Editors’ Picks: 6 Great Art and Design Events This Week

Here is Galerie’s curated list of must-see art and design events this week, from ICFF to a new show in East Hampton curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody.

Matt Keegan’s What Was & What Is installed at Court Square Park. Photo: SculptureCenter

1. Matt Keegan’s What Was & What Is
SculptureCenter

For SculptureCenter’s fourth annual Public Process program, the museum has commissioned New York artist Matt Keegan to create a new sculpture on Long Island City’s Court Square Park. The eight-foot-tall rectangular structure titled What Was & What Is is pulled from a developer’s comment in a 2017 New York Times article on urban development in the area. Visitors will find a monumental empty structure comprising four walls and a dollhouse view on the floor of an empty one-bedroom rental apartment. A talk on Thursday evening Keegan and his father will share their personal experiences of urban development, and the transformation of living and working in New York City. —Lucy Rees 

Where: Court Square Park, Long Island City

When: May 19–August 18; seminar: May 23, 6–7 p.m.

2. UBS Art Gallery Opens
UBS

New Yorkers will get a chance to see works from the 30,000-strong UBS Art Collection. Located in midtown, the bank’s first New York art space, dubbed UBS Art Gallery, will feature rotating special exhibitions drawn from the permanent collection alongside permanent installations by iconic artists Sarah Morris, Frank Stella, Fred Eversley, Howard Hodgkin, and more. Opening May 20, the first exhibition, “A History and a Moment: Works from the UBS Art Collection,” offers insights into the history and evolution of the collection since the 1960s, featuring works by established artists such as Ellsworth Kelly and Cindy Sherman alongside recent acquisitions by Dinh Q. Lê and Xaviera Simmons. —L.R.

Where: 1285 Avenue of the Americas, New York

When: May 20 6–8 p.m.

3. ICFF
Javits Center

There’s always an abundance of treasures at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), NYCxDESIGN’s marquee event, which returns to the city for its 31st edition with over 900 exhibitors from around the world. One of the leading platforms of luxury interior design, the sprawling show is open to trade professionals from May 19 to 21 and opens to the public on May 22. —Geoffrey Montes

Where: 655 West 34th Street, New York

When: May 19–22

Joe Overstreet, Untitled, 1970. Photo: Eric Firestone Gallery

4. “Go Figure!”
Eric Firestone Gallery

This group show, curated by collector and curator Beth Rudin DeWoody, is meant to serve as a dialogue between contemporary figurative artists with their counterparts from the mid-20th century. The artists include talents like Diedrick Brackens, Natalie Frank, Liz Markus, Walter Robinson, Ruby Sky Stiler, and Yelena Yemchuk, along with Elaine de Kooning, Alex Katz, and Tom Wesselman. “There are many young artists who are looking back to some of the great figurative artists of the mid-20th century, putting their own 21st-century influences and viewpoints onto the works.” —Rozalia Jovanovic

Where: 4 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, New York

When: Opening reception: Saturday, May 25, 5–8 p.m.

Private apartment in Saint-Germain in Paris by Dimore Studio. Photo: Mai Linh

5. Launch of Interiors: The Greatest Rooms of the Century
ABC Carpet & Home

Respected Phaidon editor William Norwich has made quite a splash with his new book, Interiors: The Greatest Rooms of the Century, for which he’s compiled 400 of the most stunning spaces conceived between 1903 to 2017. (Among the standout rooms are Coco Chanel’s Paris salon and the Doge’s suite at Hearst Castle.) Norwich will be leading a panel that includes New York magazine design editor Wendy Goodman and interior designer David Netto. —G.M.

Where: 888 Broadway, New York

When: May 20, 6:30 p.m.

6. Bellwethers: The Culture of Controversy
The Drawing Center

The editors of Affidavit team up with curator and writer Alison Gingeras for “Bellwethers: The Culture of Controversy,” a series of talks at The Drawing Center. The first one kicks off this week with the subject of manifestos, inviting painter Sam McKinniss, writer Audrey Wollen, New School philosophy professor and anarcho-feminist Chiara Bottici, and poet laureate Adrian Matejka to read from their manifestos. (McKinniss writes about how artists should be, and Wollen writes about how men should be.) —R.J.

When: May 21, 6:30 p.m.

Where: The Drawing Center