“Tribute to my Mother: a Treatise on Language, Sex, Resistance, Unity and the power of the Sacred” (via artist Nikesha Breeze’s website)
Queen Latifah welcomed listeners to her Queendom with her 1989 debut hip hop album “All Hail the Queen.” The album featured such hits as “Ladies First” and “Wrath of My Madness,” but it’s “Come Into My House” that’s captivated Brooklyn artists this week.
FRIDAY
(Photo: Russ Rowland, via One Year Lease Theater Company / Facebook)Eat The Devil
Now through March 9 at The Tank, 8 pm: $25
The best way I can describe Eat The Devil, a multimedia-laden play by Nadja Leonhard-Hooper and Dan Nuxoll of Rooftop Films, is kind of like a cross between the movies Sorry To Bother You and Ex Machina, but way weirder, way more online, and with more theatrics. But even that doesn’t really do its uniqueness justice. The play, set in a strange-yet-feasible version of the future, centers around the development of Mia, an artificially intelligent sex doll played by nonbinary drag performer Theydy Bedbug. Meanwhile, airlines are sponsored by porn tube sites, Amazon is run by a flying Alexa device, Alex Jones is still screaming away, and furries are experiencing a cultural moment. It’s both a night of delightfully strange escapism and a harrowing vision of what very well may soon be our reality.
SATURDAY
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuEidgWgHgw/
The Mess With Jesse Roth
Saturday, March 9 at The Footlight, 7 pm: $5-10 sliding scale
Some comedians describe themselves as clean, but performer Jesse Roth prefers her work to err on the messy side of things. That doesn’t necessarily mean she’s into flinging food and mud around (though there have been comedy shows where those things happen), but rather, she embraces the flawed nature of experimentation. At her recurring show at The Footlight, Roth delves into stand-up, dance, sketch, solo performance, music, and more, finding out what works along the way, and what doesn’t. This Saturday’s show features guests Steve Jeanty of hip-hop improv group North Coast and Graham Techler.
SUNDAY
(photo: Maria Baranova)Skinnamarink
Now through March 23 at New York Theater Workshop, 3 pm (most shows at 7:30 pm): $30+
First of all, if you don’t get that little children’s song in stuck in your head eternally after reading the title of this show, I envy you. Skinnamarink, the latest production from offbeat theater company Little Lord, takes its inspiration from McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers, a series of vintage children’s books dating back to the 1800’s that aimed to teach the youth to read. Using this source material (and peanut butter, so if you’re allergic, consider yourself warned), the ensemble immerses the audience in a “little one-room schoolhouse of horrors” to educate on the curiously dark state and history of the American education system.
There’s a plot twist to this year’s Rare Book Week. Alongside precious 16th century anatomy books and first editions of Edgar Allan Poe, attendees can expect to find handmade zines, pop-up books, comics, graphic novels, and photography collections from Brooklyn artists.
More →
(photo: Mindy Tucker, courtesy of Lane Moore)
Most dating apps can be depressing. But Tinder, in all its swipe-based simplicity, is a digital landscape with perhaps the most potential to expose how absurd humanity can behave when it’s looking to get laid. Someone who knows this well is comedian, musician, and writer Lane Moore, who has been delving into the weird world of online dating through her comedy show Tinder Live, which will be celebrating its fifth year of existence tonight. More →
(Courtesy of Salon 94)
Wrestling and crochet clash battle-of-the-sexes-style in Salon 94’s newest exhibit, Luis Flores’ “Another Thing You Did to Me.”
The exhibit, which opened Tuesday at the Bowery gallery, tackles issues linked to machismo and femininity through life-sized, hand-crocheted sculptures of wrestlers.
“Captain Marvel” isn’t the only feminist film making headlines this month. To celebrate Women’s History Month, venues across Manhattan and Brooklyn are showing female-focused features.
NYC Feminist Film Week at Anthology Film Archives
March 5 to 10, Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, East Village.
For the third year running, Anthology Film Archives and Women Who Make Movies are bringing us NYC Feminist Film Week, dedicated to work by female, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming filmmakers. According to the fest’s website, “this year’s program focuses on issues surrounding sexuality with a focus on pleasure as a feminist strategy for resistance and community building.” It kicks off Tuesday at 7:30pm with Shakedown, a film about the Los Angeles black lesbian strip club scene.
Photo via @companygallery on Instagram)
Fire
Opening Wednesday, March 6 at Baby Company, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through April 14.
Oh, Fire Island. Even if you’ve never been (I haven’t), you’ve probably come across it in one way or another, even if it’s just on your Instagram feed or that time you overheard a group of partygoers dishing about their weekend outing. You have another chance to soak in this getaway through the eyes of another at group exhibition Fire, opening Wednesday at Allen Street’s Baby Company (an offshoot of the nearby Company Gallery). The show, organized by photographer Ryan McNamara, features familiar queer art names like Raúl de Nieves, Kia Labeija, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Nicole Eisenman, all revealing snapshots of what Fire Island (and by extension, spaces known for being queer sanctuaries) means to them.
Patrick Martinez, Chocolate Cake for the Black Panther Party, 2018, Heavy body acrylic, acrylic, airbrush, and ceramic cake roses on panel with gold mirror plex, 20 x 26 x 3 inches (image via Fort Gansevoort)
That Which We Do Not See
Opening Thursday, March 7 at Fort Gansevoort, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through April 20.
Artist Patrick Martinez brings something simultaneously sweet and politically-charged to the Meatpacking District gallery Fort Gansevoort this week when he opens his solo show of paintings, multimedia pieces, and neon works. The show, which takes its title from a Martin Luther King quote, is peppered with notable figures from modern history, from author Rebecca Solnit to Malcolm X and James Baldwin. These faces, along with other iconography like the Black Panther Party’s panther image, are emblazoned on cakes in remarkable mixed media paintings that truly look edible—their decadence hints at portrait painting’s history of elevating those who could afford to commission one. In addition to the cakes, a selection of paintings of Los Angeles’s changing landscape and text-based neon sculptures will also be on view.
(image via Sonder Exhibition)
Sonder iii
Opening Friday, March 8 at 198 Allen Street, 6 pm to 10 pm. On view through March 10.
In many instances, going to see art means going to see the work of older people, whether that be artists who made work decades or centuries ago or contemporary greats who have been in the art world for years. But exhibition series Sonder, returning to the Lower East Side for a third year, only shows work by young people. No, not people who are in their mid/late twenties. It’s curated by teenagers, and features work by teenagers who create in multiple genres, who are both local to NYC and based around the globe. When I think about what I was doing when I was a teen, it definitely wasn’t showing art in a New York City gallery, so this is your chance to get a peek at those paving the way for the future of art. I can only wonder if, in light of all the news, there’ll be some Momo-themed art…
(Photo via @granteepants on Instagram)
In “NY See,” East Village-based artist Grant Shaffer illustrates his daily observations of New York life, with witty (and relatable) captions. Think: “someone walking on E. 14th St., obscured by a plant,” “footprint on 6 train window,” or “go-go boy tipped with an MTA card.”
(Photo via Feminist Zine Fest)
It’s almost women’s history month and in New York that means it’s time for the NYC Feminist Zinefest (FZF). The self-described “jumble of magic, creativity, witchy energy, and zines zines zines” will take place March 31 at Barnard College, but its seventh annual season kicks off tonight with an open mic on the Lower East Side.
(Photos: Cecilia Nowell)
Tensions ran high at a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing this morning as local activists and book lovers clashed over whether the building that houses Strand Bookstore should be designated a historic landmark.
