ArtRx NYC
This week, try a lecture by critic Hilton Als, a reading of a early-20th-century Egyptian drama, artist Rashaad Newsome's next art ball, and the beloved NY Art Book Fair's 10th edition.
As we head into fall, we’re here to help you make sense of the overload of events and exhibitions that are happening. This week, try a lecture by critic Hilton Als (featuring unpublished material on Diane Arbus), a reading of a early-20th-century Egyptian drama, artist Rashaad Newsome’s next art ball, and the beloved NY Art Book Fair’s 10th edition (with Hyperallergic as media partner).
Hilton Als Tells Us All About Arbus
When: Tuesday, September 15, 7pm ($25/Members $20)
Where: New Museum (235 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan)
Though best known as The New Yorker‘s chief theater critic of 13 years, Hilton Als will devote this lecture — the seventh in the New Museum’s annual “Visionaries Series,” whose past speakers have included Alice Waters, Bill T. Jones, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales — to reading from a new and (as yet) unpublished essay on Diane Arbus. The essay focuses specifically on Arbus’s relationship to New York City, not only in terms of the denizens who populate her photographs but also her own upper-class background. —Benjamin Sutton
Clouded Glass
When: Opens Wednesday, September 16, 6–8pm
Where: UrbanGlass (647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn)
In this exhibition curated by Hyperallergic contributor Sarah Archer, Helen Lee explores identity and language through glass. The artworks “are the physical manifestations of Lee’s attempt to make tangible the dual experiences that have shaped her world: dead and living, Chinese and American, Mandarin and English,” and include a glass book featuring transcriptions of Lee’s friends’ dreams about her and a multimedia work that incorporates a heliograph from 1943.
Waking Up Inside a Cave
When: Wednesday, September 16, 7–8:30pm ($5/Members free)
Where: Triple Canopy (155 Freeman Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn)
Written by Tawfiq al-Hakim in 1933, The People of the Cave is a play that tells the story of three men and a dog who fall asleep in a cave while escaping a tyrant. They wake up 300 years later and face, naturally, an entirely transformed world. A momentous work of Egyptian drama, the play is the focus of writer and editor Anna Della Subin’s forthcoming ebook, Not Dead but Sleeping, originally a long essay commissioned by Triple Canopy in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Subin will introduce the play, while other notable writers and editors will slip into the roles of the characters. —Claire Voon
Poetry in Madison Square Park
When: Thursday, September 17, 6–7:30pm
Where: Madison Square Park (Flatiron District, Manhattan)
For Mad. Sq. Art’s latest project, artist Teresita Fernandez has installed 500 feet of golden, mirrored discs above the pathways in Madison Square Park. That’s selfie–baiting public art if ever I’ve seen it, but this week it will be transformed into something a little more substantial. To coincide with National Hispanic Heritage Month, Fernandez and poet Emanuel Xavier have assembled a lineup of spoken-word poets who will perform work that “situates a broad range of Latino experience and literary production within the context of contemporary American poetry.”
Playing with Design
When: Friday, September 18, 9:30am–5pm (RSVP required)
Where: Bard Graduate Center (38 West 86th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan)
To accompany an exhibit on the history of Swedish wooden toys, this symposium invites historians and critics to discuss the imaginative designs of toys and their role in children’s lives since the 18th century. From wood to plastic, handmade to mass-produced, and physical to digital, these playthings will be used as lenses onto the cultural histories of European and American societies. —Elisa Wouk Almino
A ‘Rite of Spring’ Dance Party
When: Saturday, September 19, 8pm ($20)
Where: Brooklyn Masonic Temple (317 Clermont Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn)
Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring famously sparked a riot when it premiered in 1913, partly fueled by the unconventional dance choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, with its aggressive stomping movement. This Saturday, Groupmuse is encouraging its audience to participate in a dance party as a tribute to that rowdy debut. James Blachly will conduct the 85-member Experiential Orchestra in the atmospheric Masonic Temple in Fort Greene. Groupmuse has been staging small-scale chamber concerts in living rooms and even recently the mausoleums of a Brooklyn cemetery, building a young audience for emerging classical music performers. As a bonus, all proceeds from Saturday go to Musicambia, which supports music schools in prisons. — Allison Meier
King of the Art Ball
When: Sunday, September 20, 6–11pm
Where: Livestream Public (195 Morgan Avenue, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
Rashaad Newsome’s third King of Arms Art Ball will bring an especially art-filled and Black Lives Matter–themed approach to his eye-popping fashion, dance, and rap contests. Participants are prompted to create costumes influenced by the art of Nick Cave and El Anatsui, don hairstyles inspired by the work of Lorna Simpson and the Bronner Brothers, and, in the “Sex Siren” category for lingerie and bikinis, write messages on their bodies responding to recent acts of police brutality against black Americans. —BS
Everyone’s Favorite Art Book Fair
When: Thursday, September 17, 6–9pm (preview); Friday, September 18–Sunday, September 20 (check site for open hours)
Where: MoMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens)
It may be the world’s largest celebration of art books and zines: Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair is taking place this weekend in Long Island City, Queens. Come one, come all to the event that welcomes nearly 300 exhibitors from 20 countries and has been attended by over 27,000 people over the course of three and a half days.
Look out for the limited-edition Hyperallergic Review of Art Book and Zines, which will be released with a special poster designed by AA Bronson on Thursday night, and then keep your eyes peeled for the next edition, to be released on Saturday with more reviews, interviews, excerpts, and other fantastic material to make your visit easier to navigate. —Hrag Vartanian
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With contributions by Elisa Wouk Almino, Allison Meier, Benjamin Sutton, Hrag Vartanian, and Claire Voon
