Camacho. (Courtesy Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong)

Carla Camacho, who has acted as director of sales at Lehmann Maupin for the past seven years, is now a partner at the gallery. "It's been amazing to develop my career at the same time that Lehmann Maupin has had such tremendous growth," said Ms. Camacho, who joined the gallery when it had a single location, in Chelsea. Since she arrived, Lehmann Maupin has opened branches on Chrystie Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side and, last month, in Hong Kong.

In the spirit of this expansion, Ms. Camacho said she plans to develop both the gallery's sales team, bringing in "people who maybe have an expertise in a certain field," and its list of artists. Ms. Camacho has already grown the gallery's roster, bringing on one of its more recent additions, painter Angel Otero. Although Ms. Camacho declined to go into detail, she said more may be on the way. "We are actively looking at several artists and hope to have some announcements in the near future," she said.

Though Mr. Liu is widely acclaimed on the international art circuit, this is his first one-person show in the United States. “We decided to do more of an introductory exhibition that will let people get to know my work,” he told me through his translator, Jesse Coffino, who works regularly with the artist Xu Bing in Beijing.

There are wooden sculptures that stretch to the gallery’s ceiling and resemble hunks of elegant Gothic architecture from some other universe—all pastel blues, greens, tans. He and his assistants build them from doorways and bits of buildings they buy at markets in Beijing, where Mr. Liu lives. There are also bright, almost trippy geometric abstract paintings and two video pieces on tiny television monitors, which involve spanking and a light switch, respectively. They amount to a deadpan visualization of power, its application in the slap, and its exhaustion as a continually flipped switch burns out.

“I originally wanted to include lots of different styles and really fill the space,” Mr. Liu said. “Now it is a little too stylized. I wanted to get rid of any sense of style.” There’s a Duchampian ring to that sentiment, this desire to eject personal style, but he explained that isn’t quite what he intends. “It’s the elimination of style on a superficial level, not moving intentionally in a specific direction, but rather according to your own natural perception of the world,” he said.

“I have seen a lot of shows in New York—gallery solo exhibitions and group exhibitions—and I felt that style was always over emphasized,” he added. “[There is the] sense that global commerce is moving in a single stylistic direction. I wanted to make it feel foreign, with rich and varied flavors.” He's succeeded on that count—his art is haunting and strange. You try to imagine the unknown people who once used those doors, and struggle to visualize what is being pictured in his abstract paintings, which hint at topographical maps or architectural renderings. There are some secrets lingering.

From the perspective of New York these days, which is on the far periphery of developments in Asia, it has become dangerously easy to imagine the Chinese contemporary art scene as a monolithic entity, a handful of superstar artists—Cai Guo-Qiang, Yue Minjun, Mr. Xu—each wielding identifiable brands and messages, competing for the attention of the newly super wealthy. Mr. Liu represents part of a clear counter-narrative to that stereotype, offering an art that ranges across mediums and assiduously avoids definitive statements while still being critical of contemporary society and its politics. Born in 1972, he came of age just as Tiananmen Square occurred, as his nation and its culture were slowly opening up. He is, as art critic Gunnar B. Kvaran put it in a recent essay, among the first generation of “post-Mao children.”

There is a brave, even brash, willingness to accept multiple meanings in his practice, to play with interpretation while still refusing to be pinned down to a single reading, like perhaps Richard Artschwager. (Some of Mr. Liu’s sculptural paintings—blocky forms wrapped with industrial canvas that may be his most interesting works—as well as his palette, owe something to that late artist.) “We can talk about my works, but I’m not going to explain them,” he said with a smile. “The work that was put there is already it’s own best explanation. If I use language or writing to explain it, then I won’t make the work.”

Asked about those doorways, which resemble cathedrals or temples formed from cast off architecture—he was quick to argue that they have “nothing to do with the concept of demolition and resettlement. I’m after a specific color, a specific material.”

