9 Art Events in New York: Jessi Reaves, Gary Indiana, Barthélémy Toguo, and More

MONDAY, MARCH 11

Opening: “Metanoia: Transformation Through AIDS Archives and Activism” at the LGBT Community Center
This exhibition, which focuses on community responses to the AIDS crisis in America, will span three floors of the LGBT Community Center. Works on view are drawn from the center’s archives and the holdings at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries in Los Angeles. Taking its name from a Greek word for transformative change, the show will center the narratives and experiences of cis and trans women of color.
LGBT Community Center, 208 West 13th Street, 5–7:30 p.m. RSVP required

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13

Performance: “Lou Reed Drones” at Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
For this concert, Laurie Anderson will place guitars from her late husband Lou Reed’s collection against a group of amplifiers in the central space of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. Audience members’ perceptions of the sounds from the instruments will vary depending on their location in the Cathedral, which has a natural 8-second echo. The installation is curated by Stewart Hurwood, Reed’s former guitar technician.
Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue, 6:30–11:30 p.m. RSVP required

Opening: Naama Tsabar at Kasmin
With “Dedicated,” her latest solo outing, Naama Tsabar continues her examination of the role gender plays in music-making and performance. Bringing together three bodies of work, the show features a site-specific sculptural and sonic installation, works on canvas that function as amplifiers, and photographs set in the artist’s studio. The artist and a group of female musicians will stage a performance at the gallery in May, on the closing night of the exhibition.
Kasmin, 293 Tenth Avenue, 6–8 p.m.

THURSDAY, MARCH 14

Opening: Jessi Reaves at Bridget Donahue
Jessi Reaves’s second exhibition with Bridget Donahue gallery is aptly titled “II,” and it showcases new pieces by the artist. Reaves is best known for works that blur the boundary between furniture and sculpture. Many of Reaves’s constructions have a biomorphic quality, as though they’ve absorbed the presence of their users, and her pieces figured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial and the 2018 Carnegie International.
Bridget Donahue, 99 Bowery, 2nd Floor, 6–8 p.m.

FRIDAY, MARCH 15

Opening: Gang Zhao at Greene Naftali
For Gang Zhao’s debut exhibition at Greene Naftali, which has added him to its roster, the Chinese painter will show a body of work that depicts scenes of 20th-century China in transition. Much of the work focuses on the fraught effects of the country’s modernization process, with sex work and nuclear testing among the topics touched on.
Greene Naftali, 508 West 26th Street, 6–8 p.m.

Opening: Barthélémy Toguo at Galerie Lelong & Co.
For his first solo exhibition in New York in more than a decade, the Paris-based, Cameroonian-born artist Barthélémy Toguo will show a version of Urban Requiem, an installation he presented at the 2015 Venice Biennale. In the piece, ladders are used as shelving units for a grouping of busts with slogans carved into them, many taken from recent protest movements. (STOLEN LIVES, reads one.) Each bust can function as a stamp, and their impressions will appear on the gallery’s walls. Also on view will be abstract paintings depicting plants that seem to merge with humans.
Galerie Lelong & Co., 528 West 26th Street, 6–8 p.m.

Talk: “Vile Days with Gary Indiana and Bruce Hainley” at SculptureCenter
The recently released book Vile Days: The Village Voice Art Columns, 1985–1988 collects columns that Gary Indiana penned for the now-defunct Village Voice, where his writings appeared steadily over the course of three years. Indiana’s columns, which could be irreverent and inspiring in equal measure, are now considered key documents of the era’s art scene in New York. To celebrate the book, Indiana will talk with critic Bruce Hainley, who edited the book and wrote its preface.
SculptureCenter, 44-19 Purves Street, Queens, 7 p.m. Free with RSVP

SUNDAY, MARCH 17

Exhibition: “Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern” at Museum of Modern Art
This exhibition explores the cultural influence of the writer, curator, and critic Lincoln Kirstein during the 1930s and 1940s. Kirstein, who cofounded the School of American Ballet with the choreographer George Balanchine in 1933, was a key figure in queer culture in New York, an advocate for modern dancers, and a wide-ranging tastemaker. Comprising 300 rarely exhibited works—from costume designs to paintings and photographs to sculptures—alongside materials from the MoMA archive, this show makes a case for Kirstein’s influence on pre–World War II American art and culture.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

Reading: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha at Performance Space New York
Released in 1982, the late artist and writer Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s novel Dictee is considered to be a classic of experimental literature. The loose focus of Cha’s book, which has since gone out of print, is the lives of several women, including Joan of Arc, the author, and her mother, and the ways in which they intersect. But Cha’s telling of these narratives is not straightforward—language is deconstructed, and text is visually altered. This live reading of the book, organized by the novelist Sarah Schulman, will last four hours and include more than 30 readers, among them Theresa’s brother John Cha and the novelist Yong Soon Min.
Performance Space New York, 150 1st Avenue, 1–5 p.m. Free with RSVP