The National Arts Club Continues 125th Anniversary Year, Celebrating Asian-American and Pacific Islander Month with Explorations into Fashion, Music, Dance & More

May 1-June 30. The New Age of Anxiety(dragged)

May spotlights such programs as a performance featuring NAC artist fellow Barkha Patel with Barkha Dance Company, a conversation with award-winning photographer Louie Palu, continuing our year-long concert series in collaboration with The National Jazz Museum in Harlem with a performance by Helen Sung Trio, and our Medal of Honor for Achievement in Literature being presented to Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

All events and exhibitions are free and open to the public

The National Arts Club (NAC) continues its 125th anniversary year with numerous free public arts and culture programs in May, in addition to new visual arts exhibitions.

Program highlights for the month include a presentation honoring Henry Louis Gates, Jr. with The Medal of Honor for Literature, a joyful poetry reading in French of original works by Isabelle Balot, an evening with award-winning photographer and filmmaker Louie Palu, an insightful look into the rise of K-style with author Fiona Bae, and more.

The exhibition of The New Age of Anxiety – Collectors’ Choice showcasing the work of major contemporary artists who through their individual creative voices have been a constant and illuminating presence through a new age of anxiety caused by the pandemic, begins in May as does The 2023 National Arts Club Exhibiting Artist Members Exhibition, showcasing the extraordinary work of NAC’s most talented.

All programs and exhibitions are free and available to the public with registration. In-person programs and exhibitions are hosted at the NAC’s historic landmark clubhouse, the former Samuel Tilden Mansion, located at 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY. Information on registration and the most up-to-date details can be found at nationalartsclub.org.

Past virtual programs can be enjoyed anytime on the NAC’s YouTube channel.

MAY EVENTS

Programs take place in person, unless otherwise noted.

VIRTUAL
Thursday, May 4 at 3:00 PM
A Peek Into the Textile Vault: 1920s Clothing
Join Illinois State Museum Curator of History Erika Holst and historical clothing consultant Christine Hand for a virtual walk through the museum’s textile storage vault and an insightful look at womenswear of the 1920s, with a bend on separating fact versus fiction in regard to the “flapper” look. Erika Holst is the Curator of History at the Illinois State Museum, and has worked in the public his-tory field for more than fifteen years, during which time she has curated more than a dozen exhibitions. Her 2013 exhibition, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Material World of Early Springfield, won the Illinois State Historical Society’s Award for Superior Achievement. Before joining the Illinois State Museum, Erika served as Curator of Collections at the historic Edwards Place in Springfield, IL. Her publications include Wicked Springfield: Crime, Corruption, and Scandal During the Lincoln Era, Edwards Place: A Springfield Treasure, and Historic Houses of Lincoln’s Illinois, as well as several scholarly and popular articles. Holst holds a master’s degree from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture.

Thursday, May 4 at 7:00 PM
Barkha Dance Company
[ Celebrating Asian-American and Pacific Islander Month ]

Barkha Patel is a kathak dancer, choreographer, educator, NAC Artist Fellow, and the Artistic Director of Barkha Dance Company based in New York City. She and members of her company will perform various works. A touring artist, Barkha has performed solo, and ensemble works at dance festivals in In-dia and the U.S. Her work has been presented at venues such as Dance Theatre Harlem, Erasing Borders Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, The Joyce Theater. Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is currently developing a new work based on the poetry of 14th century Kashmiri poetess, Lal Ded.

Monday, May 8 at 9:00 PM
Helen Sung Trio
[ Celebrating Asian-American and Pacific Islander Month ]

Helen Sung is an acclaimed pianist and composer. A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, she eschewed her classical upbringing after a jazz epiphany during undergraduate studies. Based in New York City, Sung maintains an active schedule performing, touring, teaching, and recording; her latest album Quartet+ (made possible by a New York Foundation for the Arts NYC Women’s Fund grant with additional support from the Aaron Copland Recording Fund and Jazz Coalition) was named one of Downbeat’s “Best Albums of 2021” and featured as the cover story of JazzTimes’ January 2022 issue. In addition to her own band, Sung has performed with such luminaries as Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, and can currently be seen with the Mingus Big Band and Cecile McLorinSalvant’s Ogresse. She has served on the faculties of the Juilliard School, Berklee College of Music, and Columbia University, where she was also the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. Sung is a Steinway Artist.

The NAC Fine & Mellow Jazz Concert Series is presented in collaboration with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.

The Series is curated by Endea Owens, Jazz Is: Now! Curatorial Fellow, NJMH

Wednesday, May 10 at 6:30 PM
In Search of Lost Time: Gold Jewelry in Minoan Crete
Join us as returning lecturer Dr. Jane Hickman, Consulting Scholar in the Mediterranean Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, discusses gold jewelry discovered in Crete. The earliest examples date to the Prepalatial period, circa 3100–1900 BCE. A comprehensive study of these splendid artifacts provides insight into where they were found and how they were made, as well as the role such refined jewelry played in Minoan society. Evidencing superb craftsmanship, objects such as diadems, golden flowers, and leaves may have been used in ritual performances to create and reinforce individual and collective memory.

Thursday, May 11 at 6:00 PM
Medal of Honor for Literature Honoring Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has published numerous books and produced and hosted an array of documentary films. The Black Church (PBS) and Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches (HBO), which he executive produced, have each received Emmy nominations. His history series for PBS is Making Black America: Through the Grapevine. Finding Your Roots, Gates’s groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, is now in its ninth season on PBS.

Gates is a recipient of a number of honorary degrees, including his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. Gates was a member from the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, and in 1998 he became the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal.

