Before holiday fever kicks in, take advantage of all that the city’s museums and galleries have to offer. The Met’s Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now and El Museo’s triennial Flow States are rife with provocative ideas and compelling artworks by both big-name and upcoming artists. And speaking of big names, Ai Weiwei is one of the rare art world heavyweights who always seems to have something worthwhile to say. Don’t miss the opportunity to see a variety of his socially and politically incisive pieces at Brooklyn’s Faurschou. FIT’s show of Black and African diasporic fashion and a fun food-themed exhibition at Water Street Projects (with a related restaurant!) are full of delights, while Maiko Kikuchi’s performances and objects are a welcome escape from the weight of the world. — Natalie Haddad, Reviews Editor
Maiko Kikuchi: Pink Bunny
NowHere Gallery, 40 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
Through November 24
At a moment when the waking world can feel like a nightmare, what’s better than a daydream to offer respite and, perhaps, a new perspective? Multimedia artist Maiko Kikuchi’s enigmatic performances are infused with wonder and mystery but, like the daydreams that inspire her, they unfold with intention. Trained in theater arts, fashion, and sculpture, she merges these to create fantastical worlds that are at once foreign and familiar. Her professional experience with object-based theater, animation, and puppetry shines through — she’s presented performances at experimental theater venues like St. Ann’s Warehouse and La MaMa as well as art institutions. Try to get to her weekend performances (make sure to secure tickets beforehand). But if you can’t, her paintings and props are enchanting artworks in themselves. Well worth seeing on their own, they’re glimpses into the power of daydreams to sustain us. — NH
YES, CHEF and Black Caesar
Water Street Projects, 161 Water Street, South Street Seaport, Manhattan
Through December 15
This is a whole lotta fun, as this huge two-floor exhibition, curated by Water Street Projects’ curator-at-large Zoe Lukov, takes a look at food and its relationship to art. It features works by several established and emerging contemporary artists, including Claes Oldenburg, Sarah Lucas, Tania Bruguera, Jumana Manna, Lucia Hierro, Lauren Halsey, Patrisse Cullors, Janine Antoni, Zhang Huan, and Tavares Strachan, whose site-specific sculpture gives the related restaurant its name. I’m still enthralled by Chloe Wise’s chandeliers, which combine her love of culinary trompe-l’œil with fanciful baroque details that seem fitting for the topic, particularly near Wall Street — let them eat cake, indeed.
But that’s not all. Lukov entrusted chef Darrel Raymond to create a menu inspired by Strachan’s artwork about Septimius Severus — the Africa-born Roman emperor who ruled from 193–211 CE — using ingredients from North Africa and the Italian peninsula. The namesake caesar salad, for instance, uses black garlic and a strategic vertical placement of lettuce leaves to echo the sculpture itself. You can make reservations for the Friday to Sunday (lunch and dinner only) restaurant, called Black Caesar, on Resy. — Hrag Vartanian
Africa’s Fashion Diaspora
The Museum at FIT, 227 West 27th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Through December 29
This celebration of fashion in African and Black diasporic cultures demonstrates how artists can showcase and reinvigorate identity through what we wear. From a Kerry James Marshall t-shirt collaboration with Grace Wales Bonner to Telfar Clemens’s designs for the Liberian uniforms for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, there’s a fresh and vibrant energy throughout that makes the clothes all feel exciting, even when they’re decades old. This two-room exhibition, featuring 60 ensembles and accessories, is reputedly the first show to examine fashion as a mode of cross-diasporic cultural production, and it makes the case for more global perspectives on culture that transcends borders, even if it is via airplanes, malls, or screens. — HV
Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024
El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue, East Harlem, Manhattan
Through February 9, 2025
In the most recent iteration of El Museo del Barrio’s triennial exhibition, the term “Latinx” is expanded to include artists of Latin American and Caribbean descent working both in their native countries and in diasporas around the world. The result is a show that embraces the disparate, sometimes contradictory features of latinidad while exposing the fault lines of that inherently tenuous concept. I recommend spending a generous amount of time with the collages of South Florida-born artist Kathia St. Hilaire, who meticulously layers charged signifiers such as Chiquita banana stickers and skin-lightening cream to build up compositions that glisten like Haitian Vodou flags. The exhibition’s title, Flow States, plays on our elusive societal yearning for hyper-focus while conjuring questions of movement, borders, and migration. —Valentina Di Liscia
Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through February 17, 2025
Curator Akili Tommasino has done a great job of helping us understand the reception of Ancient Egyptian art by Black (mostly American) artists, including some musicians and filmmakers, in this newly opened exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fred Wilson’s now iconic “Grey Area (Brown Version)” (1993) is at the core of this show, as the artist renders Nerfertiti’s bust in six versions that range from pale beige to dark brown. The colors also appear to echo throughout the exhibition in the choice of wall colors for various rooms.
Tommasino’s selection is strong and diverse — it includes Betye Saar, Renee Cox, Irene Clark, Damien Davis, Kara Walker, EJ Hill, and many others. He even allots a gallery to modern Egyptian responses to Ancient Egypt, though the connection with the rest of the show is a little unclear considering definitions of Black are not the same in the SWANA region. Overall, his exploration of the legacy of Egypt shows how the spirit of one of the world’s oldest and most monumental civilizations continues to resonate for those who can find empowerment in it. One of my favorite moments when viewing the show was when a Black woman looked at the Fred Wilson sculptures, held up her hand next to a bust that almost matched her hue, then turned to her friend and asked, “Which one are you?” — HV
Ai Weiwei: What You See Is What You See
Faurschou New York, 148 Green Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Through February 23, 2025
This large exhibition focuses on Ai Weiwei’s toy brick works (both Lego and WOMA), which mostly transform well-known Western paintings with a twist — here, a coathanger near Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus” (c. 1510) alludes to many things, including her nudity, but also debates around abortion. Other artworks incorporate photographs that have their own Rorschach quality, like the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, which continues to have dire impacts on the German economy. The display is supplemented by a few sculptures, including a work from his Roots series and another titled “Combat Vases” (2023), comprised of 90 porcelain helmets resembling those from World War II. The tone of the exhibition is somber and slightly cold, like a forensic examination of a culture on life support. This is a necessary show. — HV
