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

Monday, September 18

Chris Kraus, After Kathy Acker. Courtesy of MIT Press.

1. “After Kathy Acker: Chris Kraus” at McNally Jackson Bookstore
Twenty years after Kathy Acker’s death, Chris Kraus publishes the first biography of the artist and writer, exploring all the mysteries of Acker’s eventful career. In her books and artworks from the 1970s, Acker’s revolutionary views on punk and feminism gave a generation of young women guidance and inspiration. Kraus will read from her new book.

Location: 52 Prince Street
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.

—Eleonore Marie Stifter

Mackenzie Younger, Jackets. Courtesy of Special Special.

2. “Mackenzie Younger: Jackets” at Special Special
The hottest thing to come out of New York Fashion Week just may be these arty bomber jackets from Mackenzie Younger, featuring logos from art museums, galleries, fairs, auction houses, and magazines. Part fashion, part social commentary, the jackets point to the increasing commodification of the globalized art world. You may have spotted them around town at art fairs and openings throughout the year, but now you can buy your own from a special edition of 100 satin green and black jackets, available only during this exhibition. The art and design store is run by Wen-You Cai, daughter of artist Cai Guo-Qiang; both have been photographed wearing Younger’s distinctive apparel.

Location: Special Special, 44 East 1st Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.; Wednesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–7 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.; Monday and Tuesday by appointment

—Sarah Cascone

Tuesday, September 19–Friday, September 22

Stone Roberts’s new painting of Central Park. Courtesy of Hirschl & Adler Modern.

3. “Stone Roberts” at Hirschl & Adler Modern
Stone Roberts was commissioned by the Louis-Dreyfus Family Collection to create this new painting of Central Park. See it for one week in New York before it travels to Europe, where it will appear in “The American Dream,” an international museum survey of American realism from 1945 to the present at the Drents Museum in the Netherlands and the Kunsthalle Emden in Germany.

Location: The Crown Building, 3 West 56th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.; Monday–Friday, 9:30 a.m.–4:45 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Tuesday, September 19–Saturday, October 28

John Chamberlain,
Opus 16 (1998). Courtesy of Gagosian.

4. “John Chamberlain: Masks” at Gagosian
John Chamberlain’s twisted scrap metal takes a figurative form in the colorful masks made from painted and chrome-plated steel. The majority of these works will be on view for the first time since their creation in the 1990s.

Location: 980 Madison Avenue
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Wednesday, September 20

Film still from The Conformist. Courtesy of the Metrograph.

5. The Conformist at the Metrograph
The Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation‘s Creative China Festival (September 7–November 24 in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles), celebrating Chinese art, fashion, and film, kicks into high gear with the US premiere of director Cai Shangjun’s thriller The Conformist, which won actor Huang Bo the best actor prize at the 2017 Shanghai Film Festival. A discussion with the director along with screenwriter Gu Xiaobai follows the screening. The evening is part of the Metrograph’s “New Noir: Chinese Crime Films” series (September 20–24).

Location: 7 Ludlow Street
Price: $15
Time: 7 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Wednesday, September 20–Saturday, November 4

John Giorno, Daffodils Baptized in Butter. Courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Dee Gallery.

6. “John Giorno: Perfect Flowers” at Elizabeth Dee Gallery
Ugo Rondinone isn’t the only one who loves John Giorno. After the sprawling exhibition that took over the city this summer, Elizabeth Dee is honoring the polymath with yet another show. Giorno’s text-based prints are delightfully abrasive statements that belie the often insightful poetry of his words.

Location: 2033/2037 Fifth Avenue
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Tuesday September 19, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Wednesday, September 20–Sunday, January 7

Lauren Greenfield, Jackie and friends with Versace handbags at a private opening at the Versace store, Beverly Hills, California (2007). © Lauren Greenfield. Courtesy of the International Center of Photography.

7. “GENERATION WEALTH by Lauren Greenfield” at the International Center of Photography
In her first retrospective, Lauren Greenfield showcases 25 years of photography, oral history, and film chronicling American excess. Her documentation of wealth, beauty, luxury, and corruption questions the sustainability of the American dream in the 21st century, presenting it as a concept of society’s shifting values and priorities.

Location: 250 Bowery
Price: General admission $14
Time: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Thursday, September 21 and Saturday, September 23

Anne Mourier, Taking Care, a Story of Common History. Courtesy of Anne Mourier.

8. “Anne Mourier: Taking Care: A Story of Common History” at the Brooklyn Central Library
Laundry day becomes more than a chore in the hands of Anne Mourier, who invites you to consider the simple pleasures of domestic life—the scent of lavender, crisp white sheets hanging on the clothesline, the satisfying sizzle of the iron as wrinkles are pressed away—in her participatory performance piece Taking Care. There will be stations for washing, rinsing, ironing, and drying, and a chance to reflect on what these tasks mean to you by speaking to the artist, who will embroider some of the stories shared with her on white towels.

Location: 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Thursday, September 21–Sunday, September 24

Megan Mack, NYABF2016 2016. Courtesy of NYArtBookFair.

