COURTESY PAUL KASMIN GALLERY
THURSDAY, MAY 7
Opening: “China: Through the Looking Glass” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
This year’s Met Ball honors China’s longstanding influence on the fashion industry—from Chinese costumes, paintings, porcelains, and other sources of imagery. Over one hundred examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear will be presented along with Chinese art in the Met’s Chinese galleries and the Anna Wintour Costume Center, as well as film clips that aim to “reveal how our visions of China are framed by narratives that draw upon popular culture, and also to recognize the importance of cinema as a medium through which to understand the richness of Chinese history,” says a press release.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Opening: Tina Barney at Paul Kasmin
Tina Barney’s career-spanning solo show is aptly titled “Four Decades.” Barney has long been fascinated with the illusory lives of upper-class American and European society, and her large-scale candid photos seek out the idiosyncrasies and spontaneity that are common to all. Early works like Graham Cracker Box (1983), The Reception (1985), her later series “The Europeans” and “Players” and the Americana-themed “Small Towns,” and one of her all-time greatest photos, The Limo (2006) will be on view in what a release refers to as a “succinct overview of Barney’s oeuvre.”
Paul Kasmin, 293 10th Avenue, 6-8 p.m.
COURTESY CENTRE POMPIDOU
Opening: “Brancusi: Pioneer of American Minimalism” at Paul Kasmin
Constantin Brancusi’s game-changing Le Coq and Jeune Fille Sophistique sculptures will mingle with work by those he strongly influenced—the first-generation American Minimalists Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Ryman, and Frank Stella. A press release frames the show as “an articulation of the artist’s immense influence.”
Paul Kasmin, 515 West 27th Street, 6-8 p.m.
Panel: “Do We Need Exhibitions Just for Women? Examining the Specialization of Exhibitions by Gender” at Museum of Arts and Design (MAD)
Featuring curators, academics, and artists such as El Museo del Barrio curator Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, artist Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, and Hyperallergic senior editor Jillian Steinhauer, this talk gets straight to the point: are art shows that focus exclusively on female artists beneficial or harmful in the long run? Prime examples include MoMA’s year-long exhibition, “Designing Modern Women 1890–1990,” and MAD’s own exhibition “Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft and Design, Midcentury and Today.”
Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, 7 p.m.
FRIDAY, MAY 8
Performance: John Giorno at Elizabeth Dee
Poet, painter, and Warhol star John Giorno will give a poetry reading at Elizabeth Dee this Friday, where his paintings are currently on view for his solo show “Space Forgets You.” See you there.
Elizabeth Dee, 545 West 20th Street, 6:30 p.m.
SATURDAY, MAY 9
COURTESY VENUS OVER MANHATTAN
Opening: “#RAWHIDE” at Venus Over Manhattan
This Dylan Brant (stepson of publisher and art aficionado Peter Brant) and Vivian Brodie-curated show focuses on masculine identity in the form of cowboy imagery from the late 19th century to the present day. Why? Because Dylan Brant loves cowboys, and wants us to love them too. From a 1901 Henry Shrady bronze buffalo sculpture to a Dennis Hopper photo of John Wayne and Dean Martin that represents the rise of the Hollywood Western to present day “homoerotic stuff,” “#RAWHIDE” could very well turn out to be one of those great shows we didn’t even know we wanted.
Venus Over Manhattan, 980 Madison Avenue, 6-8 p.m.
Opening: Yayoi Kusama at David Zwirner
Kusama’s second exhibition at David Zwirner, “Give Me Love,” will display new paintings from her “My Eternal Soul” series, new polka-dot pumpkin sculptures, and her iconic 2002 installation The Obliteration Room. This show, on view at both of David Zwirner’s Chelsea locations, is sure to be a blockbuster, as a recent survey of 2014 museum attendance found Kusama to be the year’s most popular artist.
David Zwirner, 519 & 525 West 19th Street, 6-8 p.m.
COURTESY CANADA GALLERY
Opening: Xylor Jane at Canada
Xylor Jane is back with more rainbow-hued matrices for “trice,” her fourth solo show at Canada. No major stylistic departures here, but her pursuit of intricacy is as seductive as ever.
Canada, 333 Broome Street, 6-8 p.m.
Opening: Jessica Jackson Hutchins at Marianne Boesky
Jessica Jackson Hutchins transforms ordinary found objects such as household furniture and ceramics into deeply emotional and symbolic works of art. This show, “I Do Choose,” borrows its title from Mark 1:41, and focuses on the similarities between the living (people) and non-living (objects)—“the intimacy of life,” according to a press release. For this show, Hutchins united stretcher bars and canvas with chairs and ceramics. According to the release, “these works question the importance of defining objects by their function and environment, pointing instead towards a more universal sense of memory, weight and scale.”
Marianne Boesky, 509 West 24th Street, 6-8 p.m.