Contemplative portraits of South African migrant workers, historic images of sculpture by renowned shooters, emerging artists get a break (and a very funny press release), and Chelsea gets ready for an art walk. Your guide to what's happening now.

The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today, at MoMA. This absorbing – and somewhat meta – exhibition on the museum’s sixth floor brings together more than 300 photographs, dating back to the 19th century that document the ways in which artists have recorded art itself, particularly sculpture. This may seem like inside baseball for the Ph.D. set, but the list of artists featured reads like a who’s who of photographic history: Edward Steichen, Walker Evans, André Kertész, Lee Friedlander and Barbara Kruger, to name but a few. And the images are revelatory – depicting the myriad ways in which objects can be both fetishized and overlooked. Opens Sunday, in Manhattan.

The First Annual Chelsea Art Walk. More than two dozen galleries – along with some choice food purveyors (think: steamy crêpes from Le Gamin) – will be participating in the first iteration of what promises to be a good summer art blast. Among the choice shows you’ll be able to see: Michal Ronnen Safdie’s ethereal portraits of jet vapor trails at Andrea Meislin, ghostly self-portraits at Yancey Richardson, the hip Mexi-paintings of Sylvia Ji at Joshua Liner and a get-lost-in-the-pieces show about post-War abstraction at Cheim & Read. And if you haven’t seen it yet, pop in to Yossi Milo to catch the gallery’s wonderful gathering of painted vintage photographs from Brazil, which we teased a few weeks back. Things will be going down this evening between 5 and 8pm, in Manhattan.

Employee of the Month, a group show, at Marianne Boesky Gallery, Chelsea. Because, sometimes, it’s worth checking out a show based entirely on the hilarity of the press release. A sample: “We strongly encourage that participation, because it makes our 'artists' feel like they belong, knowing that if they stick to the straight and narrow, and work hard, someday a watercolor that they created with their one good hand might end hanging in the reception area of the second largest dental clinic in Queens.” (Read the full thing here.) In all seriousness, wunder-curator Dan Cameron is involved, as are artists like Ted Riederer and Brent Birnbaum, the latter of whom once remade himself as Vanilla Ice and signed posters at the old Tower Records space in downtown. The show opens Friday at 6pm, in Manhattan.

Zweluthu Mthethwa: Inner Views, at the Studio Museum Harlem. This poignant exhibition by South African photographer Mthethwa takes a painterly approach to portraiture. Rich hues of blue and yellow and green appear in formal images that document the homes of migrant workers around Johannesburg, among other people. Some of the images are portraits, others are simple abstractions of empty rooms. The result: beauty permeated by a lingering sense of melancholy. Through Oct. 24, in Manhattan.