9 Art Events to Attend in New York City This Week

TUESDAY, JULY 10

Opening: Fred Wilson at Pace Gallery
First staged at the 2017 Istanbul Biennial, Fred Wilson’s Afro Kismet focuses on the overlooked communities of people of African descent in Turkey. The installation—which includes two chandeliers, two monumental Iznik tile walls, four black glass drip works, a globe sculpture, furniture, engravings, photographs, a Yoruba mask, and found objects from Istanbul—will be adapted to Pace Gallery’s space, and the exhibition will also feature a selection of Wilson’s Murano glass works and drip sculptures. Last spring, when Afro Kismet was on view at Pace Gallery in London, Wilson said of the project, “I also wanted to connect to the present in some way, because as much as I’m interested in the deep past, the Afro-Anatolians live in the present. They are part of the African diaspora.”
Pace Gallery, 510 West 25th Street, 6–8 p.m.

Performance: Will Rawls at the High Line
Uncle Rebus, Will Rawls’s performance for the High Line, considers the construction of the fictional black narrator of the 19th-century folkloric Brer Rabbit Tales, which were written by a white author, Joel Chandler Harris. Featuring three dancers, the piece presents rearrangements and deconstructions of Harris’s syntax that serve to disrupt and undermine the author’s characterization of this imagined storyteller, which Rawls and many others have considered racist. The piece relies on the keyboard that Rawls made for a previous work, I make me [sic], to represent word fragments and create new meanings.
The High Line at 17th Street, 6–8 p.m.

Reading: Ricardo Alberto Maldonado and Elizabeth Zuba at Hauser & Wirth
In conjunction with the gallery’s ongoing exhibition of work by the Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida, the poets Ricardo Alberto Maldonado and Elizabeth Zuba will stage a reading of work by other poets (José Ángel Valente and Jorge Guillén) who were sources of inspiration for the artist. The event is co-presented with the Poetry Society of America.
Hauser & Wirth, 32 East 69th Street, 7—8:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 11

Screening: Illusions and Free, White and 21 at Brooklyn Academy of Music
As part of the series “The Racial Imaginary Institute: On Whiteness,” BAM will present a double-feature of short films from the early 1980s, both dealing with the intersection of race and sexual identity in America. In Julie Dash’s 1982 film Illusions, an African-American singer is asked to overdub the voice of a white Hollywood actress by a white-passing black executive. It will be followed by the 12-minute video Free, White and 21, in which artist Howardena Pindell takes on the identity of a blonde caucasian women in an examination of the flaws of white feminism. After the screenings, BAM programmer Ashley Clark will host a discussion with members of the Racial Imaginary Institute (which also organized a group show currently on view at the Kitchen) and journalist Collier Meyerson.
Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 7 p.m. Tickets $7.50/$15

THURSDAY, JULY 12

Exhibitions: David Wojnarowicz at P.P.O.W. and Whitney Museum 
Two simultaneous exhibitions will offer a comprehensive overview of the oeuvre of the late artist David Wojnarowicz, who found major acclaim during the cultural turmoil surrounding the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s (he passed away from complications related to the disease in 1992). The Whitney exhibition, which opens to the public on Friday, is the debut of a major traveling retrospective that showcases the range of Wojnarowicz’s output, which includes experimental music, graffiti, photography and painting. A concurrent show at P.P.O.W. gallery, with an opening reception on Thursday, focuses specifically on his installations.
P.P.O.W., 535 West 22nd Street, 2nd Floor, 6–8 p.m. (Thursday, July 12); Whitney Museum, 99 Gansevoort Street, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. (Friday, July 13)

Opening: “The Party” at Anton Kern Gallery
With summer-group-show season in full swing, Anton Kern Gallery presents an exhibition that explores the role of comedy in contemporary art. Curated by Ali Subotnick, the show was inspired by Blake Edward’s satirical 1968 film The Party, a cult classic in which Peter Sellers plays an Indian actor who gets invited to a cocktail party by mistake. (Chaos ensues.) The exhibition features a bubble-blowing grandfather clock by Jamie Isenstein and a parrot trained by Maurizio Cattelan to produce strange sounds—plus work by 13 other artists including Catharine Czudej, Frances Stark, and Ruby Neri.
Anton Kern Gallery, 16 East 55th Street, 6–8 p.m.

SATURDAY, JULY 14

Opening: “Laugh Back” at Smack Mellon
Curated by Lindsey O’Connor, this group show draws on the 2017 arrest of Codepink activist Desiree Fairooz, who was convicted for laughing during the confirmation of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (Her case was later dropped by the Department of Justice.) The exhibition views Fairooz’s laughter as an act of defiance. In that spirit, “Laugh Back” convenes 16 artists who identify as women, each of whom uses humor to subvert patriarchal structures. Included are works by Farah Al Qasimi, Dynasty Handbag, Rachel Mason, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed.
Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn, 6–8 p.m.

SUNDAY, JULY 15

Exhibition: “Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980” at Museum of Modern Art
In the decades following World War II, Yugoslavia—which has since been disbanded—found itself at the center of two conflicting political systems. To the West was capitalism; to the East was socialism. Architects were subsequently faced with a challenge: how could a country combine the two and integrate them both into design? This 400-work exhibition surveys 32 years of Yugoslavian architecture, from experiments with Brutalism to designs for the town of New Belgrade. The show features photographs, models, drawings, films, and more, and will include materials related to designs by Bogdan Bogdanović, Vjenceslav Richter, and Milica Šterić, among others.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

Talk: Ryuichi Sakamoto and Laurie Anderson at Film Society of Lincoln Center
Ryuichi Sakamoto is revered for music that can combine electronic sounds and various styles of classical music, though the general public might know him best for his scores for such films as The Last Emperor, Femme Fatale, and The Revenant. Now he is himself the subject of a documentary, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, which was directed by Stephen Schible and released earlier this month. On the occasion of the film’s release, the Film Society of Lincoln Center has convened Sakamoto and musician and artist Laurie Anderson for a discussion about the Japanese composer’s career.
Film Society of Lincoln Center, 165 West 65th Street, 4:45 p.m.