cityArts October 26, 2011

MONUMENTS TO KING

WWW.CITYARTSNYC.COM OCT. 26–NOV. 8, 2011 Volume 3, Issue 17

The CityArts interview: Will Barnet 9

Kissing the Air: Streb’s Action Faction Page 17

Watch the Throne: Marsalis at 50 Page 10

Art and Politics in Stone and on Stage

2 CityArts | October 26, 2011

INSIDE

EDITOR Armond White [email protected]

MANAGING EDITOR Mark Peikert [email protected]

ASSISTANT EDITOR Deb Sperling

SENIOR ART CRITIC Lance Esplund

SENIOR MUSIC CRITIC Jay Nordlinger

SENIOR DANCE CRITIC Joel Lobenthal

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Caroline Birenbaum, John Demetry, Valerie

Gladstone, John Goodrich, Amanda Gordon, Ben Kessler, Howard Mandel, Maureen Mullarkey, Mario Naves, Gregory Solman, Melissa Stern,

Nicholas Wells

DESIGN/PRODUCTIONPRODUCTION/CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Ed Johnson [email protected]

ADVERTISING DESIGN Quarn Corley

PUBLISHER Kate Walsh [email protected]

ADVERTISING CONSULTANT Adele Mary Grossman

[email protected]

ACCOUNT ExECUTIVES Ceil Ainsworth, Mike Suscavage

MANHATTAN MEDIAPRESIDENT/CEO Tom Allon [email protected]

CFO/COO Joanne Harras [email protected]

GROUP PUBLISHER Alex Schweitzer [email protected]

NEWSPAPER GROUP PUBLISHER Gerry Gavin [email protected]

DIRECTOR OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING & DIGITAL STRATEGY

Jay Gissen [email protected]

CONTROLLER Shawn Scott

ACCOUNTS MANAGER Kathy Pollyea

WWW.CITYARTSNYC.COMSend all press releases to [email protected]

CityArts is a division of Manhattan Media, publishers of New York Family magazine, AVENUE magazine, Our Town, West Side Spirit, Our Town Downtown, City Hall,

Chelsea Clinton News, The Westsider and The Blackboard Awards.

© 2011 Manhattan Media, LLC | 79 Madison Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10016 212.268.8600 | FAX: 212.268.0577 | www.manhattanmedia.com

GALLERIES

Pioneers in Shadows by Mario Naves Page 4Texture as Sculpture by Valerie Gladstone Page 7

MUSEUMS

Out of the Past by Melissa Stern Page 8Cezanne’s Wine Bottles by Phyllis Workman Page 8

CLASSICAL MUSIC

From Rosina to the Finland Station by Jay Nordlinger Page 9

JAzz

Watch the Throne by Howard Mandel Page 10

THEATER

Belief with Wings by Armond White Page 11

MLK MONUMENT

I Have a Nightmare by Gregory Solman Page 12Virtual Deity by Maureen Mullarkey Page 13Crowd Pleaser by John Lingan Page 14Stone Cold by Emma Lockridge Page 14

FILM

Bedtime for Gonzo by Armond White Page 15

DANCE

Coming Attractions by Joel Lobenthal Page 16

AUCTIONS

Going, Going Auctions by Caroline Birenbaum Page 18

THE CITYARTS INTERVIEW

Will Barnet Page 19Whatever your philanthropic passions, The New York Community Trust can help you design your own Giving Pledge.

Set up a charitable fund with us and get the expert advice and support the billionaires get.

Contact us today for our free booklet. You’ll be inspired by what you can accomplish.

Call Jane Wilton at (212) 686–0010 x379, e-mail [email protected], or visitnycommunitytrust.org.

Why Let the Billionaires Have all the Fun?

October 26, 2011 | CityArts 3

LIGHT BULB ARMOND WHITE

How do you portray grace in stone? Like Bernini or the Pièta? This is also a political matter, as proved by the

Martin Luther King Jr. National Monu-ment recently dedicated in Washington, D.C. The question inquires whether artists can transcend politics or get trapped and limited by them—which can happen with our own unwary responses to art.

Each publication of CityArts reviews that struggle in various art endeavors, but this time shines special light on the issue with a section of articles that take a serious look at the MLK mon-ument. This two-part, 30-foot granite sculp-ture puts art on the front page of national consciousness. When was the last time that happened? When Picasso premiered his large-scale Chicago mask in 1967? When a madman smashed Michelangelo’s Pièta in 1972?

In the art world, where the most pressing public concern is how much a painting raises at auction, the ethics of commissions, grants, design and social impact are routinely ignored. The King statue calls attention to the art world’s political consciousness. King may be universally respected for his moral cour-age, but that doesn’t mean his likeness is safe from being used for unworthy pur-poses—hidden agendas or simply a lack of consciousness.

That enormous American monument (and its questionable commission) needs ethical scrutiny—just like the Elizabeth Streb and William Forsythe choreography that Valerie Gladstone and Joel Loben-thal, respectively, give fine examination. There’s every reason a work of public art should meet the same standards that Mario Naves and John Goodrich

find, respectively, in Georges Braque and Ruth Miller. A monument’s value is found in how it com-memorates an idea and whether its craft and imagination are a sufficient tribute. John Lingan, Emma Lockridge, Mau-reen Mullarkey and Gregory Solman offer strong, distinct per-

spectives on the MLK stone work. Their essays should illuminate public response rather than further political idolatry.

About the cover: Two representations of MLK—the monument and the Broadway impersonation by Samuel L. Jackson—are juxtaposed. Art director Ed Johnson adds tints that evoke current political quan-dary, with the result of a compelling Janus effect. Jackson’s surprising portrayal of King in Katori Hall’s play The Mountain-top seeks to remedy political hypocrisy and the moral amnesia that now defines King worship. The Janus effect—more than one way of looking at art—brings thinking back.

IN THE ART WORLD, WHERE THE MOST PRESSING PUBLIC CONCERN IS

HOW MUCH A PAINTING RAISES AT AUCTION, THE

ETHICS OF COMMISSIONS, GRANTS, DESIGN AND SOCIAL IMPACT ARE

ROUTINELY IGNORED.

On the cover: MLK Monument photo courtesy of the USDA. Samuel L. Jackson as Martin Luther King Jr. by Mary Ellen Mark, courtesy of the production.

www.carolinawinebrandsusa.com


GALLERIES ExHIBITION OPENINGS

Blue Mountain Gallery: Nancy Beal: “Recent Paintings.” Opens Nov. 1, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., bluemountaingallery.org.

David Nolan Gallery: Richard Artschwager: “Weave.” Opens Oct. 27, 527 W. 29th St., davidnolangallery.com.

First Street Gallery: Nancy Balliett: “Then & Now.” Opens Nov. 1, 526 W. 26th St., Ste. 209, firststreetgallery.net.

Gallery 307: Flo Fox: “Photographs 1972–2011.” Opens Oct. 27, 307 7th Ave., Ste. 1401, carterburdencenter.org.

James Cohan Gallery: Byron Kim. Opens Nov. 4, 533 W. 26th St., jamescohan.com.

Lesley Heller Workspace: Tom Kotik: “Tone.” Opens Oct. 26. “Head Case.” Opens Oct. 26, 54 Orchard St., lesleyheller.com.

Minus Space: Gabriele Evertz. Opens Nov. 5, 98 4th St., Rm. 204, Buzzer #28, minusspace.com.

Noho Gallery Chelsea: Jiwan Joo: “Labyrinth as Puzzle.” Opens Nov. 1, 520 W. 25th St., nohogallery.com.

Pioneers in ShadowsSCALiNG BRAqUE AND TAKENAGA

BY MARIO NAVES

The paintings of Barbara Takenaga, on display at DC Moore Gallery, are easy to admire and hard to love.

Straddled between these polarities is Tak-enaga herself, an artist cruising on picto-rial stratagems and touched by personal tragedy. The relationship between the two curbs our judgment of the work.

Immaculately contrived and spectacu-lar in effect, a Takenaga abstraction would enhance any mantelpiece over which it hung. Undulating patterns, typically com-prised of dots, expand over the surface of each canvas. Takenaga’s methodology is impressive: The deliberate application of myriad blips of acrylic paint endows the pic-tures with a steely, photographic shimmer.

Funneling op art’s sensory overload through a stately vein of mysticism, Tak-enaga propels us to the outer reaches of the galaxy even as she recalls the microscopic doings of subatomic particles. Linear per-spective establishes zooming, heady spaces; atmospheric perspective, an unearthly glow. There’s a cartoon element involved as well. The works’ rhythmic verve and rubbery plasticity brings to mind Kenny Scharf’s goofball riffs on Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Reading the catalog, we learn that Tak-enaga’s recent pictures are influenced by events considerably less sunny: the death of a sick parent. “There is,” critic Nancy Princenthal writes, “nothing literal” about the connection between a mother’s dementia and her daughter’s “twilight palette.” All the same, it’s there, “run[ning] deep below the surface like a big, dark shadow.” There’s no doubting that Takena-ga has evoked something elemental, hard and true from her unearthly runs of black, gray and white. (When saturated colors do make an appearance, a palpable diminu-tion of feeling takes place.)

It’s to Takenaga’s credit that her art pinpoints, with uncanny specificity, “that sense of fading—shiny, hazy shifting” typical of a person afflicted with demen-tia. What Takenaga can’t entirely enliven (or redeem) is the dulling prerequisites of formula. A canvas like “Doubleback” (2011) would benefit from the aforemen-tioned mantelpiece—seen on a piecemeal

basis, Takenaga performs wonders. Seen en masse, you realize just how mechanical wonders can be. Barbara Takenaga: New Paintings Through Nov. 12, DC Moore Gallery, 535 W. 22nd St., 2nd Fl., 212-247-2111, www.dcmooregallery.com.

The French painter Georges Braque (1882–1963) exists in the popular imagination primarily as an adjunct

to the life and art of Pablo Picasso. The role they played in the advent of cubism, arguably the 20th century’s most impor-tant and far-reaching art form, guaranteed that their names, if not fortunes, would be bound together like mountaineers.

That was Braque’s estimation of the relationship he and Picasso played in upsetting and, by fiat, extending pictorial tradition. Picasso drummed up a differ-ent analogy, likening Braque (or so legend has it) to being his “wife.” It’s easy to glean the Spaniard’s condescension—we know his take on women. The shadow cast by Picasso’s bullying genius is all but obliter-ating. Getting a sense of Braque as Braque has been difficult.

Georges Braque: Pioneer of Modern-ism, an exhibition at Acquavella Galleries on the Upper East Side, should contrib-ute much to our understanding of the painter’s accomplishment. The show isn’t definitive—it skips out entirely on the last 13 years of Braque’s art—but what it lacks

in breadth it gains in concentration. Borrowing key works from major insti-

tutions—among them MoMA, The Met, Pompidou and The Tate—along with paintings, drawings and collages from private collections, Acquavella has orches-trated some kind of coup. In doing so, it has performed a mitzvah for New Yorkers devoted to the vagaries of modernist art.

From the early fauvist landscapes to the invention and refining of cubism to the darker, more equivocal works of the 1940s and ’50s, Pioneer of Modernism elaborates upon Braque’s oeuvre with surprising depth. He emerges as a gentle tempera-ment with tenacious gifts, a painter given to poetic and often moody reveries.

That, and he’s a stick in the mud—a loner given to duty rather than pleasure, to musty habits and overheated tropes. “Studio V” (1949–1950) pulls apart the conventions of cubism in the service of dry melancholia; “Studio IX” (1952–53/56) does something similar, albeit in a more scattered manner. In both cases, gravity stifles vitality, leaving the viewer with mas-terworks burdened by modesty.

