Art Rx

It’s warming up outside, so take note that this weekend Storm King sculpture park opens. #roadtrip If you’d prefer to stay in the city, there’s more than enough to see and do, including a one-day Warhol show, performance art in Bushwick, an exhibition about 5Pointz, and the rediscovery of the art of Roberta Allen.

 Donelle Woolford: Dick’s Last Stand

When: Tuesday, April 1, 7pm ($10)
Where: The Kitchen (512 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

“Dick’s Last Stand” is a 40-minute reenactment by artist Donelle Woolford of an infamous 1977 stand-up routine by African-American comedian Richard Pryor that was censored for broadcast by NBC. Woolford’s reenactment makes Pryor’s full performance available, while also chronicling the place of honor afforded to phallic humor and innuendo in popular culture.

 Storm King Is Back!

When: Opens Wednesday, April 2 ($15)
Where: Storm King Art Center (1 Museum Road, New Windsor, New York)

Now that spring is here, a day trip to the Storm King Art Center is a must. Five hundred acres of land peppered with works by Mark di Suvero, Isamu Noguchi, Maya Lin, Andy Goldsworthy, Alexander Calder … I could go on. Oh, and did I mention that it’s only an hour north of Manhattan?

 Within a Tournament of Value

When: Thursday, April 3, 6–9pm
Where: Flux Factory (39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, Queens)

On display between April 1 (April Fool’s Day) and April 15 (tax day), Within a Tournament of Value is an exhibition of several sculptural works that “move beyond the normative constraints of commodification and engage in a broader critique of systems of exchange.” If you found that hard to grasp, the show will also include texts by theorists such as Jean Baudrillard, Marcel Mauss, and Dana Sterwood, which may or may not actually help.

 15 Minutes: Andy Warhol

When: Friday, April 4, 4:30–8pm
Where: Columbia University (1190 Amsterdam Avenue, Morningside Heights, Manhattan)

Columbia University celebrates Warhol’s legacy with 15 Minutes, a daylong exhibition of the artist’s Polaroids and prints, along with a roundtable discussion in which each participant has — yep, you guessed it — fifteen minutes to discuss Warhol’s legacy. Speakers include Neil Printz, Blake Gopnik, Larissa Harris, Tom Kalin, Urs Fischer, and Peter Brant.

 Roberta Allen: Works From the 1970s

When: Friday, April 4, 6–9pm
Where: Minus Space (111 Front Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn)

Minus Space presents a selection of Roberta Allen’s works from the early to late 1970s, including works on paper, photo-based and sculptural pieces. Allen’s conceptually driven work fuses elements of post-minimalism, feminism, and performance. Her Pointless Arrow series, inspired by the work of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, consists of arrow lines without heads. In the artist’s words:

Arrows indicate direction or placement. Pointless arrows, lines without arrowheads, indicate directional loss or states prior to direction … Pointless arrows represent suspended states between being as ascent and being as fall.

 Mehdi-Georges Lahlou & Chun Hua Catherine Dong

When: Friday, April 4, 9pm (suggested donation, $5–10)
Where: Grace Exhibition Space (840 Broadway, Bushwick, Brooklyn)

Artists Mehdi-Georges Lahlou and Chun Hua Catherine Dong will perform works at the Grace Exhibition Space. We have few specifics to go on, but the event page suggests that both artists will perform pieces that respond to and critique their cultural backgrounds.

 Whitewash: 5Pointz Exhibition

When: Saturday, April 5, 6pm
Where: Jeffrey Leder Gallery (2137 45th Road, Long Island City, Queens)

Whitewash is an exhibition of work by nine graffiti artists and two photographers in response to the overnight whitewashing of 5Pointz on November 19, 2013 (you can find Hyperallergic’s coverage here). Artists include Johnathan Cohen (aka ‘Meres One’), the former curator of 5Pointz. As gallerist Jeffrey Leder states in the exhibition’s press release:

There’s an emptiness that I experience now that 5Pointz is no more. When the 7 train emerged from the tunnel onto Long Island City and took the bend around 5Pointz my experience of the brightness and social statement of the artwork on the walls was very compelling and constantly evolving through Meres One astute direction. Or at times hearing the gasps of delight from packs of tourists on the train as we’d emerge into the daylight and they experienced 5Pointz for the first time — you could see the excitement on their faces as they’d take in the color and expertise of the outdoor artwork.

 The Model Block

When: Opens Monday, April 7
Where: The Cooper Union Foundation Building (7 East 7th Street, East Village, Manhattan)

Cooper Union may still be reeling from the tuition hike that means many students will be paying tens of thousands of dollars rather than going to school for free, but that doesn’t mean professors aren’t continuing to challenge students into thinking about the world and their neighborhood. This exhibition features student projects that were invited to reimagine the neighborhood through the lens of “environmental actions taken on a typical block, organized around the themes of community, energy, waste, and water.”