9 Art Events to Attend in New York City This Week

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28

Screening: Goodbye to Language at Film Forum
The only Jean-Luc Godard film to have poop jokes and a sequence involving Lord Byron and Mary Shelley, Goodbye to Language (2014) is a compelling look at how digital technology has changed the way we communicate. It’s also some of Godard’s most enigmatic—and thrilling—filmmaking to date, juggling a loose narrative about a woman involved with mobsters, a relationship that’s falling apart, and shots of Godard’s dog, Roxy Miéville, in a sunlit forest. Shown here the way it’s meant to be seen, in 3-D, the film includes one of the most memorable shots of the past few years—a long take in which the camera swivels back and forth, mis-registering the layered images used to make film appear to have depth with RealD technology, and causing the scene to appear to double.
Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, 5:15 p.m. Tickets $8/$14

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29

Talk: “New Ways to See: Digital Art Criticism Now” at Whitney Museum
This talk is anchored by Christiane Paul and Nora Khan, the two winners of the 2016 Arts Writing Awards, and will also have on hand artists Ian Cheng and Clement Valla. (Cheng has a work in the Whitney’s exhibition “Dreamlands,” which surveys immersive cinema and art since 1905.) Together, these writers and artists will discuss the interplay between criticism and artistic production in a time when the history of digital art is still being written. Brian Droitcour, the online editor of Art in America (which is owned by the same parent company as this magazine), will moderate the discussion.
Whitney Museum, 99 Gansevoort Street, 6:30–8 p.m. Tickets $8/$10

Screening: Julieta at Museum of Modern Art
MoMA kicks off its Pedro Almodóvar retrospective with a screening of the Spanish director’s newest film, Julieta (2016). Known for his wacky, sometimes disturbing comedies about genderplay, motherhood, and sexuality, Almodóvar is taking something of a different approach here, with a more serious-faced story about a woman remembering through flashbacks how she fell out of contact with her daughter. Based on a collection of short stories by Alice Munro, Julieta is, like many other films by Almodóvar, deeply indebted to Hitchcock. Almodóvar will be at this screening to introduce the film.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, 7:30 p.m.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1

Talk: K. J. Holmes at New Museum
As part of the New Museum’s “Outside the Box” talks series, dancer and choreographer K. J. Holmes will talk about Pipilotti Rist’s show “Pixel Forest.” Holmes will bring to the fore the Swiss artist’s interest in movement and bodies, which frequently appear in oceans, rivers, and forests in her videos. Given that one of Rist’s most famous videos features the artist flailing around and singing a lyric from “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” it feels necessary to have a dancer on hand to explain some of her antics.
New Museum, 235 Bowery, 3:30 p.m.

Talk: Langdon Clay at the Strand
This talk will be held in honor of the release of Langdon Clay’s newest photobook, Cars: New York City, 1974–1976, which comes out on December 6. The book focuses on Clay’s pictures of cars he saw in New York and New Jersey. Photographed using newly available color film, Clay’s work contrasts the cars with their surroundings. “I experienced a conversion of sorts in making a switch from the ‘decisive moment’ of black and white to the marvel of color, a world I was waking up to every day,” Clay has said. After the talk, Clay and Luc Sante, who wrote the book’s forward, will sign copies.
The Strand, 828 Broadway, 6:30–8:30 p.m. Tickets $95, including signed book and Strand gift card

Performance: John Zorn at Guggenheim Museum
With his experimental combination of classical, jazz, and klezmer sounds, John Zorn may seem like an unlikely match for Agnes Martin, but that’s hardly the case. In fact, Zorn dedicated two works on his 1995 album Redbird to the painter. At this concert, Zorn will debut two new pieces based on Martin’s art—“Praise” and “Blue Strategem” (both works 2016); the composer himself will play the vibraphone in the former. Though this concert, as well as another on December 2, are sold out, there will be standby tickets given out on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Avenue, 7 p.m.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3

Opening: “A Revolutionary Impulse: The Rise of the Russian Avant-Garde” at Museum of Modern Art
A testament to how oppressive regimes can, in fact, sometimes spur on extraordinary art, this show looks at the burst of creativity that happened in Russia between 1912 and 1934, before Stalin declared Socialist Realism the state-sanctioned artistic style. At that time, artists were experimenting with how politics could fuse with the arts, in the process incorporating Marxism’s emphasis on conflict. Filmmakers like Dziga Vertov experimented with form, cutting sequences into bursts of images, while Constructivist artists like Aleksandr Rodchenko and Lyubov Popova created geometric abstractions, both in painting and photography. The show will bring together paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, films, and more from the time period.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

Concert: Bon Iver at Pioneer Works
Having come out of a five-year hiatus to produce his third album, 22, A Million (2016), Bon Iver will perform at Pioneer Works for—count them—five nights in a row. Bon Iver was originally known for his analog, acoustic, folksy sound, yet with this new album, he went in a new direction—digital, strange, difficult. The album remains for many cloaked in mystery, and these concerts are fittingly not without their own secrets—Bon Iver will be bringing with him special guests, among them Marijuana Deathsqauds and Poliça, but some acts haven’t been announced yet.
Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer Street, Brooklyn, 8 p.m. Tickets $75

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4

Screening: COMPULSIVE PRACTICE at Studio Museum in Harlem
At this talk and screening, the Studio Museum will show COMPULSIVE PRACTICE, an hour-long video that details how nine artists manage and reflect upon HIV/AIDS on a daily basis. Screened here in connection with the Visual AIDS’s exhibition “Everyday,” which looks at the way artists experience daily life and create work while living with HIV/AIDS, the video will be followed by a discussion led by academic and curator Vivian Crockett. Artists Nayland Blake and Luna Luis Ortiz will talk with Crockett about how video can be a way of documenting work about HIV and AIDS.
Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th Street, 3–5 p.m. RSVP to programs@studiomuseum.org