Vulgarity isn’t necessarily a coefficient of great art, but it goes some way toward explaining Picasso’s genius and the more politic nature of Braque’s. Pioneer of Mod-ernism is an event, absolutely, but one whose upshot doesn’t quite overturn the received wisdom. Georges Braque: Pioneer of Modernism Through Nov. 30, Acquavella Galleries, 18 E. 79th St., 212-734-6300, www.acquavellagalleries.com.

Barbara Takenaga, “Ronin,” 2011, acrylic on linen, 42 x 36 in. Image courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York.


Energy in BlossomsBENSON’S COLORS AND CHiNA’S BLOSSOMS

BY KATE PRENGEL

Trudy Benson’s painting is full of physi-cal energy. The paint is applied so thickly that it turns into an object in

its own right; the stripes and circles on the canvas look like moveable parts. Fittingly, most of the pieces in her show at Mike Weiss Gallery, Actual/Virtual, evoke outer space with their names—“Cosmic Canvas,” “Stel-lar Evolution”—and with the gravitational games they play.

Looking at “Red Giant,” for example, is like launching into orbit. The painting is overwhelming: a fat red center and a series of black rings, some shading into purple. It’s hard to know where to focus; there are so many rings and curves, nearly echoing each other, drawing your eye in constant new directions. Then, a green line as raw as space itself cuts across the front of the sphere. In the end, you feel you’ve circled a new planet.

“Holographix” also suggests constant motion. Black paint as thick as tire treads moves across the canvas; little stenciled bal-loons rise from below and a bold pink stripe hangs, promisingly, above a blue window. Your eye travels up, leaving behind a cross-hatched black-and-yellow base and entering entirely new territory, free of geometry.

After all this, “Sweet and Lowdown,” which hangs next to “Red Giant,” feels like a little valley of peace. Its peachy center is round and inviting; the little red circles crossing the painting keep to a reassuring rhythm. The rather strident crosshatching on the paint-ing’s perimeter reminds you to focus on the little pocket of peace in the middle.

“Yellow Painting” is similarly cheering. I at least had to smile at its look of warm cer-tainty, the sweet, uneven white stripes mov-ing up to a soft beige field covered in yellow paint suggested a meadow full of wildflowers and made me feel that I’d returned from a long trip through space. Actual/Virtual Through Nov. 12, Mike Weiss Gallery, 520 W. 24th St., 212-691-6899, www.mikeweissgallery.com.

The China Institute is aiming high right now. Its curators want to show us why Chinese artists, after years of state-

imposed social realism, have lately “taken the art world by storm” with their very modern style. Thus, the Institute’s current exhibit, Blos-soming in the Shadows: Unofficial Chinese Art, 1974–1985 looks for the modernist roots in the underground art of the 1970s and ’80s.

Some of the work is exciting indeed. I was stunned by Jiang Depu’s “Black Symphony,” a series of three pen and ink landscapes. To my Western eyes, at least, the swirling ink lines look a lot like traditional Chinese painting. But Jiang takes those lines and breaks them up, so the mountains seem to float above us. In “Mountain Creek,” my favorite of the series, the lines turn choppy, cascade into each other and form big ink blots. The result is a free-roll-ing stream and a highly personal dreamscape,

very far indeed from social realism.Another standout is Wang Keping’s wood

sculpture, “Silent.” A dark, beautifully whorled wooden head looks at us while a wooden stop-per fills his mouth. The piece is so physical that I longed to reach in and pull that stopper out. The renowned Ai Weiwei also has a few pieces in the show, poking fun at small-minded bureaucrats; they’ll make you smile, although they’re not precisely passionate.

Other pieces here, though, cannot stand on their own merit. The room dedicated to the so-called “Wuming” or “no name” group looks a lot like an amateur arts fair, full of

vaguely post-impressionist paintings of houses and flowers. Du Xia’s works impress with their poignancy, as if the artist has delib-erately shrunk her worldview down to the size of a vase of autumn leaves. But for the most part, the Wuming movement reminds us that, just as political oppression can inspire great art, censorship can also stunt some of our most promising artists. Blossoming in the Shadows: Unofficial Chinese Art, 1974–1985 Through Dec. 11, China institute, 125 E. 65th St., 212-744-8181, www.chinainstitute.org.

metmuseum.orgThrough January 8

MASTER PAINTERS OF INDIA, 1100–1900

Wonder of the Age“Epic and immersive”

—New York Times

Attributed to Payag (painter) and Mir ‘Ali (calligrapher), Shah Jahan Riding a Stallion (detail), page from the Kevorkian Album, India (Mughal court at Agra), ca. 1628, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Rogers Fund and The Kevorkian Foundation Gift, 1955.

Additional support is provided by

It was organized by the Museum Rietberg Zurich in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The exhibition is made possible by


Everything’s Gone GreenRUTH MiLLER LEAPS FORWARD

BY JOHN GOODRICH

It’s no surprise that over the decades, the painterly landscapes and still lifes of Ruth Miller (b. 1930) have gained many

admirers. Her vivid hues and richly scum-bled surfaces have an immediate appeal, but more impressive still is the radiant restraint of a wise but ardent notion of painting: forms have a significance, colors contain an inner light and together they make for a deeper kind of rendering.

Is it presumptuous to claim the artist has just made a significant leap in her painting? Probably, but here goes: It seems to me that the color in her latest paintings at Lohin Geduld has become noticeably more potent and focused and now more discriminately characterizes her subjects. The same sense of committed purpose and delight in materials is there, but it is now propelled by the actions of color. In the process, her images have moved from luminous recitations to vital and surpris-ing re-creations.

If an illustrator renders a likeness with evocative style and technique, painters draw on more primal, demanding and autonomous forces. Miller fully embraces them in canvases like “Place Revis-ited—Light on Lake” (2010), which moves through a remarkable range of greens that would seem to belong to separate worlds. An airy ochre-green, an elusive tawniness, a dense lime, a deep verdant hue as absor-bent of light as a cave—all jostle, pushing aside or giving way to one another in a dozen spatial dislocations.

The artist’s drawing, however, steers these impulses, locating the massive-ness of a shadowy tree trunk, the placid mirror-plane of water beyond, a curling wisp of reflection hovering within it. A heavy, overhanging bough winds across the canvas’ upper portion, charging the entire space beneath. The contradictions of color surprise, but even more startling is the coherence of the resulting image. In fact, a painting as dynamic as this seems held together only by exigencies of color as rest-less as nature herself. One thinks of Dider-ot’s astute comment about the paintings

of Chardin (1699–1779), arguably history’s greatest still life painter: “Draw near and everything blurs, flattens and disappears; back off and everything is re-created.”

And indeed, the artist achieves the same effect in her still lifes. In “Pot, Shell, Blue Coffee Pot,” (2011), broad forms perambulate about a tabletop, not always identifiable but always rhythmically self-possessed. A section of fabric darts in, catching the light, while another piece slips heavily to the side; a teapot’s spout twists through a distant interval. Toward a corner a small, pale cup settles beneath the pot’s looming bulk of sienna red—a scenario that might seem only clever were it not for the poignant, contrasting distinc-tions of color that weight each event.

In the gallery’s smaller room, don’t miss the small canvas entitled “Gourds, White Pitcher” (2009), in which the contours of these two objects seem bent on orbiting and eclipsing each other, like twin planets. This room also contains a number of fine drawings, though in this context they feel like preparatory studies: rational probings that anticipate the exuberant risks of color.

Some paintings fall slightly short of these high standards. “Shell, Blue Coffee Pot” (2011), a smaller version of the still life mentioned above, has a vibrant solidity,

but compared to other paintings it suffers from a certain evenness of purpose; the eye coasts through the undifferentiated color pressures above and below the table-top. One misses the sense, so evident else-where, of every element somehow remain-ing independent while proving inevitable; a unique personality, whether a jug, tree or cabbage. What else would a true likeness be? So Miller’s latest paintings seem to ask, making the daunting challenge of painting seem as natural as breathing. Ruth Miller Through Nov. 12, Lohin Geduld Gallery, 531 W. 25th St., 212-675-2656, www.lohingeduld.com.

Ruth Miller, “Pot, Shell, Blue Coffee Pot,” 2011, oil on linen, 16 x 22 in. Image by Lohin Geduld Gallery

Manhattan School of Music Upcoming Events OCT 28 / FRI / 7:30 PM

Borden Auditorium

ORPHEUS INSTITUTE @ MSM CHAMBER SINFONIAConductorless concertWith works by STRAVINSKY, COPLAND, RAVEL and SCHUMANNFREE

OCT 30 / SUN / 4 PM

Greenfi eld Hall

MENAHEM PRESSLER, PIANO MASTER CLASSFREE

OCT 31 / MON / 7:30 PM

Greenfi eld Hall

MENAHEM AT MANHATTANMenahem Pressler, PianoJeffrey Cohen, Piano | Lucie Robert, Violin | Nicholas Mann, ViolaDavid Geber, CelloPiano Four-Hands Work TBAMOZART Piano Quartet in E-fl at Major, K. 493DVORÁK Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-fl at Major, op. 87FREE

Menahem Pressler

MENAHEM PRESSLER AT MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Man

hatt

an S

choo

l of M

usic

Manhattan School of Music122ND STREET AT BROADWAY | 917 493 4428 | WWW.MSMNYC.EDU© 2011 MSM. Program and artist subject to change.

Jimmy Webb gave America the rock soundtrack of an era. He was hailed by Frank Sinatra, Joe Cocker and Billy Joel as one of the most innovative and musically profi cient songwriters of our generation. Join 92Y as NY1 reporter Budd Mishkin gets to know the legendary voice behind the music.

AN EVENING WITH JIMMY WEBBSUN, NOV 13, 7:30 PM

AN OPEN DOOR TO EXTRAORDINARY WORLDS™

92nd Street Y | Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street | An agency of UJA-Federation

GET YOUR TICKETS TODAY! Order online and save 50% on service fees at 92Y.org/MacArthurPark or call 212.415.5500.

WE

BB

MISH

KIN

SCADJIMWEBBCA10-26.indd 1 10/24/11 2:26 PM


Texture as SculptureARTSCHWAGER WEAVES MEDiA WiTH FEELiNG

BY VALERIE GLADSTONE

When artists enjoy long lives, their fans reap tremendous advantages. This thought came to mind when looking over Richard Artschwager’s new works at David Nolan Gallery. Born in 1923, he has never fit into any category for very long, passing through styles that superficially resembled pop, mini-mal and conceptual, all the while confound-ing critics who have tried to pigeonhole him.

A painter, sculptor, photographer and carpenter—he even made altars for ships in 1960—Artschwager’s consistent concern seems only to be investigating the illusions of perception. Though he did employ utilitarian

objects and showed himself ingenious with geometric forms, they always served less of an immediate purpose than to comment on themselves. Full of ideas, yes, but not nearly as cool as most conceptualists.

In some recent works here he returns to the region of his childhood, Las Cruces, N.M., with atmospheric landscapes that capture the openness and rawness of that part of the country. “Landscape with Rosettes” shows a yellow sun or moon hanging in the sky over the rust-brown earth, its surface dotted with green shapes arranged in an irregular for-mation. The circular arrangements of leaves seem out of place—growth from a richer, wetter climate.

Two yellow lines cut across a square of brown

earth in the middle of overgrown vegetation in “Landscape with Median.” The sky fades to blue-green in the distance. Because the lines—the median—go nowhere and serve no purpose, stopping almost as soon as they start, they give the impression of a dead end or of a futile human intervention into the wild.

In older works from the ’70s, Artschwager uses charcoal pencil and pastel when draw-

ing on ivory laid Strathmore paper or paper handmade from crushed sugarcane pulp. By employing these textured surfaces, he gets the sculptural effect that he always seems to be after. Fittingly titled “Weave,” the draw-ings of crisscrossing gray and black lines look like window frames or even the bars of a cage. They are reminiscent of Franz Kline’s black-and-white abstractions and are endowed with the same fierce, insistent angularity.

