Summer Preview: Art
Bushwick Open Studios
How things have changed since the first BOS back in 2006! The neighborhood remains a haven for artists, now with its own local gallery scene and an emerging performance community, all of which will be going full tilt for New York’s absolute best art event of the year. We’ll miss ending these marathon days at the Bushwick Project for the Arts’ indoor trailer park though.
(June 3-5, all of Bushwick and parts of “East Williamsburg” and Ridgewood, Bklyn, FREE, artsinbushwick.org)
John Chamberlain
At 84, the scrapped car metal sculptor has just switched from one heavyweight Chelsea gallery to another, and with both showcasing their inventory of his improbably delicate steel collages, we get two huge Chamberlain exhibitions out of the deal.
(Through July 1, Pace Gallery, 545 West 22nd Street, FREE, pacegallery; through July 8, Gagosian Gallery, 555 West 24th Street, FREE, gagosian.com)
Holding Pattern
The Modern’s Long Island City outpost is on a roll with its summer architectural installations in its former public school courtyard. Last year we pole-danced, and this year Brooklyn-based firm Interboro Partners devised a soaring rope canopy resembling a pair of giant wings. Beneath, a variety of goodies to be donated to local groups and institutions will keep hot weather refugees and Warm Up! party revelers busy all summer.
(June 26-September 26, MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Queens, FREE, ps1.org)
Sol LeWitt: Structures, 1965-2006
The late minimalist and conceptual sculptor’s first major retrospective in New York since his death in 2007 brings together an impressive 27 pieces spanning four decades and numerous series like the Modular Cube pieces, selections from the Incomplete Open Cubes set and, for the first time in New York, 1990’s skyscraper-shaped 25-foot-tall “Tower (Columbus).”
(May 24-December 2, City Hall Park, FREE, publicartfund.org)
Northside Open Studios
If you went to last year’s Greenpoint Open Studios you know how amazing this year’s expanded version will be, especially with the addition of North Williamsburg studios and exhibition spaces, and all the attendant fun of a little local festival called Northside. It’s not as massive as Bushwick Open Studios, but will be similarly impossible to see all of in one weekend.
(June 16-19, Greenburg, Bklyn, FREE, northsideopenstudios.org)
Sea Worthy
A refreshingly proactive H20-themed tri-borough art excursion, with a huge exhibition of watery art at the Elizabeth Foundation in Midtown, a series of boatbuilding and nautical workshops in Gowanus (but not in the Gowanus), and actual excursions launching from Flux Factory’s Long Island City mooring.
(June 10-August 31, EFA Project Space, 323 West 39th Street, 2nd Floor; Gowanus Studio Space, 166 7th Street, Bklyn; Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Queens, FREE, seaworthynyc.org)
Vista
If you’ve ever been to Astoria’s waterfront Socrates Sculpture Park, you already know that it’s one of the two or three best outdoor spaces in the city for public art, and this year’s vision-themed group show (including Priscila De Carvalho’s low-relief Pop landscape installations and Blane De St. Croix’s landmass sculptures) will no doubt benefit immensely from those stunning views.
(Through August 7, Socrates Sculpture Park, Vernon Boulevard at Broadway, Queens, FREE, socratessculpturepark.org)
Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads
As we write this, the most famous and powerful living Chinese artist has been in police custody for over a month for alleged “economic crimes” to which he supposedly confessed under torture. Powerless to do much else about it (we signed the petition, did you?), we recommend showing support by visiting his first major public installation in New York at least twelve times this summer.
(Through July 15, Pulitzer Fountain, 59th Street at Fifth Avenue,
FREE, zodiacheads.com)
