New York: Steve McQueen, Mary Sully, Housing Stories

This week, New York City banned broker fees, finally. It’s a small victory in a long history of our housing crisis, which comics artist Noah Fischer confronts in NYC Housing Stories, a series on the lives of the artists and organizers at the front lines of that fight, the third of which arrives this week.

That’s just one in a wild diversity of both making and approaching art in our pages this week — not unlike Judy Pfaff’s hybrid forest, nestled in the bright sanctuary of Wave Hill and illuminated, leaf by leaf, by Faye Hirsch’s sharp and probing pen.

At Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Zeba Blay finds new poetry in Le’Andra LeSeur’s “Monument Eternal,” a video work in which the artist collapses, again and again, on the hard peak of a racist monument — less a tale of being crushed, she suggests, than of creating a soft place to land, even in enemy terrain.

Alex Jen, on the other hand, finds meaning in the breakdown of language, its withholding and refusal. He reviews dual shows at Dia Chelsea and Beacon of Steve McQueen, an artist who has captivated him since he last wrote about him for us seven years ago.

Speaking of being haunted by a particular artist: John Yau pens his ninth review of a Brenda Goodman exhibition, this time at Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson. It’s criticism as well as advocacy: He holds New York institutions to account for continuing to overlook her work, perhaps for its raw, unvarnished hunger.

This week’s reviews make me think not of art history but historiography, of the different ways works of art reach the light of recognition — great nephews, as in the case of Mary Sully, whose dream of a show at The Met is reviewed in precise and loving language by Julie Schneider, and great critics, as in the case of all the above.

— Lisa Yin Zhang, Associate Editor

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On the 50th birthday of the Women’s Studio Workshop, staff reporter Maya Pontone takes a closer look at how it continues to push the boundaries of artmaking.

Isa Farfan talks with artist Matthew Chavez about his public participatory art project Subway Therapyand New Yorkers’ post-election thoughts.

Catch a Q&A and screening of This World Is Not My Own, a semi-animated documentary on self-taught artist Nellie Mae Rowe, at Cooper Union tomorrow, Nov. 20.

Editor-in-chief Hrag Vartanian is moderating a post-screening Q&A for Emily Mkrtichian’s There Was, There Was Not at Village East by Angelika, also Wed., Nov. 20. Part of this year’s DOC NYC festival. [docnyc.net]

On Nov. 20 as well, Eli Valley and Sue Coe host a night of political art-making at the Francis Kite Club. [Eventbrite]

That same night, Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid is showcasing and selling crochet works made by asylum seekers at James Cohan. [eventbrite.com]

Finally, The Complete Robert Frank: Films and Videos 1959–2017, a retrospective of the artist’s film and video work, also begins on Nov. 20 at MoMA, and lasts until Dec. 11. [moma.org]

On Thursday, Nov. 21, Hayden Hays, Samantha Jacobs, Diana Marksman, and Melissa Joseph are giving a talk on their practice at the Brooklyn Museum. [brooklynmuseum.org]

This Friday, Nov. 22 is Native American Heritage Day, and Hithla, a Southeast Indigenous dance troupe, is hosting a song, storytelling, and Stomp dancing event at the Museum of the American Indian. [americanindian.si.edu]

Also Friday, Apicha Jackson Heights will hold a post-election community dinner for LGBTQ+ Black, Asian, and Pasifika people. [instagram.com]

This Saturday, Nov. 23, Magazzino Italian Art is hosting a book presentation on the new monograph Luciano Fabro: Reinventing Sculpture with Margit Rowell and Nicola Lucchi. [magazzino.art]

Next Tuesday, Nov. 26, Village East Cinema is screening All Static & Noise, a documentary about Uyghur and Kazakh re-education camps in China, followed by a Q&A with the director, editor, and protagonist. [gathr.com]

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