August 2017: The Arts

Performing Arts.

• The Glimmerglass Festival presents the world premiere of Stomping Grounds: stories of refugees, immigrants and natives that blends hip-hop, spoken word and opera – Aug 1–7
• The Newport Jazz Festival  has a new artist director, Christian McBride; headliners include The Roots, Andra Day, Branford Marsalis and Cecile McLorin Salvant – Aug 4-6
• Catch The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at the Santa Fe Opera – Aug 4, 10 and 15
• The Edinburgh International Festival and Festival Fringe are both 70 years old this summer; as the largest arts festival in the world, featuring opera, theater, dance and music, they’re always a major showcase for new work. This year Alan Ayckbourne’s Divide makes its world premiere – Aug 4-28
• The Salzburg Festival continues, with virtuoso performances of Aida from soprano Anna Netrebko, with Riccardo Muti conducting – Aug 6-25
• This year’s theme at the Lucerne Summer Music Festival is Identity; it will include performances by the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, and performances of all three of Monteverdi’s surviving operas – Aug 11 – Sept 11
• Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center presents The Dark Mirror, a staging of Schubert’s Winterreise, featuring the captivating tenor Ian Bostridge at the Rose Theater – Aug 12-13
• The Trisha Brown Dance Company will appear on the grounds of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, performing a compendium of shorter Trisha Brown works, called In Plain Site outdoors, en plein air – Aug 13
• The Trisha Brown Dance Company pays a visit to Jacob’s Pillow – Aug 16-19
• At Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart brings back the radical production of Don Giovanni by the conductor Iván Fischer – Aug 17 and 19
• The BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London continue all month long

Visual Arts.

• For Steve McQueen: End Credits at the Art Institute of Chicago, the filmmaker structures 13 hours of FBI files on Paul Robeson in the manner of the rolling credits at the conclusion of a feature film – through Oct 4
• The Center for Maine Contemporary Art, in Rockland, celebrates its first birthday the two-fold exhibit Night Stories: paintings by native son Linden Frederick will be paired with short stories from a group of prominent American authors
• At Where Do We Stand at the Drawing Center, the 36 participants in the two-year residency program, Open Sessions, will have their second group exhibition; works incorporate traditional drawing into video, sculpture, photography, and installation — Aug 3–Sept 17
• The 6th edition of the Yokohama Triennale, held in various venues in the port city near Tokyo, is called “Islands, Constellations and Galapagos;” featured artists include Ai Weiwei, Jenny Holzer, Wael Shawky, and the Propeller Group – Aug 4–Nov 5
• Playing with Fire: Paintings by Carlos Almaraz at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is one of the first shows to open as part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative, which will bring together roughly 70 art institutions from around Southern California to stage exhibitions that look at the influences that Latin American and Latino and Latina artists have had on Los Angeles. This is the first major survey of the artist’s work, and will showcase his large-scale canvases – Aug 6–Dec 3
• Avedon’s America and Jackson Pollock: The Graphic Works both go on display at Guild Hall in East Hampton – Aug 12 – Oct 9 (the museum’s Summer Gala celebrates Avedon on Aug 11)
• Matisse in the Studio moves from Boston’s MFA to London’s Royal Academy of Arts – Aug 15-Nov 12
• Looking Slowly: 30 Years of Painting is at the Watermill Center in the Hamptons – it’s a presentation of three decades worth of painting and photography produced by Royce Weatherly, who has spent his career depicting everyday objects in precise detail – by appointment Aug 13–Oct 11
• In honor of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art’s 50th anniversary, the museum presents We Are Here, a major three-part exhibition drawn from the MCA’s collection: I Am You features works questioning how we relate to our environment; You Are Here examines how the role of the viewer has changed over time from passive onlooker to active participant; We Are Everywhere showcases artists who borrow from popular culture to critique its workings. Featured artists include Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye – Aug 19 – April 1, 2018
• Gilded Age Drawings at The Metropolitan Museum will feature more than three dozen rarely seen treasures from the museum’s collection; on view will be iconic works by Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Louis Comfort Tiffany — Aug 21–Dec 10
• Projects 107: Lone Wolf Recital Corps at the Museum of Modern Art reunites some members of the multidisciplinary performance collective founded in 1986 by artist and musician Terry Adkins; a changing group of artists will reprise selections from the group’s repertoire in an installation of Adkins’ sculptures — Aug 19–Oct 9
• The National Association of Women Artists, the oldest women’s fine art organization in the country, holds its 128th annual members’ exhibition at Sylvia Wald & Po Kim Art Gallery – Aug 22–Sept 14
• Streams and Mountains without End: Landscape Traditions of China at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will showcase more than 120 Chinese landscape paintings – Aug 26 –Jan 6, 2018
• American artist Cheryl Donegan’s show at the Kuntshalle Zurich is the first extensive European exhibition of her work, which focuses on the female body’s place in pop culture and art history – Aug 26-Nov 19
• Casanova: The Seduction of Europe opens at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas – Aug 27
• From Lens to Eye to Hand: Photorealism 1969 to Today at the Parrish Art Museum in the Hamptons examines whether the Photorealism movement, with its return to representative art, was a betrayal of the advancements made by American Abstractionism – the exhibition of 73 works includes photos by Robert Bechtle, Audrey Flack, and Richard McLean — Aug 6–Oct 15

See other August 2017 events:
Travel
Food & Drink
Planes, Yachts & Autos
Fitness & Sports
Fashion & Design
Entertainment

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