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Art This Week: Algorithms, Jesus, and Bottle Blondes

(image via Flowers Gallery NY / Facebook)

yes no maybe
Opening Tuesday, July 17 at Flowers Gallery, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through August 24.

Thanks to social media, the word “algorithm” is no longer something only mentioned in math class. I’d say for better or for worse, but we all know that people typically invoke talks of The Algorithm when they are complaining about the latest way it’s seeming to screw them over. A new group exhibition at Chelsea’s Flowers Gallery, which takes its title from the mathematical theory of probability, asks five artists to create works using their own algorithmic processes. This may sound intimidating until you realize an algorithm isn’t much more than a purposeful pattern that repeats over time, which is something done in art often. The artists of yes no maybe (all prolific and regarded in their respective fields) take their algorithmic inspiration from topics as varied as geometric microscopic organisms, Berlin’s Tempelhof airport, jazz music, and hypercubes. At the opening, there will be a panel discussion with Beryl Korot, Manfred Mohr and Judith Stenneken, moderated by Zabet Patterson, a professor and writer who focuses on how contemporary art and computing interact. More →

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Watch: 3D-Printed Boats Go For Gold at the Red Hook Regatta

Gentlemen, print your engines!

The Red Hook Regatta, an annual race of 3D-printed boats, returned to Valentino Pier Park on Sunday. This year’s festivities promised to be pure “mayhem,” according to the folks at Pioneer Works (the artist residency program and events space teamed up with Red Hook Initiative, an education NGO, to put on the regatta). Which didn’t stop some 100 people from braving the cold and rain to watch the homemade boats shred water. Participants used remote controls to steer their vessels halfway up the pier, where they delivered bricks to a person with a red-colored hook (get it? Red Hook?). The boat that delivered the most bricks was declared the winner.

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16 Works We Loved at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair

Silk tapestry by Bill Zangewa (Photo: Nicole Disser)

Silk tapestry by Bill Zangewa, Afronova Gallery (Photo: Nicole Disser)

It’s pretty screwy that here, now, in the year 2016 many people still have a hard time grasping that Africa is an incredibly diverse continent home to vastly different cultures, languages, landscapes, and art traditions. Thankfully, we have things like the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (held May 6 through 8 at Pioneer Works in Red Hook) at our fingertips to keep us in the know about the incredible (and, ahem, marketable) art work coming out of the 54 countries on the African continent.

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How to See Art During Armory Weekend and Still Afford to Eat

(Via Spring/Break Art Show / Facebook)

(Via Spring/Break Art Show / Facebook)

Armory weekend is upon us y’all, and you know what that means– if you’re gonna hoof it to the West side to get cultured and not just slammed at the after parties (which is perfectly alright, too) it’s best to have some idea of where you’re headed, and we’re guessing it’s probably not going to be in the direction of those $45 Armory tickets. Hoo boy. No, thank you. Besides, there’s plenty else going on that’s not gonna nuke your wallet.
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Week in Film: Teenage Werewolves and Art-House Aliens

Get ready this week for films that are at once fantastical and grounded in sometimes harsh reality. Our top picks include an art-house sci-fi film that says more about immigration than extra-terrestrials, one werewolf flick that proves the Scandinavians are masters of mixing the banality of small town life and horror, and more. Peep on.

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I Took a Class in ‘How to Master the NYPD’

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Pioneer Works isn’t just an art gallery, residency program, and book shop — it’s an educational center, too. Pay a nominal fee and get learn’d on the basics of paper marbling, wet plate photography, and how to whip up a mole sauce from scratch– you know, cute stuff. So a two-day course, “How to Master the New York City Police Department,” taught by NYU urbanization researcher Patrick Lamson-Hall, kinda stopped me in my browsing tracks with its promise of a historical look at the NYPD and discussion about how to improve community-police relations. One of Patrick’s early suggestions: “As stupid as it sounds, maybe they need to start every day with yoga.”

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This Photo Show Marks a High Point for the Transgender Movement

(Photo by Robyn Hasty)

(Photo by Robyn Hasty)

Robyn Renee Hasty is no stranger to outsiders, countercultures, and misfits. So it might feel a little strange for the artist to be in the midst of what’s becoming a mainstream social movement and media obsession to match, as embodied in the debut of Caitlyn Jenner. A new exhibition featuring Hasty’s most recent work, opening Thursday at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works, couldn’t be more timely. But even with a newfound frank (but still sometimes fraught) discussion of the transgender experience going mainstream, Hasty’s nude portraits of transgender, gender non-conforming, and cisgender people are still subversive.
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Three to See During Frieze Week: NADA, African Art, and a Design Fair

'Untitled,' photo by Bobson Sukhdeo Mohanlall on view at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (Photo from 1:54 website and courtesy of Axis Gallery)

‘Untitled,’ photo by Bobson Sukhdeo Mohanlall on view at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (Photo from 1:54 website and courtesy of Axis Gallery)

If there’s anything to say about Frieze that speaks to the massive annual art fair as a whole is that it’s wholly impossible to see everything. Last year, there were 190 participating art dealers from all over the globe. And that’s just at Frieze alone. What’s more the art fair brings so many art people into the city and out of their studios in “far-flung” neighborhoods to Manhattan, that several satellite festivities coincide with the event in places other than the Frieze tent. So take your pick and get ready for two parts shmoozing and feigning interest and one part legitimate enthrallment!

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Watch ‘Marwencol’ With Mark Hogancamp, at an Exhibit of His Work

We have to agree with New York’s verdict that Marwencol is one of “The 20 Essential Documentaries of the Century,” so it’s kind of exciting that the film’s subject, Mark Hogancamp, will be making a rare NYC appearance at a screening that accompanies an exhibit of his latest work.
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