This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Anxiety on High

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on January 16, 2017 Events

130120171484313022

Let’s face it—the bulk of this week’s chatter in the art world isn’t going to be about Donald Trump’s Inauguration, but Marilyn Minter and Madonna’s talk Thursday evening at the Brooklyn Museum lamenting it. And that’s as it should be. Resistance to this new presidency is essential.

Friday, we’ll be participating in the #J20 Art Strike, so no content on our website will be available but for a livestream of Rachel Mason lip synching the inauguration as FutureClown. Those seeking to participate in the art protests can head to the Whitney where Occupy Museums will be hosting a “Speak Out”.

Other than that, we’re recommending a show about soul crushing anxiety and despair at LUBOV, and a show called “Infected Foot” at Greene Naftali, because sickness also seems like an appropriate theme for the week. Sorry to be depressing. Unfortunately, there’s no other honest way to paint the events.

 

  1. M
  2. T
  3. W
  4. T
  5. F
  6. S
  7. S

Mon

Orgy Park

237 Jefferson Street, 1B
Brooklyn, NY
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.Website

Boning of the Thrownes

What is this show? We’re not exactly sure… but I clicked on it because I thought it might involve an even more-sex-filled (or spookier) parody of Game of Thrones. No such luck, but the brief, cryptic description also sounds enticing: “Thrown’ Bones for the pot, soup’s on and we’re gone veggie.”

At any rate, the list of participating artists looks extremely promising:

Liz Ainslie, Andrea Arrubla, Katherine Aungier, Rory Baron, Joshua Bienko, Tess Bilhartz, Kate M. Blomquist, Lauren Collings Schwarz, Corydon Cowansage, Nicholas Cueva, Julie Curtiss, Emily Davidson, Sonya Derman, Rachel Fainter, Elise Ferguson, Angelina Gualdoni, Yuhi Hasegawa, Clinton King, Jenny Lee, Stuart Lorimer, Ioana Manolache, Anthony Miler, Patrick Carlin Mohundro, Dominic Musa, Steve Mykietyn, Dan Oglander, Maria Stabio, Adam Sipe, Tracy Thomason, Charles Tisa, Zuriel Waters, Lindsay Wraga

Tue

Greene Naftali Gallery

508 W 26th St
New York, NY
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.Website

Infected Foot

Another contender for this week’s best “Mystery Exhibition with a Weird Name.” We’re not sure what the works in Infected Foot have in common, if anything at all, but Mathieu Malouf’s paintings are always a treat, just like this strange and lovely one above.

Artists: Monika Baer, Thomas Bayrle, Merlin Carpenter, Tony Conrad, Michaela Eichwald, Jana Euler, Genoveva Filipovic, Andrea Fourchy, Sergej Jensen, Michael Krebber, Mathieu Malouf, Laura Owens, Paul Sharits, Reena Spaulings, Josef Strau, Stefan Tcherepnin, Amelie von Wulffen

Wed

The Noguchi Museum

9-01 33rd Road
Queens, NY
10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.Website

Self-Interned, 1942: Noguchi in Poston War Relocation Center

February 17th, 2017 marks the 75th anniversary of the United States’ inconceivable decision to forcibly relocate Japanese-Americans to internment camps during the second World War. Remarkably, Isamu Noguchi volunteered to leave New York (where Japanese-Americans weren’t subject to the order) and become interned in an Arizona desert camp.

This exhibition features work from the years immediately before, during, and after the sculptor’s internment, and traces the impact of that atrocity on his practice. It’s a timely exhibition not just because of the upcoming anniversary—it seems appropriate this show would just before the inauguration of Donald Trump, who proposed registering Muslim Americans and has plans for mass deportations.

Baxter St at The Camera Club of New York

126 Baxter St
New York, NY
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.Website

Sadie Barnette: Do Not Destroy

Here’s another timely exhibition about the US government’s repression and bullying of minorities. Sadie Barnette has been mining a 500 page FBI document about her father—labelled “Historical Value/Do Not Destroy”—as source material for artworks. Her father, Rodney Barnette, founded the Compton chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968, and was of course the subject of an extensive surveillance program on the part of the state. The younger Barnette has reclaimed this invasive archive—bedazzling pages like a child’s family scrapbook and enlarging photos to fine-art scale. So good.

El Cortez

17 Ingraham St.
Brooklyn, NY
7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.Website

Happy Anniversary Roe V Wade

Happy 44th Birthday, Roe v. Wade! We wish we had a better gift for you than a Supreme Court vacancy in the hands of sociopaths, but at least you’re getting a kick-ass party!

The evening is a fundraiser for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and features performances from artist Viva Ruiz (with special guest Bjorn Majestik, drag innovator Matty Horrorchata, comediennes Adrienne Truscott & Suni Reyes, and music from DJ Eli Escobar.

