This Week’s Must-See Art Events: FREE CHILI

by Paddy Johnson and Whitney Kimball on March 17, 2014 Events

Image courtesy of Nick Sethi  on tumblr http://nicksethi.com/tumblr

Image courtesy of Nick Sethi on tumblr http://nicksethi.com/tumblr

This week’s events include Audubon, purveyors of good taste, bad taste, chili, and a lot of emerging talent.

  1. M
  2. W
  3. T
  4. F
  5. S

Mon

Baby's All Right

146 Broadway
Brooklyn
6-9Website

Chili Cook-Off

“FREE CHILI AND DOLLAR BEERS” might be the most foolproof press release we’ve ever read. In honor of the traditional St. Paddy’s Day feast, the Lower East Side gallery Boo-Hooray hosts a chili cookoff in Williamsburg with live music by Endless Boogie and “celebrity judges”.

Microscope Gallery

4 Charles Place
Bushwick
7 PM. $6 - artist is presentWebsite

SHELF LIVES

Microscope has been building a lot of momentum in its video and film program lately. It’s been presenting emerging local artists alongside avant-garde filmmakers like Amos Poe and Stephen Dwoskin, and in strong creatively-minded fairs like UNTITLED and Moving Image. We’re not always fans of what comes out, but that’s bound to happen when you support experimental art. Tonight, Microscope shows over a decade of videos by Eileen Maxson, who works with the language of 90s video, stock imagery, press conferences, and the Internet.

 

Wed

The Camera Club of New York (CCNY)

336 West 37th Street, Suite 206
6:00 PM to 8:00 PMWebsite

Pierre Le Hors, "Period Act"

Readers of MATTE Magazine and Dashwood Books will know Pierre Le Hors, a Whistler-esque master of luscious surfaces. And if his work calls back to a few different periods in art history, that may not be accidental; in his new show “Period Act”, Le Hors describes the experience of capturing images from the museum. “Moving past period rooms, visible storage, and galleries closed for installation,” he writes, “time collapses and the museum becomes a forest of fragments in which I gladly lose myself and find rhythm.” Spoken like a true postmodernist.

Thu

6-8pm Website

Scaredy Cat City

If the fairs have gotten you down, then go look at the deeply-felt assemblage of Ben Gocker. Just at a glance, you can tell that Gocker thoroughly enjoys what he does, which– in a studio art system that often values dry concept and raw toil– makes it really refreshing. If B. Wurtz has a rightful heir, it would be Gocker.

DC Moore

535 W 22nd St #2
Website

Romare Bearden: Insight & Innovation

“Innovation” is not a platitude when it comes to collagist and painter Romare Bearden. In addition to being totally involved with community work, Bearden played a huge role in influencing younger artists like Carrie Mae Weems. Weems has an ongoing show up at the Studio Museum right now, which Bearden helped to found.

Anyway, according to the press release, this new show should give us an insight into a turning point in the artist’s work, in which Bearden began to explore Southern culture.

Fri

Mitchell-Innes & Nash

534 West 26th Street
Website

Leigh Ledare

Leigh Ledare is a lightning rod for what constitutes good taste. I don’t know if it’s possible to like “Pretend You’re Actually Alive,” Ledare’s erotic photo series of his mom, but vag shots of your birth-giver are pretty daring. Controversy aside, Ledare is skilled at crafting work that makes it difficult to tell what’s fact and what’s fiction. At Mitchell-Innes & Nash he’s showing “Double Bind” (2010/2012), a series that’s similarly hard-to-believe. It’s a portrait series that uses photographs of his ex-wife Megan Ledare- Fedderly taken by her current husband Adam Fedderly as well as Ledare’s own photos of Ledare-Fedderly.  Worth checking out.

New-York Historical Society

170 Central Park West at Richard Gilder Way (77th Street)
10 AM - 6 PMWebsite

Audubon’s Aviary: Parts Unknown (Part II of The Complete Flock)

Bird people, if you ever plan on seeing Audubon paintings up close, then this could well be your best chance. As part of its popular three-part series of Audubon shows, the New York Historical Society presents part II: “Audubon’s Aviary”. You’ll see watercolors at the height of his career, from  southeastern explorations and on his Labrador Expedition. The show also comes with the book Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for “The Birds of America”, which comes with rave reviews on Amazon.

 

Auxiliary Projects

2 St. Nicholas Avenue, space 25
7-9 PMWebsite

MIDDLE ASS BAD AGE

Can obsessive self portraiture lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves? According to artist Sue McNally, who has been drawing herself since she was a teenager, that answer is, “yes”. Now in her middle age, McNally’s unsparing drawings are all but dashed off. She never cracks a smile, and depicts herself as if in a constant state of misery.

618 E. 9th Street

6-9 pm

Nick Sethi at Ed. Varie

If you can only go to one event this week, make it photographer Nick Sethi’s opening this Friday at Ed. Varie. We’re told the show will drawing from the body of work produced for his self published zine, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, and will include selfies in UV tanning salons. Having not seen the zine, our knowledge of Sethi’s work is limited to his selfie-laden tumblr, which is filled with washed out images of dudes posing, a drag queen with a shoe on her head, and the above picture in which Sethi has positioned himself, startled, in front of this model’s crotch. Needless to say, we’d like to see more.

Sat

Residency Unlimited

360 Court St. Unit #4
Brooklyn
12 - 6 PMWebsite

Rituals of the Reflective Self

Residency Unlimited is a great way of getting to know artists who are working in other countries, but visiting New York for short periods of time. This group exhibition showcases the work of artists who reflect on daily rituals and structures and includes work by Meng-Hsuan Wu, Nora Silva and ja ja. Look forward to seeing an installation of vases and a pile of text by Danish duo ja ja, along with the melodies by Taiwanese artist Meng-Hsuan Wu and a confessionary eat-n stand by Chilean artist Nora Silva. This exhibition was curated by Ayelet Danielle Aldouby.

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: