TUESDAY, MARCH 31
Panel: Peter Bogner, Pedro Gadanho, Richard Jochum, Diane Lewis, and Hani Rashid at the Austrian Cultural Forum
This is a big year for the legacy of Austrian-American Frederick Kiesler, marking not only his 125th birthday, but the 50th anniversary of his death and of the completion of his most famous work, the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. Before the public opening of an exhibition dedicated to the works and ideas of the architect/designer/artist/theoretician, “Display of the Centuries. Frederick Kiesler and Contemporary Art,” there will be a panel discussion featuring the show’s curator Peter Bogner as well as MoMA’s Pedro Gadanho and others.
Austrian Cultural Forum, 11 East 52nd Street, New York, 6–7 p.m. There are currently no reservations available, but waiting list spots are available the night of the event.
Event: “Data-Carving: A Data Scavenger Hunt @ Eyebeam” at Eyebeam Labs
Instructed by Danja Vasiliev, a Critical Engineer born in Saint Petersburg but currently living and working in Berlin, Eyebeam presents a two-part workshop in which participants will explore the contents of old hard-drives, SD-cards, public wifi-signals and other “found data.” According to a press release, the process will allow for a “peek into the lives of others – users and owners of scavenged data. Deductively, we will try to discuss and recreate ‘psyche’ portraits of those strangers and restore the contexts that otherwise would have faded away.” It should be noted that by the end of the workshop, all data will be destroyed.
Eyebeam Labs, 34 35th Street, Unit 26, Brooklyn, 6:30-9:30 p.m., $50.00 ($52.74 with service fee). Please bring an an old data storage device, i.e. hard drives, SD cards, and a laptop capable of running Virtualbox (OS X, GNU/Linux, Windows). Eyebeam can provide computers and hard drives on a first-come, first-serve basis.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1
Opening: “Hip-Hop Revolution: Photographs by Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo, and Martha Cooper” at Museum of the City of New York
The museum will display a collection of over 80 photos documenting hip-hop culture’s infancy in New York City.
Museum of the City of New York, 1220 5th Avenue, New York, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Event: “Women’s Inc. Lexicon” at Artists Space
In conjunction with the Hito Steyerl exhibition currently on view at Artists Space, Women’s Inc.—a newly founded group of artists, writers, curators, and academics who create responses to urgent feminist issues—will present their collaboratively written lexicon of neologisms, inspired by Steyerl’s work. An official statement about the work reads, “This dictionary coins new words for a new age, one marked both by advances in omnipresent technology and mass surveillance, and also a continued struggle with intersectional issues related to race, gender, and sexuality.” The event is organized by critic and curator Karen Archey, and will be read by Dana Kopel, Eva Munz, Kimberly Drew, Rachel Wetzler, and Seung Min Lee. It is written by Karen Archey, Ann Hirsch, Jamillah James, Rachel Wetzler, Jennifer Chan, Dana Kopel, Eva Munz, Kimberly Drew, Hito Steyerl, Sunita Prasad, Abbe Schriber, Tess Edmonson, Morehshin Allahyari, Jessica Langley, Seung Min Lee, and Astria Suparak.
Artists Space Books and Talks, 55 Walker Street, New York, 7 p.m.
THURSDAY, APRIL 2
Opening: John Giorno “Space Forgets You” at Elizabeth Dee Gallery
New paintings by the American poet, performance artist, and New York City cultural institution John Giorno. His new works recall Ed Ruscha and feature rainbow gradients foregrounded with poetic white text. Example: “WE GAVE A PARTY OF THE GODS AND THE GODS ALL CAME.”
Elizabeth Dee Gallery, 545 West 20th Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.
FRIDAY, APRIL 3
Opening Party: “Simon Denny: The Innovator’s Dilemma” at MoMA PS1
This opening party in celebration of conceptual artist Simon Denny’s new exhibition “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” which looks at the climate of innovation in contemporary culture, will feature a panel of annotators selected by the artist, courtesy of the online project Genius. Famous for its condescending “explanations” of rap music and for stealing Sasha Frere-Jones away from The New Yorker, Genius’s panel will present artists such as Ryder Ripps and Nightcoregirl who will battle to “add image and commentary to key texts chosen by the artist about innovation.”
MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave. at the intersection of 46th Ave., Long Island City, 8-10 p.m.
Opening: “One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Works” at MoMA Special Exhibitions Gallery
Over at MoMA proper is a much more formal show, and one of the most anticipated of the year: a series of paintings by Jacob Lawrence made in 1941 about the Great Migration, the multi-decade mass movement of African Americans from the South to the urban North. MoMA calls the work “a landmark in the history of modern art, and a key example of the way that history painting was radically reimagined in the modern era.”
MoMA, 11 West 53 Street, Special Exhibitions Gallery, New York, 3rd floor, 10:30 a.m.–8 p.m.
SATURDAY, APRIL 4
Opening: Trudy Benson “Shapes of Things” at Lisa Cooley
New work from the young painter Trudy Benson over at Lisa Cooley. One of Benson’s paintings was recently used as the cover image for the debut solo indie rock LP from Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan, who will DJ a special event at the gallery on April 15th. Check out Benson’s edition of ARTnews’ Consumer Reports feature right here.
Lisa Cooley Gallery, 107 Norfolk Street, New York, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Update: the Jamian Juliano-Villani show previously listed in this column opens April 18.