New York is home to some of the best institutions, museums, and galleries in the world. We’ve highlighted shows you can’t afford to miss this fall.
NEW MUSEUM: PIPILOTTI RIST “PIXEL FOREST”
October 26-January 15, 2017
Occupying the three main floors of the New Museum, “Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest,” on view through January 15, is the most comprehensive presentation of Rist’s work in New York to date. The Swiss pioneer of video art and multimedia installation fuses the natural world with the technological sublime. This survey will also reveal connections between the development of Rist’s art with that of contemporary technologies—from the television monitor to the cinema screen, and from the intimacy of the smartphone to the communal consumption of images and soundscapes. Ultimately, the ways in which her work has fused the biological with the electronic in the ecstasy of communication, is made palpable.
THE MET: MAX BECKMANN IN NEW YORK
October 19-February 20, 2017
In late December 1950, Max Beckmann set out from his apartment on the Upper West Side to see his Self-Portrait in Blue Jacket (1950), which was on view at The Met in the exhibition “American Painting Today.” On the corner of 69th Street and Central Park West, however, the 66-year-old artist suffered a fatal heart attack and never made it to the museum. The poignant circumstance of the artist’s death served as the inspiration for the current exhibition “Max Beckmann in New York,” on view through February. The show focuses on the German artist’s special connection to New York and includes his iconic and unclassifiable figurative paintings.
THE MET BREUER: KERRY JAMES MARSHALL “MASTRY”
October 25-January 29, 2017
After its showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago, it is The Met Breuer in New York that will be hosting Kerry James Marshall’s vibrant oeuvre. The museum is encompassing the artist’s 35-year career through 80 works that include 72 paintings. Marshall forcefully confronts Western art history using its recognized forms and canons: the historical tableau, landscapes, portraiture, and genre painting, in which he asserts in content dismissed blackness and black experience, thus making the invisible visible and correcting, in his words, the “vacuum in the image bank.”
MoMA: NAN GOLDIN “THE BALLAD OF SEXUAL DEPENDENCY”
June 11-February 12, 2017
On view at MoMA, “Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” is in its original 35mm format at the MoMA, along with photographs from the museum’s collection. Named after a song in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, the work chronicles with unsettling intimacy and pureness the photographer’s experience of the hard-drug subculture of New York, Boston, and Berlin from 1979 to 1986. Goldin’s close subjects experience ecstasy and pain through sex and drug use; they revel at dance clubs and bond with their children at home; and they suffer from domestic violence and the ravages of HIV.
MoMA PS1: MARK LECKEY “CONTAINERS AND THEIR DRIVERS”
October 23-March 5, 2017
With “Mark Leckey: Containers and Their Drivers,” MoMA PS1 is presenting the first comprehensive U.S. survey of the pioneering British artist’s work. Since coming to prominence in the late 1990s, Leckey’s art has addressed the radical effect of technology on popular culture, and given form to the transition from analog to digital culture, powerfully influencing younger generations of artists. Leckey’s breakthrough film Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999), which uses sampled footage to trace dance subcultures in British nightclubs from the 1970s to 1990s, will be one of the highlights on view until early March.
THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM: AGNES MARTIN
October 7-January 11, 2017
Agnes Martin’s geometrical hand-drawn arrangements of coordinates, lines, and stripes on canvas fill the Guggenheim’s rotunda until January 11, 2017. Often associated with and considered an important figure of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, Martin’s radical pencil presentations of interlocking horizontal and vertical lines that at first seem to appear blank, stand apart. Influenced by Asian belief systems like Taoism and Zen Buddhism, and the natural surroundings of her home in New Mexico, her restrained but evocative style was underpinned by a personal conviction in the emotive and expressive power of art.
THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: CARMEN HERRERA “LINES OF SIGHT”
September 16-January 2, 2017
“Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight” is the first New York museum exhibition dedicated to Herrera’s oeuvre in nearly two decades. It begins with the Cuban-American painter’s formative period following World War II, when she lived in Paris and experimented with different modes of abstraction, and includes her work upon return to New York in 1954. The second section considers her most important series, Blanco y Verde (1959–1971). The final part illuminates Herrera’s continued experimentation with figure and ground relationships, and highlights the architectural underpinnings of many of her compositions.
THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM: MARILYN MINTER “PRETTY/DIRTY”
November 4-April 2, 2017
“Pretty/Dirty” constitutes Marilyn Minter’s first museum retrospective. The New York-based artist’s sensual paintings, photographs, and videos vividly explore complex and contradictory emotions around beauty, eroticism, and the feminine body in American culture. She trains a critical eye on the power of desire, questioning the fashion industry’s commercialization of sex and the body. The exhibit is part of a yearlong series of 10 exhibitions at the museum celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
THE JEWISH MUSEUM: “TAKE ME (I’M YOURS)”
September 16-February 5, 2017
“Take Me (I’m Yours)” comes to New York for the very first time. When the nonconforming show premiered in London in 1995, Hans Ulrich Obrist had partnered with artist Christian Boltanski, and was inspired by a host of histories and ideologies related to possession—notably the anarchist idea that “ownership is theft” and the post-60s dematerialization of the object in conceptual art. The re-staging and expansion of the exhibition at The Jewish Museum, which includes 42 artists, remains faithful to this initial vision—the visitor is not only asked to engage in close contact with the works, but to take them away for good.
LUHRING AUGUSTINE: RAGNAR KJARTANSSON “SCENES FROM WESTERN CULTURE | ARCHITECTURE AND MORALITY”
November 5-December 23
Scenes from Western Culture (2015), which will be on view in Chelsea, is a series that depicts idyllic representations of Western life. The nine videos, or “cinematic paintings,” present non-narrative scenes: a couple dining at a New York restaurant, children playing in a garden in Germany, a woman swimming in a private pool. The picturesque tableaux unfold almost like advertisements, portraying tranquil, inviting moments that captivate in their beauty. Also on view in Chelsea will be “Architecture and Morality” (2016), a series of paintings Kjartansson completed during a two-week period in the West Bank in conjunction with the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv. Taking his easel and paints to the contested Israeli settlements, the artist made representational oil paintings of homes en plein air from morning until dusk, finishing one painting a day. Kjartansson’s straightforward landscapes contrast with the political complexity of the region they represent.
FRIEDMAN BENDA: BYUNG HOON CHOI “WATER MEDITATION”
November 9-December 17
Friedman Benda presents “Water Meditation,” Byung Hoon Choi’s second solo exhibition in New York opening on November 9. This master of Korean craft and sculpture will exhibit new work in basalt and present his first exploration in lacquer. Inspired by his heritage, Choi draws on traditional craftsmanship in Korea, where lacquer techniques have been widely practiced for over 2,000 years. Choi’s continuation of his acclaimed basalt series takes on the form of fountains growing vertically with running water, resembling a scholar’s rock or a naturally grown accumulation.
PUBLIC ART FUND: DAVID SHRIGLEY “MEMORIAL”
September 8-February 12
In MEMORIAL, British artist David Shrigley amalgams the solemn function of memory with that of everyday practicality, by honoring one of the most common of all acts: the writing of a grocery list. In engraving this ephemeral, throwaway list on a solid slab of granite, a material synonymous with the language of monuments, the artist humorously subverts both daily routine and the role of the classic memorial. The sculpture becomes a memorial both to no one and to everyone—perhaps standing as a simple but poignant ode to humanity.
DAVID ZWIRNER: CAROL BOVE “POLKA DOTS”
November 5- December 17
David Zwirner is presenting Carol Bove’s new sculptures in “Polka Dots,” on view through December 17. Spanning two adjacent spaces at 525 and 533 West 19th Street in Chelsea, the show follows the artist’s 2015 exhibition at David Zwirner’s London location. The Brooklyn- based artist is known for her simple yet intricate assemblages of found and made objects. As the art historian Johanna Burton notes in the catalogue accompanying this exhibition, “Bove brings things together not to nudge associative impulses into free play driven by the unconscious, but rather to conjure a kind of affective tangle that disrupts any singular, historical narrative.”
PAUL KASMIN: IMPASSE RONSIN
October 27-January 18, 2017
The present exhibit “Impasse Ronsin,” on view through January 18, 2017, centers around the mythical Parisian alley that was home to the studios of Constantin Brâncuși, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, and Larry Rivers, and patronized by numerous other seminal artists from the 20th century. Works by these artists are presented in an installation that brings forward the collaborative atmosphere of the impasse—with at its heart Brâncusi, the true dean of the premises who lived there from 1916 until his death in 1957. Brâncuși’s controversial and ambiguous bronze sculpture Princess X, which was refused to be displayed at Paris’ Salon des Artistes Indépendants in 1920, will be on view.
LEHMANN MAUPIN: LIU WEI
November 3-December 18
The exhibition, a second for the artist in the gallery’s New York spaces, will include new paintings and installations. At 22nd Street, Liu Wei created a floating box made of mirrors to create an altered experience of the space as you walk around it, inspired by the Jorge Luis Borges’ poem Mirrors (1960). Also on view is a new series of monochromatic oil paintings, offset by sculpted metal bars. The artist’s investigation of industrial materials and architectural concepts is further explored at Chrystie Street, with an installation made of materials like military canvas, wood, and metal, accompanied by colorful paintings on steel.
