Art Rx
The doctor is worried about your diet, so she's writing a prescription to make sure you're getting a healthy dose of variety.
The doctor is worried about your diet, so she’s writing a prescription to make sure you’re getting a healthy dose of variety. Start the week off with two discussions designed to get the blood pumping to your brain: a conversation around the issue of taking so many photographs and another one on digital collections sharing. Next, two exhibitions, one of a semi-obscure Argentine painter and occultist, the other of Pratt MFA students: go from learning about the old to discovering the new.
From there it’s on to a film about Brooklyn gentrification, Rhizome’s annual art and technology conference, Brooklyn Zine Fest, and more. Take it from the doctor: mixing things up is always the best course of action.
So.Many.Photos.
When: Wednesday, April 17, 7–8:30 pm
Where: Eyebeam (540 West 21st Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)
Last month, Eyebeam, in collaboration with arts nonprofit A Blade of Grass and barter network OurGoods.org, launched a four-month conversation series about artistic collaboration, social practice, and the possibilities of f**king up therein. This Wednesday’s conversation will feature curators Laurel Ptak and Natasha Marie Llorens grappling with that now timeless question, “Why are you taking so many photographs?” Indeed.
Digital Collection Sharing
When: Wednesday, April 17, 7–8:30 pm ($15)
Where: School at ICP, Shooting Studio (1114 Avenue of the Americas, Midtown, Manhattan)
Now that extensive digital collections are pretty much the norm, there’s a new aspect to talk about: digital collection sharing. The International Center of Photography is hosting a handful of scholars, curators, and managers at various museums and libraries to talk about the practice, in part as it relates to the Roman Vishniac Archive, which the ICP and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are currently developing. And hopefully the panel will spur you on to the Vishniac exhibition at the ICP, a landmark show that reexamines and repositions the photographer best known for his pointedly emotional shots of pre-WWII European Jewry.
The Art of Friendship
When: Opens Thursday, April 18
Where: Americas Society (680 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)
The fascinating-sounding show will be the first in New York devoted to Argentine artist, writer, and according to Wikipedia, inventor of imaginary languages Xul Solar. Organized by the Americas Society and the Museo Xul Solar in Buenos Aires, the exhibition will focus on Solar’s longtime friendship with writer Jorge Luis Borges, exploring how a private relationship “can affect public cultural and intellectual discourse.” Solar’s work looks alternately earnestly and playfully fantastical, and this should be a rare opportunity to see so much of it in person.
The Art of Displacement
When: Opens Friday, April 19, 6–9 pm
Where: Loft594 (594 Bushwick Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn)
Critic and curator Paul Laster has rounded up 17 Pratt MFA students for this upcoming show. Titled Driftworks, it features 10 artists in the gallery space whose work recycles and remixes and transgresses — “art about displacement,” according to the press release. There will also be a night of related video art and one devoted to performance art. Go see what the young’uns are up to.
What Is Bioart?
When: Friday, April 19, 8 pm ($10)
Where: The Observatory (543 Union Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn)
Quite frankly, we have no idea. But William Myers has written a book called BioDesign: Nature + Science + Creativity, and at the Observatory on Friday, he’ll give an illustrated lecture on biodesign and bioart. This apparently includes “a portrait of the human microbiome, a footbridge supported by willow trees, packaging made from mushrooms and a scheme to use bacteria to solidify sand dunes into walls in the desert.” Neat.
My Brooklyn
When: Friday, April 19, and Saturday, April 20, 9:15 pm ($13)
Where: MIST Harlem (46 West 116th Street, Harlem, Manhattan)
In February, the doctor wrote about the excellent documentary film My Brooklyn, which uncovers the nefarious and corrupt ways in which downtown Brooklyn has been gutted and gentrified. Now you have a chance to see it for yourself (although not in Brooklyn), at a new independent film festival in Harlem. Go!
Seven on Seven
When: Saturday, April 20, 12–6 pm ($39.50)
Where: Tishman Auditorium, The New School (66 West 12th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan)
Spring at Art in General
When: Saturday, April 20, 6–8 pm
Where: Art in General (79 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan)
Tribeca mainstay Art in General opens its new spring exhibitions this weekend, among them Letha Wilson’s enticing Landmarks and Monuments, which turn landscape photos into sculptures by melding them somehow into the fabric of the gallery space. There’s also a video of distorted shots of ocean tide by Kimberlee Venable in the storefront project space, and a short film set in Cairo by Youmna Chlala.
Brooklyn Zine Fest
When: Sunday, April 21, 11 am–6 pm
Where: Public Assembly (70 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
This awesome, quirky festival is firsthand evidence that zine culture is alive and well in Brooklyn! Given that there are more than 80 exhibitors lined up, the hardest part will be not spending all your money.
