Each week, we search for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events, both digitally and in-person in the New York area. See our picks from around the world below. (Times are all ET unless otherwise noted.)

Through Wednesday, September 29

Deborah Brown, Quiet City, 2021 Courtesy of Anna Zorina Gallery

1. “Deborah Brown: Quiet City” at Anna Zorina Gallery, New York

It is the last few days to catch “Deborah Brown: Quiet City,” the artist’s second solo show at Anna Zorina Gallery. The exhibition consists of works from her “Shadow” series and takes place concurrently with “The Shadow Paintings,” Brown’s solo show at the Schloss Derneberg Museum in Germany. The artist’s dog is in the foreground in every work, with different streets in Brooklyn as the backdrop. The person walking the dog is never visible, a presence indicated only by the shadows falling ahead of them. A fitting depiction of loneliness felt during a year of quarantine, these works perfectly capture unease and isolation.

Location: Anna Zorina Gallery, Highline Nine, 507 West 27th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday 10 a.m.–Saturday 6 p.m.; Sunday and Monday by appointment

—Neha Jambhekar

Thursday, September 30–Saturday, October 2

Asuna, 100 Keyboards. Photo by Ritsuko Sakata, courtesy of BAM.

2. “Asuna: 100 Keyboards” at Brooklyn Academy of Music

Experimental Japanese sound artist Asuna creates a sonic bath using 100 toy electronic keyboards, holding down one key on each instrument and then repeating the gesture with the next one to build layers of multiplying sounds. Visitors are invited to walk through the space as the cacophony grows, the competing frequencies reverberating against one another. This is the work’s U.S. debut.

Location: BAM, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn
Price: $25
Time: Thursday, 7 p.m.–TK p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Friday, October 1

Sky Hopinka, Kunįkaga Remembers Red Banks, Kunįkaga Remembers the Welcome Song (2014), film still. Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, fund for the Twenty-First Century, ©2021 Sky Hopinka.

3. “Treading Softly: Ecocritical Approaches to Cultural History” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York

The Mellon-Marron Research Consortium looks at MoMA’s collection with an ecocritical eye in a day of online study sessions highlighting artists, architects, and designers who have made the environment the subject of their work. Speakers will include Jake Skeets; a poet and teacher at Diné College in the Navajo Nation, Tsaile, Arizona; Jessica Horton, an art history professor at the University of Delaware; David Gissen, a professor of architecture and urban history at Parsons School of Design and the New School University in New York; J.T. Roane, an African and African American studies professor at Arizona State University; and Ted Steinberg, a history professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Price: Free with registration
Time: 2 p.m.–5:30 p.m.

—Tanner West

Saturday, October 2

Daniel T. Gaitor Lomack, Magic Man (Bootleg Cable), 2020-21. Photo courtesy of PPOW, New York.

4. “Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack Performance” at PPOW, New York

As part of PPOW’s current exhibition, “Recovery” (through October 9), Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack will stage a performance interacting with his sculpture Magic Man (Bootleg Cable) (2020-21). The artist is known for activating his works through conceptual performance—this one will feature a mini felt fedora, shiny blue shoes, and a stained wood staircase, all of which he hopes to imbue with new meaning.

Location: PPOW, 392 Broadway, New York
Price: Free
Time: 2 p.m.

—Tanner West

Saturday, October 2–Thursday, December 16

Ho Kan, Abstract 2013-005, 2013 Courtesy of Eli Klein Gallery

5. “Ho Kan: Geometric Calligraphy” at Eli Klein Gallery, New York

Eli Klein Gallery presents “Ho Kan: Geometric Calligraphy,” the first U.S. exhibition of the Taiwanese master-painter. Ho Kan was a founding member of the “Ton Fan Art Group,” and extremely influential in the modern art movement in Taiwan. This exhibition consists of 39 paintings, works on paper, and prints made between 2006 and 2019. Together, they exemplify the artist’s mastery in combining geometric forms and Chinese calligraphic elements, resulting in a beautiful balance of eastern and western styles.

Location: Eli Klein Gallery, 398 West Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening 6 p.m.–8 p.m.

—Neha Jambhekar

Sunday, October 3

Hank Willis Thomas at the Wide Awakes rally in Washington Square Park. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

6. “Wide Awakes Day” at Gowanus, Brooklyn

In 2020, For Freedoms revived the Wide Awakes, an 1860s group dedicated to electing Abraham Lincoln, in the hopes of forcing President Donald Trump out of office. In honor of the original group’s first demonstration back in 1860, October 3 is now National Wide Awakes Day. In New York, there will be a block party hosted by Dancewave in Gowanus featuring performances, community crafting, and art installations. The idea is to stage events in cities across the country—artist Michele Pred, who staged one of her Radical Love Parades in New  York for the occasion in 2020, is curating the day’s events for 21C Museum Hotel Kansas City—so keep an eye on the group’s social channels for more information.

