Welcome to Things to Do, our weekly roundup of happenings in the ever-buzzing New York art scene. Here, we present an expertly curated list of the best goings on that don’t require an invite—but might require that you reserve a spot in advance. Be sure to check StubHub, SeatGeek and Craigslist for ticketed events that may have sold out. People in the art world are often double-booked and love secondary markets.
Monday, June 5 and Wednesday, June 7th
Cremaster 3
Metrograph, 7 Ludlow Street, Multiple shows
Matthew Barney has been having a revival lately, or as The New York Times put it, he is “back in the game.” His new film installation Secondary, at his industrial studio space in Long Island City, draws on the artist’s history as a football player to tackle (sorry) race, gender and other contemporary American themes via a tragic game in 1978 between the Patriots and the Raiders. Metrograph has been showing Barney’s older works to mark the occasion, and they’re all worth revisiting, with this week’s offering, Cremaster 3, among his best. Described as ”part zombie thriller, part gangster film,” the film features the artist scaling the Guggenheim from the inside, among other lasting images.
Wednesday, June 7th
Panel: ‘Giorgio de Chirico, Horses: The Death of a Rider’
Vito Schnabel Gallery, 455 West 19th Street, 6:30 p.m.
Vito Schnabel has lined up a stacked panel for their show of paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, the Italian artist and writer whose surreal and often nihilistic works would go on to influence Ernst, Dali, Magritte and others. Presented in association with The Brooklyn Rail, this panel will feature the publication’s publisher and artistic director Phong H. Buy, author Mary Ann Caws, the legendary painter and critic David Salle and everyone’s favorite academic, Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale School of Art.
Wednesday, June 7th
Opening: 2023 Summer Exhibition
New York Academy of Art, 111 Franklin Street, 6 p.m.
The New York Academy of Art is an important and storied institution founded in 1982 by artists, scholars and patrons of the arts: Andy Warhol and Tom Wolfe among them. The summer show features the work of impressive up-and-comers at affordable prices that go straight to the NYAA. You’ll find the works available here, an impressive curation by Eden Deering of PPOW, Anna Furney of Venus Over Manhattan and Olivia Smith of Magenta Plains.
Thursday, June 8th
Drag and Draw
The Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, 7 p.m.
As Pride Month kicks off, The Brooklyn Museum has upgraded the traditional drink and draw to include a crucial third element that often pairs well with museums: drag. The music will be provided by local DJs while the models will be provided by Yas Mama, a Brooklyn evening of Latinx drag. The whole evening will be hosted by Chata of the House of Bushwig, an institution that prides itself on being “the Met Gala for aliens.”
Friday, June 9th
Docent tour: Kara Walker, Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)
New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, 2 p.m.
As the name of this show implies, the work of Kara Walker is brilliant and dense, the kind of work that really benefits from a walkthrough. On Friday, The New York Historical Society will host just such an event for Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), Walker’s show that traveled from the Smithsonian. These 15 prints are based on an anthology published during the war, which Walker probes to see what they can show us about caricature and visibility today.
Have an upcoming event that may be worth our readers’ time? Drop me an email at artnews@observer.com.