It has been a long and slow slog to November, with art installations and exhibitions echoing this sentiment. The Rubin Museum will create space on an entire floor dedicated to social and emotional learning; Zag Landsberg’s ‘Reclining Liberty‘ pretty much portrays our feelings thus far; while others look to a brighter future ~ Isolation to Revolution/Rebirth to Dissent at Pen + Brush; Unweave a Rainbow at Vito Schnabel Projects; ‘We Fight to Build a Free World‘ at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, ‘Light of Freedom’ unveils in Madison Square Park, and the exhibition, 20/20 at David Zwirner Gallery, speculating anxiously , rethinking and looking for a vision beyond. All of the events, exhibits and installations in November consider social distancing and offer a wonderful way to step-out in a safe way. Here are a few suggestions.
Form, Paper, Scissors on view at Living with Art Salon
Living with Art Salon opened its doors to its third exhibition ~ Form, Paper Scissors ~ a group show featuring four female artists, each with a unique way of celebrating the art of paper. The four artists, Elan Cadiz, Jaynie Crimmins, Vivianne Rombaldi Seppey and Gina Fuentes Walker, use paper is a plethora of ways with an equally varied focus. Repurposing to highlight consumerism and waste (shades of Rev Billy); taking pen to paper, creating portraits of those we hold dear; through maps, books & photos, exploring the world and our place in it; and delicate cut-outs made from images of home and place.
The Exhibition, 20/20 at David Zwirner Gallery
The world has never faced such uncertainty: everything from our understanding of public health and racial injustice to our geopolitical order and our social and environmental responsibilities is being challenged and rethought. 2020 may go down as the watershed year when the deck was reshuffled; and while we don’t know the future, our minds are busy speculating, anxiously rethinking and looking for a vision beyond.
#Melania ~ The Sculpture is on View at Allouche Gallery
On view for a short time only, the original wood Melania sculpture, carved out of a poplar tree by a local Slovenian chainsaw sculpture and installed in Sevnica, Slovenia, the town in which Melania Trump was born. The short video below is a wonderful documentary on the artist’s creation, and his thoughts about the sculpture piece all along the way.
AbigailDeVille ‘Light of Freedom’ in Madison Square Park
For Madison Square Park Conservancy’s public art commissioning program, artist Abigail DeVille has installed Light of Freedom, a new work that reflects the despair and exultation of this turbulent period. The project is a thirteen-foot high reference to the Statue of Liberty’s torch, and to the scaffolding that encased it during construction. DeVille has filled her torch with a well-worn bell, a herald of freedom, and the arms of mannequins, beseeching viewers.
Michelangelo Pistoletto at Lévy Gorvy
Lévy Gorvy is pleased to announce a major exhibition of works by the renowned Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. The first US presentation in a decade to feature multiple installations by Pistoletto, it will take visitors on a journey through one of the most influential and enduring artistic practices to unfold from the postwar period to the present. Lévy Gorvy’s exhibition will resonate with the themes that have animated Pistoletto’s body of work for over six decades: perception, time, history, tradition, and the relationship between art, artist, and viewer.
Souvenirs: Cornell Duchamp Johns Rauschenberg at Craig F. Starr Gallery
Craig F. Starr Gallery opened its doors to Souvenirs: Cornell Duchamp Johns Rauschenberg, an exhibition which brings together four artistic giants of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While Johns continues working today, the influence of Cornell, Duchamp, and Rauschenberg remains pervasive in contemporary art even in their absence. Souvenirs distills their rich and myriad connections down to just six exemplary masterworks—all on loan from prestigious private and public collections—which are now on view in a single intimate space. Focusing on the theme, process, and function of the souvenir, the exhibition puts these carefully selected works into close correspondence.
