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

Tuesday, September 24–Saturday, November 2

Öyvind Fahlström, Column no. 3 (Chile F), 1974. Courtesy of the Öyvind Fahlström Foundation and Venus Over Manhattan, New York; ©2019 Sharon Avery-Fahlström/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

1. “Öyvind Fahlström” at Venus Over Manhattan

There hasn’t been a solo show of Swedish multimedia artist Öyvind Fahlström’s (1928–1976) work in New York in over 15 years. Venus Over Manhattan rectifies that with a presentation featuring the artist’s colorful text-filled prints inspired by newspaper columns, his pictogram-heavy “Sitting…” paintings, and a restoration of the 1966 16 mm black-and-white film Mao-Hope March.

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

—Sarah Cascone

Tuesday, September 24–Saturday, November 2

Henry Taylor, Not Yet Titled, 2019. Courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe.

2. “Henry Taylor: NIECE COUSIN KIN LOOK HOW LONG IT’S BEEN” at Blum & Poe

The art world has certainly not lacked exposure to the marvelous paintings of the Los Angeles-based artist Henry Taylor. He has work in nearly a dozen institutional shows this year, and each auction season has seen one or two choice paintings get consigned for sale. Most notably, his work is now on view in the curated portion of the 58th Venice Biennale, where in the Arsenale you can see out-and-out masterpieces such as a tryptic that features a triumphant Toussaint Louverture and another paintings that depicts, elegantly, the David Hammons performance where he sold snowballs in Astor Place. So it’s stunning that Taylor hasn’t had a solo show in New York since the start of 2015. That drought ends Tuesday, when new paintings inspired by travels through Senegal are unveiled at the Upper East Side outpost of his longtime L.A. dealer Blum & Poe.

Location: Blum & Poe, 19 E. 66th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Nate Freeman

Tuesday, September 24–Saturday, November 9

Rachel Maclean, Native Animals (still). Courtesy of Arsenal Contemporary

3. “Rachel Maclean: Native Animals” at Arsenal Contemporary 

Rachel Maclean represented Scotland in the 2017 Venice Biennale, but she’s still never had a solo show in New York. She’s painted the walls of Arsenal Contemporary with giant, off-kilter Union Jack flags as a backdrop for the new eight-channel video piece Native Animal. Inspired by Brexit, the psychedelic film features the artist playing various anthropomorphic animals.

Location: Arsenal Contemporary, 214 Bowery
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Tuesday, September 24–Sunday, December 29

“Jill Mulleady: Fight-or-Flight.” Courtesy of the Swiss Institute.

4. “Jill Mulleady: Fight-or-Flight” at the Swiss Institute

In her first institutional US show, Swiss-Uruguayan artist Jill Mulleady, fresh off an outing in the Venice Biennale’s international exhibition, presents a new series of works in which animals respond to stressful situations. Woodcuts of aggressive rats complement the more peaceful central painting, A Fantasy of Transcendence and a Preoccupation with Downfall and Ruin, of a giant resting on an island.

Location: Swiss Institute, 38 St. Mark’s Place
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Wednesday–Friday, 2 p.m.–8 p.m.; Saturday, 12 p.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Wednesday, September 25

James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem fame DJ’s the Kitchen’s first Benefit Night party of 2019. Courtesy of the Kitchen.

5. “Benefit Night Party: James Murphy and Logan Takahashi” at the Kitchen

To jump off its new series of nighttime benefit concerts, the boundary-pushing Chelsea arts nonprofit hands over its theater to former LCD Soundsystem frontman and DFA Records co-founder James Murphy. If the face-melting DJ sets by Murphy and friends, including Logan Takahashi of Ghostly, don’t get you on the dance floor, the open bar will take you the rest of the way. Oh, and if you’re hesitant about the entry cost, keep in mind that $60 of each $75 ticket counts as a tax-deductible gift to the Kitchen. What else can you ask for on a Wednesday night?

Location: The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street
Price: $75
Time: Doors at 8:30 p.m.; DJ Sets, 9 p.m.–midnight

—Tim Schneider

Installation view of “Fred Wilson: Chandeliers.” Photo courtesy of Pace.

6. “Trailblazers of American Music: Oliveros, Cage, Eastman, and Glass” at Pace

At the first public event at the swanky new Pace gallery headquarters, Bosnian-born pianist Pedja Muzijevic will perform music by American composers: Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, Julius Eastman, and Philip Glass beneath the hanging Murano glass sculptures in “Fred Wilson: Chandeliers” (through October 12).

Location: Pace, 540 West Street
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 6:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Wednesday, September 25–Friday, September 27

Jeppe Hein, Breathe With Me (2019) in Central Park, rendering. Image courtesy of the artist.

