From the category archives:

Events

Matthew Metzger’s Sweet Peace

by RM Vaughan on November 28, 2016
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We live in terrible times. I need not explain that assertion. And while I do not subscribe to the reading of art as always and/or necessarily “therapeutic”, it would be silly of me to not acknowledge that art can be therapeutic, even healing. To wit, Matthew Metzger’s exhibition The Shade of a Line is the Xanax in my tea.

Metzger is a Chicago-based painter whose work tilts back and forth between neo-Minimalism and neo-Color Field. I normally have nothing good to say about Minimalist work, as I find such works have nothing to say (and, yes, that is reductive, but so is the style). However, in Metzger’s case, the paintings vibrate with buried colors and dreamy pools of semi-occluded light. They teem with an interior life that reminds me of staring into precious stones, of the first hues of the morning, of being less than lucid. Put plainly, Metzger’s paintings are pretty. Let us give thanks for prettiness in an ugly world.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Give Thanks for Kate Bush

by Michael Anthony Farley on November 21, 2016
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It’s a slow week, but one with just enough good events to keep any Thanksgiving-related food coma at bay. Monday night, we’ve got two book release events with talks and more! Fragments of Metropolis – Rhein & Ruhr launches with a panel discussion at NYU’s Deutsches Haus and Douglas Crimp: Before Pictures is kicking-off at The Kitchen. Tuesday, rising video art star Sondra Perry speaks at SVA and bitforms gallery returns to its roots for a homecoming party. Wednesday, MoMA opens a Josef Albers exhibit that shows the color guru’s dark(room) side.

Thursday is Thanskgiving, so there are no art events. But if you can’t deal with the potential of seeing a Trump-supporting relative, I recommend teaming up with friends to support local immigrant-owned businesses instead! Post-holiday, there’s a bit of a slowdown. On Black Friday, check out a campy screening at Williamsburg’s Spectacle theater. Saturday Pioneer Works is hosting the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation. If that’s not your thing, head to Roulette, where artists reinterpret the music of Kate Bush. That’s one thing we can all be thankful for.

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This Weeks Must-See Events: Election 2016 Edition

by Paddy Johnson on November 7, 2016
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Expect the next three days to be filled with election news. Events are largely election related, and thus I will be wearing pant suits the whole god damned time. (Go Hillary!) Once that’s passed, there’s a whack of openings in Chelsea Thursday—Andreas Gursky, Paul McCarthy, etc—a must-see ceramics inspired show at Present Company in Bushwick Friday, and Smack Mellon’s 20th Anniversary exhibition Saturday. In short, nothing, not even an election, disrupts the art world.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: F.A.G.’s Strange Genitals & More

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on October 31, 2016
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If ever there was a week for art nerds, this is it. It begins Tuesday with a screening of artist made music-videos Otion Front Studio and a show of meticulously assembled abstract paper works by Jessica Dickinson and Alison Knowles at James Fuentes. Paper nerds and music nerds unite. By Friday, gallery goers will be heading to Transfer Gallery to witness a room full of projectors showcasing a playlist of works by a dozen or more new media artists.  New Media nerds rejoice.

In between all this nerdery, there are also quite a few exhibitions promising a good time, not the least of which being our very own Strange Genitals, which opens this Thursday at AICAD. Following this, is the always provocative Marilyn Minter at the Brooklyn Museum come Friday and Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw’s performance looking at how the relationship between gravity and politics leads to the break-down of thought. Catron and Outlaw promise an “assembly of libations” after their performance, so don’t make any plans for Sunday.

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Art F City’s Strange Genitals Opens Next Thursday at AICAD Seminar Gallery

by The AFC Staff on October 26, 2016
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Announcing the AFC curated show our readers could have predicted.

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This Week’s Must See Events: A Week of Historicization

by Paddy Johnson on October 24, 2016
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Brace yourself: Pretty much every museum in the city has a major show launching, from The Met’s Kerry James Marshall show, to the Whitney’s Immersive Cinema survey, to the Rhizome and New Museum’s Net Art Anthology launch. We’re excited about EVERY. SINGLE. SHOW. Why? Because they are all historical shows in some way, attempting to chart a history of important art works and movements. This is important work.

