nyc art scene

Opens Tonight, Apr 29, 6-8p:

”Artists and Other Frenchmen”
 portrait prints from Nanteuil to Villon

Pocket Utopia, 191 Henry St., NYC (bt Clinton and Jefferson)

Spanning more than three centuries of French printmaking, the exhibition assembles portraits of subjects as diverse as François I, the French king and patron of Leonardo da Vinci, and Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” as a shy six-year-old boy, to a whole parade of painters, sculptors, and engravers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.  - thru May 25

Opens Thurs, Apr 19, 6-8p:

 Niki de Saint Phalle

Vicky David Gallery, 522 W23rd St., NYC

an exhibition of artworks by the French-American sculptor, painter and filmmaker Niki de Saint Phalle, a key figure of the New Realism movement. Fascinated with primitive arts and legendary myths, she reinvests them by giving them a raw but poetic tone. Nature and animal kingdom are omnipresent in her work. - thru June 30

Wednesday, Mar 28:

Pocket Utopia Grand Re-Opening Reception 6-8p
191 Henry St., NYC (bt Clinton & Jefferson)

Mar 28: Donald Steele : “The Queen and I”
one night exhibition of royal photographs by playwright Donald Steele

Pocket Utopia will officially reopen on April 29th with the exhibition “Portraits of Artists: 18th Century French Engravings” (in collaboration with C. G. Boerner)

Opens Tonight, Mar 15, 6-8p:

”Needleworks”
 Sophie Delaporte

HPGRP Gallery, 529 W20th St., NYC (2W)

a French fashion photographer whose images have appeared in publications such as Italian Vogue, Japanese Vogue, and i-D magazine, Delaporte has been interested in using fine art photography as a canvas in which to transform and reinvent images. Originally using her own fashion photographs, which she re-staged and re-took at their original locations to create a mise-en-scène, Delaporte eventually began appropriating images from other sources. In “Needleworks” she sawed apart pornographic images, and then “sutured” them back together with thread and fabric. She then photographed the resulting collages, which she blew up on a monumental scale. She will display both the original collages in shadow boxes, and the large-scale images. - thru Mar 31

Tonight, Mar 4, Performances at 4pm & 6pm:

”The Small Circus / Le Petit Cirque”
 Laurent Bigot

The Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen St., Brooklyn, NY (F or G to Bergen St.)

“Le Petit Cirque [The Small Circus] is a complex sound object object made of wood, plastic, strings, springs and fragility. A mere breath can set it vibrating. Twelve small microphones draw resources from its interior. Le Petit Cirque is a circus. Its handling is perilous, the danger of falling ever-present. In the same way that theater can be musical, Le Petit Cirque is a “circus of sound.“ It is also a theater of objects.”

free admission / donations welcome

Continues thru Mar 11:

”Building as Everydayness”
Antonia Carrara, Chloé Dugit-Gros, Raphaël Grisey, Thomas Klimowski, Julia Rometti & Victor Costales

Scaramouche, 52 Orchard St., NYC

a group show of artists living and working in Paris. Each of the artists utilizes architecture and the built environment as a starting point for exploring Modernist icons, often through the lens of critical theory. Working with a variety of media including sculpture, collage, video, and installation, the artists explore everydayness as developed by philosopher Michel de Certeau in The Practice of Everyday Life (1980). In his writings, de Certeau outlined the ways individuals navigate the world around them through the most ordinary of means, including reading, walking, cooking, and talking. For de Certeau, the smallest practices can allow individuals to become active participants through “an art of manipulating and enjoying” everyday life. The exhibition focuses on everydayness as a conceptual tool to reconsider architecture and Modernist icons, away from utopian roots and with a practical perspective in the present-day, as buildings are constantly rethought and adapted by the individuals who inhabit them.