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Free events for Thursday, 05/02/24
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Free Events, Free Things to Do in New York City!  Read More

Are you looking for free things to do in New York City (NYC) on May 2, 2024?

50 free events take place on Thursday, May 2 in New York City. Don't miss the opportunities that only New York provides! Exciting, high quality, unique and off the beaten path free events and free things to do take place in New York today, tonight, tomorrow and each day of the year, any time of the day: whether it's a weekday or a weekend, day or night, morning or evening or afternoon, December or July, April or November! These events will take your breath away!

New York City (NYC) never ceases to amaze you with quantity and quality of its free culture and free entertainment. Check out May 2 and see for yourself. Summer or Winter, Spring or Fall! Just click on any day of the calendar above and you'll find most inspiring and entertaining free events to go to and free things to do on each day of May . Don't miss the opportunities that only New York provides!

Some events take place all year long: same day of the week, same time there are there for you to take advantage of. One of the oldest free weekly events in Manhattan is Dixieland Jazz with the Gotham Jazzmen, which happen at noon every Tuesday. Another example of an event that you can attend all year round on weekdays is Federal Reserve Bank Tour, which takes place every week day at 1 pm (but advanced reservations are required). You can take at least 13 free tours every day of the year, except the New Year Day, July 4th, and the Christmas Day. If you are classical music afficionado, you can spend whole day in New York going from one free classical concert to another. If you love theater, then New York gives you an option to attend plays and musicals free of charge, or at deep discount. You just need to have information about it. And we are here to make that information available to you.
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The quality and quantity of
free events,
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every day of the year
is truly amazing.

So don't miss the opportunities
that only New York provides:
stop wondering what to do;
start taking advantage of
free events to go to,
free things to do in NYC
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50 free things to do in New York City (NYC) on Thursday, May 2, 2024

All events are free unless otherwise noted.

Editor's Picks

free events nyc October 7th, 06:29AM: An Immersive Exhibition on Nova Music Festival Massacre
free events nyc Works by Monteverdi and More for Voice, Harpischord, and Lute (In Person AND Online!
free events nyc Al-Qaeda: A Threat Evolved?
free events nyc Dance Party: Disco
free events nyc Fearless Prog-Funk-Jazz-Pop-Soul Quintet
More Editor's Picks for 05/02/24
        

Discussion | Chinese Global Infrastructure (online)


This panel discusses China’s diversifying role in global infrastructure development. Prof. Austin Strange will provide an overview of the scale and scope of China’s overseas infrastructure using large datasets he developed. Prof. Wendy Leutert and Dr Isaac Kardon will discuss China’s global port development involvement and its economic and security implications. Prof. Oscar Otele will introduce China’s involvement in railway development. He will delve into local elite collusion and contestation in the largest infrastructure investment in Kenya since its independence, financed by China. Dr. Andrea Pollio will use years of fieldwork in Kenya and South Africa to outline China’s growing involvement in digital infrastructure in Africa and its implications for urban growth and entrepreneurship development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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9:00 am
Free

Tour | 13 Tours, All City Neighborhoods, Any Time Of The Day, Choose One Tour Or Many


These free tours take place at various times during the day, all day long. You can make reservations for as many tours as your schedule allows. SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights + DUMBO 3 Hour Lower Manhattan Harlem Chelsea and the High Line 6 Hour Downtown Combined Greenwich Village Central Park Lower Manhattan Midtown Manhattan Grand Central Terminal Graffiti and Street Art Tours World Trade Center
   New York City, NY; NYC
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10:00 am
Free

Fair | October 7th, 06:29AM: An Immersive Exhibition on Nova Music Festival Massacre


