In Our Time: Eleven Artists + W.E.B. Du Bois at Pratt Manhattan

Contemporary  artists reflect on the legacy of one of the most profound and influential African American intellectuals of the 20^th century and on the impact that Du Bois has had on their work in this new exhibition. Works by a diverse range of artists—from Derrick Adams to Carrie Mae Weems to Theaster Gates—offer aesthetic contributions through today’s lens to the re-examination of Du Bois’s role as a public intellectual, civil rights activist, cultural critic, sociologist, historian, environmentalist, poet, novelist, and playwright. Above: Derrick Adams, “Fixing My Face” (detail), 2021 

“The artists featured here engage Du Bois not as a historical figure of the past, but as a radical thinker whose voice continues to resonate urgently and prophetically in today’s struggles for justice, truth, and visibility,” said  curator Loretta Yarlow. “With the Pratt Manhattan Gallery’s central prominence to New York City’s contemporary art scene, the exhibition is able to bring together a range of works that reflect both what has changed over the past decade as well as the profound continuities that still shape our social and political realities, demonstrating how Du Bois’s vision remains a call to action.”   Yarlow first organized Du Bois In Our Time in 2013 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst – home to the W.E.B. Du Bois Center and its extensive archive. Now, over a decade later, In Our Time revisits and expands on its original iteration for a new generation shaped by a markedly changed sociopolitical landscape. 

These artists’ research-based, socially-engaged methods attest to a meaningful approach to artistic creation. Works range from photography, painting, sculpture, and works on paper to video and installations—all motivated by Du Bois’s poetic writing, his early anticipation of women’s suffrage, environmental movements, his warnings against nuclear proliferation, and other modern afflictions. Others have found inspiration in the groundwork he laid for movements in public dissent; others still show how the problems Du Bois wrote about a century ago are still with us, and in certain cases more urgent than ever. The results of their meaningful work are both personal and universal.

Through December 20 at Pratt Manhatta Gallery, 144 West 14^th Street, New York, NY Info  

Dalton Paula | Infâncias Negras at Lisson

Lisson Gallery presents the debut solo exhibition of acclaimed Brazilian artist Dalton Paula, featuring a new body of work that reclaims and re-centers Black childhoods as vital spaces of joy, memory, resilience, and cultural continuity. 

Paula’s approach is grounded in rigorous archival research and a method he calls critical fabulation (from the framework set out in Saidiya Hartman’s 2008 book, Venus in Two Acts)—a speculative, creative process that fills in the silences of undocumented histories. His paintings often incorporate symbolic motifs, often modelled or modified from art historical precedents, which layer the work with spiritual and contextual depth. Elements such as the wooden chair, symbolizing dignity and authority, or the glass of water, evoking spiritual purification and remembrance, serve as quiet tools of storytelling, asserting Afro-Brazilian presence and power within a reimagined visual canon.

While the scenes of birthdays, games, offerings, and everyday intimacy may appear novel within Paula’s visual language, they continue a longstanding thread in his practice. Earlier series, such as Rota do Tabaco [Tobacco Routes], 2016 (paint on ceramic vessels,) and Rota do Algodão, [Cotton Routes] 2022 (cotton textile-covered objects), also featured portraits of children, toys and dolls, while continuing his sustained commitment to recovering Afro-Brazilian histories through image-memories—narratives that resist colonial erasure and center Black resilience.

Through October 30 at Lisson Gallery, 508 West 24^th Street, New York, NY Info

Larry Bell | Improvisations in the Park at Madison Square

Using architectural glass and color, Bell creates minimalist forms that shift with naturally evolving environmental conditions. Bell is also one of the pioneers of the Light and Space movement that emerged in Southern California in the 1960s. His work uses atmosphere as a material, which alongside the reflective and transmissive properties of glass, leads to both subtle and complex perceptual conditions.

Improvisations in the Park, Bell’s first public art commission in New York, is his largest outdoor presentation to date. The exhibition will activate six lawns across Madison Square Park with vibrantly colored cubes and nested arrangements. The works will be visible from the Park’s pathways, allowing for audience discovery as they glimpse and then encounter the works throughout the 6.2-acre site. The exhibition title is inspired by music, and draws attention to the improvisational way these artworks can be endlessly configured with each new installation. The exhibition consists of two new six- and eight-foot-tall standing wall sculptures alongside four existing works. Additionally, two never-before-exhibited works will sit alongside two existing works. 