To give a sense of his range, the gallery also includes “Arch,” a silver-painted wooden sculpture from 2007, a dynamic totem. A

particular favorite, “Abstraction,” painted in 2004, looks like a Cézanne landscape with its geometry, the green and blue bands of color going off to the horizon. A maze as well, the work has the depth and two-dimensionality that Artschwager strives for. How wonderful that he never stopped at any of his dynamic stages, allowing us to see where they would eventually take him. Richard Artschwager Through Dec. 3, David Nolan Gallery, 527 W. 29th St., 212-925-6190, www.davidnolangallery.com.

The International Art Fair for Fine Prints and EditionsOld Master to Contemporary November 3 – 6

ifpda printfair

2011

Presented by The International Fine Print Dealers Association

Show managed by Sanford L. Smith & Associates

Squeak Carnwath, Not Known, (Detail) 2011; Color aquatint etching, Edition of 35.

The PArk AveNue ArmoryPark avEnuE at 67th StrEEt oPeNINg NIghT PrevIewWednesday, november 2, 6:30 – 9:00 pmPreview tickets $75 (includes run-of-show pass) Show hourSthursday – Saturday 12 – 8:00 pm Sunday 12 – 6:00 pmadmission $20 SATurDAy ProgrAmS11:00 am Collecting Essentials: Finding Your Masterpiece 2:00 pm Conversation with a CuratorFaye hirsch, Senior Editor, art in america magazine with Christophe Cherix, the abby aldrich rockefeller Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, the Museum of Modern art eye Spy an activity for children at the Fair visit www.printfair.com fortickets Information tours & Program registration

Richard Artschwager, “Abstraction,” 2004, acrylic and pastel on fiber panel on soundboard with artist’s frame, 67 x 49 1/2 in.

Courtesy of David Nolan Gallery, New York.


MUSEUMS Bronx Museum: “Alexandre Arrechea: Orange Tree.” Ends Jan. 1, 2012. “Urban Archives: Emilio Sanchez in the Bronx.” Ends Jan. 1, 2012. “Muntadas: information >> Space >> Control.” Ends Jan. 16, 2012. “Acconci Studio: Lobby-For-The-Time-Being.” Ongoing, 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, bronxmuseum.org.

The Morgan Library & Museum: “ingres at the Morgan.” Ends Nov. 27. “David, Delacroix, & Revolutionary France: Drawings from the Louvre.” Ends Dec. 31. “Treasures of islamic Manuscript Painting from the Morgan.” Ends Jan. 29, 2012. “Charles Dickens at 200.” Ends Feb. 12, 2012, 225 Madison Ave., themorgan.org.

El Museo del Barrio: “The (S) Files 2011.” Ends Jan. 8, 2012, 1230 5th Ave., elmuseo.org.

National Academy Museum: “Will Barnet at 100.” Ends Dec. 31, 1083 5th Ave., nationalacademy.org.

Studio Museum: “The Bearden Project.” Opens Nov. 10, 144 W. 125th St., studiomuseum.org.

Wave Hill: “Sreshta Rit Premnath.” Ends Dec. 1. “Hive Culture: Captivated by the Honeybee.” Ends Dec. 1, W. 249th St. at independence Ave., Bronx, wavehill.org.

Elements of ArtCEzANNE’S WiNE BOTTLES (1 OF 3)

BY PHYLLIS WORKMAN

Towering above the other objects in Paul Cézanne’s “Still Life with Oranges and Apples” from 1895–1900 is a wine bottle. There it stands to the left of the frame, dominating the display of comestibles and asserting a curious authority. It is a tribute to thirst amidst the spread of plenty.

Cézanne’s painting is one of the great tributes to sustenance and inspiration.

I once bought a bottle of malbec just because it featured Cézanne’s painting on the cover. Although it was an Argentinian wine, as so many of the best malbecs are, it stimulated my memory of what malbec means and where it originates. The purple grape from the Bordeaux family began in French vineyards before being an Argen-tine varietal. Its purplish hue and inviting darkness are there to be seen in Cézanne’s cylindrical shaft.

The depiction of wine bottles in paint-ing are signs of what an artist takes into

his life as part of daily habit and frequent pleasure. Cézanne respects its shape and importance as part of the geometric con-stants of his lifestyle—of our lifestyles, too.

An esteemed art critic paying tribute to Cézanne’s composition noted that the series of still lifes featuring wine gave con-sistency to Cézanne’s vision of the objects in his world. The wine bottle was noted as a formal theme, the chief whose shape was less complex than the apple and orange yet strong in the composition because it could not be withdrawn from it.

Cézanne, as always, was commenting on visual perception and analyzing the process of sight, recognition and appre-ciation, whether it was in his own painting

and sketches or even in the commonplace items of daily living. Turning fruit into wine is a scientific process as well as an artistic process with nearly Biblical rever-ence. Coming from Cézanne, it is a pon-derable suggestion of life cycle—as is the image of fruit and wine.

The man-made object is, for Cézanne, as admirable as the natural fragrant orbs. The 1895 wine bottle has been wonder-fully described in art textbooks: “Its stem, off-axis to the right, shifts the whole away from exact alignment with the important point of meeting of two curves.” Cézanne understood that the vessel that gets people tipsy could also gives his painting balance.

Out of the PastSEKAER’S SiGNS TRACE HiSTORy AT iCP

BY MELISSA STERN

The stunning new exhibition at The International Center of Photogra-phy forces you to slow down, ignore

the hustle of the city outside, take a deep breath and dive into a world long gone. Signs of Life: Photographs by Peter Sekaer presents the Danish-born photographer’s now obscure work chronicling America under the New Deal, portraying a land of poverty, segregation, hope and utter beauty. Like his better-known colleague Walker Evans, Sekaer traveled both the rural and urban roads of America for his photographic subjects. He created a poetic elegy to the period.

With an outsider’s objectivity, using his background in commercial art, Sekaer brings an elegant sense of design as well as a great love for signs and typography to his work. It struck me how many of these “sign” photos presage later 20th-century artists like Ed Ruscha and Barbara Kruger. Delightful calli-graphic swirls spell out “Jones Barber Shop.” A solid art deco font marches up a staircase labeled ”Colored.”

I think, however, that the curator has used the word “sign” in a broader context. In Sekaer’s quiet and often empty urban landscapes, these signs, posters and bits of

advertising are a reminder that these were once vibrant communities.

Sekaer’s portraits of people, though posed, capture a quiet sense of loss and despair. There are not a lot of smiles in these

photos, but their masterful composition and beauty dispel any sense of gloom. Most of the photos in the show were commis-sioned by the government to document the Great Depression. A stoic populace stares

into the camera, refusing to give up or give in. Sekaer’s lush silver prints—an older, but arguably subtler photographic technol-ogy—is a reminder of just how much is lost in contemporary digital prints.

This is a powerful political exhibition. Its juxtaposition with a fluffy retrospective of photos from Harper’s Bazaar in ICP’s next room may be a sly comic statement about the medium’s diverse use. And as Occupy Wall Street marchers passed by the museum, I thought about how Sekaer’s photographs comment on the world of the haves versus the have nots from long ago. Signs of Life: Photographs by Peter Sekaer Through Jan. 8, 2012, international Center of Photography, 1133 6th Ave., 212-857-0000, www.icp.org.

Peter Sekaer, “Times Square, New York,” 1935, gelatin silver print. © Peter Sekaer Estate, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchased with funds from Robert yellowlees.


CLASSICAL

From Rosina to the Finland StationSiNGERS, A COMPOSER AND SiBELiUS

BY JAY NORDLINGER

Since its debut in 2006, Bartlett Sher’s production of The Barber of Seville at the Metropolitan Opera has had a string of excellent Rosinas: Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato and Elina Garanca. They have all been different from one another, and they have all been sparkling. Add a fourth Rosina to the string: Isabel Leonard, the American mezzo-soprano. On a recent Friday night, she was a model of poise. You have heard “Una voce poco fa” with more razzle-dazzle. But Leonard was the complete package Rosina: elegant, imperious, coy; a viper, a coquette and a treat.

Opera impresarios and audiences are lucky: In Isabel Leonard, they are getting one of the most beautiful women extant and a very smart and talented singing actress.

Maurizio Muraro was Dr. Bartolo, putting on a clinic in Italian diction. Rodion Pogoss-ov, our Figaro, did not have diction—but he had a wonderful voice and a wonderful spirit. Paata Burchuladze boomed it out there gloriously as Don Basilio. He did not show real Rossini style, however.

Almaviva was sung by the Mexican tenor Javier Camarena: assured and relatively vir-ile. He grew tired and ragged at the end, but he had turned in a satisfying performance. Let me say that he is polite, too. This pro-duction has Almaviva enter through the opera house itself. Camarena brushed against my crossed leg, paused to whisper, “Excuse me,” then sang his opening lines.

Age does not wither The Barber of Seville, nor does custom stale this comic master-piece, or just plain masterpiece. It is kissed with sunshine and genius, isn’t it?

TRUTH IN MUSICUnder the auspices of a concert series

called Transit Circle, an evening of Michael Hersch’s music took place in Merkin Hall. Hersch is an American composer born in 1971. He leads the composition depart-ment at the Peabody Institute in Balti-more. The opening piece on his New York program was After Hölderlin’s Hälfte des Lebens.

Hölderlin was a German poet who lived from 1770 (year of Beethoven’s birth!) to 1843. The composer, Hersch, often takes his inspiration from poets. He wrote his Hölderlin piece in 2000, and he wrote it

for clarinet and cello. But he “dually con-ceived it” for viola and cello, as he says, and he “committed that version to paper in 2002.” It was the viola-and-cello version we heard at Merkin Hall.

Hersch can do a lot with just two instru-ments—I mean, two instruments that do not include a piano. One of his major works is Last Autumn, originally written for French horn and cello, also available in a version for alto saxophone and cello. Last Autumn is more than two and a half hours long.

The Hölderlin piece is about ten min-utes, but it packs a serious punch in that period. Like many Hersch pieces, it is spare and intense. No note is wasted. Silences are plentiful and daring. The music is quiet, ominous, angry, anxious. So are any number of contemporary pieces. But Hersch seems to have something unusually important to say. There is not an ounce of pretense in his output. He gives the impres-sion of pursuing the truth (no less).

The violist at Merkin Hall was Miranda Cuckson, founder of Transit Circle, and the cellist was Julia Bruskin. They played with the conscientiousness that the music before them deserved.

A TRIP TO FINLANDOne of the very best performances

in New York last season was that of the Elgar Violin Concerto by Nikolaj Znaider and the New York Philharmonic, under Sir Colin Davis. May I quote myself? “I thought Avery Fisher Hall might levitate.” Znaider and Sir Colin partnered again in Avery Fisher Hall, this time with the Lon-don Symphony Orchestra. And this time their concerto was the Sibelius. The hall did not levitate.

It’s not that it was a bad performance. Znaider did some admirable playing, and so did the LSO. The orchestra’s sound was magnificent. But the concerto did not unfold with the inevitability you want. The first movement seemed to go from episode to episode. Moreover, there was more technical sloppiness than can be ignored: Znaider was often flat, and there was disunity between soloist and orches-tra. The second movement—one of the most beautiful slow movements in all of music—was better than the first. And the third movement was okay. But this con-certo of fire and ice never caught fire.

After intermission, Sir Colin led the LSO in a Sibelius symphony, the Second. I will

pay possibly the highest compliment: You could forget the playing, forget interpre-tation and simply listen to the music. Sir Colin gave you Sibelius almost unfiltered. The Finale, marked Allegro moderato, was a little slow for my taste. Sir Colin emphasized the moderato. But the final pages brimmed with their extraordinary purposefulness.

