• Image for "DIS Image Studio," Courtesy of the Suzanne Geiss Company

Shout out to the diehards, who apparently love their art events even more than they hate the cold. This week, Bushwick's screening videos, DIS Magazine's holding a stock photo shoot, and seminal people discuss seminal art.

Tonight, Monday, January 28th:

Open Mic: Performance Art Open mic Part 2, 3rdEye(Sol)ation

A public open mic will be held to discuss what performance art is and why people do it. There are likely few performers who feel more intensely about their motives than the event MC (and Union Square fixture) Matthew Silver, who, it seems, will go to virtually any lengths to break down social barriers and alleviate people’s unhappiness. (Like, we’re talking no pants, yelling-on-the-street-with-a-bra-on-your-head level of dedication). This one’s a serious wildcard, but some things call for a little crazy.
Free: 7:30pm-8:30pm, 1501 Broadway, Brooklyn (J-Halsey)

Screening: Zach Nader, great times are waiting, Microscope

Fans of meditative video may be drawn to Zach Nader’s work, which often digitally removes the subject from found imagery, resulting in a car commercial without the car, or fashion ads without the models. Whereas Baldessari uses this device to critique power, Nader seems to ask viewers to simply meditate on the world passing around his subjects.
$6, 7 PM-8:30 PM, 4 Charles Place, Bushwick

Tuesday, January 29th

Opening: Conceptual Geographies, Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery

Columbia alum Donald Johnson-Montenegro and grad student Anne Bruder curate a show of conceptual art, as used to understand power structures. Their list includes artists such as Sophie Calle, Ana Mendieta, and Gordon Matta-Clark, who tend to take a more feeling approach than household names like Joseph Kosuth or Sol LeWitt. It may well be a breath of fresh air.
1190 Amsterdam Ave, Manhattan

Saturday, February 2nd

Event: DIS Mag Image Studio, Suzanne Geiss Company

At Suzanne Geiss Company, DIS Magazine has invited a group of artists and photographers to churn out imagery riffing on net art’s endless inspiration well, stock photography. Bring your WASPiest.
12-6PM, 76 Grant Street, Manhattan

Pop Up Show: Falling Apart Book Release, Field Projects

Carl Gunhouse’s documentary photos defy what automatically comes to mind when one thinks “post-Bush era America,” or even, “America.” Rather than the typical urban-versus-rural narrative, Gunhouse tends to focus more on the middle majority— a group of chain stores in the desert, for example, or a woman in a red sari, sitting in a snowscape. The images go on view for one night only at the release party for his new book, “Falling Apart.”
6-9PM (One night only), 526 W 26th St. #807, Manhattan

Symposium and opening: Khalil Rabah: Pages 7, 8, 9, e-flux

For several years, artist Khalil Rabah has commented on the tumultuous state of Palestine by imagining the Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind, a fictional cultural museum. Rabah alludes to political upheaval through official and cheery updates from the museum’s various departments (such as botany, geology, and paleontology); the new show at e-flux is based on the museum's summer 2011 newsletter.

As Rabah’s spent many years speaking to that turmoil, though, you should really go to hear him speak. On 3 PM on Saturday, he’s holding a symposium along with fellow influential Middle Eastern arts workers like Suad Amiry (author and architect), Reem Fadda (Guggenheim Abu Dhabi curator), and Rasha Salti (writer and curator of Lens on Syria), with e-flux editors Anton Vidokle and Brian Kuan Wood.
3PM: Symposium, 6 - 8 PM: Opening. 311 East Broadway, Manhattan

Sunday, February 3rd

Fun Times: A Celebration of Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980, MoMA

Now Dig This! curator and Columbia art history professor Kellie Jones will speak about the show of thirty-two black artists whose output from LA between 1960 to 1980 helped drive the Southern Californian art scene. As this is the first exhibition on the subject, the talk should help educate us. Jones will speak with her father, activist and poet Amiri Baraka, who’s an avant-gardist in his own right.
3 PM, 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, 11101