Wednesday, July 13
1. “Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments” with the New-York Historical Society at Bryant Park
The New-York Historical Society is kicking off this year’s outdoor lecture series at the Bryant Park Reading Room with a talk by Erin L. Thompson about the debates over public monuments, and what to do with those that obscure darker elements of U.S. history.
Location: Bryant Park Reading Room, on the 42nd Street side of the park between 5th and 6th Avenues.
Price: Free
Time: 7 p.m.–8:30 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
2. “Carnegie Hall Citywide Concert: Attacca Quartet” at Madison Square Park, New York
The Attacca Quartet will perform in concert with a new show by artist Cristina Iglesias titled “Landscape and Memory,” which is on view nearby in the park (through December 4). The quartet perform selections by Flying Lotus, Anne Müller, Louis Cole, Arvo Pärt, and Maurice Ravel.
Location: Madison Square Park, the Oval Lawn, between Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue and East 23rd and 26th Streets, New York
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.–7:30 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
3. “Dance Marathon Mania With Sarah Bird” at the Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin
As part of the Blanton’s ongoing “Curated Conversation” series, this virtual symposium will illustrate the historical context and modern relevance of dance marathons through the lens of Philip Evergood’s 1934 painting . The hugely popular dance marathons of the Great Depression are the inspiration for both the Evergood painting and Texas author Sarah Bird’s newest novel, .
Price: Free with registration
Time: 1 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Through, Thursday, July 14
4. “Natasha Wright: She/Her/Hers” at the Artist’s Studio, Brooklyn
This selection of works by Natasha Wright, curated by Emily McElwreath, consists of large paintings and smaller works on paper. Wright’s art exudes femininity, and is composed of bold brushstrokes in metallic, earthy, and blush tones. The paintings are a mix of figurative and abstract forms that are interspersed with pop-cultural and art-historical Easter eggs.
Location: 117 Grattan Street, Studio 410, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Email for appointment
—Neha Jambhekar
Thursday, July 14
5. “Curator Tour of Once on This Island” at the Shelter Island Historical Society
If you’re planning a long weekend out east, kick things off with curator Margaret Garrett’s tour of “Once on This Island” (through September 7), her group show showcasing art made on remote, atmospheric Shelter Island, nestled between Long Island’s North and South Forks. Expect a mix of historic names like Willem de Kooning and John Chamberlain, as well as contemporary artists working today such as Janet Culbertson and Ned Smythe.
Location: Shelter Island Historical Society, 16 South Ferry Rd, Shelter Island, New York
Price: Free
Time: 6 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
6. “Dialogues | Galleries x Galleries” at Galerie Lelong and Co., New York
For their summer group shows, New York galleries Galerie Lelong and Co., Petzel, and Luhring Augustine are hosting group shows from smaller operations run by art dealers of color. At Lelong, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles and Brooklyn’s Welancora Gallery present a multigenerational take on abstraction in “Open Doors“; Luhring Augustine showcases works by 10 artists from Miami Beach’s Central Fine in “Central Sounds“; and Petzel welcomes a quintet of artists from Los Angeles’s Commonwealth and Council. Tying the three shows together is a virtual panel hosted by Lelong featuring Friedrich Petzel, Luhring and Augustine’s Donald Johnson, Lelong’s Mary Sabbatino, Welancora’s Ivy Jones, Commonwealth and Council’s Kimbum Kim, Central Fine’s Diego Singh, and De Jesus.
Price: Free with registration
Time: 2 p.m.–3 p.m.
—Sarah Cascone
Thursday, July 14–Saturday, September 10
7. “Lucia Fainzilber: Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall” at Praxis, New York
Praxis presents a solo exhibition by Argentine photographer Lucia Fainzilber in this gorgeous homage to flowers. Fainzilber’s floral portraits fix the spotlight squarely on them to bring focus not just to their beauty, but their resiliency as well.
Location: Praxis, 501 West 20th Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Opening Reception, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
—Neha Jambhekar
Friday, July 15–Sunday, July 17
8. “The Sixth Annual Brooklyn Art Book Fair” at Amant, Brooklyn
Nonprofit North Brooklyn art space Amant will host the fair at its home to feature more 50 publishers and artists from across the country, bringing together emerging and established vendors.
