This Week’s Must See Art Events: We’re Throwing a Post-Apocalyptic Dance Party

Perhaps there is no artist so well known for creating contemporary pseudo-documentary photography (read: staged photography) that references the art historical then Canadian artist Jeff Wall. He’s basically the grandfather of the genre. For that reason we recommend checking out his  new show at Marian Goodman Gallery—even though there are no images indicating what will be in the show. New photographs, for sure. Past that, though, we don’t know.

The best post-apocalypse party in the history of parties.

Get dressed up like it’s the end of the world and dance with:

Molly Rhinestones

Trey La Trash

Orlando Estrada

Ellen Degenerate

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According to members of the collective Glitcha, computer glitches force us to recognize how fragile data networks are; flaws expose an “unstable core”. For this new show, “Glitcha”, members from the collective will show works in a variety of media that illustrate this idea. No specifics yet on what’s in the exhibition, but given the topical nature of the show, it’s probably worth a gander. Not a day goes by when we don’t hear about hacking and system failures and often we’re directly affected; who hasn’t had the freely available software they use malfunction? This show will explore that.   

EFA does a lot for artists in its studio program. They offer subsidized studio rates, regularly bring in critics and curators to the studios and work to promote those in the program. One way they do that is through their Open Studio event, which invites the public to come see what the artists are making in their studios. The studio program hosts over 75 artists working in a wide range of mediums, and in this real estate market, couldn’t be more essential. Just last week, artists were protesting over at the Gowanus Open Studios after many had been forced out of buildings in the neighborhood. This is one place where artists are protected from mass evictions.

Participating Artists: Samira Abbassy, Lucas Ajemian, William Allen, Clytie Alexander, Richard Barnes, Keren Benbenisty, Maria Berrio, Wafaa Bilal, Rhona Bitner, Jessie Brugger, Martha Burgess, Patty Cateura, Noa Charuvi, Heejung Cho, Cecile Chong, Vicky Colombet, Michael Eade, Stella Ebner, Sally Egbert, Jonathan Ehrenberg, Sean Fader, Cui Fei, Angela Fraleigh, Beth Ganz, Del Geist, Tai Hwa Goh, Lauren Gohara, Kira Nam Greene, Mahmoud Hamadani, Richard Hart, Pablo Helguera, Amy Hill, Catherine Howe, Eunjung Hwang, Hong Seon Jang, Edgar Jerins, Richard Jochum, Tamiko Kawata, Yongjae Kim, Noah Klersfeld, Greg Kwiatek, Sarah Leahy, Patricia Leighton, J.C. Lenochan, Patte Loper, Dominic Mangila, Katinka Mann, Jeanette May, Toyin Odutola, Morgan O’Hara, Thomas Pihl, Shahpour Pouyan, Armita Raafat, Max Razdow, Javier Romero, Charlotte Schulz, Hilda Shen, Gabriel J. Shuldiner, Karina Skvirsky, Howard Smith, Xin Song, Steed Taylor, Dannielle Tegeder, Scott Teplin, Yuken Teruya, Hank Willis Thomas, Denise Treizman, Liselot van der Heijden, Carlos Vega, Marjorie Welish, Bryan Whitney, Saya Woolfalk, Shai Zurim

Last year, we asked Rachel Stern to photograph Martha Wilson, nude as a panda. This year, she’s debuting her own pictures on the subject. According to the press release, which cites Wilson, her work and attitude has evolved from what Wilson describes as “the concerns of a young woman to the concerns of an old lady.”  Here, she examines the way in which the public gaze projects social values onto women as they grow older. “I’m looking at age and the status of women,” Wilson says, “but we are still in the same absurd state that we were in in the 70s… This is my current response to the predicament that we find ourselves in when born female.”

This show will basically be the definition of process-based abstraction, so if you’re not into that, this isn’t the work for you. But for those who do like it, these works are amongst the most beautiful examples of Simon Hantaï’s pliage technique. Hantaï developed the technique around 1960, in which he folded unstretched canvas, painted the exterior painted and then unfolded the canvas. It’s a little like the technique Tauba Auerbach uses for her paintings, only it was developed forty years earlier.

Jen Mazza knows how to swing a paint brush. Her paintings, which often use her own photographs, exhibit a masterly approach to light and representation. For this show, she’s blowing up reproductions of digitally printed material. It’s fairly light subject matter, but Mazza’s one of the few artists where her paint handling can seduce you enough not to care for a bit.

Over the last few years we’ve seen a big return to paintings that either mimic or employ fabric in some way; South First, Mixed Greens and James Cohan have all launched shows of artists exploring this subject. If there’s a root to it all, Sheila Hicks might be it. For over 50 years, she’s been working with fabric to create installations using heaps of hanging material, yarn ball constellations, and more. For this show, she’s been recreating a version of “The Treaty of Chromatic Zones”, a monumental bas-relief of pure pigmented fiber originally realized for Art Basel Unlimited in June of 2015. Those of us who missed Art Basel Unlimited should be happy about the opportunity to see this massive work.

