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 digital events, 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, October 5–October 16
Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.
1. Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums Annual Meeting
Another annual art conference goes virtual, with the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums taking the question “do museums still need objects?” as its timely theme—there are sessions like “Hacking the World: Imagining the Post-Pandemic Museum” and “Teaching and Learning with (Virtual) Collections: Strengths and Challenges of Object-Based Instruction in Augmented and Virtual Realities.” This week’s events will wrap up on Friday with “Curating Conflict and Controversy at Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial,” considering the challenges of maintaining historic sites and artwork with painful racial legacies, on Friday at 2:30 p.m.
Price: $8 per session for non-members, membership is $50 ($25 for students and furloughed or retired museum workers) and includes free access to the conference
Time: Times vary
—Sarah Cascone
Tuesday, October 6
Heather Hart, Oracle of Lacuna (2017). Photo courtesy of the artist © Heather Hart, photo by Jerry L. Thompson.
2. “Heather Hart and Hank Willis Thomas: 60th Anniversary Virtual Program” at Storm King Art Center
Storm King is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a series of online talks by artists including Hank Willis Thomas and Heather Hart, who will be in conversation about art and nature, and whether public art can effect change. The series will finish next week with a talk by Andy Goldsworthy and a conversation with Maren Hassinger and Virginia Overton.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6 p.m.–7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Tuesday, October 6–Saturday, October 10
Black Quantum Futurism, IRL Black Womxn Temporal Portal (2019), at the Painted Bride Art Center. Photo by D1L0 DeMille.
3. “Vera List Center Forum 2020: As for Protocols” at the Vera List Center
The Vera List Center is hosting its annual forum online for 2020, kicking off with a tribute to scholar, art critic, and curator Maurice Berger (1956–2020) featuring Smithsonian director Lonnie G. Bunch III, artist Nona Faustine, and others. The five-day event introduces the center’s 2020 to 2022 focus theme, “As for Protocols,” and covers such topics as race, technology, surveillance, and globalization. Alexander R. Galloway will give the keynote lecture contrasting the rise of computers and the shortcomings of the digital world.
Price: Free with registration
Time: Tuesday, 4 p.m.–10 p.m.; Wednesday, 5 p.m.–8 p.m.; Thursday, 2 p.m.–3 p.m. and 5 p.m.–8 p.m.; Friday, keynote lecture at 6:30 p.m.; Saturday 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, October 7–Sunday, November 1
Michael Craig-Martin, Savarin Can (2018). Courtesy of Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
4. “IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair” at the International Fine Print Dealers Association
The IFPDA print fair features over 100 exhibitors, many of whom will supplement their virtual booths with in-person, by-appointment visits to their spaces or studios. There is also a robust schedule of online programming, including a presentation by Maureen Warren, curator of European and American art at the Krannert Art Museum, about Dutch Golden Age art as propaganda.
Price: Free
Time: Online at all times
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, October 7–Saturday, December 19
Hedda Sterne, Untitled, 1985). Photo courtesy of Van Doren Waxter, ©the Hedda Sterne Foundation, Inc./Licensed by ARS, New York, NY.
5. “Hedda Sterne: ‘Patterns of Thought Paintings’ From 1985–1989” at Van Doren Waxter, New York
Van Doren Waxter presents geometric paintings from the “Patterns of Thought” series by Romanian-American artist Hedda Sterne, who died at age 100 in 2011. The six works on view were made just following her 1985 retrospective at the Queens Museum, and feature prismatic abstractions in muted colors that reflect Sterne’s interests in light and space.
Location: Van Doren Waxter, 23 East 73rd Street, 3rd Floor, New York
Price: Free
Time: By appointment
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, October 8—Monday, October 18
6. October Art Week, New York
October Art Week, during which Upper East Side galleries stage concurrent exhibitions of pre-contemporary work, is back for its fifth year. Throckmorton Fine Art and Tambaran Gallery are among the selection of eight participating dealers, two of which are only offering online presentations. The event kicks off with a virtual panel, “Art and the New Digital Reality,” hosted by October Art Week directors Lydia Melamed Johnson and LeeAna Wolfman, on Thursday at 6 p.m. Adam Harris Levine, assistant curator of European Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario; Jonquil O’Reilly, specialist and head of sale, Old Masters at Christie’s New York; and New York dealer Robert Simon will consider the challenges of seeing Old Master works of art in a virtual environment.
