This Week’s Must-See Art Events: More Big, More 90s, More Women and Black History

“A brazen blend of MAD MAX, DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION and ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, BURST CITY is punk rock in its most beautiful, chaotic form,” promises the description of “Burst City”. The 1982 film by Japanese director Sogo Ishii is described as a massive war between punk bands and a capsule of the times.

Marking our calendars: The Institute of Contemporary Art rolls out its winter 2015 program, including big exhibitions by Barbara Kasten and Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme.

Charles Ray, creator of “Family Romance”, will be showing very large sculptures. “Baled Truck” is a ten foot long, 13-ton compressed truck replica that took six years to make. “Girl on Pony” is seven feet tall, five feet wide, and four inches deep. In our experience, descriptions hinging on size do not bode well. Nevertheless, it will probably get a review in the Times because Ray is so established.

BAM pays tribute to horror film director/screenwriter John Carpenter’s musical career. He composed soundtracks to his own films like Halloween, The Fog, and Village of the Damned. (Check out his wiki filmography page– it’s impressive).

He’s now releasing a solo album, so BAM is hosting an in-person conversation with NPR’s Brooke Gladstone on Thursday, and a full film retrospective with a selection of his favorite scores, to run through the 22nd. Tickets for the talk start at $25.

Artists who’ve made headlines over the past few years, like Chto Delat and Pussy Riot, appear in a double show and symposium about the continued impact of communism on Russian art. There will be an opening at the James Gallery Friday, a day of talks there on Monday (see schedule), and an opening at e-flux next Tuesday.

The full artist list: Alina and Jeff Bliumis, Chto Delat, Keti Chukhrov, Anton Ginzburg, Pussy Riot, Anton Vidokle, and Arseny Zhilyaev

Curated by Boris Groys

It’s almost impossible to predict what a Charles Atlas show might look like, which is a good thing. The artist who spent years filming with choreographer Merce Cunningham and making his own art videos about the gay scene in 1980s-90s New York has recently presented everything from collaborations with Antony and the Johnsons to room-filling projections of Matrix-like strings of numbers. In the new show, “autonomous video works will all be synchronized by imagery, duration, and soundtrack to create one dynamic visual experience.” Usually generalisms like that are a guaranteed wash, but with Atlas, this makes me curious.

Join the initiative to broaden the cultural records beyond the while male historical perspective, as feminists have been doing for female artists lately. On Saturday, a wikipedia edit-a-thon will expand upon and edit wiki pages of black cultural figures.

A peace camp to protest the nuclear weapons site in Berkshire. It began when a group of 36 members of the Welsh group “Women for Life on Earth” walked 120 miles from their offices to chain themselves to the fence of a cruise missiles site. The camp held out from about the fall of 1981 through 1982. At one point, 30,000 women gathered in solidarity.

Perhaps piggybacking on the success of the New Museum’s retrospective of 90’s art, “Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star”, the Montclair Art Museum’s “Come as You Are” takes a broad look at the identity art that defined the 90s. Over the course of the month, the program includes talks about 90s films, Internet art, and lectures by Pepón Osorio and Byron Kim. See the site for more details.

$12 regular admission; $10 students