Location: Amant, 306 Maujer Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Friday, 6 p.m.–9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Eileen Kinsella
Saturday, July 16
9. “Rachel Owens: Interactive Games and Performances” at Geary, Millerton, New York
Rachel Owens’s current solo show, “Real Fragile” (through July 24), at Geary’s Upstate location, features sculptures inspired by her move from New York to Armenia in 2020. In conjunction with the exhibition, the artist is staging an afternoon of performances and games at the gallery inspired by the work of Theater of the Oppressed founder Augusto Boal, the Brazilian political activist who used interactive performances to spark political change.
Location: Geary, 34 Main Street, Millerton, New York
Price: Free
Time: 4 p.m.–5 p.m.
—Tanner West
Saturday, July 16–Sunday, September 4
10. “Greg Goldberg: Pentimento Paintings” at the Cornwall Library, Connecticut
Greg Goldberg‘s latest suite of colorful abstract works are largely defined by their underpaintings, the layered marks that lie beneath each finished canvas, each stage of which is essential to the final product. That’s why he’s christened his latest solo show “Pentimento Paintings.” The artist (who is, full disclosure, married to Artnet News senior reporter Katya Kazakina) made these oil-on-linen paintings over the last 11 months in rural West Cornwall, Connecticut, combining transparent and translucent colors inspired by the changing light and seasons.
Location: Cornwall Library, 30 Pine Street, Cornwall, Connecticut
Price: Free
Time: Opening reception, 5 p.m.–7 p.m.; Tuesday, Thursday, 12 p.m.–5 p.m.; Wednesday, 12 p.m.–7 p.m.; Friday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m.–3 p.m.
—Nan Stewert
Through Sunday, July 17
11. “Simone Kearney: Criers” at Undercurrent, Brooklyn
This is the last week to see artist and poet Simone Kearney’s stirring new show of ceramic crying heads, tucked downstairs in the collective-run gallery Undercurrent, in Dumbo, Brooklyn. “Clay, as the primary material for these sculptures, emphasizes crying as radically elemental and acutely physical. In crying, the body is laying claim to the event,” Kearney said in a statement. Taken together, the lumpy, tender, often unfired and unglazed criers convene a kind of visual requiem, a particularly timely expression at a time of so much collective mourning.
Location: Undercurrent, 70 John Street, Brooklyn
Price: Free
Time: Friday–Sunday 1 p.m.-7 p.m.
—Rachel Corbett
Through Saturday, July 23
12. “Gracelee Lawrence: Heat Sync” at Postmasters, New York
In the feverish, plastic world of North Carolina-born artist Gracelee Lawrence, the virtual and the physical bare fruit, literally. The artist’s first solo exhibition with Postmasters Gallery showcases large-scale 3-D printed sculptures of fruits, flowers, biomorphic female limbs, and torsos in bright and shiny sleek plastics. These sculptures ask open-ended and provocative questions about biology, reproduction, and authenticity in our age of technology, eliciting apprehensions of an unknown future as well as an immediate visual delight. In Lawrence’s world, the organic and the plastic may be winkingly closer than one suspects; her 3-D-printed objects are all fabricated with polylactic acid (PLA) filament, a vegetable-derived bioplastic commonly made from fermented corn starch. “Heat Sync” marks Postmasters’ final show in its Tribeca location before shifting toward a nomadic model, a decision brought on by rising rents. Lawrence’s exhibition strike a celebratory, regenerative, note.
Location: Postmasters, 54 Franklin Street, New York
Price: Free
Time: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
—Katie White
Through September 18
13. “Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity” at the Dallas Museum of Art
This sweeping exhibition, co-organized with Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs, is about much more than Islamic art’s influence on the storied French luxury maison. It’s about the formation of a new aesthetic lexicon, a revelatory narrative that emerges from the 400 objects on view. High jewelry is paired with antiquities and art from India, Iran, North Africa, and elsewhere. Cultures and influences crisscross and communicate. It’s not about what’s lost in translation, but what is found.
Location: Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 North Harwood Street, Dallas, Texas
Price: Free with reservation
Time: Saturday and Sunday, Tuesday–Thursday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.; Friday 11 a.m.–9 p.m.