Pier Groups: A Conversation with Jonathan Weinberg at the Whitney Museum of American Art | Following the Stonewall riots, the Hudson River piers and surrounding Meatpacking District became a site of exploration and experimentation for queer artists.

Timed to correspond with the publication of Pier Groups, author Jonathan Weinberg will be in conversation with artists Andreas Sterzing and Sasha Wortzel, as they examine art, sexuality, and the New York Waterfront from the 1970s to the present—noting how the piers have changed since the 1970s, and highlighting their own personal recollections of the piers and New York City over the past 50 years. Weinberg’s Pier Groups weaves together interviews, documentary photographs, literary texts, artworks, and film stills to show how avant-garde practices competed and mingled with queer identities along the Manhattan waterfront. Part memoir, part art history, the book is a document of the artistic and sexual expression that characterized, and ultimately transformed, the neighborhood where the Whitney now stands.

This conversation is part of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s year-round community programming that reinforces the Museum’s commitment to serve a wide variety of audiences in celebration of the complexity and diversity of art and culture, as well as supporting artists themselves.

Sunday, May 5, 3-4pm at the Whitney Museum of American Art: 99 Gansevoort St. btw. Washington & West Sts. (in the Laurie M. Tisch Education Center, 3rd floor). Tickets are required and include museum admission ($10 for adults, $8 for members, students, seniors, and visitors with a disability). Tickets can be purchased here.

Film Forum Jr. Spring Season | This series of classic films fit for kids and their families runs each Saturday and Sunday at 11am, through June 30. May gets off to a rousing start, with King Kong vs. Godzilla, Ishirō Honda’s action-packed battle between the cinema’s two greatest monster super-stars (May 4/5). May 11/12, it’s Bugs, Daffy, and Friends, a collection of shorts featuring your favorite Warner Bros. characters, including Porky Pig, Wile E. Coyote & Road Runner, Tweety & Sylvester. Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, May 18/19, stars Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder; and Penny Marshall’s A League of Their Own, May 25/26, has Geena Davis and Tom Hanks as part of its all-star cast, in this film based on the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during WWII.

All tickets to Film Forum Jr. screenings are $9 (children and adults). Film Forum is located at 209 W. Houston St. (w. of 6th Ave.). For the full schedule, visit www.filmforum.org.

–By Scott Stiffler

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