Location: Various Upper East Side galleries and online
Price: Free
Time: Times vary by gallery
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, October 8–Saturday, November 7
André Hemer, These days (July 12, 19:38 CEST), 2020. Courtesy the artist and Hollis Taggart, New York.
7. “André Hemer: These Days” at Hollis Taggart, New York
Vienna-based artist André Hemer spent lockdown creating new paintings based on his process of layering thick, colorful paint streaks on a flatbed scanner and digitally scanning them. These abstract works, alongside his first sculptures, are on view in the artist’s first New York solo show, and capture something of the isolation of lockdown and the unexpected beauty of a slower-paced life.
Location: Hollis Taggart, 521 West 26th Street, 1st floor, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
—Tanner West
Friday, October 9
Trenton Doyle Hancock, Step and Screw: The Star of Code Switching (2020). Courtesy of James Cohan.
8. “Art for Lunch: Studio Visit with Trenton Doyle Hancock” at James Cohan
James Cohan’s virtual offerings for Frieze London feature works from the gallery’s current show, “Trenton Doyle Hancock: Something American” (on view through October 17), featuring paintings inspired by Philip Guston’s newly controversial use of KKK imagery. In a Zoom conversation, Hancock and gallerist James Cohan will discuss how Guston came to incorporate hooded figures in his work, and how that work relates to the “Moundverse,” the fantastical narrative that dominates Hancock’s oeuvre.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 6 p.m. BST
—Sarah Cascone
Friday, October 9–Saturday, November 14
Louis Fratino, Eggs, Dishes, Coreopsis, 2020 Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
9. “Louis Fratino: Morning” at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
Sikkema Jenkins “Louis Fratino: Morning”, the artist’s second solo show with the gallery. In this new body of work, Fratino combines memory and art-historical references to focus on how morning light affects interiors and daily rituals. These beautiful paintings immediately evoke a sense of familiarity within anyone— especially New Yorkers—accustomed to creating a home in small spaces. “Searching for a sense of queerness in the gestures of everyday life, Fratino considers the nuanced interactions of light with form, space, and surface as potential realms for discovery,” the gallery said in a statement.
Location: Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: Tuesday 11 a.m.–Saturday 5 p.m
—Neha Jambhekar
Friday, October 9—Monday, October 12
Massachusetts “Blue Bird” Votes for Women Sign. Made for the Eastern campaign in 1915. Image courtesy Jeff R. Bridgman.
10. The Antique Dealers’ Association’s Annual ADA/Historic Deerfield Antiques Show, New York
Though the annual October show’s traditional brick-and-mortar format has changed this year, the ADA guarantee has not: everything in the marketplace is guaranteed as represented. “The guarantee is what we stand for,” ADA president Steven S. Powers said. “And it presents a unique buying opportunity in this pandemic era. Buying antiques and art online is fraught with barriers.”
A total of 55 dealers will share significant works made between the 17th and 20th centuries, but look out in particular for a rare “sampler” embroidery by Ann During presented by M. Finkel & Daughter. While most samplers were made by white schoolgirls in the UK or the US, this one was made by a member of a group known as the “Recaptives,” missionary settlers active after 1807, when the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed by England.
Price: Free
Time: Friday 10 a.m.–Monday 10 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Saturday, October 10–Tuesday, November 24
Jennifer Caviola. Photo courtesy of Pegasus Prints.
11. “The Same Material: Jennifer Caviola” at Pegasus Prints, Brooklyn
Pegasus Prints, a full-service silkscreen studio in East Williamsburg run by veteran chromist Alison Sahmel, is launching an artist-run gallery above the print shop. Curatorial team Sidel & McElwreath, who impressed with their SPRING/BREAK Art Show presentation in March, have put together an exhibition of figurative paintings by Jennifer Caviola.