In his frenetic abstract paintings, his colors turn electric, higher-pitched. They are made from images that he creates with the aid of a computer. “I first start by making an image with the mouse, and then the computer program continuously finds and creates new images,” he said. “A computer is like a brain, another brain that is continually making new things and thinking.” Is there an element of chance at play, then? “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll turn its sort of randomness into my own randomness.”

Being so open, I suggest, might lead to misunderstandings. What do people mistake about his work? “That problem doesn't exist, because my work doesn't have any clear, specific meaning to begin with,” he said. “I hope that for everyone, including you and everyone else, that it’s only the start of a questioning. It’s not knowledge, and it’s not an answer. I want to eliminate the sense of knowledge or any other meanings [from the work].”

He was flipping an ornate silver lighter in his hand. “Like this lighter, for instance. It’s just a lighter, it doesn't matter what its history is,” he said. By working it into another sculpture or installation or printing it with his name—many works are labeled “property” of L.W.—he could surely change it, dispense with its familiar associations, open it to other possibilities. “I would get rid of its sense of knowledge,” he said. “You would see it and start thinking about other things and it would arouse your thinking.”

'Liu Wei' runs at Lehmann Maupin, 540 West 26th Street, New York, through March 23, 2013.

For the second part of his first New York show in more than five years, and his first at Lehmann Maupin, the artist used specially fabricated oversize oil pencils and the help of several dozen children from P.S. 63 in the South Bronx to color in black vinyl outlines of simple geometric patterns affixed, at child height, to the walls of the gallery’s Chrystie Street location. You really had to be there. (Through Feb. 23, 2013, at West 26th Street; through March 16, 2013, at Chrystie Street)

Plummer, Lehmann, Maupin, Carla Camacho, Jessica Kreps. (Courtesy PMC)

Back in June, The New York Observer broke the news that Chelsea and Lower East Side gallery Lehmann Maupin was on the hunt for real estate in Hong Kong.  Now they have found it.

Art-market journalist Georgina Adams reports in her Financial Times column that the gallery's partners, Rachel Lehmann and David Maupin, have found a space in the "the oh-so-sought-after Pedder Building," which is home to branches of Simon Lee and Ben Brown, both from London, and Gagosian.

Courtney Plummer is directing the Hong Kong outpost, which will be designed by Rem Koolhaas's OMA team, who also handled the design of the gallery's Chelsea location.

The new gallery will open before the inaugural Art Basel Hong Kong (formerly Art H.K.), which arrives on May 23, 2013.

Joy. (Courtesy Lehmann Maupin)

After eight years at the Pace Gallery, most recently as public-relations manager, Jennifer Joy is moving to Lehmann Maupin to become its director of communications.

"It's such an exciting time to join Lehmann Maupin," Ms. Joy told Gallerist in a phone call this morning. “So many of the artists are having important museum exhibitions across the country and around the world." She added, "David and Rachel are thinking strategically about growing their team."

Rachel Lehmann and David Maupin started the gallery in 1996, and opened a second space on Chrystie Street in 2007. They recently announced plans to open a space in Hong Kong, as The Observer reported earlier this month.

Ms. Joy said that she would work with Katelijne De Backer, the former Armory Show director who recently joined Lehmann Maupin, and lead a communications team of three, which will be focusing on strategic development and building new communications opportunities for the gallery on a global scale.

Among her upcoming projects: working with Mickalene Thomas on her September solo show at the Brooklyn Museum, "Origin of the Universe," and Angel Otero's upcoming exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh, N.C., in mid-October, and the SCAD Museum of Art, in Savannah, Ga., in January.

Congratulations, Ms. Joy.

Opening: Hannah Weinberger, "Le Moi Du Toi," at Swiss Institute
Basel–based artist Hannah Weinberger's first show in the United States promises to be a supremely minimal affair, at least visually: just white curtains along the walls and multidirectional speakers spread throughout the space. Aurally, though, the gallery will be filled: those speakers will play electronic loops composed by Ms. Weinberger that viewers can navigate on their visits. "There is no beginning or end to the permutations that the exhibition incites," the SI's release states. Should be interesting to see how the opening goes with all of that sound playing. —Andrew Russeth
Swiss Institute, 18 Wooster Street, New York, 6–8 p.m.