To celebrate the end of his two years of service as a medic in the Israel Defense Forces' paratrooper division, Tomer Meir joined 13 of his friends at the Nova Musica Festival on the weekend of October 6 in Re'im in southern Israel. It was his first ever music festival. "It was the best moments of my life. I can't explain the state we were in," the 21-year-old told the New York Jewish Week. "It was pure love -- people dancing, laughing, smiling. All the good stuff that we're living for." Until 6:29 a.m. on Saturday morning. The red alerts, the rockets and the running. "The music stopped. The rockets started. We started running for our lives," Meir said. Meir is a survivor of the Nova Music Festival Massacre, where Hamas militants killed 364 festival-goers and took at least 40 hotstages on the morning of Oct. 7. Six months after the attack, Meir is in New York sharing his story as part of an interactive exhibit about that day, which he says is helping him heal. The Nova Musical Festival exhibition, titled October 7th, 06:29AM, is an immersive step into what it was like to be at the festival when it was attacked. Screens show clips from the attack on Nova are displayed next to personal and camping items taken from the festival recreating the festival layout. The exhibit, which debuted in Tel Aviv for 10 weeks in December, was created by Israeli designers and cultural producers, many of whom were producers with the Nova Music Festival itself. It was brought to New York with the help of Scooter Braun, the Jewish-American music producer and philanthropist. The exhibit recreates the visuals and sounds of the Nova Music Festival massacre. But the New York version is in some ways "more intense," according to Yael Finkelstein, a volunteer who collected items from the Nova site and helped set up both the Tel Aviv and New York exhibit. New elements at the New York exhibit include dozens of video testimonies from survivors, Zaka volunteers and family members, as well as graphic raw footage taken on Oct. 7 from both festival-goers and Hamas militants. In addition, survivors of the massacre such as Meir and Sassi will be at the exhibit every day to share their stories and answer questions. Their goal, Meir said, is to show New Yorkers that the horror they experienced could happen to anyone.
   New York City, NY; NYC
10:00 am
$3

Fair | Street Fair


Free fun for the whole family, including arts, crafts, antiques, plants, entertainment, games, and more.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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10:00 am
Free

Film | Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) with Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn


When Joanna Drayton, a free-thinking white woman, and Black doctor John Prentice become engaged, they travel to San Francisco to meet her parents. Matt Drayton and his wife Christina are wealthy liberals who must confront the latent racism the coming marriage arouses. Also attending the Draytons' dinner are Prentice's parents, who vehemently disapprove of the relationship. Director: Stanley Kramer Cast: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton Spencer Tracy was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor, from nine nominations. During his career, he appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screen's greatest actors. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Tracy as the 9th greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Sidney Poitier was a Bahamian and American actor, film director, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received two competitive Golden Globe Awards and a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. Poitier was one of the last major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Katharine Hepburn was an American actress whose career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned six decades. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, cultivating a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly playing strong-willed, sophisticated women. She worked in a varied range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and earned her various accolades, including four Academy Awards for Best Actress--a record for any performer.
   New York City, NY; NYC
11:00 am
Free

Symposium | Institutional Psychotherapy: Legacy and Constellations of Francesc Tosquelles (online)


Situated at the intersection of art and psychiatry, the exhibition Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut explores for the first time in the United States the legacy of Catalan psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles. After fleeing the Nationalist government of Franco amidst the Spanish Civil War, Tosquelles arrived in 1940 at the Saint-Alban psychiatric hospital in Southern France, where he devised a series of revolutionary psychiatric practices. This symposium will draw from the themes and contributions featured in the multi-author English accompanying publication (edited by AFAM’s exhibition co-curators Carles Guerra, Joana Masó, Valérie Rousseau and Edward Dioguardi), as well as by Joana Masó’s English anthology on Tosquelles.  Conceived as an interdisciplinary dialogue, this online symposium will chart the history of the Saint-Alban “asylum-village,” while studying past and present significance of “institutional psychotherapy”. Akin to Tosquelles’ methodologies and epistemologies, the symposium will not offer a doctrinal survey about pioneering psychiatry and occupational therapy. Instead, the presentations will guide us through experiences, artworks and archival materials to reexamine mental health history and reconsider it in a larger political, social, and cultural context. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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11:00 am
Free

Gallery Talk | Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut: Exhibition Tour


Co-curators behind the scenes of Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut, which explores for the first time in the United States the legacy of Catalan psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles. The four curators will walk through the exhibition's artworks, archival documents and films, opening up a new window on psychiatry and its connections to art, literature and French theory.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Richard Diebenkorn: Figures and Faces


From the artist: "With the small paintings of heads, I would like the expression of the whole surface to be felt as the nature of the subject's character (as opposed to the facial expression and the facial form presenting the character)."
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free

Workshop | Learn Juggling in the Park


Get in a quick lesson, stay for the whole time, or just enjoy watching them put their skills to the test. They're a friendly group and open to drop-ins, even if you catch them outside of the regular juggling lessons. All skill levels welcome. Equipment is provided.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free

Lecture | Violent Backlash to Political Reform: Evidence from Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the 1905 Russian Revolution