Art for the Community: The Met’s Circulating Textile Exhibitions, 1933-42
Between 1933 and 1942, The Metropolitan Museum of Art organized one of its especially noteworthy landmark educational initiatives to bring the Museum’s collection to as many New Yorkers as possible. Called the Neighborhood Circulating Exhibitions, the series consisted of small, thematic displays of select artworks presented in New York Public Library branches, high schools, city universities, and settlement houses. The effort, which was developed in response to an inquiry from a high school teacher, reached more than two million visitors and will be the focus of the exhibition Art for the Community: The Met’s Circulating Textile Exhibitions, 1933–1942, on view October 31, 2020, through June 13, 2021, in honor of The Met’s 150th anniversary.
Election Day ~ November 3
We thought the PBS NewsHour Canvas piece entitled ‘This Visual History of Ballots Shows the Power of Your Vote‘ would be a perfect read today.
Jack Whiten. I AM THE OBJECT at Hauser & Wirth ~ November 5
Beginning 5 November 2020, Hauser & Wirth New York will present rarely seen works made by American artist Jack Whitten (1939 – 2018). The exhibition focuses on his practice from 1991 through 2000, a period of intense experimentation during which, deeply affected by tumultuous world events, he strove to incorporate them into his work. Blurring the boundaries between sculpture and painting, and between the studio and the world, the multidimensional works on view combine geometric abstraction and found objects to mine spiritual and metaphysical thematic veins.
Beth Lipman: Every Last Thing at Nohra Haime Gallery ~ November 5
Photo by Jenna Bascom
In EVERY LAST THING, American artist Beth Lipman explores themes of time and human precarity through the use of cultural objects and prehistoric flora. Endangered plants, latent humanoid forms and communal emblems allude to mortality and transience, fossilized in glass and metal. This marks her first solo exhibition with Nohra Haime Gallery.
Concurrent with this exhibition is BETH LIPMAN: COLLECTIVE ELEGY at Museum of Art and Design in New York.
George Condo. Internal Riot at Hauser & Wirth ~ November 5
Hauser & Wirth will open its doors to ‘Internal Riot,’ an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by American artist George Condo. Made during the quarantine period, these works reflect the unsettling experience of physical distance and the absence of human contact during this prolonged time of so- cial isolation. The pandemic has forced Condo to take his portraiture practice to a new level, with invented cha- racters captured in an abstract web that reveals the humanity inherent in their fractured psychological states.
The Rubin Museum of Art to Close its Third-Floor Galleries to create space dedicated to Social & Emotional Learning ~ November 10
The Rubin Museum of Art announced today that on November 10 the Museum will close its third floor galleries, where the permanent collection exhibition Masterworks of Himalayan Art is currently on view, and begin construction on a new interactive space for social and emotional learning for all ages. Scheduled to reopen fall 2021, the third floor, renamed Mandala Lab, will bring cognitive science, contemplative practice, and visitor-contributed art experiences to the heart of the Rubin, as well as act as the new home for School and Family Programs. The Mandala Lab will draw on the symbolism of a Tibetan Buddhist mandala, which also serves as conceptual inspiration for the floor.
Poetry & Black Lives Matter, a National Arts Club Virtual Event ~ November 12
Gregory Pardlo and Patricia Smith will read from their poetry and talk about writing in the time of Black Lives Matter. This program will be hosted via Zoom. You will receive additional details upon registration. This is a Free event.
Keith de Lellis Gallery’s Second Auction of Vintage 19th/20th Century Photography ~ November 12
Keith de Lellis Gallery will hold its second auction on Thursday, November 12th at 2:00pm. They will be offering an eclectic selection of 300 lots of vintage 19th and 20th century photography including vernacular, nudes, paparazzi, pictorials, and more.
Salman Toor: How Will I Know at The Whitney ~ November 13
Salman Toor’s first solo museum exhibition—originally scheduled to open in March 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic—will be presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art from November 13, 2020 to April 4, 2021. Primarily making intimate oil-on-panel works, Toor expands the tradition of figurative painting by melding sketch-like immediacy with disarming detail to create affecting views of young, queer Brown men living in New York City and South Asia. Salman Toor: How Will I Know is part of the Whitney’s emerging artists program, which most recently included solo shows by Kevin Beasley and Eckhaus Latta, and will be on view in the first-floor John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Gallery, which is accessible to the public free-of-charge.
