Week of June 23
Summer Hours, Immersion special report, and this week's bests
Catch this week’s full report below—and read to the end for a special report on IMMERSION.
First, a quick note on programming: after this week, Days & Nights is transitioning to Summer Hours.
Expect reports and intel from out in the world, but on a less-frequent basis for a limited time. (There WILL be gems from guest editors that you won’t want to miss, so stay subscribed.) We’ll be back up and running with weekly reports and more instances of The Evening per usual once school is back in session.
🏖️ Paid subscribers are covered all summer long. The Big List (our complete report on the entire future, available for $5/month) is already updated with great happenings so you’ll never miss a Days & Nights tip.
🆓 = costs $0, 🎨 = art, 🎼 = music, 🎬 = film, 📚= books, 🌳 = nature, 🎭 = performance, 🧠 = extra smart people, 🍸 = drinks available, 🗽= extra New Yorky
🔑 Click the venue link for full event details.
Monday, June 23
American Folk Art Museum presents a screening of Paint Me a Road Out of Here featuring the artists Faith Ringgold and Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter at the Harlem School of the Arts (Harlem), 6-9p 🎨 🎬 🍸 🧠
My Life with Cranes, an adorable film about an even more adorable bird guy, screens at the gorgeous Explorer’s Club (Upper East Side), 6p cocktail reception, 7p screening, 8:30p panel discussion 🎬 🍸
Tituss returns as Mary in Oh, Mary! for six weeks of performances at the Lyceum Theater (Theater District), 7:30p 🎭
Tuesday, June 24
ASMR4 v. 13 Zine Launch at P.P.O.W.
To celebrate the launch of the latest issue of ASMR4—v.13 East Village Collages 1982-1999, photographs by Martin Wong—the series’ co-editors will talk about the great East Village artist and photographer Martin Wong and the ASMR4 project at PPOW’s main space on 392 Broadway. Arrive a little early to see the Hope is a dangerous thing group show and send us your spiciest take.
Can’t make it on Tuesday? You can order a copy of the zine here for $20.
P.P.O.W.., Tribeca
Tues from 5-7p 🆓 🎨 🗽
Other Tuesday events, briefly noted:
Opening reception for Compression group show featuring Uri Aran, Nat Faulkner, Kenji Ide, Mark Manders, Yu Nishimura, Julia Yerger and Huma Bhabha at Matthew Brown (Tribeca), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Staying In group show curated by Michael Yuan at 1969 Gallery (Tribeca), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Aubrey Knox presents a lecture (A Problem of Dissonance: Bodies and Museums) at e-flux (Clinton Hill), 6:30p doors, 7p lecture 🆓 🧠 🎨
André Aciman (author of Call Me By Your Name) talks his latest book Room on the Sea at the 92nd Street Y (Upper East Side and online), 7p 📚
Pilobolus’s Other Worlds Collection dance performances kick off at the Joyce Theater (Chelsea), 7:30p 🎭 🍸 (runs through July 13)
Wednesday, June 25
David Zwirner presents EJ Hill’s Low-slung Promises on the Tongues of the Devout at 52 Walker (Tribeca), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Nathaniel Matthews presents The Players, a self published monograph. The launch event features complimentary shoe shine if you buy the book. At Entrance Gallery (Lower East Side), 3-7p 🆓 🎨 📚
Member Summer Evenings, every Wednesday through September 3 at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (Crown Heights), 6-8:30p 🌳 🍸
Book event: Fire Island Invasion: Day of Independence by Anderson Zaca at Rizzoli Bookstore (NoMad), 6-8p 🆓 📚
Open House New York presents: Around Manhattan Boat Tour exploring the city’s maritime history and our connection to water on the Hudson --departing from Pier 83 (Hell’s Kitchen), 6:20-9p 🧠 🗽
Member Night: The Art of Pride with performances and music at The Whitney (Meatpacking District), 7:30-10p 🎨 🎼
Wednesday Night June Jazz Series curated by the great Matt Nelson at Leo’s Famous (Midtown), 9p-12:30a 🎼 🍸
Thursday, June 26
Opening reception for Juliana Seraphim’s The Flower Woman at 55 Walker
“Born in Jaffa, Palestine [in 1934], Seraphim’s early years were profoundly shaped by her family’s arrival in Lebanon following the start of the Nakba in 1948. This early experience of displacement and exposure to a marred and discriminatory world indelibly informed her work. Through sensuous detail and phantasmatic figures, Seraphim built an iconography rooted in the perception of a ‘woman’s world,’ exploring sensuality, selfhood, and spiritual longing.”
This show, presented by Bortolami, spans four decades of work from the late Seraphim including some delicious looking paintings from the 1970s that we’re excited to see in person.
55 Walker, Tribeca
Thurs from 5-7p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Liz Magor’s Personalize at Andrew Kreps
The great Canadian artist Liz Magor’s sculptures often start with familiar objects—a blanket here, some cardboard there—then twist them into something strange. The tension between the familiar and not, the useful and the useless, is completely captivating.