THE BRANT FOUNDATION: STEVEN SHEARER
November 13-March 2017
The Brant Foundation Art Study Center is pleased to present a solo exhibition of works by Steven Shearer through March 2017. The exhibition, which spans Shearer’s prolific 20-year career, brings together paintings, drawings, collages, and poems to demonstrate the constantly evolving nature of his practice. The Canadian artist’s work draws upon a visual lexicon of portraiture and representation of the body, often using found imagery that he collects and archives as source material. Through this process, contemporary imagery is distilled into the tradition of portraiture, revealing affinities between various modes of figuration throughout history to the present.
SEAN KELLY: JOSE DÁVILA
October 28-December 3
Until December 3, Jose Dávila’s solo show is on view at Sean Kelly. Drawing on his formal training as an architect, the Mexican artist creates sculptural installations and photographic works that simultaneously emulate, critique, and pay homage to avant-garde art and architecture from the 20th century. Referencing renowned modern artists and architects like Luis Barragán, Josef Albers, and Donald Judd, Dávila’s work uses readily available materials to investigate how modernism has been translated, appropriated, and reinvented.
JACK SHAINMAN: CARRIE MAE WEEMS
October 29-December 10
Carrie Mae Weems’ work is on view at Jack Shainman until December 10. This two-part exhibition is the first in New York since her retrospective at the Guggenheim two years ago. It highlights her recent investigations into performance, entertainment, and history. With a photograph series and several video installations, including one that use a 19th-century optical trick (the “Pepper Ghost” illusion technique), Weems sustains a personal dialogue on the rifts caused by race, class, and gender via imagery phantasmagoria, and text that is both sharply direct and beautifully poetic.
TILLOU FINE ART: DANIEL HOROWITZ “TOTEM & TABOO”
November 12-January 21, 2017
Tillou Fine Art is presenting “Totem & Taboo” this November in their semi-private exhibition salon in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The exhibition encompasses a new body of work by Daniel Horowitz that includes paintings on raw linen stitched with textiles and works on paper, juxtaposed with ethnographic artifacts from various private collections. In his second solo show in New York, Horowitz investigates the nature of re-appropriation, the heritage of colonialism, and the fascination of the West for primitive art. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a series of salon-style interdisciplinary conversations and happenings with experts from a variety of fields, including art, anthropology, music, and psychology.
GALERIE PERROTIN: JULIO LE PARC
November 4-November 19
Julio Le Parc’s kinetic art is finally being brought to the United States. Galerie Perrotin, New York will display the first solo exhibition by the Argentinean artist since 1973 from November 4 to November 19, only! New paintings from the Alchimie series and two of his famous immersive installations and experiences with light, as well as the 2001-2016 translucent “Sphère bleu fluo” composed of hundreds of plexiglas slats, will be on view. This will be the final exhibition at the Madison Avenue gallery before relocating to 130 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side in April 2016.
DOMINIQUE LÉVY: JOEL SHAPIRO
October 28 – January 7, 2017
New York-based sculptor Joel Shapiro is presenting a new site-specific installation alongside some of his early work at Dominique Lévy Gallery. The exhibition foregrounds work from the late 1970s, demonstrating the trajectory of Shapiro’s career over the course of which the artist has continually pursued ideas of color and mass, culminating in a recent body of room-size sculptural pieces. A survey of the artists’ wood reliefs from 1978 to 1980 is also included, marking the first time the series is comprehensively shown.
GAGOSIAN GALLERY: PICASSO’S PICASSOS “A SELECTION FROM THE COLLECTION OF MAYA RUIZ-PICASSO”
November 10-December 17
On view at Gagosian through December 17 is a selection from the personal collection of Maya Ruiz-Picasso, the daughter of Pablo Picasso and Marie Thérèse Walter. The exhibition, organized by Diana Widmaier-Picasso, Maya’s daughter and the artist’s granddaughter, includes 20 paintings and one sculpture. Eight portraits of Marie-Thérèse Walter will be presented, as well as the renowned portrait of Maya as a girl, “Maya à la poupée et au cheval” (1938). This is the first chapter in a series of exhibitions planned to explore themes evident in Maya Ruiz-Picasso’s collection so in-depth.
ALMINE RECH: CALDER AND PICASSO
October 28-December 17
Almine Rech Gallery is presenting through December 17 a unique show curated by Alexander S. C. Rower and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, the grandsons of Alexander Calder and Pablo Picasso, respectively. More than 50 works created between 1912 and 1967, sourced from each family’s private collection, will be coupled. Many have never been shown to the public. This intimate exhibition will be the first to explore the creative dialogue between the two modern masters.
