Yearly Archives: 2011

KIPS BAY DECORATOR SHOW HOUSE 2011

Fanuka laundry room is a cool highlight of 2011 Decorator Show House (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

163 East 63rd St. between Lexington & Third Aves.
Daily through May 26, $30
718-893-8600
www.kipsbaydecoratorshowhouse.org
www.kipsbay.org
decorator show house slideshow

Since 1973, the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, in which a group of specially selected designers create dramatic interiors, has raised more than $17 million for the Bronx-based Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club. “The Positive Place for Kids” helps some 12,500 children, primarily between the ages of six and eighteen, reach their potential through adult mentoring and providing safe places for them to gather and grow with their peers, both physically and intellectually. The thirty-ninth annual show house is now open, held in a four-story, ten-thousand-square-foot neo-Federalist-style home on East 63rd St. built in 1919 by architect Frederick Sterner and previously owned by John Hay “Jock” Whitney, the son of Payne and Helen Hay Whitney and brother of Mets cofounder and original owner Joan Whitney Payson. Jock was a philanthropist who served as U.S. ambassador to England, was the owner and publisher of the New York Herald Tribune from 1961 until its demise in 1966, and loved the horses and the movies (as well as several movie stars, it seems). Nearly two dozen design firms have filled virtually every nook and cranny of the residence, from the foyer and the lobby to the staircase and the terrace, supplemented with stunning works of art that turn the mansion into a mini-museum. There’s something for everyone in the show house, including a very pink bedroom by Amanda Nisbet, a dark, creepy-cool office with skeleton by Aurélien Gallet, an ultramod ice-blue laundry room by Fanuka, and a gorgeous Wu Wei garden by Greener by Design. Music aficionados are sure to get a kick out of Brad Ford ID’s stereo lounge, complete with a row of unique wall speakers and a wooden coffee table with a built-in turntable; the room is flanked on either side by terraces from Robert Stilin and Gunn Landscape Architecture, one of which is a lush dream.

Wu Wei garden by Greener by Design offers lovely respite in Manhattan (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Among the many artists whose work has been lent to the show house are Damien Hirst, Gregory Crewdson, Jenny Holzer, Alec Soth, Richard Prince, Jim Dine, Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, Douglas Gordon, Isamu Noguchi, Jean Dubuffet, and many others. The house is open daily through May 26, and there will be a number of special events scheduled during its run. On May 9 at 5:00, Sony’s invitation-only VIP private shopping service, Sony Cierge, will host a technology panel; on May 10 at 6:00, Author’s Night: 2011 Show House Designers and Book Signing will include Celerie Kemble, Annie Kelly, Richard Mishaan, Campion Platt, and Matthew Patrick Smyth; on May 17 at 6:00, Auctions and Antiques — Designers and Developing Trends for Today will be presented by Richard Nelson from Christie’s; on May 19 at 6:00, Leading Women in Design Book Signing features Florence de Dampierre, Wendy Goodman, Victoria Hagan, Charlotte Moss, and Bunny Williams; on May 24 at 6:00, Sony Cierge will be back for Insider Access to Technology Solutions; and on May 25 at 6:00, the cocktail reception An Evening at the Decorator Show House ($100) will raise yet more funds for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club.

WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO

New York Theatre Workshop Fourth Street Theatre
83 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through May 22, $18
800-838-3006
www.carascarmack.com

Subtitled “A Fierce Telling of Feelin’ Alive A’fore We Die,” What Happened in Ohio has nothing to do with the 2004 election, Kent State, or longtime Buckeyes coach Woody Hayes punching Clemson’s Charlie Bauman after a late interception during the 1978 Gator Bowl. Instead, it’s an intriguing piece of experimental theater about love, loss, and leaving. Set in rural Ohio in the 1950s, What Happened tells the story of four siblings, played by the Roadsters theatrical troupe of actor-singers (Priscilla Holbrook, Ashley Nease, Stephanie Viola, and Nathan Richard Wagner, along with playwright Cara Scarmack). On Claire Karoff’s stark stage, with dangling lightbulbs, a cabinet of knickknacks to one side, hanging cords that hold string instruments on the other, and a quilt of earth-toned colors that somewhat resembles the map of the United States in the back, Holbrook, Nease, Viola, and Wagner sing country bluegrass songs (with Wagner on mandolin), make sharp, carefully choreographed movements, and recite poetic text that creates an abstract narrative centered around a fatal car accident that changed their lives. Told in sixteen parts with such names as “What to Carry On, What to Leave Behind,” “Is That Suitcase Too Heavy for Ye?,” and “Darling, Can You Tell Me Where Home Is?,” the play features, first and foremost, terrific music, in addition to a fine-smelling pancake breakfast, Wagner violently smashing a mandolin, a creative method of making a bed, and a lot of face-to-face moments that help develop the characters’ relationships with one another. But nothing is ever set in stone; Scarmack, who also sings and plays guitar as half of the Wildwood Sisters, keeps the precise details just out of reach, leaving the audience to grasp at the facts much like Wagner runs around and leaps after a bug. Then again, What Happened in Ohio isn’t really about what actually happened in Ohio but how what happened affected the lives of this close-knit but deeply troubled family.