Opening: David Armstrong, "Night and Day," at Half Gallery
Half Gallery displays Kodachrome pictures by David Armstrong documenting life on the Lower East Side, ahead of a new book by the photographer. Expect cameos by René Ricard, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Jean-Michel Basquiat and John Waters. For the opening, do not expect elbow room. —Dan Duary
Half Gallery, 208 Forsyth Street, New York, 6–8 p.m.

Screening: "An Evening with Cinema 16" at the Kitchen
Curator Molly Surno pairs five short films by the likes of Standish Lawder, Sabrina Ratte, Viking Eggeling and Len Lye with a newly commissioned score by Matteah Baim. —Michael H. Miller
The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, New York, 7 p.m., $12

WEDNESADAY, JUNE 27

Opening: Caro Niederer, "Paintings," at Hauser & Wirth
The Swiss artist brings 18 of her paintings to the Upper East Side with this, the first paintings-only show for the multidisciplinary artist. Ms. Niederer has been with the gallery since she was 22. At the time, gallery co-founder Iwan Wirth was 16, so rest assured this exhibition will be authoritative. —D.D.
Hauser & Wirth, 32 East 69 Street, New York, 6–8 p.m.

THURSDAY, JUNE 28

Opening: "Creative Growth" at Uffner
Amie Scally, deputy director and curator at White Columns, helms this show of  10 artists associated with the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, Calif., a nonprofit space that offers adults with various disabilities studio and gallery space. Among the artists are the late Judith Scott (who makes sculptures that are often wrapped with voluminous amounts of twine and who has work on view in the Matthew Higgs–curated show at James Cohan) and Aurie Ramirez (whose figurative drawings have a hint of William Copley's rich color, idiosyncratic line and sinister charisma). —A.R.
Rachel Uffner Gallery, 47 Orchard Street, New York, 6–8 p.m.

Opening: Ella Kruglyanskaya, “Woman! Painting! Woman!” at GBE
The sassy women in Ella Kruglyanskaya’s bright and splashy paintings seem to have taken tips from the films of Quentin Tarantino—they’re brainy, they do yoga, they tote guns and they have cat fights. When they go to the beach, watch out. These dauntless babes sport bathing suits that bear images of human mouths uncomfortably close to their crotches. Those with castration anxiety, be warned. —Rozalia Jovanovic
Gavin Brown's Enterprise, 620 Greenwich Street, New York, 6–8 p.m.

Opening: Group show, “Friends with Benefits,” at Lehmann Maupin
For its summer group show, Lehmann Maupin asked five of its artists—Tony Oursler, Angel Otero, Tim Rollins, Mickalene Thomas and Nari Ward—to pull together a group of artists whose work they wanted to encourage. The resultant exhibition, curated by Carla Camacho and Drew Moody, includes artists Derrick Adams, Scott Andresen, David Antonio Cruz, Nicole Awai, Matias Cuevas, Max Galyon, Wilfredo Ortega, Linda Post, and Sebastien Vallejo. If only all fresh-faced artists could have such brilliantly behaved friends who are a little higher up on the food chain. This show will please without any hassling entanglements. —R.J.
Lehmann Maupin, 201 Chrystie Street, New York, 6–8 p.m.

Book Signing: Ryan McGinley at Spoonbill & Sugartown
Artist Ryan McGinley will be on hand at Williamsburg's Spoonbill & Sugartown bookstore to sign copies of his new book, Ryan McGinley: Whistle for the Wind, which is being released by Rizzoli. —M.H.M.
Spoonbill & Sugartown, 218 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, 7:30 p.m.

