This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Patriarchy-Smashing in Full Force

It’s usually a turn-off when artwork claims it “implicates the viewer back into what they have arrived to judge.” Tra Bouscaren and John Schlesinger’s multi-media installation, however, sounds so seductively post-apocalyptic that can be overlooked. The duo use video mapping, laboratory detritus, construction rubble and more to form environments that I’m imagining will look a bit like the surface of “the desert of the real” from The Matrix. Timely.

For this series, Pelenakeke Brown drew daily self portraits as she grew out her hair. They’re a little creepy, as she’s left out any other signifiers of identity (facial features, etc…). As the exercise grew, the series took on new meaning as a meditation on gender and self-representation. Her attention to (and omission) of details makes these memorable and slightly uncanny.

“Quantum Feminism” is a concept that’s so new and/or obscure it doesn’t have it’s own Wikipedia page (take note, those participating in this week’s edit-a-thon!) Confession: I know this because I just had to Google it.

This talk’s organizers describe a discussion about “an understanding of bodies as sensory systems can be a starting point for discussions around ethics and ‘entangled relations of difference’.” I’m sure we’ll all have a better understanding of QF after this roundtable discussion, which includes A.K. Burns, Harry Dodge, Carolyn Lazard, Anicka Yi, and Constantina Zavitsano.

For this year’s Women’s History Month Invitational, curators Marjorie Van Dyke and Deborah Freedman have taken an unexpected route: most of the artists here make cheery abstract paintings. That’s nothing new, of course, but it’s refreshingly outside the usual (bizarrely illogical) narrative that abstraction is a man’s game. And importantly, these paintings are good.

Artists: Marina Adams, Nancy Azara, Andea Belag, Joanne Freeman, Claire Seidl and Dee Shapiro

Founded in the 1970s, the LES’s Uranian Phalanstery represented a sorta-New-Age-y art collective with its own singular culture. Founded be veteran Richard Tyler, his wife Dorothea Tyler, and some neighbors/friends, the Uranians produced a hell of a lot of printed material.

This includes prints from woodblock to xerox, letters, editioned art books, and so much more. Expect to lose hours digging through one very weird archive.

What exactly is a feminist game night? Probably more fun than most would expect. The night features games designed by Rebecca Goyette, Desiree Des, and Željka Blakšić.

I’m hoping it’s something like the board game “Don’t Wake Daddy!” but more along the lines of “Get Woke! The Patriarchy!”

We can’t gush enough about Marilyn Minter’s show Pretty/Dirty at the Brooklyn Museum. (Actually, Paddy got to check it out in Denver before the show traveled to NYC.) Now, we get to hear two other greats gush about Marilyn Minter. Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham will have a conversation in response to the show. This is definitely one of the week’s highlights.

Linda Herritt’s room-spanning, text-based, mixed-media installations are often the products of researching “lists” of things. Here, she’s turned her attention to Buckminster Fuller’s 1981 “Chronology of Scientific Discoveries and Artifacts.” The publication was a litany of important innovations, spanning centuries of advancements in chemistry and inventions.

Inventions such as steel skyscrapers and the discovery of germ-based medicine will be included alongside guns and hydroelectricity. We’re not sure exactly what this will look like, but we’re told it will “undulate” off the walls of Smack Mellon’s old coal-fired steam furnace.

For whatever reason. only 8.5-16% of Wikipedia editors are women. This means topics related to women’s concerns—from feminist art history to films by female directors—can be overlooked. This Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, happening roughly concurrently with dozens worldwide, hopes to close the gender gap a bit.

Bring a laptop, and even a kid (childcare will be provided, but an RSVP is necessary).

Conveniently, Red Hook’s Pioneer Works is walking distance from Interference Archive, and their monthly Second Saturdays party is the perfect way to reward yourself after a few hours of performing netizen civic duty. The event features DJs, a performance from Underground System, a CRISPR workshop and more. All for a $10 suggested donation.

Open Studios:

Angel Nevarez/Valerie Tevere
Jes Fan
Pascual Sisto
Evelyn Donnelly
SKOTE (Jill Pangallo & Alex P. White)

This is also a prime opportunity to check out E.S.P TV’s epic installation “WORK”, which has reinstalled Pioneer Works’ offices as a functioning television set.