TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3
Opening: “Building SculptureCenter Benefit Exhibition” at Maccarone
SculptureCenter is taking the E train down from Long Island City to the West Village for a few nights to host a benefit sale at Maccarone that features works by Sterling Ruby, Richard Serra, Rashid Johnson, Louise Bougeois, Fred Wilson, and like a dozen other artists. Should be a doozy. — Nate Freeman
Maccarone NY, 98 Morton Street, New York, show opens at 10:00 a.m., private preview 6-8 p.m.
Opening: “Beautiful Beast” at the New York Academy of Art
And then, for a different kind of sculpture display, the New York Academy of Art is showing the works of 12 Academy students who each recreated the skulls of unidentified crime victims using only 3-D renderings of their heads and a few spare details about their races, hairstyles, ages, everything. A little creepy, sure, but skull art is pretty metal. And then there’s the New York Academy’s new show, “Beautiful Beast,” which “explores the relationship between beauty and abjection through the lens of the grotesque” as the materials say. Eric Fischl, Judy Fox, Mark Mennin, and Kiki Smith are featured, alongside many others. — N.F.
The New York Academy of Art, 111 Franklin Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4
Talk: The Public Art Fund’s “Talks at the New School: Martin Creed”
In 2012, Martin Creed rallied thousands to ring bells together in celebration of the London Olympics for his piece Work No. 1197, All the Bells in a Country Rung as Quickly and Loudly as Possible for Three Minutes. He’s one of the U.K.’s biggest names in Contemporary Art, and now he’s kicking off the Spring 2015 Public Art Fund talks at the New School this Wednesday. A release on the New School’s website says he’ll chat about about his work in a “performative lecture.” — Alanna Martinez
The New School, the Auditorium at 66 West 12th Street, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, New York, 6:30 p.m.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5
Opening: Charles Ray at Matthew Marks Gallery
Anytime there’s a Charles Ray anything it’s a celebration, even if it’s just a show of two new sculptures. Which is what’s happening at Matthew Marks on Thursday, and that’s lovely, but you should really see is “Charles Ray: Sculpture, 1997-2014” at the Art Institute of Chicago when it opens there this May. I saw it at the Kunstmuseum Basel last summer, and it is a joy to behold. — N.F.
Matthew Marks Gallery, 523 W. 24th Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.
Opening: “Jasper de Beijer: Mr. Knight’s World Band Receiver”
Amsterdam-based Jasper de Baijer’s latest photographic series is presented from the perspective of Christopher Knight, a real man who disappeared Maine’s rural wilderness for twenty-seven years. Using Knight’s isolation as a viewfinder, Mr. De Beijer depicts significant historical events like the Chernobyl disaster and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in photographs of elaborate tableaux made of collaged drawings and sculptures. — A.M.
Asya Geisberg Gallery, 537b West 23rd Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.
Talk: “Insider Art: Recent Curatorial Approaches to Self-Taught Art” at Brooklyn Museum, moderated by Matthew Higgs
White Columns director and chief curator Matthew Higgs (he is also the creative advisor of the Independent Art Fair and co-curator of the Brooklyn Museum’s current Judith Scott exhibition) will moderate a panel on curatorial approaches to exhibitions of outsider art. The most recent edition of the Outsider Art Fair received wide praise and sparked discussion about the growing market for outsider art with art world insiders. Panelists include Lynne Cooke, Massimiliano Gioni, and Lawrence Rinder. There couldn’t be a more perfect time for this discussion. — A.M.
Brooklyn Museum, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, 7 p.m.
Opening: “The Confident Line: George Grosz, Wardell Milan, Andy Warhol” at David Nolan Gallery
The intermingling of these three artists, from three different generations, seems quite intriguing. The release notes that all are adoptive New Yorkers, like so many of us here, and they all effectively skewered the powers that be through irreverence and wit. Count me in. — N.F.
David Nolan Gallery, 527 West 29th Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6
Opening: “On Kawara—Silence” at the Guggenheim
This show—the first adequately thorough retrospective of the bracing, brave Japanese artist who died last year—will be remarkable, and incorporate Kawara’s postcards, date-keeping, and performance into a grand celebration of a long life at work. A must-see. — N.F.
The Guggenheim, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, 10:00 a.m.
Opening: “Jim Dine: Tools” at Senior & Shopmaker Gallery
This exhibition of early Jim Dine prints and drawings from the 1960s and 1970s feature hand-colored lithographs, and works in pastel and pencil, all focusing on the domestic and utilitarian objects that have become central to the artist’s work in the years since. These are some of his earliest experimentations with wrenches, scissors, forks, spoons, and brushes. — A.M.
Senior & Shopmaker Gallery, 210 11th Avenue, 8th Floor, New York, 6-8 p.m.
Opening: “Petra Cortright: Ily” at Foxy Production
The last time she showed at Foxy Production, Petra Cortwright contributed a work called W9_krakow Pajaki Package Crack Panic Attacks… in the group show “Farm to Table.” There doesn’t appear to be text describing her upcoming soho show, but “Ily” refers to either the acronym for “I love you” or the fancy coffee company (which actually has two Ls, like “Illy,” so it’s probably not that. — N.F.
Foxy Production, 637 W. 27th Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 7
Talk: “Alain Badiou: Contemporary Art Confronting the 21st Century” at Miguel Abreu Gallery
French philosopher Alain Badiou (Theory of the Subject, Gilles Deleuze, The Meaning of Sarkozy) returns to Miguel Abreu Gallery to talk contemporary art. The release for the event finds Mr. Badiou already pondering. He writes, “Artistic contexts of a semi-industrial type have appeared, and moreover, the systematic occupation by artists in the West of wastelands left by deindustrialization has become a major symbol of the period: creation nowadays takes place in old automobile factories and workshops, in outdated giant cold storage warehouses, in the huge debris of assembly line labor, in sawdust, tar, and gasoline. What will come out of this? Let us make a few assumptions….” — A.M.
Miguel Abreu Gallery, 88 Eldridge Street, 4th Floor, New York, 7 p.m.
Performance: Black Life Matters Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at the New York Public Library
An all-day Wikipedia Edit-a-thon will take place this Saturday at the New York Public Library. No previous experience in Wikipedia editing is necessary, and volunteers will be there to show you the ropes. Here’s a chance to fill in Wikipedia’s blank spots in Black history and culture. — A.M.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, Aaron Douglas Reading Room of the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, New York, 12-5 p.m.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8
Opening: “Alexis Dahan: Alarm!” at Two Rams
The Bowery gallery, which was opened not quite a year ago by former Performa special events director Tali Wertheimer and art advisor Brandon Coburn, will host this wonderfully titled show by Alexis Dahan that consists of three public interventions on the corner outside the gallery: a bright red fire alarm, a bright blue pothole, and a bright yellow newsrack. Sounds like a nice thing to see before or after brunching on the Lower East Side. — N.F.
Two Rams, 2 Rivington Street, New York, 12-2 p.m.