Fall Arts Preview

With season premieres, festivals and marquee exhibitions slated for the upcoming season, there’s little excuse for boredom this fall. Here’s our short list of upcoming arts events to keep the weekends packed, all before the last leaf falls.

MUSEUMS

Pixar: The Design of Story

Talking cars, personified emotions and sophisticated rats make up the characters at the center of the Cooper Hewitt’s upcoming exhibition on Pixar’s design processes. With more than 450 works from Pixar, the exhibit explores how Toy Story, Ratatouille, Inside Out and other favorites were created, and the ways in which design and storytelling coalesce. Among the works on display are architectural studies for the airborne house in Up, models of Toy Story’s Woody and drawings of the robots in Wall-E, showing how design elements could make the robot seem plausible and the aerodynamics of the flying house believable.

Pixar: The Design of Story

Oct. 8-Aug. 7

Cooper Hewitt

2 E. 91st St., at Fifth Avenue

Museum hours: Sunday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.

Admission $18

For more information, visit cooperhewitt.org or call 212-849-8400

Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting

Prior to his career as a painter, Italian artist Alberto Burri was a medic in the Italian army during World War II, and started painting in a prisoner-of-war camp in Texas, experiences that influenced his artistic direction. In an upcoming retrospective of his work, the first in the states in 35 years, more than 100 pieces demonstrate his range of methods and surfaces. He punctured his paintings and used broken materials; stitched burlap and melted plastic offer occasional abstract references to flesh wounds.

Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting

Oct. 9-Jan. 6

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation

1071 Fifth Ave., at 88th Street

Museum hours: Sunday-Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-7:45 p.m.; closed Thursday

Admission $25

For more information, visit Guggenheim.org or call 212-423-3500

Picasso Sculpture

Picasso’s sculptures haven’t quite received equal attention to his works on canvas. The trained painter explored the three-dimensional form with an experimental bent and treasured much of his sculptures, keeping them in his private home collections. They were shown en masse in a 1966 exhibition in Paris, and a subsequent show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967 brought them stateside, but they haven’t again been surveyed in this country. Now, MoMA presents 150 of Picasso’s sculptures from throughout his career, many on loan from the Musée National Picasso-Paris, along with the 1914 metal Guitar and 1950 bronze sculpture She-Goat from MoMA’s holdings.

Picasso Sculpture

Sept. 14-Feb. 7

Museum of Modern Art

11 W. 53 St., between Fifth and Sixth Avenues

Museum hours: Sunday-Thursday and Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Friday 10:30 a.m.-8 p.m.

Admission $25

For more information, visit moma.org or call 212-708-9400

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist

After the Whitney takes down its inaugural exhibition that encompassed the entirety of its new Meatpacking District building, the museum celebrates Harlem Renaissance painter Archibald Motley in the museum’s sky-lit gallery on its eighth floor. The 45 paintings offer views of Motley’s vibrant, colorful depictions of urban living, which include scenes from his native Chicago, as well as 1920s Paris and Mexico.

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist

Oct. 2-Jan. 17

Whitney Museum of American Art

99 Gansevoort St., between Washington Street and Tenth Avenue

Museum hours: Monday, Wednesday, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; Closed Tuesday

Admission $22

For more information, visit whitney.org or call 212-570-3600

THEATER

Desire: An Evening of Plays Based on Six Stories by Tennessee Williams

Six venerable playwrights adapt the short stories of Tennessee Williams for the Acting Company’s new presentation, which debuts at 59E59 Theaters. Rebecca Gilman’s The Field of Blue Children explores class differences, while Marcus Gardley’s “desire quenched by touch” is a Cold War-era mystery. Pulitzer Prize nominee John Guare, who penned Six Degrees of Separation, adapts Portrait of a Girl in Glass, a story that influenced Tennessee’s seminal play The Glass Menagerie.

Desire: An Evening of Plays Based on Six Stories by Tennessee Williams

Sept. 2-Oct. 11

59E59 Theaters

59 E. 59th St., between Park and Madison Avenues

Assorted show times

Tickets $70

To purchase tickets, visit 59e59.org or call 212-279-4200

Alamat: Stories of Philippine Gold

New York’s Ma-Yi Theater Company interprets creation myths and legends (or “alamat”) from the Philippines, which illuminate the importance of gold in different parts of the country. The event is tied to Asia Society’s concurrent exhibition, Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms, which showcases more than 100 gold items, including decadent jewelry and weapons.

Alamat: Stories of Philippine Gold

Monday, Oct. 26

Asia Society

725 Park Ave., at E. 70th Street

8 p.m.

Tickets $15

To purchase tickets, visit asiasociety.org or call 212-517-ASIA

DANCE

New Chamber Ballet

New Chamber Ballet opens its upcoming season with a presentation of new and repertory works from its founder and artistic director Miro Magliore and choreographer-in-residence Constantine Baecher. The season openers at City Center include La Mandragore, a duet that premiered in June, as well as In the Parlour, set to a violin sonata by Mozart. The company, known for its founder’s collaborations with musicians (Magliore began his ballet career as a composer) welcomes live violin and piano accompaniment featuring both contemporary and traditional compositions.

New Chamber Ballet

Sept. 11-12

City Center Studio 5

130 W. 56 St., between Sixth and Seventh Avenues

8 p.m.

Tickets $29

To purchase tickets, visit smarttix.com or call 212-868-4444

Dig Dance at 92Y

92nd Street Y’s weekend dance series Dig Dance focuses on a different company each week, starting with Korean avant-garde dancer and choreographer Sin Cha Hong. Other features of the series include Broadway Takes Two, which reimagines a variety of Broadway dance productions and New York Theater Ballet’s The Alice-in-Wonderland Follies.

Dig Dance at 92Y

Oct. 2-May 20

92nd Street Y

92nd Street and Lexington Avenue

Assorted show times

Tickets $15-$35

To purchase tickets, visit 92y.org or call 212-415-5500

GALLERIES

The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy

The post-World War II European art movement Cobra, named for its origin cities of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, collectively, took root before the group officially formed in 1948, and a bi-coastal exhibition in New York and Los Angeles examines the beginnings of the movement and its influence on later work and ideas. The New York leg of the exhibition pays special attention to Cobra’s founder Asger Jorn, who started artist group Helhesten in 1941, during the Nazi occupation of his native Denmark before going on to found Cobra, a group inspired by Marxist ideals, children’s art and collaboration.

The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy

Sept. 9-Oct. 17

Blum & Poe

19 E. 66th St., between Madison and Fifth Avenues

Opening reception: Wednesday, Sept. 9, 6-8 p.m.

Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

For more information, visit blumandpoe.com or call 212-249-2249

FILM

Sinatra at Symphony Space

Frank Sinatra would turn 100 this coming December and Symphony Space honors the celebrated crooner. On Oct. 17, singers perform 100 of Sinatra’s songs throughout the afternoon. Later in the month, the venue pays tribute to Sinatra as film star, screening four of his films, including the 1962 drama The Manchurian Candidate and the 1955 film adaptation of the musical Guys and Dolls, which also stars Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons and Vivian Blaine.

Sinatra at Symphony Space

Oct 17, 18 and 25

Symphony Space

2537 Broadway, at 95th Street

Assorted times

Tickets: Oct. 17, $35-$45; Oct. 18 and 25, $14

To purchase tickets, visit symphonyspace.org or call 212-864-5400