As she was leaving, a woman said, “That was worth coming out on a rainy night for.” Absolutely.

MUSIC & OPERA

Immanuel Lutheran Church: Gwendolyn Toth & Dongsok Shin perform works by Mozart & Clementi as part of ARTEK’s The Art of the Early Keyboard Series. Nov. 3, 122 E. 88th St., gemsny.org; 8, $25.

Mary Flagler Cary Hall at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music: New york Festival of Song presents Joseph Thalken, Sam Davis & Peter Foley playing their own original music, as the first part of the two-part series NyFOS Next. Nov. 8, 450 W. 37th St., nyfos.net; 7, free.

Millenium Theatre: The Brooklyn Philharmonic, Children’s Theater Studio & others perform in an evening of Russian cartoon films with live music. Nov. 3, 1029 Brighton Beach Ave., Brooklyn, bphil.org; 7:30, $15+.

enoteca & trattoria

In the heart of the Upper West Side ‘Cesca serves equal portions of elegance and relaxed ambiance. A “very � ne, though unrelentingly rustic” authentic dining experience borne of its founders’ Italian heritage.

Executive Chef Kevin Garcia presents simple yet extraordinary fare and owner and Italian-wine expert Anthony Mazzola has put together an incomparable list of Italian wines.

164 West 75th St. at Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY 10023 212-787-6300

enoteca & trattoria


JAzz

Watch the ThroneTRUMPET KiNG MARSALiS AT 50

BY HOWARD MANDEL

Wynton Marsalis is indisputably the reigning king of jazz. Trumpeter, composer, orchestra leader, artistic

director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, NEA Jazz Master, visitor to the White House and inter-national ambassador of American music, the king celebrated his 50th birthday Oct. 18.

The event was heralded by an hour-long PBS broadcast of a two-hour concert (streamed live in its entirety and available for free viewing at PBS.org) at the Rose Theater in the fabulous JALC facilities Marsalis had designed to jazz specifications and built on the fifth floor of the Time Warner Center, which opened in 2004. As Movado, the watchmakers Marsalis endorses, noted in its half-page New York Times ad cel-ebrating his half-century, he has sold 7 million records and won nine Grammys and the Pulit-zer Prize. He’s been on TV, written books and lectured at Harvard. He looks fit, speaks with eloquence and charming modesty and can play up a storm.

Marsalis was coronated more than 25 years ago upon winning Grammys for both jazz and classical recordings in 1984, something no one had done before. His administration has a conservative aesthetic—he has cast himself in the lineage of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, exemplary models from the past century. Yet, he has shouldered responsi-bilities no previous jazzer ever faced.

The king came up at a cultural turning point, when the opposing musical camps of disco and punk rock gave way to rap and pop as mostly easy-listening pap. Back then, the frontlines of jazz were in commercial disarray, with still-great veterans like Art Blakey (one of his men-tors) and Miles Davis (whom Marsalis took as the reigning king to oust) in their last years. Record companies were mainly eager to profit from reissues of classic records in the spank-ing new format, the CD. However, Columbia Records got behind the young prince, as did Lincoln Center. The rest is history.

Marsalis was and has remained dismissive of electric jazz, funk and much of the avant-garde, rallying his forces around the flag of swing, blues and ballads. A proud scion of New Orleans, he positioned himself as a race man for serious strivers at a time when more black Americans were becoming prominent in the bourgeoisie. His attitudes were attrac-tive as was his tailored style, especially as his virtuosity supported his claims.

Virtuosity has been a keystone of Mar-

salis’ career, matched by discipline and ambition. Recording prodigiously, tour-ing nonstop with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, collaborating with everyone from Peter Martins to Eric Clapton, actively promoting the revival of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and mentoring a genera-tion of youngsters who’ve risen through the jazz ranks, the king has labored steadily, with only a brief break in 2006 to recover from laser surgery on his lip.

Putting aside classical repertoire, he has demonstrated an instrumental mastery across the range of jazz, credibly addressing works by Jelly Roll Morton, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman and in bebop, west-ern swing and Latin jazz.

Marsalis is a brilliant trumpeter, always impassioned and capable of stunning nuance. During his broadcast birthday per-formance he was omnipresent and omnipo-tent, emerging from his big band with plung-er mute in hand for a horn solo employing an early-jazz vocabulary of growls and smooches. He presented sections from his major works Blood on the Fields, All Rise and Abyssinian 200, stronger for being excerpted from lengthy scores—they can be ponder-ous when offered up whole. He generously featured loyal members of his orchestra, as well as singer Gregory Porter, fiddler Mark O’Connor, tap dancer Jared Grimes and Damien Sneed’s Chorale Le Chateau. Also featured was Ghanian drummer Yacub Addy with his ensemble Odadaa! who provided an authentically African-derived “ring shout” and upbeat finale, during which the entire cast second-lined into the wings.

Most tellingly, Marsalis dueted with pia-nist Marcus Roberts, his longtime confed-erate, jamming on “Delfeayo’s Dilemma” like jazz has no bounds—which his hasn’t. After working up a sweat, Marsalis pshawed it, commenting that they’d played like that when they were young but had since decid-ed jazz needs more melody. Wait—there was melody, engagement and excitement in the unknown in what the two men did. It was nothing to be ashamed of, to fancy up or trim for some protocol of propriety. And it was hot, which his formal works aren’t.

That Marsalis has it in him to blow like that makes me ask if the man needs a holiday. Would the king like a holiday? Does he want to be free? If so, he should be! Do as you will, Wynton, you rule jazz, not a castle. And live long that way, king. [email protected]

The Business of Fun in ZurichBy Penny Grey

As one of the world’s busiest capitals of fi nance, Zurich is a city that tourists often miss. Written off as a boring business city, Zurich is ignored as leisure travelers head straight for the Swiss Alps and the Lake District. But to bypass such a city is a mistake: As a lifestyle capital of the world, Zurich offers an unsurpassable combination of nature, culture and pleasure not to be missed.

American Airlines fl ies from JFK to Zurich daily, with Flight 64 leaving New York at 6:10 p.m., and arriving in Zurich the next morning at 7:55 a.m.

After arriving in the pristine Zurich Interna-tional and traveling into the city on the impres-sive Swiss transit system—the only trains in the world guaranteed to run on time—why not start your morning with some local yoghurt and muesli, a Swiss invention?

After breakfast, take a stroll around Zurich’s Old Town and observe as past and present collide. Medieval and Renaissance architecture now house some of the most incredible shops in the world. Trend and tradition collide in the Old Town, with luxury Swiss brands like Bucherer and Beyer set against the backdrop of the double towers of Grossmunster (Great Minster), Zurich’s most famous landmark. On a walk, it’s impossible to miss the Peterskirche (Peter’s Church) with the largest clock face in Europe, and also the Fraumunster (Minister of Our Lady), which contains stained glass windows by both Chagall and Giacometti.

Due to Switzerland’s location as the inter-section point of France, Italy and Germany, Zurich boasts a wide array of authentic French, Italian and German cuisine. So, for lunch, stop in at any one of the cozy restaurants on a quiet, cobbled side street for the fare of your choosing.

After lunch, make a visit to the Kunsthaus Zu-rich (Museum of Fine Art), which houses one of the most important modern art collections in Western Europe. Spanning both 19th and

20th centuries, the Kunsthaus offers visitors the opportunity to see works from artists ranging from Munch, Picasso and Van Gogh to more recent artists like Twombly, Rothko and Bacon. For the next several months, the Kunsthaus is hosting an exclusive premiere of the Nahmad family’s private collection of signifi cant works by Matisse, Kandinsky, Monet, Picasso and Miro, and offering excellent Hotel+Museum package deals to boot. This alone is worth a visit to Zurich.

We also recommend you experience the natural world of Zurich. While “outdoors” and “major city” rarely seem to make it into the same sentence nowadays, Zurich is one of the rare cities of the world in which adventure travel is possible in an afternoon. Take the 10-minute train ride to Uetliberg, and enjoy a brief but invigorating hike to the top of the 3,000-foot summit at the edge of the city and experience a panoramic view of the city, Lake Zurich and the famous Alps. Or join a boat tour on Lake Zurich itself for a different perspective on the city. And in the summer months, enjoy free bicycle rentals around Zurich.

An evening in Zurich brings an abundance of possibility. Whether it’s a visit to the famous Zurich Opera House for a swelling spectacle of culture, or a journey to one of the popular nightclubs in the Old Town, or even a night-time trolley ride along the lake, it will shed new light on the city after dark. And no robust day in Zurich is complete without a traditional Swiss dinner to ensure a good night’s sleep. Step into a “Swiss House” style restaurant and watch as a “Swiss Miss” prepares rich fondue, potato rosti (like hash browns) and Zurcher Geschnetzeltes, the local Zurich variation of wiener schnitzel.

After dinner, step into the night and enjoy the fresh mountain air, as clean as you will fi nd in any major city of the world, and prepare for another day in Switzerland’s unexplored gem of a city.


THEATER

Belief with WingsKiNG BiO CONFOUNDS BROADWAy

BY ARMOND WHITE

A line from Angels in America would fit perfectly into Katori Hall’s Martin Luther King Jr. biography The Moun-

taintop, now on Broadway. In Angels, Tony Kushner’s deus ex machina proclaimed: “American prophet, tonight you become American eye that pierceth dark, American heart hot full for truth.”

As the principal figure of the American mid-20th century Civil Rights Movement, King’s myth makes him a prophet for the ideals and promises that America holds, yet troublingly withholds from its citizens. Hall dramatizes King as a weary, doomed, all-too-human political leader and insists on both the mortal and immortal sides of his legacy.

The Mountaintop shows King (played by Samuel L. Jackson) in his final moment of despair on April 3, 1968, in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the night before he was assassinated there. Jackson portrays a man facing his doubts and fears. “Fear is my com-panion,” he tells the chattering motel maid who delivers to him coffee, cigarettes and a little flirtation. The maid, Camae (Angela Bassett), is both a reminder of the common-weal and of his impending mortality.

Now that the theater press has held forth, mostly negatively, on The Moun-taintop, it won’t spoil the play to admit its metaphysical aspects. This is necessary in order to understand Hall’s daring. She con-nects conventional wisdom about King as a liberal monument to both posthumous skepticism and the broad vision of Kush-ner’s 1990s landmark (“A Gay Fantasia on National Themes”), which supposedly enlightened modern American theater.

Hall follows Kushner’s quasi-theological, quasi-philosophical dramaturgy. The Moun-taintop applies Kushner’s unexpected com-bination of religion and politics to a black American subject. Critics who don’t recog-nize this mix of down-home dialectic and political aspiration as an authentic South-ern fusion—perfectly befitting a subject like King and the import of the Civil Rights Movement—reveal a hardened seculariza-tion of contemporary culture. They also reveal how hollow most King celebrations have become.

The Mountaintop’s suggestion of King’s spiritual life balances myth with recent

feet-of-clay revisionism. This King drinks, smokes, cusses and has a libido to which Camae appeals (“You smoke to feel sexy”). Hall’s vernacular makes the interaction between King and Camae an enjoyable contrivance, reaching a peak when Camae shows King (to whom she refers in South-ern dialect as “Doctuh Kang”) her own oratory gifts. She gets carried away by the anger that King always suppressed, yet he recognizes its truth—especially through Camae’s hilarious vulgarity. This common touch keeps the play companionable, even though it prevents critics from using it as a platform for their own condescending self-righteousness.

