— ARTSPACE PICK —
Opening Receptions for Andrew Kuo's "You Say Tomato" and "The Wall"at Marlborough Chelsea, 545 West 25th Street, 6 — 8 p.m. (Through May 4th)
Kuo's richly colored abstractions—which have appeared in the pages of the New York Times Magazine—may at first blush resemble an expanded Josef Albers's optical experiment, but upon closer inspection they have more in common with a "choose your own adventure" pop song. Catch these and hopefully some of his basketball-related works—which have appeared on the t-shirts of your cooler friends—at this Thursday's exhibition of his new paintings, which will be sharing the gallery with "The Wall," a group show that draws attention to the endlessly repaired but rarely scrutinized white walls of the "white cube."
— WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3RD —
Opening Reception for "Recent Ruins" at 143 Reade, 143 Reade Street, 6–8 p.m. (Through June 22nd)
The first couple of exhibitions at the new gallery space of Lucien Terras (formerly of gallery D'Amelio Terras) have been unassuming yet self-assured, and this new group show of sculptors-qua-painters continues in that vein.
— THURSDAY, APRIL 4TH —
Opening Reception for "Vertical Club" at Bortolami Gallery, 520 West 20th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through April 27th)
Not necessarily the best exhibition for art escapists, this 16-person multimedia group show (featuring work by singer Ariel Pink!) uses the cityscape as muse, with each artist presenting a piece that both reflects the experience of living in a city while also incorporating the gallery's own architecture.
Opening Reception for Portia Munson's "Reflecting Pool" at P•P•O•W, 535 West 22nd Street, 3rd Floor, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through May 4th)
Photos of plucked flower petals arranged in mandalas around local fauna meet ocean-blue plastic pools in this exhibition that doubles as a lesson in environmental awareness.
Opening Reception for Kenny Scharf's "Kolors" at Paul Kasmin Gallery, 515 West 27th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through May 4th)
The perpetually buzzable former graffiti artist-turned-painter presents his Color Field-inspired canvases and sculptures at this sure-to-be-very-crowded show, which will also reportedly feature—and this is brilliant—Doughnut Plant confections resembling Scharf's past paintings of doughnuts.
— FRIDAY, APRIL 5TH —
Opening Reception for Christopher K. Ho's "Demoiselles d'Avignon" at Y Gallery, 165 Orchard Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through April 28th)
If you saw Ho's excellent recent show, "Privileged White People," at Forever & Today, you'll be familiar with his cutting social satire that, in this exhibition of new work, is trained on the role of primitivism in the history of abstraction in Western culture, a topic ripe for skillful critique.
Opening for "Body Double: Jasper Johns/Bruce Nauman" at Craig F. Starr Gallery, 5 East 73rd Street, 11 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. (Through May 24th)
Continuing the 2013 trend of pairing works by modern masters (as well as the gallery's own history of stellar shows), this exhibition, which was organized by Guggenheim senior curator Jeffrey Weiss, examines the role the body plays in the oeuvres of two of America's greatest living artists.
Opening Reception for Julie Lemberger's "Two Decades of Documenting Dance" at Norte Maar, 83 Wyckoff Avenue, #1B, Brooklyn, 6 – 9 p.m. (Through May 19th)
Occupying a "specific niche that hovers between the worlds of photography and dance," Lemberger's criminally underappreciated photos beautifully document both the work of notable choreographers and dancers practicing in New York City over the past twenty years, but also some of the famed venues in which they performed and rehearsed.
— SATURDAY, APRIL 6TH —
Opening Reception for Rico Gatson's "The Promise of Light" at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, 31 Mercer Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through May 18th)
For those familiar with the artist's multimedia work—most notably his expansive 2011 show at the former Exit Art gallery— the personal reflection present in these pieces should come as no surprise, nor should his ability to markedly challenge normative cultural notions.
"The Politics of International Art English" at Triple Canopy, 155 Freeman Street, Brooklyn, 4–6 p.m., $5 Suggested Donation
If you missed February's clash about "International Art English" at the College Art Association's panel on art criticism, Saturday offers another chance to hear some of contemporary art's brightest young minds—including New Museum curator Lauren Cornell, author Mostafa Heddaya, the Kitchen's Lumi Tan, and Hyperallergic editor Hrag Vartanian—gather together to discuss the politics of IAE, a concept developed last year in an excellent essay by David Levine and Alix Rule, both of whom will also be present at the forum.
— SUNDAY, APRIL 7TH —
Opening Reception for Ariane Lopez-Huici's "Priscille" at Hionas Gallery, 124 Forsyth Street, 6–8 p.m. (Through May 5th)
With hints of Venus de Milo meets Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone, the black-and-white photographs from Lopez-Huici's multi-year chronicling of an amputee muse continue the classical formalist tradition of the nude that extends from Ancient Greek sculpture all the way through to the contemporary compositions of Robert Mapplethorpe.
— MONDAY, APRIL 8TH —
"Open Book" Panel at the Fashion Institute of Technology, 227 West 27th Street, Katie Murphy Amphitheatre, 6:30 – 8 p.m.
If Gagosian gallery's recent Ed Ruscha bookstravaganza wasn't enough to sate your appetite for artists' books, FIT has assembled a special panel on the topic, featuring artist and early alternative space founder Martha Wilson, as well as Max Schumann, the associate director of everyone's favorite Printed Matter bookstore, and Alexander Campos, head of the Center for Book Arts.
— TUESDAY, APRIL 9TH —
"Pixelated Politics: Still & Moving Images in the Digital Age" at the Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Martin E. Segal Theater, 6:30 p.m.
Media scholars like Miriam Ghani, Lee Manovich, and McKenzie Wark discuss how the proliferation of those crummy handheld cellphone videos we watch all the time—what filmmaker Hito Steyerl would call a "poor image"—has changed the way we understand life in a highly globalized society saturated with technology.