Oddly enough, Historicizing seems to be a broader theme for the week in general—well, in at least one show. Saturday Elizabeth Dee will launch a mammoth show that attempts to look at the East Village scene of the 80’s and where those artists are now. This is a must-see exhibition, so between this, the museum shows, and everything else we have listed you’re going to be busy.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Future Bodies are Everywhere and Scary

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on October 17, 2016
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There’s plenty of heady discourse this week—future bodies, hypothetical architectures, theories of curation and criticism—and of course plenty of election-related hand-wringing.

Kick it off Monday night at Jersey City’s Word Bookstore, where the Brooklyn Institute of Social Research is inaugurating a lecture series about cyborgs. Or head to Manhattan’s Red Bull Studios for an event celebrating Grand Arts, the Kansas City project space that launched dozens of conceptual art projects and, now, a catalogue. Tuesday night, Paddy Johnson joins other art critics to talk shop at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Cultural Center, and Tyler Coburn talks genetic engineering and body mods as the future of humanity at e-flux. If you’re looking for something more hands-on (or a chance to move your feet), there’s a survey of handmade prints at Site:Brooklyn and an epic-looking disco fundraiser for El Museo del Bario Wednesday night. Thursday, White Box is opening a jam-packed group show (with some impressive names!) all about political angst. Friday we’ve got a talk from Maura Riley at Stony Brook Manhattan and Underdonk opening a class-conscious solo show by Patrice Renee Washington.

But the weekend brings us back to what we like the most: artwork that investigates the weird. Selena Gallery’s two person show from Dalia Amara and Florencia Escudero looks for uncanny surrogate female bodies in consumer goods on Saturday night. Sunday, Sascha Braunig’s work at MoMA will likely strike a similar chord. And MARC STRAUS opens a solo show by Chris Joneswho builds fantastical dioramas (pictured) from mundane images.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Manicures for the Post-Apocalypse

by Michael Anthony Farley on October 10, 2016
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Finally, a week in New York City where there’s at least one totally worthwhile, low-key art event every night without too many #FOMO -inducing major scheduling conflicts. We’ve picked out the best of the best, including such different activities as a pop-up opening party at Babycastles with a Kawaii nail art bar on Monday night and an artist talk from painter Keltie Ferris at the New York Studio School on Tuesday.

Wednesday, check out Lauren Marsolier’s suburban surrealestate at Galerie Richard, and Thursday night head to the West SoHo zone for solo shows from Sam McKinniss and Philip Vanderhyden at Team Gallery and Mumbo’s Outfit, respectively. Friday gets a little more hectic, with an exhibition of the late, great Tetsumi Kudo’s work at Andrea Rosen, an architectural “performance” from Gabrielle Mertz at the LES’s former PS160, and a group show about intimacy and craft at 315 Gallery in Brooklyn.

Saturday, two group shows open in a former Pfizer plant on Flushing Ave (where we expect artists to take full advantage of the post-industrial setting) and Sunday Pierogi has a solo show of drawings by John O’Connor. What a good week, and just think—you’ll have bomb nails for all of it.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: An Overdue Eclipse of Male Artists

by Michael Anthony Farley on October 3, 2016
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While the Guerrilla Girls are in London chastising Europe’s man-centric art world,  we’re happy to report an all-too-rare week in New York that’s dominated by awesome female artists. Tuesday night Esther Ruiz is unveiling an installation at BAM, and the much-missed queer space Spectrum gets resurrected as The Dreamhouse in Ridgewood, with performances from Juliana Huxtable and more. Thursday night at Anna Zorina Gallery, Nadine Faraj’s solo show celebrates going topless as an act of political defiance, and Friday Robin Kang’s weavings at OUTLET demonstrate that textiles are still relevant to tech.

Spectacle Theater in Williamsburg is having a banner weekend, with a Friday night documentary about gender-redefining icon Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and a Saturday night screening of an experimental feminist revenge flick from Kat Hunt.

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