The middle class likes to hold historical figures to their own measure—it’s a form of gatekeeping (which may relate to why the King memorial in D.C. oddly suggests egress more than progress). Critics who don’t accept Hall’s concept also seem resis-tant to the ways black people may differ-ently perceive politics, society and heroism. The Mountaintop is at its best anti-elitist, if not downright populist.

This entreaty begins with casting movie stars Jackson and Bassett. Those gospel preacher rhythms and sacrilegious tones that Jackson disgraced in his Pulp Fiction hitman’s oration get turned around and redeemed by his mellow performance. Against the odds, SamJack disappears and Jackson, the serious actor who plied his craft at the now forgotten but legendary Negro Ensemble Company, proves subtler and more humane than ever.

Responding to the challenge of portray-ing King, Jackson plays out the complex re-evaluation of history and self that are part of the current King rethink. Trashy as Jackson’s film career has been (Snakes on a Plane and Black Snake Moan—his snake diptych), he finds the unsalacious essence in Hall’s demystifying characterization. And Bassett’s archetypal Woman/Sister/Angel matches him.

Avoiding false piety, Hall’s humor and drama attempt revelation, prophecy, dream and hallucination. Director Kenny Leon rises above his usual mundane approach, starting with a Public Enemy-style aural montage and climaxing with a tour de force visual montage, pouring forth the cornu-copia of cultural moments that the Civil Rights Movement made possible.

Hall’s theatrical rhetoric should have

made its Angels connection axiomatic. Kushner’s line “An angel is a belief with wings and arms that can carry you. It’s not to be afraid of, and if it can’t hold you up, seek for something new” gives a fitting con-

text for King’s gospel-inspired pragmatism. The Mountaintop’s two-sided vision of glo-ry (“You won’t feel the hurt, the world will”) equals anything Kushner wrote. It calls for a devout audience.

DESIGNER AND BUILDER OF UPSTATE COTTAGES

$250,000 - $425,000 - LAND INCLUDED

WOODSTOCK, SAUGERTIES,

& SULLIVAN COUNTY

GETAWAY

Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Basset in The Mountaintop


BY GREGORY SOLMAN

The first, unavoidable observation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial statue compels its rejection as dishon-

est art: Irrespective of any artistic aim—any-where along the spectrum from verism to modern abstraction—the resulting work doesn’t represent the man in either body or spirit, neither the color of his skin nor the content of his character.

The statue, by People’s Republic of China sculptor Lei Yixin, fails on each of the cri-teria critic Robert Hughes called “the often derided ‘phallic’ virtues of ambitious art.” Its limited emotional range suggests anything but nonviolent defiance. The figure glow-ers with arms crossed, gripping a clutch of paper, hands splayed with veins prominent, an angry lawgiver. Orator or New World Orderer? Lacking even the kinetic dimen-sion of the better examples of agitprop, absent what Hughes might call formal vital-ity or material energy, it hulks inertly.

Its historical ambition is a political fabri-cation of socialist realism in the Soviet style; think of the much more arresting image of Stalin emerging with futurist movement from a stone row of soldiers in the statue in Prague destroyed in 1962—and remember with sadness the shamed Czech artist who committed suicide before its unveiling.

The semi bas-relief of the figure rising out of the stone as an earthen vessel—which at least avoids the distraction of shoes and cuffs added to those exaggerated trouser creases, buttons and lapels—creates a sense of the Golem-esque. King has neither a humble nor a kind, wise or brave visage; even Lei’s 2008 russet scale model was more recognizably the man and unavoidably more beloved, regardless of expression.

A triangular bottom-heaviness recedes toward the top, reminiscent of looming fas-cist art. As one anonymous critic of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts astutely observed, it “recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries.”

Subliminal power of suggestion—as well as the militant mask and squinty eyes—surely nicknames this man Mao-Tse Luther King.

Hewn of off-white Chinese granite—a dubious choice—the artist builds scant visual contrast between figure and ground, which, according to its misbegotten title (the only reference to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech) suggests the “Stone of Hope” arising from the “Mountain of Despair.” As Maya Angelou complained, though she herself was on the committee that bears responsi-

bility for the tendentious quote selections, the mashup inscription, “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness” represents the polar opposite of what King said (“If you want to say I was a drum major, say I was a drum major for justice…”).

Likewise, the wrongheaded illiteralism that fashions King from the stone of hope ignores Christian context and

betrays King’s plain meaning: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted and

every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight; ‘and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.’ This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jan-gling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

What caused King himself to despair was

MONUMENTS TO KING: ART MEETS POLITICS

I Have a NightmareI Have a Nightmare

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Kezee


Virtual DeityBY MAUREEN MULLARKEY

“The heretofore is just as impor-tant as the hereafter, ” wrote Michel Tournier, “especially as

it probably holds the key to it.” The future of American race relations—our com-munal hereafter—has a large stake in the character of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, King gave one of the most commanding political speeches of 20th-century America. “I Have a Dream,” delivered in the cadences of a Baptist ser-mon, stirred the collective conscience of a people. A compelling orator, King prompted the nation to consummate its own founding ideals and abolish the scandal of racial division. He gave soaring voice to the aspirations of Black Americans and articulated the ethos of his times. Without a doubt, King is owed a memorial in the company of statesmen. But whether he—and we—deserve this particular one is less clear.

The byways and limited victories of historical reality are too many and too intricate for formal commemoration. This 4-acre memorial on the National Mall enshrines King’s iconic status in the Ameri-can imagination and communal memory. In doing so, it necessarily erases the con-tinuum of which he was part. Granted, monumental sculpture is intended to transpose into image those myths chosen to become artifacts of memory—that is its public function. Still, the grandiose aura of sanctity that informs the King memo-rial tilts toward idolatry. It carries a certain

falsity, a hint of bathos, that speaks more poignantly of our own cultural moment than of his.

The historic Civil Rights Movement was larger than even its most charismatic pro-locutor. It was the culmination of a dynamic, evolving odyssey with roots reaching past the abolitionists, past the agony of Gettysburg, the 13th Amendment and the first (ineffec-tual) Civil Rights Act of 1875. It encompasses the years of the Tuskegee Institute, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. It stretches back to 1794 and the first congressional act against the slave trade.

If the movement in its modern phase can

be plausibly fixed in any specific moment or event, it would reside in Harry Truman’s 1948 Executive Order 9981, desegregat-ing the military. Place another mark on the timeline six years later: In 1954, the Supreme Court put paid to de jure segrega-tion in education and the assumption of separate but equal.

The movement was an accelerating progression in which countless names par-ticipated and made salient contributions. It suffered martyrs, Medgar Evers and King among them. The 1964 killing of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner—two young black men and one white man—was emblematic of its

biracial engagement. The civil rights revo-lution succeeded because the justice of it was embraced by the nation at large. The moral courage of black-led marches, boy-cotts and sit-ins struck an answering chord in the white majority. Whites, too, stood at stations along the bloody via crucis trav-eled by black Americans.

What the memorial’s fundraisers invoke as “Dr. King’s spiritual presence” was hardly his alone. It was his inheritance from evangelical Protestantism, the spirit that fueled American abolitionist revulsion against the moral schism at the heart of a slave-owning culture. King was the Wil-liam Lloyd Garrison for the Jim Crow era. It detracts nothing from King’s achievement to acknowledge his place in a redemptive chain of persons and events. Quite the con-trary, the survival of our common cultural identity requires it. Yet here among the cherry blossoms of the Tidal Basin, King

is solemnized in architectural terms that suggest a lone giant of biblical proportions: Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

Visitors wander an inscription wall car-rying quotations from King’s speeches and sermons. Chosen to confirm him as a timeless spokesman for the Everyman, the selections mute his specificity. There are those hazy, universalist pieties (e.g. an injunction to “develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole”) that can flatter any utopian purpose, fair or foul. Few testify to the quintessential American quality of King’s mission, grounded in the American experience and scriptural trust in the sanctity of the individual.

The bedrock from which King emerged was the Christian faith in its American Protestant manifestation. “The Lord is my Rock, my fortress and my deliverer,” quoth the psalmist. But here King himself is the Rock: the mawkishly named “Stone of Hope,” a 30-foot granite monolith that sug-gests a one-man Mount Rushmore.

The $120 million colossus, quarried and carved in the People’s Republic of China, stands 11 feet higher than Daniel Chester French’s figure of Lincoln, but with none of its humanity. King’s obdurate stance—arms crossed, face as impassive as a Stalin-era Bud-dha—bespeaks the aesthetic of a sculptor on stipend from the Chinese government for a succession of public monuments, includ-ing several of the murderous Mao. Now, the triumphal banality of socialist realism rises across the Potomac from the symbolic neo-classicism of the Jefferson Memorial. The disjunction in sensibility is jarring.

Visitors approach the Stone of Hope through a breach in the “Mountain of Despair.” A pair of two massive boulders mirroring each other, the Mountain pre-tends to part like the Red Sea. Pulled from King’s own words, its name leans on John Bunyan’s allegorical slough of despond or hill of difficulty—a reminder that Pil-grim’s Progress, in the full phrasing of its

title, was also “delivered under the simili-tude of a dream.” Visually, however, the tri-partite monument best resembles a prop from Return of the Jedi. We can only won-der why the sculpture commission was not awarded on the basis of an audition, as was the landscape design. Lei Yixin was simply called, like an apostle, to the job.

In sum, the memorial disconcerts. The monument itself is a brutish incongru-ity in a graceful setting. More significantly, inflated focus on a virtually deified figure impoverishes our understanding of Amer-ica’s pilgrimage toward witness, in fullness and truth, to the proposition that all men are created equal.

his relentless secularization and buttonhol-ing by American media. He bemoaned to his friends the pattern that when he turned from the politics of racial equality to its font—its inextricable confluence with Christian duty and mission, indeed any mention of God—the cameras stopped rolling and the press couldn’t pack up fast enough.

The commemoration bears no sense of the Reverend King, the ordained Baptist minister, and but for King’s oblique refer-ences to sacred scripture, not a single men-

tion of God or confession of faith is in any of the 10 inscriptions. Not a single quote represents King’s nonviolence, as in this one of countless examples, “I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.” Yet the perpetrators of this re-figuration fraud find room for King quotes against the Vietnam War—why not just face him toward The Wall?—and for ecumenism, three

square meals for all and developing a “world perspective” (when, even in King’s day, the United States had nothing to learn about racial justice from any nation on earth).

Those quotes cannot be blamed on Lei—a frequent sculptor of Mao—however ill-advised was his chisel for hire. Associ-ating King by commissioned artist to a murderer of 50 to 70 million souls is analo-gous to paying Leni Riefenstahl for a film tribute to Father Kolbe. In Lei’s work is, to invert King’s admonition, the presence of

tension and the absence of justice.Finally, the work intentionally disassoci-

ates King from the King of Kings and the Prince of Peace. So, to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, this disturbing mon-strosity should be returned to its place of origin as a gift to China, a land of unceasing persecution of ministers and priests who languish in jail this very day for the crime of preaching the risen Christ. They need to be reminded of the Reverend King in any way, shape or form.

KING’S OBDURATE STANCE—ARMS CROSSED, FACE AS IMPASSIVE AS A STALIN-ERA BUDDHA—BESPEAKS THE

AESTHETIC OF A SCULPTOR ON STIPEND FROM THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT FOR A SUCCESSION OF PUBLIC MONUMENTS,

INCLUDING SEVERAL OF THE MURDEROUS MAO.


MONUMENTS TO KING: ART MEETS POLITICS

Crowd PleaserBY JOHN LINGAN

By midafternoon on Oct. 15, the crowd around the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was reaching its height.

The sun was aloft, the air was chilled just so and the terrace was filling up with union members—the memorial, on the northern edge of the Tidal Basin, was the symbolically appropriate finish line of the Al Sharpton-led March for Jobs and Justice that had started nearby in the shadow of the Washington Monument.

