9 Art Events to Attend in New York City This Week

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

Talk: “An Evening with Chto Delat” at Museum of Modern Art
In Palace Square 100 Years After. Four Seasons of Zombie, a film that addresses the repercussions of the October Revolution of 1917, the Russian collective Chto Delat enlists zombies to explore power possessed by those who are excluded. It’s a typical work for the multidisciplinary collective, which creates art and literature in dialogue in neo-Marxist ideals. (The name translates as “What is to be done?”) After the premiere of the new film here, Dmitry Vilensky, a member of Chto Delat, will discuss the film and the collective’s work.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, 7 p.m. Tickets $8/$10/$12

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26

Performance: “Vexations” at Guggenheim Museum
Night owls can spend their time this week at the Guggenheim Museum, which will play home to an all-night version of Vexations, Erik Satie’s avant-garde composition for piano. In his instructions for the piece, the score is to be repeated 840 times—an opportunity for mesmerism of a kind suited to Joséphin Péladan, the founder of the 19th-century Salon de la Rose+Croix that is currently the subject of a Guggenheim show. On this night, some 20 pianists will summon Satie’s music over the course of a 19-hour performance, which begins in the evening and wraps up on Wednesday at 2 p.m.
Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Avenue, 7 p.m. Tickets $10/$12/$15

Lecture: “Filmmaker as Film Theorist” at Light Industry
With Light Industry reprinting Stan Brakhage’s book Metaphors on Vision, which had been out of print for 40 years, film critic P. Adams Sitney will lecture on the history of experimental filmmakers who were also writers. Sitney, who wrote one of the first books on experimental film, considers Maya Deren’s Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film a crucial precursor to the Brakhage book, and here he’ll trace a lineage between Deren, Brakhage, and Hollis Frampton. As part of the talk, Sitney will screen works by the three filmmakers.
Light Industry, 155 Freeman Street, Brooklyn, 7:30 p.m. Tickets $8

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

Opening: “Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon” at New Museum
This exhibition will feature the work of artists who explore gender fluidity in their work. Through film, performance, paintings, and other mediums, the 40 artists included in the survey have all used their practice to break down heteronormativity, working against a backdrop of culture wars and identity politics. Alongside pre-existing work, several pieces have been commissioned for the exhibition, including a massive braided sculpture by the artist Diamond Stingily that will weave through four floors of the museum and a life-sized suit by Nayland Blake that will periodically be worn for performances as part of the show.
New Museum, 235 Bowery, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

Opening: “A Limitless Vision: The Collection of Audrey B. Heckler” at Sara Kay Gallery
Sara Kay, formerly the director of White Cube, will open her New York gallery this week with this exhibition of works by self-taught artists from Audrey Heckler’s preeminent collection, recently the subject of a monograph published by the American Folk Art Museum. Pieces by Martín Ramírez, Aloïse Corbaz, Madge Gill, and Adolf Wölfli will be on view at the gallery’s East Village space alongside works by Pablo Picasso and a cast by Jean Dubuffet. The work by the two European modernists will draw attention to their influences on the larger field of outsider art.
Sara Kay Gallery, 4 East 2nd Street, 6–8 p.m.

Opening: Andres Serrano at Jack Shainman Gallery
In one photograph from Andres Serrano’s 2015 series “Torture,” a nude man kneels on a wood floor with what appears to be a trash bag on his head. With its photographs of hooded figures, “Torture” will likely remind audiences of the shocking reality of Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror, and also of the power play that naturally comes with taking one’s picture. This solo show, Serrano’s first in New York in nine years, will be held at Jack Shainman Gallery’s newly renovated West 20th Street space, where works from the “Torture” series will be on view.
Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 West 20th Street, 6–8 p.m.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

Opening: “Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt” at Brooklyn Museum
Co-organized by Brooklyn Museum curators Edward Bleiberg and Yekaterina Barbash, “Soulful Creatures” puts a spotlight on the mummification of animals in ancient Egyptian culture and religion. There will be 30 mummies from the museum’s collection on display alongside 69 classic pieces of related Egyptian art in an exhibition that is said to be the first of its kind. Also included will be research about the mummies: occasionally, animal coffins were meant to deceive their viewers, and new CT scans will offer viewers a further look at what’s inside.
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Pkwy, Brooklyn, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

Opening: Vaginal Davis and Louise Nevelson at Invisible-Exports
In the mid-1940s, Louise Nevelson carved out a singular body of monochromatic wood structures. Largely free of affect, they flew in the face of the day’s dominating Abstract Expressionist style. Her work will be on view at this show, where it will be paired with paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Vaginal Davis, who is inspired by both the production of Hollywood and the raw energy of punk—but makes work that sits in a space undefined by either. For this show, a series of 20 of the Davis’s “make-up paintings” will be on view alongside works from Nevelson’s late-’60s series of all-black assemblage pieces.
Invisible-Exports, 89 Eldridge Street, 6–8 p.m.

Opening: Rachel Rossin at Signal
Rachel Rossin is known to synthesize the digital and the handmade, working in mediums ranging from virtual reality to traditional oil painting. Rosin’s show at Signal, titled “Peak Performance,” foregrounds the artist’s work in painting and sculpture, and promises to highlight the dissonance between physical and digital space in our current quickly changing cultural climate. The overarching concept, according to a show announcement: “disembodied consciousness in digital space.”
Signal, 260 Johnson Avenue, Brooklyn, 6–9 p.m.