A native of Piedmont, West Virginia, Gates earned his B.A. in History, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1973, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Clare College at Cambridge in 1979, where he is also an Honorary Fellow. A former chair of the Pulitzer Prize board, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and serves on a wide array of boards, including the New York Public Library, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Aspen Institute, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Library of America, and The Studio Museum of Harlem. In 2011, his portrait, by Yuqi Wang, was hung in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

Wednesday, May 17 at 6:30 PM
A Poetry Reading in French: Celebrating the Joy of Spring
An original work of art by Isabelle Balot will be presented in French, celebrating the advent of Spring. Balot will read a collection of her poems, together with Marc de Maleingreau d’Hembise. The reading will also feature musical pieces played by Peter Borgia, on keyboard. Balot’s lyric poetry conveys a hymn to life, in which reason, emotion and musicality come together. Her poetry offers striking pictures of the human condition. She paints passions with lively touches — serious, profound, and happy. Having undertaken several humanitarian and political missions for the United Nations throughout the world, Balot gained an original perspective that is reflected in her poetry. She is currently a Professor of International Relations at Centre d’Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques in Paris. This event will be presented in French.

Wednesday, May 17 at 7:00 PM
An Evening with Louie Palu
Travel to the front lines of global conflict, the climate crisis, and the pursuit of justice with award-winning photographer and filmmaker Louie Palu. Palu’s keen and critical eye bears witness to the human condition, exploring the often uncomfortable spaces between destruction and beauty. Palu has received numerous recognitions, such as the Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Grants, and a Guggenheim/National Geographic Fellowship. His work has been featured on the BBC, Al Jazeera, Der Spiegel, NPR, El Pais, The New York Times, La Republica, and many others. @louiepalu

Friday, May 19 at 7:00 PM
FashionSpeak Fridays: The Rise of K-style
Join Fiona Bae, author of Make, Break, Remix: The Rise of K-style, for an insightful look at the eclectic and multifaceted nature of K-style and its home city of Seoul. Bae will share untold stories from true insiders, exploring a sense of identity in their work, how living in Seoul affects them and their creative output, and the decade of changes that has brought about the current K-style. Featured tastemakers include 1MILLION Dance Studio’s Lia Kim, rock band leader Hwang Soyoon, drag performer Nana Youngrong Kim, Asia’s leading interior designer Teo Yang, as well as leading K-pop stylist Youngjin Kim. Bae was born and raised in Korea. She has her own consultancy that bridges Korean culture and the rest of the world by promoting Korean artists, designers, and architects internationally. Bae represented the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and has worked with M+ Museum in Hong Kong. Books will be available for purchase. K-style is highly encouraged!

Tuesday, May 30 at 7:00 PM
Death Differently
Death Differently follows a series of stories related to grief, death, and dying. A testament to the moving image, Death Differently is a cinematic education on innovations in death care featuring often overlooked or wholly unknown individuals: death doulas, hospice workers, alternative death advocates, music thanatologists, green burial funeral directors, and many others. Its goal is to highlight these individuals and challenge the ongoing myths that too often lead to end-of-life anxiety, rather than peace. Death Differently features intimate portraits of the people who are assisting those going through the transition from life to death.

This film has not been released yet but it was just featured in The New York Times. It features hauntingly impactful cinematography and a beautiful and powerful classical score. The filmmakers will be onsite and will be conducting a talkback right after the program.

MAY EXHIBITIONS

All our exhibitions are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, Weekends, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

The New Age of Anxiety – Collectors’ Choice

On view in the Grand Gallery, May 1 – June 30

For nearly three years, the pandemic, worldwide political tension, and financial strain at all levels have been the sources of a sometimes overwhelming sense of uncertainty. Throughout history, art has not only defined our human experience but has also helped us to examine and understand the world around us and to expand our scope of humanity both as individuals and a community. The power of images remains extraordinary and gives the artist a major role in how we perceive and process fear and crisis. This exhibition showcases the work of major contemporary artists who through their individual creative voices have been a constant and illuminating presence through a new age of anxiety. Recent work by Adam Pendleton, Otis Quaicoe, Robert Nava, Anna Park, Alejandro Cardenas, Rashid Johnson, and Yuichi

Hirako will be on view.

The 2023 National Arts Club Exhibiting Artist Members Exhibition On view in the East and West Galleries, May 10 – 31

The Annual Exhibiting Artist Members Exhibition is back and in full force with a roster of the NAC’s most talented. The first annual Artist Members Exhibition was held in 1907 under the eye of NAC member and collector William T. Evans. For decades this event was restricted to Artist Life Members. In 1934, with the suspension of the Artist Life Member program, the Club was eager to expand membership and had begun reaching out to a wider community of working artists. It was this wave of new members that created EAM and the Annual Exhibition as we know it today. Please join us to celebrate this great tradition and to support our Artist Members.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ARTS CLUB

Founded in 1898, The National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts. Annually, the Club offers more than 150 free programs—both in-person and virtually—to the public, including exhibitions, theatrical and musical performances, lectures and readings, attracting an audience of over 30,000 in-person visitors and thousands more online. Feature programs focus on all disciplines of the arts.

Since 2019, the Club has been undergoing a renaissance. New initiatives—such as an artist fellowship, an outdoor concert series, and online programming—have attracted new audiences. At the NAC’s landmark clubhouse, the former Samuel Tilden Mansion, efforts have been made to reimagine, renovate, and preserve the building’s galleries and historic spaces.

The NAC is also a proud community partner, providing therapeutic art instruction to children in the care of the Administration of Children’s Services, regularly convening New York City art leaders to share ideas and collaborate, presenting a popular series of concerts in collaboration with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and more.

For a full list of events or to learn more, please visit nationalartsclub.org.