This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Very Professional Art Blogging

by Whitney Kimball on May 28, 2013 · 2 comments Events

Once again, the art world hums with very important people keeping up-to-date with highly relevant art. Our editors Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch are packing their bags to bring you international, onsite Venice Biennale coverage. I prepare for my up-to-the-minute reportage of Bushwick Open Studios. We’ll be answering your most burning questions, like what art does God like? Where’s the best sandwich? What’s that duck doing under that bus? Busy, busy, busy!

Read us this week, and we will bring you the most important things happening around the most important art, ever. Meanwhile, here are the openings.

Tuesday, May 28

Benefit and Performance: Le Poisson Rouge, Recess
9 PM – 12 AM, 158 Bleecker Street
Tickets start at $150

Rarely do residencies make such a real-world impact as Recess. Between hosting artists in a storefront space, and getting its artists into the Museum of Modern Art, Recess pushes its participants into the public sphere. Its track record suggests that it chooses artists for conceptual merit, rather than what looks best on the website. (See for yourself, as the evening includes performances and installations by Recess artists. I interviewed John Miserendino about it.)

Auction items include work by Marc Handelman, Kalup Linzy, and Jon Kessler; a private tour of MoMA; and a tour of Vito Acconci’s studios.

Wednesday, May 29

Panel: On the Future of NYC Libraries, Steelcase
6pm, 4 Columbus Circle #2, Manhattan
Free. To rsvp, contact hdc@hdc.org. Space is limited.

The debate rages over the fate of the New York Public Library.

Just to recap: The library needs money, so the Central Library Plan entails selling the Science, Industry, and Business Library and the Mid-Manhattan Library (which currently houses the largest circulating collections of the NYPL) for $200 million, then combining them inside the New York Public Library. The iconic New York Public Library will have its seven floors of stacks ripped out, and they’ll send millions of books in off-site storage facilities in New Jersey to create a circulating library system. Stanford’s doing something similar with its “bookless” library plan, but most critics worry that here the investment is misplaced, it’s architecturally unsound (the Reading Room may collapse), and the cost estimate keeps rising. The only major defender to emerge from the architecture world thus far has been Norman Foster, who designed the new plan.

Wednesday, speakers include Dr. Jeffrey Kroessler, Librarian and Urban Historian at John Jay College, Scott Sherman, contributing writer and editor of The Nation, and David Giles, Research Director at the Center for an Urban Future.

Image for "What You Want" by Bobby Doherty

Thursday, May 30th

Opening: What You Want, Camera Club
6-8 PM, 336 West 37th Street, Suite 206

Matt Leifheit has an eye for mystique. I know this from his writing here at AFC, but also through his work as editor-in-chief of MATTE Magazine, a self-published magazine of emerging photographers. So you can bet that his upcoming show “What You Want”– five emerging artists creating visual pleasure with banal objects– draws from a good deal of rumination. I’m excited.

Saturday, June 1st

Opening: Dennis Congdon, CUE
10 AM – 6PM 137 West 25th Street, Ground Floor

I remember Dennis Congdon fondly as the head of RISD’s painting department, but I think painters in general might identify with his painter’s paintings. They’re inspired by living in Rome, and come to terms with painting-after-painting in a way that’s resiliently intuitive. I imagine his colorful landscapes looking like what Bonnard might make after looking at a Gustin.

BUSHWICK OPENINGS

This week, we’ll be previewing Bushwick Open Studios. Make sure to swing by these openings on Friday, after hours. Here’s our comprehensive list, with picks and selected descriptions:

Friday, May 31st

Kosciusko J:
The Living Gallery, Performances and Angel Rodriguez Sr., Percussion
7-11, 1094 Broadway

Morgan L: 
Momenta Art, The Bureau of Self-Recognition, Chloë Bass6-9
NURTUREart, BOS Projects #1: Antoine Lefebvre7-9
56 Bogart

Jefferson L:
Associated, Things That Fell Out of My Pocket. 7-10pm, 566 Johnson Ave

PICKS

Jefferson L: 
Parallel Art Space, What I Like About You
6-9pm, 17-17 Troutman Street #220

Parallel invites 19 international artists to collaborate with a Bushwick artist, and then their work will be shown alongside that collabo. I consider this a must-see during BOS week, as the outside perspective may tell us something more about Bushwick.

Myrtle J,M and Central Ave M:
Microscope, Overt & Covert: technology and portraiture
6-9pm, 4 Charles Place

A group of artists DataSpaceTime (Ray Sweeten & Lisa Gwilliam), James Fotopoulos, M. Henry Jones, and Anton Perich offer 3-D imaged versions of famed artists and works. This will be a good show for people who like to keep up-to-date with the tech; artist M. Henry Jones, for example, debuts his own technique of “Fly’s Eye” 3-D photography.

Flushing and Myrtle J,M:
Grace Exhibition Space, Performances
9 – 11 PM, 840 Broadway, 2nd floor
$10 donation

“Psycho-Geography” takes a series of performances starting with place, and it shows a diversity of artists which you’ll only find in Bushwick, from burlesque performer Rosabelle Selavy to New Zealand actionist Peter Dobill. We expect this to be heavy.

Screen shot from Rick Silva's "En plein air"

Saturday, June 1st

Grand Street L:
Transfer Gallery: Cocktails & Kebabs
6 – 9 PM, 1030 Metropolitan Ave

Resident filmmaker and administrator Rhett Jones loves Transfer’s current show of Rick Silva’s plein-air 3D modelled landscape renderings and GIFs– and from the exhibition site, we believe him. They’re beautiful. That’s enough to get us to Transfer Gallery, but the cocktails and kebabs seal the deal.

Morgan, Montrose, and Grand St L:
Third Ward: Birthday BBQ
2 – 10 PM, 195 Morgan Ave

Third Ward, Bushwick’s hub for cheap and hands-on creative education, is having a barbecue to celebrate its seventh birthday. After BOS, this is probably a good place to end up.

{ 2 comments }

Justin Waddell May 28, 2013 at 3:20 pm

I am looking at some of Silva’s posters right now and they are more than worth the trip to Transfer. If you can’t get out (or don’t want to leave the comfort of the internet) you can order them from the Gallery’s website.

WhitneyKimball May 28, 2013 at 4:34 pm

Thanks, glad to hear it! I hear the posters are free to take from the gallery, too.

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