Over the course of the exhibition, the changing conditions in the park – from the weather and light to the change of seasons – will be a key collaborator, transforming the works as the reflectivity and color of the glass reacts to its surroundings, making this a dynamic installation perfect for repeat visits. Each month through December, join Tiera Ndlovu, Assistant Curator, for a free 15-minute tour of Bell’s work. You can learn more and register for the tour our your choice by clicking the link here.

Madison Square Park, enter at 23^rd Street at Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Thursday, October 9, 6pm: Curator’s Walkthrough | Boekie Woekie at Book Arts

Join this guided tour of In The Wake of Blind Navigation. Boekie Woekie - Books by Artists with the exhibition curator. This tour offers an opportunity to look into Boekie Woekie’s inventive publishing and experimental printing practices, unfolding through a series of witty, playful encounters with the works on display. In The Wake of Blind Navigation. Boekie Woekie - Books by Artists, curated by Maike Aden which features works by the 6 founding members of this artists-run cultural bookshop that is also a gallery and a publishing project. For almost 40 years Rúna Thorkelsdóttir, Henriëtte van Egten and Jan Voss have kept this space open in the heart of Amsterdam. RSVP

Boekie Woekie is an artists’-run bookshop and gallery in Amsterdam that was founded in 1986 by a group of six artists. Soon Henriëtte van Egten (Dutch), Rúna Thorkelsdóttir (Icelandic) and Jan Voss (German) remained from this group and shaped this enterprise for artists’ publications that conventional bookshops find difficult to understand. Alongside their own artistic careers, the three dedicate their work to this collective sculpture in progress, as they call it. At its heart is what art is all about: a free, poetic and anarchic spirit and a sense of a keen, sensitive humor. Abvoe: Boekie Woekie, Amseterdam

Save the date: On Sunday, October 19, the Center for Book Arts will open its doors as part of Open House New York. Join us between 12-6pm for live demonstrations of our printing and binding equipment—from the letterpress and riso printers to book presses and sewing frames—and see how artists and printers bring books to life as works of art. Info

Center for Book Arts, 28 West 27^th Street, FL3, New York, NY 

Looking Ahead: October 17-19: Open House New York 2005

Open House New York promotes broad, unparalleled access to the city—to the places, people, projects, systems, and ideas that define New York and its future.  The annual weekend festival unlocks doors to many places we can only imagine, which are generally off limits to the public. 

Open House New York programs unlock the places and stories behind the New York experience and investigate the city’s infrastructure and systems, both natural and constructed, to address aspects of equity and the climate crisis. Our work aims to ensure every New Yorker can enjoy full access to the greatest city in the world.

The inaugural Open House New York Weekend was held in 2003 as part of the city’s first Architecture Week. With the help of 300 volunteers, that festival included 84 sites in all five boroughs. Since the inaugural year, the festival has grown exponentially, increasing its outreach and audience participation. It now includes more than 250 destinations and 1,000 hours of free programming. In 2024, more than 50,000 people visited an OHNY Weekend site for tours, performances, and other activities. Offering an insider’s look at the forces that shape the city, OHNY promotes a deeper understanding of how the city functions and whom it serves. The theory of change guiding our work is that an informed public fosters greater civic participation, which in turn catalyzes an open city.

To plan your OHNY weekend, please go here

News from the Home Office: Special Discount on Ap\P41

The times are interesting. The news of the day confounding. As divisions within society widen and many facets of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are being tested, it is our stories, whether you like them or not, that bring humanity together to make sense of the uncertainty. As told by the photographers in this year's AP41 collection, truth and beauty in pictures reverberate with power and purpose.

AP41 celebrates the best editorial, advertising, book, promotional, personal and fine art photography from 2024 in hardcover, at 368 pages, as selected by a jury of assigning photo editors.

The book was designed by Michael Houtz, Art Director at GQ Magazine with a front cover photograph by Joe Pugliese (above left). The back cover photograph is by Jen Guyton originally shot for National Geographic (detail, turned, above right). Order your discount copy for just $35 for a limited time here.