this week in literature

FIRST SATURDAY — SANFORD BIGGERS: SWEET FUNK—AN INTROSPECTIVE

Sanford Biggers, “Calenda (Big Ass Bang!),” pure pigment, mirrored disco ball, 2004 (courtesy of the artist and Michael Klein Arts, New York)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, November 5, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The exhibition “Sanford Biggers: Sweet Funk—An Introspective” is at the center of the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturday program for November, focusing on the sociocultural, history-laden work of the L.A.-born, New York-based multidisciplinary artist, who will be on hand to give an artist talk at 8:00. The evening also includes live performances by Navegante, Ninjasonik, Kanene Holder (400 Years of GRRRRRR), and Imani Uzuri, a screening of Charles Burnett’s To Sleep with Anger, an artist talk with Matthew Buckingham about his installation “The Spirit and the Letter,” a curator talk with Teresa Carbone on “Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties,” a book club talk and signing with Paul Beatty (The White Boy Shuffle), and a dance party hosted by DJ Rich Medina with Jump N Funk paying tribute to Fela Kuti, Afrobeat, and world music. Among the other exhibitions on view are “Raw/Cooked: Kristof Wickman,” “Lee Mingwei: ’The Moving Garden,’” “Eva Hesse Spectres 1960,” “Timothy Greenfield-Sanders: The Latino List,” “reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio,” and “Split Second: Indian Paintings.”

THE “CHINDIA” DIALOGUES

The Amit Chaudhuri Band will be playing a special show at “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues” at Asia Society

Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
November 3-6, free – $20
212-517-2742
www.asiasociety.org

In conjunction with its exhibit “Rabindranath Tagore: The Last Harvest,” Asia Society is hosting “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues,” an impressive four-day symposium bringing together poets, novelists, musicians, critics, activists, scholars, journalists, and other experts from China and India as part of the inaugural Asian Arts & Ideas Forum. The cultural exchange of ideas begins on November 3 when Indian writer Amitav Ghosh sits down with Chinese scholar and Yale history professor Jonathan Spence to discuss Ghosh’s new historical novel, River of Smoke, introduced by Orville Schell ($12, 6:30). On Friday at 12:30 (free), Yu Hua, Zha Jianying, Siddhartha Deb, and Murong Xuecun will delve into “Underground & Undercover: Literary Reportage,” moderated by Schell. At 8:00 (free with advance RSVP), the innovative Shanghai Restoration Project will perform with singer Zhang Le. Saturday’s full slate ($15 for one day, $20 for Saturday and Sunday) of Sino-Indian cross-culture and social, political, and historical exploration, examination, and entertainment kicks off at 1:00 with “Literary Border Crossings: The Writer as Traveler,” with Tagore translator Sharmistha Mohanty, Shen Shuang, Allan Sealy, Christopher Lydon, and Ashis Nandy via digital link, followed at 2:15 by “Cyberwriters & Cybercoolies: China’s New Literary Space,” with Zha Jianying, Emily Parker, Yu Hua, and Murong Xuecun. At 3:30, Amitava Kumar, Meena Kandasamy, Suketu Mehta, and Su Tong gather together to discuss “Literature of Migration: Where Do the Birds Fly?” followed at 4:45 by a conversation between Amit Chaudhuri and Christopher Lydon. That night at 8:00 (free with advance RSVP), Chaudhuri will lead his diverse band in a concert with opera singer Qian Yi and the Du Yun Quartet, with Du Yun on piano and electronics, Li Liqun on yangqin, Brad Henkel on trumpet, and Theo Metz on drums, performing an excerpt from the traditional story “Slaying of the Tiger General.” On Sunday at 1:00, Ha Jin, Meena Kandasamy, Amitava Kumar, Sharmistha Mohanty, Allan Sealy, Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Xu Xiaobin will read from their work for “The ‘Chindia’ Readings,” hosted by Amitava Kumar, followed at 2:30 by “Defying the Cartographer: Shared Cultures vs. Nation-States,” which features Siddhartha Deb, Zha Jianying, Yu Hua, and Amitava Kumar talking about legacy and fate. At 3:45, Ha Jin, Su Tong, Xu Xiaobin, and Meena Kandasamy will read from their works and talk about “Seeing Double: The Persistence of the Past in Contemporary Chinese and Indian Culture,” with the closing event taking place at 5:00, “Tagore and the Artist as Citizen of the World,” with Christopher Lydon, Tan Chung, Amit Chaudhuri, and Sharmistha Mohanty.

PERFORMA 11: NEW VISUAL ART PERFORMANCE BIENNIAL

Elmgreen & Dragset’s HAPPY DAYS IN THE ART WORLD kicks off the fourth edition of the Performa biennial, which runs November 1-21 all over the city

Multiple venues in all five boroughs
November 1-21, free – $75
www.11.performa-arts.org

