9 Art Events to Attend in New York City This Week

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3

Performance: Limpe Fuchs at Madison Square Park
German sound artist Limpe Fuchs was an original member of the ’70s duo Anima Sound, known for its homemade instruments and free-form brand of music that existed somewhere between rock and jazz. For her Madison Square Park residency, which was commissioned as part of Josiah McElheny’s “Prismatic Park” by Blank Forms, the artist will present a series of workshops that invite the public to play the artist’s percussion instruments—or, if visitors so desire, bring their own from home. Through Sunday, Fuchs will lead small group improv sessions, adding her own voice and instruments as visitors help make music. Fuchs will continue hosting workshops throughout the week; consult Blank Forms’s website for a complete list of times.
Madison Square Park, 11 Madison Avenue, 1 p.m and 7 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4

Book Launch: Adam Pendleton at the Kitchen
Launching this week, Adam Pendleton’s book Black Dada Reader explores broad conceptions of blackness. The volume references a diverse collection of cultural figures from Hugo Ball and Gertrude Stein to W. E. B. Du Bois and LeRoi Jones (a.k.a. Amiri Baraka), and includes contributions from artists, curators, and critics who comment on what Black Dada might mean. This event will feature readings and performances by the author and the New Orleans–style SugarTone Brass Band, among others.
The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, 7 p.m.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5

Opening: Joyce Kozloff at DC Moore Gallery
An exhibition titled “Girlhood” will feature Joyce Kozloff’s mixed-media work involving maps as well as childhood work that the artist found well-preserved when she was packing up her late parents’ home. In using maps, Kozloff visualizes the far-away places she dreamed of during childhood and, in doing so, highlights their innocence. “The worldview of my naïve public-school pictures is further away from me today than the places were then,” Kozloff has said. The exhibition will also feature a selection of collages from her early 2000s “Boy’s Art” series, for which she combined detailed drawings of historical battle sites with copies of her son’s superhero and war artwork.
DC Moore Gallery, 535 West 22nd Street, 2nd Floor, 6–8 p.m.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6

Conference: “What’s at Stake?: Community and Visual Culture” at the New School
How can visual art play a role in building community? This question will serve as a topic of conversation at the New School (co-hosted by the International Center of Photography), where artists, community organizers, and the general public gather will talk this week about how media and art can effect social change. Scheduled to participate in the conference are Nicholas Mirzoeff, Ruth Sergel, Stephanie Dinkins, and representatives from the Chinatown Art Brigade and the Laundromat Project, among others.
The New School, 63 5th Avenue, 9:30 a.m.–7:30 p.m. Free admission with RSVP

Exhibition: “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World” at Guggenheim Museum
Already the subject of controversy in the run-up to its opening, “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World” promises an ambitious survey of contemporary Chinese art. It’s the largest survey of its kind in North America, and it will feature more than 150 pieces on loan from private and public collections. Its starting point is 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square protests, which marked a moment of political and cultural change in China and throughout the West. Boldly, the curators plan to “reposition a Sinocentric art history in a way that sees China as integral to the emergence of the global contemporary,” according to a show description.
Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Avenue, 10 a.m.–5:45 p.m.

Performance: John Zorn at NYU Skirball Center
Between March and May 2015, the musician and composer John Zorn created a whopping 300 new pieces of music. These compositions were subsequently collected as The Bagatelles, and now selections from this body of work will be performed in a two-day marathon concert at NYU’s Skirball Center. There will be 20 different ensembles playing more than 100 different pieces, with players ranging from longtime Zorn collaborators to younger faces from the worlds of rock, jazz, and classical music.
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, 566 LaGuardia Pl, 7:30 p.m. Tickets $50

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7

Exhibition: “Charles White—Leonardo da Vinci. Curated by David Hammons” at Museum of Modern Art
If you can’t wait for the forthcoming Charles White Retrospective at MoMA, tide yourself over with this exhibition curated by David Hammons. Notably, White’s 1973 work Black Pope (Sandwich Board Man) will be on view for the first time since the museum acquired it in 2013. To be paired with a brush-and-ink drapery study by Leonardo da Vinci on loan from the British Royal Collection, the work and its historical counterpart will highlight the enduring influence of both artists.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, 10:30 a.m.–9 p.m.

Exhibition: Barbara Hammer at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art
For almost half a century, Barbara Hammer has produced work that challenges representation around gender and sexuality. Having started working in the 1970s, a time when such subject matter was still considered taboo by some, Hammer has been considered a pioneer of queer experimental film. This career-spanning retrospective will document her legacy through a group of Hammer’s works about the female body, gender roles, and queer love, including never-before-exhibited films and videos, installations, works on paper, and materials from her archive.
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, 26 Wooster Street, 12–6 p.m.

Talk: “Creative Transformations” at Scandinavia House
To celebrate the closing of its exhibition “Independent Visions: Helene Schjerfbeck and Her Contemporaries from the Collection of Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery,” Scandinavia House presents a panel discussion with the legendary Guerrilla Girls, artist and theorist Laura Cottingham, and Dr. Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, the chief curator of the Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery. The discussion will explore the cultural and social conditions that allowed young female Finnish artists to blossom in the early 20th century and how that history can influence today’s conversations about the role of women artists.
Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, 4 p.m. Tickets $5, general admission/Free for students, seniors, and ASF members