Alina Grasmann: Sculpting in Times at Fridman Gallery ~ November 15
Fridman Gallery will be opening its doors to Alina Grasmann: Sculpting in Time, the artists second exhibition with the gallery. This exhibition will feature two new series of large-scale paintings combining imaginary, real, and emotional places. The paintings reflect the artist’s fascination with American architecture, landscape, mythology, cinema, literature, and illusion.
Sittin’ In: Jazz Clubs of the 1940s and 1950s by Jeff Gold ~ Released November 17
Sittin’ In tells the little-known story of America’s jazz clubs of the 1940s and 1950s. In exclusive interviews, iconic musicians Sonny Rollins and Quincy Jones and preeminent jazz historian Dan Morgenstern give first-person accounts of the clubs Rollins called “a paradisiacal place to be.”
DAZZLED will open at GR Gallery ~ November 18
GR Gallery will open its doors to DAZZLED, a group exhibition featuring new works by artists Gao Hang, Kenz, Adam Lister and Kentaro Okawara. The show puts together 20 pieces, including paintings, works on papers and sculptures. The title is inspired by the unique style and visual approach that defines the four artists, able to forge, in four exclusive ways, a dreamy esthetic that misleads our visual realm.
Nick Quijano: Memories of Puerto Rico, an Online Exhibition ~ November 19
Fort Gansevoort presents Memories of Puerto Rico, an online exhibition featuring a selection of paintings by Nick Quijano, organized in collaboration with critically acclaimed Puerto Rican author, filmmaker, and DJ, Bobbito Garcia. Memories of Puerto Rico is Fort Gansevoort’s first exhibition with Nick Quijano, who was born in New York and is now based in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Quijano moved to “La Isla del Encanto,” the enchanted island, in 1967 at the age of thirteen.
3 Points of View: by Kamoinge Photographers ~ November 19
3 Points of View by Kamoinge Photographers Anthony Barboza, Before Smith and Shawn Walker will be on view at Keith de Lellis Gallery beginning November 19, 2020. Please wear a face mask when visiting the gallery.
Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop Opens at The Whitney ~ November 21
The much anticipated exhibition, Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop will finally unveil at The Whitney on November 21st. This groundbreaking exhibition features over 150 photographs by fourteen early members of the Kamoinge Workshop, nine of whom are living and working today.
Point of Action by Studio Cooke John at Flatiron Public Plaza ~ November 23
The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership and Van Alen Institute today announced their selection for the seventh annual Flatiron Public Plaza Design Installation: Point of Action by Studio Cooke John. Point of Action will be on view November 23, 2020–January 1, 2021 in the Flatiron Public Plazas on Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 23rd Street in Manhattan, creating a highly visible landmark throughout the holidays.
The Jewish Museum Displays Mural by Artist Lawrence Weiner ~ November 24
The Jewish Museum has been approved by NYC Landmarks to display a multi-story mural installed at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 92nd Street with the neon-blue message, ‘All the Stars in the Sky have the Same Face‘. It was originally designed in 2011 by American conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, with lettering in Hebrew, Arabic and English, and is on view November, 2020.
LuminoCity Festival 2020 on Randall’s Island ~ November 27
The fun and family-friendly LuminoCity Festival will be returning to Randall’s Island from November 27, 2020 to January 10, 2021. LuminoCity is one of the few large-scale events happening this holiday season ~ all outdoors and easy to socially distance.
