Everywhere we look, we see a world of happenings shouting This Week Is For You, You’re Welcome!
Bianca Bosker talks about our favorite book of the year so far at the New York Society Library on Monday. (Actually it’s tied with Tricia Romano’s The Freaks Came Out to Write.) Giorno Poetry Systems invites us to have a drink, buy records, and make friends at 222 Tuesdays at GPS, home of our favorite late poet/artist John Giorno. The MoMA says, “it sounds like you could use an artistic guide to help you through the very fraught present moment” with a show of work from Käthe Kollwitz opening Thursday for members and Sunday for the public.
Are we bubbled? Are we cocooned? Are we merely seeing what we want to see, or perhaps glimpsing something of the Truth? You be the judge of that. (Although really, why judge at all?) Either way, see you out there this week.
This week’s Most Likely to Succeed events:
🆓 = costs $0, 🎨 = art, 🎼 = music, 🎬 = film, 📚= books, 🌳 = nature, 🎭 = performance, 🧠 = extra smart people, 🍸 = drinks available, 🦩 = party/friendly vibe
🔑 Click the venue link under each listing for full event details.
Monday, March 25
Bianca Bosker talks Get the Picture at the New York Society Library
Tonight, Bianca Bosker talks about her incredible, A+, perfectly reported piece of Gonzo journalism, Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See, at New York’s incredible, A+, oldest cultural institution: the New York Society Library.
The book is an exploration into why art matters and how any of us might engage with it more directly. That exploration took Bosker to places both dicey and divine—becoming a gallery assistant to a prototypically Art World Mean emerging dealer to an assistant gallery director to Friends of the List Denny Dimin Gallery (RIP), then a studio assistant to Julie Curtiss and a security guard at the Guggenheim where her aesthetic love affair with a Brâncuși sculpture results in some of the best pages in the book. And so much more. Bosker reported the hell outta this book on art and the art world, and we can’t wait to hear her talk about it tonight.
Tickets to the IRL and livestream versions of the event are still available at the time of publication.
New York Society Library, Upper East Side and virtual
Mon at 6p 📚🎨
Tuesday, March 26
222 Tuesdays at Giorno Poetry Systems
Each Tuesday from 4-7p, the people at GPS invite you to hang out in the loft that used to be the home and studio of one of our favorite artists/poets of all time, John Giorno.
From GPS: “The historical loft at 222 Bowery is full of books and records and eccentric personality. It's meant to be a place for people and conversation. Come by on Tuesdays, have a drink, listen to music, buy some records, browse the books, see the Burroughs bedroom, and learn about past and future GPS events and projects.”
Giorno Poetry Systems is one of the city’s best art and community hubs. And we’ll be there this week, so stop by and say hello.
Giorno Poetry Systems at 222 Bowery, Bowery
Tues from 4-7p 🆓 📚🎨 🍸🦩
Pipilotti’s Salon Series for Gathering: Ecology of Care Lounge
For three nights this week, Hauser & Wirth and Pipilotti Rist present the Ecology of Care Lounge inside Rist’s extraordinary exhibition, Prickling Goosebumps & A Humming Horizon, and featuring artists David Thomson and Kate Watson-Wallace.
From the organizers: “Within the multi-sensory experience that is Rist’s immersive exhibition, the Salon Series for Gathering will present multiple opportunities to engage within the installation’s whimsical ‘collective living room.’ Using organic structures as metaphors to reimagine how we operate, Ecology of Care invites participants to activate their senses through a series of exploratory prompts, writings and conversations around individual and collective care.”
Thomson and Watson-Wallace will talk each night at 7p about something dear to us: unearthing and shifting away from the profoundly boring addiction of workaholism. Should slap hard if you’ve also been thinking about Psychopolitics and the dumb ways we enslave our own damn selves through work and whatever we mean by optimization.
Hauser & Wirth on 22nd St, Chelsea
Tues from 6-8p 🆓 🎨 (also on Wed and Thurs, same time)
Wednesday, March 27
Patrick Bringley chats All the Beauty in the World at the Salmagundi Club
Speaking of talks about books on art in beautiful spaces: Patrick Bringley discusses his memoir, All the Beauty in the World: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, at the old Salmagundi Club mansion with historian and podcaster Carl Raymond.
Bringley spent a decade as a museum guard at the Met, after leaving his job at The New Yorker, with the hunch that being surrounded by over 2 million square feet of art might help alleviate the grief of his brother’s fatal cancer diagnosis. This story is so cinematic and beautiful, another vote of confidence in our world view that art, like friends and fun, is necessary to become a fully realized person living a life that’s worth it.
