This Weekend: Art Book Fair, Citygroup, Elle Pérez & Barbara Ess Openings, Abrons Art Center, Garden Screenings!
Plus a whole lot more. Lots of photography exhibits on view and closing, so get with it.
Hi all—
I have a lot on my list for this weekend and the next few weeks. Of course, there’s also the Armory Show & PHOTOFAIRS this weekend, and both are in the Javits Center. I’ll be working on Sunday at Printed Matter at PHOTOFAIRS booth if you want to stop by and say hello. For PHOTOFAIRS, I’m particularly excited to see artist Larry Cook’s work in person at Chela Mitchell Gallery’s booth. I became familiar with his work in college and watched a conversation between him and curator Makeda Best, two years ago. His work takes on the profundity of Polaroid photographs within the carceral state and incorporates the glam and glitter of music club background imagery and scenery— meant for photograph making. Other artists I’m looking forward to seeing is Genesis Báez at the Center of Photography Woodstock, Emma Safir at Baxter Street Camera Club of New York, Rahim Fortune, Kristine Potter (great new book!), Alessandra. Sanguinetti at Sasha Wolf Projects, and a variety of artists including the likes of Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Baldwin Lee, Saul Leiter at Howard Greenberg Gallery
But while that’s going on, you’re going to have to check out all these free exhibits, programs, and shows in the meantime. It’s the end of Summer and I’m ready for the Fall happenings.
The First Annual Poots Competition closing reception at Citygroup (104 Forsyth St.)
Today, 4-6pm
It feels difficult to describe what exactly inspired this show, so I’ll turn to my friend and former coworker at Con Artist Collective, Tianyu Yang’s recent writing in the New York Review of Architecture’s Skyline #122.
The Citygroup crew had publicized a Saturday “poots party,” but just a handful of guests seemed to have turned up. On the walls were proposals from the annual Poots Competition, launched in May with ambitions to take over from MoMA PS1’s erstwhile Young Architects Program in “anoint[ing] the Next Big Thing.” Only in place of a vast courtyard, Citygroup offered designers a dank interstitial wedge of space to play with. Naturally, all this was farce, and participants responded in kind; I spotted “wetscapes” and “dancescapes,” though none was as frank as a project for a “ratscape.”
Available Works, an Art Book Fair at WSA (161 Water St.)
Tomorrow 9/9, and Sunday 9/10, 12-6pm
The two-day 20th-century focused book fair will be presented by creative agency Something Special Studios*, book/ephemera dealer Wrong Answer / Geoff Snack, and creative workspace company Water Street Associates (WSA). It seems to be ephemera-heavy and includes a variety of bookstores, publishers, artists, and brands. The participating vendors are as follows: AnArtist, Andre Uncut, Better Gift Shop, FAR–NEAR, For Keeps Books, Homme Girls, Intramural, Kaleidoscope / Capsule, LELLI + Acid Free, Library Fetish, Luna Luna, Make It Look Good, Mast Books, Nick Sethi / DAKOTA, Offbrand Library, SNEEZE Magazine, Something Special Studios*, and Wrong Answer.
Elle Pérez: guabancex, opening reception at 47 Canal (291 Grand St., 2nd Floor)
Tonight, 9/9 6-9pm
I’ve been waiting for a Pérez solo show for some time now. I felt fortunate to see their short film on Puerto Rican street life at the Whitney’s past Spring exhibition, no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria. But now looking forward to seeing some still images and prints, all together.
Unfortunately, I haven’t made it up to Pérez’s current exhibition, Intimacies, on view at MASS MoCA through July 2024. But, I still have some time to check it out, and fortunately, I’ve seen some photographs from my friend and artist Alice Fall on their recent visit.
The Clash screening at Village Works (12 Saint Marks Place)
Saturday, 9/9 8pm, Q&A 9pm
I don’t recall the last time the great Village Works bookstore held a screening so this will be quite exciting, and more so because it focuses on public space in New York. For anyone who doesn’t already know, Village Works specializes and sells only books and publications on New York City culture. Situated on St. Marks after their move from East 3rd Street, it seems very on-brand to screen such a move. I don’t know much about the documentary besides that it’ll include a conversation following the screening and a noted party, and that it’s 12+ years in the making.
Ryan Patrick Krueger, curated by Samantha Box at Tiger Strikes Astroid (TSA) (1329 Willoughby Ave #2A)
On view through Sunday, 9/10
I’m grateful to the artist and Baxter Street at Camera Club of New York Programs Manager, Sydney Ellison for highlighting this exhibition the other day. The exhibit has received some notable press including the Brooklyn Rail’s Joel Danilewitz. In it, Danilewitz pays attention to Krueger’s interlocking interests in artist and critic Hal Fischer’s 1977 photo essay “Gay Semiotics” and Krueger’s amassed homoerotic ephemera from eBay.
Barbara Ess: Archives at White Columns (91 Horatio St.)
