The National Arts Club enters the final month of its season, heading into June with Explorations into Archaeology, Culinary Arts, LGBTQ+ Pride & More

June 23 – Crossdressing

June showcases the latest works of J. Mae Barizo & Ligaya Mishan, a conversation on dress codes with Richard Thompson Ford, and a two-part evening event guided by artist, magician, and researcher Jeanette Andrews. The season will close with a community jazz concert on our stoop featuring Louis Cato, bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

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 June, in addition to new visual arts exhibitions.

Program highlights for the month include an evening with iconic photographer Stanley Stellar, a tribute to Nina Simone with Natalie Douglas, a celebration of International Archaeology Day, and an outdoor musical performance with Grammy-nominated musician Louis Cato, and more.

The exhibition of Affiliation: A Group Exhibition showcasing the work of twenty-one artists exploring who and what we want to belong to, and why, begins in June.

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.

Programs take place in person, unless otherwise noted.

Monday, June 5 at 8:00 PM
Undaunted and Tomorrow Perhaps the Future
Two new books focus on the influence women have had on groundbreaking writing and journalism from the mid-1800s to the present day. Brooke Kroeger (Undaunted) and Sarah Watling (Tomorrow Perhaps the Future) present portraits of extraordinary writers, artists, and journalists — women “hungry for adventure” and eager to make their name. From Margaret Fuller, reporting from Rome on the revolutions of 1848, to Martha Gellhorn in Madrid, as Spain fell to Franco in 1948, women were on the front lines, telling the story as they saw it. Kroeger and Watling will appear in conversation with Laurie Gwen Shapiro, award-winning author and contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Times.

Tuesday, June 6 at 7:00 PM
In Plain Listen
Join us for this two-part evening event guided by artist, magician, and researcher Jeanette Andrews, featuring the NYC premiere of Andrews’ “In Plain Listen,” which uses a Morse-code-based musical notation system to create a musical score that depicts the secret of one of the oldest pieces of magic in history purely in music form, and performed in tandem with the original magic effect. The cellist who will be playing the work is Iva Casian Lakos. And “In Plain Listen” was originally commissioned by and funded by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston. This is followed by a performed dialogue on the cultural evolution of magic with Charlotte Kent, PhD (professor of visual culture at Montclair State University). Jeanette Andrews has had work commissioned by Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Quebec City Biennial. She is a prior Affiliate of Harvard’s metaLAB and had work profiled by PBS and The New York Times.

VIRTUAL EVENT

Friday, June 9 at 5:00 PM
Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History
Join Richard Thompson Ford, author of Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History, for an insightful and entertaining history of the laws of fashion from the Middle Ages to the present day and a walk down history’s red carpet to uncover and examine the canons, mores and customs of clothing—rules that we often take for granted. The Renaissance era Florentine patriarch Cosimo de Medici captured the power of fashion and dress codes when he remarked, “One can make a gentleman from two yards of red cloth.” Richard Thompson Ford is a Professor at Stanford Law School. He has written about law, social and cultural issues and race relations for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle, and has appeared on The Colbert Report and The Rachel Maddow Show. He is the author of The Race Card and Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality. Books will be available for purchase.

Friday, June 9 at 7:00 PM
An evening with Stanley Stellar: A Celebration of Pride and Progress
Join us as we embark on a five-decade journey of the LBGTQ community through the lens of Stanley Stellar. Celebrated for his powerful observations of street life and empathic studio portraits, Stellar’s photographs acutely define the freedom, beauty, fear, and joy of one of NYC’s most historic and influential periods from the Stonewall riots of 1969 through the Gay Liberation Movement and beyond. Stellar’s vivid document of the West Village’s long-gone Christopher Street Piers, the first Gay Pride Parades, and individuals facing the unfathomable realities of the HIV/AIDS epidemic bear witness to both the struggles and triumphs of the human experience.

Monday, June 12 at 6:30 PM
Nina’s 90th: A Tribute to Nina Simone with Natalie Douglas
Thirteen-time MAC Award, two-time Backstage Bistro Award and Nightlife Award Winner Natalie Douglas joins forces with her Music Director, Jon Weber of NPR’s Piano Jazz, to bring her critically acclaimed hit show “Nina’s 90th…a tribute to Nina Simone” to the National Arts Club. Natalie has wowed audiences on three continents with this critically acclaimed celebration of the iconic Dr. Nina Simone – a pivotal artist and one of Natalie’s principal influences. For this one night only, Natalie and Jon will collaborate with special guest stars, Ari Axelrod and D’Vorah Bailey to create a new edition of the Nina show. Honoring Nina’s spirit, Natalie and her talented guest vocalists will perform songs recorded by the late legendary singer, including, George Gershwin’s “I Loves You Porgy,” Nina’s big hit “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” Dr. Simone’s composition “Mississippi Goddam,” and the ode to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Why (The King of Love is Dead).”

Tuesday, April 13 at 6:30 PM
Encyclopedia of Things
Inspiring conceptual lens-based artist Elisabeth Smolarz (Morgan Lehman Gallery, PBS Documentary) shares her ongoing photography project, “Encyclopedia of Things.” She documents the most critical moments in the lives of individuals by aiding in selecting their most cherished objects, which transform into art installations of their personal belongings that embody the identities and personal narratives of their owners. Conceived in 2014, two years after Hurricane Sandy destroyed the lives of thousands, Smolarz visited people in their homes. Eight years later, a selection of over 100 portraits from the series was published in her monograph “Encyclopedia of Things.”