We’re absolutely dying to see this show of all new work, which runs through August 9.
Andrew Kreps, Tribeca
Thurs from 6-8p 🆓 🎨
The Village Preservation Society presents Servant of Beauty
If wild parties aren’t your favorite way to spend Pride, may we suggest this gentle book event. Author and preservationist Anthony Wood talks about his new book Servant of Beauty: Landmarks, Secret Love, and the Unimagined Life of an Unsung New York Hero at the LGBT Center.
It’s the story of Albert Sprague Bard who went head-to-head with Robert Moses to defend public spaces and beautiful things in New York, ultimately leading to New York City’s Landmarks Law in 1965. Bard himself was gay and had a hot young boyfriend, which we absolutely love for him.
The LGBT Center, West Village
Thurs at 6p 🆓 📚🗽
Other Thursday events, briefly noted:
Screening and Conversation—Unconventional Education: Queerness as a Possibility with Geraldine Baron and Naima Green, moderated by Maria De Victoria at Amant (East Williamsburg), 10a 🎬 🧠
Walter Pichler’s Sculptures, Drawings, Models opens at Gladstone 64 (Upper East Side), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Americas Society and NYU’s IFA present Women and Abstractions in Postwar Americas Symposium at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts (Upper East Side and online), 5-8p 🆓 🧠 🎨 (Also Friday; also imagine if the term “postwar” was real)
Ace Artist in Residence and Powerhouse Arts Present and opening reception for ELEGY TO THE VOID by Pacifico Silano at the Ace Hotel (Downtown Brooklyn), 5-7p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Patrick Groth’s Injury Time at Harper’s Chelsea 534 (Chelsea), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Modular Mythologies group show featuring Bret Slater, K. Rawald, Tim Kastelijns, curated by Danielle Paterson at Picture Theory (Chelsea), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Priyanka Dey: Drawings in the Viewing Room at Picture Theory (Chelsea), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Friends in Both Places group show featuring 24 artists at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (Tribeca), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Neue Lecture Series: professor Julie M. Johnson presents Klimt’s Spatial Wit at the Neue Galerie (Upper East Side), 6:30p 🧠
Poems: a night of readings with Alex Cuff, Marie López, Emily Cementina & Rae Ivy Anderson at Topos Too (Ridgewood), 7p 🆓 🎭 📚
Friday, June 27
Walter Pichler: Sculptures, Drawings, Models opens at Gladstone 64 (Upper East Side), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Lisa Yuskavage: Drawings opens at the Morgan (Midtown), 10:30a-8p 🎨
Opening reception for The Kids Are Alright group show curated by Helen Toomer at Timothy Taylor (Tribeca), 5-7p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Marisa Adesman's Under the Rose at Anat Ebgi (Tribeca), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Early Bird group show featuring greats like Camille Henrot at Palo Gallery (NoHo), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
RAWdance (our favorite Bay Area dance troupe) presents the CONCEPT series: Hudson Valley Edition 2025 at Senate Garage (Kingston, New York), 7:30p 🎭 (also Saturday and Sunday)
Last call for these art shows closing on Friday:
Yu Nishimura’s Clearing Unfolds at David Zwirner on E. 68th Street (Upper East Side), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Claes Oldenburg & Peter Moore’s New York Streets & Signs at Paula Cooper (Chelsea), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨 🗽
Minimalist king Robert Morris’ Seeing and Space at Castelli Gallery on 40th (Bryant Park), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Michael Armitage’s Crucible at David Zwirner on 19th St (Chelsea), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Saturday, June 28
Singer’s presents Twinks vs Dolls Olympics IV: TOTAL CARNAGE
It will be sticky, hot, and gross. Everybody will smoke cigarettes and nobody will eat a thing. Contestants will participate in a series of nonsense games starting at 3pm like the now classic cigarette smoking competition, and a winner will be crowned by 6pm. It will be the Pride event of the year. Come hang with us.