Opening 9/12 6-8pm, on view through 10/21
I’ve been thinking about the late and great writer and actress Cookie Mueller this past month after looking through my friend Shay’s dad, Thaddeus Rutkowski’s 1990 copy of Cookie Mueller: Garden of Ashes (Hanuman, Book No. 34). My initial entry into Muelle were artist Nan Goldin’s photographs of her, but now seeing the cover photograph for this posthumous exhibition of Ess’s work, it feels eerily full circle. Having learned about Mueller four or five years ago in college, and now seeing a photograph of her by Ess, an artist I was being taught by, I’m sad I didn’t learn more about Ess’s friendships during this time of her life. I’m extremely looking forward to seeing what other works there are to be seen from Ess’s archives.
MoRUS 11th Annual Film Festival: Urban Housing Solutions at various Lower East Side community gardens (9/14 - 9/17)
As someone who obsessively tries to collect and research history about the Lower East Side and East Village, this event is particularly special. It brings together a variety of older, current, and ongoing documentary projects that focus on— as the title suggests— urban housing solutions, particularly through noncommercial and radical organizing phenomena like tent cities, co-ops, soup kitchens, and so on.
Thursday, 9/14 7pm at Green Oasis Community Garden
Picture the Homeless Tent City (Not An Alternative, 2009) (15 mins)
”Footage from 2009 action demanding housing for homeless in Chase Bank’s vacant lot.”
Master of None / Toledo (Sebastian Gutierrez, 2009) (15 min)
”Portrait of Mario Bustamante, a Colombian immigrant squatting on the LES in the 90s.”
The Spark (Antoine Harari & Valeria Mazzucchi, 2021) (1 hour)
”Documentary on the fight to establish a “Zone to Defend” in a rural French commune.”
Friday, 9/15 7pm at La Plaza Cultural Community Garden
Battle to Save La Plaza Cultural (Emergency Video Network, 1988) (17 mins)
”Documentary about an anti-gentrification campaign to save a community garden.”
Nubia Way: A story of black-led self building in Lewisham (Timi Akindele-Ajani, 2022) (21 mins)
”Documentary of London’s first self-built black housing co-op from the 1990s.”
Rock Soup (Lech Kowalski, 1991) (1 hour 20 mins)
”Documentary of a soup kitchen serving homeless people in La Plaza Cultural in summer of ‘89.”
Saturday, 9/16 7pm at Tompkins Square Park
”For the third night of MoRUS' film festival, we are partnering with the Anarchist Book Fair to showcase the Emma Goldman Anarchist Film Festival. Check out the book fair in La Plaza Cultural during the day, then stop by the screening at night.”
Sunday, 9/17 7pm at 6th Street & Avenue B Community Garden
Survival Without Rent (Katie Heiserman & Elana Meyers, TBD) (30 min)
”Documentary in progress on LES squatters who formed a community of artists and activists.”
Sleep on Water (Brandon Neubaur + Anne Kickert, 2023)
”Premiere of 2023 documentary on boat squatting in NYC.”
Battle of Tuntenhaus (Juliet Bashore, 1993) (20 min)
”Documentary of a queer, anti-fascist squat in East Berlin prior to police eviction in 1990.”
Objects of Permanence, curated by Mellány Sánchez, at the Abrons Arts Center (466 Grand St.)
On view through 9/14
What a superb organization of designers, artists, creatives, and documentarians surrounding the Lower East Side’s history as “the pioneering capital of the garment industry in the mid-20th century.” Presented in collaboration with the Tenement Museum, and on the occasion of New York Fashion Week, curator Sánchez brings together a wide variety of New Yorkers including archives like Latino and Caribbean immigrant photo archive Nuevayorkinos and vintage store PROCELL to celebrate the profundity and nuance of labor, garments, and style in downtown New York.
The Sound Crickets Make: Parsons School of Design MFA Photography 2023 thesis show at the New School / Parsons’ Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery & Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries (66 5th Ave.)
On view through 9/28
Thankful to artist Wolfgang Tillmans for highlighting this group thesis show. Looking forward to getting acquainted with the program as my primary source of MFA photography work is from Yale.
Jack Pierson: Pomegranates at Lisson Gallery (504 West 24th Street)
On view through 10/14
I missed the opening reception for this solo show of Pierson’s work, but feel blessed there’s ample time to make my visit.
Peter Hujar: Echoes at 125 Newbury (395 Broadway)
On view through 10/28
I just saw artist Johnny Rozsa’s Instagram post the other day from the exhibit’s opening, which I unfortunately couldn’t attend. The exhibition includes 30 photographs Hujar made from 1966 to 1985 of friends, lovers, and acquaintances at his East Village loft, and from the Christopher Street piers on the West Side. I’m looking forward to seeing these prints in person, having only seen Hujar’s work reprinted in book form.
Dreaming of Home, curated by Gemma Rolls-Bentley at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (26 Wooster St.)
On view through 1/7/2024
Using Catherine Opie’s photograph, Self Portrait/Cutting (1993) as a starting point, curator Gemma Rolls-Bentley brings together twenty contemporary artists to answer questions surrounding queer and trans domestic life, as well as position in society and politics— in the last 30 years since Opie’s provocative photograph. Among the twenty artists is Clifford Prince King who had a solo exhibition, Hush-a-bye Dreams at Gordon Robichaux at Union Square this past Spring.
That’s all for now. :)
Rainer