Local violence often accompanies moments of momentous political change, as feelings of political threat intersect with preexisting prejudice to endanger groups popularly associated with reform. This talk examines the relationship between such violence and demographics in the context of the 1905 Russian Revolution, which triggered numerous anti-Jewish pogroms. Counter to an extensive literature that emphasizes the contribution to conflict of ethnoreligious polarization, we show that the sharp increase in pogroms after October 1905, when publication of the October Manifesto and accompanying anti-Semitic propaganda increased feelings of political threat among many non-Jews, was smaller in settlements with relatively large Jewish populations. The talk demonstrates that this empirical pattern can be rationalized with the Esteban-Ray (2008) model of conflict when, as with the October Manifesto, political reform systematically alters the distribution of benefits across groups. Speaker Scott Gehlbach is the Elise and Jack Lipsey Professor in the Department of Political Science, the Harris School of Public Policy, and the College at the University of Chicago.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | Bach at Noon (In Person and Online)


Take a momentary respite from a busy day to enjoy a selection of organ works by Johann Sebastian Bach in an intimate venue.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:20 pm
Free

Conference | Latin America on the Move


12:30 pm - Welcome Michael Cohen, Director, Observatory on Latin America Juan Tokatlian, Professor, Universidad de Torcuato di Tella, Buenos Aires 1:00 pm: Continental Governance Moderator: Peter Hoffman, Director, Julien Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs Speakers: Sandra Borda, Professor, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia Andreas Feldman Pietsch, Professor, Latin America and Latin Studies and Political Science, University of Illinois Tomás González, Centro Regional de Estudios de Energía (CREE), Bogotá, Colombia. Discussant: Enrique Desmond Arias, Marxe Chair of Western Hemisphere Affairs and Professor, Baruch College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York 2:30: The Impact of the US 2024 Elections on Latin America Moderator: TBA Speakers: Ana Covarrubias, Professor, El Colegio de México, Mexico City Juan Tokatlian, Professor, Universidad de Torcuato di Tella, Buenos Aires Discussant: Michael Cohen, Director, Observatory on Latin America
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:30 pm
Free

Concert | Piano in the Park


Come on by and tap your toes to The Big Apple's finest ragtime, stride, and jazz pianists around! Featuring special events and performances by distinguished musicians. Today's pianist: Terry Waldo.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:30 pm
Free

Tour | Urban Farm Tour


Take a tour to learn about how they grow produce and support local wildlife in the heart of downtown New York City.     
   New York City, NY; NYC
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1:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | Works by Monteverdi and More for Voice, Harpischord, and Lute (In Person AND Online!


Madeline Apple Healey, soprano; Margaret Carpenter Haigh, soprano; Elisa Sutherland, mezzo-soprano; Nicolas Haigh, harpsichord; Adam Cockerham, lute, perform works by Francesca Caccini (1587-1640), Luzzasco Luzzaschi (1545-1607), Monteverdi (1567-1643), and Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677).
   New York City, NY; NYC
1:15 pm
Free

Film | The Book of Clarence (2024): drama


A down-on-his-luck man struggles to find a better life for his family while fighting to free himself of debt. Captivated by the power and glory of the rising Messiah, he risks everything to carve his own path to a divine life, ultimately discovering that the redemptive power of belief may be his only way out. Director: Jeymes Samuel Cast: LaKeith Stanfield, Omar Sy, Anna Diop
   New York City, NY; NYC
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2:00 pm
Free

Hike | Spring Wildflower Hike


Explore which plants are in bloom in our parks! Learn how to identify different species of flowers and pick up some botany basics on this engaging and educational hike.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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3:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Barbara Nessim: That '70s Show


This show is a joint project in which 19 New York galleries highlight an artist who made work during the 1970s. We are pleased to present paintings and works on paper by barrier-breaking artist Barbara Nessim (b.1939, lives and works in New York, NY). Nessim, who forged a career in magazine illustration at a time when there were very few women working in the field, developed a painterly vocabulary of brilliantly colored forms and recurrent motifs which reflected the visual zeitgeist of the early 1970s. Our presentation will focus on her abstract landscape paintings which depict concepts for sculptural installations and incorporate a dynamic ribbon motif. We will also expand the context, by including several concurrently made works on paper of Nessim’s iconic WomanGirls, nubile dancers who brandish the ribbons as a kind of prop.  
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Dance Performance | Die No Die: Dance in the Park


Matty Davis is an artist and choreographer engaged in collaborative explorations of risk, trust, responsibility, and empathy. His work predominantly manifests in performance and dance. Davis foregrounds the body as a means to enliven tensions inherent in our being—between fragility and strength, the individual and the collective, and life and death. His performances are characterized by their intense physicality and inventive choreography, often orchestrated to be directly responsive to and engaged with his audience. Die No Die is a site-responsive work undertaken by Davis and five collaborators—Nile Harris, Chloé Cooper Jones, Anna Thompson, Taylor Knight, and Bryan Saner. The performers and the audience traverse the park together. Each performer navigates the work’s choreographic structure in four parts: ‘The Critical Gesture of Arrival,’ ‘The Gem,’ ‘Send the Heart Deeper,’ and ‘Oppositional States.’ This happens one performer at a time, in linear succession, at six pre-determined stops along the High Line. Each performer signals to the next through the felt beat of their hearts—the heart signifying a baton in the relay of life—and in the forward motion of performance itself.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Birdwatching | Evening Birding Tour


