East Broadway & Grand St – Vandal Lust, Image Wars & Frame

The Abrons Arts Center at the Henry Street Settlement has three great exhibitions right now, so get yourself down to the Lower East Side! Take the F to East Broadway, and stop at Café Petisco for their outstanding coconut-crusted chicken sandwich! (Honestly, lunch at this charmer is worth the trip alone.)  
After you’ve sampled the fantastic offerings at Café Petisco, head east on East Broadway and visit Ramiken Crucible for Vandal Lust. Note: arriving at this gallery feels a bit like approaching a crime scene because Andra Ursuta’s massive sculpture fills the space with the depiction of a medieval-esque catapult that has launched a body into a plaster wall. The piece is a strange mash-up of movement and ultimate stillness, fantasy and nightmare, strength and fragility, human invention and divine design, and it is totally unnerving.

Tear yourself away and walk over to the Henry Street Settlement, Abrons Arts Center. There you’ll find a deeply personal and sincere show called Image Wars in which artists have responded to and commented on the way we experience visual representations of war and conflict in our oversaturated globalized society. Particularly telling is Carlos Noronha Feio’s Afghan-style rug.

Next check out Frame in the Upper Main Gallery. Artist Chelsea Knight presents a group of male construction workers building the frame of a house while reciting texts from feminist theory. It is a survey of societal norms, structure and progress, and it is a Cooperative Actions project, supported by Moving Theater.

Before you leave Abrons Arts Center, you must see Deb Sokolow: Notes on Denver International Airport and The New World Order. It is an inventive, ingenious presentation of works on paper from a fictionalized investigation by an “armchair detective” named “You.” Using common office materials like memos, emails and floor plans, Sokolow will have your mind whirling with conspiracy theory by the time you’re through. 

Ingredients:

Venues: Henry Street Settlement Abrons Arts Center; Ramiken Crucible

Artists: Chelsea Knight; Yevgeniy Fiks, Rinat Kotler, Michael Mandiberg, Carlos Noronha Feio, Mary Temple, Kai-Oi Jay Yung; Deb Sokolow

Streets: East Broadway, Grand St to Canal St

Eats: Café Petisco

Map: