This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Art from Pelham Bay to Fort Jay

This is the last chance to catch the thesis exhibition of Pratt’s 2016 Fine Arts MFA class. We haven’t seen it yet, but it promises to be a fun show because the program isn’t medium-specific, so there’s a mix of painters, sculptors, photography and more.

Artists: (Hyun Jung) Ahn, Rachel Chaldu, Tianyi Chen, Lia Kim Farnsworth, Mariana Gómez, Chanah Haddad, Sabetty Heyaime, Junchen Huang, Taylor Kennedy, Isaac Kim, Linda Lauro-Lazin, Valeria Lombo, Teresa Lundgren, Alana MacDougall, Chip McCall, John McFadden, Minaa Mohsin, Djavan Nascimento, Guy Nelson, Megan Porpeglia, Rosie Quick, Jiang Ye, Sooyeon Yun

Also at Pratt, immediately following the MFA closing reception, Cao Fei is giving a lecture about her digital pop-surrealist practice. Fei’s show at PS1 also closes Tuesday, which includes documentation of Chinese cosplayers, among other pieces of digital subculture ephemera. Fei’s work frames or constructs escapist fantasies that point to some elusive sociopolitical truth. It’s so smart and uncanny, so definitely try to see the show (if you haven’t already) before the talk.

Dionisio Gonzalez’s digital prints combine photographs of the built environment with his own architectural interventions. What results is a bizarre “what if” of possible futures and alternate pasts. For example, one series imagines what Venice might look like had Le Corbusier’s 1960s plans for a modernist hospital complex had been realized. Another depicts a (futuristic?) Dauphin Island where climate-resistant houses are splattered with kelp from storm surges. There’s never a clear indication if these hypothetical man-un-made landscapes are dystopias or utopias—the subjective judgements are the viewer’s alone.

Has anyone else been watching Mr. Robot and dreaming of a new career as a  hacktivist? There’s a meetup for tech-savvy activists/politically-minded techies to brainstorm and cooperate. Anarcho Tech Collective offers the following invitation: “If you’re a programmer, designer, IT specialist, NetSec pro, or anyone with a knack for technology, and you believe in the building a world without state, class, money, or borders, come join us to hack the revolution!”

In 1966 four British professors—Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, Harold Hurrell and David Bainbridge—formed the publishing/art collective Art & Language. Their first text, PAINTINGS I, 1966, was an early conceptual art text that cemented their place as a group that would go on to influence the art world in the 1970s. They’ll be displaying that original work alongside a new piece, created 50 years later titled These Scenes. The new work is purportedly inspired by Malevich and his “Black Square.” If this all sounds pretty heady, that’s because it is. But those art historian nerds like us will be geeking out about it all day in Chelsea.

One of the benefits of living in weird, weird 2016 is the ability to always find like-minded individuals for seemingly any interest, hobby, or fetish. I’ve always enjoyed Zak Krevitt’s gorgeously-shot documentation of queer subcultures as evidence of this, and his latest series Alpha, Beta, Omega might be the best yet. Krevitt has documented his involvement in the “puppy play” scene, where men wear latex dog costumes and act out animal impulses—wrestling, humping, S&M play—as an escape from the anxiety accompanying day-to-day obligations and social norms. They photos take on an even more surreal tension with their context—many of them are shot in convention centers, hotel rooms and pools, and other anonymous corners of the blandscape.

The Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum is one of those gems in the Bronx that most New Yorkers probably never see. Now’s a good chance. To celebrate 100 years of its formal gardens, the museum has commissioned more than a dozen site-specific sculptures in a variety of media tasked with responding to natural or architectural contexts. I can’t think of a more pleasant-sounding art opening on a Friday night than a stroll through gardens at a (relatively) secluded mansion.

Artists: Markus Holtby, Fitzhugh Karol, Wendy Klemperer, William Logan, Shannon Novak, Sarah Olson, Sui Park, Camilla Quinn, Audrey Shachnow, Aaron Suggs, Naomi Teppich and Martin Springhetti, Gregory Thielker, Beatrice Wolert, Christopher Yockey.

There’s not a lot of familiar names in this year’s Governor’s Island Art Fair, but maybe that’s a good thing? At any rate, it’s free (after a $2, gorgeous ferry ride from Lower Manhattan) and a rare excuse to head to the strange little island to check out the new “Hills” park.

Be sure to catch Saṃjñā ⌘, a solo show from Julia Maria Sinelnikova (of Vector Gallery fame) presented by the Center for the Holographic Arts. Sinelnikova meticulously cuts mylar and other reflective materials into lace-like sculptures with video projections. They’re kinda what I imagine watching a disco ball underwater while taking LSD would be like.

This two person show purportedly considers “trash” in the context of gentrifying Brooklyn. I really love David Henry Nobody Jr’s collage-and-garbage drag self-portraits, wherein he wraps himself with images of models from discarded magazines and applies globs of various gross materials to become uncanny monster-covergirls. They hit a few of the same notes as Jaimie Warren’s self-portraits. But his new work uses female models, foam, and apparently packs of cigarettes to create creatures evocative of Marjorie the Trash Heap. Will these be as successful? That remains to be seen, because so much of the charm of “Nobody’s” photography has always been about the creepy transformation of the self.

Emily Miller’s painterly still-lives of crumpled, discarded Newport cigarette packs from Bushwick sidewalks, conversely, are all about elevating the mundane to the precious. I can’t tell if I like these because they’re good paintings or because they really make me miss my days of smoking menthol 100s. Either way, that’s something.

On Sunday, The Noguchi Museum is offering free admission, and events such as a 2 p.m. guided tour and a 4 p.m. discussion of a Noguchi’s 1941 sculpture ‘Contoured Playground” (pictured). The Noguchi Museum is so great everyone should make at least an annual pilgrimage. On a Sunday where there’s not much else going on and admission is free, I recommend doing just that.