Bank of America Winter Village + Skating is Open at Bryant Park
‘Tis the Season
Still on View:
Créolité: Andrew LaMar Hopkins at Venus Over Manhattan on view through November 6, 2020
Venus Over Manhattan will inaugurate its new gallery space at 120 East 65th Street by opening an exhibition of new paintings by Andrew LaMar Hopkins, curated by Alison M. Gingeras. Entitled Créolité, the artist’s first solo gallery exhibition in New York features more than fifteen works, including new portraits, miniatures, and the artist’s signature architectural tableaux, that all relate to the complexity of Creole identities and the antebellum history of the Gulf States in the American South.
Luke Ivy Price: Salome at Ki Smith Gallery East Village through November 7, 2020
The East 4th Street Gallery will open its doors to the exhibition, Luke Ivy Price: Salome ~ a new body of work named after the biblical passage and based on Oscar Wilde’s eponymous tragedy. This inaugural exhibition includes paintings, sculptures and drawings.
Studio 54: Night Magic at Brooklyn Museum on view through November 8, 2020
The Brooklyn Museum will reopen the first and 5th floors on September 12th with timed-ticketing, entry every 15-miinutes, and limited number of people in galleries. Look forward to Studio 54: Night Magic ~ Jr: Chronicles ~ and African Arts: Global Conversation.
Adebunmi Gbadebo: A Dilemma of Inheritance at Claire Oliver Gallery on view through November 14, 2020
Claire Oliver Gallery announced a reopening of the gallery with a solo exhibition by Adebunmi Gbadebo entitled A Dilemma of Inheritance. The exhibition will showcase the artist’s True Blue series, which is comprised of more than 45 works that grapple with concepts surrounding heredity and the evolution of memory and forgetting focused on two former slave plantations in South Carolina, both named True Blue.
Adam Lupton: Cerberus at GR Gallery on view to November 14, 2020
GR Gallery will open its doors to ‘Cerberus’, the first exhibition of Adam Lupton with the gallery and in New York. A total of 18 oil and acrylic paintings will be shown; this body of Lupton’s work grows out of his OCD, where performing mental and physical rituals, endlessly seeking assurance, and repeating mantras and projections make up his every day – mediating between himself and an unyielding “otherness”. Through this lens, the work weaves together individual and societal rituals, spiritual schizophrenia, and self-defining myth, thereby illuminating our various attempts at and desires for certainty.
Ali Haselbeck: Approximate Ecosystems at Art of Our Century on view through November 15, 2020
Art of Our Century will open its doors to Ali Haselbeck: Approximate Ecosystems, the first solo New York exhibition by the artist. The exhibition opening reception, which will be on view in the new North Gallery, will stretch over three afternoon, October 15, 16, and 17, from 4:00 to 7:00pm to allow for social distancing and COVID guidelines. The exhibition will be on view through November 15, 2020.
Doggy Bags by Will Kurtz presented by The Garment District Alliance on view through November 20, 2020
New Yorkers love their canine companions, so this one’s for your four-legged friend ~ Doggy Bags is a series of seven oversized sculptures created by the New York-artist, Will Kurtz, depicting unique characteristics and personalities of different breeds.
FUTURA2000 at Eric Firestone Gallery on view through December 5, 2020
Eric Firestone Gallery opens its doors to FUTURA2000 | FUTURA 2020, the renowned American artists first solo exhibition in New York City in over thirty-years. Beginning artistic life in the world of illegal street art in the early 1970s, some of these very talented artists continued forward into legal public spaces ~ parks and commercial buildings, galleries, streetwear, and even museums. Leonard Hilton McGurr (c.1955) aka FUTURA2000, was among this elite group that moved from illegal to highly sought-after ~ creating artwork with a contemporary message ~ political, social, personal. Many of these artists are familiar to all of us and include the likes of Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Kenny Scharf to name just a few.
Isolation to Revolution/Rebirth to Dissent at Pen + Brush on view through December 11, 2020
Photograph, dye sublimation print on metal 24 x 36 inches
Pen + Brush will reopen its doors to the timely exhibition entitled, Isolation to Revolution/Rebirth to Dissent, bringing together the work of seven artists with a range of perspectives on reflection in this moment in time.
