Yearly Archives: 2012

IFC SNEAKS: LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE

The lives of three very different individuals intertwine in Abbas Kiarostami’s remarkable LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE (Abbas Kiarostami, 2012)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Friday, October 26, 6:50
Series runs October 26-28
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.ifcfilms.com

Following the Tuscany-set Certified Copy, his first film made outside of his home country, master Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami heads to Japan for the beautifully told Like Someone in Love. Rin Takanashi stars as Akiko, a sociology student supporting herself as an escort working for bar owner and pimp Hiroshi (Denden). An older, classy businessman, Hiroshi insists that Akiko is the only person to handle a certain client, so, despite her loud objections, she is put in a cab and taken to meet Takashi (Tadashi Okuno), an elderly professor who seems to just want some company. But soon Akiko unwittingly puts the gentle old man in the middle of her complicated life, which includes her extremely jealous and potentially violent boyfriend, Noriaki (Ryō Kase), and a surprise visit from her grandmother (Kaneko Kubota). Taking its title from the song made famous by, among others, Ella Fitzgerald, Like Someone in Love is an intelligent character-driven narrative that investigates different forms of love and romance in unique and engaging ways. Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry, Close-Up) and cinematographer Katsumi Yanagijima, who has worked on numerous films by Takeshi Kitano, establish their visual style from the very beginning, as an unseen woman, later revealed to be Akiko, is on the phone lying to her abusive boyfriend about where she is, the camera not moving for extended periods of time as people bustle around her in a crowded bar. As is often the case with Kiarostami, who has said that his next film will be set in Italy, much of the film takes place in close quarters, including many in cars, both moving and parked, forcing characters to have to deal with one another and face certain realities they might otherwise avoid. Takanashi is excellent as Akiko, a young woman trapped in several bad situations of her own making, but octogenarian Okuno steals the show in the first lead role of a long career that has primarily consisted of being an extra. The soft look in his eyes, the tender way he shuffles through his apartment, and his very careful diction are simply captivating. Despite his outstanding performance, Okuno is committed to returning to the background in future films, shunning the limelight. A jazz-filled film that at times evokes the more serious work of Woody Allen, another director most associated with a home base but who has been making movies in other cities for a number of years now, Like Someone in Love is like a great jazz song, especially one in which the notes that are not played are more important than those that are. Like Someone in Love is screening October 26 at 6:50 as part of the BAMcinématek series “IFC Sneaks,” which offers an advance look at such upcoming IFC Films as Rodney Ascher’s Room 237, an obsessive examination of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and Walter Salles’s hotly anticipated On the Road, an adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel with Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty, Sam Riley as Sal Paradise, Kristen Stewart as Marylou, Amy Adams as Jane, Kirsten Dunst as Camille, and Viggo Mortensen as Old Bull Lee.

DAVE COLE

Dave Cole, “The Music Box,” Caterpillar CS-533 Vibratory Roller-Compactor with cherry wood, spring steel, and United States National Anthem (arranged for steamroller), 2012 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

DODGEgallery
15 Rivington St. between Bowery & Chrystie St.
Wednesday – Sunday through October 28, free
212-228-5122
www.dodge-gallery.com
www.davecoledavecole.com
dave cole slideshow

For New Hampshire–based artist Dave Cole, the carefully chosen materials he uses and the act of creation itself are as important as the final result. For past shows, in a studio that is more like an industrial workshop, he has made a large-scale teddy bear out of fiberglass, Native American breastplates out of military cartridges, a snowsuit using a Gulf War bulletproof vest, and an elegant gown composed of U.S. currency. Although he prefers not to make grand statements about his work, he does acknowledge that his pieces explore the dichotomy that is America, a land of hope and dreams as well as violence and war. “With my family’s background — four generations of people who left Europe fleeing religious persecution — it’d be ridiculous if I didn’t celebrate America,” Cole said several years ago. “On the other hand, it’d be unconscionable and deliberately ignorant of me to not call bullshit on America’s abuses.” For his second solo exhibition at DODGEgallery, Cole expands on that theme with an installation that explores the past, present, and future of a country still in search of its identity, beginning with the latest in his flag series, “American Flag (Lead),” an official-size U.S. flag hand sewn out of a lead sheet with stainless-steel cables and then run over by a pickup truck, representing an America that has been trampled on but can’t be destroyed. For “Song-Books of the War,” inspired by a WWI-era poem by Siegfried Sassoon (“In fifty years, when peace outshines / Remembrance of battle lines, / Adventurous lads will sigh and cast / Proud looks upon the plundered past.”), Cole has taken an old-fashioned wood-and-wicker wheelchair, which was once used by a member of his family, and placed on it approximately twenty thousand buffalo nickels that weigh the same as Cole, the artist feeling the weight of his personal and professional responsibilities. Known for his knitting of small and large objects, including a huge acrylic flag knitted with John Deere excavators in the Mass MoCA parking lot, Cole here includes “Singer,” a sewing machine that is hooked up to the internet, Googling itself and spewing out the search results in binary code onto a strip of bright yellow teletype paper. The brand name and sound are key here, evoking Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”; Cole has been strongly influenced by some of America’s greatest poets, including Whitman, Carl Sandburg, and T. S. Eliot.

