ArtRx NYC

This week is filled with opportunities: to ponder the meaning of cat videos, to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of Latin American culture, to get help finding affordable artist housing, to watch contemporary performers fail, and more.

 Hyperallergic #ArtTalk on Artist Housing

When: Wednesday, September 30, 7–8:30pm (free, RSVP required)
Where: El Barrio’s Artspace PS109 (215 East 99th Street, East Harlem, Manhattan)

Affordable housing for artists is a perpetual crisis in New York, where rents are constantly rising and no one has enough space. So we decided to convene some knowledgeable people to talk about it. Kelley Lindquist, president of Artspace Projects, Kristin Sakoda, deputy general counsel for NYC’s Department of Cultural Affairs, and Monica Williams, a resident in the newly opened artist studio building El Barrio’s Artspace PS109, will join Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian for a conversation on the issue. There will be a Q&A and short workshop to boot.

 Stories of African American Civil War Soldiers

When: Wednesday, September 30, 6:30–8:30pm ($5)
Where: Brooklyn Historical Society (128 Pierrepont Street, Downtown, Brooklyn)

This discussion will take up two related questions: “How do we know what we know about black soldiers who fought in the Civil War? And what does it tell us about the complex business of collecting African American materials from eras when such objects were undervalued and overlooked?” How, in other words, do we revise and correct history when the paper trail we’re left with is itself the product of a prejudice? The lineup here is stellar, and the topic is essential.

 An Evening with Gulf Labor

When: Friday, October 2, 6:30–8:30pm
Where: Vera List Center for Art and Politics (The New School University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Village, Manhattan)

In tandem with the launch of their new book, The Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor (edited by Andrew Ross), members of the Gulf Labor Coalition will present a number of reports examining “the repercussions of oppressive labor policies in art institutions.” The coalition has been actively campaigning for the rights of migrant laborers in the UAE, calling attention to working conditions on the construction sites of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus. Speakers include Andrew Ross, Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain, Gregory Sholette, and Mariam Ghani. —TM

 Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong

When: Friday, October 2, 7pm
Where: Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Avenue, Astoria, Queens)

Why are we so obsessed with cat videos?? I am not the only one wondering. In the book Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong, myself and 14 other writers ponder this from a wide variety of angles (the aesthetics of cute, working at I Can Has Cheezburger?, an 18th-century poem). Come celebrate the launch of the book at the Museum of the Moving Image, amid an exhibition devoted to pretty much the same subject. We will probably not end up with any answers, but we will definitely watch some good videos.

 Remember Film?

When: Friday, October 2, 7pm (free, RSVP required)
Where: Museum of Arts & Design (2 Columbus Circle, Midtown, Manhattan)

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) is screening Phil Solomon’s In Memorium, a trilogy of short films created entirely from the 3D world of the popular video game Grand Theft Auto. Solomon’s painterly use of the game’s violent computer-generated landscape is a meditation on the possibilities of new technologies. The event is part of a series inspired by the death of celluloid, Remember Film? Return on October 16 to see a film compiled by Casey Pugh from 473 stop-motion, digitally animated, and live-action clips that recreate, shot-by-shot, the first Star Wars movie. —GSV

 Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Arte y Cultura Latinoamericana

When: Saturday, October 3, 11am–5pm (free, RSVP required)
Where: Museum of Modern Art (11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan)

Whether or not we like to admit it, we all rely on Wikipedia for quick answers to topics we may not know much about. The site is a pretty great resource, but it’s lacking in some areas — as past edit-a-thons related to feminism and black art have shown. To help remedy this, WikiArte has organized this event at the Museum of Modern Art, which will focus on updating and revising articles on Latin American art and culture, including entries written in Portuguese and Spanish. For those who feel slightly daunted by the whole process, training sessions will be held throughout the day. —EWA

 Art Under the Viaduct

When: Saturday, October 3, 6–10pm
Where: West Harlem Viaduct (starting at 12th Avenue at 125th Street)

Four North Manhattan artists come together in this open-air, nighttime group installation, organized by the West Harlem Art Fund and Pratt’s Department of Digital Arts. Inspired by Paris’s Nuit Blanche, Synced: Under the Viaduct presents an evening of digital and performance art, including a dance piece that integrates technology and projections of animated sculptures made of brown butcher paper. —CV

 Performance Collapse

When: Saturday, October 3, 7pm
Where: The Knockdown Center (52-19 Flushing Avenue, Maspeth, Queens)

What are the creative possibilities of failure? In “COLLAPSE (or, falling flat),” the New York Performance Artists Collective presents four artists — Lauren Bakst, Caitlin Baucom, Sara Grace Powell, and Max Steele — examining failure in contemporary film, dance, and performance art. Through multimedia work, each artist looks at the physical and psychological manifestations of falling short, from a fractured investigation of the pathologized body in Baucom’s video “Psycho/geographic” to Steele’s performance “Mad Girl,” on feminism and mental illness. —GSV

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With contributions by Elisa Wouk Almino, Tiernan Morgan, Gabriella Santiago-Vancak, and Claire Voon