The Brooklyn Hangar, Sunset Park
Sat from 12-6p 🎭 🍸 🚬
Other Saturday events, briefly noted:
The Campus Opening Reception at The Campus (Hudson, NY), 11a-5p 🆓 🎨
The Wonders of Technicolor series kicks off at The Paris (Midtown), runs through August 6 🎬
Harlem Pride Fest drop-in quilt making inspired by Faith Ringgold at the Studio Museum in Harlem (Harlem), 12-6p 🎨 🗽
RISO 101: Intro to Riso Printing at Secret Riso Club (Bushwick), 1-5p 🎨
Visionary Art Collective presents a series of short doc films about contemporary artists at Eleventh Hour Art (Brooklyn Heights), 7p reception, 8p screening 🆓 🎨 🎬
Opening reception for sTo Len: Grand Prospect Hallway Express at Open Source Gallery (South Slope), 7-9p 🆓 🎨
NEW YORK CITY PLAYERS / INCOMING THEATER DIVISION present a work-in-progress showing of GALICIA written and directed by Richard Maxwell at 2 Rector Street (Financial District), 8p 🎭 (also Sunday at 2p)
Last call for these art shows closing Saturday:
Zoé Blue M.’s Hard Boiled at Jeffrey Deitch at 76 Grand Street (SoHo), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Carnival curated by Joe Coleman at Jeffrey Deitch at 18 Wooster Street (SoHo), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Lucia Wilcox: LUCIA at Berry Campbell (Chelsea), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Katrine Bobek’s Sound of the Bell Jar and Industrial Dry group show curated by Francesca Altamura at Jack Barrett (Tribeca), 11a-6p 🆓 🎨
Luis Inca Ramos’ 🎡Coney Island Summer Blast 💥 at Whaam! (Chinatown), 12-6p 🆓 🎨 🗽
Sunday, June 29
Last day to see Elena Stonaker’s soft-cœur at The Locker Room (Tribeca), 1-7p 🆓 🎨
Last day of Tribeca Fest’s In Search of Us immersive showcase at the WSA Building (Financial District), 1-7p 🎨 See below for a special report on immersion and this show ⬇️
Mindful Journaling Workshop with Friend of the List Emily Chertow at Reforesters Laboratory (Williamsburg), 2-3p
Last day to see Taylor Mac’s Prosperous Fools the Theatre for a New Audience (Downtown Brooklyn) 7:30p 🎭
Let’s start with the Tribeca Fest’s annual “Immersive” program In Search of Us—presented in partnership with Onassis ONX, Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, and Water Street Projects/WSA on view through next weekend.
The overarching theme has something to do with major issues of our time—climate change, war, the prison industrial complex, dizzying advances in AI. The program brings together 11 projects that are realized when some form of AR, VR, screen, or other technology is engaged by an audience.
Two pieces stood out to us:
First—The Confessional by mots (a.k.a. the filmmaking duo, Daniela Nedovescu and Octavian Mot), part of their AI & Me series. To activate the piece, you sit and let a camera scan your face. Then, the AI “delivers a judgment” via text on an old JVC monitor. Daniela and Octavian told us they've shown this work around the world—from museums to music festivals—and routinely see people tense up as they wait for their verdict.
We sat. We tensed up. Then the AI said we were attractive. It guessed our age as ten years younger than we are. We were delighted by this, then grossed out by our response. The words of a sycophantic LLM mean nothing (except that we conform to the beauty standards on which it was trained), yet…we somehow felt more confident for the rest of the day. Humiliating! Damning! Still: an interesting experience of immersion from the inside-out.
Second—A Father’s Lullaby by Rashin Fahandej. The piece explores the role of fathers in raising children and what’s lost when incarceration removes them from their kids’ lives.
It’s a multichannel video and audio installation, anchored with more intimate “sound booths”: you sit on a small stool, put on headphones, and press your hand to a panel. As you apply pressure, the panel glows a warm amber. A father begins to speak—he tells a story from his childhood, then sings a lullaby. So often, immersive work that forces you to touch the tech feels clinical and cold. This version of interactivity felt tender.
We’ve yet to be notably moved by VR, AR, or video games (except Tetris or Jeremy Couillard’s Jef), so the remaining projects in In Search of Us just get a participation trophy. Especially There Goes Nikki, a lovingly silly AR tribute to the great, serious poet Nikki Giovanni and her piece, Quilting the Black-eyed Pea (We’re going to Mars). The poem needs no frills, but we aren’t upset for having spent time with it even if we had to wear headphones and carry an iPad around a fake garden for a few minutes.
Still, it’s worth checking out In Search of Us which is open for two more days—Saturday June 28 and Sunday June 29. Grab tickets here.
Immersion is ultimately a matter of attention.
Most art is immersive if it’s not bad and if you’re present enough to engage with it. Although what with…everything going on? It certainly helps when the work is a little bigger and louder to help drown out context and noise.
Luckily, there are some incredible shows with big-ass artworks you can get truly lost in:
Chad Murray’s John of Patmos at Sebastian Gladstone (Tribeca), open through July 12
Kati Heck’s Dear Cobalt Monsters presented by Sadie Coles HQ at the Upstairs at Bortolami (Tribeca), open through August 8
Jack Whitten’s The Messenger at MoMA (Midtown), open through August 2
Did you know? Days & Nights is produced by one person with a full time job, so we’re excited for a little break to enjoy the summer. As our friend Nicole says: “Summer is for fun.” So we’re off to flirt with people, go to a beach, regret our sunburns, and spend less time on the internet. See you soon, beauties!
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THAT’S ALL, FOLKS
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Just signed up for the Mindful Journaling Workshop! Thanks! 🙏