I circled the “Stone of Hope” portion, which depicts King standing tall and semi-emergent

from a mountainside, and staked out a spot to his left. The crowd was overwhelmingly black and largely clad in matching clothes (I stand in awe of SEIU 1199’s charter bus and T-shirt budget). I wanted to eaves-drop on the conversations that peo-ple were having in view of the quote that some of the monument’s many critics, notably Maya Angelou, have denounced: “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness”—controversial because sculptor Lei Yixin excised King’s opening caveat, “If you want to say I was a drum major…” and condensed his char-acteristically anaphoric language into a single line.

The denunciation, however val-id, embodies the no-win situation in which this memorial has been

mired since its inception. Every decision about the statue—from the nationality of its lead artist to the selections for the Inscrip-tion Wall, has pissed somebody off—and the ironic, unavoidable outcome is that it feels nearly desperate to avoid potential contro-versy. The chosen quotes are pulled judi-ciously from every portion of King’s varied career, casting his essential message in the broadest terms possible. It’s inspiring, until you think about what’s missing.

You will find many stirring calls for equality and brotherhood on the two walls that flank the 30-foot granite statue of King and the “Mountain of Despair” that he has metaphori-cally moved out of, but you will not find the word “black.” Perhaps this makes the monu-ment more “universal,” but it’s still absurd. King’s causes—opposition to war, support for workers, his “overriding loyalty to mankind”—transcend ethnicity, but they were all informed by his experience as a Black American at a spe-

cific time in the country’s history. It should not be controversial to say as much.

That’s my analytic response: The memo-rial honors the man but entombs him in his own saintliness, representing him as a nearly elemental force standing broad-shouldered, pensive and alone. The reality, almost too obvious to bring up, is that King was inspi-rational precisely because he emerged not from stone but from the pulpit, and made his lasting contributions to humanity while standing literally and figuratively alongside countless others at street- and eye-level.

But a monument doesn’t exist for analysis alone, it exists to attract people and incite reflection. And however implicit King’s racial legacy remains in the stone itself, it was fully explicit that mid-October day, when Ange-lou’s least favorite quote was the backdrop for more group photos than any other por-tion of the memorial. Group after group of young people posed together under this chis-eled paraphrase while dozens of older ones walked around clutching signs and newly bought posters that depicted King next to President Barack Obama in sepia tones.

When the president spoke the next day at the rescheduled dedication ceremony, he used the word “black” twice and “African Americans” once and spoke in the fiery manner he only employs in front of his supporters. Like the memorial, Obama has been attacked from all sides—he’s managed to be suspiciously foreign to his crudest opponents and insufficiently black to Cor-nel West. But Obama’s ascendancy and the King memorial are both recent, vindicating victories in a centuries-long struggle for civil rights, no less important for being imperfect. “Unlike white progressives,” Ishmael Reed wrote in the New York Times last year, “blacks and Latinos are not used to getting it all.”

Two young girls caught my eye as they posed in front of the massive stone King. They wore the same beaming smiles and the same buttons on their jackets: “I [heart] BEING BLACK.” As they unlocked arms and went to approve their dad’s photo, their mother remained fixed on the drum major inscription. She turned around in a rev-erie and said triumphantly to her daughters, “That’s what’s up.”

Those buttons, that photograph, that fam-ily’s pride and awe—these are the true monu-ments to King. A better memorial would reflect that reality, but this one, it appears, will nevertheless provide a worthy venue for it.

Stone Cold BY EMMA LOCKRIDGE

The recently dedicated Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial statue by sculptor Lei Yixin lacks the essence of the beloved civil rights leader’s spiritual-ity and humanity. The People’s Republic of China artist’s rendering channels the Cold War instead of a non-violent advo-cate for peace. In contrast, a Joe Louis sculpture of that muscular arm that symbolically knocked out Nazi superi-ority packs a huge emotional punch and embodies the spirit of the Brown Bomber.

What went wrong?Body language

expert Patti Wood, called the Babe Ruth of her profession, weighs in. “Dr. King looks trapped on that monument. He pushed for peace but he’s pulled back into the stone. He was a person who brought people up, and the statue’s downward gaze speaks to feel-ing low, depressed or submissive. His right arm is covering and protecting his other hand and his arms are covering his stomach. That indicates suppressing fear and anger. His downward cast makes him look angry—and that’s not how we remember him.”

For comparison, Wood contrasts the King sculpture to the controversial 1986 monument to Louis sculpted by Robert Graham located in downtown Detroit. Detractors have argued that the sculp-ture depicting Louis’ arm in a punch-ing gesture is a black power fist, which offends some people. Wood offers a different interpretation. “The Joe Louis sculpture has a positive energy because it is positioned coming toward you. It exudes power, life and emotion, although it also has a level of aggression. But I feel something when I see it, unlike my response to the King sculpture.”

Thankfully, the backers of the King

memorial are open to feedback and plan to correct a paraphrased quote that makes King look like an “arrogant twit” in Maya Angelou’s estimation. Hope-fully other enhancements will follow, like adding the phrase “I have a dream” somewhere on the memorial’s 4.3-acre site. For children, the quote-laden monument could use mosaics illustrat-ing major milestones of the Civil Rights Era, like the four Birmingham girls lost in the church bombing. And it would be nice to see a modification of that stone attached to King that constrains and overpowers him.

The erection of the King memorial is a magnificent feat, thanks to King’s

Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity brothers and countless supporters. The Alphas suc-ceeded in ushering in the memorial site along the Tidal Basin at a price tag of $120 million, with $6 million still to be raised.

I do ponder if King would have pre-ferred giving to the living legacy instead of spending millions on a memo-rial to himself—after all, he famously announced that he would ply his Nobel Peace Prize money back into the Civil Rights Movement. That makes me ques-tion if he would have targeted the monu-ment’s millions to helping those strug-gling among us and educating our youth, instead of sinking it into tons of stone. Emma Lockridge is a former NBC News writer. Based in Detroit, she is writing a children’s creativity book.

Photo courtesy of USDA


www.cityartsnyc.com

sept. 28–oct. 11, 2011

Volume 3, Issue 15

Why The Help

Doesn’t Help

Page 22

Stephen King

Hacks Himself

Page 19

Gadfly and the

Virtuoso: Munk

and Schwartz

Page 4

Brad Pitt

Strikes Out

Page 20

WHen SnarK

WaS arT HiSTOry Of

CariCaTure

aT MeTPage 9

www.cityartsnyc.com oct. 12–oct. 25, 2011

Volume 3, Issue 16

Paris Blues Revisited Page 6Almódovar Hates Gaga: The Skin We Live In Page 14The CityArts Interview:

Paul Holdengräber Page 18

Pauline Kael: Criticism’s Last Icon

Also: Eva Hesse Channels de Kooning at Brooklyn Museum

Photograph © Jill Krementz, all rights reserved.

FILM

Bedtime for GonzoDEPP’S DULL DiARy REBELLiON

BY ARMOND WHITE

Johnny Depp’s Hunter S. Thompson persona is no different from his pirate Jack Sparrow—another intoxicated

hipster whose antisocial bravado is backed by multimillion-dollar Hollywood privilege. Depp is so infatuated with Thompson’s hipster cool that his new production of The Rum Diary (based on Thompson’s early, long unpublished novel about his 1960 pen-ance as a reporter in Puerto Rico) marks his second turn portraying the late writer.

After the 1998 fi lm Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Depp doesn’t get any deeper into Thompson. The Rum Diary simply extends the self-aggrandizing. For Depp, Thompson represents an inside outsider, woozily pontifi cating on crazed subcul-tures with a totally solipsistic sense of righ-teousness. As journalist Paul Kemp, Depp portrays a younger version of Thompson’s soused cynic. Set in 1960 as if it was the last days of innocence, The Rum Diary fol-lows Kemp/Thompson’s awakening to the corruption of American capitalism among real estate developers and journalists. It suits the era without illuminating it.

The best that can be said for The Rum Diary is that it’s less offensive than George Clooney-club smugness. Thompson’s jour-nalist’s instinct (from before the term jour-nalism meant TV gadabout) seeks oddball

characters rather than social targets. Kemp’s ragtag colleagues Sala (Michael Rispoli) and Moberg (Giovanni Ribisi) tol-erate their cynicism with booze and drugs; it helps them cope with being in the same boat as their exploitative boss Lotterman (Richard Jenkins) and the object of their juvenile disdain, rich, WASPy developer Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart). It is Sander-son who advises, “Nobody wants to rock the boat, they want to climb aboard”—a clearer social observation than the Cloo-ney club admits, yet it’s just slipped into The Rum Diary as if hazily recalled.

This complacent take on Thompson seems disconnected from the ethics at the base of his sozzled journalism. Kemp’s easy tempta-tion—especially by Sanderson’s hot babe Chenault (Amber Heard, or Jennifer Con-nelly 2.0)—offers the same useless, vicarious escapism as other bad Depp movies, particu-larly the nostalgic decadence of Blow.

Director-screenwriter Bruce Robinson doesn’t provide journalistic insight but the opposite: subcult shortsightedness. Best known for the ’80s Brit comedy Withnailand I, Robinson specializes in dissipation. But his dry Brit wit is dusty, not fl amboy-ant like Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing,and almost as inert as Art Linson’s fi lm of Thompson’s Where the Buffalo Roam. Rob-inson’s mix of Latino sensuality and gringo obnoxiousness doesn’t sizzle or delight, unlike the pointed introductory scenes of Richard Lester’s 1979 Cuba.

The worst that can be said for The Rum Diary is that it misses the point of Thomp-son’s naïve idealism. This was his version of Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts,exposing journalism to expose human frailty, but Robinson’s style lacks the con-viction to be either appalled or scolding.

The Rum Diary is not gonzo fi lmmak-ing but its opposite; Robinson approaches Thompson’s personal criticism of Third

World exploitation and middle-class self-exploitation through dully conventional means. He poorly stages a chase scene, and a slo-mo drug experience is as attenu-ated as the sober scenes. This leaves Depp doing vain heroics: “I put the bastards of the world on notice!” Does he mean the millions who fl ock to his Pirates fi lms or the millionaires who fi nance them and thus commercialize rebellion?

Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary

Gallery 1: Tom Kotik: ToneGallery 2: Headcase

John Dilg, Laurel Farrin, John Haskell, Ray Johnson (1927-1995), Jane Kent,

Alex O’Neal, Julia Schwadron, Jonathan Seliger, James Siena, David Storey, Trevor Winkfield,

54 Orchard Street New York NY 10002(212) 410-6120 • [email protected]

lesley hellerworkspace

October 26 - November 27, 2011

Tom Kotik Ampeg, 2011MDF, paint, felt 60” x 26” x 3”

Katarina Wong



Also: Eva Hesse Channels de Kooning at Brooklyn Museum

BRINGING THINKING BACK TO FALL ARTS

Sept. 14–Sept. 27, 2011

Volume 3, Issue 14

Facing the music

of 9/11 Page 10

Mamet vs.

Letterman Page 16

Antiques, Art & Design at the Armory

September 22 - 25, 2011 • The Park Avenue Armory 643 Park Avenue, (at 67th Street)

Complimentary General Admission for Two with this coupon •Visit avenueshows.com for full show details

The New CityArtsBringing Thinking Back to New York’s Art and Culture.

Visit www.cityartsnyc.com for exclusive content.


DANCE

Coming AttractionsA LOOK AT WHAT’S TO COME iN DANCE

BY JOEL LOBENTHAL

“I was thinking The Mists of Avalon, but there was a couple necking in my sightlines and a speedboat

and I was like, no, this isn’t The Mists of Avalon!” So said a dancer overheard at

Wave Hill, which overlooks the Hudson River in Riverdale, on a July night a decade ago, when I attended a memorable dance performance there. The performance con-sisted of four pieces performed in different areas of the 19th-century estate turned public park and botanical showcase.