Salmagundi Club, Union Square
Wed at 6:30p 🆓 📚🎨
Jasper Marsalis: Artist Studio at the Park Ave Armory
Jasper Marsalis, son of jazz legend Wynton Marsalis, performs a set in and inspired by the Park Avenue Armory’s Veterans Room. The young Marsalis “explores the intersections of popular music and avant-garde performance by working across painting, sculpture, sound, and text.” Tonight and tomorrow, he performs a set that layers “dissonant sounds on top of one another to create a dense and dizzying suite of sonic collages that invite close listening.”
Park Avenue Armory, Upper East Side
Wed at 7:30p 🎭 🎨 🎼 (also Thurs, same time)
Thursday, March 28
Käthe Kollwitz Member Preview opens MoMA
Put your MoMA membership to good use and catch this big show before the floodgates open. (Or see it on Sunday from 10:30a-5:30p when it opens to the public; the show runs through July 30, btw.) Known best as a printmaker, this show presents “120 rarely seen examples of [Kollwitz’s] drawings, prints, and sculptures drawn from public and private collections in the US and Europe.”
“The exhibition will trace the development of Kollwitz’s work from the 1890s through the 1930s, a period of unprecedented turmoil in German history marked by the social ills of industrialization in the late 19th century and the traumas of war and political upheaval in the early 20th century. Crucial examples of the artist’s most important projects will showcase her commitment to socially critical subject matter.”
Sorry to project, but we think this show could really help us, and perhaps, Society? This present feels a little wobbly, but then again: Kollwitz lived through disruptive moments of industrialization, political rockiness, and war, so her work reflects a thing or two about societal and cultural wobbliness that rhymes with today. And, we hope, the show will give us tips for how to approach the current moment with our eye on the things that matter most: humans, art, connection, and not being evil.
MoMA, Midtown
Thurs from 10:30a-5:30p 🎨
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone book club with the Frick
Ooh baby, one of our favorite recent(ish) books is Olivia Laing’s wonderful The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone, first published in the US in 2016. The Frick’s virtual book club will talk about it from 4-5p today. Attendance is free, just be sure to RSVP.
The Frick, virtual
Thurs from 4-5p 🆓 📚
RENDEZVOUS IN DOCTRINELAND opening reception at Ulrik
Ulrik is right atop our list of “Important Emerging i.e. Not Blue Chip Galleries” in New York right now. Not a hot take, of course—Ulrik’s recent show Bettina: New York 1965-86 was reviewed and adored by all our favorite critics, and everyone likes the shows they put on.
Tonight, Belgian artist Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven presents “a mix of old and new works, together with theories and lists which should be read as accumulated testimonies of a private worldview that is mine.” The opening runs from 6-8p, with a reading from the artist (or perhaps someone reading her writing?) kicking off at 8p.
Ulrik, Chinatown
Thurs from 6-8p 🆓 🎨
The Garden of Forking Paths group show opens at Deli
Speaking of “Important Emerging i.e. Not Blue Chip Galleries” and non-hot takes, Deli is another one of those galleries to watch whose shows we’re always excited to see. Tonight, catch a group show presented with Calderón featuring a dozen artists. It’ll be a scene.
Deli Gallery, Tribeca
Thurs from 6-8p 🆓 🎨
The Castello Plan: Reimagining Life in 1660 New Amsterdam talk presented by the New York Historical Society
In collaboration with the newly opened installation on The Castello Plan, a map from 1660 that precisely surveyed the Dutch colonial city that would soon become New York, the New York Historical Society presents an illustrated lecture by historian James Nevius (“whose tenth great-grandparents' home is clearly marked on the map,” cute!) You can see the actual map at the NYHS through July 14.
New York Historical Society, virtual
Thurs from 6-7p 🧠
Meditation in darkness at Giorno Poetry Systems
John Giorno’s current (REALLY GOOD) show at Kurimanzutto Gallery grounds the artist/poet’s work in his Buddhist practice. That practice continues to inform much of the programming at Giorno Poetry Systems, the late poet’s nonprofit arts and community organization at 222 Bowery that you know we’re obsessed with.
Tonight, the great painter Leidy Churchman asks their teacher, the Tibetan Buddhist Lama Justin Von Bujdoss, to lead a meditation session in the Dzogchen tradition “to spend extended periods of time in complete darkness….This can sometimes lead to spontaneous visions and near-hallucinogenic experiences, and ultimately to clarity and balance.” We’ll try anything once, and often a few times.
Giorno Poetry Systems, Bowery
Thurs, 6:30p doors, 7p event 🎨 🦩
SALLY & TOM opens at the Public Theater
Sheesh, what a Thursday. Tonight, a new show from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks opens at the Public. In a sorta Cole Escola Oh, Mary! gesture, “the off-off-off-Broadway theater troupe Good Company is putting on a play about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. Writer Luce is cast as Sally; her romantic partner, and the play’s director, Mike, is cast as Tom—really, people, what could possibly go wrong?”
