Wednesday, June 19, 6-9pm: Layers of Identity at PS109

Layers of Identity, a site-responsive exhibition in the former school building's lower level, celebrates the idea that human beings are layered, the complexity of our personalities, and individual histories is what makes us interesting. The exhibition explores the layers of societal structures and personal experiences that form how we see ourselves. Above, l-r: Hollie Heller; Pauline Galiana; Joanne Steinhardt [detail]

Where we are from and where we have been often influences how we express ideas, as it does with all three well-travelled artists. Pauline Galiana, Hollie Heller and Joanne Steinhardt create in layers of materials, although informed by traditional techniques the contemporary aesthetic is unexpected.

The viewer is likely to be unsure of what they are looking at. Is it a tapestry or is it a collage? Is it a woven textile or a paper assemblage? Is it fashion or adaptive reuse?

El Barrio’s Artspace PS 109 is an example of how old buildings can be restored and adaptively reused in New York City. The lower-level gallery incorporates original details, skylights, brick, and stone into a contemporary exhibition space alongside of a theater, and rehearsal space. Save the date: Friday July 12, 6:00 – 9:00 pm: Performance with Matthew Westerby Dance Company

El Barrio’s Artspace PS109, 215 East 99^th Street, New York, NY Info

Saturday, June 22-Sunday June 24, 1-6pm: East Harlem Open Studios

Forty-five artists will be showcasing their work in exhibitions and art studios starting at El Barrio Artspace on E. 99th street and continuing up to E. 119th street. Originated by artist and educator Julio Valdez in 2015, this is the first post-pandemic edition. See the complete list on PATCH

Following is just a sampling of the stops along the tour:

176 E 106^th St: Artist Studios: Julio Valdez @juliovaldezstudio, Early Riser @Earlyrisernyc 

121 East 106^th St: Rafael Tufino Printmaking Studio at Taller Boricua. Artists Nitza Tufino, James Cuebas, Eliezer Berrios, George Malave, Carmen Ayala, Mariana C. Ayala, Albert Justiniano, Betty P Cole, Oliver Rios, Ada Cruz, Minerva Suvidad, Diana Gitesha Hernandez, Felix Plaza, Marcos Dimas, Elsie Diaz @edmixedmedia

1791 Lexington Avenue at 111^th St: Portraits – Language of Needle Arts Exhibition, Harlem Needle Arts @iamharlemneedlearts Sahara Briscoe, Ife Felix, Junny Ann Hibbert, Naomi Lawrence, Pat Mabry, Oluwaseyi Awoyomi, Flo Bradley, Krystle Collins, Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye, BlackFly Designs, Robin Uniqua Simmons

180 East 118^th St: Artist Studios: Lisa Metropolis @lmetropolisart, Ben Ponte @Benponte, Katherine Earle @kekearle, Carmen Isasi @isasiceramics, Salem Krieger Guest Artist @salemknyc, Installation of Art Lives Here Volume 1 artist book. Left: Katherine Earle, from the Jellyfish series

Saturday, June 22, 2pm: Artists in conversation about Hudson River Cleanup at HRM

In conjunction with the continuing exhibition, Rivers Flow / Artists Connect,  a panel featuring artist Susan Wides, journalist David Gargill, and Tracy Brown, President of Riverkeeper, about the EPA’s evaluation of General Electric’s efforts to remediate the Hudson River. As the June deadline for public comment approaches, gain insights from our panelists and learn how to advocate on this important issue. Above: Susan Wides, GE Superfraud [October 2009], 2009/2023. 

Susan Wides, a longtime DART subscriber whose work is featured in Rivers Flow will discuss her work and its connection to environmental issues; David Gargill will share insights from his investigative reporting on the complexities of the Hudson River cleanup; and Tracy Brown will provide updates on the progress and challenges in clean water advocacy. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with experts and make your voice heard. Tickets

Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue, Yonkers, NY Info

Last Chance, Saturday, June 22: Niki de Saint Phalle | Tableaux Éclatés at Salon94

This exhibition presents five works of the French artist’s  late-career Tableaux Éclatés, the series first exhibited in her retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris in 1993. These “Burst Paintings” are vibrant, mechanized pictures depicting landscapes upon which animals and still lifes, as well as her trademark Nanas, dance across beaches, deserts, and seas. Each painting’s composition is animated through an intricate motorized armature activated through a photo sensor: when the artwork recognizes a viewer, internal motors trigger motion of the work’s disparate elements or illuminate the scene with brilliant electric bulbs.

Staged across two floors of Salon94’s landmark building, these kinetic compositions, whose motorized elements and colored lights are activated by the viewer via motion sensors, de Saint Phalle rendered themes of rebirth and the cycles of life. The centerpiece of the show is “La femme et L’oiseau fontaine” (1967–1988), above, a functioning fountain anchored by one of de Saint Phalle’s “Nanas,” female figures whose curvaceous lines and festive spirit defy the submissive renderings of reclining women in much Western art.

Salon94, 3 East 89th Street, New York, NY Info 

Continuing: Manny Vega | Byzantine Bembé: New York at MCNY

The experience of walking El Barrio would be vastly different without the artworks of Manny Vega (b. Bronx, 1956). His mosaics and murals adorn street walls, subway stations, cultural centers, and business facades throughout East Harlem. Many of these works celebrate important figures—particularly women—in the history of the Puerto Rican and Latinx communities. Vega has proven himself deft at negotiating the sophisticated tastes and appetite for spectacle of an extremely diverse and fast-moving population. His style has been dubbed “Byzantine Hip-Hop” for his uncompromising technical command that encompasses ancient Mediterranean mosaic-making and the electrifying lines of hyper-detailed Sharpie pen-and-ink drawings. 

As part of MCNYs centennial year celebration,Byzantine Bembé: New York by Manny Vega explores Vega's visual storytelling as it interweaves community stories with themes that range from African deities to urban mythologies, spanning the personal and the collective. Deeply rooted in an idiosyncratic understanding of the diaspora experience, which in his case includes communities in El Bronx, El Barrio, and Bahia, Brazil, Vega’s worldview is colorful, danceable, passionately spiritual, and complex-yet-accessible.

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103^rd Stret, New York, NY Info

Continuing: The African American Garden | Same Boat, Different Stops at NYBG

Now in its third year, the African American Garden is a collaboration between scholars and local artists to celebrate the history of the African Diaspora in the Americas through the lens of plants and food. Presented at NYBGs Edible Academy, a sequence of eight vegetable garden beds explore edible plants from different regions—South America, the Caribbean and Central America/North America—while others spotlight their uses for medicinal remedies, creativity and economic value. 

Dr.Jessica B. Harris, who organized this program, worked with historians, heritage seed collectors and NYBGs Edible Academy staff to replant and interpret these edible gardens, turning them into a living archive that documents African American food and farming histories, as plants and people travel to new places, including the Bronx.

New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY Info