New York City museums are offering a slate of interesting programs in support of current exhibitions in the second half of April. Add dance and live music to the list of things to do in New York City in April and your calendar will be filled easily. On our list, expect to find an overnight durational symposium, a debate on photography, a rarely-staged French opera-ballet, a visual concert, a Martha Graham celebration and more. Read on to discover our top picks for things to do in New York City through April 24, 2016.
1. Museum Directors Discuss the Forming of The Met Breur
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present “Directors in Dialogue” on April 14, 2016 at 6:30 p.m., a conversation between two museum directors discussing the formation of The Met Breur. The talk takes place at The MET Fifth Avenue in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.
The conversation features Metropolitan Museum Director and CEO Tom Campbell and Adam Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art and is moderated by Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem. The discussion will reveal the landmark collaboration between two museums and the building that was originally conceived as a home for the Whitney Museum and now hosts The Met Breuer.
Tickets are $40 and include museum admission. The MET is located at 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028. www.metmuseum.org.
Click here for exhibition details.
2. Les Fêtes Vénitiennes Performance at BAM
BAM will present the rarely-staged opera-ballet Les Fêtes Vénitiennes on April 14, 16 and 17, 2016 at the Peter Jay Sharp Building in the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House. Performances will take place on April 14 at 7:30 p.m., April 16 at 7:30 p.m., and on April 17 at 2 p.m.
This production of André Campra's Les Fêtes Vénitiennes is directed by Robert Carsen and conducted by William Christie and his early-music ensemble Les Arts Florissants. The piece explores the hedonistic side of the French Baroque through a series of whimsical stories populated by gamblers, carnies, gypsies, jilted lovers and more wearing scanty updates on period dress.
Ticket prices range, full price tickets start at $35. The Peter Jay Sharp Building is located at 30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217. www.bam.org.
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3. PopRally Performance at MoMA
PopRally presents Julianna Barwick and Matthew Brandt on April 14, 2016 from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Museum of Modern Art. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and the performance will start at 8 p.m.
Recording artist Julianna Barwick will pair resonant vocal compositions from her new album Will with a new video piece by Matthew Brandt to create a "visual concert." The pair presented their first collaborative piece at the J. Paul Getty Museum last spring and will present a new version developed specifically for MoMA. Brandt will include physical and digital metamorphosis of images of MoMA and works in its collection in his site-specific video contribution. The performance will be followed by a reception and an after-hours viewing of Ernie Gehr: CARNIVAL OF SHADOWS.
Admission is $25 and includes performance, DJ set, and cocktail reception. MoMA is located at 11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019. www.moma.org.
Click here for event details.
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Video still by Matthew Brandt. Courtesy of the artist.
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4. Conversation with Fazal Sheikh and Teju Cole at Brooklyn Museum
A conversation with the novelist, photographer and art historian Teju Cole and photographer Fazal Sheikh will take place on April 14, 2016 at 7 p.m. at the Brooklyn Museum.
Teju Cole and Fazal Sheikh will discuss photography and memory and the ways that images can capture not only a single moment in time, but the complex and tumultuous history that informs that moment. Sheikh's photographs are included in the exhibition "This Place," on view through June 5, 2016 at the Brooklyn Museum. His series, "The Erasure Trilogy" reflects the recent history in the faces of young women of India and East African refugees as well as scars made upon the land in the 1947-48 conflict in Israel and Palestine
There are 310 free tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis at the Admissions Desk starting at 6 p.m. on the day of the event. The Brooklyn Museum is located at 200 Eastern Pkwy, Brooklyn, NY 11238. www.brooklynmuseum.org. The event will also be live streamed. Catch it by clicking here.
Click here for event details.
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"Latitude: 31°21’7”N / Longitude: 34°46’27”E," by Fazal Sheikh, from "Desert Bloom," 2011. Inkjet print, 201⁄2 x 283⁄4 inches. © Fazal Sheikh.
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5. Martha Graham Dance Company
New York City Center will present Martha Graham Dance Company from April 14-16 & April 18, 2016. Performances will take place on April 14, 15 and 16 at 8 p.m. On April 18, a Special 90th Anniversary Program will take place at 7 p.m. The performances take place on the Main Stage.
Martha Graham Dance Company celebrates its 90th anniversary season with adventurous new works in interaction with Martha Graham classics. Pieces to be presented include Appalachian Spring (1944), Chronicle (1936), Cave of the Heart (1946) and Night Journey (1947). All four evenings will feature live music performed by the Mannes Orchestra. Included in the program are premieres from contemporary choreographers Marie Chouinard, Mats Ek, and Pontus Lidberg. Click here to view the program.
Tickets start at $35. New York City Center is located at 131 W 55th St, New York, NY 10019. www.nycitycenter.org.
