This Week’s Must See Art Events: Artists Anonymous and Jimmy Carter’s Cat

If you were paying attention to the coverage of the Venice Biennale last summer, you heard about Sarah Sze’s “Triple point,” the intricate sculpture of found objects that represented the United States in the national pavilions. If you didn’t have the time, energy, or money to board a plane to Italy twelve months ago, then good news, the work is coming to New York! The sculpture, which models webs of information using fans, stones, tripods, and other miscellaneous objects, got some great reviews; The Guardian wrote: “Amid the cacophony of the Biennale, the studied quietness of the U.S. Pavilion reverberates and commands attention.”

This show is only open for a month, so make sure you see it before it’s too late.

Austrian filmmaker Gustav Deutsch is considered a frontrunner of found footage cinema, so Anthology Film Archives is taking advantage of his current residency at NYU. Tonight, they premiere his new film “SHIRLEY”, a filmic version of Edward Hopper paintings (trailer here) which is a collaboration with scenic artist and head painter Hanna Schimek. Both will be present for the screening tonight.

We forgot to list this when it opened, but you still have two days left to see “New Prints”, an enormous survey of ninety-eight projects by eighty-nine artists, curated by the International Print Center. Fans of AFC’s skeleton background (click “5” on the pink bar on the right hand corner of our homepage) should look for Saul Chernick, who’s in the show.

Ryan McNamara is outlandishly fun. In 2011, he and a friend buried themselves in the woods alongside each other, neck high in the dirt, and sang love ballads like, “tonight” from West Side Story. In 2012, he took deadpan pictures of unsuspecting gallery goers with props. He got a stiff mother and son to do acrobatics, and he tied a disoriented middle-aged man to a giant canvas stretcher. Now, McNamara’s performance, named after former president Jimmy Carter’s cat, will show as part of the High Line art series three days this week, and all you need to do is just show up to the Gansevoort entrance to the park and see it. Expect dancing.

Regina Rex may have been booted from 1717 Troutman, but the programming forges on. This one at Bunker 259. The press release mentions taking time and coming together over potlucks…so, a summer group show. The show includes painters like Nancy Haynes and John Almanza, to electronics artist/sculptor Charles Hobbs and text painter John J. O’Connor.

Lots of net artists are attending “From the Cloud” at Spectacle, which is a good sign. Faith Holland curates a video program of artists who use found footage from the Internet; for anybody who’s unfamiliar with web-based art, this should be a good primer. Artists are:
Cory Arcangel, Hilary Basing, John Michael Boling, Jennifer Chan, Jacob Ciocci, Jesse Darling, Feminist Frequency/Anita Sarkeesian, Mike Goldby, Faith Holland, Daniel Johnson, Eva and Franco Mattes, Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva, Lorna Mills and Yoshi Sodeoka, Gracie Nesin, and Hennessy Youngman.

The Artists in Residence program at the Studio Museum in Harlem has a great rep for bringing artists of African and Latino descent into the spotlight. The program has produced big names in the past, like Kehinde Wiley and Julie Mehretu, and they’re sure to produce more. This year, up-and-coming artists Kevin Beasley, Bethany Collins, Abigail DeVille will be showing the work they’ve been making in the past few months during their residency. It’s sure to be an eclectic mix of talent.

Artist, curator, filmmaker, and sometimes theorist Justin Lieberman has been working with culture-vomit-style collage for a long time, and not superficially. His mash ups draw from everything from Internet culture to 20th century political movements, cinema, and contemporary art-making strategies. See references to Kurt Russell, Napster, Bartlett’s, Kembra Pfahler, and Hopi Basket Weaving. The depth of the exploration might be refreshing.

Art is a life of struggle and pain, but at least you’re not alone. Karen Finley offers an “AA” style safe space to work through the issues of pursuing an art career.

We’re heading to Baltimore this weekend for the nation’s largest art festival, ArtScape. This thing is going to be enormous, and it spans all kinds of art exhibitors and community events, including an art car parade and artist Field Day, and the OutTakes Café.
Check out the program here.

Back in April, William Powhida wrote for AFC that “being a political being requires work outside the studio, all for the very purpose of having a studio in a neighborhood that doesn’t hate you for who will arrive soon after you do—a douche in a suit with a rental agreement.” If these words ring true to you, you should go to this workshop at the MAD museum, which should cultivate a conversation on how the artist can get more involved in his or her community.

Being an avid cartoon watcher as a kid, I’m really excited for this show of cartoons by Chuck Jones at the Museum of Moving Image. I specifically selected the tapes with his name on them, because his were always the funniest, most visually expressive, technically masterful, and epically written of all the Looney Tunes episodes. Classics include “What’s Opera Doc”, the Elmer Fudd-Bugs Bunny Wagner Parody; “For Scent-imental Reasons,” a beautiful pastel colored Pepé le Pew episode; and “One Froggy Evening”, a time-transcending saga which debuted Michigan J. Frog. The museum will be showing Jones’s storyboards and a behind-the-scenes look at his creative genius.

In need of some art? Want to indulge in a mystery cocktail brewed by a “psychological mixologist” known by the name Dr Paco Cao? Then come to the Residency Unlimited art auction and buy stuff. Also, if you’re an artist you can win a five week residency at Sa Sa Projects in Phnom Penh, Cambodia all expenses covered. Expect reggae music, to get slightly tipsy on a Sunday, and if you buy a special ticket, to get a private psychological consultation with Dr Paco Cao himself. Plus, all the proceeds go to Chefs sans Frontières , a not-for-profit that teaches underprivileged youth skills about the food and restaurant industry. It should all be delightfully cultish.

Click here to buy tickets.