7. “Jeppe Hein: Breathe With Me” in Central Park

As a part of the UN Climate Action Summit, ART 2030 and Danish artist Jeppe Hein—whose show at New York’s 303 Gallery is on view through October 19—brought his project Breathe With Me to the UN Headquarters over the weekend. Now, he’s taking out in public, with a 600-foot-long, ten-foot-tall canvas winding through Central Park. Anyone can take part, breathing in while dipping the brush in the paint and making a single vertical blue line for as long as it takes to exhale. By focusing on the act of breathing, participants are meant to consider the preciousness of the air and, by extension, our planet.

Location: Central Park at 72nd Street and Center Road (between Sheep Meadow and the Naumburg Bandshell)
Price: Free
Time: 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Wednesday, September 25–Sunday, November 10

Hein Koh, “Strawberry Family”, 2019

8. “Garden” at Sargent’s Daughters and SHRINE

Sargent’s Daughters and SHRINE bring together a diverse group of artists in their shared space this Wednesday. Donald Baechler, Thornton Dial, Hein Koh, Sufjan Stevens, and many more are showcased in an “immersive setting…using turf, living and faux plants, special lighting and meandering pathways”.

Location: Sargent’s Daughters and SHRINE, 179 East Broadway
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.

—Cristina Cruz

Through Thursday, September 26

Jung Hee Choi. Photo courtesy of the Korea Society.

9. “Jung Hee Choi – Black: Trans: Maya: Light ” at the Korea Society

In colorful, minutely detailed drawings and etchings, multimedia artist Jung Hee Choi, who also works in performance, video, and sound installation, captures and transforms light into mesmerizing designs.

Location: The Korea Society, 350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
Price: Free
Time: 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m.

—Nan Stewert

Thursday, September 26–Sunday, September 29

Jessica Bottalico, Flowers and Table (2015), $2,800. Courtesy of Collective 131.

10. The Affordable Art Fair at the Metropolitan Pavilion 

The Affordable Art Fair, which has expanded to 13 cities since being founded in London, turns 20 this year. Expect the usual mix of national an international galleries at the fair’s second New York outing of the year. This time around, the ceramics program at Teachers College, Columbia University will present the fair’s Young Talent Exhibition for emerging contemporary artists. As always, all works are priced between $100 and $10,000.

Location: Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street
Price: Private view $80; general admission $20; free Friday, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
Time: Private view, Wednesday, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.–9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Thursday, September 26–Saturday, November 9

Clio Newton, Hayden, 2019. Courtesy of Forum Gallery Inc.

11. Clio Newton: Venus at Forum Gallery Inc.

Thirty-year old American artist, Clio Newton, presents a series of large-scale composite portraits in her first solo show at Forum Gallery Inc. The charcoal drawings are a mix of the two genders with distinctly female heads and male bodies. Though unsettling at first glance, the genders blend in seamlessly to form one body where the “simultaneous maleness and femaleness are provocative and compelling in their reference to the gender fluidity of this era.”

Location: Forum Gallery Inc., 475 Park Avenue at 57th Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.; Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

—Neha Jambhekar

Friday, September 27

Paola Pivi, You drive me crazy (2019). Photo by Guillaume Ziccarelli, courtesy of the artist & Perrotin.

12. “Show and Tell With Paola Pivi and the Armory Show” at NeueHouse

Paola Pivi’s last New York show, at Perrotin, featured a hoard of adorable, brightly colored baby polar bears—but the artist’s influences aren’t quite so cuddly. For the second event in the Armory Live’s new salon-style contemporary art and film screening series, which launched in July with Toyin Ojih Odutola, Pivi has chosen to watch cult-favorite horror film The Blair Witch Project. After the movie, she’ll talk with art journalist Alina Cohen about how it has influenced her artistic practice. Get there early for complimentary cocktails from Oxley Gin.

Location: NeueHouse, 110 East 25th Street
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: Doors, 6:30 p.m.; screening 7 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Friday, September 27–Sunday, October 13

Alla Kovgan’s Cunningham, still. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

13. “57th New York Film Festival” at Film at Lincoln Center

Among the full slate of new feature films and documentaries, revival screening screenings, and other programming, this year’s festival features at least two films that will appeal to art lovers: Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, about a young female artist commissioned to make a wedding portrait of a young lady who decidedly does not want to get married; and Alla Kovgan’s Cunningham, a documentary that promises 3-D immersion into the choreography of Merce Cunningham.

