9 Art Events to Attend in New York City This Week

MONDAY, AUGUST 24

Opening: “The Aftermath of Conflict: Jo Ractliffe’s Photographs of Angola and South Africa” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
South African photographer Jo Ractliffe will display images representative of the aftermath of the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002) and its influence on the Border War (1966–89), during which South Africans fought in Angola and what is now Namibia. Ractliffe considered Angola as an abstraction, “a secret, unspoken location where brothers and boyfriends were sent as part of their military service.” Her photos of Angola and South Africa convey her attempts to synthesize the nations’ complex, intermingled histories, and to create a space for her own memories.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Avenue, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m., free with museum admission

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25

Screening: Queen of Earth at the Museum of the Moving Image
As part of the museum’s film series “The Films of Alex Ross Perry,” the director’s latest film, Queen of Earth, will be screened with leading actress Elisabeth Moss and Perry himself present for a Q&A. The story follows Moss’s character, Catherine, as she returns home to recuperate at her friend’s lake house after enduring the death of her brother and a bad breakup. Unexpected cracks rapidly appear in the friendship, causing Catherine into a “downward spiral of delusion and madness,” according to the museum’s release. The film’s style has been compared to similarly-themed doppelgänger narratives such as Persona and Sisters, directed by Ingmar Bergman and Brian De Palma, respectively.
Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35 Ave, Astoria, Queens, 7:30 p.m., $25

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26

Talk: Jessica Yatrofsky, Rain Dove, and Rachel Small at The Strand
Held in honor of the release of Yatrofsky’s photo book I Heart Girl, this talk will look at the way photography can be used to destroy gender binaries. Yatrofsky’s photographs feature young women that are both simultaneously masculine and feminine, according to heteronormative standards. By asking them to pose nude, often in casual settings that make her images seem on-the-fly, Yatrofsky reminds readers that femininity is a complicated idea. Yatrofsky will discuss her new book with model Rain Dove and Interview editor Rachel Small.
The Strand, 828 Broadway, 7–8 p.m., attendees must purchase a $15 Strand gift card or I Heart Girl for $30

Screening: Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life at Socrates Sculpture Park
This Serge Gainsbourg biopic, directed by comic book artist Joann Sfar, takes viewers through the pop star’s childhood in Nazi-occupied Paris and his infamous adventures throughout the ’50s and ’60s, and illustrates his relationships with Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin, and Juliette Gréco, all accompanied by the soundtrack of his best hits. A release notes that the film includes “a giant puppet alter-ego who personifies his worst proclivities.”
Socrates Sculpture Park, 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens, film begins at sunset, free

Screening: Interiors at the Film Society of Lincoln Center
It’s no secret that Woody Allen adores Ingmar Bergman (count the references to Persona in Annie Hall), and Interiors is yet another instance of Allen paying homage to the Swedish filmmaker. This film stars Diane Keaton, Kristin Griffith, and Mary Beth Hurt as three sisters who begin to have a breakdown after their parents divorce. Interiors remains one of the few times Allen has done a tragicomedy without the laughs—and also one of the neurotic filmmaker’s most criminally underrated films. Alex Ross Perry, whose Interiors-inspired film Queen of Earth opens this week, will introduce the screening.
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street, 9:15 p.m., $14/$11/$9

THURSDAY, AUGUST 27

Opening: Dan Hougland and David Kennedy Cutler at Safe Gallery
This show pairs experimental work by Dan Hougland and David Kennedy Cutler. Hougland’s practice involves using his iPhone to distort and reassemble everyday images. The artist’s digital collages, based on images pulled from his Instagram, are then inkjet-printed on canvas. Cutler’s work also involves inkjet printing, but he uses it toward something more sculptural than Hougland. For these new works, Cutler used a scanning wand to capture images of everyday objects. He then printed on those on a canvas and manipulated his surfaces so that what was once three-dimensional became two-dimensional and then back again.
Safe Gallery, 1004 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, 7–9 p.m.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 28

Opening: Abdul Abdullah at CHASM Gallery
“Coming to Terms” will feature work by the young Sydney-based artist Abdul Abdullah, whose controversial photos and paintings confront the racial prejudice alive and well in contemporary Australia. Abdullah, a Muslim with Malaysian and Australian heritage, creates work to confront what he has termed the politicization of his identity. In an interview with Vice, Abdullah once summed up his artistic incentive with a simple but powerful example: “There is always that moment of hesitation when I tell someone my name.”
CHASM, 56 Bogart Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn, 7–9 p.m., RSVP required

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29

Screening: Wings of Desire at IFC Center
After making films in America for eight years, Wim Wenders returned to Germany to direct Wings of Desire, one of the director’s most poetic works. In the film, Germany is watched over by fallen guardian angels, who wear trench coats and look like anyone else. They are invisible to the world, though, and they only see life in black and white. And so, when one angel falls in love with a trapeze artist, he wants nothing more than to become human and see color. The film follows this angel’s transition. This screening, part of a larger retrospective of the German director, will be followed by a Q&A with Wenders himself.
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue, 2:35 p.m., $14/$10/$9

SUNDAY, AUGUST 30

Screening: We, the Women: Ingrid Bergman and Stromboli at the Museum of Modern Art
This screening pairs two films directed by Italian Neorealist director Roberto Rossellini and starring Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman. (Rossellini and Bergman were married from 1950 to 1957.) In the first film, a 15-minute short, Bergman plays a movie star who deals with a neighbor’s chicken run amok in her backyard by kidnapping the neighbor’s dog and holding it until the chicken is taken away. In the second film, Stromboli, Bergman is a Lithuanian refugee who is swept away to a foreign land when she marries a Sicilian fisherman. Actress and artist Isabella Rossellini, the daughter of Bergman and Rossellini, will introduce the films.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, 5:45 p.m., free with museum admission