Art Rx
This weeks, art handlers stage a takeover of a Chelsea gallery, plus shows opening about freeness, queerness and the post-Olympic city.
This week, the doctor says go to openings and more openings. Among the shows she’s prescribing are a not-so-hostile takeover by art handlers at a gallery in Chelsea, two exhibitions exploring freeness and queerness and a photography show that looks at the post-Olympic city.
For those want to get out of town and explore, the Wassaic Project hosts its annual summer festival all weekend long. And for those who want to stay in and enjoy the air-conditioning, Anthology Film Archives screens a documentary about experimental film. Happy arting!
HiJack!
When: Opens Thursday, August 2, 6–8 pm
Where: Jack Shaiman (513 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)
The art handlers at Jack Shainman are perpetuating a “soft takeover” of the gallery — hence the “Hi Jack” pun. (Get it?) For that, they’ve curated a show of rarely seen work by some of the gallery’s artists alongside work by artists who’ve never shown at Jack Shainman before. Oh yes, and: “In pursuit of our demands we will construct an artist labor library that will be installed across from your office and your door will be removed for the duration of the show.” Revolution!
Is This Free?
When: Second opening Friday, August 3, 7–9 pm
Where: Nurture Art (56 Bogart Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn)
This week Nurture Art opens the second installment of its three-part summer exhibition, …Is This Free? Curated by Marco Antonini, the show focuses on art, publications and ephemera that were created to be free distributed and includes a wonderfully named “Can I Take This?” bookshelf. It’s also accumulative and ever-expanding: each new opening adds more work! Antonini promises us that by the end, “the gallery will be literally exploding with art and ideas.”
Cartoon Carousel
When: Friday, August 3, 8 pm
Where: Soloway (348 South 4th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
In case you somehow haven’t noticed, the doctor is a big fan of comics. On Friday night, Soloway gallery hosts the roving Carousel series, which features cartoon slide shows and storytelling from writers, cartoonists and illustrators. The event has been hosted by beloved cartoonist R. Sikoryak since 1997. If you’ve never been to a live comics viewing and reading event, they’re usually ridiculously fun. Here’s your chance to start.
Wassaic Project Summer Festival
When: Friday, August 3–Sunday, August 5
Where: The Wassaic Project (Maxon Mills, 37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic, New York; take the Metro North train to Wassaic)
The Wassaic Project is doing some amazing things just two hours north of New York City, and this weekend is their fifth annual, jam-packed summer festival. There will be art — a group show titled Return to Rattlesnake Mountain that includes artists Man Bartlett, Ghost of a Dream, Hope Gangloff and many more; films, among them Sleepwalk with Me and A Brief History of John Baldessari; and dance, music and art performances. The perfect excuse to get out of the city for a day.
Free Radicals
When: Friday, August 3–Tuesday, August 7, various times
Where: Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, East Village, Manhattan)
Pip Chodorov’s Free Radicals is best summed up by its subtitle: “A History of Experimental Film.” Chodorov’s movie is a loving introduction to avant-garde film for novices and lay-viewers, and includes interviews with the likes of Jonas Mekas and Hans Richter, as well as some shorter experimental works in their entirety.
Summer Babe
When: Opens Saturday, August 4, 6–11 pm
Where: Heavy Refuge (77 Irving Avenue, #1R, Bushwick, Brooklyn)
Heavy Refuge knows how to throw an opening party: on Saturday night, this apartment-sized Bushwick space will launch a group art exhibition (Summer Babe), host DJ Savage Severe, feature readings by writers Joseph Bradshaw and Jamie Townsend and have a performance by Brooklyn pop rocker Frankie Rose.
Post-Olympic City
When: Opens Tuesday, August 7, 7–9 pm
Where: Storefront for Art and Architecture (97 Kenmare Street, Soho, Manhattan)
Right now the Olympics are everywhere — London, Twitter, our TVs, the media … it’s madness. But what happens to Olympics venues and cities when the games have come and gone? Photographer Jon Pack and filmmaker Gary Hustwit set out to figure that out, investigating sites in Athens, Lake Placid, Sarajevo and more, and finding that some while buildings are reused as prisons and malls, others turn into modern-day ruins. As a bonus, Storefront will broadcast the 2012 Olympics live at the gallery as part of the show.
Pop-Up Queer History
When: Opens Wednesday, August 8
Where: Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (26 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan)
For the month of August, the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History takes over the Leslie-Lohman Museum to host an exhibition titled Before We Were Queer. The show departs from the notion that queerness is a distinctly modern phenomenon and asks what came before that. The curators want to know the answer on a more personal level, too, and consequently have invited creators better and lesser known from a wide range of places and ages to give voice to their own queer histories.