This Saturday, Oct. 29, at Wave Hill, the venue is also “on the grounds” starting at 3 p.m. Choreographer Merián Soto was

awarded a one-year residency to create a site-specific project there, Branch Dances, which will play out in four outdoor perfor-mances, one per season. Saturday is the initial installment, using four dancers and an acoustic musician. (Performances are free with admission to the grounds.)

What makes a performance at Wave Hill so memorable is the way the chore-ography on display collaborates with the suggestion of movement created by the contours of the undulating landscape. Sitting in a seat positioned halfway down a slope that long-ago July, I sensed the dancers becoming alter egos, answer-ing the vicarious call of wish fulfillment. Watching three women arch, tilt and roll down the hill, wouldn’t we spectators at that moment have liked to do so our-selves? One is continuously confronted by riddles of distance, perspective and spatial continuity across a landscape that affords both episodic and broad-ranged vistas. Everything, from the topography to architectural features on the grounds, becomes part of the theatrical machinery.

By contrast, Robert Wilson’s staging of The Threepenny Opera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music earlier this month spoke most eloquently when he launched the performers in a frontal assault, stand-ing straight, facing us down, as it were, and giving us an earful. It suited the semi-didactic nature of the work and its heavily cabaret-influenced score. Going eyebrow-to-eyebrow was a preferred mode of address of Bertolt Brecht, Threepenny’s German author, who championed a “the-ater of alienation” that dissolved illusion-ist barriers.

Choreographer and theatrical auteur William Forsythe is American but has been based in Europe for years, where he has perpetuated and wrung changes to this spirit of deconstructed illusionism. At BAM Oct. 26–29, the 18 dancers of The Forsythe Company will present the New York premiere of Forsythe’s I don’t believe in outer space. First performed in Frank-furt in 2008, it was described in London reviews earlier this year as something of a three-ring circus of life in its infinite variety, as recollected by a tranquil pro-tagonist forced to a perhaps valedictory retrospective.

Noon is a nice and relatively novel time for a performance and it’s a time slot now regularly programmed by the 92nd Street Y. On Oct. 28, a free performance pays tribute to ballet dancer Janet Collins, the first African American to dance for the Metropolitan Opera. She was 34 when she debuted there in Aida on Nov. 13, 1951, the opening night of the season. The Y concert will include two new works cre-ated especially as homage to Collins, who died in 2003. Yaël Lewin will read from her new biography of Collins, Night Dancer, and show some performance footage. A panel discussion with interesting and distinguished contemporaries will follow.

Don’t make too much noise in your seat or you’ll become the orchestra that’s not supposed to be there as you watch Neces-sary Weather, a 1994 collaboration with-out music between dancer Dana Reitz and lighting designer Jennifer Tipton. Danced by Weitz and Sara Rudner, it is revived Oct. 27–29 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center as part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festi-val. I saw it performed at Jacob’s Pillow in 1997, when Rudner couldn’t dance and it turned into a solo. But it’s not really a solo, since the lighting here is made collabora-tive by virtue of the dancers’ interaction with it.

Obviously, there’s room for extempora-neous adjustment in this choreography. Both Rudner and Weitz are acclaimed modern dancers now in their sixties, and the ways in which performers of this age conserve/expend their energy becomes a kinetic text of its own.

Nothing could be farther from Wave Hill here—or could it? Distilled in the graphic/kinetic forces at work in the black box per-formance space at BAC is the same drama of the ways of seeing, the drama of the ever-shifting signposts to perspective. Read more by Joel Lobenthal at Lobenthal.com.

Chris Ferris & Dancers: The company presents “Continental Drift” with 5 dances, including “Clearing,” which incorporates hanging, swinging sculptures. Nov. 4 & 5, Center for Performance Research, 361 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn, chrisferrisdance.com; 8, $15.

Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre: The Czech-influenced company performs new works & pieces from their repertoire, & teams up with postclassical string quartet ETHEL. Oct. 27–29 & Nov. 3–5, Tribeca PAC, 199 Chambers St., tribecapac.org; 7:30, $25.

Wave Rising Series: 24 dance companies perform new & established works 3 times each during this 3-week festival. Ends Nov. 6, WHiTE WAVE John Ryan Theater, 25 Jay St., Brooklyn, whitewavedance.com; $20.

Bard Graduate Center Gallery presents

Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jonesin the Main Gallery through April 14, 2012

American Christmas Cards, 1900–1960in the Focus Gallery through December 31, 2011

Gallery Hours Tuesday through Sunday from 11 am–5 pm Thursday from 11 am–8 pm The Main Gallery and Focus Gallery are both located at 18 West 86th Street, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, in New York City. bgc.bard.edu

Hats: A Field GuideGallery Talk with milliner Melinda WaxThursday, November 10, 6 pm

Hats-in-Progress: A Study Day with milliners Gretchen Fenston and Rodney KeenanFriday, November 11, 10 am–4:30 pm

The Surrealist Hat Lecture by fashion curator Dilys BlumThursday, November 17, 6 pm

Women Designers and Greeting Cards of the Arts and Crafts Movement Lecture by historian Anne Stewart O’DonnellThursday, December 1, 6 pm

“With Every Christmas Card I Write” Concert of American Holiday Songs, 1900–1960with Robert Osborne, Katie Geissinger, and Richard GordonSunday, December 11, 2 pm

The Hatmaker’s Muse: A Conversation with New York MillinersLola Ehrlich, Albertus Swanepoel, and Patricia Underwood. Moderated by costume and textiles curator Phyllis MagidsonThursday, December 15, 6 pm

For complete information and tickets please visit bgc.bard.edu or e-mail [email protected]

Stephen Jones for Christian Dior

Haute Couture. ‘Olga Sherer inspirée par

Gruau’ Hat. Autumn/Winter 2007/2008.

©Christopher Moore/Catwalking.


Kissing the AirSTREB’S ACTiON FACTiON

BY VALERIE GLADSTONE

Elizabeth Streb’s dancers jump, bounce, climb, spin and fly, making downhill racing, hang-gliding and

Himalayan mountain climbing look like child’s play. Over the past 25 years, the choreographer has often presented her dazzling works in conventional theaters, but they’ve always shone brightest in big spaces and out of doors. Now she brings several new gripping, gorgeous pieces to the vast Park Avenue Armory, Dec. 14-22, ready to give the seasonal Nutcrackers a run—or leap—for their money with her aptly titled show Kiss the Air!

After all, how many choreographers win compliments like “Potent and beautiful” from Mikhail Barysh-nikov and “Superwom-an” from choreographer Trisha Brown, plus the admiration of high-wire artist Philippe Petit?

Streb, a winner of a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, started on the new works over a year ago in the Wil-liamsburg home of her company SLAM, which also doubles as a com-munity center and a school for would-be daredevils. Thrilled to be invited to the Armory’s 55,000-square-foot, 70-foot-high Wade Thompson Drill Hall, she plans to show “what movement can do.” Her richest program to date includes just about every physical feat imaginable, her respect and love for the body imbuing each work with magic.

Ascension, first performed in Gan-sevoort Plaza in July to inaugurate the Whitney Museum’s new downtown home, revolves around a spinning 21-foot ladder, an idea inspired by a conversa-tion with a firefighter. But no firefighter would agree to the challenges imposed on the eight gutsy dancers; to the music of percussionist David Van Tieghem they twist and turn on the rungs, ever foiled in their ascent by the ladder’s revolutions yet managing to look beautiful as well as beyond athletic as they set themselves impossible goals.

As if this were not demanding enough, Streb is also featuring the spellbinding Human Fountain, which drew crowds last summer at the World Financial Cen-ter. Inspired by the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, the piece consists of 20 danc-ers gushing like water from a three-story honeycomb structure to the resounding chords of the fourth movement of Mozart’s Symphony #36.

One by one, two by two and finally all together the handsome young men and women, who hail from all over the world, throw themselves off the apparatus onto thick mats. Sometimes they fall like logs while other times, with their arms out-stretched, they fly to the ground with the

grace of birds. Though onlookers were ren-dered speechless by its first performance, Streb hopes to add yet anoth-er story to the structure for the Armory show.

All of this accounts for less than half of the Streb excitement at the Amory. The program also includes Falling Sideways, with danc-ers launched into the air like rockets; Pass, in which they bounce from mini trampolines onto two big hoops, power-ing a howling perpetual motion machine; Air Hurl, in which dancers in harnesses attached to cables turn into human

slingshots, their movements creating arcs of flight; and Kiss the Water, in which they fly over water—and there’ll be a demon-stration by her troupe of her Pop Action moves.

Where do all of her ideas come from? “Since I was a little critter,” she says, “I’ve been passionate about and obsessed with the versatility and capabilities of the body. You know how when a singer hits a high C or an instrumentalist plays a beauti-ful phrase? We don’t ask anything of it but itself. We’re content with what we’ve heard. My ultimate quest is to achieve that response with movement.”

Watch carefully at Kiss the Air! and you’ll probably see her dancers hit the high C. Kiss the Air! Dec. 14-22, Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Ave., 212-616-3950, www.armoryonpark.org.

ONE BY ONE, TWO BY TWO AND FINALLY

ALL TOGETHER THE HANDSOME YOUNG

MEN AND WOMEN, WHO HAIL FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, THROW

THEMSELVES OFF THE APPARATUS ONTO THICK

MATS. SOMETIMES THEY FALL LIKE LOGS WHILE OTHER TIMES,

WITH THEIR ARMS OUTSTRETCHED, THEY

FLY TO THE GROUND WITH THE GRACE OF BIRDS.

pa

qu

ito

d’r

iver

a P

hoto

by

Pla

ton

JAZZ

AT

LIN

COLN

CEN

TER

NOV 11–1

2 / 8�

THE MUSIC OF ASTOR PIAZZOLL A

Music Dire

ctor P

aquito D’Rive

ra, Pablo Aslan, and moreOCT 28

–29 /8�

IMPLUSE RECORDS AT 50

Reggie Workm

an's Afric

an-American Legacy

Project &

Eric Reed

's Surge

NOV 10–1

1 / 7 :30� & 9 :3

0�

SHEMEKIA COPEL AND

PREFERRED CARD OF

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER JALC.ORGBox OfficeBroadway at 60th

CenterCharge212-721-6500


AUCTIONS Christie’s: impressionist & Modern Evening Sale. Nov. 1, 7. impressionist & Modern Works on Paper. Nov. 2, 10 a.m. impressionist & Modern Day Sale. Nov. 2, 2. Post-War Contemporary Evening Sale. Nov. 8, 7. Works from The Peter Norton Collection. Nov. 8, 6:30. Post-War & Contemporary Art. 9:30 a.m. & 2. Selected Works from The Collection of Anton & Annick Herbert for the Benefit of the Herbert Foundation. Nov. 9, 1:30, 20 Rockefeller Plz., christies.com.

Doyle New York: European, American, Modern & Contemporary Art. Nov. 2, 11 a.m. Books, Photographs & Prints. Nov. 7, 10 a.m. Prints & Books from the Creekmore & Adele Fath Charitable Foundation Collection. Nov. 8, 10 a.m., 175 E. 87th St., doylenewyork.com.

iGavel: Online auctions of fine art, antiques & collectibles from a network of independent sources, igavelauctions.com.

ROGALLERY.com: Fine art buyers & sellers in online live art auctions, rogallery.com.

Swann Auction Gallery: Autographs. Nov. 3, 1:30. Art, Press & illustrated Books/19th & 20th Century Literature, Nov. 8, 1:30, 104 E. 25th St., swanngalleries.com.