Discover the surprising diversity of birds that call the park home during migratory season, with guided tours led by environmental educator and urban naturalist Gabriel Willow. The park is a hotspot for avian visitors and birders alike. Past sightings include warblers, tanagers, vireos, thrushes, and even a Chuck-will’s-widow!
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Talk | On Getting The Life You Want: Psychoanalysis With Pragmatism


British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips aims to show the compatibility of psychoanalysis and American pragmatism. Pragmatism without psychoanalysis can seem naive, psychoanalysis without pragmatism can seem unduly coercive and essentialist.
   New York City, NY; NYC
5:00 pm
Free

Film | CANCELLED: The Way It Is or Eurydice in the Avenues (1985) with Steve Buscemi


This film features the screen debut of Steve Buscemi as well as appearances by Vincent Gallo, Mark Boone Junior and Rockets Redglare. It tells the story of a group of actors who have been rehearsing Jean Cocteau's Orpheus in New York City's East Village when the body of a young woman is found on a grassy knoll in Tompkins Square Park. Eurydice, the lead actress, is dead. The actors examine their relationships with her in order to unravel the mystery of her demise. Each actor is also a suspect. The actors' memories, the underworld of Cocteau's play and the East Village milieu become inextricably entwined. Play becomes life: seduction, betrayal, death. Final scenes underline the tragedy of Eurydice, as well as the end of an era in the East Village: scorched tenements, the Mudd Club, and "new wave" punk. Director: Eric Mitchell Cast: Steve Buscemi, Vincent Gallo, Mark Boone Junior, Rockets Redglare Steve Buscemi is known for his work as an acclaimed character actor. His early credits consist of major roles in independent film productions such as the AIDS drama Parting Glances (1986), Mystery Train (1989), In the Soup (1992), and his breakout role as Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992). Buscemi has received numerous awards and nominations for his performances in film and television. He won both a Golden Glob Award and a Primtime Emmy Award and has been nominated for both numerous times.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:30 pm
Free

Opening Reception | 2 Art Shows: Thinking in Trees / Limbo


Alexi Worth: Thinking in Threes Alexi Worth presents a group of three-part paintings, colorful and puzzling ensembles of disparate images. “More like triplets than triptychs,” as Worth describes them, the new works resemble rebuses or comics sequences, bands of adjoining, semi-independent pictures that complicate and complement each other. Each has a different scale, touch, and temperament, a different claim to our attention. Together, they create an associative, subtly enriched kind of pictorial experience. Amy Cutler: Limbo Known for her intricate, narrative paintings and drawings of women and hybrid beings absorbed in enigmatic tasks, Amy Cutler’s latest works evoke points of transition. Her reoccurring, symbolic imagery gives form to latent thoughts and feelings, building a layered world of visual metaphors. Images of horses, turtles, boats, and travelers’ bags reoccur, invoking themes of time, movement, and progress––often impeded. These surreal narratives make sharp observations about individual and collective struggles, obsessions, and dilemmas. The burdens carried and labor performed by the women in Cutler’s paintings are suspended in action, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions.  
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | A Chromatic Affair: A 3-Artist Show


An exhibition featuring paintings and sculptures by Latchezar Boyadjiev, Gadi Fraiman, and Belle Roth. The show investigates the artists’ personal relationships with color and the significance it holds in conveying messages and emotions.  Bulgarian sculptor Latchezar Boyadjiev stands as a leading figure in contemporary glass art, with an impressive 50 solo exhibitions marking his career. Latchezar Boyadjiev’s monochromatic creations gracefully inhabit the space, casting an aura of ethereal beauty. Evocative of the female body, they curve elegantly along fragmented color planes, each sculpture vibrating at a different energetic frequency. Through the sensual intersection of light, color, and form Boyadjiev integrates beauty into modern architecture and contemporary environments.  A recent addition to the gallery, Gadi Fraiman has maintained a successful sculptural practice in Israel for three decades, creating large-scale statues from stone, and more recently bronze and stainless steel. Fraiman displays two bronze and stainless steel pieces from his newest Balloon Girl series, which portrays young children gleefully immersed in play, symbolizing the innocence and joy of childhood. The exhibition also features two colored bronze sculptures by the artist, Swan and Colored Tango, an exploration of the effect of color on our lives and emotions.  Filipino-American painter Belle Roth will present her newest collection of abstract acrylic paintings, evolving from her signature patterned aesthetic. The pieces feature one or two large circles in the center of the canvas amidst vibrant splashes of color, as symbols of simplicity and peace amidst everyday chaos. Through appeasing blue and pearl tones, each artwork offers stillness to the gaze, reflecting the artist’s quest for balance. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Performance | Hildegard, Reborn: A Show About a Composer, Writer, Spiritual leader, and the First German Naturalist Scientist


