this week in art

HOT TIME: SUMMER FOR THE CITY AT LINCOLN CENTER

Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City features numerous events tied to the World Cup

SUMMER FOR THE CITY: TOGETHER, WE MOVE
Lincoln Center
June 10 – August 8, free or choose-what-you-pay
www.lincolncenter.org

The fifth iteration of Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City features art, film, music, comedy, workshops, discussions, meditation, silent discos, and more, but its focus is on dance — along with World Cup–related soccer programs.

Describing the series, which features an outdoor installation by Clint Ramos, Chief Artistic Director Shanta Thake explains, “Lincoln Center becomes a celebration of bodies in motion — dancing, gathering, and connecting people from all walks of life.” There are hundreds of events, with performers from around the globe.

All presentations are free or choose-what-you-pay, and some require advance RSVP; below are twi-ny’s don’t-miss highlights.

Reg Bloor will conduct her late husband Glenn Branca’s symphony for one hundred guitars at Lincoln Center on June 12 (photo by Maria Jose Govia)

Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 13 (Hallucination City) for 100 Guitars
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall
Friday, June 12, choose-what-you-pay, 7:30
www.lincolncenter.org

On June 13, 2001, avant-garde composer Glenn Branca premiered Symphony No. 13 (Hallucination City) for 100 Guitars on the plaza at the World Trade Center. Writing about the piece for Sound American, Reg Bloor, guitarist Reg Bloor, Branca’s wife, explained, “This is the first time Glenn had done anything like this with volunteers, so we had no idea if anyone was going to show up. I’ll never forget walking around the corner of the North Tower onto the World Trade Center Plaza for the first rehearsal and seeing people sitting there on their amps waiting for us. This was really going to work. . . . The piece was a swirling cauldron of consonance and dissonance, like a giant swarm of bees trapped in a cyclone, the single movement a long, gradual build of dynamics, pitch, and tempo to a crescendo bouncing off the towers and ringing through the plaza, spilling out onto the streets of Lower Manhattan. It’s a sound that stays with you for the rest of the day after the piece is over. You hear it coming out of the subway tunnel or in the air conditioning. You can’t get it out of your ear until whole world starts to sound like Glenn.” Bloor will conduct the symphony at David Geffen Hall on June 12 at 7:30, with one hundred guitarists along with drummer Greg Fox.

Juneteenth
Multiple locations
Friday, June 19
www.lincolncenter.org

Lincoln Center honors Juneteenth with three special performances that, unfortunately, overlap one another: Carl Hancock Rux’s Oh Sankofa at Hearst Plaza at 7:00, boasting a talented cast exploring the importance of folklore during the Transatlantic Slave Trade; Jeremy Nedd’s from rock to rock . . . aka how magnolia was taken for granite at Alice Tully Hall at 7:30, which looks at the Milly Rock; and Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks’s The Tune Up at the David Rubenstein Atrium at 7:30, directed by the Flea’s Niegel Smith.

The music of Labelle is celebrated by original member Nona Hendryx at David Geffen Hall

Nightbirds, the Music of Labelle
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall
Sunday, June 28, choose-what-you-pay, 7:30
www.lincolncenter.org

In 1974, Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx, and Sarah Dash, known as LaBelle, took the country by storm with the monster hit “Lady Marmalade.” The trio had been together in other forms since 1961, broke up in lurid circumstances in 1976, the re-formed from 2005 to 2009. On June 28, Dream Machine Studio is presenting “Nightbirds, the Music of Labelle” at David Geffen Hall, led by Hendryx, joined by the original Labelle backing trio of guitarist Eddie Martinez, bassist Carmine Rojas, and percussionist Jose Rossy, along with Tony winner Adrienne Warren, Kimberly Nichole, Ledisi, and Sandra St. Victor.

Shen Wei Dance Arts and Guangdong Modern Dance Company team up for site-specific MindScape on Hearst Plaza (photo by Gabe Palacio)

Shen Wei Dance Arts | Guangdong Modern Dance Company: MindScape
Hearst Plaza
July 1-3, free, 5:00
www.lincolncenter.org

Chinese-born, NYC-based choreographer, director, and painter Shen Wei brings together Shen Wei Dance Arts (SWDA) and Guangdong Modern Dance Company for MindScape, a forty-five-minute piece that incorporates poetry, calligraphy, painting, and movement on Hearst Plaza. SWDA has presented dazzling dances in the Park Ave. Armory Drill Hall, at the Prospect Park Bandshell, in the Met’s Charles Engelhard Court, and other unique locations, so it should be fascinating to see what they’ll be doing outdoors at Lincoln Center. MindScape is part of Lincoln Center’s Dance Encounters series, which also has performances by Omari Wiles / Les Ballet Afrik (New York Is Burning), Ogemdi Ude (Major), Anna Sperber (Bow Echo), Benjamin Akio Kimitch (Tiger Hands), and Vangeline (Naiad Metal), which takes place in and around the Milstein Reflecting Pool, as well as Chinese Arts Week, which also includes Chinese-born, NYC-based Pulitzer Prize winner Du Yun’s family-friendly The Ocean Etched in the Forest.

