NYC fall art roundup: highlights of the season’s new exhibitions, openings and events
Once the calendar flips to September, New York City’s fall arts season heats up with high-profile museum exhibits, important gallery openings, music, dance and film events and more. Here, we offer our top picks and suggestions for the best ways to get swept up in the season’s art whirl, from Warhol at the Whitney to goats in a gallery.
Andy Warhol (1928–1987), Green Coca Cola Bottles, (1962). Acrylic, screenprint, and graphite pencil on canvas, 82 3/4 × 57 1/8 in. (210.2 × 145.1 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art 68.25 © 2018 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Museums
“Andy Warhol — From A to B and Back Again,” ↑
Whitney Museum
November 12 – March 31
This show will be the first Warhol retrospective offered by a United States museum since 1989. Building on his experiences in the 1950s and as a commercial illustrator and not forgetting his masterpieces from the 1960s, the exhibition tracks and reappraises Warhol’s later work of the 1970s and 80s through his untimely demise in 1987. His career is placed on a continuum showing that he didn’t slow down after surviving an almost deadly assassination attempt in 1968, but entered into a period of intense experimentation, continuing to use earlier techniques and expanding on previous work. In this exhibition, the artist’s familiar silk-screens are placed in a context with his overtly homosexual–and little-seen–work from the 1950s and his also less-seen and more abstract experimentation in the 1980s.
Right now at the Whitney: Fashionistas and design fanatics will love Eckhaus Latta: Possessed (through October 8), highlighting the work of young design team Eckhaus Latta, who are part of a new generation of designers operating at the intersection of fashion and contemporary art.
Hilma af Klint, Group IV, The Ten Largest, No. 7, Adulthood, 1907. Tempera on paper, mounted on canvas, 315 x 235 cm. The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm. Photo: Albin Dahlström, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
“Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future” ↑
Guggenheim Museum
1071 5th Avenue, NY, NY
October 12 – February 3
When Hilma af Klint began creating radically abstract paintings in 1906, they were like little that had been seen before: bold, colorful, and untethered from any recognizable reference to the physical world. It was years before Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and others would take similar strides to rid their own artwork of representational content. Yet she rarely exhibited them and, convinced the world was not yet ready to understand her work, stipulated that it not be shown for twenty years following her death. As a result, her work was all but unseen until 1986, and only over the subsequent three decades have her paintings and works on paper begun to receive serious attention. This survey of Hilma af Klint’s work will be the first major solo exhibition in the United States devoted to the artist, offering an unprecedented opportunity to experience af Klint’s long-underrecognized artistic achievements. The exhibition will focus on the artist’s breakthrough years, 1906–20, when she first began to produce nonobjective and stunningly imaginative paintings, creating a singular body of work that invites a reevaluation of modernism and its development.
Next Wave Festival ↑
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn NY (See site for specific event venue)
October 3 – December 23
The Next Wave Festival returns with 12 weeks of cross-genre performance including music, opera, theater, physical theater, dance, film/music, and performance art. This will be the final festival curated by BAM’s Joseph V. Melillo who is retiring after three decades as BAM’s executive producer.
Bruce Nauman. Fist in Mouth. 1990. Cut-and-pasted printed paper and paper with watercolor and pencil on paper, 20 1/4 x 23 3/4″ (51.4 x 60.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchased with funds given by Edward R. Broida. © 2017 Bruce Nauman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
“Bruce Naumann: Disappearing Acts” ↑
The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1
11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019
22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101
The Museum of Modern Art October 21 – February 18; MoMA PS1 October 21 – February 25
Schaulager, Basel, The Museum of Modern Art, and MoMA PS1 present the first comprehensive retrospective of American artist Bruce Nauman (b. 1941) in over 20 years. The exhibition expands upon the rich holdings of the organizing institutions. Spanning the artist’s entire career, from the mid-1960s to the present, “Disappearing Acts” provides a singular opportunity to experience his command of a wide range of mediums, from drawing, printmaking, photography, and sculpture to performance, film, neon, and large-scale installations. “Disappearing Acts” traces strategies of withdrawal in Nauman’s work—both literal and figurative incidents of removal, deflection, and concealment.
Left: Carolyn Lawrence (American, born 1940). “Black Children Keep Your Spirits Free,” 1972. Acrylic on canvas, 481/2 x 501/2 x 51/4 in. (123 x 128 x 13.5 cm). Courtesy of the artist. © Carolyn Mims Lawrence. (Photo: Michael Tropea); Right: Roy DeCarava (American, 1919–2009).”Couple Walking”, 1979. Gelatin silver print on paper, 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm). Courtesy of Sherry Tuner DeCarava and the DeCarava Archives. © 2017 Estate of Roy DeCarava. All Rights Reserved.
“Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power“↑
The Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052
September 14 – February 3
“Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” shines light on a broad spectrum of Black artistic practice from 1963 to 1983, one of the most politically, socially, and aesthetically revolutionary periods in American history, including figurative and abstract painting, prints, and photography; assemblage and sculpture and performance.
Image courtesy of the Met Breuer
“Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy“↑
The Met Breuer
945 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10021
September 18 – January 6
This exhibition features 70 works by 30 artists in media ranging from painting and sculpture to photography, video, and installation art, from 1969 to 2016, “Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy” offers an alternate history of postwar and contemporary art that is also an archaeology of our troubled times. For the last fifty years, artists have explored the hidden operations of power and the symbiotic suspicion between the government and its citizens that haunts Western democracies. The first major exhibition to tackle this perennially provocative topic will trace the simultaneous development of two kinds of art about conspiracy.