Hildegard, Reborn, a new show by Rocky Duval, is a unique look at the life and work of the extraordinary personality, Hildegard von Bingen. Despite the immense challenges of life in the 12th century, von Bingen made her mark as a musical composer, writer, spiritual leader, the first German naturalist scientist, and is today considered a pioneer of feminism and holistic healing. Using personal and professional correspondence as a primary source of inspiration, Hildegard, Reborn elevates and amplifies the voice of this incredible historical figure. Hildegard has been venerated throughout history, but her day to day life was full of controversy, sorrow, joy, and longing. Like us, Hildegard was deeply human and Reborn spotlights her views on everything from politics and women’s rights to healing and exorcisms.  Hildegard is perhaps most famous for her musical compositions, and Rocky Duval has infused her signature cross-genre approach in a show that takes us on a musical journey that includes unique arrangements of Hildegard’s songs, as well as original compositions, based on Hildegard’s compositional style.  Hildegard, Reborn allows Hildegard to speak for herself in a light, modern way that connects our common humanity. Registration required.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Huong Dodinh: Transcendence


The show, which marks the artist’s first- ever solo presentation in the US, will bring together paintings and works on paper she has created over the course of her career, from the 1960s to the present day. Coinciding with the 2024 edition of Frieze New York, the show will be accompanied by a new catalogue from Pace Publishing, which will be released during the exhibition. Dodinh was born in Soc Trang, Vietnam in 1945. Forced to flee the country, her family sought refuge in Paris in 1953 after the outbreak of the First Indochina War. Dodinh has lived and worked in the French capital ever since, cultivating a solitary life in service of her artistic pursuits. Insulating herself from art market trends, she has maintained a commitment to authenticity, purity, contemplation, and truth in her work since she began painting in the 1960s.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Lubaina Himid: Street Sellers


A new series of paintings as well as works on paper and domestic objects. For decades, Himid’s vibrant and incisive artworks have operated in the gaps of the historical record, lending lush visibility to issues of labor, migration, and the human toll of empire. Her latest cycle of paintings affirms the dignity of work through depictions of street vendors who ply their wares, outfitted with the tools of their particular trade and seen on a grand scale. Here the genre of the full-length portrait—long the domain of aristocrats and monarchs—is recast with new protagonists, shown deep in thought yet fully at one with their respective métiers. Asserting the centrality of Black subjects to art historical arenas long denied them, Himid contends that she is “not a painter in the strictest sense,” but rather “a political strategist who uses a visual language to encourage conversation, argument, change.”
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Lucas Arruda: Assum Preto


May 2–June 15, 2024 New York | 537 West 20th Street Opening reception: Thursday, May 2, 6⁠–⁠8 PM Arruda’s fourth exhibition with the gallery will feature new seascapes, junglescapes, and abstract monochromes—all part of the artist’s ongoing Deserto-Modelo series—as well as a site-specific installation that translates the genre of landscape into its most elemental form.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Ming Smith: On the Road


A selection of photographs from the artist’s archive that encapsulates the arc of her exploratory impulses as she sought and probed new subject matter and formal innovation from 1970 through 1993. Encompassing never-before-seen vintage and contemporary prints of images captured during her travels around the world, On the Road embodies the spirit of adventure and curiosity that advanced Smith’s singular entry into, and scrutiny of, the provinces of urban existence, nature’s quietude, family intimacy, popular culture, military life, and jazz milieus. In the 1970s in New York, Smith’s practice was propelled by inquiry—both through her immersion in the Kamoinge Workshop and her preoccupation with the ideas of prominent twentieth-century American and European photographers. Cultivating her own radical sensibility in early experiments, she alluded to the virtuosity of Brassaï, Roy DeCarava, Diane Arbus, and Robert Frank. These artists set a tempo upon which Smith developed her own dexterity in portraiture, landscape, and street photography—highly attuned to the textures, geometries, and thrums pulsing through every spectrum of life. She recognized the haunting allure of an oil-slicked roadside and the liquid lightning of brass instruments in musicians’ animated hands. Smith listens through her camera, sensitive to the harmony and dissonance that enliven her subjects and surroundings. At times, it is easy to forget that she works in a static medium, since each photograph transports its viewer into the energetic nucleus of the moment she captures. Through paint application, double exposure, and low shutter speed, Smith pushes photography’s form to the point of its brim and break. Like harnessing a memory, Smith underlines the evanescent—at once vivid and obscure.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide


