This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Propaganda for the Digital Age

Frank Gillette is known as both a pioneer of experimental video work and eco-conscious art practice. That might sound like an unlikely combo, but that’s part of why this promises to be an interesting talk. Gillette’s multi-channel video installations are informed by everything from cybernetic theory to observations of natural phenomenon, and his processes involve experiments with feedback and closed-circuit loops.

Art F City and the New York Studio Residency Program (NYSRP) present Taxes for Artists, a talk by accountant, artist and AFC Columnist Hannah Cole. Cole is a tax expert who specializes in working with creative businesses and artists. In this talk, she’s going to make sure you get every deduction you’ve never thought about.

Judith Bernstein has been drawing dicks for more than half a century, because, in her own words, “men may own it in a bodily sense, but men don’t own the image!”

An artist after our own hearts, indeed. On the event of her publication launch, she’ll be joined in discussion by Hyperallergic co-editor Thomas Micchelli, who’s also drawn and painted his fair share of anatomy.

This performance commission from MoMA involves dancers and pianists and “positions the female body as a technological form caught between animism and automatism…”

I’m not familiar with Alexandra Bachzetsis’s work, but this sounds promising. The piece will be installed as a video during museum hours, but there will be live performances starting Tuesday. If you can’t catch the opening night, there are a few other chances to see it live:

Wednesday, January 25, 8:00 p.m.
Friday, January 27, 10:00 p.m.
Saturday, January 28, 8:00 p.m.

I’m not entirely sure what to expect from Andro Wekua’s latest installation at Gladstone 64. The description begins with a poem about dogs’ memories, promises seascapes and portraits that reference icons, and paintings inspired by video, collage, and sculpture. But if this painting that looks like a still from a parking garage surveillance camera is any indication, it should be good and strange.

John Wellington’s paintings are delightfully kitschy-dystopian—mashing up history painting, mythology, militarism, and pop-culture. A year ago, I would’ve likened his work to covers for really weird pulp sci-fi paperbacks. Today, I’m a little concerned these are eerily prescient of the world those creepy dancing “Freedom Kids” from Florida are going to inherit as adults.

Photographer James Casebere created this series by painstakingly recreating models of Luis Barragán buildings. These tiny doll-house-like modernist masterpieces were then photographed, capturing the Mexican architect’s famously considered sense of light and color while adding an otherworldly sense of materiality and scale. These are so, so lovely and inviting.

Dan Deacon’s album America (2012) feels so urgent and timely nearly 5 years later it’s crazy. The music is anthemic but uncertain, frenetic and driving. When it first came out, it felt like the soundtrack to American life post-Occupy. Deacon described the album as “inspired by my frustration, fear and anger towards the country and world I live in and am a part of.”

Now, the New York City Ballet is inaugurating a new show set to America, choreographed by Justin Peck. If the gorgeous promo video they shot in the subway is any indication, they’ve succeeded in capturing that energy. We can’t wait to see this.

We’re looking forward to American artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson latest solo show at Bridget Donahue. Aside from being a trailblazer in the field of new media and feminism, she’s spent a lifetime exploring issues of voyeurism and surveillance—issues that couldn’t be more relevant today.

This show will include an interactive video from 1979-82, a sexual fantasy video disc from 1984 and a two channel synchronized installation inside a dollhouse (1993-2011).

3 Dot Zine, founded by artist Devin N Morris, is hosting a weekend-long zine fest at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts. The festival grew out of Morris’s realization that POC tend to be underrepresented in DIY publishing and zine culture.

Beyond vendors, the festival features programming such as workshops and screenings on Saturday and Sunday.

IMG MGMT artist Eric LoPresti and Art F City’s own Paddy Johnson will discuss LoPresti’s recent work. LoPresti’s essay focused on massive scale land art and the Nevada Test Site, and his art work similarly focuses on the Nevada test site landscape and flora and fauna.

Can’t miss an opening at TRANSFER if you’re into new media. This latest show by Alma Alloro promises to be a doozy – a series of large scale patchwork quilts used to make animated abstract films.

Quilting seems particularly relevant in the post-internet era, which similar to times when quilting took on a huge presence, requires collaboration and understanding of pattern making. Alloro’s work is less about collaboration, though, and more about imbuing early modernist work with a contemporary filmic sensibility. We’re expecting a room of good looking art.