Photographer Jen Davis will join Pierre Cassou-Noguès for “Picturing the Self: A Philosopher Discusses a Photographer’s Work” at the Aperture Gallery as part of Walls and Bridges festival (Jen Davis, “Mike, Del Rio, TX,” archival pigment print / © 2008 Jen Davis)
New York Public Library, Celeste Bartos Forum (and other venues)
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
455 Fifth Ave. at 42nd St.
January 27 – February 4, free – $15
www.wallsandbridges.net
www.nypl.org
From January 27 through February 4, the inaugural Walls and Bridges festival will seek to break down barriers and build new dialogues and thought processes with a series of fascinating programs held throughout the city. Organized by the Villa Gillet and the Conseil de la Création artistique, the first part of Walls and Bridges — it’ll be back in the spring and summer — begins January 27 at 7:00 with the round-table discussion “Art/Truth/Lies: The Perils and Pleasures of Deception,” which brings together Pierre Cassou-Noguès, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Glenn D. Lowry, and host D. Graham Burnett at the New York Public Library. On Friday at 6:00, Paul Holdengräber will moderate “The Magical Side of Celebrity” with Cécile Guilbert, Laura Kipnis, and Wayne Koestenbaum, followed at 8:00 by one of Walls and Bridges’ premier events, “Three Faiths in the Form of a Fugue,” a combination of art, poetry, music, and philosophy relating to the library’s current exhibition about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and featuring Salman Ahmad, Reza Aslan, Ala Ebtekar, Dan Fishback, Fabrice Hadjadj, Alicia Jo Rabins, Shirin Neshat, and Damien Poisblaud, hosted by Reza Aslan. Other programs take on “The End of Privacy: The State and Surveillance,” “The New Faces of the Enemy,” “Going Public: Embodying a Persona,” and “The Shapes of Space — The Shears of Time: Why Does Philosophy Need Art to Become Truly Experimental?,” with such participants as Maira Kalman, Daniel Handler, Philip Gourevitch, Cynthia Hopkins, Josh Neufeld, and Rick Moody at such venues as the New School, the Aperture Gallery, the Greenlight Bookstore, the Brooklyn Flea, Joe’s Pub, UnionDocs, and the French Institute Alliance Française in addition to the NYPL. The name of the festival comes from Sir Isaac Newton’s quote “We build too many walls and not enough bridges,” although we’d also like to think it relates to John Lennon’s classic 1974 album WALLS AND BRIDGES as well.