From Edgar Award–winning novelist, playwright, and story-songwriter Rupert Holmes comes a diabolical thriller with a killer concept: The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts, “a fantasy academy laid out like a combination of Hogwarts, Downton Abbey, and a White Lotus–style resort” (Los Angeles Times) dedicated to the art of murder where students study how best to “delete” their most deserving victim.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Neil Jenney: Idealism Is Unavoidable


Balancing idealism and realism, Jenney's landscape paintings are highly stylized and rendered with a careful attention to detail. Begun in 1971, the Good Paintings are differentiated from Jenney's previous body of work, which he designated as Bad Paintings (1969-70) after curator Marcia Tucker's 1978 New Museum exhibition "Bad" Painting, which included his work. Painted in acrylic in a loose, gestural style, the Bad Paintings represent relationships between people and things, while upending preconceptions of connoisseurship and "good taste." The Good Paintings are instead exacting studies of nature in oil paint on wooden panels. Jenney's Good Paintings impart the experience of observing the North American landscape at close range, in contrast with the expansive vistas of untamed wilderness typical of the historical Hudson River School. While describing the natural world, many of the works also remind us that the environment is never far removed from human intervention. Jenney's handmade black wooden frames are integral to these works, which he regards as "painted sculpture." Playing off the classical conception of a painting as a window into fictive space, the frames create an architectural foreground, asserting their status as physical objects. The works' mediated nature is further emphasized by the inclusion of titles stenciled in uppercase serif lettering.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Soul by Soul: The Evangelical Mission to Spread the Gospel to Muslims (in-person and online)


A special conversation to celebrate the publication by Adriana Carranca, a graduate who covers conflicts and human rights. She was awarded the OPC Foundation's Harper’s Magazine Scholarship in Memory of I.F. Stone in 2018. She will be joined by Graciela Mochkofsky, Dean of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, and Sarah Stillman, staff writer at The New Yorker. The conversation will be moderated by Samuel Freedman, Professor of Journalism at Columbia Journalism School with welcome remarks from Patricia Kranz, Executive Director of the Overseas Press Club. Based on over a decade of research and reporting, Soul by Soul is a riveting journey that follows the pilgrimage of a Brazilian family through the underground passages of the global evangelical movement as it clashes with militant Islamic groups in the Middle East and South Asia.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Film | Thief of Bagdad (1940): historical fantasy


Deceived and deposed by his sinister adviser, Jaffar, Ahmad, the King of Bagdad, must find a way to reclaim his throne. Enlisting the unlikely assistance of a thief named Abu, Ahmad soon meets a beautiful princess and embarks on a series of adventures involving a genie, a flying carpet, and other fantastical elements. Eventually, Ahmad and Abu must face off against Jaffar, who will stop at nothing to hold on to power. Directors: Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger, Tim Whelan Cast: Conrad Veidt, Sabu, June Duprez, John Justin, Rex Ingram, Mary Morris
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Yamini Nayar: Ouroboros


Nayar chooses the image of the ouroboros - a snake biting its own tail, which symbolizes the cyclical renewal of life, death and rebirth - as a metaphor for her own creative process. Guided by the knowledge of her "hand”, the artist builds materially-invested, often life-size assemblages using ubiquitously available materials such as paper, plaster, studio detritus and printed ephemera. During this cumulative process of building, taking apart, "risking ruin" and burrowing into, ideas emerge intuitively, often springing from the subconscious. Once recognized, Nayar then clarifies and enriches what is coming to the fore, tapping into her own bodies of research such as Alchemy and Myth. These assemblages are built for the camera apparatus, which not only gives permanence to their continuously shifting gestalt, but also serves as the photographic "eye”.    Departing from Nayar's previous concerns with modernist architecture's singularity and it's preoccupation with "the line", as exemplified in such works as Chrysalis (2013), this new body of work privileges organic, more natural forms to suggest the feminine, the ornamental, the body and Eros. Completely built by hand, Nayar's work questions the fundamental shift in our relationship to the environment as it emerged in the Renaissance when architectural drawing became the primary site of exploration, distancing concept from execution, thus putting into play our extractive relationship to the environment.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Discussion | Al-Qaeda: A Threat Evolved?


