New York: Our Top Picks for This Month

Break out your Kleenex. Spring (and all of its pollen) has sprung at last. Good thing we're still wea

New York May 5, 2021 • View in browser

Break out your Kleenex. Spring (and all of its pollen) has sprung at last. Good thing we’re still wearing masks to hide those runny noses ;) Below, we round up 10 shows worth marking your calendars for this month — from Deana Lawson’s highly anticipated Hugo Boss Prize show, to the Bronx Museum’s homage to more feminist futures, and the return of Frieze New York.In the galleries, Daniella Brito surveys the “profound and timely” Julie Mehretu retrospective now on view at the Whitney, while Hakim Bishara checks out standout work by teen artists at the Met. — Dessane Lopez Cassell, Editor, Reviews

What to See

Your Concise New York Art Guide for May 2021 Your list of must-see, fun, insightful, and very New York art events this month. Dessane Lopez Cassell and Cassie Packard

Also: Melvin Edwards’s steel abstractions (one of which is pictured above) have finally arrived at City Hall Park, and work by promising teen artists from across the city is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 21.

SPONSORED The LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at MICA Announces MFA Thesis Show Still, Life Eight MFA painting students present their culminating thesis projects and other works created during this past pandemic year at Art Cake in Brooklyn, NY.

New York News

Strike MoMA called the Museum of Modern Art’s director Glenn Lowry “Gaslighter-in-chief” after a leaked email to MoMA staff described protestors from last Friday’s action as violent. The activists discussed this misrepresentation in an open letter, where they also called out MoMA’s new board chair Marie-José Kravis as an example of the “ruling class interests which Lowry serves.” A new grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts offers $1,000 cash grants to NYC artists with disabilities who have experienced financial hardship due to the pandemic.

Latest Reviews

Julie Mehretu Reminds Us That Borders Are Meant to Be Trespassed Mehretu’s remarkable mid-career survey blazes through the Whitney Museum of Art, illuminating over two decades of her extensive practice. Daniella Brito

John Lees’s All-Too-Human Paintings By repeatedly returning to the same motif, Lees attempts the impossible, which is to freeze a particular object, individual, or moment in time. John Yau

Precious Okoyomon Envelops Us in the Textures of Black Mourning At Performance Space New York, Okoyomon enables a sense of communion amid unrelenting loss. Zoë Hopkins

Katherine Bradford's Joy and Grief In her Mother Paintings, Bradford’s observations of life in a pandemic have merged with her interior world. John Yau

More From Hyperallergic

Artist's Vaccine-Inspired Met Gala Dress Is a Tribute to Science Brendan McCann’s gown features a skirt made of giant vaccination cards, a needle headpiece, and a “FAUCI” purse filled with donuts. Valentina Di Liscia

Thinking About the Intersection Between Human Rights and the Arts In early 2021, Tania El Khoury and Ziad Abu-Rish relocated from Beirut to spearhead the Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College. Katie Kheriji-Watts

Closing Soon

Ahrong Kim, "Bittersweet" (2020), porcelain, luster, metal, 14 x 9.5 x 6.5 inches (courtesy the artist and Kristen Lorello, NY; photo by John Carlano)

Ahrong Kim: i_love_myself through May 8 at Kristen Lorello Marilyn Lerner: Walking Backward Running Forward – Again through May 13 at Kate Werble Gallery Caetano de Almeida through May 15 at Van Doren Waxter Katherine Bradford: Mother Paintings through May 15 at Canada

On View in NY Museums

David Hammons: Body Prints, 1968–1979 through May 23 at the Drawing Center Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America through June 6 at the New Museum Disturbing the View Fridays & Saturdays at 1pm through June 12 outside the Whitney Museum Michael Rakowitz: Nimrud through June 18 at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College Kenneth Tam: Silent Spikes through June 23 at the Queens Museum Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell through June 27 at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art Lorraine O'Grady: Both/And through July 18 at the Brooklyn Museum Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life through September 6 at MoMA PS1 Estamos Bien — La Trienal 20/21 through September 26 at El Museo del Barrio Off the Record through September 27 at the Guggenheim Museum Kusama: Cosmic Nature through October 31 at the New York Botanical Gardens

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