New York Newsletter

New Triennial in Western NY, NYC’s investment in public art, and a beer with Rina Banerjee.

I’ve always said that I shed worse than any dog I’ve ever met. 

Hundreds of my hairs cling to each other on my bedroom floor in lightly tangled clumps at any given moment, evidently undeterred by the might of my thrice-weekly dry-mop routine. That being said, I’m no stranger to hair-related art, and Bengali-American artist Rina Banerjee does a remarkable job of beautifying the visuals of loose hairs in her interdisciplinary practice. She unravels strands of hair from the realm of abjection and presents them as a nexus connecting her hybrid humans to the natural world — clouds, waves, plant roots, and atmospheric energies. 

To me, it’s just one of multiple familiar elements in Banerjee’s work, which investigates immigration, colonization, labor, alienation, and Hindu spirituality through a feminist lens. Jennifer Samet’s August installment of Beer with a Painter delves into Banerjee’s water-based paintings and assemblage in an extensive interview with the Brooklyn-based artist. 

In other local happenings, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has partnered with the NYC Department of Small Business Services to announce a multi-million-dollar investment into the city’s nonprofit and small business initiatives, including public art commissions and arts programming. How about some more themed trash bins on street corners? Those were a riot. Staff reporter Anna Lee has the details.

Summer is winding down, and while it’s been one for the history books, I’m simply not ready to part with my late sunsets and outdoor adventures as we gear up for the onslaught of art world happenings coming up next month. Perhaps I can have the best of both worlds with the help of the Medina Triennial — the inaugural edition of which is running through Labor Day Weekend. Contributor Sara Reisman writes that compared to her visit to the Venice Biennale, the free, village-wide contemporary art exhibition along the Erie Canal was “one of relief, maybe even restoration.” I’m sold!

Also of note — I finally made my way over to the New Museum to check out the renovation and the massive New Humans exhibition. I got lost twice and was frankly overwhelmed by the amount of disparately related art crammed into the exhibition. The amazing part is that when I tried to leave, I accidentally exited through a fire escape and, of course, the door locked behind me. I had to sheepishly descend the stairs into the back area of the museum's new restaurant Oberon, where I came across an employee folding napkins — his supervisor kindly led me out to the front of the museum while I sputtered about having the wayfinding capabilities of a housefly. 

Too late to embed myself in the cultural fabric via CBGB, too existentially unstable to make peace with the futurism of New Humans, but I’m right on time for the New Museum’s forthcoming exhibition on the history of the Bowery next month. I’ll be back!

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From Our CriticsSara Reisman

Medina Triennial in Medina, NY

"Through a selection of works that examine the impacts of labor, regulation, extraction, and repair of our shared systems, the curators return to the central question: What does it take to keep things going?" 

Read the full review

Amy Levine-Kennedy

 Love and Fury: New York’s Fight Against AIDS at Poster House

"In the mid-1980s, as the AIDS crisis simmered hotter and hotter in the apartments and bathhouses of New York, a band of frightened, fed-up young men took to copy shops around town. They were watching friends, partners, and lovers waste away with a mysterious virus, blamefully dubbed the “Gay Plague” by some. These kids knew what they were doing when they took jobs at Kinko’s. Clandestinely running the printers after hours ... they produced graphically stark, zanily colored flyers, posters, and stickers. In other words, a PR toolkit. Then, they wheat-pasted New York with abandon, demanding action."

Read the full review

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Interview

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What Else Is Happening?

• Join In These Times for a special pop-up gallery and fundraiser supporting independent journalism and the fight to protect free speech. (Tues Aug 25) [In These Times]
• Join The City Reliquary Museum for a screening of Patrick O’Hare’s “The Light at Dusk,” a photo-montage film that interweaves still photographs of New York City and upstate New York with a spoken text dealing with themes of memory, time, and the uncanny. (Wed Aug 26) [cityreliquary.org]
• In a conversation at Poster House, cultural historian Eric Lott, jazz historian Jerome Jennings, curator Dominique Jean-Louis, and curator of the museum's current exhibition Act Black, Es-pranza Humphrey, will examine the enduring legacy of blackface minstrelsy across performance and visual culture. (Thurs Aug 27) [posterhouse.org]
• In celebration of Climate Week, the Lower East Side Ecology Center is hosting a guided birding tour at Governors Island Park. (Thurs Aug 27) [lesecologycenter.org]
• Warm Up, MoMA PS1's signature outdoor music series, concludes its season this week! Enjoy underground and emerging talents from around the world. (Fri Aug 28) [momaps1.org]
• The Forgotten Occupation: Jim Crow Goes to Haiti, the acclaimed documentary by Alain Martin examining Haiti’s brutal occupation by the United Sates, returns to Brooklyn at Mocada Museum. (Fri Aug 28 & Sat Aug 29) [mocada.org]
• Attend the open house for The Seventh AIM Biennial: Forms of Connection, where you can participate in a variety of activities, including art-making, art talks, and more! (Sat Aug 29) [bronxmuseum.org]
• Alex Strada's Public Address opens at Joyce Kilmer Park, platforming the perspectives of people living and working in shelters on signage produced by the NYC Department of Transportation. (Opening Mon Sept 14) [bronxmuseum.org]
• Celebrated activists and authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor discuss their book End Time Fascism in a conversation moderated by Jia Tolentino. (Tues Sept 15) [Books Are Magic]
• The Center for Fiction is celebrating the launch of Lydia Mathis’s debut story collection, Desperate Bodies, with writer, professor, and publisher Roxane Gay. (Tues Sept 15) [The Center for Fiction]

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