Six must-see art exhibitions on display in Queens this spring
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A tea ceremony in Nara with a group including Saburo Hasegawa (wearing glasses) and Isamu Noguchi (far right), 1950. Photo via The Noguchi Museum Archive. ©INFGM / ARS.
By Victoria Merlino
The weather is heating up, and so is the Queens art scene. Whether you’re a fan of modernism, futurism or just eager to leave the house, we’ve collected six art exhibitions and experiences for you to check out across the borough:
“Gabriel Orozco: Rotating Objects” and “Changing and Unchanging Things: Noguchi and Hasegawa in Postwar Japan”
The Noguchi Museum is showcasing 10 works by famed Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco in an exhibition that runs through August 11. Orozco’s work includes his signature use of geometric abstraction and three “Obi Scrolls,” created by incising, rotating and reversing sections of antique kimono sashes and mounting them on scrolls, according to the museum’s website.
“Rotating Objects” is meant to complement another exhibition happening at the Noguchi Museum this spring and summer: “Changing and Unchanging Things: Noguchi and Hasegawa in Postwar Japan.” This exhibit, running from May 1 to July 14, follows the friendship between renowned Japense artists Isamu Noguchi and Saburo Hasegawa through the art that they made together.
The Noguchi Museum is located at 9-01 33rd Road, Long Island City.
“Lived Experiences, responding to the world we live in, dream of and wish to occupy”
The Queens Public Library will showcase the work of people with mental illness in conjunction with the organization Community Access’ Art Collective.
“Art is a great connector — and the creative process helps us to learn from our experiences, engage more fully with our surroundings and to heal,” Community Access said in a statement.
The exhibition runs until May 5 at the Central Library in Jamaica, with an artists’ reception occurring on April 25 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. The Central Library is located at 89-11 Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica.
“Chronos Cosmos: Deep Time, Open Space”
Space out at Socrates Sculpture Park this season at its new deep dive into time, matter and the universe. From May 5 to Sept. 3, eight artists will explore the meaning of the cosmos and Earth’s place within it in a series of sculptures meant to help their viewers see Earth a little differently.
“Together the works reveal a coexistence of disjointed times in our contemporary world: clocked and measured time, rhythmic biological time, earthly time, the flowing time of human experience, anticipatory time, historical and anachronistic time, serial and simultaneous time, as well as technologically mediated time,” the museum’s website says.
The park’s address is 32-01 Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City.
“Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas”
The Queens Museum has brought a collection of Latin American and Latinx artists from the United States together to explore identity, experience and colonialism through the lens of science fiction.
“In the works featured in the exhibition, most created in the last two decades, artists employ the imagery of science fiction to suggest diverse modes of existence and represent “alienating” ways of being in the world,” the Queens Museum wrote on its website.
The exhibition will be on view until August 19.
“Uchronias and Dystopian Futures: Latin American Science Fiction Cinema of the 21st Century”
In conjunction with the Queens Museum’s “Mundos Alternos” exhibition, Astoria’s Museum of the Moving Image is hosting a film series showcasing 21st century Latin American science fiction until July 21. The nine films range in tone from horror to comedy to experimental, and examine the science fiction genre from a decolonized point of view.
For more information on screenings, visit movingimage.us. The museum is located at 36-01 35 Avenue in Astoria.
A work on display in “The Life I Deserve.” Gina Beavers. Smoky Eye Tutorial. 2014. Acrylic and wood on canvas panel. Image courtesy of the artist.
“Gina Beavers: The Life I Deserve”
Artist Gina Beavers explores life on the internet at MoMA PS1’s in “The Life I Deserve,” an exhibition running through Sept. 2. Taking images from the internet like photos hashtagged #FoodPorn or makeup tutorials, Beavers transforms them into visceral paintings that demarcate the gap between our physical and digital lives.
Visit MoMA PS1 at 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City.