CONVERSION PARTY

Conversion Party will celebrate new EP and sixth anniversary of Cake Shop tonight

Cake Shop
152 Ludlow St.
Saturday, May 7, $6, 10:30
212-253-0036
www.cake-shop.com
www.myspace.com/conversionparty

If you missed Conversion Party’s EP release celebration last night at Bruar Falls, you can catch the Brooklyn-based band tonight as part of Cake Shop’s sixth anniversary show. The four-track Favors, what they’re calling their “proper debut,” was a long time coming; the group, which originally hails from New London, Connecticut, put out More No More back in 2008, but the Matthew-heavy band has come a long way since then. Featuring Matthew Allen on guitar, bass, and drums, Matthew Clark on keyboards, Matt Potter on drums, Alex Waxman on guitar, and Ben Johnson on guitar and bass, Conversion Party plays hook-laden, guitar-driven indie pop with howling background vocals, ethereal bridges, and offbeat lyrics. “Well, I only missed you / because you were gone / Maybe it was you or your sister / You would be so mad / if you knew what I did / But I swear I only kissed her,” they sing on “Teeth.” Favors also includes the psychedelic “In the Mountains,” the Bowie-esque “Birds of Paradise Lost,” and the mostly instrumental shoegazer “Let Us All,” which adds drowned-out out vocals in the latter part. Look for them to also play the quirky ass-kicker “Awake,” one of our favorite songs of the year. A true collaborative effort with multiple songwriters and vocalists, Conversion Party goes on at 10:30 at Cake Shop, preceded by Ariana Reines at 7:30, Fanuelle at 8:30, and Holy Shit at 9:30 and followed by Surf City at 11:30 and the Beets at midnight.

SPRING INTO E-WASTE RECYCLING

Get rid of all that old electronic equipment just taking up space in your apartment at this month’s special recycling days (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Saturday, May 7, Stanton St. between Bowery & Chrystie St.
Saturday, May 14, West 26th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Sunday, May 22, Stuyvesant Town, 14th St. Loop, 14th St. & Ave. A
Admission: free, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
212-477-4022
www.lesecologycenter.org

The Lower East Side Ecology Center’s Spring into E-Waste Recycling program got under way April 16 as people bombarded Tekserve on West 23rd St. with outdated computers, monitors, PDAs, printers, scanners, keyboards, mice, phones, cell phones, DVD players, cables, televisions, and other audio/visual equipment. The LESEC, in conjunction with New York State’s 2010 Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act, is seeking to collect five hundred tons of electronic equipment this year; to get people to finally recycle those old things gathering dust, Tekserve is offering a $25 discount on the purchase of a Mac, iPod, or LaCie hard drive, good through the end of May, to anyone who recycles some kind of equipment, so yes, you’ll get a little green by going green.

FOUNTAIN SILENT AUCTION: A BENEFIT FOR ART CONNECTS NEW YORK

Russell Young’s “Pig Portrait” is among the Fountain works at benefit auction for Art Connects New York

Gallery Bar
120 Orchard St.
Saturday, May 7, suggested donation $10, 7:00-11:00
www.fountainexhibit.com

The Fountain Art Fair, held the last six years during Armory Week aboard the Frying Pan, will be holding a benefit on Saturday night at the Gallery Bar on Orchard St., featuring a silent auction, live performances, giveaway, a raffle, and more, teaming up with Art Connects New York, a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to enrich the lives of all New Yorkers by making original visual artwork more readily available in nontraditional settings” and Lomography, “a global community whose strong passion is creative and experimental analogue film photography.” The evening will include live music by Tecla and NSR, while DJ Friendly Greg will spin tunes. Among the Fountain favorites whose work will be available are Russell Young, Chris Stain, Victor Cox, Allison Berkoy, Jason Douglas Griffin, Evo Love, Jesse McCloskey, Brian Leo, Sarcasmo, and GILF! Fountain always offers a unique experience, so this should be a fun night, and don’t be surprised if some of the art is a lot more affordable than you might expect.

