This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Divine Interventions

This 95-minute program features works by Fotopoulos (ranging from 35 seconds to 33 minutes) made in collaboration with Cory Arcangel, Ben Coonley, and/or Stom Sogo between 2004 and 2009.

Paul Chan and Badlands Unlimited presents: New Lovers, Nonprojections for New Lovers. The Guggenheim will premiere Chan’s series of erotica composed by contemporary writers, as inspired by Maurice Girodias’s Olympia Press–founded in 1953 to publish censored works by literary badasses like Samuel Beckett and William S. Burroughs.

Chan’s other sculptural and multimedia works will also be on display, including “Nonprojections” (2013– ), displayed via projectors that are “linked to jury-rigged, power-conducting shoes.”

Satterwhite is making the rounds on the lecture circuit. Following up on a recent talk at Columbia, this talk will focus on Satterwhite’s idiosyncratic 3-D animated landscapes, which serve as a backdrop for his performances. He’s previously described his work as a sort of translation from paintings made by his mother–also an artist. Expect a discussion about “utopian digital worlds” and the above-ground applications of said utopian vision.

Vice photo editor and former AFC intern Matthew Leifheit has hijacked his SVA class to produce a collaborative show of reproductions of classical (and nude) works of art. Reception will be accompanied by a live, naked musical performance–unless they’re still waiting on someone to respond to this craigslist post for “a nude cellist, a nude jazz duo, [or] a nude string quartet.”

IMG MGMT artist Marc Handelman gets a show at Sikkema Jenkins. (Not exactly a surprise – they represent him.) The show features twelve new paintings and an artist’s book. Handelman’s photorealistic paintings (details of leaves, sparkling dewdrops, and flowers with watermarks) ape stock photography to depict the unnatural side of nature. All of this is supposed to be about how our “understanding of Nature is deeply affected by ideological, societal, and art historical ideals, fears, and fantasies.”

Several of the paintings are coated with retroreflective “projection screen glass” – a material used in older forms of projection screens. We’re told the effect of this application suggests a back-lit or screen-based visual experience. Check it out.

Those who saw Sascha Braunig’s work at the 2015 New Museum Triennial can buy some of her new work at Foxy Production. We’ve only got one image to go by, but if her sci-fi inspired work at the Triennial is an indication, a lot of these paintings will look like figures beamed down to earth.

If ‘Chihuly’ were a verb, it would probably mean: to make a Chihuly. For Dale Chihuly’s self-titled show, “Chihuly,” he’s worked with a lot of clear glass. Can’t wait to see it?

This show gets a mention because we like Tony Conrad, an artist who moved to New York in the 1960s for his interest in music but started producing avant garde film because he thought the music scene was “too boring”. His “Yellow Movies” of the 70’s shocked audiences; they were painted emulsion on canvas he knew would yellow over time. Apparently everyone expected a raging party when they came to the first screening, as Conrad did not explain what he would be doing.

Other artists in the show include Senga Nengudi, who was up in Harlem in the ’70s conceptualizing radical performances that revolve around sculptures of pantyhose. And the late Toshiko Takaezu, who was an abstract ceramicist who for decades taught at Princeton. Recommended.

Simmons poses fashion models in front of monochrome drapery–cropped at the shoulders. The creepy thing here: she paints eyes on the closed eyelids of her models. The effect is uncanny.

Our advice? Always go to the Art Critical conversation panels. David Cohen, the man behind the panels always brings together the most thoughtful critics working today for conversations about selected shows that are accessible and often very funny. In this discussion we see David Levi-Strauss, Jennifer Samet, and Christian Viveros Fauné, review Alex Da Corte, Atta Kwami, Sean Scully, “8 painters,” and Charles Ray. Is there anything to say about Ray’s chunks of metal? Find out this Friday. Moderated by David Cohen.

If you like paintings of floating heads from the Renaissance, this show is definitely for you. Picture John the Baptist replaced by a Japanese-American woman.

Break open the booze for PUSSY FAGGOT!’s sixth year anniversary party hosted by the one and only Penny Arcade. This night will feature an extensive line-up of performances, including “The Garfield Hour!” a new work from Becca Blackwell and Max Steele and a closing set from The Illustrious Blacks: Manchildblack Black II and Monstah Black. RSVP for a discounted cover. Trademark vodka bar open from 8:00 – 9:00.