ArtRx NYC
It's the week we swap out our 2014 street art wall calendar for our 2015 sexy art handlers wall calendar, so in addition to a high-concept yule log to keep you warm and a New Year's Day exhibition reception to keep your buzz going, our suggestions include a visit to Times Square — but not for the re
It’s the week we swap out our 2014 street art wall calendar for our 2015 sexy art handlers wall calendar, so in addition to a high-concept yule log to keep you warm and a New Year’s Day exhibition reception to keep your buzz going, our suggestions include a visit to Times Square — but not for the reason you’d think.
A Yule Log for the Future at BRIC
When: Daily, 1–10pm, until December 31
Where: BRIC House (647 Fulton Street, Downtown Brooklyn)
Now in its second season, the outcome of BRIC’s invitation for artists to reimagine the crackling, comforting yule log of old has resulted in “Yule Log 2.014,” a collection of over 70 contemporary takes on the holiday staple by more than 80 artists. The giant, fiery, exquisite-corpse log video, curated this year by San Francisco animation studio Oddfellows, will play in BRIC’s cafe area until two hours before the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Coney Island New Year’s Extravaganza
When: Wednesday, December 31, 9pm
Where: Steeplechase Pavilion (West 16th Street and the Coney Island Boardwalk, Brooklyn)
Aside from fireworks in Prospect Park, Brooklyn has never had much of a New Year’s Eve tradition, but this year — finally — that’s changing: say hello to the Coney Island New Year’s Extravaganza and Fireworks! With sideshow performances and a dazzling display on the Parachute Jump’s brand-spanking-new $2 million lighting system (followed by fireworks), the event promises to be a nice combination of Coney Island old and new. Plus if you party late and long enough, you can follow it up with a hearty breakfast and a bracing dip in the ocean. —Jillian Steinhauer
Hear Those Steam Whistles Blow
When: Thursday, January 1, midnight
Where: Pratt Institute (200 Willoughby Ave, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn)
If you spend NYE at Coney Island, you’ll be present for the birth of a new tradition; if you spent it at Pratt Institute, you’ll witness the passing of an old one. The December 31 blowing of steam whistles at the school has been a tradition for 50 years, and tomorrow night, for unknown reasons, that tradition will end. Conrad Milster, the chief engineer at Pratt Institute’s Power Plant, has a collection of steam whistles from locomotives, ocean liners, factories, and more, and on New Year’s Eve he blows them to highly entertaining and deafening effect. “It just degenerates into the most God-awful shrieking and howling and hooting and clouds of steam and everyone is blowing whistles and having an absolutely grand time,” he told NY1. Don’t forget to bring earplugs. —JS
Celebrate an Expanding Artist Residency
When: January 1, 4–7pm
Where: Five Myles (558 St. Johns Place, Crown Heights, Brooklyn)
This may get a little confusing, but the Tribeca-based BAU Institute, which runs an artist residency in Italy, has just added another program in the south of France with the help of the Camargo Foundation. Come meet the artists who participated in that inaugural edition of the BAU Institute’s French residency — including Nora Griffin, Garrett Hongo, Jane Kent, Shari Mendelson, and others — survey works made during their stint in the Mediterranean sun, and sip on a much-need eye-opener to soothe your New Year’s Eve hangover.
Cleaning Up Times Square
When: Saturday, January 3, 12–1pm (free with museum admission, $8)
Where: Queens Museum (New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens)
In November the Beijing-based artist collective Polit-Sheer-Form-Office led a group of 150 people in a mass scrubbing and mopping of Times Square — a very literal version of the “cleaning up Times Square” with which former mayor Rudy Giuliani is often credited. Here, a one-hour film documenting the large-scale cleaning session is projected inside the Queens Museum’s main galleries alongside the collective’s ongoing exhibition.
Robert Altman’s Vincent van Gogh
When: Saturday, January 3, 4pm (free with museum admission, or $12)
Where: Museum of Modern Art (11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan)
As part of its Altman retrospective, MoMA is screening Vincent and Theo, the second-most-famous Vincent van Gogh biopic of all time (after Lust for Life, naturally). Though this won’t be the original, 200-minute BBC version, you can supplement your viewing by arriving early and zipping up to check out the van Goghs in the permanent collection. How do they compare to the knock-offs Altman allegedly hired local art students to paint for his film?
Get Ready for Your Close-Up
When: Saturday, January 3, 8pm ($30, including drinks)
Where: 14th Street Y (344 E 14th Street, East Village, Manhattan)
This is billed as a “full-immersion art-party experience,” which, although I’m not entirely sure what it means, is intriguing. The event is a collaboration between new media artists OMTA and the choreographers of LeeSaar The Company. According to its description:
The immersive and interdisciplinary show – involving LeeSaar dancers, OMTA’s live and interactive multimedia, and guest music performers – happens in a black box-like open space, offering only limited seating on the sides. Video projections, generated in real time from the live feed, are displayed on all walls. By way of spatial, visual/interactive and sonic stimulation, CLOSE UP encourages the viewers’ curiosity, open-minded, proactiveness and self-exploration, as opposed to merely experiencing performance as idle observers.
Taking a chance on an immersive new-media art party performance seems like an auspicious way to start the new year. —JS
Talking About Entang Wiharso
When: Sunday, January 4, 4pm
Where: Marc Strauss Gallery (299 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan)
Get an early glimpse of the Indonesian artist’s first solo gallery show in New York and enjoy a panel featuring Jonathan Goodman, Donald Kuspit, Paul Laster, and Hyperallergic contributor Robert C. Morgan, who will discuss not only Entang Wiharso‘s work, but also the larger landscape of contemporary art from Indonesia, for which Marc Strauss has served as something of an unofficial ambassador since launching in 2011.
