Opening receptions tonight in the Lower East Side!
As Friday the 13th would have it, there's a bunch of opening receptions tonight.
Hi all,
I wanted to highlight a short list of the many shows having a little party tonight. Hope you can do some show-hopping or make it out to all the shows sometime soon.
Shala Miller: Obsidian opening reception at Lyles & King (19 Henry St.)
Tonight, 1/13 6pm-8pm
“TW/CW: mention of harm, abuse, sexual assault.” As a long-time admirer of Miller’s work, I’ve been looking forward to this solo-exhibit, their first in 2 years. Miller, who also goes by Freddie June, will present multidisciplinary works culminating in a show on “rage, revenge, and hatred for abusers everywhere” as the artist wrote in the Instagram post below. Per the press release, featured in the post below:
In the show, Obsidian, Shala Miller focuses on rage, resistance and the desire for revenge as experienced by the Black femme person. Attempting to study it from a psychological standpoint, Miller has continued their years-long practice of combining fiction and auto-ethnography by creating Obsidian, a superhuman character discovered in the destroyed archive of an unknown and unnamed comic artist by an art historian, all of whom are fictional characters played by Miller.
Adam Zhu: Nice Daze closing reception at CCProjects (17 Allen St. 2nd Fl.)
Tonight, 1/13 6pm-8pm
This is a closing, not an opening unfortunately. Zhu’s exhibit Nice Daze has been on view for some weeks now, displaying many if not all the works included in his 2022 released book with the exhibition’s title, Nice Daze. The exhibit highlights Zhu’s memories of the last decade spent downtown with artistic friends and mentors. The book will likely be on view at the closing and available for purchase for $90. Knowing Zhu’s circle, the “special performance” noted in the closing reception post below will certainly be an exciting one. Wine & beer will be served.
William Christenberry & RaMell Ross: Desire Paths at PACE Gallery (510 W. 25th St.)
On view today through 2/25
I am unsure if there’s an opening tonight, but in any case, the 2-person show is a necessary viewing experience. Per the press release, Ross who works across disciplinaries including filmmaking, photography, and installation, will showcase his photographs and his Christenberry inspired piece, “Earth, Dirt, Soil, Land; Altar, 2021” which contains what Christenberry has called the “Red Earth” dirt from Hale County, Alabama. The two artists who have made work on Hale County extensively will have their work alongside each other, contemplating the individual artists’ relationship to the emotionally charged town and generally, the American South. In my senior year at Bard, Ross came to speak about his Academy Award nominated 2018 documentary, Hale County This Morning, This Evening which follows three Black people in Hale County, AL.
Yasunao Tone: Region of Paramedia & Renee Gladman: Narratives of Magnitudeat at Artists Space (11 Cortlandt Alley)
Tonight, 1/13 6pm-8pm
In 2021, my senior seminar class taught by artist Farah Al Qasimi visited the then Milford Graves: Fundamental Frequency exhibit, in the unseeming gallery entrance on Cortlandt Alley. The large and expansive space will hold now two shows featuring Tone’s critical video collage works, and Gladman’s experimental 2-dimensional works.
Patrick Quinn: Just Say You're Busy at Whaam! Gallery (15 Elizabeth St., 1st Fl. in Elizabeth St. Mall)
Tonight, 1/13 6pm-8pm
If you grew up in New York City, you likely came to the Elizabeth Street Mall in middle school to buy some bootleg cartoon stickers, anime, or an obscenely erotic mousepad. Since then there’s been seeming raids of the place with no more bootleg material in site and now an official authorized Sanrio store upcharging the shit out of plastic bowls. In the ever-changing space of the Elizabeth Street Mall, Whaam! Gallery was started in 2017 and has displayed many downtown artists’ creative works and curatorial projects, in addition to hosting a book club with some local legends like photographer, author, and documentarian Clayton Patterson.
Quinn’s paintings in the new exhibit deals with the iconography and visuality of the oyster, turning it into a map of the United States and a tool to spell the word “Ass.” Enough said. Again, these are not photographs but they posses an extraordinary realist photo-quality.
Felix Beaudry: The Glob Monster opening reception at SITUATIONS (127 Henry St.)
Tonight, 1/13 6pm-8pm
I spent the last couple months as a gallery assistant at SITUATIONS, being the sole person on-site meeting and befriending those passing by and the gallery’s exciting roster of artists. While not photographs, Beaudry’s work deals with an absolute hyper realism that will excite any photographer. I also can’t help but think of Bread & Puppet Theater Company and the eerie qualities of life imitated in masks, fabric, and the artificial.
That is all for now, hope you can make it to any of the shows above, and hope to see you there!
If you have any good podcasts, conversations, lectures you want to recommend, send my way. I listened to this wonderful conversation between artists Carmen Winant and Jordan Weitzman on Weitzman’s podcast Magic Hour the other day, and I highly recommend. The artist and my friend Mika Simoncelli put me onto Winant’s work recently before they embarked on their cross-country road trip to Los Angeles. The podcast considers Winant’s relationship to the studio, her own work, and the intense feelings she experienced witnessing people— particularly older women— engage with her photography-installation, My Birth (2018) from the Museum of Modern Art’s Being: New Photography exhibit in 2018. As she puts it, the people viewing and engaging with the work, “activated” the piece. It made me think about the idea that if work isn’t activated until its engaged by the public, is all work kept private not fully realized? Just a thought.
Rainer