MONDAY, DECEMBER 12
Lecture: R. H. Quaytman at Dia
A master explorer of institutional history in her painting (she has done work based on the archives of the Whitney and ICA Boston, among others), R. H. Quaytman turns her attention here to Dia, a nonprofit with a legacy that is rivaled in ambition, triumph and drama by few, if any, of its contemporaries. — Andrew Russeth
Dia Art Foundation, 535 West 22nd Street, New York, 6:30 p.m., $6
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13
Opening: “YOU HAVE BEEN THERE – departures, bifurcations” at Marian Goodman
Dan Graham and Steve McQueen will be among the artists featured in this group show, but another major draw is the dubious cryptozoology of Gerard Byrne, who has been presenting his “evidence” of the Loch Ness monster as part of an ongoing piece since 2001. — Dan Duray
24 West 57 Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.
Opening: “I, BEAR” at Canada
Canada kicks off five nights of video and musical performances featuring videos by Black Dice, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Tony Stinkmetal and others. — Michael H. Miller
55 Chrystie Street, New York, 7-9 p.m.
Artist Talk: Rona Yefman at CCNY Lecture Series
Camera Club of New York presents a talk with photographer Rona Yefman, whose photographs tend to dig into the grungier, more unexpected corners of life. — M.H.M.
209 East 23rd Street, New York, 7 p.m., $5
Performance: An Evening with Electronic Literature Organization at The Kitchen
An evening of performances selected from the second Electronic Literature Collection, published in 2011, created by Oni Buchanan, Jhave, Illya Szilak, Sandy Baldwin with videos by Paul Ryan. — M.H.M.
512 West 19 Street, New York, 7 p.m.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15
Lecture: My Barbarian at NYU
Despite smart shows at the New Museum and Participant in recent years, Los Angeles trio My Barbarian has too scarcely seen in New York’s galleries. Here is a chance to see them lecture. We hope that there will be costumes. — A.R.
Einstein Auditorium, 34 Stuyvesant Street, New York, 5:30 p.m.
Performance: Sharif Sehnaoui, “Old and New Acoustics,” at the New Museum
Mr. Sehnaoui presents his improvisational guitar at the New Museum Theater. Even if it’s a bust, you can have another try at Carsten Höller’s slide. — D.D.
235 Bowery, New York, 7 p.m., $10
FRIDAY DECEMBER 16
Closing: “Parts & Labor” at Abron Arts Center
Cecilia Biagini, Daniel Bejar, Jonathan Durham, Juanli Carrion and Noah Loesberg close out their group show with a bang. Mr. Durham will also perform a piece that has him “excavating MRE food materials from inside cast concrete and helicopter parts and cooking them with a small folding stove.” — D.D.
466 Grand Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18
Screening: La Commune (Paris, 1871) at Anthology Film Archives
Sure, Peter Watkins’s 1999 “quasi-Brechtian invocation of the spirit of the [Paris] Commune”—to borrow Anthology’s description—is almost six hours long, but the opportunity to view it comes along only on the rarest occasions. The film is screened as part of a new, timely AFA series called “Anarchism on Film,” which runs Dec. 16–23. — A.R.
32 Second Avenue, New York 12 p.m.