The One Must-See Art Event in New York This Week: Rob Pruitt’s 50th Birthday Bash at the Brant Foundation

Our editors choose their top pick.

 

We’re all too busy during the week to do all the great things we plan and hope to do. So if you can only commit to one arty event this week, here’s what you should not miss!

SUNDAY May 10 

Rob Pruitt’s 50th Birthday Bash at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center

The Brant Foundation Art Study Center is hosting a private event to celebrate the opening of the exhibit “Rob Pruitt 50th Birthday Bash.” Designed by Richard Gluckman, the center inaugurates long-term exhibitions in the promotion of contemporary art and design. In 2014, the foundation hosted “Deliverance,” a group show featuring work by Cady Noland, Richard Prince, Larry Clark, and Christopher Wool as well as Dan Colen’s “Help” (see Is Cady Noland More Difficult to Work With Than Richard Prince?).

Mr. Pruitt, who was recently interviewed by James Franco for Interview magazine, has enjoyed a successful few years. In October, the New York Times called Pruitt’s “Multiple Personalities” show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise possibly “the best [exhibition] of his career.” That presentation included examples of his “Suicide Paintings,” and “Therapy Paintings.” Other recent solo exhibitions of note include “Rob Pruitt’s Flea Marketat AplusA Gallery in Venice, Italy and “Rob Pruitt: An American Folk Artist” at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado.

Pruitt also currently fills up the better half of the third floor at the de la Cruz Collection in Miami with his painting series Us (2013), an overwhelming cacophony of multicolored smiley faces, which will be on display through October 2015 (see Rob Pruitt, Wade Guyton, Dana Schutz, and Rashid Johnson at de la Cruz Collection).

Ever-radical, ever-current, and ever-enticing, Pruitt surely knows how to spice up a birthday soirée. We are certainly looking forward to this unveiling in Connecticut. “If you look back at everything I’ve ever done, there’s a basic formula of taking minimalist configurations and then plastering trash pop culture right on top of this minimalist building block,” Pruitt said to the Huffington Post in 2010.

Bring on the glitzy pandas. By invitation only.

The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, 941 North Street, Greenwich CT

 

For the intrepid, here are a few other exciting happenings around town:

Gallery openings: Judith Bernstein, “Voyeur,” at Mary Boone, 745 Fifth Avenue, Thursday May 7. Tara Donovan, “Pin Drawings,” at Pace Gallery, Friday, May 8, 6—8 PM. Cecily Brown, “The English Garden,” at Maccarone, Saturday, May 9.


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