Akram Khan’s Thikra is part of Summer for the City at Lincoln Center

Akram Khan Company: Thikra: Night of Remembering
Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway
Thursday, July 2, 7:30; Friday, July 3, 7:30; Sunday, July 5, 2:00, choose-what-you-pay
www.lincolncenter.org

English choreographer Akram Khan, who melds the Indian kathak form with contemporary dance, collaborates with visual director Manal AlDowayan on Thikra: Night of Remembering, a piece for between nine and eleven women set to “Gyura Beli Belo Platno” by the London Bulgarian Choir and “The Elephant’s Funeral” by Sushma Soma with Aditya Prakash. “As I stand humbled within the vastness of this epic desert known as AlUla, I feel the urge to unearth the many cultures that have passed through here,” Khan says about the work, which explores the ancient Saudi Arabia desert civilization. Thikra: Night of Remembering is part of the Lincoln Center Contemporary Dance Festival, which also features Jeremy Nedd, Yinka Esi Graves, Sung Im Her / Her Project, Rachid Ouramdane / Compagnie de Chaillot, and others.

Documentary reveals how Elizabeth Streb and her Extreme Action Company (including Jackie Carlson, seen here) take dance to a whole new level

Dance Encounters: Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity (Catherine Gund, 2014)
Hearst Plaza
Friday, July 10, free, 6:00
www.lincolncenter.org
www.borntoflymovie.com

For more than fifteen years, New Yorkers have gotten the chance to see Elizabeth Streb’s Extreme Action Company perform such dazzling works as Ascension at Gansevoort Plaza, Kiss the Air! at the Park Avenue Armory, and Human Fountain at World Financial Center Plaza as her team of gymnast-dancer-acrobats risk their physical well-being in daring feats of strength, stamina, durability, and grace. In addition, Streb herself walked down the outside wall of the Whitney as part of a tribute to one of her mentors, Trisha Brown. Catherine Gund takes viewers behind the scenes in the exhilarating documentary Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, going deep into the mind of the endlessly inventive and adventurous extreme action architect and the courage and fearlessness of her company. Gund follows Streb as she discusses her childhood, her dance studies, the formation of STREB in 1985, and her carefully thought out views on space, line, and movement as her work stretches the limits of what the human body can do. “I think my original belief and desire is to see a human being fly,” Streb says near the beginning of the film, which includes archival footage of early performances, family photos, and a warm scene in which the Rochester-born Streb and her partner, Laura Flanders, host a dinner party in their apartment, cooking for Bill T. Jones, Bjorn Amelan, Anne Bogart, Catharine Stimpson, and A. M. Homes. Gund also speaks with current and past members of the talented, ever-enthusiastic company — associate artistic director Fabio Tavares, Sarah Callan, Jackie Carlson, Leonardo Giron, Felix Hess, Samantha Jakus, Cassandre Joseph, John Kasten, and Daniel Rysak — who talk about their dedication to Streb’s vision while using such words as “challenge,” “velocity,” “endurance,” “magic,” “invincibility,” and “risk” to describe what they do and how they feel about it. The film is screening on Hearst Plaza on July 10 at 6:00 as part of Lincoln Center’s Dance Encounters series, which also includes “Movement on Film: Athletic Shorts” July 15–17.

Double Dutch Fusion Freestyle & Open Jump
The Dance Floor, Josie Robertson Plaza
Thursday, July 16, free, 5:00
www.lincolncenter.org

One of the most exciting events of every summer at Lincoln Center is the National Double Dutch League strutting its stuff with breathtaking displays of athleticism. It’s three hours of exhilarating movement, including an open jump where visitors are encouraged to participate.