'Merely a Mistake II' (2009-2011), by Liu Wei. (Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin)

On a sunny afternoon two weeks ago, David Maupin, co-owner of Lehmann Maupin gallery, sat in his Rem Koolhaas-designed office in Chelsea looking over a spreadsheet of Hong Kong real estate listings. Last year his business partner, Rachel Lehmann, spent three months traveling in Asia. In the past five months, Mr. Maupin has gone there three times (no small feat considering that he and his partner, W magazine editor Stefano Tonchi, welcomed newborn twin girls a year ago), gallery partner Courtney Plummer has gone twice and two other employees made trips. “I enjoy it,” said Ms. Lehmann. “Hong Kong is interesting. It’s one of these cities that has this uplifting energy.” They are planning to open a branch in Hong Kong; along with global megadealer Larry Gagosian, they will be among the first New Yorkers to do so.

The gallery plans to sign a lease at the end of September, on a space in the city center; the next step, said Ms. Lehmann, would be an additional, larger space with a more traditional exhibition program, somewhere outside it.

Hong Kong’s center is getting crowded, gallery-wise. London’s Ben Brown opened three years ago. Gagosian Gallery opened in January 2011, in the same building as Mr. Brown, a highly coveted one on Pedder Street. Last month, another London dealer, Simon Lee, opened in the building, as did the Chinese dealer Pearl Lam. And Paris’s Galerie Perrotin and London’s White Cube opened Hong Kong branches in a Robert A.M. Stern office tower, also in the city center.

As for Lehmann Maupin’s potential second outpost, one possibility is the Aberdeen area, where there are warehouse-like spaces. Yet another is West Kowloon, where a cultural district will include a new museum. There is also the Chai Wan area. In a year, Ms. Lehmann said, much more will be known about how things are shaking out in the city.

Ill economic winds have, of course, been blowing worldwide—and the most recent Hong Kong art auctions were down from last year’s—but there are still many reasons for galleries from the West to be interested in China. (“Potential” and “growth” tend to be the words most often used by dealers discussing doing business there.) For one, there’s the growing number of billionaires; last fall, Forbes released a report saying that “the number of billionaires among China’s richest 400 people increased to a record 146 from 128 a year earlier.” Then there’s the news of the many private museums in development in the country. “And that’s really of interest to us,” said Mr. Maupin, “because that’s where artists can work more ambitiously.”

The Art Newspaper recently reported that “There are around ten ‘serious’ buyers of international contemporary art based in China.” While Mr. Maupin said that currently only a small percentage of the gallery’s overall business is done with clients from Chinese-speaking Asia, that percentage has been increasing steadily in recent years. Having a gallery in Hong Kong, he said, was about having a base from which to do business everywhere from Jakarta to Seoul to Tokyo.

“The best thing for us is to have a physical presence there, to be visible,” said Ms. Lehmann. “In Asia, having face time is important, as important in China as it is in Korea and Japan.”

There is potentially another reason. White Cube Director Tim Marlow told the Financial Times last month that the gallery’s Hong Kong branch serves as a platform for its artists to become better known there. In a market where competition for the top artists is high, having a venue in Hong Kong presumably can make a gallery more attractive to them.

Rachel Lehmann and David Maupin.

But another major factor for galleries eyeing Hong Kong is the opportunity to scout local talent. Recently, Lehmann Maupin signed its first Chinese artist, the 40-year-old Liu Wei, who works in painting and photography, but has been focused recently on large-scale architectural sculptures that resemble cityscapes and are made from unconventional materials, like door frames and books. The gallery will give him his first-ever New York solo show next February. And Ms. Lehmann said she is currently looking into representing a second Chinese artist.

