Isamu Noguchi

Tracks: Animal Drawings from Noguchi’s Travels
Noguchi Museum
Wed, May 25 – Sun, September 18

Before embarking on your own vacations and travels this summer, come to the museum to see how Isamu Noguchi brought memories and sights back home with him. During his travels from the 1920s through the 1950s, Noguchi’s many drawings serve as a record of his daily life abroad, and his sketchbook renderings of animals form a particularly rich area of focus. Spend time in the sculpture garden after visiting the galleries.

World Science Festival 2011
Wed, June 1–Sun, June 5

The World Science Festival returns with an array of events designed to make the esoteric understandable and the familiar fascinating. Scientific minds are joined by renowned artists and influential thinkers for a five-day celebration of science through discourse and debate, dance and theater, film, music and the visual arts.

George Clinton - courtesy of BAM

R&B Festival at Metrotech 2011
Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
Starts Thurs, June 2

This free outdoor concert series in downtown Brooklyn features the legends and rising stars of R&B and world music. The season starts this Thursday with Dr. Funkenstein himself, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. Performances take place Thursdays (at noon) through August 4.

Trigger Man from Texas - courtesy of the Museum of American Illustration

Pulp Art: The Robert Lesser Collection
Museum of American Illustration
Thurs, June 2–Sat, July 30

Robert Lesser, the author of two books on comic art, began collecting pulp paintings, comic books and comic-character toys in the 1950s. Flaunting unsettling images of violence, racism, sex and crime, pulp art was not fit for public display and was more often read covertly, hidden behind the pages of Boys’ Life or some other wholesome periodical. This exhibit of 90 works elevates pulp to an art form.

Vision Festival 16
Sun, June 5–Sat, June 12

Arts For Art presents the 16th annual Vision Festival, New York City’s multidisciplinary celebration of avant-garde jazz music, dance, poetry and art, held for its third year at Abrons Art Center on the Lower East Side. Each $30 ticket is good for admission to all performances that evening, which is often as many as six sets.

The Pigeoning - photo by Richard Termine

Labapalooza!
St. Ann’s Warehouse
Thurs, June 2–Sun, June 5

From the story of anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti—as narrated by a robot—to a noir-style radio drama to puppet theater-in-the-round, Labapalooza! embraces a wide range of new avant-garde puppet productions during its 13th year.

Recommendations courtesy of NYC-ARTS.org