NEW YORK GALLERY WEEK 2011

William Kentride will be signing books at Marian Goodman on Saturday as part of New York Gallery Week (William Kentridge, “Drawing for ‘Other Faces,’” charcoal and coloured pencil on paper, 2011; courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York / Paris)

Multiple locations
May 6-8, free
www.newyorkgalleryweek.com

More than sixty galleries and organizations will be participating in this weekend’s New York Gallery Week festivities, featuring a host of opening receptions, walking tours, and other special events, including being open late Friday night (till 8:00) and all day Sunday, when most galleries are closed. Among the many Saturday highlights are William Kentridge signing books at Marian Goodman from 11:00 to 1:00, Barnaby Furnas and Ivan Witenstein in conversation at Derek Eller at 12 noon, Amy Granat/Cinema Zero and a dance performance by Felicia Ballos at Nicole Klagsbrun at 1:00, an artist talk with Sara VanDerBeek at Leo Koenig at 2:30, the panel discussion “New Directions in Curatorial Models” at Sean Kelly at 3:00, and a live performance by Black Lake at David Nolan at 5:00. On Sunday, Louise Lawler’s Birdcalls will be screening at Metro Pictures from 11:00 to 6:00, Marianne Boesky will host a panel discussion on Salvatore Scarpitta’s “Trajectory” at 12 noon (with Germano Celant, Nicholas Cullinan, James Harithas, Jeff Koons, Nancy Rubins, and Paul Schmmel, moderated by Anne-Marie Russell), Hilton Als and Kara Walker will lead an artist walk-through of Walker’s “Dust Jackets for the Niggerati — and Supporting Dissertation” at Sikkema Jenkins at 2:00, Liam Gillick and Sean Landers will lead a walk-through of Landers’s “Around the World Alone” at Friedrich Petzel at 3:00, and Stephen Vincent will give a talk and poetry reading at Jack Hanley at 6:00.

OCTUBRE

Local loan shark Clemente is suddenly strapped with a baby in OCTUBRE (courtesy New Yorker Films)

OCTUBRE (Daniel Vega & Diego Vega, 2010)
Angelika Film Center, 18 West Houston St. at Mercer St., 212-995-2570
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, May 6
www.newyorkerfilms.info/octubre

Winner of the Jury Prize of the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes last year, Octubre is a deadpan black comedy about loneliness and, ultimately, a different kind of family. In Daniel and Diego Vega’s first feature, Bruno Odar stars as Clemente, a low-key money lender in Lima, Peru, who comes home one day to his stark apartment to find a baby left in a back room. Figuring out it must be his by one of the prostitutes he frequents, he goes in search of the woman, known as la Cajamarquina, who does not want to be found. After the authorities strongly suggest that he keep the baby, Clemente hires the deeply religious Sofia (Gabriela Velásquez) to help take care of the child. The events unfold during the Purple Month, October, when Lima celebrates El Señor de los Milagros (the Lord of the Miracles), worshiping a seventeenth-century image of Christ that many believe is responsible for myriad miracles. Citing Robert Bresson, Jim Jarmusch, and Aki Kaurismäki as direct influences, the brothers Vega have made a slow-paced little gem, a curious tale with strange characters centered around the idea of money — but not greed. Clemente, the son of a respected pawnbroker, lends out cash to locals who tend to dictate the terms to him. When one man pays him back with a questionable bill, Clemente spends the rest of the film trying to get rid of it, but everyone else seems to be a lot smarter than he is when it comes to money. Sofia sells homemade nougat, a Purple Month tradition, and plays the numbers with Don Fico (Carlos Gassols), hoping for a small break in her spinsterish life. The only relationships that Clemente and Sofia have with other people involve money, either lending it, borrowing it, gambling it, or, in Clemente’s case, spending it to have sex. But the surprise baby has the potential to change both of their drab, boring lives. Octubre is a promising debut from the Vegas, who, along with cinematographer Fergan Chávez-Ferrer, display a smart sense of subtle visual and narrative style in telling this offbeat story.