The Very Best of NYC Art

Ketch Wehr: Emblems of Things to Come, Art & AIDS: Perceptions of Life, Why We Fight: Remembering AIDS Activism, Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800, Designing Modern Women: 1890-1990, That Face: The Art of Ken Fallin – Broadway, Hollywood & Wall Street and more…

Ketch Wehr is a New York-based artist who utilizes feminist and queer history to make big statements. His latest exhibit—a series of largescale paintings done on wood and mirror—can be seen at Leslie Lohman’s Wooster Street Window Gallery. Ketch Wehr: Emblems of Things to Come features martyrs, saints and powerful women from ancient times. These figures may not be the ones you typically associate with queer history, but that’s the point: “I consider any person who challenged expectations of gender in the way they lived, fought, spoke up, or who they loved, to be a valuable icon to the LGBTIQ community,” says Wehr. Catch this educational exhibit through Jan 26. Meanwhile, at Lohman’s Main Gallery, you can check out Art & AIDS: Perceptions of Life, starting Dec 19. This exhibit features the work of those living with HIV and AIDS, who are also participating in the art therapy program run by Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Curated by Osvaldo Perdomo and David Livingston, it runs through Jan 5.

The New York Public Library also has an AIDSthemed exhibit called Why We Fight: Remembering AIDS Activism. The focus here is on the days before AIDS was treatable. The 80s and 90s was a period of intense activism, when men and women had to fight an uncaring political administration with impassioned protests just to get the right drugs into patients’ hands. This exhibit features ads, pamphlets, book excerpts, videos, medical records, printed speeches, startling facts, and even novelty items such as safe sex comics and AIDS trading cards to show us just how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. As part of the exhibit, there are also public seminars and a film series curated by Jim Hubbard. Why We Fight: Remembering AIDS Activism will be running through Apr 4.

View more than 130 works that explore the impressive history of design through textiles in Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art now through Jan 5. Tapestries, costumes, flat textiles, vestments and furniture will be included, in addition to paintings and drawings. Many come from the Met’s own collection, including pieces from their Decorative Arts, Asian Art, Islamic Art, and European Paintings departments.

The female influence on a century of design is the subject matter for Designing Modern Women: 1890-1990, a new exhibition which looks at work by Lilly Reich, Eileen Gray, Eva Zeisel, Denise Scott Brown and others. Highlights include a display of 1960s rock posters by Bonnie Maclean; a Buzzcocks album cover; and work from the Unité d'Habitation housing project. The exhibit is at the Museum of Modern Art now through Oct 1.

Dedicated theatergoers know the New World Stages for its impressive roster of shows, but few realize it is also home to a world-class art gallery. This month, that gallery will be presenting That Face: The Art of Ken Fallin – Broadway, Hollywood & Wall Street. The exhibit displays over 75 works of art by the caricaturist, known for his drawings of famous players in the Hollywood, political, financial and Broadway worlds. Highlights include depictions of President Barack Obama, the cast of Mad Men, Broadway diva Patti LuPone, Marlon Brando, and legendary composer Stephen Sondheim. The exhibit will be running until Dec 31.

Digital cinema projection has changed the way films are shown and has almost put the projectionist out of business. But there are still some employed in this capacity, and their work is being celebrated in a new exhibit. The Booth: The Last Days of Film Projection pays homage to an (almost) lost era, featuring photographs of over 30 projectionists in and around New York City. Catch it in the lobby of the Museum of the Moving Image through Feb 2.

Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey includes more than 50 pieces from the Kenyan-born, Brooklyn-based artist from the mid-1990s to today. Mutu’s work explores gender, race, war, and the black female body, and includes largescale collages, video works, drawing and sculpture. It’s at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art now through Mar 9. Also at the Center is Twice Militant: Lorraine Hansberry’s Letters to The Ladder. Hansberry, the late playwright of Raisin in the Sun, wrote a series of letters to the Ladder, the first subscriptionbased lesbian publication in the United States. The letters show the similarities between the civil rights, equal rights and gay rights struggles. This exhibit also includes poetry, essays and an interview Hansberry did with writer Studs Terkel. Twice Militant: Lorraine Hansberry’s Letters to the Ladder can be seen through Mar 16.


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