Blockchains are what make virtual currencies like bitcoin work. They are distributed databases, secure and transparent by virtue of peer-to-peer networks that collectively validate each entry and create what is essentially a provenance for each transaction in the life of a bitcoin. And so, they are of great relevance to artists and the art world as a whole and the reason this talk gets a recommendation.

Here’s who’s gonna be there: Rhizome’s Artistic Director Michael Connor moderates a panel comprised of Kevin McCoy, artist, entrepreneur, and founder of current NEW INC member Monegraph, a blockchain-based solution for attributing and distributing art; Hanna Nilsson and Rasmus Svensson who are developing a decentralized platform for publication and distribution of digital texts; and Rachel O’Dwyer, a Dublin-based researcher and curator with a focus on digital currencies.

In Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, July 2015), Ta-Nehisi Coates, a National Correspondent for The Atlantic, presents the story of his own awakening to the truth about history and his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences: his immersion into nationalist mythology as a child; his engagement with history, poetry, and love at Howard University; travels to Civil War battlefields and the South Side of Chicago; a journey to France that reorients his sense of the world; and pilgrimages to the homes of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Between the World and Me offers a powerful new framework for understanding America’s history and current crisis, and a transcendent vision for a way forward. A book signing with the author will follow the program.

In 2014, the best show Postmasters launched was an exhibition of paintings by Austin Lee, hung salon style, based on quick sketches he made on his iPad. Those works were then painted in acrylic on canvas, but each retains the look of a work that began as an image meant to be seen on a lit screen. The color of these cartoon-like paintings looks bright, and washed out, as if bathed in light.

This show promises more of the same—which is great—plus figurative sculptures that have been 3D printed, textured and painted. We can’t wait.

Ok, we haven’t seen this theatrical production/beauty pageant (in which anyone is welcome to compete) but we’ve heard rave reviews from its run in Baltimore. The Psychic Readings Company, headed by director/curator Ric Royer never fails to surprise and impress. Expect (maybe) the vibe/intensity of an esoteric punk opera being rehearsed at a dive bar’s most awkward karaoke night. Or something completely different, but no less bizarre and worthwhile. Tickets are available for performances on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.   

Starring: Daniel Nelson, Ric Royer, Catrin Lloyd-Bollard, Emma Reaves, G Lucas Crane, Adam Endres, and Tavish Miller.

This is a joint closing reception for four separate shows spread across the exhibition spaces of two artist-run galleries. Transmitter’s Cost-Benefit Analysis aims to highlight the importance of artist-run initiatives in relation to institutions with a show that’s going to be donated to the Baltimore Museum of Art’s permanent collection. The show features work from several artists that’ve received some AFC love before—Lisa Dillin, Andrew Lauman and John Bohl—as well as Amy Boone-McCreesh, Terence Hannum, Jason Hughes, Jacqueline Maria Milad, and Steve Riddle. It’s a really good lineup, and we’re excited their work is going to the BMA’s collection.

Also at Transmitter, Video Archipelago offers a survey of the medium, featuring artists Janaye Brown, Harlan Crichton, Milton Melvin Croissant III, Bjorn Meyer-Ebrecht, Christine Rogers, Jennifer Sullivan & Benjamin Tiven. We’re big fans of Croissant’s surreal, photorealistic CGI work, which we’ll be highlighting in an online GIF exhibition that launches next month. Stay tuned for more details!

We know less about the shows closing at TSA, but we’re looking forward to checking them out. World is New is a multimedia exhibition focused on the theme of “place” curated by Yin Ho & Andrew Prayzner. It features work by Lawrence Mesich, Nicholas O’Brien, Andrea Wolf, and Brian Zegeer.

An Argument for Difference, curated by Yin Ho and Shama Khanna, features individualistic work that resists easy interpretation from Elizabeth Atterbury, Aya Fukami, Nicholas Hatfull, Lawrence Leaman, Alexandra Lerman,Marisol Malatesta, Janine Polak, and Jo-ey Tang.

As if four closings for the price of one trip to Bushwick weren’t enough, the matinee reception also features a performance from Brian Zegeer and Baby Copperhead titled “Pull My Daisy”. The piece is an improvisational response to video the duo shot in 2008, while squatting in Allen Ginsberg’s dilapidated former East Village apartment.

The press release for this show is peppered with often-conflicting personal and pop references to a past that’s not-quite distant enough to generally warrant nostalgia: the “pre-9/11” era, early 00’s garage rock revival, and a sense that the day before yesterday was somehow more sincere, yet more carefree. With that in mind, Bret Slater’s abstract paintings could be viewed as souvenirs for an ephemeral concrete. The compositions and palette recall twee graphic design, but are somewhat awkwardly rendered in impasto paint application, seemingly indicating a desire for something more tangible than an image. Of all the painters who will have work going on view this week, Slater looks to be the one who aspires to an IRL experience a world away from a preview thumbnail. That’s always worth a visit.