This Week’s Must-see Art Events: Bad Boys, Old Computers

Tech and design nerds, this one’s for you. A talk on how interface design has changed the ways people interact with computers. Expect to hear about screens and swipes! While you’re there, check out the exhibition on which the talk is based, also called The Interface Experience: Forty Years of Personal Computing. You can play with the computers on view: the Commodore 64 (1982), Macintosh Plus (1986), PalmPilot Professional (1997), iPad 2 (2010), and Microsoft Kinect (2010).

Free for students with valid ID; $25 general admission; $20 for seniors

Woo! Competition-style reality TV comes to the art world, and it looks way better than Bravo’s Work of Art. From the press release:

Four artists. Three exhibition models. Only one chance to win. The challenge: create an unforgettable body of work from the mystery art supplies hidden in our boxes before time runs out. Who will become the Art Chopped Champion? And who will be chopped?

Our esteemed judges will rate them on Technical Proficiency, Aesthetics, and Critical Rigor. Each round, one of our contestants will be chopped!

Considering that the host and judges are some of the most comedic artists we know—Jennifer Catron, Paul Outlaw, and Sean J Patrick Carney—this’ll be a completely random, but baller night of somewhat-constrained mayhem.

Hyperallergic writers will take a break from their laptops to bring you a night of live readings, including poetry by weekend editor John Yau. Readings will include a story on art and cemeteries by staff writer Allison Meier and a “dip” into flame wars from the Hyperallergic comments section. The blogazine comes to life!

You know how some galleries pretty much shut down during the summer? Or just put on a goofy group show? Not at the Hunter East Harlem Gallery (HEHG). Wednesday night’s opening will show the gallery transformed into a teen-focused computer lab, with work by artists who will be teaching courses on digital painting, animation, and film. Parents and teens can sign up for the free courses administered by PWRPLNT, a pop-up digital art gallery founded by artist Angelina Dreem. Oh, and there’ll be a DJ so come expecting to party!

The gallery will have an indoor garden in it and we think it has something to do with how HEHG curator Arden Sherman is an expert on greenery in the gallery (she runs the website Mise en green).

Artists and instructors will include: Sam Rolfes, Yulan Grant, Samantha Cornwell, and Giguel Maybach, among others

Basically a group show of work by Columbia MFAs who either graduated this year, or are headed into their second year. This show gets a nod because like all MFA shows there’s always some good work to be found. AFC’s Editorial Director tells us she thinks there’s definitely one or two artists in this crew who will become stars—and as the curator of this show, we trust her judgement. Don’t miss this show.

Here’s a show that will take up ALL THE TIME YOU HAVE. Over the course of 20 days, a series of 20 unique 8-hour video screenings will take place. Each screening will be a playlist of videos, films, commercials, personal footage, et cetera put together by the artist. Expect variation.

Look, we could list other events for Saturday, but let’s be honest: if you live in New York, none of them are as important as this one. Rent prices are skyrocketing. Artists are being pushed out of the city. This conference is about bringing artists together, pooling resources, and doing something about the problem.

Based on the name of this exhibition, the artists involved, and the poem-like list of concepts on the website—from “LABOR LAWS AND LIFE SUCKS, LYCRA LAWS AND HIGH CUBE TRUCKS” to “STYROFOAM AND FOREFATHERS”—it seems like we can expect work that tentatively looks for beauty in an increasingly ugly, uncontrollable world. The fourteen artists in the show are all L.A.-based and work in a variety of media ranging from photography to installation. We’re not sure exactly what each artist will be showing here, but past projects from Anthony Lepore include luscious photos of a bikini factory while Scott Marvel Cassidy incorporates plastic detritus into finely rendered oil paintings. The exhibition is curated by Amanda Ross-Ho and features work from Scott Marvel Cassidy, Sara Clendening, Sarah Conaway, Liz Craft, Erik Frydenborg, Michael Henry Hayden, Norm Laich, Anthony Lepore, Josh Mannis, Pentti Monkkonen, Lawrence Pollman, Melanie Schiff, Kristen Van Deventer, and Robert Wedemeyer.