Wednesday June 7: Sylvia Palacios Whitman | To Draw a Line with the Body at Americas Society

Americas Society presents Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body, the first solo exhibition and career survey of the Chilean artist in the United States. Whitman (b. Osorno, Chile, 1941) is a visual and performance artist, who has been experimenting with movement and contemporary dance since her moving to New York in the early 1960s. She became an integral figure of the experimental downtown arts scene in 1970s in New York, having collaborated with many American and international artists. 

In her solo and group performances, Palacios Whitman developed her own choreographic language, which spotlighted the participation of untrained performers, embraced humor and unexpected elements, and incorporated found objects and ephemeral props. Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body will revisit these landmark performances with never-before-seen material from the artist’s archives alongside sketches, video and photographic documentation, and new large scale works on paper.

Central to the presentation will be the restaging of Palacios Whitman’s key historical works, which will be explored in depth through a series of public programs, accompanied by an exhibition “pocketbook”.To accompany the show, we will present a series of public programs and publish a pocketbook.The exhibition is co-curated by Aimé Iglesias Lukin and Rachel Remick. Info

Americas Society, 680 Park Acenue, New York, NY Info

Continuing:  Hispanic Society Exhibitions at Audobon Terrace

With a jewel-box collection of 750,000 objects, including masterpieces by El Greco, Velázquez and Goya, the Hispanic Society, founded in 1904 by the collector and philanthropist Archer Huntington, has long been a beloved pilgrimage spot for researchers and specialists. But for over five-and-a-half years, the galleries have been closed for renovations, its treasures of Spanish and colonial art on tour to institutions across the U.S. and Europe. Following major infrastructure improvements—phase one of a project overseen by design architects Selldorf Architects, executive architects Beyer Blinder Belle, and landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand—the Hispanic Society has reopened. Above: Joaquin Sorolla, Cataluña. El pescado (1915), from Vision of Spain

Now the museum aims to attract the general public, with changing exhibitions and public programs to further the scope of its collections. “We wanted to keep the magic of the dear spaces people have been missing but make them less dusty, more dynamic, more welcoming and less of a secret,” says CEO and director Guillaume Kientz, who joined the museum in 2021. He hopes to accomplish this through a continuing series of changing exhibitions to create a more dynamic pace of events.

The Spanish Renaissance-style Main Court, with its spectacular terracotta arcade, and the gallery dedicated to Joaquín Sorolla’s panoramic paintings cycle, Vision of Spain (above), originally installed in 1926, are disability accessible for the first time. Also currently on view are: In Search of Juan de Pareja: From Arturo Schomburg to Jas Knight, through July 16, 2023; Jewels in a Gem: Luz Camino at the Hispanic Society, through September 3, 2023; Anatomy of a Fresco: Drawings of José Clemente Orozco from the Wornick Collection; Jesús Rafael Soto’s: Penetrable will be on view June 22, 2023–2026.

The Hispanic Society Museum and Library, Audubon Terrace, 613 West 155th Street, New York,NY Info

Tuesday, June 13, 6:30-7:30pm: Trashion Design Workshop #1 at Dwyer

If anyone out there has fallen in love with 60s couture icon Paco Rabanne’s mini dress fashioned out of credit cards, this one’s for you. Led by artist Susan Stair and Costume Designer Agnes Faireye, the first of four diy workshops, which culminate in a Trashion show in September, offer participants the hands-on thrill of Doing It Yourself and making the world a better place in the process. Save these dates: July 11th,  6:30 - 7:30 PM Design workshop #2; August 8th, 6:30 - 7:30 PM Design workshop #3;  September 23rd, The Trashion Show in Morningside Park. Info: please contact Susan Stair.

June 14, 6-9pm: Museum Mile

Museum Mile, now in its 45th year, offers a free pass to eight of its cultural treasures—regardless of your zip code. The Met has a nice info page here Fifth Avenue is closed to traffic, making this an ideal night out for culture vultures. From 104^th Street to 82nd, the eight are: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Neue Galerie New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; The Jewish Museum; Museum of the City of New York; El Museo del Barrio; and The Africa Center. Several have outdoor performances and kid-friendly activities on hand. Please check each website to learn more about their programming.

Continuing: Divine Queerness at The Center

En Foco and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (The Center) present a visual investigation of the different ways queer identity shapes the healing mechanisms and processes of People from the Global Majority. Above: Debmayla Choudhuri, The Gaze, A Factless Autobiography series, 2021

Curated by Gabriel G.Torres, the seven lens-based artists in the show examine their own personal, ancestral, and communal journey with healing through different forms and tools, rooted in radical imagination as a way of resilience and a necessary form of reclamation; overcoming all obstacles to achieve a notion of divinity. In the process, they offer a visualization of one’s own journey in the labyrinths of the mind.

The Center, 208 West 13^th Street, New York, NY Info

Continuing through June 18: Viktor Koen | Greetings from Pandemic Island at Photoville

Initially conceived as a set of postcards, Greetings evolved into a pictorial bridge between the 1918-19 influenza and COVID-19 pandemic. Spanning a hundred years, the series documents the crises by questioning issues of personal and collective responsibility, humanity, and gross indifference while highlighting new and long existing layers of racial and socioeconomic disparities catalyzed by the epidemic. 

Gradually, this pictorial collection grew to an unexpected number, replacing an early notion that this would be a short series…. [However] the crisis proved desperately endless– so became the chain of images reflecting it,...[with these] pandemic mementos from one of the most affected areas on the planet.

Greetings from Pandemic Island  premiered as a solo exhibition at the Benaki Museum, as part of the 2022 International Athens Photo Festival. In New York, the series is featured as a solo exhibition photo-cube at the 2023 Photoville Festival.

Photoville Village, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn, NY Map