In New York City, the month of February will usher in thoughtful exhibits and installations, both indoor and outdoor, highlighting the way we live and work. Technology and the digital arts have arrived with a full-force of exhibits, translating our inner hard-drives into colorful patterns of our everyday web-lives. They are joined by a view of the spaces we live and work in, from our urban boxes to our loft-like live/work spaces.
The Guggenheim Museum will walk hand-in-hand with Times Square Arts and The Public Art Fund to show us How To Work Better. Life as seen through our artistic endeavors can shine a light on global issues that touch us all and it can present in images conditions in other parts of our world, both past and present. In the end, we are all Looking Up at the same sky, even if not from Park Avenue.
Without further ado, 18 exhibits to check out in February:
18. Structures of Coastal Resilience: Designing for Climate Change
The Center for Architecture will present “Structures of Coastal Resilience: Designing for Climate Change“highlighting the effects of catastrophic storms and climate change, and the ways in which the devastation can be addressed. The research initiative, Structures of Coastal Resilience (SCR), has been working in the area of developing performance-based designs for flood-prone North Atlantic urban coastal environments. They brought together engineers, science, architects, landscape architects and scholars who worked toward producing in-depth coastal planning and design proposals for areas prone to recurrent coastal flooding.
The results of this work are the focus of this exhibit, and will highlight the tri-state area, specifically Jamaica Bay and Atlantic City. Along with site-specific proposal, a digital overview of research strategies for all sites involved in the study will also be on display.
The exhibit, Structures of Coastal Resilience: Designing for Climate Change will open at The Center for Architecture on February 3, with an Opening Reception at 6 pm.
17. Carnegie Hall 125th Anniversary Presents the Somewhere Project
This season, Carnegie Hall celebrates its 125th anniversary, and we are all invited to take part in the celebration with the launch of The Somewhere Project. The Project is a city-wide exploration of West Side Story, exploring its timeless themes in all five boroughs with neighborhood concerts, workshops, forums and more. Students and community members will work with professional musicians to create songs that speak to “a place for us” in the borough where they live, and in their personal life.
The citywide exploration of West Side Story and concerts begin on February 5 at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and continues through the month of February. Alongside the Program is an online Companion Course, which is an eight-part interactive site that explores the history and social issues that originally inspired West Side Story.
16. Pure Vision Arts Presents Visionary Streetscapes at City Reliquary
The City Reliquary is a not-for-profit community museum and civic organization located in Williamsburg. In addition to a permanent display of New York City artifacts, they offer rotating art exhibits. Currently on view are the works of four artists from Pure Vision Arts, Manhattan’s first specialized art studio and exhibition space for artists with autism and other developmental disabilities. The paintings offer their view of New York, with all its frenetic energy.
Visionary Streetscapes: Works from Pure Vision Arts will be on view through May 15, 2016, with an Opening Reception on January 30 at 6 pm. City Reliquary is located at 370 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn. All of the artwork is for sale.
15. Tom Friedman’s Looking Up Arrives on Park Avenue
Looking Up on Park Avenue, Luring Augustine Gallery
Untapped Cities has often encouraged readers, “Don’t Forget to Look Up.” So when we heard that Tom Friedman’s whimsical thirty-three foot tall figure titled “Looking Up” was heading to New York, we wanted to be there to greet it. “Looking Up” is part of a series which was first seen in London at just over thirty-three inches tall. Initially carved from rudimentary styrofoam, the sculpture is covered in crushed aluminum foil roasting pans, and molding created for lost wax casting. The figure is then converted to stainless steel.
Mr. Friedman’s vision has grown from the original thirty-three inches. Looking Up is presented by Luring Augustine, New York; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; New York City Parks; and the Fund for Park Avenue. The artist hopes that you will join the figure in looking up with the same feeling of whimsy and wonder as does the new thirty-three foot tall installation. On view at Park Avenue between 53rd and 54th Streets. Looking Up will be on view through June,, 2016.
14. Engaging Artists in an Inter-Generational Exchange at the Queens Museum
The issues of aging, health, home, isolation and immigration with a multilingual population are the subject of the current exhibit, Engaging Artists, at the Queens Museum. The exhibition features the work of eight New York City based, first generation, and foreign-born artists, who participated in the Engaging Artists Residency. Their exhibit emerged from a long-term project, by connecting with the aging populations at nursing homes and community centers in neighborhoods from Flushing, Queens to Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
The works in this exhibit document many of the critical issues and challenges. Each artist offers an intergenerational exchange in a variety of ways, such as a visit to Saint Teresa of Avila Senior Apartments in Crown Heights to compose portraits and audio-recorded dialogues of predominantly African-American and Caribbean-American residents living in a quickly gentrifying neighborhood. Or illustrating conversations about identity, hybridity and immigration overheard while facilitating a printmaking workshop at Carver Senior Center in El Barrio (East Harlem) with women of primarily Columbian and Puerto Rican background.