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6. Slight Writing: A Conversation at the Morgan
The Morgan Library & Museum will present a conversation discussing the rewriting the rules of photography with "Sight Reading" exhibiting artists Nina Katchadourian, Jonathan Lewis, Duane Michals and John Pfahl on April 16, 2016 at 2 p.m.
Duane Michals and John Pfahl expanded the range of the medium of photography in the 1960s-1970s with their overtly staged and idea-driven works. For Nina Katchadourian and Jonathan Lewis who were born in that era, photography is only one of many ways to work in the densely networked media environment of recent years.
The exhibition, "Sight Reading: Photography and the Legible World", will be open for program attendees before the event and until 6 pm. The show explores the history of photography as a lucid, literate—but not always literal—tool of persuasion. A collaboration with the George Eastman Museum, the show features over 80 works from the 1840s to the present and reveals the many ways the camera can transmit not only the outward appearance of its subject but also narratives, arguments, and ideas.
Tickets are free but reservations are recommended. E-mail [email protected] to reserve a spot. The Morgan Library and Museum is located 225 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016. www.themorgan.org.
Click here for event details.
7. Conversation on Ellsworth Kelly at The Whitney
The Whitney will present “On Ellsworth Kelly: A Conversation with Yve-Alain Bois and Scott Rothkopf” on April 19, 2016 at 6:30 p.m. The event takes place on the third floor in the Susan and John Hess Family Theater.
Following the recent publication of the first volume of the Ellsworth Kelly catalogue raisonné, Yve-Alain Bois, Professor of Art History at the Institute of Advanced Study, will speak about the artist’s formative early years in conversation with Scott Rothkopf, Deputy Director for Programs and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator. Bois worked directly with Kelly on the book and will share insights about the artist's years as a student at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and as a young artist living in Paris, where he began painting his signature abstract forms.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for members, students, and seniors. The Whitney Museum of American Art is located at 99 Gansevoort St, New York, NY 10014. www.whitney.org.
Click here for event details
8. Ben Munisteri Dance Performance at BAM
BAM will present Ben Munisteri: Antimony (51) on April 21 to April 23, 2016 at BAM Fisher Fishman Space. Performances will take place on April 21 at 7:30 p.m., on April 22 at 7:30 p.m. and on April 23 at 2 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. Runtime is 55 minutes.
Ben Munisteri brings his group of dancers to BAM for four performances of the premiere of Antimony (51). The piece is inspired by Antimony, the 51st element. Antimony is unable to exist alone in nature and suggests logical paradoxes. Munisteri's body of work is characterized by its melding of dissonance with beauty; velocity with gentleness. The event features lighting design by Kathryn Kaufmann.
BAM Fisher is located at 321 Ashland Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11217. www.bam.org.
Click here for exhibition details.
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Ben Munisteri/PRANCE.
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9. It Takes Two Durational Symposia at The Guggenheim
An overnight durational program and symposium, It Takes Two, will unfold on April 23, 2016 from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. at the Guggenheim Museum. Held in relation to the exhibition, Peter Fischli David Weiss: How to Work Better, the program aims to explore "Why do creative minds gravitate toward one another?"; "What is the unique result of creating in pairs?"; "Why is the trope of the comic/tragic duo so prevalent in film and literature?"
The Guggenheim has invites a wide range of speakers and performers to address these questions from the disciples of visual art, dance, filmmaking, choreography, performance art, composing, music performance plus university professors, curators and other creatives. To see the list of participants, click here.
Tickets are $30, $20 for members and $15 for students. Tickets include overnight access to the current exhibition “Peter Fischli David Weiss: How to Work Better” and a cash bar. The Guggenheim is located at 1071 5th Ave, New York, NY 10128. www.guggenheim.org.
Click here for event details.
10. Artistic Homage Performance at MoMA PS1
Tobias Madison and Matthew Lutz-Kinoy present Rotting Wood: the Dripping Word: Shūji Terayama’s “Kegawa no Marii” will take place on April 23 and 24, 2016 at 4 p.m. at MoMA PS1.
An artistic homage to the work of Japanese avant-garde playwright and filmmaker Shūji Terayama, active from the mid 1960s until his untimely passing in 1983, Tobias Madison and Matthew Lutz-Kinoy's re-staging of the 1967 play, Kegawa no Marii, seeks to embrace the attitude towards collaboration and communal creativity advocated by Terayama and his Tokyo-based company Tenjou Sajiki. A small exhibition accompanies the performance in an exterior gallery in the MoMA PS1 courtyard.
Tickets are $15 or $13 for MoMA and MoMA PS1 member tickets. MoMA PS1 is located at 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101. www.momaps1.org.
Click here for event details.
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