Going, Going AuctionsBY CAROLINE BIRENBAUM

As the high season for New York auctions unfolds, there’s a

brief window of opportuni-ty to view many outstand-ing works of art, some of which have been in private collections for generations, during the public exhibi-tions before each sale.

Swann’s curated print sale, to be held the after-noon of Oct. 27, explores the influence of Stanley William Hayter’s collabora-tive Atelier 17 workshops on the revival and growth of printmaking in both Europe and the United States in the mid-20th century and the ensuing development of abstract expressionism and the New York School. The consign-ment of a rare, circa 1944–45 abstract drypoint and engraving by Pollock was the impetus for bringing this art-historically important selection of works together and documenting them in the catalog. Highlights range from late 1930s surrealist engravings to 1980s color prints by Motherwell and de Kooning. Pre-view Oct. 26–27, www.swanngalleries.com.

Sotheby’s fine print offerings, Oct. 27-28, include such beauties as Picasso’s linoleum cut portrait of Jacqueline, evoked with delicate lines against a heavenly blue background. The spotlight, though, is on the evening session Oct. 27, offering 37 lots of important contemporary prints from an American collection that boasts six complete Warhol portfolios acquired directly from the artist’s studio. Preview Oct. 26–27, www.sothebys.com.

Christie’s kicks off a series of high-powered impressionist and modern art sales with an evening session Nov. 1 that features the famed Degas sculpture “Little Dancer 14 Years Old,” a charming Rodin bronze of three dancing female fauns and works from the collection of Hollywood mogul and philanthropist Lew Wasserman and his wife Edie, including a classic Degas

pastel of a woman bathing and a Soutine portrait painting. Impressionist and mod-ern works on paper comprise the morning session Nov. 2, with a cubist still life draw-ing by Gris, a Schwitters collage and two strong watercolors by Klee from 1916 and 1923. The sale concludes with more paint-ings and sculptures from several private collections, including a gorgeous polished terra cotta abstract sculpture of a nude woman from 1935 by Archipenko, Rodin’s “Petit modèle,” cast in 1927, two Degas bronzes from the Wassermans and a set of backdrops created by Dali for the bal-let Tristan Fou (1944) from the John Kluge collection, being sold to finance scholar-ships for Columbia University students. Preview Oct. 28–Nov. 1, www.christies.com.

Back to Sotheby’s for blockbuster impres-sionist and modern art sessions on the evening of Nov. 2 and the morning of Nov. 3, including a number of works deacces-sioned by the Israel Museum, the Boston MFA and the Menil Collection. Of particular note is a glowing Klimt landscape, “Litzlberg am Attersee,” that until recently was among

the jewels of the Salzburg Modern Museum. Originally in the collection of Viennese steel magnate and Klimt patron Viktor Zucker-kandl then inherited by his sister Amalie Redlich, who became a Holocaust victim, the painting was looted by the Nazis in 1941. It was restituted this year to Redlich’s grand-son and heir, Georges Jorisch of Montreal, Canada, who intends to donate part of the proceeds to the museum to create a wing named in honor of Redlich.

Another featured work is a bronze cast of Matisse’s monumental bas-relief “Nu de dos,” first state, being sold by the Bur-nett Foundation of Fort Worth, Texas. The foundation acquired the entire series of four progressively abstracted takes on a woman’s back in 1982 and put them on public display. The foundation now con-siders them too valuable to retain and first attempted to sell them as a set. As Sotheby’s was unable to find a buyer, they are being offered individually in auctions alternating between London and New York, with the proceeds to be used for the foundation’s community projects. In addi-

tion to paintings and sculptures, the Nov. 3 sessions offer some lovely works of deco-rative art, including a woven Aubusson wool tapestry after Picasso’s interpretation of Manet’s “Picnic on the Grass,” circa 1963–67, and a Diego Giacometti console table, circa 1978. Preview Oct. 28–Nov. 1, www.sothebys.com.

Doyle’s Nov. 2 sale of European and American modern and contemporary art features a charming portrait of a young Jack Cuddihy by Robert Henri, 1926, sev-eral Motherwell drawings from the John M. and Harriet D. Cuddihy Collection and a lovely charcoal portrait of Alice Appleton Hay, 1919, from the Creekmore and Adele Fath Charitable Foundation. Preview Oct. 29–Nov. 1, www.doylenewyork.com.

On Nov. 8, Doyle presents a single-own-er sale of prints, books and autographs from the Fath Collection. Creekmore Fath was a progressive Texas politician and aficionado and expert on the prints of Thomas Hart Benton, and the auction contains almost all of Benton’s lithographs as well as the archive of correspondence and notes Fath assembled when prepar-ing his Benton catalogue raisonné. Preview Nov. 4–6, www.doylenewyork.com.

Bonhams’ auction of modern and contemporary art Nov. 7 stars a delight-ful Calder stabile, or, as they refer to it, a “standing mobile,” “Deux blancs en des-sous,” 1974, and includes a Botero oil still life with oranges, 1967, and a David Hammons body print, 1975, among the eclectic offerings. Preview Nov. 4–7, www.bonhams.com.

Alexander Calder, “Deux blancs en dessous,” 1974, painted metal and wire stabile. Estimate $400,000–$600,000. At auction at Bonhams Nov. 7. Photo courtesy of Bonhams.


THE CITYARTS INTERVIEW

Will BarnetW

ill Barnet’s eight-decade career is not only one of the most endur-ing of any living American artist,

it is also one of the most varied. Over the many years, the renowned painter and printmaker has moved through phases of social realism, cubism, abstraction and lyrical realism before his recent return to abstraction. His numerous awards include the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters’ Childe Hassam Prize as well as lifetime achieve-ment awards from both the National Academy of Design and the Col-lege Art Association. His works are in the collec-tions of virtually every major museum in the country.

Born to Eastern Euro-pean immigrants in Beverly, Mass., in 1911, Barnet attended the Bos-ton Museum School and the Art Students League in New York, where he taught for nearly four decades. Now 100 years old, the artist is currently the subject of a retrospective at the National Academy Museum that features nearly 50 of his works on loan from private and museum collections. The artist recently talked with CityArts in his apartment in the National Arts Club.—John Goodrich

Looking at your work, one sees all kinds of influences: of course, there’s Native American, maybe Egyptian, Japanese.

From the time I was very young, I went to the library and absorbed every book I possibly could read about the history of art and what took place in different cultures—not just one culture but many cultures. I had a very broad education just from the Beverly public library. I loved it. It was my ideal home, actually, the library.

And your parents were supportive of you?

Not particularly. They were very good parents, but they were very hardworking and they had their own problems. I was the last one born, about 14 years younger, so I was an only child. I was on my own.

You got a scholarship to the Art Stu-dents League.

Yeah, a four-year scholarship. Stuart Davis was there and I liked Stuart Davis’ work. So I worked with him for a while until he was fired from his job and then I went directly to the graphic department with Charlie Locke. That’s where I did my apprenticeship, learning how to print so I could make a living during the deep Depression.

Of course, the Second World War was coming up and we were all aware of Hitler, very much so. We knew what they were doing to people, so we tried to help get people out of Germany. Some of them did get out, like George Grosz, who taught at the League. I was one of the guys who helped get him here.

All of those tumultuous things happening in New York—the Depression, strikes—I put them into

my work. I covered the ball field, as they say. I began to change later on. I liked more classical work. It’s very rare that you see a show like this [the National Academy Museum retrospective] today that deals with structure and a certain kind of analy-sis of nature and puts them together. It’s more abstract in its thinking.

It seems it’s abstract, but it’s real.It’s real, yeah, but you have to be able to

be abstract at the same time. You have to get rid of the superficial surfaces and find the underneath things that give it depth and strength, like Ingres does with beautiful women—you look underneath and you see that the elbow is so goddamned long, like an elephant’s trunk. You see the exaggerations that took place to make it a work of art.

You keep the same philosophy even though your work changes a lot, from abstraction back to figuration.

And then back to abstraction. Abstrac-tion is not too far away from the figure. I’m basically a figure painter, and portraiture is always something I’ve loved very dearly. I did quite a few portraits of people, but they’re not commercial.

When you rework something, do you work from many studies?

Yes, hundreds of studies. Hundreds.Do you change things on the canvas?Most of the changes take place in the

drawings, because by the time I’ve gotten to the point where I know what I want to say, I start putting it on a canvas. I may make a lot of changes, particularly in col-ors, but the actual work is done on paper.

It took quite a few years for the abstrac-tion to have a certain reality for me, an ability to convey my thoughts. There is a language in abstraction, which is differ-ent from the language of realistic paint-ing. You begin to see this flat surface has to be structurally understood and there’s a certain amount of space taking place as you work, up and down, across. The Egyptians had their language. The Japa-nese had their language. The Chinese had their language. And they’re all different. But they all relate if they’re well done. They all relate in being aesthetically, you might say, acceptable, in terms of being a classical piece of work.

What other paintings do you find your-self going back to?

I lectured a lot about the paintings at The Met, but I also went to the Museum of the American Indian up on 155th Street and talked about Indian concepts. They had their own culture, too.

It’s interesting that you like such a vari-ety of work. There’s Modigliani…

He was a big influence in the early work. I loved his work.

And Juan Gris?Juan Gris was one of the great artists. I used

to lecture on him. I used to have his dealer come and speak to my class—Kahnweiler, the famous Kahnweiler. Another great artist was Seurat. He was one of the great structural painters of his time. An amazing genius.

When you work now, do you find that sometimes you’re in touch with the painting and sometimes you’re not?

Well, when you get to be 100, you have the right to be in touch with anything. Will Barnet at 100 is on view at the National Academy Museum through Dec. 31.

Will Barnet ©Marc Royce, courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York

“IT TOOK qUITE A FEW YEARS FOR THE

ABSTRACTION TO HAVE A CERTAIN REALITY

FOR ME, AN ABILITY TO CONVEY MY THOUGHTS. THERE IS A LANGUAGE

IN ABSTRACTION, WHICH IS DIFFERENT FROM THE LANGUAGE

OF REALISTIC PAINTING.”


JOB #: A0389TITLE: ONE STOP SHOPPRINT PRODUCER: NORITA JONESPROJECT MANAGER: MANDI HALLACCOUNT MANAGER: SANTINI/MATHEWSART DIRECTOR: MIKE FISHERSHIP: 10/19/11PUBLICATION & INSERTION DATE:Manhattan Media, 10/24/11

Agency Approvals: INITIALS DATE

Proofreader _______ _______

Copywriter _______ _______

Art Director _______ _______

Creative Director _______ _______

Account Exec. _______ _______

Supervisors: INITIALS DATE

Project Mgr. _______ _______

Acct. Sup. _______ _______

Prod. Mgr. _______ _______

Client Approval: INITIALS DATE

_______ _______

A0389-1 • American Airlines Duped from A0334-1 by: byn

Path: Production3:AmericanAirlines:Jobs:AJobs:A0300Jobs: Proof #1Trim: 10"w x 11.25"h Bleed: None Live: 10"w x 11.25"hPage 1 of 1 Date: 10/13/11Inks: 4/C Revised by: byn CPS CheckOut: _________

Earn AAdvantage® miles

on everything.

Only on AA.com.Flights Hotels Cars Cruises Activities

For “lowest prices” terms and conditions, go to AA.com/guarantee. AmericanAirlines, AAdvantage and AA.com are marks of American Airlines, Inc. oneworld is a mark of the oneworld Alliance, LLC. © 2011 American Airlines, Inc. All rights reserved.

A0389-1_10x11.25.indd 1 10/13/11 12:41 PM

cityArts October 26, 2011

Documents

Transcript of cityArts October 26, 2011