This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Arctic Performances and Rooftop Sculptures

Two years ago, Wong Kit Yi offered collectors the chance to commission performances ahead of a residency in the Arctic. Now, the results of that process are on view for the first time. The show comprises seven photographs documenting the commissioned works alongside ephemera from the Arctic trip. The show closes Tuesday night, “with a chance of Karaoke”.

The Building Toy Project (Lucie Meichun Cai, Ke Hu, and Yujia Liu) asks us to reconsider the idea of architecture as a static space. With the advent of augmented reality and VR, it won’t be for long.

The team has designed a series of interactive virtual spaces that invite viewers to manipulate the architecture. It looks like the future is going to be a lot more playful.

Kevin Jerome Everson’s thoughtful short films are informed by documentaries, identity politics, and formalist filmmaking, but manage to feel like something totally apart from all of the above. Some of the works play with narrative, combining real and imagined (or exaggerated) vignettes from the lives of working class African Americans. Another follows cars manufactured in the artist’s Ohio hometown decades ago as they make their way to be crushed in a junkyard.

Every once and a while, we get invited to an event with a roster of artists we don’t (yet) know in a place we’ve never heard of, but we feel like we have to go. This is one of those nights. How can we pass up something called “Ghost Piss”? Ridgewood art space The Woods, in conjunction with curators Wild Embeddings and Pulsar, is hosting a night of performance art that sounds wonderful and weird.

From the listing: “Ulay said there is ‘a criminal touch to art’. Given today’s fascist phenomenons, what does it mean to approach one’s creative output with this sense of criminality — whether in attitude or imposed embodiment? Shall we not all become delinquents together…disobedient?”

Artists: Hector Canonge, Verónica Peña, Spitline, STITSR, Lion Ayodele, Tracy Fenix, Caitlin Baucom, Quinn Dukes, Ilse Lansdale, Nip Slip, Ghost Piss

$10 Suggested Donation

Spring is in the air, which means it’s time to take advantage of outdoor art stuff.

Arguably the most promising outdoor artwork this year is Adrián Villar Rojas’s new installation on the Met’s roof. The Argentine artist, who often works in concrete, is creating a series of large-scale sculptures that are inspired by the Met’s permanent collection. (The above image is from a previous commission). We can’t wait to see this one.

Thank the gods (and curators Starr Figura, Sarah Hermanson Meister, and Hillary Reder) for this show. One of our biggest pet peeves at AFC is the art world’s bizarre tendency to label abstraction a man’s game (and therefor, usually, irrelevant). Women have been making abstract work forever, and hopefully a high-profile exhibition at one of the world’s leading art museums will set the record straight. The artists here are some of the biggest names in 20th century art, and it goes without saying this will be one of the year’s must-see shows.

Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, and Gego, Agnes Martin, Anne Truitt, Jo Baer, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks, Lenore Tawney, ee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Anne Ryan, Gertrudes Altschul, Ruth Asawa, Carol Rama, and Alma Woodsey Thomas

The upcoming March for Science (April 22nd, Earth Day) is arguably one of the most important fronts in the battle against the Trump administration. Pretty much: if science goes unfunded and ignored, all other issues will be moot because we’ll be dead from global warming or an asteroid strike anyway.

So join artist/curator Karen Lederer to make signs for the march. All materials will be provided. This is part of her exhibition HANDS ON, which will be on view until April 29th.

The day after the election, Michael Boughn and Kent Johnson decided to compile a collection of poetry. Months later, this is the result. Featuring work from 350 poets across 740 pages, this might be the post-inauguration therapy you need. The launch features readings and an opportunity for book signing. Half of the proceeds from book sales are going to Planned Parenthood.

Reading: Bruce Andrews, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Katy Bohinc, Charles Borkhuis, Lee Ann Brown, Xanath Caraza, Ruth Danon, Lynne DeSilva-Johnson, Andrew DuBois, Lisa Freedman, William Joseph Freind, Philip Fried, Quintus Havis, Bob Holman, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Brenda Iijima, Judith Johnson, Vincent Katz, Burt Kimmelman, Robert Kocik, Ron Kolm, Andrew Levy, Susan Lewis, Eileen Myles, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Nita Noveno, Julie Patton, Ilka Scobie, Larissa Shmailo, KC Trommer, Matt Turner, Joshua Weiner, Don Wellman, Suzanne Wise, Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, Anton Yakovlev