditional brick kiln. Through this process, the artist lets the natural elements dictate the ultimate appearance of his work.

Location: Paul Kasmin Gallery, 515 West 27th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Friday, November 3

Cynthia Daignault, Image from dialogue with Daniel Heidkamp,
sent 11/27/2017. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

6. Artist tour of “Talking Pictures: Camera–Phone Conversations Between Artists” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, the Met invited 12 pairs of artists to engage in a visual conversation via iPhone. Bill Powers of Half Gallery has organized an artist-led tour of the exhibition from two of its participants, Daniel Heidkamp and Cynthia Daignault.

Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue
Price: Free
Time: 1 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Friday, November 3, 2017–Sunday, March 18, 2018

Woman’s coat. Bukhara, Uzbekistan, late 19th century. Brocaded silk, ikat-dyed silk, and cotton lining. Courtesy of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and photographer Mauro Magliani.

7. “Veiled Meanings: Fashioning Jewish Dress, from the Collection of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem” at the Jewish Museum
For the first time, a US institution is hosting a show featuring the Israel Museum’s collection of Jewish costumes. With clothing from Jewish communities in some two dozen countries throughout the Middle East, Europe, Northern Africa, and the US, the exhibition showcases the breadth and diversity of Jewish culture.

Location: The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue
Price: $15
Time: Thursday, 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m.–4 p.m.; Saturday–Tuesday, 11 a.m.–5:45 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Friday, November 3, 2017–Sunday, March 25, 2018

Pre-election suffrage parade in New York City, (1915). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

8. “Hotbed” and “We Rise” at New-York Historical Society
Commemorating the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in New York state, the New-York Historical Society will debut a new film and exhibition. The latter, “Hotbed,” documents the fight for women’s rights among artists and activists in Greenwich Village in the early 20th century, while We Rise, about the  70 year-long fight for women’s suffrage in the state, is a 17-minute movie narrated by Meryl Streep. Featuring Alicia Keys’ song “We Are Here” and profiling the outspoken women activists of the early 20th century, the film will be sure to give you all the girl-power feels.

Location: New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West
Price: $21
Time: Tuesday–Thursday, Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Friday 10 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Film plays hourly beginning Saturday, Saturday, November 4.

—Hannah Pikaart

Saturday, November 4–Saturday, December 23

Roberta Allen, City of Dying Dreams (2017), detail. Courtesy of Minus Space.

9. “Roberta Allen: Some Facts About Fear” at Minus Space
After solo shows in New York in the 1970s and ’80s of her feminist work at venues including Franklin Furnace and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Roberta Allen began focusing on her writing career. She continued her art practice in relative privacy, however, until she was rediscovered by Minus Space director Matthew Deleget in 2013. In her second show with the Brooklyn gallery, she will show Some Facts About Fear, a suite of 40 mixed media works on paper, and the sculptural installation City of Dying Dreams.

Location: Minus Space, 16 Main Street, Suite A, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Wednesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Saturday, November 4, 2017–January 14, 2018

Aisha Tandiwe Bell’s Chip on My Shoulder. Image courtesy of Welancora Gallery.

10. “Conjure: Works by Aisha Tandiwe Bell” at Welancora Gallery
Curated by artist Derrick Adams, this is the first solo show of Bell’s work at the Brooklyn-based gallery. Using notions of the trickster in African folklore combined with Jacques Lacan’s ideas of identity, Bell presents her own visualized identity as an African-American woman.

Location: Welancora Gallery, 33 Herkimer Street
Price: Free
Time: Artist’s reception, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Sunday, November 5 and Monday, November 6

Tanaquil Le Clercq with The Ballet Cook Book. Courtesy of the Guggenheim.

11. “Tanaquil Le Clercq’s The Ballet Cook Book: A 50th Anniversary Celebration” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
In honor of the 50th anniversary of The Ballet Cook Book, ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq’s compilation of dancers’ and choreographers’ recipes and food stories, New York City Ballet dancers will reprise roles from some of the book’s most notable contributors. A discussion will follow with dance legends Jacques d’Amboise and Allegra Kent with food scholar Meryl Rosofsky, while the museum’s Wright Restaurant will also serve a menu drawn from the cookbook.

Location: The Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue
Price: $40
Time: 7:30 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Through Sunday, February 11, 2018

Ai Weiwei’s installation at Essex Street Market, in New York, as part of his Public Art Fund exhibition “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors.” ©Patrick McMullan. Photo by Paul Bruinooge/PMC.

12. Ai Weiwei, Exodus at Essex Street Market

The next time you swing by Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side, don’t forget to look up. Stretched across the flagpoles of the facade is Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s compelling series of cutout banners narrating the plight of refugees trying to escape the chaos of war and political upheaval. The artist’s expansive citywide exhibition “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors” was organized by the Public Art Fund.

Location: Essex Street Market, 120 Essex Street
Price: Free
Time: On public view

—Eileen Kinsella