Location: Pegasus Prints, 303 Ten Eyck Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Opening 3 p.m.–7 p.m.; by appointment
—Sarah Cascone
Through Saturday, October 17
Installatiton view “Dream Sellers,” 2020. Courtesy of Victori + Mo.
12. “Dream Sellers” at Victori + Mo
In this lush two-person exhibition, artists Alex Ebstein and Amy Boone-McCreesh explore the often mesmerizing aesthetics of our aspiration-driven culture. Ebstein transforms yoga mats and powder-coated metal into sinewy renderings of eyes, curves, and limbs. Ebstein made most of the works while quarantined in her apartment—they hint at a social media world of advertising that traffics in the industry and glamour of wellness and fitness, which the artist transforms into floating emblems disconnected from their sources. Amy Boone-McCreesh, meanwhile, creates intricate hand-cut collages that meld imagery of windows and luxury goods. Her lavish and grand tableaux are a delight to look at, but they subtly prod at tropes used to manufacture “good taste” and their inherent connections to class and consumption.
Location: Victori + Mo, 242 West 22nd Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: By appointment only
—Katie White
Through Sunday, October 18
13. “Margaret Garrett: 19” at Planthouse, New York
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote, Margaret Garrett has created a series of video works and painted collages inspired by 19 poses by choreographer and Modern dancer Martha Graham. “In creating these pieces, I felt like I was working with a very potent alphabet, an intimate language about dance, women and power,” the artist said in a statement.
Location: Planthouse, 55 West 28th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m., by appointment
—Nan Stewert
Through Monday, October 19
Larissa De Jesús Negrón, “Drowning on expectations”, 2020. Courtesy of Sabroso Projects.
14. “Larissa De Jesús Negrón: Moving On” at 35 Meadow Street
Puerto Rican artist Larissa De Jesús Negrón opens her first solo show in Williamsburg. Curated by Sabroso Projects, the show of works created in 2020 “acknowledges the difficulties of cultivating a community throughout the quarantine due to the inability to come together,” according to a statement. During the three weeks of the exhibition, the space will also host discussions led by Latinx artists and curators including Danny Baez, Bony Ramirez, and Kiara Ventura. De Jesús Negrón received her BFA at Hunter College in 2017 and exhibited at Catinca Tabacaru earlier this year.
Location: 35 Meadow Street
Price: Free
Time: Book a time slot on Eventbrite
—Cristina Cruz
Through Saturday, October 24
15. “Aaron Alexander: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stranger” at 42 Social Club, Lyme, Connecticut
For his first solo show, Aaron “Aaron the Great” Alexander, a Bronx native born in 1996, is showing works inspired by the events of 2020, from life in lockdown to political and racial unrest. The artist works with scraps of cardboard, embracing the torn, uneven edges. “It’s not perfect. It’s a reflection on life,” said Alexander in a statement. The proceeds of all sales from the show will be donated to the Black Art Library, a growing resource on Black visual artists based in Detroit.
Location: 42 Social Club, 42 Gundy Road, Lyme, Connecticut
Price: Free
Time: By appointment
—Sarah Cascone
Through Sunday, October 25
Jacob Mason-Macklin, Soul Procession 2 (Homage to Mirror) (2020). Courtesy of Interstate Projects.
16. “Jacob Mason-Macklin: Soul Procession” at Interstate Projects, Brooklyn
In this exhibition of new paintings at Bushwick’s Interstate Projects, Jacob Mason-Macklin’s fluidly rendered characters dance, literally and figuratively, between Soul Train-era club life and a lurid, Expressionist pastoralia. Although at first glance the interior scenes and portraits recall a glammed-up cousin of the Black Romanticism immortalized in Ernie Barnes’s The Sugar Shack, a closer look at even the most celebratory moments reveals hints of something unsettled—and unsettling—waiting beyond the lights and the rhythm. By the time I encountered the image of two men huddled over a strange white form beneath an eerie spiral staircase leading up to daylight, I found myself thinking about the very different meanings the word “escape” can take on.
Location: Interstate Projects, 66 Knickerbocker Avenue, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Saturdays and Sundays, noon–6 p.m. Weekdays, by appointment
—Tim Schneider