The decision to work with Liu Wei was not a snap one made to capitalize on a new market, the Lehmann Maupin partners emphasized. Back in 1998, the gallery did an exhibition of contemporary artists from China. He wasn’t in that show, but it got the gallery looking there. Mr. Maupin first visited his studio in an industrial area of Beijing about five years ago, and started following his work, which he’d seen it in the Chinese pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2005. In the past four years alone, Mr. Liu has participated in the Busan Biennial, in South Korea; the Guangzhou Triennial, in China, and the Shanghai Biennial. He’s also been in museum exhibitions in Paris and London, and his work is owned by London’s Saatchi Collection, and the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo. His generation of Chinese artists are not only better known in the West than many older ones, but are also more used to the gallery system here, said Mr. Maupin. “I think that those differences—the whole concept of representation being more complex than just the sales function—the generation born in the 70’s and later are much more familiar with it and accepting of it.”

Doing business in Asia isn’t new to the gallery. Ms. Lehmann, who’d had a gallery in Geneva, founded Lehmann Maupin in the early 90’s with Mr. Maupin, who’d worked for New York gallery Metro Pictures. They started making trips to Japan in the mid 90’s, when a museum there purchased works by the artist duo Gilbert & George. By the late 90’s, they’d started working with Korean-born artists Do Ho Suh and Lee Bul, and gradually developed a strong client base in Korea. Ms. Lehmann now describes that country as “like a second home.” (At Christie’s Hong Kong on May 26, Do Ho Suh’s chandelier-like sculpture Cause & Effect (2007) made his fourth-highest price of 2.4 million HKD ($311,715), surpassing its high pre-sale estimate of 2 million HKD ($257,615).)

They considered opening an outpost in Seoul, but that city already has a well-developed art scene; their Korean artists already have galleries there. So it came down to Hong Kong and Singapore, where, Mr. Maupin said, there are “very serious collectors.” Both places have all the tax advantages of being freeports. (Real-estate in Hong Kong is on the pricy side; spaces in Beijing, where the Pace Gallery has had an outpost since 2008, are less expensive, but the taxes on art in mainland China are high.) The decision was difficult, Mr. Maupin said, but “ultimately, Hong Kong is positioned more as a destination.”

The city-state’s five-year-old Art HK fair is also attracting an increasingly international crop of dealers and collectors, and was recently purchased by Swiss behemoth Art Basel. While galleries from the West report varying degrees of success there, sales-wise, most see continued participation as an investment, even despite some hiccups this year—there were rippling concerns over a storage company that had customs problems and some attendees attributed the fact that certain mainland Chinese collectors didn’t show up to the fact that the fair did not coincide with the season’s auctions.

Lehmann Maupin, which made seven sales on the fair’s final day alone, has participated in Art HK for the past three years, using its booth to show its Asian artists, like the Japanese artist known as Mr., as well as Lee Bul and Do Ho Suh, but also to open the door for their Western artists—to, as Mr. Maupin put it, “educate and communicate.” This year they devoted a quarter of the booth to Austrian artist Erwin Wurm, who recently had a solo exhibition at the Ullens Center in Beijing. “That was really successful,” said Mr. Maupin, “because a certain percentage of the audience had either seen it or heard about it.”

Correction: June 7, 2012: An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that artworks by Liu Wei are owned by the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Guggenheim.

sdouglas@observer.com

Artist Talk: "Kara Walker on Andy Warhol," at Dia Art Foundation
As part of its "Artists on Artists" series, the Dia Art Foundation invites Kara Walker to speak on the subject of Andy Warhol. Ms. Walker is known for her frank and often disturbing silhouettes that explore power dynamics along lines of race, gender and sexuality. Ms. Walker's major survey exhibition, "Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love," which Dia director Philippe Vergne helped curate, premiered at the the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in February 2007, after which it was presented at the Whitney and many museums worldwide. —Rozalia Jovanovic
Dia Art Foundation, 535 West 22nd Street, 5th floor, New York, 6:30 p.m., $6

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28

Opening: Yang Fudong, at Marian Goodman Gallery
For his third exhibition with Marian Goodman, Yang Fudong will present three new works that explore the artist's themes of historical fantasies, theatricality and the conflation of fiction and reality. --Michael H. Miller
Marian Goodman Gallery, 24 West 57th Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.

