ArtRx NYC
This week, activism is the theme, with an exhibition centered on musical resistance, another featuring political posters, and a conference devoted to helping artists find and keep affordable workspaces.
This week, activism is the theme, with an exhibition centered on musical resistance, another featuring political posters, and a conference devoted to helping artists find and keep affordable workspaces. There’s also the first staging of a Harlem Renaissance opera in 87 years … and don’t forget to join us tomorrow night at Housing Works Bookstore for Hyperallergic IRL!
Hyperallergic IRL
When: Tuesday, June 23, 7–8:30pm
Where: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe (126 Crosby Street, Soho, Manhattan)
For the first time, Hyperallergic has organized a reading of work by some of our editors, writers, and contributors. This is your chance to listen to John Yau read one of his poems or Ryan Wong deliver his epic takedown of Joe Scanlan’s Donelle Woolford project. There will be trivia, readings of comments, even a fireside chat. Come say hi and see the people behind the pixels you’ve been looking at for so long. —Hrag Vartanian
Organized Sounds of Resistance
When: Opens Thursday, June 25, 7–10pm
Where: Interference Archive (131 8th Street, #4, Gowanus, Brooklyn)
Music has always been a tool of resistance, from African-American slave songs to the Brazilian Tropicália movement. This show at the Interference Archive, titled if a song could be freedom . . . Organized Sounds of Resistance, looks at music as protest over many decades by gathering the picture sleeves of more than 200 recordings and by turning the gallery into a listening room (plus “written contributions from activists and musicians, flyers, lyric sheets, buttons, publications, and other ephemera”). At a time when our country’s deep divide and horrific violence seem only to be getting worse, it’s important to have a reminder of what music, and art, can help us do.
Steffani Jemison: Promise Machine
When: Thursday, June 25–Sunday, June 28 (check site for details)
Where: The Museum of Modern Art (11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan)
This is one of those performances where I’m not quite sure what to expect, but I feel pretty certain that it’ll be good. For this commission, artist Steffani Jemison began with a book club centered on the idea of utopia, inspired by the Utopia Neighborhood Club, “a Harlem-based women’s social service organization that directly supported Jacob Lawrence,” according to the event description. She then went on to compose an original libretto and score with Courtney Bryan, which will be performed as a processional through some of the MoMA galleries, ending in the current Jacob Lawrence exhibition (and addressing some of the works there).
Art as Activism: Political Posters
When: Opens Friday, June 26
Where: New-York Historical Society (170 Central Park West, Upper West Side, Manhattan)
Art as Activism is an exhibition of political posters drawn from the collection of Merrill C. Berman. Covering events from the Great Depression to the Vietnam War, the exhibition includes posters by both anonymous and renowned artists (Hugo Gellert, Emory Douglas, and James Rosenquist to name a few). Selected highlights include John Louis Engdahl’s covers for the Labor Defender, Emory Douglas’s “All Power To The People” (1969), and Jay Belloli’s “Amerika is Devouring its Children” (1970). —Tiernan Morgan
Ciao Medardo Rosso!
When: Friday, June 26 and Saturday, June 27, 11am–8pm (free)
Where: Center for Italian Modern Art (421 Broome Street, 4th floor, SoHo, Manhattan)
To mark the final days of its Medardo Rosso presentation — which features a trove of works on loan from the Italian modernist’s namesake museum in Barzio, Italy, punctuated by a pair of complementary Cy Twombly pieces — the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) is holding a two-day open house that will feature visits of the exhibition guided by CIMA Fellows (3–4pm Friday and Saturday), a jazz concert (6:30pm Friday), and, for the early risers, free espresso (11am–noon Saturday). The exhibition itself pairs a selection of the sculptures for which Rosso is best known with rarely exhibited experimental photographs and drawings. —Benjamin Sutton
Voodoo: A Harlem Renaissance Opera
When: Friday, June 26, and Saturday, June 27, 7pm
Where: Miller Theatre at Columbia University (2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan)
Harry Lawrence Freeman’s Voodoo was the first opera by an African-American composer to be shown on Broadway. That was in 1928, and this week at the Miller Theatre will be the first time it has been performed since. The opera follows a love triangle between three former slaves, one of whom practices voodoo and magic. Freeman, who was inspired by Wagner, American folk, and jazz, here blends classical music with songs like the “Cake-Walk” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” To learn more about Freeman and the context he was working in, Columbia University will be hosting a two-day conference on African-American performance art, featuring a talk with the opera’s performers and an exhibition of Freeman’s compositions and papers, which the university’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library owns. The recording and score of this weekend’s performances will also be made available via Columbia University Libraries. —Elisa Wouk Almino
Stay in New York
When: Saturday, June 27, 12—5:30pm (RSVP)
Where: Queens Museum (New York City Building, Flushing Meadows/Corona Park, Queens)
A collaboration between Art F City and the Queens Museum, Stay in New York is a conference dedicated to the issue of affordable workspace for artists. Issues with your landlord? Questions about renting and purchasing? What to know more about your rights? This is the conference for you. Visitors will also have ample opportunity to meet with fellow artists, realtors, and lawyers. Confirmed panel speakers include Chloë Bass, Deborah Brown, Stephanie Diamond, Jenny Dubnau, and William Powhida. Art F City’s Paddy Johnson will join Thomas Angotti, professor of urban affairs and planning at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, for a keynote Q&A. —Tiernan Morgan
Shadow Puppet Sisters
When: Through July 5
Where: 3LD Art & Technology Center (80 Greenwich Street, Lower Manhattan)
With just four projectors, the Chicago-based Manual Cinema beautifully builds a story of sisters who tend to a lighthouse and are torn apart by death. Shadow puppets, transparencies, live actors, and musicians animate Ada/Ava, first performed in 2010 in a Chicago apartment window and now brought to New York as a coproduction of the Tank and 3-Legged Dog. Be sure to stay after and the performers will reveal how it all works, letting you try out the shadow theater. —Allison Meier
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With contributions by Elisa Wouk Almino, Allison Meier, Tiernan Morgan, Benjamin Sutton, and Hrag Vartanian