Artist Sara Meghdari, an Iranian-American, creates a video with her directly facing the camera, wearing a hijab, and slowly filming four emotions – happiness, sadness, anger and content, without speaking, attempting to alter the negative perceptions of Muslim women wearing the traditional head scarf. In addition, there are a series of related events, and a live performance and the closing reception.
Engaging Artists will be on view from February 7 to February 27, with an Opening Reception on February 7 from 3:30-5:30 pm. Located at the Queens Museum, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens.
13. Holocaust By Bullets at The United Nations
“Holocaust by Bullets: Yahad-in Unum – 10 Years of Investigation” is part of a 2016 Calendar of Holocaust Remembrance Events on display in the United Nations lobby. The exhibit chronicles the lesser-known side of the Holocaust, with eyewitness testimony which can be viewed on monitors in English and Spanish, along with photographs and maps. The form of genocide detailed in this exhibit took place before the creation of concentration camps throughout the ex-Soviet Union from 1942 to 1944, and continued until the end of World War II. Accompanying the exhibit, is a Teacher’s Guide, which will provide educators with sample questions and exercises to generate discussion. Holocaust by Bullets will be on view through February 10, 2016.
While you’re at the United Nations, you can have lunch side by side Ambassadors in the Delegates Dining Hall.
12. Fischli/Weiss: How to Work Better at the Guggenheim Museum
Peter Fischli and David Weiss, often shortened to Fischli/Weiss, began their artistic collaboration in 1979, and were among the most renowned contemporary artists in Switzerland. Some of their best known collaborative works are “The Way Things Go,” “Rat and Bear,” “Suddenly This Overview,” and “Question,” which is what they did best – probe ideas of dualistic thinking, and question everything. In February, the Guggenheim Museum will present Peter Fischli David Weiss: How to Work Better, a comprehensive survey of their thirty-three year artistic partnership. On view will be more than three-hundred sculptures, photographs, slide projections and videos giving the viewer an intimate look into their dynamic collaboration. While this project was planned to be presented by both Fischli and Weiss, David Weiss passed away in 2012. Peter Fischli continues to live and work in Zurich.
To coincide with this exhibit at the Guggenheim, there will be two other public projects in New York. Times Square Arts and the Midnight Moment Program will present Busi (Kitty) (2001), the video of a cat drinking milk, every night at 11:57 pm during the month of February. In addition, The Public Art Fund will show the artists’ text-based monument to labor, How to Work Better (1991), as a wall mural at Houston and Mott Streets. This is the first time the mural will be shown outside its original installation as a mural in Zurich, and will be on view from February 5 through May 1, 2016.
11. Warhol by the Book at The Morgan Library
With a flurry of programs and related activities, The Morgan Library, in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, are going to show us why Andy Warhol’s books should not be overlooked. On view will be works from his early student days through his years as an artistic cultural icon. Warhol-designed book covers and commercial illustrations from the 1950s will be on display, along with photo-illustrated books, textual works based on sound recordings, and never-before-seen drawings and archival materials. In addition, there will be a plethora of related programs including lectures, films, workshops and discussions.
Warhol by the Book will be on view from February 5 through May 15, 2016. The Morgan Library is located at 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street.
10. LGBTQ Survival Guide for an Un-Supportive World
The group show, LBGTQ Survival Guide, is currently on view in the public spaces of the newly renovated LGBT Center in Greenwich Village. Artworks by contemporary LGBT artists explore and reference the theme in a variety of medium. While one of the artists humorously describes life in 10th grade in a painting entitled ‘True to Yourself,’ others approach the theme from the view of an unsupportive world. Curated by Steed Taylor, this thoughtful installation, LGBTQ Survival Guide, is on view through April 30, 2016 at the LGBT Community Center, located at 208 West 13th Street. The exhibit can also be found online at the LGBT Community Center National History Archive Gallery.
9. This Place, a Photographic Exploration at the Brooklyn Museum
Between 2009 and 2012, twelve photographers travelled throughout Israel and the West Bank capturing images from family and home to landscape and environment. The exhibit, This Place, moves beyond what we see in mainstream media, giving the viewer an intricate portrait of the people who live there, while exploring their uncertain tomorrow. The twelve photographers offer up twelve distinctly different perspectives in more than 600 images.
The exhibit, This Place, will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum from February 12 through June 5, 2016.
8. Anri Sala: Answer Me at The New Museum
Anri Sala, known for works featuring musicians in both films and live performances, will present a comprehensive survey of his work, with emphasis on extensive multichannel audio and video installations, unfolding across three floors of the New Museum. Included in this exhibit will be “Ravel Ravel Unravel” (2013), first exhibited at the 55th Venice Biennale. The symphonic installation will be on view from February 3 through April 10, 2016. Additionally, on February 4, a conversation between Anri Sala and Massimillano Gioni, Artistic Director of the New Museum will discuss Sala’s commitment to working with sound in relation to architecture and history. View the New Museum calendar for related events.