Five troupes come together for annual BAAND Festival (Francesca Levita by Rachel Neville, Christopher R. Wilson by Andrew Eccles, Fangqi Li by Karolina Kuras, Taylor Stanley by Paul Kolnik, DTH Company Artist Kamala Saara by Nir Arieli)

BAAND Together Dance Festival
David H. Koch Theater
Tuesday, July 28, through Sunday, August 1, choose-what-you-pay
www.lincolncenter.org

The sixth BAAND Together Dance Festival takes place July 28 thorugh August 1, with five exciting troupes performing in the David H. Koch Theater: Ballet Hispánico New York, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem. It doesn’t get much better than that. Each company will also host a family-friendly dance workshop every day.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

CELEBRATING THE PEARL OF AFRICA: BAM DANCEAFRICA BRINGS UGANDA TO BROOKLYN

Who: Abdel R. Salaam, Ndere Troupe, Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, DJ YB, more
What: DanceAfrica Festival 2026
Where: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave.
When: May 22-28, many events free, Gilman dances $21-$86, film screenings $17
Why: The coming of the summer season means the arrival of one of the best festivals of every year, BAM’s DanceAfrica. The forty-ninth annual iteration focuses on Uganda, with four companies performing “Umoja/Mirembe/Obulungi (Unity/Peace/Beauty)!” in BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House: DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, and Ndere Troupe, highlighting movement and music from the Pearl of Africa. Curated by artistic director Abdel R. Salaam, the festival also includes the DanceAfrica Bazaar with more than 150 vendors, dance workshops and master classes at the Mark Morris Dance Center, Sanaa Gateja’s “Voices of Peace” art installation, the Council of Elders Roundtable: Legacy & Preservation moderated by Dyane Harvey-Salaam, the Memorial Room, which offers a place to honor festival ancestors, and a late night dance party with DJ YB.

This year’s FilmAfrica screenings and cinema conversations, held in conjunction with the New York African Film Festival, are highlighted by Mohamed Ahmed’s A Tribe Called Love (2025), Maia Lekow and Chris King’s How to Build a Library (2025), Ossie Davis’s Black Girl (1972), Olive Nwosu’s Lady (2026), and Awam Amkpa’s The Man Died (2024) all followed by Q&As with the directors and/or others.

“Thousands of years of African cultural development were interrupted by centuries of colonialism, which gave rise to a sociopolitical movement that led to Uganda’s independence on October 9, 1962, and its formal nationhood in 1963. In the decades since, a powerful artistic movement has emerged to reclaim and celebrate Ugandan identity and intelligence through cultural expression, a force that continues to this day,” Salaam said in his mission statement. “Today, ancient Uganda is considered a cradle of human evolution and early civilization in the East African region of Lake Nalu Baale, the traditional name of what became Lake Victoria. In Luganda, a Bantu language, ‘Nalu Baale,’ translates to ‘Mother of the Ancestral/ Guardian Spirits.’ I am honored to share more of these ancient dances and songs, mixed with shades of contemporary visions of East Africa.”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

FEMINIST ART ROCK-STAR ROUNDTABLE: JUDITH BERNSTEIN, JOYCE KOZLOFF, AND JOAN SEMMEL AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM

Judith Bernstein, Joan Semmel, and Joyce Kozloff will take part in a Feminist Art Roundtable at the Jewish Museum

Who: Joan Semmel, Joyce Kozloff, Judith Bernstein, Rachel Corbett
What: Feminist Art Roundtable
Where: The Jewish Museum, Scheuer Auditorium, 1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
When: Thursday, March 26, $14-$24, 6:30
Why: On New Year’s Eve, I attended a small dinner party in the West Village, where among the other invitees was painter extraordinaire Joan Semmel, whose brilliant exhibition “In the Flesh” is on view at the Jewish Museum through May 31, and the marvelous Joyce Kozloff, whose stunning cartographic works have been on display in such gallery shows as “Collateral Damage,” “Uncivil Wars,” and “Girlhood.” At the last minute, artist Judith Bernstein, whose provocative solo exhibitions include “Truth and Chaos,” “We Don’t Owe You a Tomorrow,” and “Money Shot,” was unable to make the gathering. But now everyone is invited to be in the presence of all three remarkable women — and longtime friends — when they convene at the Jewish Museum on March 26 for a “Feminist Art Roundtable” moderated by Rachel Corbett, author of You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin and The Monsters We Make.

Semmel’s “In the Flesh” comprises sixteen lush, tender, and potent depictions of naked contorted figures and bodies in motion, dating from 1971 to 2023. “Their reflections are hidden, as is my face in most of my paintings,” Semmel has noted of her subjects. “For women who are always a sight to be seen, not being seen can be an act of defiance.” The show also features “Eye on the Collection,” consisting of forty-two museum works selected by Semmel, among them Bernstein’s 1966 Invest Your Sons (War Is Good Business) and Kozloff’s 2004 American History: 21st Century Crusades.

