Richard Tuttle. Autumn. 2005. Woodcut, embossing, and digital print, 24 x 31 3/4″ (61 x 80.6 cm). Gift of Emily Fisher Landau. © 2015 Richard Tuttle

While I’m most excited about the fact that it’s officially the start of fall, here are this week’s other highlights:

• On Tuesday, join a Gallery Sessions program that asks the question, Why Does Contemporary Art Look This Way?, and explores the ways in which artists use visual simplicity to convey complex ideas.

Out on the Street. 2015. Egypt. Directed by Philip Rizk, Jasmina Metwaly

• Contemporary films from the Middle East and North Africa are on view in Films from Here: Recent Views from the Arab World, beginning Thursday with Philip Rizk and Jasmina Metwaly’s Out on the Street, and Mohammad Shawky Hassan’s And on a Different Note. Both screenings are followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

• On Friday and Saturday join artists, curators, and others for Afterlives: The Persistence of Performance—a series of conversations on vital issues in contemporary performance. At MoMA, the series includes talks by theorist and poet Fred Moten, artists Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish, and anthropologist Kathleen C. Stewart. All talks will be live-streamed.

• Sunday is the last chance to see the exhibition Gilbert & George: The Early Years—which includes the large-scale eight-part charcoal on paper sculpture The Tuileries—before it closes. Watch the video above and hear from the artists about how and why they invented Postal Sculptures as young art-school graduates.

• Head to MoMA PS1 for the season opener of Sunday Sessions, featuring live performances and DJ sets. Calentura is a celebration of heavy beats and traditional rhythms from across Latin America and around the world.