ArtRx NYC
This week, an art-filled block party, dance outdoors, a 24-hour museum party, and your last chance to see Basquiat's notebooks.
This week feels like a true celebration of summer, with an art-filled block party, dance outdoors, and a 24-hour museum party. And don’t forget to stop by the Brooklyn Museum — it’s your last chance to see Basquiat’s notebooks before they’re gone.
Justine Kurland & John Yau
When: Tuesday, August 18, 6–8pm
Where: Dashwood Books (33 Bond Street, Noho, Manhattan)
For this book, photographer Justine Kurland and poet (and Hyperallergic Weekend editor) John Yau shared photographs and poems, sending material back and forth, the two continually reacting to each other’s work. Between Kurland’s compelling photographs and Yau’s evocative writing, it should be a collaboration worth spending time with.
How to Blog About Art
When: Tuesday, August 18, 6:30–8:30pm (non-members $15)
Where: citizenM Hotel (218 West 50th Street, Times Square, Manhattan)
Tonight, I’ll be giving a short talk with the Professional Organization for Women in the Arts about art writing online and Hyperallergic and how I do what I do. The event will be very informal — a chance to discuss everything from pitching stories to the big picture of digital journalism, all with a happy hour in a rooftop bar. Come say hello!
An Alt Mode of Dance
When: Wednesday, August 19, 8–10pm (doors at 7pm)
Where: SummerStage (Rumsey Playfield, near Fifth Avenue & East 72nd Street, Central Park, Manhattan)
This performance questions being a woman on stage and how to create alternate gender identities through dance — as well as live electronic music, video mapping, and interactive media and set design. Alt Mode is a body of musical works directed and choreographed by Kate Watson-Wallace and composed and designed by RYAT. In the piece, the artists explore how they wear their identities, working with themes of doubleness, drag, the other, pleasure, and melancholy. DJ King Britt and ARCH Dance Company will also perform works centered on similar ideas. —Carolina Drake
Interactive Art
When: Thursday, August 20, 5–8pm
Where: Queens Museum (New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens)
Six Taiwanese artists with backgrounds in visual arts, music, and dance will set up stations indoors and out, inviting the audience to interact through various languages of art. There will be improvisational dance, collaborative portraits, a thriller video game, a video projection on a cut faux fur “painting,” and more. —CD
24-Hour Party Film
When: Thursday, August 20, 6pm–Friday, August 21 ($25/free for members)
Where: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1071 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)
In 2005, Agathe Snow planned and filmed a dance party with friends and artists in Lower Manhattan. She’s now turned the footage into a 24-hour film which explores social interactions and the redemptive power of community. As part of the exhibition Storylines, Snow’s Stamina (2015) will be premiering at Guggenheim, and the 24-hour screening will be supported by live music from Donald Cumming, QTY, TV Baby, and more. Stamina, which was filmed with nine cameras, reveals offers a window of insight into New York’s underground culture after 9/11. —Cihan Küçük
LIC Block Party
When: Saturday, August 22, 12–5pm
Where: SculptureCenter (44–19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens)
SculptureCenter’s block party offers a day full of art, entertainment, and fun in the heart of Long Island City. The event will feature, among other things, artist-led activist booths, nail art, an affordable art market, and performances by Eli Keszler, who’s turned the institution’s basement into one big percussion instrument. —CK
Anxiously Attached
When: Saturday, August 23, 5–8pm
Where: Essex Flowers (365 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan)
The idea of painting as a kind of performance goes back at least as far as Jackson Pollock’s theatrical dripping, but the artists performing in “Anxiously Attached” will undermine the myth of the autonomous artwork created through a ritualized process. The evening’s pieces will include a musical performance by Laura Miller and Daniella di Donato, Jamian Juliano-Villani and Brian Belott reading a text by Joshua Abelow, and a special edition of the semi-monthly art magazine Packet Biweekly. —Benjamin Sutton
Last Chance: Basquiat’s Unknown Notebooks
When: Closes Sunday, August 23
Where: Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn)
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work has become so iconic, so endlessly reproduced, that’s it’s incredibly difficult to assess with fresh eyes. There’s little doubt that Basquiat wanted to be famous (his text-laden canvases frequently refer to celebrity), and once he was discovered, a cadre of collectors and dealers propelled him to superstardom as fast as they could. Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks is both compelling and frustrating — it captures the impact of fame on the artist’s practice, but it also capitulates to the fetishization of his celebrity (his Brooklyn Museum membership card is displayed in a perspex case at the exhibition’s entrance). When and why, for instance, were the pages of his notebooks separated and individually framed? Did Basquiat ever suspect that his work would be treated this way? (By contrast, the mistakes in his text pieces seem artfully arranged.) The Unknown Notebooks might transform your take on the artist, but it will also raise many more questions than it answers. —Tiernan Morgan
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With contributions by Carolina Drake, Cihan Küçük, Tiernan Morgan, and Benjamin Sutton