Location: Film at Lincoln Center, West 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue
Price: Prices vary
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Friday, September 27–2020

Roy Lichtenstein, Entablature VIII (1976). Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Roy Lichtenstein Study Collection, gift of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, ©Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

14. “Order and Ornament: Roy Lichtenstein’s Entablatures” at the Whitney Museum of American Art

In the 1970s, Roy Lichenstein turned to the 19th-century architecture of Lower Manhattan to create his “Entablatures,” inspired by these building’s ornamental facades, American imitations of the buildings of Ancient Greece. It’ the first show of the museum’s Roy Lichtenstein Study Collection since the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation announced last June that it was closing and donating its holdings to the Whitney and Smithsonian.

Location: Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street
Price: $25 general admission
Time: Monday, Wednesday Thursday, Saturday, Sunday 10:30 a.m.–6 p.m.; Friday, 10:30 a.m.–10 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Saturday, September 28 and Sunday, September 29

Miriam Carothers, The Fuckening. Courtesy of Brazzers and THNK1994.

15. “Brazzers Backroom VHS” at the THNK1994 Museum 

After such unique exhibition inspirations as the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya harding drama, paparazzi photographs of the Olsen twins, and the long-running television show Gray’s Anatomy, the team behind the THNK1994 Museum is teaming up with porn site Brazzers on an art exhibition modeled after a seedy video store. We’re not sure what to expect, but the art is by Miriam Carothers, promoting such raunchy-sounding films as The Fuckening and Doctor! All Our Assholes are Possessed!

Location: The THNK1994 Museum 310 Canal Street
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 11 a.m.–7 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Saturday, September 28–Sunday, November 10

16. “Renée Cox: Roots Returned” at Cathouse Proper @ 524 Projects

Renee Cox’s photograph Yo Mama from 1993 earned her a spot in the group show, titled “Bad Girls,” curated by the New Museum’s visionary founder Marcia Tucker, making her debut in the New York art world. The work was originally conceived, though never realized, as one half of a diptych. Now decades later, the artist’s intended work will finally come to light at Cathouse, with the union of Yo Mama and David.

Location: Cathouse Proper at 524 Projects, 524 Court Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Friday–Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.

—Caroline Goldstein

Saturday, September 28–Sunday, November 3

Esperanza Cortés, Charlotte (2019), detail. Photo by Etienne Frossard, courtesy of the artist.

17. “Esperanza Cortés, Canté Jondo/Deep Song” at Smack Mellon

In her new solo show at Smack Mellon, Esperanza Cortés takes the exploitative gem and mineral excavation industry to task. A series of mixed media sculptures and installations highlight the political instability it has caused in her native Columbia over the last 60 years, as well as its colonial roots.

Location: Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Wednesday–Sunday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Through Sunday, September 29

Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw, B.S.O. (Bright Shiny Object), 2018. Photo by Jonathan Dorado, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.

18. “Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw: Sin(k) and B.S.O. (Bright Shiny Object)” at the Brooklyn Museum

A pair of larger-than-life sculptures from Brooklyn artist duo Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw are currently welcoming visitors in the lobby of the Brooklyn Museum. Their massive, rotating ice cream sundae, replete with a never-ending stream of chocolate sauce, was one of the centerpieces of their second solo show with New York’s Postmasters gallery back in January. Here, it’s joined by an equally absurd bathroom sink, a steady stream of water pouring out of the faucet.

Location: Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway
Price: Free to see exhibition in lobby, general admission $16
Time: Wednesday, Friday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Through Saturday, October 19

Marcus Jahmal, High Roller (2019). Image courtesy the artist and Almine Rech Gallery

19. “Marcus Jahmal: Double Down” at Almine Rech Gallery

This is Jahmal’s second show with Almine Rech Gallery and the first in New York. Many of the new works here reference dice, cards and gambling, a reflection of the artist’s upbringing in Prospect Heights where the Carribean culture of the neighborhood had its fair share of illegal numbers and gambling.The paintings incorporate his memories of watching men roll dice in alleyways and illegal number sheets sold in bodegas. Images can come from a wide range of sources including photographs, family stories, personal memories and drawings.

Location: Almine Rech Gallery, 39 East 78th Street
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Eileen Kinsella

Through Saturday, October 19, 2019 

Installation view of “Tink”, 2019. Courtesy of Jane Lombard Gallery.

20. “Sarah Dwyer: Tink” at Jane Lombard Gallery 

When looking at the surfaces of UK-based artist Sarah Dwyer’s canvases up close, filed with their amorphous shapes, many marked by a Philip Guston-conjuring fleshy pink-peach hue, the labor and revision put into each of them rises to the surface. Tink is a stitch in knitting that is essentially working backwards, unknitting. Here this unknitting is the tension of what the artist adds and removes, a kind of visual struggle; Dwyer often cuts up old canvases and drawings to create new imagery. The effect here is like thinking back through a memory or a conversation: shapes rise up (a hand, a breast) and disappear, and remain confoundingly just out of reach.  

Location: Jane Lombard Gallery, 518 West 19th Street
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m

— Katie White