7. Heart of Hearts at Times Square
“Collective-LOK” is the winner of this year’s annual Times Square Valentine Heart Design
Over the past eight years, the Times Square Alliance has invited architecture and design firms to submit proposals for a Valentine’s Day installation. This year, Collective-LOK is the winner! CLOK’s Heart of Hearts is a faceted ring of twelve golden, mirrored hearts that will create an alternative pavilion, which in turn, creates a kaleidoscope reflecting the constant movement and color of Times Square. Inside the ring, you will find diamond-shaped spaces with six kissing booths, all mirrored and reflecting your Heart of Hearts. We hope its contagious.
6. Meet Titanosaur at The American Museum of Natural History
Meet the latest dinosaur species to take up residence at the American Museum of Natural History – the Titanosaur. At full height, the T is two feet shy of the nineteen foot ceiling within the Wallach Orientation Center. At 122 feet long, its head extends out the door towards the elevator banks. Paleontologists believe this dinosaur probably weighed in around 70 tons. Titanosaur is on view on the fourth floor of the Museum of Natural History, located on Central Park West, at 79th Street. While you’re there, check out The Butterfly Conservatory exhibit, which will be on view through May 29, 2016.
5. Connecting Humans to Each Other – Vessels by Fanny Allie in DUMBO
We have admired Fanny Allie’s sculpture work, A Bench for the Night, at MoMA PS1, and her life-size silhouette of a formerly homeless man at Tompkins Square Park, so we were naturally intrigued when we heard about her solo exhibit of collages. The exhibit, entitled Vessels, uses paper, cardboard, plastic and wood to build a story connecting humans to each other, in every shape and size, including makeshift, handmade dwellings. Everyday objects are used in various forms to create flying vessels. The exhibit, Vessels will be on view through February 7, and will be on DUMBO’s First Thursday Art Walk on Thursday, February 4 from 6-8 pm. Located at A.I.R. Gallery, 155 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn.
4. Enter the Machine, an Artistic Look at Our Inner Web-Life
With shapes and colors looking very much like a coral reef, it was a surprise to learn that we were looking at an ordinary computer hard drive, turned inside-out. Artist/programmer Eric Corriel makes its contents visible to the human eye in his exhibit, Enter the Machine. Using custom software, displaying his nine new styrene printed works in synchronized, pulsating light boxes, he explores humanity’s dance with technology. As we view the work, we know that he has uploaded the most intimate parts of someones personal life; in this case, his own. You’ll wonder what your hard drive might look visually in print and color – this is the artist’s intention.
The aptly-titled exhibit Enter the Machine explores the idea of giving a visual face to our stored lives, as he visually guides the viewer through his own personal computer. Enter the Machine will be on view through February 25 at Garis & Hahn, 263 Bowery.
The very creative curator, Souleo, has teamed up with Rush Gallery in an exhibit with artwork created by using buttons. The Button Show highlights eleven artists using buttons as either a dominant medium, or a featured element in work from sculptures to wearable art. Many of the artists in this exhibit grew up surrounded by buttons collected by mothers and aunts and have been creating with buttons for years, like artist Beau McCall, whose numerous pieces of artwork took up one entire room of the Rush Gallery multi-room event.
Marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Austrian-American artist and architect, Frederick Kiesler (1890-1965), MoMA presents Endless House: Intersections of Art and Architecture. Kiesler’s theoretical concept of the endless living space began in 1922, with an emphasis on the relationship between space, people and objects. His architectural drawings, models and photographs depicting this space were first featured at MoMA in 1958-59. MoMA then commissioned Kiesler to build a full-scale prototype for the museum garden, which was never realized.
The exhibit Endless House highlights the works of architects like Frank Gehry, Mies van der Rohe, and Diller + Scofidio, and their significant projects that speak to the concepts of Frederick Kiesler, and the various ways in which we live today.
1. Flakes Adorn the Sprint Flatiron Prow Art Space
The installation of Flakes, last week
The Sprint Flatiron Prow Art Space must have had a crystal ball when they kicked-off the new year with the installation, Flakes. The tiny flake-like strings of color are the creation of artist Chelsea Hrynick Browne, who equates her small, hand-cut Origami paper cutouts to fellow New Yorkers – each of the small works is unique, elusive, quirky, beautiful. “We are all flakes!” she says.
Flakes will be on view through March 16. The Sprint Flatiron Prow Art Space is located at the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, at 23rd Street.
Thomas Friedman’s ‘Looking Up’ on Park Avenue
Looking Up on Park Avenue, Luring Augustine Gallery