9. “NY Art Book Fair” at MoMA PS1
Printed Matter is bringing back the much-loved art book fair to MoMA PS1 for its 12th edition. Thursday’s preview features musical performances from Upstate Music, BLONDES, and Alexis Taylor. The fair features more than 370 booksellers, antiquarians, artists, institutions and independent publishers from some 28 countries. From among the weekend’s wide array of programming and special events, we’re looking forward to the reunion of Paul Lamarre and Melissa Wolf, as well as participants in their Starving Artists Cookbook series. During the 1980s, Lamarre and Wolf shot more than 160 video portraits in East Village kitchens while collecting original recipes and food-related artworks. The project was set against a backdrop of growing gentrification, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the transformation of the art world into a global art market.

Location: 122-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, Queens
Price: General admission free, Thursday’s preview $10
Time: Thursday, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.; Friday, 1 p.m.–7 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.–9 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–7 p.m.

—Hannah Pikaart 

Friday, September 22–Sunday, September 24

Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse. Courtesy of the Independent Art Book Fair.

10. “Independent Art Book Fair” at Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse
The second annual Independent Art Book Fair is this weekend. The over 60 exhibitors include artists, galleries, and publishers from around the globe; the fair showcases a selection of periodicals, books, and artists’ projects. Programming will include a comedy set from Sistah Vinne and a panel on Kickstarter funding.

Location: 67 West Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: September 22–24, 12 a.m.–7 p.m.

—Hannah Pikaart

Bushwick Open Studios at House of YES. Image courtesy of Arts in Bushwick.

11. Bushwick Open Studios 
Bushwick Open Studios is back for its second fall edition, with artists throughout the neighborhood opening their studios as collectors and hipsters descend for the annual arts and culture festival. Highlights stand to include “Art Trucks!,” a street art exhibition at House of Yes (2 Wyckoff Avenue) featuring seven installations all made from box trucks.

Location: Various locations, Bushwick, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Opening festivities Friday night; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.–7 p.m.

—Hannah Pikaart

Friday, September 22–Saturday, September 30

Jon Burklund, Do Your Worst. Photo courtesy of Triskelion Arts.

12.  BOOM BAT GESTURE, “Do Your Worst” at Triskelion Arts
“Do Your Worst” is a performance series curated by a group of six artists called BOOM BAT GESTURE. The artists will come together onstage to ponder the question, “What is the worst?” This question struck the artists after realizing that time is mostly spent trying to make the best out of something good; going against the grain, the artists will try to make something bad in this experimental “celebration of failure.”

Location: 106 Calyer St, Brooklyn
Price: $18 in advance/$22 at the door; September 30 double feature, $30 in advance/ $35 at the door
Time: 8 p.m., except September 30, with shows at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

—Hannah Pikaart

 Saturday, September 23

Jenna Bascom, LJ Roberts. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design.

13. “Poem-Zines with LJ Roberts” at the Museum of Arts and Design  
Join artist LJ Roberts as he takes participants through the zine designing and constructing process. The seminar explores how design decisions like layout, font size, and negative space interact with poetic texts and affect the reader’s experience. Participants are encouraged to bring copies of existing poetry for use. All other zine-making materials are provided.

Location: 2 Columbus Circle, 3rd floor gallery
Price: $45 general/$35 members and students
Time: 1 p.m.–3 p.m.

—Hannah Pikaart

Saturday, September 23

Gloria Steinem. Photo: Carley Romeo, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.

14. “Prison Baby: Deborah Jiang-Stein and Gloria Steinem” at the Brooklyn Museum
Deborah Jiang-Stein, author of Prison Baby, will be in conversation with renown feminist spokeswoman Gloria Steinem as part of the Sackler Center’s series “States of Denial: The Illegal Incarceration of Women, Children, and People of Color.”Jiang-Stein, raised by adoptive parents, recounts in her memoir her discovery that she spent her first year of life in prison after being born to a heroin-addicted mother, and the years of drug use, violence, and crime that followed. The talk will focus on issues of mass incarceration, mental illness, and substance abuse in the prison industrial complex.

Location: 200 Eastern Parkway, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor
Price: Free with museum admission and for members. 250 free tickets available at the admissions desk beginning at 11 a.m. on the day of the event.
Time: 2 p.m.–4 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Saturday, September 23–Saturday, December 9

Yayoi Kusama, INFINITY-NETS [AAKN] (2016). © Yayoi Kusama. Courtesy of David Zwirner, New York; Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore; Victoria Miro, London; YAYOI KUSAMA Inc.

Location: 101 Spring Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Friday September 22, 6 p.m.; Thursday–Saturday, 1:00 p.m.–5:30 p.m.

—Eileen Kinsella

Through Friday, September 29

“Aneta Regel: Second Nature.” Courtesy of Jason Jacques Gallery.

16. “Aneta Regel: Second Nature” at Jason Jacques Gallery
Contemporary ceramic sculptor Aneta Regel incorporates volcanic rock, basalt, and granite into her colorful clay pieces. In the Polish-born artist’s first solo exhibition in the US, she presents three dozen new works, inspired by the Polish landscape.

Location: 29 East 73rd Street, #1
Price: Free
Time: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Through Friday, November 17

Matt Wuerker, Barbarians. Courtesy of Politico.

17. “Windows on Death Row” at Columbia Law School
Organized by political cartoonist Patrick Chappatte and journalist Anne-Frederique Widmann, “Windows on Death Row” pairs the work of American political cartoonists with that of death row inmates, aiming to promote social awareness of racial injustice and economic inequality.

Location: Jerome Greene Hall lobby, 435 West 116th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Tuesday, September 19, 6:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone