With such lovely spring weather, there’s no better time to go out and see art in New York City. Our list of recommendations this month includes shows that will please your eyes, move your soul, and awaken your mind. It includes artists Wendy Red Star, Bob Thompson, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Ken Tisa, and more. We also listed a few MFA thesis shows around the city that you might want to check out. There’s only one question left to resolve: jacket or no jacket?
Bodies We Inhabit and Doctrine of Signatures
Two current exhibitions are worth seeing at the NARS Foundation in Brooklyn: Bodies We Inhabit, curated by Jessica Duby, brings together 10 women and nonbinary artists who reflect on our relationship with the earth and the harm we’re doing to it (though we’re really only harming ourselves). The other, a solo exhibition by NARS resident artist Nicki Cherry, is a personal meditation on chronic pain, mitigated best by the healing power and beauty of the natural world. —Hakim Bishara
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NARS Foundation (narsfoundation.org/2023-exhibitions/bodies-we-inhabit & narsfoundation.org/2023-exhibitions/doctrine-of-signature-nicki-cherry)
201 46th Street, 4th Floor, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Through May 17
Wendy Red Star: Our Side
What do you do when you encounter items from your cultural heritage in museum collections and archives built by your oppressors? Apsáalooke (Crow) artist Wendy Red Star’s answer to this question is to create her own personal archive of these objects in the form of annotated photographic collages that sing of beauty, longing, loss, and perseverance. That’s what you’ll see in this exhibition alongside larger, wordless collages atop fabrics traditionally used for Apsáalooke regalia. —HB
Sargent’s Daughters (sargentsdaughters.com)
179 East Broadway, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Through May 20
Ken Tisa: Dream Maps
I was not expecting to fall in love with Ken Tisa’s embellished textile works, composed of hundreds upon hundreds of beads, buttons, and sequins meticulously sewn on vintage fabrics. But the New York artist’s zany and eccentric tapestries quickly won me over with their humor, strange beauty, and embrace of visual traditions as disparate as Haitian Vodou flags and flea-market kitsch. It’s the first time new textile works by Tisa are being exhibited since the late 1980s. —Valentina Di Liscia
Kate Werble Gallery (katewerblegallery.com)
474 Broadway, Third Floor, Soho, Manhattan
Through May 26
Matt Bollinger: Station
This is a simple little show in a modest little space about simple, modest people on the margins of the so-called American Dream. The figures depicted are working-class White people living their lives, performing their manual jobs, and finding moments of respite and communion. A shadowy figure holding a plastic shopping bag with a smiley emoji caught my attention in the background of one of the paintings. Look for it when you visit the show, and read critic John Yau’s full review on Hyperallergic here. —HB
François Ghebaly Gallery (ghebaly.com)
391 Grand Street, Chinatown, Manhattan
Through May 27
Kyle Goen: Let Art Be Training in the Practice of Freedom
Kyle Goen’s Training in the Practice of Freedom is a breath of fresh air. Goen is uninterested in the art market — like so many cutting-edge artists nowadays — and has collected together a wide array of work from his decade or so helping social movements create graphic materials that speak loudly to a large audience. His style is most often connected with the Decolonize This Place movement that was born here in New York City, but the language has been disseminated far and wide, helping in turn to influence other movements. This lovely little exhibition allows you not only to see the graphic work and read the related publications (which he ALSO designed), but to go through and listen to his record collection, as well. Highly recommended. —Hrag Vartanian
The Empty Circle (theemptycircle.com)
499 Third Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Through May 27
Tali Keren: Un-Charting
For years, Israeli artist Tali Keren has been investigating the destructive political alliance between the American fundamentalist Christian right and her country’s Zionist leaderships. It’s an unlikely marriage between parties who hold diametrically opposed beliefs as to who will get the upper hand on Judgment Day. Through video work and public programming that includes talks and performances, this exhibition distills the ideological poison that messianic fanatics dump into the holy land. —HB
The James Gallery at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (centerforthehumanities.org)
365 Fifth Avenue, First Floor, Midtown, Manhattan
Through June 4
Bob Thompson: So let us all be citizens
Lost too early at age 28 in 1966, Bob Thompson stood out as one of the most daring artists of his time. While most of his New York peers were stranded deep in the cult of abstraction, he developed a different figurative style influenced by jazz wherein humans, animals, and phantoms mingle about in intensely vivid colors. Though his short-lived career lasted less than a decade, it left an indelible mark on American art history. This show will provide a chance to celebrate his peerless legacy and mourn the void left in his absence. —HB
52 Walker (52walker.com)
52 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
Through July 8
Arctic Highways
Twelve Native artists from Alaska, Canada, and Sápmi, the original name for the region spanning Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, present artworks and duodji — traditional Sámi crafts — in this exhibition. Artist Meryl McMaster, who is of Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) and British and Dutch heritage, took the self-portrait on view during her travels across ancestral sites in Canada to deepen her connections to her heritage. In “What Will I Say to the Sky and the Earth II” (2019), she wears a gauzy white gown printed with red mayflowers in a seemingly vast snowy expanse; the image appears to stretch endlessly beyond the frame, challenging notions of borders and borderlessness. —VD
Scandinavia House (scandinaviahouse.org)
58 Park Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
Through July 22
Misha Japanwala: Beghairati Ki Nishaani: Traces of Shamelessness
One of the most effective tools of social control is the oppressive institution of shame. Karachi-born artist Misha Japanwala rebels against this apparatus by presenting copper casts of the bodies of queer, trans, and femme Pakistani individuals who responded to an open call. Together, they declare themselves proudly and unapologetically “shameless.” —HB
Hannah Traore Gallery (hannahtraoregallery.com)
150 Orchard Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Through July 30
Daniel Lind-Ramos: El Viejo Griot: Una historia de todos nosotros
The title of this exhibition makes reference to el viejo griot, an elder figure in the colorful annual festival dedicated to the patron saint of Loíza, Daniel Lind-Ramos’s hometown in Puerto Rico. Griots are West African troubadours who preserve history through narration, and like these storytellers, Lind-Ramos leads us through the past and the present with his majestic assemblages made of found objects, often using scraps culled from the streets in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. In the artist’s expert hands, they are completely transformed. —VD
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
MoMA PS1 (momaps1.org)
22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
Through September 4
MFA Thesis Shows On View:
- New York University: Mycelia, 80WSE Gallery, through May 12
- New York Academy of Art: MFA Thesis Exhibition, Wilkinson Gallery, May 11 through May 20
- Columbia University: Class of 2023 Visual Arts MFA Thesis Exhibition, Wallach Art Gallery, through May 21
- Hunter College: MFA Thesis Thesis Exhibition, Part II, 205 Hudson Gallery, May 11 through May 23
- Cornell University: Clapping Corners, Ortega y Gasset Projects, through May 28
- New York Studio School: MFA Thesis Exhibition, New York Studio School, May 17 through May 31
More Recommendations From Our Spring 2023 New York Art Guide:
- Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw, New-York Historical Society, through May 28
- Deconstructing Power: W. E. B. Du Bois at the 1900 World’s Fair, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, through May 29
- Chryssa & New York, Dia Chelsea, through July 23
- Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map, Whitney Museum of American Art, through August 13
Source: Hyperallergic.com