Location: Gowanus, DeGraw Street and Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: 2 p.m.–9 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Through Sunday, October 10

Stephen Morrison, Dog Show #1: The Dinner Party at Invisible Dog Art Center.

7. “Dog Show #1: The Dinner Party // Stephen Morrison” at Invisible Dog Art Project, Brooklyn

This life-size banquet table full of 16 debauched dogs guzzling wine and swinging from the chandelier at a feast full of dog-shaped foodstuffs just might be the most delightfully insane art exhibition you’ll see all year. The plaster and clay figures are indulging in just the kind of unrestrained revelry that has been off limits during the past 18 months, making the oddball display (which also includes dog-themed paintings in the style of famous artists such as Pablo Picasso) all the more irresistible. It’s the first solo show for Stephen Morrison, accompanied by an essay from former Yale Norfolk Summer Residency classmate (and Invisible Dog alumni) Emma Sulkowitz.

Location: The Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Thursday–Saturday, 1 p.m.–7 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m.–5 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Through Sunday, October 24

Velvet Other World, Worship of the Lady from Afar, 2021. Courtesy of Kapp Kapp.

8. “Velvet Other World: How Long Shall I Have to Wait” at Kapp Kapp, New York

Artists and long-time studio mates Josh Allen and Katrina Pisetti have teamed up as “Velvet Other World” for an exhibition at Kapp Kapp. Working in charcoal, Allen and Pisetti produce sensuous forms in a lush grayscale. Intricate patterns and details take these forms to another level, each work containing a world to get lost in, featuring a futuristic fashion show, alien royalty, and more. Experience the sensory trip for yourself before it closes on October 24th!

Location: Kapp Kapp, 368 Broadway, #417, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.

—Cristina Cruz

Through Saturday, October 30

Cathy Lebowitz, Deliberation (2020). Courtesy of Skoto Gallery.

9. “Cathy Lebowitz: When I Was a Bird” at Skoto Gallery, New York

For 30 years, Cathy Lebowitz worked at Art in America, where she was for years in charge of the magazine’s exhibition reviews section (full disclosure: I worked with her there from 2011 to 2014). But she always maintained an art practice, studying painting at the New York Studio School in the 1990s and later working with fabric and plants. Now, away from the daily editorial grind, she’s rededicated herself to making art—particularly works on paper with colored pencil, a selection of which are on view in her first Chelsea gallery show of her own. Lebowitz thinks about the drawings as aerial landscapes, imagined bird’s eye views as seen by our avian friends during their seasonal migrations across the planet—and she’s inspired in part by how human development interferes with their natural navigational abilities.

Location: Skoto Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, 5th floor, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Through Sunday, October 31

Richard Armendariz, Tell Me Where It Hurts (2017). Courtesy of Ruiz-Healy Art, San Antonio and New York.

10. “Mutable Land” at Governors Island, New York

Brooklyn’s NARS Foundation—short for New York Art Residency and Studios—presents a strong exhibition, curated by Marian Casey, of work inspired by the state of Texas and residents’ relationship to the land there. This weekend’s opening featured a compelling live performance by Jose Villalobos, who filled a series of cowboy hats with potting soil and then gorged himself on the dirt, shouting “silencio” in a chilling commentary on queer assimilation and machismo culture—it was disturbing, but impossible to look away. Highlights of the exhibition include Richard Armendariz’s woodblock prints of animals in the desert.

Location: Nolan Park, Building 6B, Governors Island, New York
Price: Free
Time: Saturday and Sunday, 12 p.m.–5 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone

Yvette Molina, Coywolf Guardian (detail). Photo courtesy of Artshack Brooklyn.

11. “B.Y.O.G. (Build Your Own God), And Other Ideas for a Kinder World” at Artshack Brooklyn

Yvette Molina’s solo show at the Artshack Gallery stars Coywolf Guardian, a nonbinary creature who is the offspring of Saint Christopher, Anubis, and Coyote—the latest character of the artist’s newly imagined gods that she hopes can guide us through the unique crises of modern life. The ceramic Coywolf Guardian sculpture wears a seven-foot-long felted cape and is surrounded by votive ceramic boats and a large-scale altarpiece that displays the work of 20 other artists, which Molina hopes demonstrates the power of collective action. Visitors are invited to contribute as well, by sharing small objects that Molina will ultimately sew into the cape.

Location: Artshack Brooklyn, 1127 and 1131 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Daily, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

—Sarah Cascone