COURTESY COHEN MEDIA GROUP
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2
Opening: Jaume Plensa at Galerie Lelong
“In a very noisy world, silence should be produced, must be ‘made’ . . . an inner silence so that people return to be with themselves,” Jaume Plensa has said. His newest show will feature sculpture with a focus on just that: the act of keeping quiet and closing oneself off from the rest of the world. This show will include more of the Spanish artist’s squashed-head works, this time done using timber and the remains of old buildings.
Galerie Lelong, 528 West 26th Street, 6–8 p.m.
Opening: “Nothing and Everything: Seven Artists, 1947–1962” at Hauser & Wirth
This show surveys creative and personal relationships between seven mid-20th-century artists and composers: Louise Bourgeois, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, and David Smith. Their art sometimes differed greatly but communed nonetheless. Perhaps that idea provided the impetus for Albright-Knox Art Gallery chief curator Doug Dreishpoon to name this show “Nothing and Everything”—a title to cover paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and ephemera related to the seven artists.
Hauser & Wirth, 32 East 69th Street, 6–8 p.m.
COURTESY SHOOT THE LOBSTER
Opening: Bea Fremderman at Shoot the Lobster
Like many young artists working today, among them Adrián Villar Rojas and Anicka Yi, Bea Fremderman uses the apocalypse for inspiration. Her sculptures and assemblages evoke a post-anthropocene world—one where iPhones are garbage and a pair of well-cut jeans can provide a place for flora to grow. This show, titled “How To Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone By Yourself,” will feature new work by the young New York–based artist. Quoting the poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger in a press release, Fremderman notes that “the joke comes to an end”—and it’s time to start acknowledging the apocalypse as a reality.
Shoot the Lobster, 138 Eldridge Street, 6–8 p.m.
Opening: Paul Mpagi Sepuya at Yancey Richardson Gallery
Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s photography plays on the conventions of portraiture. How can a photograph in today’s evolving world still capture who a person is, what he does, how she acts? Queerness, identity, and photo technology are recurring elements in Sepuya’s work, some of which is currently on view alongside photographs by Deana Lawson and Judy Linn right now at New York’s Sikkema Jenkins & Co. gallery. Here, Sepuya will debut new photographs.
Yancey Richardson Gallery, 525 West 22nd Street, 6–8 p.m.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3
Screening: Daughters of the Dust at Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM will kick off its “One Way or Another: Black Women’s Cinema, 1970–1991” series with Julie Dash’s recently restored 1991 film Daughters of the Dust. One of the major visual inspirations for the video version of Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Dash’s critically acclaimed movie focuses on Gullah people who live on an island off of South Carolina and, after many generations of seclusion, are finally planning to migrate to America. This small-scale epic was lensed by Arthur Jafa, who recently had a celebrated show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in Harlem. Kerry James Marshall, the subject of a Met Breuer retrospective just closed, supplied the art direction.
Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 2 p.m., also screens at 7 p.m. and on February 4 and 5
COURTESY LUHRING AUGUSTINE
Opening: Steve Wolfe at Luhring Augustine
Luhring Augustine will stage a memorial exhibition, appropriately titled “Remembering Steve,” that takes a look at the exacting reproductions of tattered paperbacks and vinyl records of Steve Wolfe, who died last year at age 60. On view will be some of his “Book Pieces,” in which famous mass-market versions of literary works by James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and others are recreated and made to look as though they were used.
Luhring Augustine, 531 West 24th Street, 6–8 p.m.
Opening: “The Fates” at Interstate Projects
Information around this show, which loosely focuses on the connection between contemporary art and mythology, is scant, but its young artists have shown intriguing work at recent group shows around New York. Organized by poet and curator Bryce Grates, “The Fates” will include Charles Irvin’s vernacular-inspired surrealist tableaux, Mindy Rose Schwartz’s lo-fi assemblages of unlike everyday objects, and Tisch Abelow’s energetic abstract paintings. The show will also include work by Doris Guo, Maxim Schidlovsky, and Addison Willis.
Interstate Projects, 66 Knickerbocker Avenue, Brooklyn, 6–8 p.m.
Screening: Wavelength at Anthology Film Archives
A staple in film-theory classes and a must for any experimental-film enthusiast, Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967) is a simple work with dense ideas behind it. It is, among other things, a film about hearing: over the course of what appears to be a 45-minute zoom (it does, in fact, contain several sly edits), Snow takes in the soundscape of an apartment building, at times playing with the viewer’s perception of music and various tones. From its earliest reception, the film was called a classic. Upon seeing it for the first time, Jonas Mekas called it “a landmark event in cinema.”
Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Avenue, 7 p.m.
EDEN BATKI/COURTESY THE ARTIST AND CALLICOON FINE ARTS
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5
Conversation: “Body Politic: From Rights to Resistance” at New Museum
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, many liberals have called for resistance and mobilization. As part of her New Museum residency, A. K. Burns will host two related conversations, each devoted to educating audiences about how to organize and how to exercise their rights as citizens. The first half of this day-long event focuses on protests and health care; the second will be about prison reform, immigration, and environmentalism. Experts will be on hand to discuss all these issues and ways to combat America’s new president cracking down on institutions related to their fields.
New Museum, 235 Bowery, 11:30 a.m.–6 p.m. RSVP to event here