Don’t miss this rock-star lineup of extraordinary artists who have helped define and expand the concept of feminist art for six decades, demanding to be seen and heard.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

TAKING ACTION TO SAVE DEMOCRACY: ART AT A TIME LIKE THIS SIXTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Who: Janet Biggs, Mary Lucier, Shaun Leonardo, Marka27, Pablo Helguera
What: Public art campaign benefit for Art at a Time Like This
Where: Cristin Tierney Gallery, 49 Walker St.
When: Thursday, March 27, minimum donation $150 ($75 for artists), 6:00 – 9:00
Why: Only a few days into the pandemic lockdown in March 2020, independent curator and author Barbara Pollack and artist agent Anne Verhallen took action, starting the nonprofit Art at a Time Like This (ATLT), dedicated to the idea that “art can make a difference and that artists and curators can be thought-leaders, envisioning alternative futures for humanity.” Art at a Time Like This has presented two dozen online and in-person exhibitions and programs since then, including “Dangerous Art, Endangered Artists,” “Rupture: Interventions of Possibility,” and “Don’t Look Now: A Defense of Free Expression.”

On March 27, ATLT will be celebrating its sixth anniversary, at the Cristin Tierney Gallery on Walker St., with a three-hour evening of cocktails, conversation, and a call to action, featuring four impressive speakers: artists Janet Biggs, Mary Lucier, Shaun Leonardo, and Marka27, with Pablo Helguera serving as moderator. The event is hosted by Leonardo Bravo, Andy Cushman, Helina Metaferia, Marilyn Minter, Gina Nanni, Megan Noh, Eric Shiner, and Cristin Tierney.

“At the very beginning of a worldwide pandemic, we asked a simple question: How can you think of art at a time like this?” Pollack tells twi-ny. “The question is now more relevant than ever, which presents both a tragedy and an opportunity for creative solutions.”

The next creative solution for ATLT is the exhibition “Take One Action,” which the organization considers “an antidote” for what is happening around the globe today. All artists are invited to submit one artwork, along with a suggested action to help protect and preserve our democracy — with an eye toward the midterm elections. Select contributions will be printed and wheatpasted across the city and/or appear in an ever-growing digital exhibit.

“Barbara and Anne responded to the pandemic with amazing speed, care, and inclusiveness by asking a question: ‘How can you think of art at a time like this?’ The overwhelming response was: ‘How can you not?’” explains Biggs, a research-based interdisciplinary artist known for her immersive work in video, film, and performance. “They have continued to ask that question in the face of ongoing trauma, injustice, and upheaval, and artists have continued to answer with work that is engaged, compassionate, and necessary. That is why Art at a Time Like This — and its programming — is so essential.”

Admission is a minimum donation of $150 ($75 for artists) for what should be a fascinating gathering of thought-leaders who will not just be honoring the success of ATLT but continuing the fight to use art to make a difference.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

STOP THAT PIGEON: BIDDING A FOND ADIEU TO DINOSAUR ON THE HIGH LINE

Iván Argote’s Dinosaur will be flying off from the High Line soon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FAREWELL, DINOSAUR
High Line Plinth on the High Line Spur
Thirtieth St. at Tenth Ave.
Friday, March 21, free, noon – 4:00
www.thehighline.org

It promises to be the biggest send-off for a New York City pigeon ever.

On June 14, 2025, the High Line welcomed Iván Argote’s High Line Plinth commission, Dinosaur, with “Pigeon Fest,” a festival celebrating pigeons, urban ecology, and public art on National Pigeon Appreciation Day. The High Line is now saying goodbye to the seventeen-foot-tall, one-ton aluminum pigeon sculpture on March 21 with another party, “Farewell, Dinosaur,” consisting of games, photo ops, and more, with Argote, DJ Tommy Sparks, and Miriam Abrahams, the British multidisciplinary artist who won the Pigeon Impersonation Pageant at the opening. Visitors are encouraged to again come in feather-brained costumes as they play bingo and have Argote sign limited-edition posters.

“The name Dinosaur makes reference to the sculpture’s scale and to the pigeon’s ancestors who millions of years ago dominated the globe, as we humans do today,” the Colombia-born, Paris-based Argote said in a statement. “The name also serves as a reference to the dinosaur’s extinction. Like them, one day we won’t be around anymore, but perhaps a remnant of humanity will live on — as pigeons do — in the dark corners and gaps of future worlds. I feel this sculpture could generate an uncanny feeling of attraction, seduction, and fear among the inhabitants of New York.”

