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.
Wednesday July 5
Opening: Genius Loci
Charles Moffett gallery, 431 and 437 Washington St., 6-8 p.m.
Traveling this summer? Consider Charles Moffett’s summer group show, which was curated by José Chavez Verduzco, an assistant director at Charles Moffett and prior student of Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Their summer show unpacks the concept of the genius loci, the unique spirit or character of a place, and accordingly features a roster of artists from around the world who explore the concept in their own unique ways. Michael Assiff, Ragini Bhow, Kevin Brisco Jr., Dominic Chambers, Danielle De Jesus, José de Jesús Rodríguez, Alfredo Diaz, Azza El Siddique, Lizette Hernández, Jonathan Herrera Soto, Melissa Joseph, Calvin Kim, Saskia Krafft, Naomi Nakazato, Roksana Pirouzmand, Esteban Ramón Pérez, Emma Safir and Lulu Varona are featured.
Friday July 7
Screening: I am Suzanne!
Museum of Modern Art, 11 W53rd St., Theater 2, 7 p.m.
This pre-Code musical romance follows Lillian Harvey as an injured dancer who unleashes complications in her personal and professional life when she turns to the high-stakes world of Parisian marionettes. “The Surrealists would have had a field day with this film, from the uncanny similitude of humans and their puppet doppelgangers,” the museum writes. And who doesn’t like surrealism these days? Artforum called the movie “strange, though always absorbing” when it played at MoMA in 2015
Opening: Origin Story
Gordon Robichaux gallery, 41 Union Square West, #925, 12-6 p.m.
Gordon Robichaux’s summer group show features the work of Peter Acheson, Florence Derive, John Finneran, DW Fitzpatrick, Pippa Garner, Ava Woo Kaufman, Reverend Joyce McDonald, Miguel “Mikie” Perez and Richard Porter—a group that ranges from the buzzy to the obscure. Most are not represented by the gallery, but all are intriguing. Pippa Garner just opened her first solo museum show in the U.S. and has big shows planned in New York and Los Angeles this fall.
Opening: Street Casts
Helena Anrather, 132 Bowery, 6-8 p.m.
Do you ever wander under the arches in Washington Square Park and wish that you could take an impression of the high-up angelic reliefs so that you could recreate them at home? No? Well, that’s weird. You’re weird if you don’t want to do that. But other normal people should catch Alix Vernet’s second show with Helena Anrather. “Through ceramic sculpture cast from local buildings, photographs, a found object, and video documentation of a performance, Vernet has developed a process of isolating, replicating and rearranging material fragments from the built environment to reveal the continually shifting terrain of New York City’s urban fabric.
Screening: Short Films for Short Nights
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave, 7 p.m.
The Met’s Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art presents a three-part film series featuring dozens of short films made between 1896 and 1959 that “collectively explore themes of modernity through cinema and film technologies.” Paired with live music, the program is more or less the early 20th-century equivalent of watching music videos on YouTube with your friends on weekend nights. Friday’s offering features music by Brandon Lopez and will be introduced by Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan.
Reminder: Check StubHub, SeatGeek and Craigslist for ticketed events that may have sold out thanks to our promotion. People in the art world are often double booked and love secondary markets. Have an upcoming event that may be worth our readers’ time? Drop Dan an email at artnews@observer.com with Things to Do in the subject line.
