Each week, we search New York City for the most exciting, and thought-provoking, shows, screenings, and events. See them below.
Tuesday, September 25
1. Gallery talk and book signing with Barbara Pollack, author of Brand New Art From China at Pace Gallery
Join award-winning journalist, art critic, and curator Barbara Pollack, one of the foremost experts on contemporary Chinese art as she discusses her new book, Brand New Art from China: A Generation on the Rise. As a new generation of young Chinese artists is drawing notice in the art world, Pollack delves into questions about what it means to be Chinese and how we can better understand Chinese work.
Location: 537 West 24th Street
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Tuesday, September 25, 2018–Sunday, April 28, 2019
Work in Arlene Shechet’s studio. Photo by Jeremy Liebman, courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery ©Arlene Shechet, courtesy Pace Gallery
2. “Arlene Shechet: Full Steam Ahead” at Madison Square Park
Shechet’s first major public art project will feature a series of new sculptures in porcelain, wood, and cast iron, installed around and within the empty reflecting pool in the north section of Madison Square Park. “My hope has been to reimagine the hardscape of the Park with delight and surprise,” Shechet said in a statement. “New Yorkers rely on the sidewalks, the pavement, and the street as the core of their urban lives. Full Steam Ahead becomes a lively and human amphitheater, softening the hardscape through sculptural intervention evocative of 18th-century garden landscapes.”
Location: Madison Avenue at 23rd Street
Price: Free
Time: 6 a.m.–11 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Tuesday, September 25–Saturday, November 17
Maruja Mallo, Mensaje del Mar (1937). Courtesy of Ortuzar Projects, New York ©The Estate of Maruja Mallo.
4. “Maruja Mallo: Paintings 1926–1952” at Ortuzar Projects
Maruja Mallo (1902–95) was one of the only women part of the Spanish avant-garde group the Generation of ‘27 which included Salvador Dalí, Federico García Lorca, and Luis Buñue. She hasn’t had a solo show in New York since 1948, so this survey of her Surrealist canvases is long overdue.
Location: Ortuzar Projects, 9 White Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Wednesday, September 26
3. “Tour and Artist Talk: Rape in the Social Context” at the Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay College
Curator Monika Fabijanska will give a tour of “The Unheroic Act: Representations of Rape in Contemporary Women’s Art in the US” (on view Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., through November 2), featuring work by artists including Jenny Holzer, Suzanne Lacy, Ana Mendieta, Yoko Ono, and Kara Walker, followed by an artists’ talk moderated by professor Shonna Trinch. Jennifer Karady will talk about trauma from combat and sexual assault in the military from her project with US veterans, “Soldiers’ Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan,” while Ada Trillo speaks to addressing violence against women on the US-Mexico border in her project “How did I get here?”
Location: John Jay College, Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, 860 11th Avenue
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Faith Ringgold, Early Works #25: Self-Portrait (1965). ©1965 Faith Ringgold. Photo by Sarah DeSantis, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.
5. “Brooklyn Talks: Faith Ringgold” at the Brooklyn Museum
Faith Ringgold, born in Harlem in 1930, will talk with her daughter, Michelle Wallace, about her work as an African American artist and activist, as seen in the museum’s current show “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” (on view through February 3, 2019).
Location: Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway
Price: $16 general admission
Time: 7 p.m.–9 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, September 27–Sunday, November 4
Paul Mogensen no title (thalo blue and cadmium red). Photo: courtesy of Karma.
6. “Paul Mogensen” at Karma
Karma is presenting its first solo exhibition of works by the colorist painter Paul Mogensen, who explored light, color, and form since the mid-1960s. The show features a number of his meticulously planned paintings and drawings from 1969 to the present that are based on mathematical formulas, including works that have never been publicly exhibited before.
Location: Karma, 188 East 2nd Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Henri Neuendorf
Thursday, September 27–Saturday, December 15
Katya Tepper, Gaping Candle Tripod (2018). Photo courtesy of the artist.
7. “Katya Tepper: Hysteric Signs” at White Columns
Katya Tepper mines the struggles of chronic illness for artistic inspiration, transforming illness into beauty through the use of such unconventional materials as eggshells, bricks, and plastic spools of thread. combined with wax, cloth, and latex paint.
Location: White Columns, 91 Horatio Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Friday, September 28–Sunday, September 30
Miami Beach’s Satellite art fair will present the Art Hole pop-up gallery during Bushwick Open Studios at a former 99 cents store. Courtesy of Satellite.
The artists of Bushwick, Brooklyn, open their doors for one weekend a year. Expect a party in the streets, and plenty of art to discover. This is a good place for a would-be art collector to start making a few purchases while knocking back a PBR or two. There are also numerous gallery exhibitions and other events taking place across the neighborhood, including a pop-up gallery, Art Hole, from Miami Beach art fair Satellite at 701 Grand Street, featuring performance art.
Location: Various locations, Bushwick, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Various times
—Sarah Cascone
Saturday, September 29 and Sunday, September 30
Aram Han Sifuentes, Protest Banner Lending Library. Photo by eedahahm.
9. Forward Union Fair at Red Bull Arts New York
Social justice organizations can connect with artists and other creative communities in this unusual fair, now in its third edition. There are also artworks tackling topics such as immigration, gun control, and healthcare, including a new piece by Mel Chin inspired by the shooting death of Botham Jean and Cara Levine’s This Is Not a Gun, which documents various non-lethal objects police officers have mistaken for firearms through a community ceramics workshop.
Location: Red Bull Arts New York, 220 West 18th Street
Price: Free
Time: 12 p.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Sunday, October 7
“Trudy Benson: Closer Than They Appear” at Lyles & King. Photo courtesy of Lyles & King.
10. “Trudy Benson: Closer Than They Appear” at Lyles & King
Trudy Benson’s boldly colored new paintings, featuring overlapping rectangular shapes arranged in a chaotic grid, are difficult to parse, their many layers jumping out and receding back before the viewer’s eyes. To add to the visual chaos, beautiful though it is, one painting is presented on wall the artist has spray-painted with more colorful rectangles.
Location: Lyles & King, 106 Forsythe Street at Broome Street
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Through Sunday, October 14
Installation view of “Hồng- n Trương: We Are Beside Ourselves,” 2018. Courtesy of Rubber Factory.
11. “Hồng-Ân Trương: We Are Beside Ourselves” at Rubber Factory
Following her moving collaboration with fellow Vietnamese-artist Hương Ngô in MoMA’s 2018 New Photography exhibition, Hồng-Ân Trương presents a solo show of new work at Rubber Factory on the Lower East Side. The artist collects archival imagery from the liberation movements of the 1960s and ‘70s, recontextualizing it through installations that posit an alternate history of Asian American resistance.
Location: Rubber Factory, 29c Ludlow Street
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, 12:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
—Taylor Dafoe
Through Sunday, October 28
Martine Syms, Release Yr Shoulders I, 2018. Image copyright Martine Syms, courtesy of the artist and Bridget Donahue, NYC.
12. “Martine Syms: Big Surprise” at Bridget Donahue
Syms’s second solo exhibition with the gallery features a four-channel multimedia opus titled Mythiccbeing (pronounced “my thick being”), in which an “aspirational” avatar of the artist continually lives out what could be either a digitally anesthetized languor or a slow-burn existential crisis from morning to night of a single day. A chatbot programmed with Syms’s voice gives visitors the opportunity to interact with the protagonist of Mythiccbeing, which responds in onscreen messages, images, or animations, drawing them deeper into the experience.
Location: 99 Bowery, Second Floor
Price: Free
Time: Wednesday–Sunday, noon–6 p.m.
—Tim Schneider