New York

November 3, 2021 • View in browser

Your Concise Art Guide for November 2021

Leaves aren’t the only thing hitting the pavement this November. Get your art fair fix with the Art Show and the Other Art Fair; take in Lex Brown’s razor-sharp humor and technocapitalist critique at Deli Gallery; and head to the Whitney Museum to learn about the women artists who were fundamental to the development of American abstraction. There are options for virtual viewing, too, from NFTs by Addie Wagenknecht to an Afro-Surrealist online game by Dennis Osadebe.

— Cassie Packard

The Other Art Fair
Brooklyn Expo Center, November 4–7

130 independent and emerging artists are displaying work at the Other Art Fair, an event hosted by Saatchi Art that originated in the UK in 2011 and has since expanded to the US, Canada, and Australia. The modestly scaled fair’s eighth edition, which runs concurrently with the ADAA Art Show, offers work by primarily New York-based artists at relatively affordable price points (starting at $100) as well as hand-poked tattoos.

The Art Show
Online & Park Avenue Armory, November 4–7

This year’s edition of the long-running art fair will take place virtually and in person with 72 galleries presenting solo, thematic, or group exhibitions. Works on view range from abstract paintings by artist and fisherman Forrest Bess, to tapestries by fourth-generation Navajo weaver Melissa S. Cody, to photographs made by East Village artist Tseng Kwong Chi in collaboration with Keith Haring and Bill T. Jones. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit New York nonprofit Henry Street Settlement.

Addie Wagenknecht: every day the same again
Online & bitforms gallery through November 13

every day the same again is the third exhibition at bitforms dedicated to the work of American-born, Austria-based new media artist Addie Wagenknecht, who founded the cyberfeminist collective Deep Lab. “American Flag 1–3” (all 2021) comprises intravenous bags of red and blue ink that drip onto three pedestals to form abstracted national flags, referencing Jasper Johns’s famous painting “Three Flags” (1958). There is also a virtual component of fragmented NFT flags.

Lex Brown: Defense Mechanisms
Deli Gallery through November 13

Lex Brown incisively uses humor, fantasy, and science fiction to get at some of the complexities and contradictions of late capitalism and techno-utopianism. In Defense Mechanisms, the artist and writer (she authored the 2015 erotic sci-fi novella Wet Hot Drone Summer) presents drawings, prints, sculpture, and video revolving around a fictional corporation called Omnesia, a portmanteau of the words “omniscience” and “amnesia.”

Rowan Renee: Airport Beach
Smack Mellon, November 20, 2021 – January 2, 2022

Drawing upon the State Archives of Florida, the Wolfson Archives at Miami Dade College, and local newspaper records, Rowan Renee engages with documents related to the Lavender Scare — the persecution of homosexuality under McCarthyism — in their native South Florida. In this close look at a small slice of pre-Stonewall homophobia, painful histories are remade into weaving, sculpture, and an 86-page accordion book, using craft as a mode of processing.

Félix González-Torres: inbetweenness
Judd Foundation through December 18

“It’s a forever morning where your lover is sick in pretty blue pajamas,” writes Eileen Myles of Cuban-American artist Félix González-Torres’s “‘Untitled’ (Loverboy)” (1989), an installation of lengths of sheer blue fabric clinging to the windows in inbetweenness. The spare solo show, which also features a billboard by the artist, is being held at the historic home and studio of fellow minimalist Donald Judd and marks 25 years since González-Torres died of AIDS-related complications.

Finding Magic Together: New Works by Marie Tomanova
C24 Gallery through December 24

Since 2012, Czech-born, New York-based photographer Marie Tomanova has been documenting New York City’s vibrant youth culture, and earning herself a cult following in the process. The artist’s intimate, unvarnished portraits of fresh-faced New Yorkers cavorting and connecting are on view in her first exhibition with C24 Gallery and in a new monograph out from Hatje Cantz, New York New York.

Hernease Davis: And when you come back…
Tiger Strikes Asteroid through December 5

Working across photography, textile art, and sound installation, Hernease Davis presents suspended cyanotypes on fabric (canvas, linen, silk, felted wool, and crochet are all involved) along with audio recordings of her voice to envelop viewers in a nurturing and restorative space. And when you come back… will also feature a performance piece, live-streamed from Tiger Strikes Asteroid on November 21.

Dennis Osadebe: Inside Out
Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts through February 13

New and recent work by Lagos-based multidisciplinary artist Dennis Osadebe is on view in an in-person exhibition, a virtual exhibition, and an interactive online game titled “Playful Rebellion.” Bringing together disparate imagery while referencing legacies of Afro-Surrealism, Osadebe’s brightly colored, flattened scenes feature characters donning traditional Nigerian masks and astronaut helmets alike.

Labyrinth of Forms: Women and Abstraction, 1930-1950
Whitney Museum of American Art through March 2022

This exhibition of over 30 works on paper made from the 1930s into the 1950s highlights the invaluable contributions of women artists to American abstraction, particularly in the domains of printmaking and network-building. Canonical names like Lee Krasner and Elaine de Kooning — both of whom dealt with the large shadows cast by famous artist husbands — are interspersed with relatively lesser known figures including Charmion von Wiegand, Dorr Bothwell, Alice Trumbull Mason, and June Wayne.

LATEST REVIEWS

Support Hyperallergic

Your contributions support Hyperallergic's independent journalism and our extensive network of writers around the world.

CLOSING SOON

Tomashi Jackson: The Land Claim
Parrish Art Museum through November 7

Paul Thek: Interior/Landscape
Watermill Center through November 13

Diane Simpson: Point of View
JTT through November 13

John Zurier: The Future of Ice
Peter Blum Gallery through November 13

With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985
Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, through November 28