Dave Cole, “American Flag (Lead),” lead sheet and stainless-steel cable, hand sewn, 2012 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

In 2008, Cole fashioned a series of baby bottles out of cast Babbitt metal to military specifications. In the new show, he includes “Three Generations,” a trio of baby rattles in the form of hand grenades from WWII, the Vietnam War, and the more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, made out of hand-turned hardwood and sterling silver. “Belt Plate (after Antietam)” is a boxing-size championship belt made from melted bullets and recycled lead type featuring the letters “US” on it, memorializing the bloodiest day in American history, when twenty-three thousand soldiers died in the 1862 Civil War battle. “The Star-Spangled Banner” might be played at the beginning of sports events and when U.S. Olympic athletes win gold medals, but Cole’s exhibition ends with a rather unique interpretation of the song, which was written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key after he witnessed the Battle of Fort McHenry. The centerpiece of the show (and accompanied by a maquette), “The Music Box” is a massive steamroller that barely fits into the downstairs space at Dodge. Commissioned by the Cleveland Institute of Art, it is a reconstructed thirteen-ton Caterpillar CS-533 Vibratory Roller-Compactor that Cole disassembled, then reassembled in exacting detail using more lightweight materials (as revealed by a video that plays next to it), adding a steel comb and tuning teeth to the drum so it plays a haunting rendition of the National Anthem as it turns. The song itself is famously difficult to sing, and this version, performed by an instrument of destruction and construction, makes that even more apparent, yet at the same time it is a symbol of America’s success and pride and innate ability to survive. A true craftsman, Cole has once again infused his work with multilayered nuances, both overt and covert, not afraid to face some hard truths about the country that he loves.

NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

The cast of NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 toasts creator Dave Malloy, who also plays Pierre (photo by Ben Arons)

Ars Nova
511 West 54th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through November 17, $30, 8:00
212-352-3101
www.arsnovanyc.com

Inspired by a section of Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 epic, War and Peace, Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 is a rousing and rollicking immersive rock opera filled with treachery, deceit, romance, humor, and food and drink. Scenic designer Mimi Lien has transformed Ars Nova into an 1812 Moscow club, where patrons are seated together at small tables, banquettes, and a long, curved bar and greeted by a complimentary bottle of vodka and a plate of potato pierogis and pumpernickel bread. The action takes place everywhere, as the actors pop up on the bar, sit at a table, and wander through the audience, Bradley King’s expert lighting and Matt Hubbs’s sound design helping people locate the actors. Russian epics can get rather complicated, so the show opens with a prologue in which the characters introduce themselves one by one and set up the story, which involves a beautiful young woman, Natasha (Phillipa Soo), who is engaged to Andrey, who is off fighting the war against Napoleon, but Natasha soon falls for engaging cad Anatole (Lucas Steele), who is the brother of town tart Hélène (Amber Gray), who is married to the hapless cuckold Pierre (Malloy, who also plays piano in the live band, which is scattered throughout the space). “Everyone’s got nine different names,” the cast sings, “but look it up in your program / We’d appreciate it / Thanks a lot.” Indeed, the program includes a plot synopsis as well as a map of who’s who and how they are connected.

