From resistance to reflection, NYC offers plenty of visual stimulation for weekend wanderers. The tip of the iceberg:

Cuban Socialist Posters from the 1970s
On January 1, 1959, a now famous poster was created and widely distributed to celebrate the fall of Fulgencio Batista’s army in Cuba. The use of public messaging graphics under the US-backed dictator had up until then been utilized for something closer to what we would recognize as standard advertising. But the Cuban Revolution ushered in a radical reenvisioning of social consciousness, and with this the Cuban posters, or carteles, emerged.

This exhibition presents fifteen posters from the 1970s, a decade that some retrospectively refer to as a “dark period” of Cuban culture, when visual artists felt the intensifying constraints of the regime’s propaganda machine. But embedded into the fiber of the carteles are the spirit and strength of the producers themselves, a vibrancy that cannot be diminished or forgotten.
Through February 19 at Miguel Abreu Gallery, 36 Orchard Street, NY, NY Info

Ranch home in Montville, CT | Photo courtesy of Stephen Fan

Sub Urbanisms: Casino Urbanization, Chinatowns, and the Contested American Landscape
An award-winning anthropological case study by designer Stephen Fan, SUB URBANISMS explores the controversial conversion of suburban single-family homes into multi-family communities by immigrant Chinese casino workers in Connecticut. Addressing the norms, cultural values, and public policies that determine how most Americans live, the exhibition juxtaposes immigrant cultural beliefs and pragmatism with suburban American social, aesthetic, and financial codes. With creative implications for the future of housing design and habitation in response to cultural, social, and ecological challenges, SUB URBANISMS offers a powerful inquiry into the ways in which culture shapes our lives and homes.

Through arch 27 at Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre Street, NY, NY Info

Body Politic: From Rights to Resistance
This event features information sessions with lawyers, activists, and grassroots organizers on issues of bodies under duress: civil disobedience, protest, healthcare, policing, prisons, immigration, and environmental contamination. Each of two session will focus on resource sharing and modes of resistance, and will include presentations followed by discussion with the audience. Participants include a community healthcare specialist and staff from the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project, and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.
Sunday, February 5, from 11am-2 pm and from 3 pm to 6 pm at the New Museum, 235 Bowery, NY, NY Info

First Fridays at the Frick
Museum admission and gallery programs are free the first Friday evening of the month. Enjoy gallery talks, music performances, and sketching, or simply find yourself in the company of the Old Masters and art enthusiasts from around the world.

Friday, February 3, 6-9 pm at The Frick Collection, 1 East 70^th Street, NY, NY Info

Last chance: William Christenberry: Summer / Winter
William Christenberry began taking pictures on a humble box Brownie camera in the 1950s while studying art at college in his native Alabama. Having no real interest in the history of the medium, he used colour film at a time when serious photography was synonymous with black and white and processed his rolls of film at the local drugstore. In many ways, he was an accidental photographer, but he has since become an incredibly influential one. Christenberry is an artist who has followed his own instincts and obsessions, and his intimate photographs, though they contain no human figures, are reminders of mortality and arbiters of memory. Or as he puts it himself: “I think that oftentimes art can make an outsider look back on something he has never been part of, and make him feel like he has always been part of it.” The Guardian

Closing on Saturday, February 4 at Pace/MacGill Gallery, 32 East 57^th Street, NY, NY Info

For more exhibitions, talks, screenings, check this week's DART Board