Screening: Dirty Looks at Judson Memorial Church
Camp may be dead, but we're not getting over it anytime soon. Dirty Looks, a monthly screening series of queer experimental film and video, will be showing early work by Bruce and Norman Yonemoto on Wednesday in the Judson Memorial Church. The California-based brothers' colorful videos from the 1980s play with soap opera, melodrama and advertising to examine the manipulative style of pop TV.
Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, New York, 8:30-10:30 p.m.

THURSDAY, MARCH 29

Opening: Nari Ward, "Liberty and Orders," at Lehmann Maupin
Aiming to "cover" himself, artist Nari Ward undertook the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. Now, in his second solo show at Lehmann Maupin, the artist explores the issues of law and authority that were raised during his naturalization. Some of his works seek to imbue documents with emotional resonance, like Casings, which transforms an NYPD stop-and-frisk report to relate it more directly to the body. —R.J.
Lehmann Maupin, 201 Chrystie Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.

Panel: "Are You Experienced? How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art," at CUNY's James Gallery
Times critic Ken Johnson--who just wrote a book about psychedelics and art, titled Are You Experienced?--joins the painter Carroll Dunham (a reliable mind-bender) and anthropologist and historian of science Nicolas Langlitz in conversation on "the enduring influence that the use of hallucinogens and the psychedelic experience has had on American culture." Miciah Hussey, a Ph.D. candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center, moderates. (Mr. Dunham's 2010–11 painting Bathers 4 (posture) is pictured.) --Andrew Russeth
The James Gallery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, 6:30 p.m.

Opening: Alex Bag and Patterson Beckwith "Cash from Chaos/Unicorns & Rainbows," at Team Gallery
This collaborative exhibition consists of footage from Alex Bag and Patterson Beckwith's public access shows, which were 29 minutes long and aired at 2:30 a.m. on Channel 34 between 1994 and 1997. To give you a sense of the attitude here, each episode began with the artists destroying the footage from the week before. --M.H.M.
Team Gallery, 83 Grand Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.

Opening: Mira Schor at Marvelli Gallery
Mira Schor, a much-loved painter and writer who is well-known for her defense of both the painting medium and intuitive expression, will be showing recent work at the Marvelli Gallery. The press release for "Voice and Speech" declares that painting is, for Schor, "a primary meeting ground between 'voice' and 'speech,'" which makes sense; Schor champions the unique potential of both visual and verbal language. --W.K.
Marvelli Gallery, 526 West 26th Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.

SATURDAY, MARCH 31

Symposium: Independent Art Spaces, and Book Launch: Art Spaces Directory, at the New Museum
As part of its current triennial, the New Museum has joined with ArtAsiaPacific to compile a directory of more than 400 international art spaces. To mark the book's publication, co-editors Eungie Joo and Ethan Swan will host panels with figures guiding the development of those spaces today. The first discussion brings together Participant Inc. founder Lia Gangitano, Artists Space director Stefan Kalmár and others to consider the "unique challenges" of these venues, while the second ventures into the non-physical realm, considering spaces sans real estate. --A.R.
New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York, 12 p.m.

'Untitled (Portrait of Grandma's Table)' (2009) was made with oil paint, silicone, wire mesh, aluminum, oil on wood and, yes, porcelain. (Courtesy the artist and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago/Berlin)

An eagle-eyed tipster just sent over a job listing for an "Artist/Ceramist" on the New York Foundation for the Art's website that was posted by the studio of artist Angel Otero, who is based in Ridgewood, Queens, and shows at Lehmann Maupin in New York.

Mr. Otero, it seems, is looking for a ceramicist to help "develop a series of new material explorations." Which sounds like a pretty great, fun job.

If you're interested and meet the requirements (note: "Access to a large scale kiln is preferred."), you can drop Mr. Otero's studio an email. The information is in the post.