Natasha (Phillipa Soo) is caught in a dangerous love triangle in rollicking new rock opera (photo by Ben Arons)

The talented cast also features Brittain Ashford as Natasha’s well-meaning cousin Sonya; a scene-stealing Blake DeLong as Andrey’s crotchety father, Prince Bolkonsky; Amelia Workman as Natasha’s overprotective godmother, Marya D; Gelsey Bell as Andrey’s very serious sister, Mary; Nick Choksi as Anatole’s best friend, Dolokhov; and associate musical director Paul Pinto as troika driver Balaga. The bawdier first act is followed by a mellower second act highlighted by a show-stopping performance by Bell as Sonya laments what has befallen Natasha. The rock-solid music is played by cellists Brent Arnold and Raymond Sicam III, clarinetist Mark Dover, bassist John Murchison, oboist Sally Wall, and violist Pinky Weitzman, giving a Russian twist to the Jesus Christ Superstar-like score. Directed with flair and verve by Rachel Chavkin, who previously worked with Malloy (Beowulf — A Thousand Years of Baggage, Clown Bible) on the Obie-winning Three Pianos, the world premiere of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 offers adventurous theatergoers a fabulously good time, a unique experience that is fun for all in a wide variety of ways.

JONAH FREEMAN AND JUSTIN LOWE: STRAY LIGHT GREY

Marlborough installation consists of a series of rooms filled with mystery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Marlborough Chelsea
545 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through October 27, free
212-463-8634
www.marlboroughgallery.com
stray light grey slideshow

In such installations as 2008’s “Hello Meth Lab in the Sun,” 2009’s “Black Acid Co-Op,” and 2010’s “Bright White Underground,” bicoastal artists Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe have transformed gallery spaces into labyrinthine series of rooms where some very strange things seem to have occurred. For their latest project, “Stray Light Grey,” continuing at Marlborough Chelsea through October 27, they are inviting visitors to explore the never-completed Pale Hotel, a mysterious (fictional) environment built around an intriguing alternate-universe counterculture movement. Visitors make their way through a maze of abandoned rooms, including a former OTB parlor, a (mad?) dentist’s office, a bizarre cake shop, a dingy bathroom, a store selling odd items, and a fancy library, each room’s history linked to the San San International, a convention that began in 1855 focusing on plants and animals but later got involved in the world of genetic engineering. “It is now truly without theme or cohesion, a fair ostensibly about everything and nothing at all,” explains the Stray Light Grey newspaper, which is available for free at the gallery. The installation is also related to the hallucinatory drug Marasa, developed in 1956 by Octagon Ethnobotanical Laboratories; the anarchist group known as the Artichoke Underground, proponents of the Octopus, a drug-computer synthesis that melds man and machine; Arthurocide, the plant-mineral hybrid that led to genetically modified organisms; and the Shade, an urban-gang consortium battling against the lasting influence of the Friedrich-Barris dynasty. Of course, you don’t need to know all of that to get a kick out of the journey, which, one could argue, is “ostensibly about everything and nothing at all.”

ROD STEWART

Barnes & Noble
555 Fifth Ave. at 46th St.
Tuesday, October 23, free, 5:30
212-697-3048
www.randomhouse.com
www.rodstewart.com

“Obviously I was a mistake,” rock legend Rod Stewart writes in the beginning of his brand-new tome, Rod: The Autobiography (Crown, October 23, 2012, $27). But it’s no mistake that Stewart is one of the greatest performers in rock-and-roll history, having released such hit albums as Gasoline Alley, Every Picture Tells a Story, Blondes Have More Fun, Tonight I’m Yours, It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook, and others over the course of a career that has spanned more than fifty years. In his book — which joins such other recent rock-star tell-alls as Keith Richards’s Life, Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace, and Pete Townshend’s Who I Am, Stewart shares tales of his youth, his friendships with the likes of Elton John and Ronnie Wood, his numerous sexual relationships, and the true story behind an ugly rumor that has followed him around for decades. “No one ever forgets their first view of Manhattan, rising into the sky ahead of them, nor their first drive up its concrete canyons,” he writes about his first trip to New York City, with Ron Wood. “Woody and I were in ecstasy – possibly even silenced momentarily, gawping at the scale of it all.” Rod the Mod has returned to New York City many times since then, selling out Madison Square Garden and other venues, and he will be back in town on October 23, making his only NYC literary appearance at 5:30 at the Fifth Ave. Barnes & Noble at 46th St., signing copies of Rod; there is a three-book maximum, and he will not be signing any other memorabilia. In addition, photography is not allowed once patrons approach the table, so you will not be able to take a posed picture with him. But how often do you get to be thisclose to the man behind “Maggie May,” “Hot Leg,” “Mandolin Wind,” “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” “Young Turks,” and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”

BEYOND CAGE

Petr Kotik, seen here with John Cage in August 1992, will lead the Cage centennial celebration October 22 – November 7 (photo by John Maggiotto)

CAGE AT 100 / MUSIC AT 2012
Multiple venues
October 22 – November 7, free – $25, passes $50-$250
718-488-7659
www.semensemble.org

