ArtRx NYC
This week, check out a radical Twilight Zone remix, experience a "House of Flying Boobs," listen to all of Moby-Dick read out loud, and more.
This week, check out a radical Twilight Zone remix, experience a “House of Flying Boobs,” listen to all of Moby-Dick read out loud, and more.
A Twilight Zone Thing
When: Opens Tuesday, November 10
Where: Recess (41 Grand Street, SoHo, Manhattan)
As part of Recess’s Session program, Sondra Perry will begin work on My Twilight Zone Thing, turning the gallery into a video production lab. Using Rod Serling’s original Twilight Zone scripts as a jumping-off point for interrogating constructions of identity and exploring how science fiction can dismantle whiteness, Perry has brought together 20 participants of color to reimagine Serling’s introductions to all 156 episodes of the series. Daily footage will be screened in the storefront windows. The final product will be a five-channel video installation on view in early December. —GSV
Unorthodox Thoughts on Art History
When: Thursday, November 12, 6:30–8pm ($15)
Where: Jewish Museum (1109 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)
Art historians Claire Bishop and Joshua Decter are both fascinating figures writing and thinking about art. This panel features two people who are highly critical of art-world orthodoxies and challenge the boundaries between various categories. The Jewish Museum’s newly opening Unorthodox exhibition seems perfectly suited for these two. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say. —HV
Life in a Suburban Bomb Shelter
When: Thursday, November 12, 10pm ($5)
Where: Spectacle (124 South 3rd Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
I’ll be honest. I haven’t seen Shelf Life (1993), but then Spectacle isn’t a place you go to see films you know — it’s where you go to discover bizarre oddities and forgotten gems. Shelf Life is set in 1963. Having learned of President Kennedy’s assassination, a mother and father seal their children in a bomb shelter. Thirty years later, the kids are still there … Following its hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, Spectacle will close for renovations at the end of the week. Check out the space and its offerings while you can. —TM
House of Flying Boobs
When: Thursday, November 12, 7:30pm ($15 advance/$20 at door)
Where: Nuyorican Poets Cafe (236 East 3rd Street, East Village, Manhattan)
Curated by Xin Wang, this two-part (1, 2) cabaret of collaborative projects mines “’breasts’ from the classical opera repertoire, choregraphs the Greek debt and humanitarian crisis, ‘gets to the bottom’ with established male artists, and strips bare — literally — layers of misogyny in daily and professional life.” Expect young artists, hybrid performances, and work that directly engages with the audience. —HV
One-Night, One-Woman Band
When: Friday, November 13, 7pm ($12)
Where: New Museum (235 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan)
Performance artist Sacha Yanow is forming a one-night-only band in homage to her father. The performance is part of the Temporary Arrangements series organized by Wynne Greenwood, who’s known for her feminist one-woman band, Tracy + the Plastics, and is currently in residence at the New Museum. For “Dad Band,” Yanow will lip-synch along to her father’s favorite songs by the Beatles, Roy Orbison, and more. The performance is an effort to be close to and better understand her father and all that he represents (i.e. the patriarchy), and an investigation of the larger structures that define fatherhood. —VR
Moby-Dick Marathon
When: Friday, November 13, 11am–10pm, & Saturday, November 14, 11am–finish (free with museum admission)
Where: Whitney Museum of American Art (99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan)
You may or may not know that Moby-Dick Marathon has become an honored NYC lit tradition over the past few years, but it has. This year the weekend-long reading of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick; or, The Whale — timed to coincide with the publication anniversary of the book — will drop anchor at the Whitney Museum, where writers like Saeed Jones, Porochista Khakpour, and Cathy Park Hong, artists like AK Burns and Lucky DeBellevue, and many others will read the epic novel out loud in its entirety. As the intricate language washes over you, contemplate works from Frank Stella’s series inspired by the book, a 12-year project that involved the creation of one piece for each chapter.
Hyperallergic Goes to the Met
When: Friday, November 13, 6–7:30pm
Where: Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)
Hyperallergic, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is proud to present “In Our Time: Reimagining Borders with Shumon Basar,” the second in a series of talks that launched in October with architect Liam Young. Curator, critic, and writer Shumon Basar will speak about The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present, a book he co-authored with novelist Douglas Coupland and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. Basar will discuss our current reality as it’s been affected by radical changes in technology, the environment, and human migration. Joining him will be architect Keller Easterling and writer Kari Rittenbach, and all three will sit down for a conversation with Hyperallergic’s editor-in-chief, Hrag Vartanian. —GSV
Creative Time Summit
When: Saturday, November 14–Sunday, November 15m (ticket prices vary)
Where: Boys and Girls High School Campus (1700 Fulton Street, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn)
Recently at the Whitney Museum, I overheard a woman refer to Archibald Motley’s “The First Hundred Years,” an allegory of slavery in the US, as a “scary Halloween painting.” Talking to her approximately 10-year-old son, the woman was flippantly sidestepping a potential — and important — discussion about race and effectively whitewashing their experience of the work. It’s welcome news, then, that education is the theme of this year’s Creative Time Summit. The Curriculum NYC will explore issues such as educational policies, student debt, curricular omissions, the resegregation of public schools, and alternative educational opportunities such as socially aware art, à la Motley. The keynote speakers are well known for their involvement in civil rights advocacy: investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and performer/activist Boots Riley. See here for a full schedule of events. —VR
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With contributions by Tiernan Morgan, Victoria Reis, Gabriella Santiago-Vancak, and Hrag Vartanian