“Homage To Malcolm,” Jack Whitten; Collection of the Estate of Jack Whitten, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Met Breuer via the Met Museum
“Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture” 1963-2017 ↑
The Met Breuer
945 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10021
September 6 – December 2
This exhibition presents the extraordinary and previously unknown sculptures of acclaimed American artist Jack Whitten (1939–2018). Whitten’s sculptures, which he first created in New York and later at his summer home on Crete, consist of carved wood, often in combination with found materials sourced from his local environment, including bone, marble, paper, glass, nails, and fishing line. Inspired by art-historical sources rooted in Africa, the ancient Mediterranean and the Southern United States, Whitten’s sculptures not only address the themes of place, memory, family, and migration, they also give expression to a transnational, cosmopolitan perspective.
Image: Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863). “Women of Algiers in Their Apartment,” 1833–34. Oil on canvas, 70 7/8 x 90 3/16 in. (180 x 229 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux; via the Met Musem
“Delacroix”
The Met Fifth Avenue
1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028
September 17 – January 6
French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was one of the greatest creative figures of the nineteenth century. Delacroix produced an extraordinarily vibrant body of work, setting into motion a cascade of innovations that changed the course of art. This exhibition will be the first comprehensive retrospective devoted to the artist ever held in North America.
Image: Marc Chagall, “Self-Portrait with Easel,” 1919. Gouache on paper. Private collection. Artwork © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris via the Jewish Museum
“Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922“↑
The Jewish Museum
1109 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10128
September 14 – January 6
Through some 160 works, this exhibition presents the artistic output of Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, and others, exploring a little-known chapter in the history of modernity and the Russian avant-garde.
Galleries
Image: Sarah Lucas, “Self-portrait with Fried Eggs,” 1996. C-print, 60 × 48 in (152.4 × 121.9 cm). Courtesy the artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London; and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels via the New Museum
“Sarah Lucas: Au Naturel“↑
The New Museum
235 Bowery, NY, NY 10002
September 26 – January 20
Initially associated with a group known as the Young British Artists (YBAs), who began exhibiting together in London in the late 1980s, Sarah Lucas is now one of the UK’s most influential artists. This is the first American survey of her work. Over the past thirty years, Lucas has created a distinctive and provocative body of work that subverts traditional notions of gender, sexuality, and identity. Since the late 1980s, Lucas has transformed found objects and everyday materials such as cigarettes, vegetables, and stockings into absurd and confrontational tableaux that boldly challenge social norms. The human body and anthropomorphic forms recur throughout Lucas’s works, often appearing erotic, humorous, fragmented, or reconfigured into fantastical anatomies of desire.
Image courtesy of Unix Gallery
“Jonathan Paul: To The Victor Belongs The Spoils“ ↑
Unix Gallery
532 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011
September 6 – October 20
This immersive installation explores the conflicting emotions that arise in competition. Two goats in colorful uniforms wander throughout the gallery. Goats are intelligent and playful but impulsive, unpredictable, and devious, like humans they evoke a sense of independence. Four sculptures resembling piñatas hang from the ceilings throughout the space like adorned prizes. Strawberries attached to strings hang from each of the sculptures. (That’s right. Two goats in colorful uniforms).
Events
29 Rooms: “Expand Your Reality” ↑
588 Baltic Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217
September 6 – 9; September 13 – 16
29Rooms is Refinery29’s immersive world of culture and creativity, where artists, partners, and visionaries bring ideas to life through interactive installations, performances, and activities rooted in storytelling and self-expression. This one-of-a-kind event brings together a vibrant, creative crowd and engages millions globally through socially driven content and conversations. 29Rooms is a choose-your-own adventure-style experience. During each session, you’ll have three hours to explore and discover at your whimsy: You choose which rooms to enter and which experiences to engage in.
Affordable Art Fair ↑
Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011
September 27 – 30
Affordable Art Fair NYC will return to the Metropolitan Pavilion in September for its fall edition, welcoming over 70 local, national and international exhibitors, to showcase original work from over 300 contemporary artists. Browse a diverse curated selection of artworks ranging between $100 to $10,000. Visitors will enjoy the friendly and relaxed atmosphere filled with hands-on-workshops, kids’ activities and personal shopping experiences.
Outdoors
Image: Pope.L, chmera, 2018. Part of Agora, a High Line Commission.
Various artists; “Agora“↑
Various locations on the High Line
Through March 2019
Agora is a group exhibition that looks at the role of art in defining, creating, and using public space, examining the power of art to change society, the role of art in public space, and whether art can be a form of protest.
Photo by Jeremy Liebman. Courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery.
“Arlene Shechet: Full Steam Ahead” ↑
Madison Square Park
September 25 – April 28,
Artist Arlene Shechet has been commissioned by Madison Square Park Conservancy to create a new site-specific installation for the park, on view from September 25, 2018, through April 28, 2019. Marking the Conservancy’s thirty-seventh exhibition and the artist’s first major public art project, “Full Steam Ahead” features a series of new sculptures in porcelain, wood, steel, and cast iron installed around and within the emptied circular reflecting pool in the north of Madison Square Park.
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