New York weather is famously unpredictable between February and April (and actually, all the time), but as soon as the sun peeks through the clouds and the temperature begins to climb, all bets are off: it’s time to gallery-hop, socialize and fire off a hot take or two. Warm evenings are beckoning, and the gallery halls are decked with stimulating work by exciting talents. You could wander through Tribeca or take a sharp left at Citi Field to make your way towards the Queens Museum, where simultaneous exhibitions from Suzanne Lacy, Christine Sun Kim, and Stephanie Dinkins are about to launch.
Broadway Gallery — Jo Nigoghossian, March 31 – April 30
TriBeCa’s recently-hatched Broadway Gallery has already made a name for itself via the stewardship of Pascal Spengemann, former vice president of the embattled Marlborough Gallery, but let’s not get bogged down in industry brouhaha. On March 31, Broadway is launching an exhibition spotlighting British-American artist Jo Nigoghossian, a 2009 graduate of the Yale School of Art whose gnarled sculptural works flicker with aggressive neon flourishes. Nigoghossian’s oil paintings, though, are the focus of the Broadway show, and the offerings ooze late-capitalist menace. In Launch (2020), a rocket with an uncertain future blasts from its bearings surrounded by acrid black smoke; it looks like Elon Musk’s worst nightmare. Escape Cruise, meanwhile, evokes the equally mesmerizing and terrifying boat bearing the titular figures in Spirited Away.
O’Flaherty’s — Anthea Hamilton, March 31
High-spirited East Village output O’Flaherty’s just wrapped up a killer homage to the warped mind of Ashley Bickerton, a 1980s New York Neo-minimalist who ditched the Big Apple for Bali in 1993 and never looked back. Next up is Anthea Hamilton, a Turner Prize-shortlisted artist whose multiplicitous practices include curation, sculpture-making and immersive installations. “Things I produce are often physically unstable – even relying on a precariousness of equilibrium – because I’m interested in the image of a solution or the image of a question, or how one asks the question,” Hamilton told artist, writer and musician Ross Simonini in November. “I feel like the work I’m making is just about making public the questions that are going through my head, rather than solutions.”
Queens Museum — Stephanie Dinkins, Suzanne Lacy and Christine Sun Kim, March 13
On March 13, the Queens Museum is launching three separate exhibitions simultaneously. “Stephanie Dinkins: On Love and Data” centers around the artist’s use of artificial intelligence, techno, video and other mediums to further ideas such as the ones expressed in her 2020 manifesto Afro-now-ism. “The Medium is Not the Only Message” covers decades of performance artist and activist Suzanne Lacy’s work, which has always been geared towards upending cultural norms and challenging conventional modes of expression. Finally, “Time Owes Me Rest Again,” artist Christine Sun Kim’s mural homage to ASL communication that also evokes Pop Art, will remain on view at the museum until January 2023.
Theta — Hannah Taurins, “Cover Girl,” February 23 – March 26
We can’t say enough good things about Theta, Jordan Barse’s less-than-a-year-old Tribeca gallery. Barse has pulled off intimate, thoughtfully-curated shows back to back; right now, you can check out Hannah Taurins: “Cover Girl,” which is running through March 26. It’s the artist’s debut solo exhibition, and Taurins renders feminine figures in pencil and paint, sometimes homing in on a brightly patterned pair of tights or the provocative gaze of a topless woman viewed from below.
Anonymous — Cristine Brache, “Bermuda Triangle,” February 24 – April 2
Artist Cristine Brache was raised strictly Catholic, and for a long time harbored ambitions of becoming a nun. Her parents’ divorce shocked her: “I thought divorce defied the laws of physics, like unbreaking glass,” Brache wrote. “I went down a spiral questioning whether anything was real. I even tried to summon satan, to prove god existed. But satan never came and my walls of perception collapsed along with my belief in a Christian god.” “Bermuda Triangle” is an excavation of Brache’s crisis of faith. In the center of Anonymous gallery sits an inflatable pool, and upon the