It’s the last day of the year 4722, if you’re going by the Lunar calendar. It’s always an odd time for me, this interim between two new years: surreal, reflective, a little guilt-inducing. Like, why am I, a Chinese-American,learning what the year of the “wood snake” represents from a New York Post article? Syncretism — a hot word in the art world
— ain’t always seamless, it seems. Our reviews this week share this theme of searchingness. AX Mina takes us to an exhibition, mutual aid program, and New Year celebration at Abrons Art Center in Chinatown that emphasizes community: Items from local businesses are available for purchase, and a wall of red envelopes asks viewers to collectively set intentions for the new year. A straight shot east on Grand Street, Petala Ironcloud mulls over the ways that we create and perform selfhood in an age of digital alienation in his review of Nadine Sarriedine’s inaugural exhibition. I can’t name an artist as committed to that search for self or its transcendence as Forrest Bess. He searched for truth through painting, arriving at the belief that becoming intersex would grant him immortality, and likely performed the genital surgery himself. John Yau reviews an intimate show of his psychological landscapes at Franklin Parrasch, and also pops a couple blocks north up Madison into Alexandre Gallery to consider a show of planar painting (you’ll have to read the review to figure out what that is). And if all that isn’t enough to satiate your appetite for art, then read below for our list of 130+ free cultural spaces around the city. If you’ve read us even a little, you’ve probably deduced that Yau engages in decades-long commitments to the artists he cares about. I think that comes through clearly in his description of Stephen Westfall as “heartfelt, non-dogmatic, single-minded, intellectually curious, and unconcerned with trends and the marketplace.” May the year of the wood snake bring that to each of us.
— Lisa Yin Zhang, Associate Editor
|
|
|
|
|
You’re currently a free subscriber to Hyperallergic. To support our independent arts journalism, please consider joining us as a paid member. |
| Become a Member
|
|
|
|
|
|
A new list released by the Department of Cultural Affairs highlights dozens of free or pay-what-you-wish museums and institutions. | Rhea Nayyar
|
|
|
|
FROM OUR CRITICS
|
|
|
A Planar Garden at Alexandre Gallery
|
“[Westfall] interrupts his field of flat, overlapping triangles pushing in from the edges with a volumetric form in two colors …. [This] is the kind of disruption that the viewer repeatedly encounters in the exhibition, a sense that geometry is never fixed and can still astonish.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sin Fatigue at Salma Sarriedine gallery
|
“From Ito’s shifting mirrors to [Jesus] Hilario-Reyes’s pulsing crowds, from [Laura] Anderson Barbata’s oceanic drag to [Alisa] Sikelianos-Carter’s protective hair spells, each piece weaves together themes of identity, protection, and transformation — suggesting that power often flows from society’s margins to its center.”
|
|
|
|
|
WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING?
|
|
Lunar New Year begins tomorrow — check out our list of art events in all five boroughs.
A fire in Tribeca damaged the Journal Gallery and Asya Geisberg gallery.
Artists in the Brooklyn Museum show asked it to alter their artwork displays with keffiyehs. It said no.
Printed Matter is hosting a launch event for Christine Sun Kim’s new vinyl. (Wed Jan 29) [printedmatter.org]
Erik Baker will be in conversation about his new book Make Your Own Job with Drift editor Rebecca Panovka at P&T Knitwear. (Wed Jan 29) [instagram.com]
Will Chan, Sasha Fishman, Supermrin, and Whitney R. McGuire will host a panel with Embodied Earth and Impulse Magazine at the Williamsburg Patagonia store. (Thu Jan 30) [eventbrite.com]
The Museum of the City of New York is hosting a discussion on public art with Sandra Bloodworth, the former Director of MTA Arts & Design, High Line Director and Chief Curator Cecilia Alemani, Jean Cooney of the Times Square Alliance, and artists Saya Woolfalk and Derek Fordjour. (Thu Jan 30) [mcny.org] Hyperallergic Members get 50% off tickets.
La Mama Experimental Theatre Club hosts a celebration of late artist and trans advocate Cecilia Gentili. (Fri Jan 31) [lamama.org]
WSA hosts Cha Cha, a festival of tea culture and design, on weekends in February, starting this Saturday the 1st. [instagram.com]
Catherine Goodman & Lynne Tillman will be in conversation at Hauser & Wirth 22nd Street. (Sat Feb 1) [hauserwirth.com]
- Molasses Book is hosting a celebration of writer Osamu Dazai, an “intimate party of books & music.” (Sat Feb 1), [instagram.com]
|
|
|
|
You’re currently a free subscriber to Hyperallergic. To support our independent arts journalism, please consider joining us as a paid member. |
| Become a Member
|
|
|
|
|
