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.)
Monday, September 6–Sunday, September 12
Galerie Zurcher in the East Village.
1. “Salon Zürcher: The 11 Women of Spirit, Part 4” at Gallery Zürcher, New York
For the 25th edition of Salon Zürcher, the gallery’s presentation during Armory fair week, the work of 11 female artists will be on display free to the public. The show’s title comes from the phrase “Femmes d’esprit,” an 18th-century term for independent-minded creative women who were often sidelined by their male counterparts. This year, the 11 women featured are Rosaire Appel, Jeri Coppola, Brigitte Engler, Laural Max, Donna Moylan, Fran O’Neill, Janet Passehl, Marcy Rosenblat, Fran Shalom, Jackie Shatz, and Rebecca Smith.
Location: Gallery Zürcher, 33 Bleecker Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Monday, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday, 12–5 p.m.
—Nan Stewart
Tuesday, September 7–Saturday, October 9
Installation view, “Alec Egan: The Study.” Courtesy of the artist and Charles Moffett Gallery.
2. “The Study” at Charles Moffett, New York
Beginning on Tuesday, Charles Moffett’s Canal Street gallery will be transformed into a fully immersive art experience courtesy of artist Alec Egan. Taking on the aesthetic of a heavily patterned domestic interior, Egan is extending his practice from oil paintings to include custom wallpaper and flooring, bringing the rooms he paints to life.
Location: Charles Moffett, 511 Canal Street #200, New York
Price: Free
Time: Thursday–Saturday, 12.–6 p.m.
—Nan Stewart
Wednesday, September 8
3. “Ed Ruscha: The Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture Series” at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C
The next iteration of this virtual series, which provides a forum for established artists to discuss the genesis and evolution of their work, will include Ed Ruscha, who joins NGA senior curator of modern and contemporary art Harry Cooper to chat about his celebrated career. The museum promises that this informal conversation should be “full of surprises.”
Price: Free with registration
Time: 4 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Wednesday, September 8–Saturday, October 23
Amie Cunat, Midnight Channels (2021). Courtesy of Dinner Gallery.
4. “Amie Cunat: Petal Signal” at Dinner Gallery, New York
Amie Cunat debuts eight new paintings in her second solo exhibition with Dinner Gallery (formerly Victori + Mo). In her first exhibition with the gallery, Cunat recreated a Shaker meeting house. Here she makes a broad departure, instead offering up vividly colorful canvases filled with swirling biomorphic shapes that varyingly appear like licks of flames, tangles of vegetal growth, and decorative paisleys. Devoid of any narrative context, the paintings nevertheless communicate a lot. At times Cunat’s paintings can possess an almost mandala-like intensity and purpose. But tapping into the visual tenets of Pop Abstraction and Surrealist biomorphism, Cunat also hints with discomfiting humor that these seemingly uplifting images are, upon closer inspection, a whole lot thornier.
Location: Dinner Gallery, 242 West 22nd Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, Thursday, September 9, 6 p.m–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., and by appointment
—Katie White
Wednesday, September 8–Saturday, November 13
5. “Be Your Wonderful Self: The Portraits of Beauford Delaney” at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York
Beauford Delaney is famed for his swirling abstract canvases, but the American artist also pursued a highly personal portraiture practice, particularly earlier in his career. This exhibition, the third of Delaney’s work at the gallery, presents 25 of his captivating portraits alongside 7 of his abstract works, seeking to find commonalities between them. An intense familiarity pervades these portraits. There are several portraits of James Baldwin, along with images of Delaney’s dear friend Ahmed Bioud and one of his mother. Others figures are unnamed, but the vividness with which he captures them makes these mysterious subjects fascinating.
Location: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 100 Eleventh Avenue at 19th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Katie White
Friday, September 10
Judy Chicago and Maria Grazia Chiuri pose after the Christian Dior Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2019 2020 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on July 01, 2019, in Paris, France. (Photo by Rindoff/Charriau/Getty Images)
6. “Virtual Brooklyn Talks: Maria Grazia Chiuri and Judy Chicago” at the Brooklyn Museum
Two of the art and fashion world’s most badass women are coming together for a virtual talk on YouTube for the occasion of the opening of the exhibition “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams” at the Brooklyn Museum. Maria Chiuri, Dior’s first female creative director, and feminist art icon Judy Chicago will discuss their collaboration, The Female Divine, an installation of twenty-one text-emblazoned velvet banners, which were displayed at Dior’s Spring-Summer 2020 show in Paris.
Price: Free
Time: 1–2 p.m.
—Nan Stewart
Friday, September 10
Left: Simone Leigh, photo by Shaniqwa Jarvis. Right: Grada Kilomba, photo by Ute Langkafel. Courtesy Amant.
7. “Dialogue: Simone Leigh and Grada Kilomba” at Amant, Brooklyn
To expand its current solo exhibition (through October 31) of the multidisciplinary artist Grada Kilomba, as well as debut its dedicated performance and event space (known as Géza), Brooklyn’s Amant foundation will host an in-person-only conversation between Kilomba and acclaimed artist Simone Leigh. The evening will also include a screening of Kilomba’s film Plantation Memories, completing her exhibition’s unfurling across the entirety of Amant’s campus.
Location: Amant, 306 Maujer Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free with RSVP
Time: 6:30–7:30 p.m.
—Tim Schneider
Friday, September 10–Saturday, October 23
Dawoud Bey, Tree and Cabin, (2019) © Dawoud Bey Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York
8. “Dawoud Bey: In This Here Place” at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York
The artist’s inaugural gallery show is marked by a body of new work that focuses on plantations in Louisiana, continuing his examination of African American history and his efforts to make the Black past resonant in the contemporary moment. The show also marks the debut of Evergreen, a three-channel video reflecting the artist’s ongoing visual investigation of memory and place within the Black imagination. An added bonus: Bey himself will be at the gallery on Saturday, September 11 from 12-4pm.
Location: Sean Kelly Gallery, 475 Tenth Avenue, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; the artist is present Saturday, September 11, 12 p.m.–4 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Alvaro Barrington’s studio. Photo courtesy of Nicola Vassell.
9. “Alvaro Barrington: Garvey 1, Birth — The Quiet Storm” at Nicola Vassell, New York
Alvaro Barrington’s first New York solo show in four years kicks off a planned four-part tribute to Marcus Garvey. The artist and the Jamaican political activist men were both born in the Caribbean before moving to the U.S. (Alvaro now lives in New York and London.) Inspired by these parallel migratory paths, Alvaro’s paintings consider both Garvey’s legacy and his own career path, using birth and family as a starting point.
Location: Nicola Vassell, 138 Tenth Avenue, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception Friday, 5 p.m.–8 p.m.; Monday–Friday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
—Tanner West
Through Monday, September 27
The namesake bear from Simon Fujiwara’s “Who the Baer,” a Fondazione Prada exhibition and online experience. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada.
10. “Who’s Online!” via Fondazione Prada, Milan
If you can’t make it to Simon Fujiwara’s site-specific “Who the Baer” show at Fondazione Prada in Milan (through September 27), the artist helped conceive of an interactive digital tour with user-driven, stop-motion animation and exclusive interviews. From your smartphone, you can experience Fujiwara’s contemporary fairytale through the eyes of “Who”—a nondescript cartoon bear, searching for an identity in a world of images.
Price: Free
Time: Daily at all times
—Christine Ajudua