Each week, we seek out the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings and events, both digital and in-person, in the New York area. Discover our selections from around the world below. (Times are all ET unless otherwise noted.)
From Tuesday 18 January to Sunday 27 March
Max Colby, They are consumed (2018-2021), supported in part by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and a YoungARTS Micro-Grant. Photo courtesy of the Artistic Production Fund.
1. “Art in Focus: Max Colby” at Rockefeller Center, New York
Max Colby, known for her ornate works exploring craftsmanship and themes of domesticity and gender, kicks off the Art Production Fund’s 2022 exhibitions at Rockefeller Center. Three mirrored display cases in the lobby of 45 Rockefeller Plaza will feature 27 beaded and embroidered sculptures from the “They Consume Each Other” series on custom glass pedestals. The campus-wide display will also include a 125-foot mural recreating 18th- and 19th-century Crewel embroidery work. “Popular in Colonial America and Elizabethan and Victorian England, the ‘crewel’ style is known for its pastoral floral imagery, linking ‘natural history’ to gendered work and aesthetics,” a Colby said in a statement.
Site: Rockefeller Center, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 45 Rockefeller Plaza and 50 Rockefeller Plaza
Price: To free
Time: Visible every day at any time
—Sarah Cascone
From Tuesday 18 January to Sunday 6 March
Sadie Barnette, The New Eagle Creek Lounge. Photo courtesy of the artist.
2.”Sadie Barnette: The New Eagle Creek Saloon” in the kitchen
The Kitchen partners with the Studio Museum in Harlem for the first East Coast presentation of Sadie Barnette’s The New Eagle Creek Lounge, an installation reimagining San Francisco’s first black-owned gay bar. The artist’s father, Rodney Barnette, who founded the Compton chapter of the Black Panther Party, ran the bar between 1990 and 1993, providing a marginalized multiracial queer community with a safe space to call their own.
Site: The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, New York
Price: To free
Time: Tuesday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
From Tuesday 18 January to Sunday 24 April
“Hugh Hayden: Brier Patch” at Madison Square Park. Photo by Yasunori Matsui for the Madison Square Park Conservancy.
3.”Hugh Hayden: Brier Crestat Madison Square Park, New York
Hugh Hayden transformed four Madison Square Park lawns into surreal classrooms, building 100 wooden elementary school desks topped with tangles of tree branches. The show’s title refers to the brier patch in the fictional Br’er Rabbit stories, where the title character tricks a fox into throwing it into a thicket of stinging bushes, allowing it to escape. Hayden’s message is about disparities within the education system, which is supposed to nurture and support students but can become a dangerous place for some children.
Site: Madison Square Park, between Broadway and Madison Avenue and East 23 Street and East 26 Street, New York
Price: To free
Time: Visible every day at any time
—Sarah Cascone
From Thursday 20 January to Saturday 5 March
Kelsey Shwetz, Untitled (2021). Courtesy of Dinner Gallery.
4. “Fertile Plains” at Dinner Gallery, New York
What does it mean to be a landscaper in the world of climatic disasters? This exhibition brings together three contemporary painters – Madeleine Bialke, Saskia Fleishman and Kelsey Shwetz – who have dedicated themselves to redefining the genre. Each artist brings their own strange and sometimes disturbing sensibilities to their paintings, from fluorescent paintings to shifting skylines. In many world mythologies, women have been symbolically linked to the land, and here these painters embrace the heritage of ancient goddesses, with a vision of lands filled with hidden meanings that they try to communicate.
Site: dinner gallery, 242 West 22nd Street, New York
Price: To free
Time: Opening on Thursday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and by appointment
—Katie White
From Thursday 20 January to Saturday 19 March
Lance de los Reyes, Untitled. Courtesy of Vito Schnabel Gallery.
5.”Spear of Los Reyes” at the Vito Schnabel Gallery, New York
Artist Lance de los Reyes died last year at the age of 44. Best known for his street art, De Los Reyes also left behind a complex oeuvre of paintings and drawings exploring motifs related to mysticism, the divine and parallel universes through a complex lexicon of symbols. (He was also a longtime friend of dealer Vito Schnabel.) This exhibition brings together many of De Los Reyes’ visions, which synthesized styles from street art, medieval manuscript illumination, and surrealism.
Site: Vito Schnabel Gallery, 455 West 19th Street, New York
Price: To free
Time: Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
—Katie White
Until Saturday 22 January
Larissa de Jesus, Silent noise (2021). Courtesy of the artist.
6. “Larissa De Jesús, Moises Salazar and Olivier Souffrant: DM me” at Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York
It’s the last week to catch “DM me,” the three-person group show of up-and-coming stars Larissa De Jesus, Moises Salazar and Olivier Suffrant. Each artist’s personal style is a nod to their background and community. The works depict their personal ideas about luxury – freedoms that may have been denied to their ancestors. Although their three styles are so disparate, they add up to a fantastic and empowering show.
Site: Kravets Wehby Gallery, 521 West 21st Street, New York
Price: To free
Time: Tuesday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
—Neha Jambhekar
Julie Green, Thank God I’m home, said Marcel Brown (circa 2019). Courtesy of Elizabeth Houston Gallery, New York.
7. “Julie Green: At Home with the Family” at the Elizabeth Houston Gallery, New York
Artist Julie Green died in October by physician-assisted suicide following treatment for ovarian cancer. For decades, she had made paintings of the last meals of death row inmates on plates, hoping to continue the series until the death penalty was abolished in the United States 20 years ago. Instead, she quit “The Last Supper” when it hit 1,000 plates in September. While a selection of 800 of these works takes center stage at the Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Wash., through June 5, a companion series, “Who Did You Eat With?” What did you have ? is currently playing here in New York. It features acrylic paintings on Tyvek depicting the first meals eaten by wrongfully convicted people after their release from prison. Elizabeth Houston Gallery presents 13 of the 30 works in the series that the artist has produced over the past three years.
Site: Elizabeth Houston Gallery, 190 Orchard Street, New York
Price: To free
Time: Wednesday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Until Saturday 29 January
Aliza Sternstein, Choose to move like water (2021). Courtesy of Olympia.
8. “Aliza Sternstein: Don’t Move the Stones” at Olympia, New York
Brooklyn-based abstract painter Aliza Sternstein’s solo solo at Olympia presents a series of canvases with freely painted shapes such as hearts and flowers. The canvases are worked with layers of gesso that make them so absorbent that they retain every fingerprint and erasure as they are created, filling the works with a vivid and energetic feel.
Site: Olympia, 41 Orchard Street, New York
Price: To free
Time: Thursday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
—Neha Jambhekar`
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