TICKET DETAILS:
Advance $15
At the door $20
VIP $50
VIP Admission includes: booth seating, free beverage sponsor drinks, $20 of raffle tickets & fun feminist swag

Thu

The FLAG Art Foundation

545 West 25th Street
New York, NY
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.Website

Cynthia Daignault: There is nothing I could say that I haven't thought before

Painter Cynthia Daignault collaborates with artists by asking them if she can paint one of their works. Specifically, she approaches artists whose own practices deal with issues of appropriation. The resulting images look a bit like images from a catalog of a show she’s curated about complicated notions of authorship. Yes, this is a pretty “fish-meets-barrel” conceit, but the paintings look pretty darn good. The works she’s depicted come from a pretty impressive list of artists:

Cory Arcangel, Sadie Barnette, Carol Bove, Sara Cwynar, Andy Coolquitt, Peter Dreher, Jessica Eaton, Awol Erizku, Roe Ethridge, Robert Gober, Josephine Halvorson, Anthea Hamilton, Peter Harkawik, Matthew Higgs, Jim Hodges, John Houck, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Margaret Lee, Allan McCollum, Josephine Meckseper, Jonathan Monk, Roula Partheniou, Richard Phillips, Charles Ray, Magali Reus, Jenna Rosenberg, Ed Ruscha, Tom Sachs, Erin Shirreff, Lorna Simpson, Julia Wachtel, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, Fred Wilson, and Letha Wilson

Two other series on view, “MoMA, 2017” and “The Certainty of Others” similarly play with authorship. In the latter, she’s asked a series of representational painters to recreate one of her still lives, the original of which was destroyed. Those painters include Conor Backman, Jason Bereswill, Todd Bienvenu, Canyon Castator, TM Davy, Gregory Edwards, Matt Hansel, Daniel Heidkamp, Paul Jacobsen, Chason Matthams, Tristan Unrau, and Dylan Vandenhoeck

Brooklyn Museum

200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY
8:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.Website

Brooklyn Talks: Madonna X Marilyn Minter

Be still my heart! As part of the Brooklyn Museum’s A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism, Marilyn Minter and Madonna (yes, really) will be talking shop on the eve of the inauguration. This is a no-brainer must-see, if you can find a way to get tickets to this thing. They’re sold out.

Fri

Whitney Museum

99 Gansevoort St
11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.Website

Occupy Museum Hosts A Speak Out on Inauguration Day

As concerned citizens we need to make it our job to speak out against the new Trump government. That job starts Friday so we need to show up in whatever capacity we can.

Occupy Museums is beginning by hosting a “speak out” at the Whitney, which will be followed by a day of assemblies and actions led by the #J20 Art Strike organizers and Sense of Emergency.  Many of the details have not yet been released, but know that the speak out begins at 11:00 a.m. and runs through 2:00 p.m. and the days activities will culminate at Foley Park at 5:00 p.m. for a protest.

Confirmed: Martha Rosler, Kalup Linzy, Noah Fischer, Naeem Mohaiemen, Tracy Morris, Amy Sillman, Mira Schor, Paddy Johnson (yours truly) and more.

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and Art F City

6522 Hollywood Blvd
11:30 a.m. ESTWebsite

Rachel Mason, FutureClown

FutureClown, the Internet Avatar of Rachel Mason, will lip synch the swearing in ceremony of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States. The performance will take place in real-time and will be streamed online via YouTube.

From our perspective, clowning the entire event is pretty much the only reaction a sane person could have to the inauguration. As a result, the content of our entire site will be inaccessible but for a popup of Mason’s live stream. It’s the only sensible thing to do.

Sat

Trestle Projects

400 3rd Ave
Brooklyn, NY
7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.Website

Through a Honeycomb

The debut exhibition from Trestle Projects’ Curator-in-Residence for 2017, Jesse Bandler Firestone, Through a Honeycomb looks to be a great start to the year. The exhibition brings together artists, designers, and landscape architects to consider aspects of the built environment from agriculture and sustainability to surveillance and labor. It’s nice to see at least one event thinking utopian in these dark days.

Artists: Katie Torn, JaNae Contag, Juan Camilo Rodelo Vargas, Janne Höltermann, EcoAge (Emmaline Payette + Paula Pino), Laurencia Strauss, Sean Donovan, and Blue Planet Consulting

Sun

LUBOV

373 Broadway
New York, NY
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.Website

Hard Cry

Another timely show, this one about soul-crushing despair and anxiety.

Curator Gabriel H. Sanchez has brought together five artists from famously-neurotic NYC to “revel in the emotional sludge of contemporary living”. That includes social media fatigue, political horror, and so much more. Yay!

Artists: Ian Swanson, Cristina de Miguel, Tariku Shiferaw, Ryan Oskin, Kyle Haddad Welch

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: