— ARTSPACE PICK —
Opening Reception for Susan Bee's "Criss Cross, New Paintings" at Accola Griefen Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, 6th Floor, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through June 29th)
Continuing her process of depicting of black-and-white film stills through oil paint, Bee injects the starkly composed frames with vivid patterns and shapes that manage to imbue the scene with relevant emotional gravity and psychological context. Landscapes inspired by Caspar David Friedrich and other painters of the sublime will also be on view.
— WEDNESDAY, MAY 22ND —
Opening Reception for "<laughter>" at apexart, 291 Church Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through July 27th)
This exhibition explores the mystery of laughter's immediacy and the challenge of representing its effects, as seen through works like Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen's Radiolab-inspired contagious laughter installation, Yoshua Okon's fictitious film about a Canned Laughter factory, and Christian Boltanski's video about a distraught stand-up comic, among others.
Screening and Conversation for Dennis Oppenheim's "Form-Energy-Subject" at Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), 535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor, $7, $5 Students
Early films from the artist's Aspen Projects and Transfer Drawings will be presented as side-by-side double projections—how he originally intended them to be seen—by curator Jenny Jaskey, who will follow the screening with a panel discussion featuring A.K. Burns, Ajay Kurian, and Yve Laris-Cohen, who will talk about Oppenheim's influence on contemporary filmmakers. RSVP to rsvp@eai.org.
"62 Years Later: Gender Politics in the Arts" at Robert Miller Gallery, 524 West 26th Street, 6 – 8 p.m.
If you enjoyed the Skinny's previously recommended exhibition "(Untitled) Hybrid," which presents Lee Krasner's paintings opposite a handful of works by contemporary female artists, you'll definitely want to stop by this special panel discussion moderated by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, as Lauren Flanigan, RoseLee Goldberg, Anne Pasternak, Laurie Simmons, and Heather Watts stop by to talk about how gender politics have shifted in the 62 years since Lee Krasner's first solo exhibition.
— THURSDAY, MAY 23RD —
Opening Reception for Daniel Lefcourt's "Modeler" at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 534 West 26th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through June 29th)
In this show of new work by the Brooklyn-based artist—whose upcoming Dia Center sponsored web project will launch later this year—new paintings, presented alongside graphite panels and false walls, relay the artist's preoccupation with the transformation of materials in the process of simulation.
Opening Reception for Heide Hatry's "Not a Rose" at Stux Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through June 22nd)
These tromp l'oeil depictions of flower petals using the sex organs of deceased animals, are both aesthetically stunning and viscerally upsetting, perhaps because they make the true function of beautiful buds immediately apparent. The exhibition will be accompanied by a new publication that combines the artist's images with the writings of contributors such as Jonathan Safran Foer, Lucy Lippard, Steven Pinker, and Avital Ronell.
Opening Reception for Judith Schaechter's "The Battle of Carnival and Lent" at Claire Oliver Gallery, 513 West 26th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (Through June 29th)
Drawing inspiration from art historical and mythological texts, the artist has created 17 stained glass works, including one large window featuring a bloodless battle between almost 100 figures, representing our conscience's constant fight to balance our wants with our needs.
Openings of "Hopper Drawing" and David Hockney's "The Jugglers" at the Whitney Museum, 945 Madison Avenue, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Through October 6th & September 1st)
The U.S. premiere of David Hockney's first and unsurprisingly very colorful video installation featuring 18 jugglers on 18 screens, will be joined by an opening that showcases Edward Hopper's impressive skills as a draftsman, as some of the artist's most famous paintings will be paired with their early studies and sketches that are pulled from the museum's unmatched collection of the American artist's work.
— FRIDAY, MAY 24TH —
Karen Finley's "Sext Me If You Can" at the New Museum, 235 Bowery, 6 – 9 p.m.
Self-confident wannabe collectors are invited to stop by the New Museum Store to send Karen Finley a confidentially revealing photograph by text, which she'll then turn into paintings that will be displayed throughout the lobby for the weekend, when subjects will then be able to take them home.
— SATURDAY, MAY 25TH —
Opening of Ellsworth Kelly's "Chatham Series" at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, 10:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. (Through September 8th)
To celebrate the artist's 90th birthday at the end of the month, the museum has reunited a series of his 14 L-shaped monochrome canvases for the first-time in over 40 years.
Naturist Day at apexart, 291 Church Street, 12 – 5 p.m.
In conjunction with the organization's "<laughter>" exhibition, Australian artist Stuart Ringholt will be hosting two participatory workshops inviting attendees to explore how laughter is experienced differently in the nude.
— SUNDAY, MAY 26TH —
Closing of "NYC 1993: Experimental Trash, Jet Set and No Star" at the New Museum, 235 Bowery, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Be sure to swing by the New Museum to see its critically acclaimed exhibition that focuses exclusively on the art created during one tumultuous year 20 years ago, which marked a significant point of upheaval in the art world's evolution.
Closing of and "Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity" and James Nares's "Street" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, 9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Two more worthwhile shows are coming down this weekend, as the Met's survey of the intersection of painting and late 19th-century fashion recedes in the spotlight of their current couture-meets-punk exhibition, and the captivating slow motion video installation by James Nares—who also has a current exhibition at Paul Kasmin—finally comes to a close.