Almost three years after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, the current state of al-Qaeda looms large. According to a recent United Nations report, key al-Qaeda allies have since consolidated power in Afghanistan, providing the group with favorable conditions to evolve. Defense policy researcher and counterterrorism expert, Sara Harmouch, argues "dispelling myths of its decline, al-Qaeda remains a resilient and evolving force, continually refining its methods." Together in conversation with Museum Director Clifford Chanin, Harmouch discusses the relationship between al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the current standing of al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the region, and what this all means for the U.S. and the complex threat landscape it currently faces.
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:00 pm
Free

Dancing | Dance Party: Disco


Superb bands and expert dance instruction 6pm: Hustle Instruction 7pm: Live Dance Music with The Disco Nights "Everybody Dance" like it's Studio 54 - from ?the Bee Gees to ?Donna Summer to Chic and so much more, it's ?Saturday Night Fever all over again! The Disco Nights includes incredible vocalists Alessandra Guercio, Jerome Bell and Adam Bastien from American Idol and The Voice. Backed by one of the tightest veteran bands of the New York City music scene, including Musical Director and Billboard-charting superstar JJ Sansaverino on guitar, Stanley Banks on the bass, Etienne Lytle and Patrick Firth on the keys, Damon DueWhite on the drums, and Danny Sadownick on percussion. Join The Disco Nights as they take you on a musical adventure back into the Disco scene!
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Mean Boys: A Personal History


Author Geoffrey Mak presents a ferocious inquiry into art and desire, style and politics, madness and salvation, and coming of age in our volatile, image-obsessed present. You know them when you see them: mean boys take up space, wielding cruelty to claim their place in the pecking order. Some mean boys make art or music or fashion; others make memes. Mean boys stomp the runways in Milan and Paris; mean boys marched at Charlottesville. And in the eyes of critic and style expert Geoffrey Mak, mean boys are the emblem of our society: an era ravenous for novelty, always thirsting for the next edgy thing, even at our peril. In this pyrotechnic memoir-in-essays, Mak ranges widely over our landscape of paranoia, crisis, and frenetic, clickable consumption. He grants readers an inside pass to the spaces where culture was made and unmade over the past decade, from the antiseptic glare of white-walled galleries to the darkest corners of Berlin techno clubs. As the gay son of an evangelical minister, Mak fled to those spaces, hoping to join a global, influential elite. But when calamity struck, it forced Mak to confront the costs of mistaking status for belonging. Fusing personal essay and cultural critique, Mean Boys investigates exile and return, transgression and forgiveness, and the value of faith, empathy, and friendship in a world designed to make us want what is bad for us.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:30 pm
$5

Conference | Vienna 1900: Birth of a Visionary Movement


The opening panel of a two-day conference with renowned experts from Austria, the US and Great Britain. Vienna 1900 has become a hallmark for the city's outstanding innovative capacities in formulating modern thought and highlighting the paradoxes of modernity. Renowned experts from Austria, the US and Great Britain will present the latest research on this topic and reflect on potentialities for cultural and societal innovation in the 2020s.
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:30 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Choice by Neel Mukherjee (In Person AND Online!)


Neel Mukherjee has been called “one of the most original and talented authors working today.” In his new novel, Choice, he assembles a set of connected narratives that ask us how free we really are to make our own choices. From a London-based publisher set adrift by questions of how to live ethically, to an impoverished family on the West Bengal—Bangladesh border unmoored by the unexpected gift of a cow, Mukherjee confronts our fundamental assumptions about economics, race, appropriation, and the tangled ethics of contemporary life. He speaks with novelist and editor-in-chief of T Magazine Hanya Yanagihara.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | The Cancer Journals: Audre Lord's Devastating Memoir


First published over forty years ago, The Cancer Journals is a startling, powerful account of Audre Lorde's experience with breast cancer and mastectomy. Long before narratives explored the silences around illness and women's pain, Lorde questioned the rules of conformity for women's body images and supported the need to confront physical loss not hidden by prosthesis. Living as a "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," Lorde heals and re-envisions herself on her own terms and offers her voice, grief, resistance, and courage to those dealing with their own diagnosis. Poetic and profoundly feminist, Lorde's testament gives visibility and strength to women with cancer to define themselves, and to transform their silence into language and action.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
$5

Play | The Great Magic: Illusion and Delusion


On the 40th anniversary of one of the most important Italian playwrights Eduardo De Filippo’s death, Rosario Sparno presents his own adaptation for only three actors of this 1948 play by De Filippo about theatrical illusion and obsessional delusion.  In Italian with English supertitles
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Concert | Adult Chorus in Concert


The Downtown Beats is Church Street School for Music and Art’s free adult chorus in Battery Park City. For over ten years this chorus has welcomed all those that love to sing, regardless of experience, to join in the fun and community. Now around 20 members strong, The Downtown Beats regularly perform in recitals and at local events. This is an evening of music highlighting the hard work of these neighborhood choral volunteers. It is a concert celebrating peace, love and joy through pop and folk music. Directed by Church Street School founder, Dr. Lisa Ecklund-Flores, this collaborative event promises to be enjoyable for all.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | Chamber Works


Manhattan Chamber Players (David Fung, Piano; Siwoo Kim, Violin; Luke Fleming, Viola; Michael Katz, Cello). Program Andrea Casarrubios (b. 1988), …in the age of noise  Andrea Casarrubios (b. 1988), La Libertad Se Levantó Llorando Felipe Nieto Piano Quartet, TBD JP Jofre (b. 1988), Manifiesto  JP Jofre (b. 1988), Primavera  JP Jofre (b. 1988), La Scaloneta  JP Jofre (b. 1988), Universe  JP Jofre (b. 1988), Tango Movements
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Discussion | Debut Authors Showcase (in-person and online)


A conversation between luminous emerging writers Hannah Bae, Jen Lue, Rajat Singh, and Gina Chung.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | Vocal and Orchestral Works by Monteverdi (In Person AND Online)


The Choir of Trinity Wall Street; Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Avi Stein, conductor, perform Monteverdi's (1567-1643) Vespers of 1610, SV 206.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Discussion | Writers in Conversation


Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the Executive Director & Chief Curator of the experimental arts institution The Kitchen. Formerly she was the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Russell holds an MRes with Distinction in Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London with a focus in Visual Culture. Russell’s written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally. Her first book is Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020). Her second book, BLACK MEME, is forthcoming via Verso Books. Hari Kunzru is the author of six novels, Red Pill, White Tears, Gods Without Men, My Revolutions, Transmission, and The Impressionist. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and writes the “Easy Chair” column for Harper’s Magazine. He is an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has been a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Fellow of the American Academy in Berlin.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Play | Phantasmagoria: A Work of Horror Theater


9 college students gather for an unforgettable evening under the guise of a group project. An apartment party ensues where shenanigans, witchcraft, and secrets unfold in unforeseen events. Phantasmagoria was the first practical iteration of “horror theater” where special lighting effects were used to scare the audience into thinking there were spirits in the room. Come join a night of debauchery and truth telling. Devised by Amelia Baker, Jack Cavanaugh-Gialloreto, Katty Gisselle Christian, Willa Falvey, Rachel Gerhard, Ryen Hilton, Annabel McConnachie, Mana Noda, and Allison Tichavsky Directed by Ana Marganieu Cast: Amelia Baker, Jack Cavanaugh-Gialloreto, Katty Gisselle Christian, Willa Falvey, Rachel Gerhard, Ryen Hilton, Annabel McConnachie, Mana Noda, and Allison Tichavsky
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:30 pm
Free

Concert | A Celebration of African Music, Dance and Photography


Curated and directed by Claude Grunitzky, this celebratory event traces the evolution of Black music through sound, dance, and African photography - from the Kora tradition of West African griots and musicians - to American jazz and funk, all the way to a new generation of hip hop and afrobeats. Performances include a Djassi DaCosta Johnson solo dance set to the sound of the kora, played by Salieu Suso, poetry by Leopold Sedar Senghor, a three-part medley and rhyming performed by The Trace it Back Jazz & Hip-hop Ensemble, a visual montage of African and African diaspora photography from the Isabel S. Wilcox collection created by new media artist Eva Davidova, and more.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:30 pm
Free

Festival | Illumination Light Art Festival


Immerse yourself in a one-of-a-kind outdoor light festival. See the neighborhood in a whole new light, interact with light-based creations, dance to DJs under the stars, and catch a surprise performance or two. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:30 pm
Free

Concert | Fearless Prog-Funk-Jazz-Pop-Soul Quintet


Over the past 12 years, the fearless, classically trained, prog-funk-jazz-pop-soul-jam quintet Phony Ppl have elevated beyond their Brooklyn roots to international recognition as a collective that's as limitless as its music. The warmth of Phony Ppl's lyrics can be mainly credited to lead vocalist Elbee Thrie. Composer Aja Grant provides co-writing, the keys, and much of the band's arrangements. Strings are manned by guitarist Elijah Rawk and Bari Bass, Phony Ppl's visual artist and bass player. The crew's heartbeat is percussionist Matthew Byas, son of DJ Jazzy Jay of the legendary Zulu Nation.
   New York City, NY; NYC
8:00 pm
Free
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