Those who prefer to view art rather than make it can find Mr. Otero's work right now in the Queens Internatioanl at the Queens Museum of Art or in Istanbul, for one more day, at Istanbul '74, in a show presented by Lehmann Maupin.

Tour: ArtWalk Chelsea: David Zwirner, Gagosian and Gladstone
The American Federation for the Arts takes visitors on a tour of three exhibitions of three very different artists in Chelsea--Doug Wheeler, Damien Hirst and Shirin Neshat. --Michael H. Miller
Meet at David Zwirner, 519 West 19th Street, New York, 4–6 p.m., $25 for AFA members, $35 for non-members.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9

Opening: "Happenings" at the Pace Gallery
Over 300 photographs document performance pieces from the movement, featuring work by Jim Dine, Simone Forti, Red Grooms, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras, Carolee Schneemann, and Robert Whitman. Sounds like a stellar tribute to a too-short movement, and you never know, someone may stage a be-in right at the opening. --Dan Duray
The Pace Gallery, 534 West 25th Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.

Opening: Xaviera Simmons: "When You're Looking at Me, You're Looking at Country" at Guild Galleries
The multi-media artist will debut and talk about her latest project, which involved giving free photographic portraits to community members at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses, at two simultaneous locations (she'll be making appearances at both). --M.H.M.
Guild Gallery II, 119 9th Avenue, New York, 5-6:30 p.m., and Hudson Guild Gallery, 441 West 26th Street, New York, 6-7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10

Opening: Per-Oskar Leu, "Crisis and Critique," at Triple Canopy
Norwegian artist Per-Oskar Leu makes his U.S. debut with this hybrid video-sculpture installation, which includes a film that splices together iconic trial scenes from films like Fritz Lang's M (1931) and Hangmen Also Die! (1943). A clue to the goings-on here is provided in a poster that has been printed for the 10-day exhibition: an English translation of Otto Freundlich's 1931 essay "The Artist and the Economic Crisis."
Triple Canopy, 155 Freeman Street, Brooklyn, 7–9 p.m.

Opening: Juergen Teller at Lehmann Maupin
The photographer shows photos from three series, seductive pictures of Kristen McMenamy and Vivienne Westwood, then "Keys to the House," which features his home in Suffolk, and then another series of portraits featuring Vivienne Westwood, William Eggleston and Teller's own son. --D.D.
Lehmann Maupin, 201 Chrystie Street, New York 6-8 p.m.

Screening and Talk: Beatrix Ruf on Rosemarie Trockel at The Artist's Institute
Kunsthalle Zurich director Beatrix Ruf, who organized a Trockel show back in 2010, will screen and discuss the artist's Wollfilm (1992)—that's Wool Film—in which the a female torso is slowly exposed as the thread of a sweater is pulled. Space is limited, so arrive early to guarantee a seat. --A.R.
The Artist's Institute, 163 Eldridge Street, New York, 7 p.m.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 11

Opening: André Saraiva, "Love Letters" at Half Gallery
The baron of Le Baron and graffiti artist extraordinaire offers his first solo New York show, featuring love notes and French letter boxes that he used to paint in Paris. Not to be missed. --D.D.
Half Gallery, 208 Forsyth Street, New York, 6-8 p.m.

Performance: Gerald Ferguson, "Choral Reading," at Canada
The late Canadian conceptual artist Gerald Ferguson's Standard Corpus of Present Day English Language Usage Arranged By Word Length (1972) will be presented by a chorus of 26 performers, one for each letter of the alphabet. This is also a last chance to see Canada's show of the artist's paintings—his first in 40 years in New York—before it closes on Sunday. --A.R.
Canada, 55 Chrystie Street, New York, 7 p.m.

Performance: Clifford Owens: Anthology Performance at MoMA PS1
As part of the artist's first major museum retrospective, Mr. Owens will perform scores by Rico Gatson, Lyle Ashton Harris, Lorraine O'Grady and Kara Walker. --M.H.M.
MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Queens, 3 p.m.