September 1, Book Launch, 6-8pm:Willy Bo Richardsaon, Music to Drive To at Clamp

Music to Drive To presents more than twenty-five years of sustained studio painting practice by longtime subscriber Willy Bo Richardson @notstripes. The monograph brings together 70 paintings alongside a conversation with Max Protetch and essays by Stephanie Buhmann and Katy Crocker.

One of the guiding principles behind Music to Drive To was to make the book in a way that reflected the values behind the paintings themselves. Richardson's collaboration with Gilbert and Palmer grew out of longstanding friendships and painting trades rather than conventional monetary arrangements. Produced independently, the book allowed each decision to be made through direct conversation, experimentation, and practical understanding 

Born and raised in Santa Fe, Richardson earned an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. After working in New York as a painting technician at Cooper Union, he returned to Santa Fe in 2007. From 2010 to 2017, he taught painting at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design while continuing to develop his studio practice. His work has been exhibited nationally and is represented in museum, corporate, and private collections. Clamp will present a number of his original works at this event.

ClampArt, 247 West 29th Street, New York, NY Info @clampartnyc

Living in America | The Printed Image at Susan Sheehan

This highly focused exhibition explores how 20th-century artists used printmaking to examine America's cultural identity. Among the artists featured is William Henry Johnson, who returned to the United States in 1938 after 13 years in Europe, wishing to “paint his own people.” While working at the Harlem Community Art Center Johnson began experimenting with the bright, opaque inks of industrial screenprinting, using these materials to document the Harlem Renaissance.

In works such as Jitterbugs II (1942), the artist employs cubist shapes and a folk art influence to recreate iconic dance moves and street scenes. Johnson's rare screenprints offer a firsthand account of a pivotal moment in American history, with these works on display alongside master prints by Vija Celmins, Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, and H.C. Westermann.

Through September 10 at Susan Sheehan Gallery, 146 Greene Street, New York, NY Info

Sunday, August 30, Last chance:  The Ark at Powerhuse Arts

The cavernous, industrial expanse of Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus—a beautifully repurposed former power station—has been transformed into a sprawling, modern-day art sanctuary. Curated by Eric Fischl and Eric Shiner, the venue's main inaugural exhibition gathers over 90 animal sculptures and installations by 51 artists. It is an ambitious, visually stunning exploration of coexistence, vulnerability, and our shared precarity in an era of climate crisis.

Originally conceived and shown at The Church in the historic whaling town of Sag Harbor, the exhibition takes on an entirely different, harder-edged resonance within the raw, concrete-and-brick architecture of Brooklyn. Where the original venue whispered of maritime history, Powerhouse Arts amplifies the dialogue into a resonant shout out about industrial damage, responsibility, and the possibility of repair.

The exhibition moves effortlessly across generations and geographies, uniting traditional forms with contemporary, found-object practices, with a range of materials and artistic voices offering a testament to the curators' expansive vision.

Renowned figures like Wangechi Mutu, Nari Ward, and Cannupa Hanska Luger present works that challenge our relationship with the natural world, alongside whimsical contributions from Rob Pruitt and timeless forms by François-Xavier Lalanne. But the triumph of the show is its staging. Visitors are encouraged to move "in the round," engaging in intimate, up-close encounters with the animals—from monumentally scaled beasts that command the cavernous halls to local urban pigeons perched quietly in the corners.

Through August 30 at Powerhouse Arts, 153 2nd St, Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY  Info

Sunday, August 30, Last chance, Partial View:  New Humans at New Museum

Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, "New Humans: Memories of the Future" is less of a typical museum survey and more of a hallucinatory, shape-shifting self-portrait of the species. Spanning three floors and packing in over 700 objects, the exhibition sidesteps the usual, surface-level AI panic by tethering our current digital anxieties to a deeper history of human mutation, surrealism, and physical transformation. 

Walking through the galleries, visitors might note how masterfully the oldest mediums hold their own against the new; a tightly hung gallery of postwar paintings anchors the space with an urgent, tactile energy, even as Hito Steyerl’s software bots and Anicka Yi's floating, unearthly installation [above] confront us with what we might become. It is a marathon of a show that demands your full attention—so eat a good breakfast, arrive early, and prepare to have your idea of the human form thoroughly scrambled. Highlights in the Second Floor Galleries include a series by Toyin Ojih Odutola, a video on AI microworkers by Hito Steyerl, and more. Don’t forget to swing by Ryan Gander’s animatronic mouse ib the Lobby [above]—it ahs a log to say.

New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York, NY Discounted tickets during transition here

Extended through September 25: Marcel Duchamps Readymades at Gagosian

Sixty years after his readymades made their American debut at the Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, these iconic subversions have returned to their original launchpad at 980 Madison Avenue. Larry Gagosian has inaugurated his sleek, new ground-floor storefront space with a museum-quality presentation that feels less like a historical archive and more like a live-wire reunion of conceptual art's ultimate provocateurs. From the readymade Fountain to the rhythmic physics of the Bicycle Wheel, the work still carries a plangent energy that disrupts centuries of traditional thinking about the artist’s motives. 

Gagosian, 980 Maison Avenue, New York, NY Info