Bound Up Together: On the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment at Smack Mellon on view through December 13, 2020
Bound up Together: On the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment was organized in the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and as Black Lives Matter protests erupted around the world. The exhibition centers on the achievements that granted some women the right to vote and the pervasive and enduring intersections of racism, sexism and misogyny that disfigure American culture and society.
Taller Boricua: A Political Printshop at El Museo on view through January 17, 2021
The Museum’s physical reopening will be celebrated with Taller Boricua: A Political Print Shop in New York, the first monograph exhibition in three decades about the East Harlem-based Nuyorican collective workshop and alternative space. Curated by Rodrigo Moura, Chief Curator of El Museo del Barrio, the exhibition had been postponed due to the temporary closure, and is now on view as of September 12, 2020 through January 17, 2021.
José Parlá: It’s Yours on View through January 10, 2021 + Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch on View through January 24, 2021 at The Bronx Museum of the Arts
The Bronx Museum of the Arts reopened its doors to exhibitions of Sanford Biggers and José Parlá.
Ariana Papademetropoulos: Unweave a Rainbow at Vito Schnabel Projects through January 16, 2021.
Oil on canvas. 84 x 108 1/2 inches (213.4 x 275.6 cm) © Ariana Papademetropoulos; Photo by Flying Studio; Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Projects
Vito Schnabel Projects will present Ariana Papademetropoulos: Unweave a Rainbow, the first New York City solo exhibition for the Los Angeles-based artist. Unweave a Rainbow will debut a new series of large-scale works by the artist, in which she mingles images of natural phenomena with her meditations on interiors as analogs. The exhibition will also feature new small-scale additions to her ongoing series of ‘symbolist’ paintings.
About Time: Fashion and Duration at The Met on view through February 7, 2021
(Right) Interruption: Nicolas Ghesquière (French, born 1971) for Louis Vuitton (French, founded 1854). Ensemble, spring/summer 2018. Courtesy of Collection Louis Vuitton
The Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibition About Time: Fashion and Duration (on view October 29, 2020 to February 7, 2021) will trace 150 years of fashion, from 1870 to the present, along a disrupted timeline, in honor of the Museum’s 150th anniversary. Employing philosopher Henri Bergson’s concept of la durée—the continuity of time—the exhibition will explore how clothes generate temporal associations that conflate the past, present, and future. The concept will also be examined through the writings of Virginia Woolf, who will serve as the exhibition’s “ghost narrator.”
PSArt2020 on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through February 14, 2021
Returning to The Met for the 13th consecutive year, the exhibition P.S. Art: Celebrating the Creative Spirit of NYC Kids will feature works of art in a variety of media created by public school students in New York City. The exhibition will be on view from October 8, 2020, through February 14, 2021, at The Met Fifth Avenue in the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education. On the evening of October 8, there will be a private virtual opening ceremony with remarks at 5 p.m. by Max Hollein, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Richard A. Carranza, Schools Chancellor; and Alison Scott-Williams, President of Studio in a School NYC. P.S. Art 2020: Celebrating the Creative Spirit of NYC Kids is a project of the New York City Department of Education and Studio in a School NYC.
Brian Clarke: The Art of Light at MAD on view through February 21, 2021
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) will reopen on September 17, 2020 with a major exhibition of works by celebrated architectural artist and painter Brian Clarke (b. 1953, United Kingdom). The first museum exhibition in the U.S. of Clarke’s stained-glass screens, compositions in lead, and related drawings on paper, Brian Clarke: The Art of Light showcases the most considerable artistic and technical breakthrough in the thousand-year history of stained glass.
We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz on view to January 24, 2021
We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz looks at how artists have historically responded to the rise of both xenophobia — including anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry — and authoritarianism. The exhibition also addresses issues surrounding immigration, assimilation, and cultural identity.
