COURTESY THE RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19
Opening: “Alison Knowles: The Boat Book” at James Fuentes
Perhaps the most underrated of the Fluxus artists, Alison Knowles is known for her interdisciplinary, oddball work that usually combines the everyday with performance. This show, named for a large installation that Knowles first debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach last year, is based on The Big Book, an oversize book that she showed in 1966. Here, Knowles has created another massive book—this one being an ode to her brother, a fisherman named Lawrence Beckwith Knowles. Her new Boat Book makes use of photography, sound, prints, collage, photography, and personal ephemera. A closing reception will be held at the end of the show’s run, on September 9.
James Fuentes, 55 Delancey Street, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Premiere: Ceremony at The Rubin Museum
The Rubin Museum will premiere Ceremony, a documentary of the secret, millennia-old spiritual practices of Mongolian shamans, created by filmmaker Sas Carey. Carey, a nurse from Vermont, lived with the shamans in the steppes of Mongolia for over ten years, and was only granted permission to film shamanic ceremonies towards the very end. Carey describes in a press release, “They just allow their souls to leave their bodies. They’re just like shells that are accepting their ancestors’ spirits, and they start acting like something else. In the movie, [a shaman named] Nergui starts howling like a wolf. It’s like the energy of the wolf is in his body.”
The Rubin Museum, 150 West 17th Street, 7—8:30 p.m., Tickets $22/19.80
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20
Party: “Agathe Snow: Stamina” at the Guggenheim
In 2005, Agathe Snow staged a 24-hour dance party in downtown New York, wanting to see if underground culture was still resilient after 9/11. Unsurprisingly, downtown Manhattan was as alive as ever. Now, as part of “Storylines,” Snow has edited footage she shot at that party into a 24-hour film called Stamina, which will premiere at another 24-hour dance party held in its honor. The Guggenheim has lined up a series of live music acts to accompany the film. A cash bar will be open until 4 a.m.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Avenue, 6 p.m.–6 p.m., $25/$18
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22
Screening: I Feel Your Pain at the Whitney Museum
The fourth of five total screenings scheduled throughout the summer, I Feel Your Pain reedits clips of political events and speeches into something resembling a romantic story. Created by Liz Magic Lazer in 2011, the film came about as the result of a performance staged, filmed, and edited in real time in front of an audience, and was a Performa commission.
Whitney Museum, 99 Gansevoort Street, 3rd Floor, Susan and John Hess Family Gallery and Theater, 2 p.m. The screening is free with Museum admission.
VIA ARTBOOK.COM
Book Signing: Marilyn Minter at Harper’s Books
Whether you’re planning to be in East Hampton this Saturday or not, you should pay a visit to Harper’s Books, where Marilyn Minter will be hosting a signing of her latest book of photos and other ephermera, Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty (Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2015). Included are tributes from Bill Arning, Elissa Auther, Nick Flynn, K8 Hardy, Richard Hell, Colby Keller, Eileen Myles, Jenni Sorkin, Neville Wakefield, and transcripts of Minter’s interviews with Catherine Morris and Linda Yablonsky. The book’s release was timed alongside four different museum showcases of Minter’s work this year, including her first major retrospective at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
Harper’s Books, 87 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, New York 11937, 6—8 p.m.
Opening: “Take an Object” at the Museum of Modern Art
This show looks at an artistic trend, at its heyday from the mid-’50s to early ’70s, that involved taking an object, manipulating it slightly, and exhibiting it as art. Featuring work from MoMA’s permanent collection, “Take an Object” traces the trajectory from Neo-Dada, to Pop, to Fluxus, to proto-Minimalism, specifically as seen through the relationship between everyday objects and traditional art practices. In the process, high and low culture merge, creating a new kind of art object.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, 10:30 a.m.–5 p.m., free with museum admission
Performance: “Eli Keszler: Swarms” at SculptureCenter
Held as part of SculptureCenter’s LIC Block Party, Eli Keszler will be staging Swarms, an installation and performance designed for the Queens art center’s basement. The work is named for the animal behavior of coming together as a group, though individuals are always moving on their own frequency, so to speak. Keszler then makes this literal—he’ll pipe sound through different hallways that are distinct spaces which, when heard and viewed at once, gel to create a whole floor. Keszler will also be playing drums as stretched piano wires create even more noises.
SculptureCenter, 44-19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens, 12 p.m.–5 p.m., free
COURTESY MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE
Screening: Impolex at the Museum of the Moving Image
Kicking off an Alex Ross Perry film series honoring the August 26th release of the Elisabeth Moss-starring Queen of Earth (which the museum will show in a special preview screening next Tuesday), the Museum of the Moving Image will screen Impolex, released in 2011. Inspired by Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, Perry’s debut follows a WWII soldier as he roams through the forests of post-war Europe searching for German V2 rockets. Among those he encounters are an Englishman with an eyepatch, an octopus, and an old, pre-war girlfriend.
Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35 Ave, Astoria, Queens, 4:30 p.m. Tickets $12.