Minimalist maestro John Cage would have turned one hundred last month — he died in August 1992 at the age of seventy-nine — and his centennial is being honored by the nonprofit S.E.M. Ensemble through a series of special events taking place at several venues October 22 through November 9. Founded in 1970 by Petr Kotik, who collaborated with Cage, the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble will kick off the “Beyond Cage” festival on October 22 with a simultaneous performance of the avant-garde theorist, composer, and musician’s “Atlas Eclipticalis” and “Winter Music,” followed by Christian Marclay’s “Shuffle,” at Carnegie Hall, featuring Joseph Kubera and Ursula Oppens on piano, with Kotik conducting. On October 26, Kotik, Kubera, composer Joel Chadabe, author Richard Kostelanetz, and Christian Wolff, Cage’s only student, will gather for the panel discussion “John Cage’s Musical Legacy” at the CUNY Graduate Center. On October 27, the FLUX Quartet will perform works by Cage, Kotik, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Alvin Lucier, and Luigi Nono at the Paula Cooper Gallery, followed the next night by “New Works by Emerging Composers” at the Willow Place Auditorium in Brooklyn. On October 30, Kotik will conduct Ostravská banda & Talujon Percussion, featuring mezzo soprano Katalin Károlyi, in a program at the Bohemian National Hall that includes three works by Cage as well as Karlheinz Stockhausen, James Tenney, and Salvatore Sciarrino. On November 2, the S.E.M. Ensemble will play Kotik’s “Many Many Women,” with text by Gertrude Stein, at Paula Cooper. On November 4 at Roulette, “Cage & Kubera: Grand Piano Solos” consists of pieces by Kotik, Cage, and Roscoe Mitchell performed by Ostravská banda, Kubrera, violinist Conrad Harris, saxophonist Mitchell, and flutist and conductor Kotik. On November 5, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava will be at Alice Tully Hall for “Morton Feldman: Major Orchestral Works.” The following night, Peter Graham will present the talk “Cage, Cunningham & Rauschenberg in Prague & Ostrava (1964)” at the Bohemian National Hall, where the festival concludes November 7 with “Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava: Cage, Wolff, and Vítková,” which includes the New York premiere of Cage’s “103.”

EGON SCHIELE’S WOMEN

Galerie St. Etienne
24 West 57th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Tuesday, October 23, free, 6:00 – 8:00
Exhibition runs October 23 – December 28 (Tuesday-Saturday), free
212-245-6734
www.gseart.com
www.randomhouse.de

Over the last several years, there has been a heightened interest in the always-popular and well-regarded Austrian artist Egon Schiele. In 2010, John Kelly gave the final performance of his award-winning theater piece Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte, which dealt with Schiele’s female muses, and one of the highlights of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival was Andrew Shea’s Portrait of Wally, a gripping documentary about the ownership of Schiele’s portrait of mistress Walburga “Wally” Neuzil. Now Schiele expert Jane Kallir, the codirector of Midtown’s Galerie St. Etienne, which boasts one of the largest collections of works by the artist, has written Egon Schiele’s Women, (Prestel, October 25, 2012, $80), a gorgeous examination of the women in Schiele’s life and on his canvases, placing his work in context of the history of Austrian art and evolving views on women’s freedom and sexuality. Kallir, who appears in Portrait of Wally, looks at Schiele’s relationship with his mother, his sister, various models, and his wife and sister-in-law. The book boasts more than 250 images, including dozens and dozens of splendid reproductions of paintings and drawings by Schiele (not limited to female subjects but also including glorious self-portraits and male figures) as well as works by Oskar Kokoschka, Gustave Klimt, Alfred Kubin, and Edvard Munch, archival photographs, a timeline, a bibliography, and an extensive index. In conjunction with the publication of the book, Galerie St. Etienne is opening the companion exhibit “Egon Schiele’s Women,” consisting of more than four dozen works by Schiele. “While Schiele, in his personal life, was hardly a feminist, in his art he freed women from the controlling male narrative that had heretofore shaped the interpretive discourse,” the exhibition essay explains. “His nudes, in particular, not only challenged the taboos of his time, but presaged the more fluid, open-ended approach to gender and sexuality that prevails today.” Kallir will be at the opening-night celebration of the exhibit, giving a gallery talk and signing copies of the book at 7:00. In addition, she will be at the American Jewish Historical Society on October 22 at 6:30 ($15), participating in the “Culture Brokers: Jews as Art Dealers and Collectors” panel discussion with Emily Bilski and Charles Dellheim.