THURSDAY
Ghada Amer: “Rainbow Girls” at Cheim & Read
April 3 – May 10
Opening: April 3, 6-8pm
547 West 25th Street
Ghada Amer is well known for brightly-colored, embroidered “paintings” in which depictions of women, often appropriated from soft-porn magazines, are carefully stitched and sewn on the canvas. Extra thread is left to hang from the images’ contours like drips and splashes of paint, abstracting and obscuring the figures.
Raymond Pettibon: “Are Your Motives Pure? Surfers 1987-2012” at Venus Over Manhattan
April 3 – May 17
Opening: April 3, 6-8pm
980 Madison Avenue
This exhibition will focus exclusively on Raymond Pettibon’s “surfer paintings.” Among works on view are early small-scale, monochrome India ink paintings; numerous paintings from the 1990s when the artist introduced color to his work; and a group of rare, large-scale paintings measuring up to nearly 10 feet wide – bravura works replete with the fluid dynamism of Pettibon’s line and the enduring potency of a favorite metaphor.
FRIDAY
Sara Cwynar: “Flat Death” at Foxy Production
April 4 – May 3
Opening: April 4, 6-8 PM
623 West 27th Street
“Flat Death” combines sculptural constructions that are photographed, printed, titled, and re-photographed, together with images from darkroom manuals that are decomposed using a scanner. Cwynar’s process is circular; she starts and finishes with a photograph, after a journey of intervention and manipulation that ultimately disrupts the smooth surface and the perspective of the stock image.
“The Real Estate Show” at James Fuentes
April 4 – April 27
Opening: April 4, 6-8 PM
55 Delancey Street
James Fuentes will revisit a seminal exhibition called “The Real Estate Show,” which took place in 1980 at 123 Delancey Street. Organized by Colab, a group comprised of artists and activist to collectively generate exhibition opportunities, funding and resources for artists, “The Real Estate Show” took place in a city owned building that the organizers and artists utilised without permission from the city. Over 40 participating artists including Jim Casabere, Jenny Holzer, Jon Keller, Alan Moore, Cara Perlman, and Harry Spitz.
SATURDAY
CalArts Benefit at Paula Cooper and Metro Pictures
April 5 – April 19
Opening: April 5, 6-8:30pm, Performance at 7pm
534 West 21st Street & 519 West 24th Street
The opening of the CalArts’ Art Benefit at Paula Cooper Gallery and Metro Pictures will feature a special performance by collective My Barbarian. As part of Broke Baroque Festive Operetta, My Barbarian will lead guests on a journey guided by opera singers through the streets of Chelsea, from Metro Pictures to the Paula Cooper Gallery. Works from over 45 participating artists will be exhibited including Andrea Bowers, Judy Chicago, Liz Glynn, Josephine Meckseper, John Miller, Jim Shaw, and Alex Olson.
“Particular Pictures” at Suzanne Geiss Company
April 5 – April 26
Opening: April 5, 6-8pm
76 Grand Street
Curated by Joshua Abelow and Emily Ludwig Shaffer, this group exhibition features works from over 15 participating artists including Cheryl Donegan, Daniel Gordon, Chris Johanson, Leigh Ruple, and Rose Wylie.
SUNDAY
Dee Ferris, Barnaby Furnas, Annie Lapin at Sargent’s Daughters
April 6 – April 27
Opening: April 6, 6-8pm
179 East Broadway
The dynamic force of painting is central to the exhibition, which range from enormous to the intimate. All the paintings are abstract, but a tenuous figuration hovers at the edges. The artists meet the legacy of painting and carry forth, unburdened by convention and unafraid of challenge.
Ryan Schneider: “Ritual for Letting Go” at Two Rams
April 6 – 28
Opening: April 6, 6-8pm
215 Bower
For “Ritual for Letting Go,” Schneider explores the mysteries of the night and the essential truths the darkness reveals within the natural world and within him. For this body of work, Schneider approaches the canvas without a formal plan, letting his body’s implicit rhythm take over so that he can paint unconsciously and give space for the painting to determine its own being.