Btw, Oh, Mary! was just extended through May 12 and you really should catch it live.
The Public, East Village
Thurs at 7p 🎭 (runs through May 5)
Other art show openings, briefly noted
Josef Koudelka’s Industry opens at Pace (Chelsea), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Young Sook Park’s 우리집 거실 (“My Living Room”) opening reception at Salon 94 (Upper East Side), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Friday, March 29
RELEVANT TONES LIVE: on Studs Terkel’s WORKING
Studs Terkel’s Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do turns 50. Access Contemporary Music “celebrates this landmark with a unique evening of new music inspired by Studs alongside a fascinating conversation about how work has changed since his time and where it might be going next.”
Symphony Space, Upper West Side
Fri at 7:30p 🧠 🎼 🎭
Saturday, March 30
Last day to see Tu Hongtao: Beyond Babel at Lévy Gorvy Dayan
If you like really big paintings and lots of color, this show is for you. You have one last day to see the New York debut of Tu Hongtao’s stunning solo show in one of the prettiest buildings on the Upper East Side. Be sure to spend time in the little media room on the first floor for a peek behind the scenes of the work—from sketches and early drafts to videos of the artist explaining his process.
Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Upper East Side
Sat from 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Contribute to the upcoming installation, Exit Strategy
Exit Strategy is “a site specific installation in Green-Wood’s Fort Hamilton Gatehouse that interrogates the complex relationship between grief and personal identity, creating an immersive environment that meditates on how we attach ourselves to memories and physical objects, and the possibilities for letting them go. The installation will incorporate content contributed by members of the Green-Wood community, like you.” Today, swing by and drop off stuff if you want your beautiful junk to be transformed into art. The show opens June 1.
Greenwood Cemetery, Greenwood Heights
Sat from 11a-3p
HOLY SATURDAY
The Kitchen partners with the General Theological Seminary to present HOLY SATURDAY, a day-long, multi-event performance liturgy created by Neal Medlyn in collaboration with Gillian Walsh and others. Read more here if you’re interested.
The General Theological Seminary, Chelsea
Sat from 2-9p 🆓
In Response: Pam Tanowitz on No One Thing. David Smith, Late Sculptures at Hauser & Wirth
Hauser & Wirth has always been solid on programming, and we’re glad they’re ramping up their In Response series which taps an artist to create a work in response to one of the shows up at one of H&W’s many locations. Today, the choreographer Pam Tanowitz and a trio of dancers will perform in and around the incredible show of the late David Smith’s sculpture works.
Hauser & Wirth 22nd St, Chelsea
Sat from 3-5p 🆓 (with RSVP) 🎨
Jean Jullien’s Lolo opening reception at Hashimoto
When you’re in the city, watching rats eat cigarette butts and pigeons peck at chicken wings on a crowded subway platform, do you ever long for the serenity of the country? And when you finally get to the country, don’t you just want to run back to the city where there are art shows and parties and things going on? This is the paradox that the French painter Jean Jullien tackles in Lolo, his first solo show at Hashimoto, opening tonight. The artist will be there! Be sure to say bonsoir.
Hashimoto Contemporary, Lower East Side
Sat from 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Sunday, March 31
Last day to see Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines at the Brooklyn Museum
Who doesn’t love a good zine. Today’s your last day to see this show at the Brooklyn Museum. (Pop by the Botanic Gardens next door to catch some cherry blossoms while you’re out.)
The Brooklyn Museum, Crown/Prospect Heights
Sun from 11a-6p 🎨
BYOBook: A Quiet Reading Party at the Center for Fiction
This is adorable: if you’re an introvert weirdo (HI, INTROVERT WEIRDOS), you can head to the Center for Fiction, grab a drink, and read quietly with other people from 6-7:15p. You’re welcome to stick around to chat with other introvert weirdos to talk about what you just read after the allotted silent reading time.
Center for Fiction, Fort Greene
Sun from 6-7:15p 📚 🍸
Heavy Traffic Reading featuring Natasha Stagg, Chris Kraus, and others at Earth
Heavy Traffic is an alt-lit magazine for short-form fiction. Volume 4 dropped recently, featuring work from some of our favorite current writers like Kyle Chayka and Natasha Stagg. Tonight, a handful of great contributors will read their work at the opening night of Earth, which is a venue, or maybe an art gallery, or maybe just an instagram account with a broken home link? Either way, it’s at 49 Orchard Street.
Earth, Lower East Side
Sun at 8p 📚
Meet the BIG LIST
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THAT’S ALL, FOLKS
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