#PSArt2020, Art by NYC Public School Students at The MET ~ on view through February, 2021
Returning to The Met for the 13th consecutive year, the exhibition P.S. Art: Celebrating the Creative Spirit of NYC Kids will feature works of art in a variety of media created by public school students in New York City. The exhibition will be on view from October 8, 2020, through February 14, 2021, at The Met Fifth Avenue in the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education. On the evening of October 8, there will be a private virtual opening ceremony with remarks at 5 p.m. by Max Hollein, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Richard A. Carranza, Schools Chancellor; and Alison Scott-Williams, President of Studio in a School NYC. P.S. Art 2020: Celebrating the Creative Spirit of NYC Kids is a project of the New York City Department of Education and Studio in a School NYC.
Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy at Museum of Art & Design on view to April 4, 2021
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) presents Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy, from September 25, 2020 to April 4, 2021, a major midcareer survey that is the first to assess the remarkable achievements of the renowned contemporary artist. From sumptuous displays of excess, including provocative installations comprising hundreds of individual glass elements, to poetic and contemplative works in glass, metal, clay, video, and photography, the works on view are ethereal meditations on time and mortality and simultaneously sobering indictments of our contemporary consumer culture and its impact on the planet.
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1 on view through April 4, 2021
MoMA PS1 will open its doors to the timely exhibition, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, highlighting more than thirty-five artists reflecting on the growing COVID-19 crises in U.S. prisons. The exhibition features work by people in prisons and work by non incarcerated artists, with a creative eye towards state repression, erasure, and imprisonment, and is on display across PS1’s first floor galleries.
Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water at The Shed on view through April 11, 2021
For her solo exhibition at The Shed, Howardena Pindell will present Rope/Fire/Water, her first video in 25 years and a project unrealized by the artist since the 1970s that The Shed commissioned. In this powerful work, Pindell recounts personal anecdotes and anthropological and historical data related to lynchings and racist attacks in the United States. She accompanies this voice-over with archival photos of lynchings and the historic Birmingham, Alabama, Children’s Crusade, a series of nonviolent protests carried out by young people in May 1963.
Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away on view at Museum of Jewish Heritage to May, 2021
The Museum of Jewish Heritage reopened its doors to the largest and most extensive exhibition on Auschwitz ever presented in the United States, featuring more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs ~ Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. The exhibition has been extended to May, 2021.
Inspired by ‘What is Left’ by Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine at Prospect Park Bandshell on view through May, 2021
A new art installation landed at the Prospect Park Bandshell this month, created by the collaborative duo, Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine. Titled, Inspired By “What Is Left,” the text-based installation quotes the late poet Lucille Cliftonand offers the Brooklyn community a message of resilience and perseverance.
Gillie and Marc’s ‘King Nyani’ on view through July, 2021
To raise awareness and funds for the critically endangered gorilla species, public artists Gillie and Marc have created a massive sculpture of the animal that will be unveiled later this month in Hudson Yards’ Bella Abzug Park. Titled King Nyani, Swahili for gorilla, it’s the world’s largest bronze gorilla sculpture.
Kenseth Armstead: Boulevard of African Monarchs on View Through August, 2021
NYC DOT Art Community Commission and The Marcus Garvey Park Alliance partnered to install a timely and pertinent new art installation in Harlem. Kenseth Armstead: Boulevard of African Monarchs arrived on 116th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard on August 13, 2020.
Doors for Doris by Sam Moyer through Public Art Fund on view through September 12, 2021
Artist, Sam Moyer created a new site specific installation for the Public Art Fund at the entrance to Central Park on the Doris C. Freedman Plaza. The enormous three-part sculpture creates a gateway that poetically bridges the architecture of the city and the natural landscape of the park.
Still not ready to step out yet? Here are some fabulous live stream and virtual exhibits and tours. You can visit more than 2,500 museums and galleries online.
See you in December!