Wednesday, June 14 at 6:00 PM
Marcella Hazan: The Woman Who Changed How Americans Cook Italian
Emmy- and Peabody-winning filmmaker Peter Miller will provide an insider perspective of Marcella, the first-ever documentary about Marcella Hazan, the woman who transformed how Americans prepare and understand Italian food. Miller will share a clip from his work-in-progress and speak to Marcella’s eventful life story. Marcella’s son, the celebrated cooking teacher and award-winning author of best-selling cookbooks Giuliano Hazan, will join Miller to add his memories of his mother. Jordan Frosolone, Executive Chef of the Leopard at Des Artistes, will reflect on how Marcella’s influence remains relevant to chefs today. A sample of one of Marcella’s iconic recipes will be served.

Thursday, June 15 at 7:30 PM
Bill Pedersen – Gesture and Response
Legendary Architect and founder of Kohn Pedersen Fox will present excerpts from his book Gesture and Response, which is an inversion of one’s initial perception when referring to architecture. In Pedersen’s thesis ‘the place offers the gesture and architecture is the response’. The articles and buildings span 45 years of the architect’s ca-reer as KPF’s influence and global footprint grew. The presentation is not organized chronologically, as is the book: it will begin with the small and end large. Regardless of scale the same aspiration applies: his chairs are a response to the gesture of the human body and his tallest buildings are a response to connecting earth to sky in a specific place. Bill Pedersen FAIA graduated from the University of Minnesota 1961, received a Master of Architecture from MIT in 1963, a Rome Prize Winner in 1966, and is a AIANY Gold Medal winner.

Tuesday, June 20 at 6:30 PM
Up With the Sun by Thomas Mallon
Thomas Mallon, a successful author of fiction and nonfiction will discuss his latest fictional novel, Up With the Sun. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and other publications. He received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Harvard University and taught for a number of years at Vassar College. His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been literary editor of Gentlemen’s Quarterly and deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was elected in 2012 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is Professor Emeritus of English at The George Washington University and lives in Washington, D. C.

Thursday, June 22 at 6:30 PM
International Archaeology Day
We feel privileged that the Permanent Representative of Greece to the United Nations will address the National Arts Club on the occasion of International Archaeology Day, the committee’s most significant annual lecture of each series. Previous such programs have included Permanent Representatives to the United Nations from Croatia, Egypt, Malta, and Sri Lanka

Friday, June 23, 7:00 PM
Cross-Dressing: Fashion and Gender Expression in the Eighteenth Century Cross-dressing is a plot device in many 18th-century plays and stories, but what did it mean when real people put on clothing associated with the opposite sex? Join Amelia Rauser, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Art History and Senior Associate Dean of the Faculty at Franklin & Marshall College for a look at a few historical case studies of 18th-century cross-dressers and note the diverse historical circumstances that influenced their public gender expression. Amelia Rauser’s most recent book, The Age of Undress: Art, Fashion, and the Classical Ideal in the 1790s, considered the meaning of the white, high-waisted empire-style dress and how it intersected with women’s artistic and intellectual ambitions in the late 18th-century. Her current projects center on fashion and illness, political fashion, and the colonialist trade in textiles during the 18th century. 18th Century Style is highly encouraged.

Wednesday, June 28 at 7:00 PM
Words & Music: A conversation with J. Mae Barizo & Ligaya Mishan
Presenting the book launch of Tender Machines, by prize-winning author J. Mae Barizo with musical interludes by internationally-acclaimed pianist Silvie Cheng, a 2022-23 NAC Artist Fellow. The evening will feature a reading and conversation with Barizo and Ligaya Mishan, a columnist and writer for The New York Times and T magazine, in tandem with performances of music by Meredith Monk, Caroline Shaw, and Alexina Louie. Set against the backdrop of a changing New York landscape, the poems in Tender Machines map the realities of women’s lives and the bodies they inhabit. The lyrics swing between the domestic and the surreal, charting motherhood, desire and an immigrant family’s haunted inheritance. This is an intersectional portrait of womanhood with all its losses, departures and wonders.

Friday, June 30, 6:00 PM
Jazz on the Stoop with Louis Cato
Louis Cato is a Grammy-nominated and internationally acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter. He has worked with an array of artists including Bobby McFerrin, Snarky Puppy, Jon Batiste, Q-Tip, and A Tribe Called Quest. His love of music started at age 2 when the purchase of his first drum set evolved into an appreciation of the southern gospel from his native North Carolina and continued into his education at the Berklee College of Music. Cato has an undeniable ability to craft sonic landscapes into timeless masterpieces. After two decades of lending his talents to other projects, Cato released his first solo record Starting Now (2017), which he also mixed and produced entirely by himself. He is currently in post production on his newest album which is due out in the coming year. After playing in the house band for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert since the show’s 2015 inception, Cato was recently named bandleader for the newly renamed “The Late Show Band.”

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

JUNE 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 – Collector’s Choice Continuing in the Grand Gallery through June 30

This exhibition showcases the work of major contemporary artists who through their creative voices have been an 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.

Affiliation: A Group Exhibition

On view in the East and West Galleries, June 5 – 30

Opening Reception: Monday, June 5, 6 -8 pm

Artpoetica Project Space will present the group exhibition Affiliation. The exhibition, curated by Sasha Chavchavadze, Heather Topcik, and JoAnne McFarland (a 2022-23 NAC Artist Fellow), will showcase the work of twenty-one artists, including others 2022-23 NAC Artist Fellows, using art to explore who and what we want to belong to, and why.

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.