The attraction, seduction, and fear will continue through early April, when Dinosaur will go extinct on the High Line, replaced by Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s The Light That Shines Through the Universe.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

CELEBRATING WIFREDO LAM AT MoMA WITH DANCE, MUSIC, AND POETRY

Wifredo Lam with the unfinished Bélial, empereur des mouches in his garden, Havana, 1947 (courtesy Archives SDO Wifredo Lam, Paris / photo by Ylla © Pryor Dodge)

Who: Ballet Hispánico New York, Aruán Ortiz, Yaissa Jimenez
What: A Special Evening Celebrating “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream”
Where: Museum of Modern Art, 11 West Fifty-Third St. Between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
When: Thursday, March 19, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: “I knew I was running the risk of not being understood either by the man in the street or by the others,” Cuban-born artist Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla said, “but a true picture has the power to set the imagination to work, even if it takes time.” The wide-ranging MoMA retrospective “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream” paints a fascinating portrait of Lam, the son of a Chinese immigrant and the grandson of a Congolese former slave mother. It’s a marvelous collection of paintings, drawings, archival photographs, sketches, books, and ephemera tracing Lam’s career, which took him from Cuba, Spain, and France to Martinique, Haiti, and New York as his imagination turned to Spanish modernism, Surrealism, and Afro-Cuban tradition. Among the highlights of the exhibition, which runs through April 11, are the 1943 gouache on paper masterpiece The Jungle, a trio of dazzling abstracts, and a collection of plates.

On March 19 at 6:30, MoMA will be hosting “A Celebration of ‘Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream,’” as Ballet Hispánico New York, Cuban-born, Brooklyn-based pianist, violist, and composer Aruán Ortiz, and Dominican writer and poet Yaissa Jimenez will perform specially commissioned new works in the exhibition galleries, paying tribute to Lam and his legacy. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

TRAGEDY CAN FALL OUT OF THE SKY: ROB PRUITT AT 303

Latest Rob Pruitt show at 303 Gallery is a deeply personal one (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

SKYSCAPES . . .
303 Gallery
555 West 21st. St. between 10th & 11th Aves.
Through March 7
www.303gallery.com
www.robpruitt.com

In the fall of 2023, Rob Pruitt presented “The Golden Hour” at 303 Gallery in Chelsea, a show in which the DC-born artist faced his approaching sixtieth birthday with one of his “Flea Markets,” in this case a collection of personal objects that visitors could pore over and take one home; as I write this, one of Pruitt’s cigar boxes is right next to me.

His latest exhibition at 303, today titled “Watching the Sun Set and Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art” — the name changes every day; it began on January 15 as “Skyscapes” — is another deeply personal show, focusing on the loss of his sister, Gina, who died on December 7, 2025, following a stroke. The works on view include his monthly 2025 “Sunrises” watercolor and silkscreen ink calendar series, ceramic fruit bowls, selections from his “Bright Light” acrylic on linen series, two of his “Suicide Paintings,” and the concrete sculpture Karen, a cat on the floor looking up at Bright Light — Purple.

In the back room are two works by his partner, Jonathan Horowitz: the video Father land: Wilhelm Reich, Jacques Morali, et al., about gay culture and authoritarian political ideology, and the gold-plated bronze Crucifix for Two.

There is a warm radiance to the gallery as Pruitt explores time. The show is accompanied by a heart-wrenching artist statement that places everything in context and is worth adding here in full:

Tragedy, like joy, can fall out of the sky.

When I was working on this show, my sister Gina suffered multiple strokes and was rendered paralyzed from the neck down, unable to speak. She made the decision to stop treatment and end her life on her own terms. This changed the show for me and I changed the show.

As I sat with Gina and recounted memories from our childhood, I thought about what she might be experiencing. She liked the room filled with light and liked to face the sun, even with her eyes closed. I imagined that she might be seeing bright, vivid colors.

The suicide paintings started for me as an expression of my own social anxiety. They were about punching a hole through a wall to make an escape, leaving one space and entering another space. With the paintings I made for Gina, the metaphor became literal. But not suicide from a place of darkness and depression. Just a choice.

Also, while the show was coming together, I could hear my partner Jonathan Horowitz from the room next door, working day after day on a video project. He never told me what the video was about, but I would occasionally hear familiar fragments – a Village People song, clips from the movies Cruising with Al Pacino and Saturday Night Fever, chanting political rioters. When Jonathan was finished and showed me the work, I was blown away. It’s called Father land: Wilhelm Reich, Jacques Morali, et al. and it’s about hyper masculinity and gay history and the political nightmare that we’re all living through today. Somehow, the particularity of his work seemed like a perfect counterpoint to the generality of mine. I asked him if I could put his video in the project room of the gallery, coming through the wall like at our house.

These were my days when I made the show. They are embedded within the work.

Rob Pruitt