So you’ve resolved that with a New Year and the inauguration of a new President, you’re going to celebrate for the rest of the week by taking in as much culture as possible?  Our recommendations:

Mark Wagner, Buying the Brooklyn Bridge, 2008, Currency collage, 30×20 inches, Courtesy of Pavel Zoubok Gallery, NY.

• TONIGHT: A New Deal, Art and Currency opens @ the BRIC Rotunda Gallery. This exhibition takes its name from the social and economic reforms implemented by FDR in the 1930s, and highlights relationships between American presidents and the economy, observing how these relationships affect art-making.
• Thursday, January 22nd: Catch Peter Caine’s animatronic installations @ Derek Eller Gallery, on view until February 21st, and Stephen Sprouse’s Rock on Mars @ Deitch Projects, on view until February 28th.
• Friday, January 23rd: The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm opens @ the Tina Kim Gallery from 6-8pm. Organized by poet and writer Christopher Y. Lew, this group exhibition named for the Wallace Stevens poem explores a spirit of “meditative rapture” in its artists’ practices. With Robert Booras, Julia Chiang, Amy Elkins, Jeff Feld, Leslie Hewitt, Amy Kao, Marc André Robinson, Kiki Smith. Through February 21st, 2009.
• Saturday, January 24th: The Anna Copa Cabanna Show: It’s Summer In Australia! @ Joe’s Pub, Midnight. Recently recovered from her first cross-country tour, and with a devoted cult following that includes the likes of Tommy Ramone and Lady Bunny, the latest incarnation of Australian showgirl Anna Copa Cabanna‘s Rock and Roll Variety Show draws inspiration from The Lynda Carter Specials, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, and The Carol Burnett Show. With overly-earnest, beautifully choreographed dance numbers by The Copa Cabanna Dancers and regular guest, Hula-Hoop Harlot Melissa-Anne. Not to be missed.
• This is also the last weekend to catch the sold-out run of Wickets @ the 3LD Art and Technology Center; an extra 3pm Saturday performance has been added. Clove Galilee and Jenny Rogers’ adaptation of Marie Irene Fornes’ 1977 drama Fefu and Her Friends reveals the inner thoughts of eight ’70s-era stewardesses, as they serve the seated audience/passengers inside a unique airline cabin set. I had the pleasure of seeing this as a work-in-progress at the HERE Arts Center last year, and since then, the drama has garnered several favorable reviews in major publications over its short run.