More than a hundred venues will be hosting cutting-edge experimental productions at Performa 11, the fourth edition of the biennial multidisciplinary arts festival being held all over the city November 1-21. Featuring art, music, dance, theater, film, architecture, and more in exciting combinations, the three-week festival consists of long-term exhibitions, special one-night stands, and other limited engagements that push the envelope of contemporary performance. Elmgreen & Dragset revisit Beckett in Happy Days in the Art World at the Skirball Center, with Joseph Fiennes and Charles Edwards. L’Encyclopédie de la parole’s Chorale turns political speeches, text messages, and movie quotes into choral works at the Performa Hub on Mott St. Rashaad Newsome holds a medieval rap joust Tournament in conjunction with his new exhibit at Marlborough Chelsea. Anthology Film Archives screens rare footage of one of Lenny Bruce’s last performances, as well as routines by Richard Pryor, Albert Brooks, and Andy Kaufman. Innovative installation artists Mika Rottenberg and Jon Kessler team up to create the chakra sauna Seven at Nicole Klagsbrun Project Space. Matthew Stone journeys into shamanism at the Hole. Mai-Thu Perret’s Love Letters in Ancient Brick at the Joyce SoHo reimagines Krazy Kat as a love-triangle dance. Dripping paint drives Jonathan VanDyke’s storefront drama With One Hand Between Us at Scaramouche. Israeli collective Public Movement choreographs public demonstrations in various parks for Positions. Daido Moriyama restages his thirty-year-old Printing Show—TKY at the Aperture Foundation. Deaf artist Christine Sun Kim will go from audio to visual with Lukas Geronimas in Feedback at Recess. Liz Glynn’s Utopia or Oblivion: Parts I and II will take place in several outdoor venues, using Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome as inspiration. Raphael Zarka mixes skateboarding and sculpture in Free Ride at the Performa Hub. Gerard Byrne turns the Abrons Arts Center into an interactive theater for In Repertory. Varispeed’s Perfect Lives Manhattan is an all-day performance of Robert Ashley’s opera. Performa Ha! gathers comedians and musicians at the HA! comedy club. And that’s only the first week of this outstanding collection of diverse talent and unique performances, with many of the events free.

NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS PRESENTS: AN EVENING WITH JAMES CASEBERE

JAMES CASEBERE IN CONVERSATION WITH HAL FOSTER
Barnes & Noble
150 East 86th St. at Lexington Ave.
Wednesday, October 26, free, 7:00
212-369-2180
www.barnesandnoble.com
www.jamescasebere.net

Born in Michigan and living in Fort Greene since the late 1990s, James Casebere has spent the last thirty years making constructed photographs, creating table-sized architectural landscapes and turning them into haunting large-scale photographs of suburbia, the American West, prisons, and eighteenth-century America. His work has now been collected in James Casebere: Works 1975-2010 (Damiani, October 31, 2011, $80), a midcareer survey of his fascinating oeuvre. Edited by Okwui Enwezor, the book includes essays by Hal Foster and Toni Morrison as well as a talk between Enwezor and Casebere. “Rocking our sense of security and danger, James Casebere probes domestic and public spaces in order to expose the porous borders between them,” Morrison writes in the foreword. “He introduces foreign elements, manipulating light and our visual expectations of the sacred and profane; the safe haven versus confinement; privacy versus secrecy; wilderness versus shelter. He estranges the familiar and warps the conventional in hospitals, church-inflected architecture, ordinary home furnishings, corridors, and prisons.” In celebration of the book’s publication, the New York Foundation of the Arts is presenting the free event “James Casebere in Conversation with Hal Foster,” October 26 at the East 86th St. Barnes & Noble, in which the photographer sits down with the noted art critic, followed by a book signing.

SLAPSTICK ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK: SPEEDY

Harold Lloyd has a crazy time in Coney Island in SPEEDY

SPEEDY (Ted Wilde, 1928)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, October 16, free with museum admission, 3:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

Much like the end of the silent film era itself, the last horse-drawn trolley is doomed in Harold Lloyd’s final silent film. Big business is playing dirty trying to get rid of the trolley and classic old-timer Pop Dillon. Meanwhile, Harold “Speedy” Swift, a dreamer who wanders from menial job to menial job (he makes a great soda-jerk with a unique way of announcing the Yankees score), cares only about the joy and wonder life brings. But he’s in love with Pop’s granddaughter, Jane, so he vows to save the day. Along the way, he gets to meet Babe Ruth. Ted Wilde was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director, Comedy, for this thrilling nonstop ride through beautiful Coney Island and the pre-depression streets of New York City. A restored 35mm print of Speedy is being shown October 16 at 3:00 at the Museum of the Moving Image with live accompaniment by pianist Donald Sosin, preceded by an illustrated lecture about the making of the movie by film historian John Bengtson, author of Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd (Santa Monica Press, May 2011, $27.95), and will be followed by a book signing.

MEET THE AUTHOR: HILLEL M. FINESTONE, THE PAIN DETECTIVE

Dr. Hillel Finestone, the Pain Detective, is determined to make you feel better (photo by Pat McGrath for the Ottawa Citizen)

Kips Bay Library
446 Third Ave. at East 31st St.
Thursday, October 13, free, 5:00
212-683-2520
www.paindetective.net
www.nypl.org

A gregarious, amiable sort, Dr. Hillel Finestone just wants to make you feel better, and he’s determined to stop at nothing to achieve that goal. The Canadian physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist and researcher recently moved to New York City, and he will introduce himself to the community on October 13 at 5:00 when he talks about his most recent book, The Pain Detective: Every Ache Tells A Story (Praeger Press, September 2009, $44.95), at the Kips Bay branch of the New York Public Library. “The patient and doctor may have to retrieve clues and key bits of information to create a whole diagnostic picture,” he writes in the book’s introduction. “It’s like a detective trying to crack a murder or arson case. It may require sifting through the dust, ashes, and remains of the physical body and the social and psychological mind; uncovering clues that can lead to a life of less pain, of greater fulfillment. Detectives don’t solve every case they take on, and I certainly can’t help every person who consults me. But I sure as hell try to.” In such chapters as “Musculoskeletal Pain, Stress, Wound Healing, and Mind-Body Relationships: A New Perspective,” “Elbow Grease,” “Children of the Bottle: Alcohol and Other Pain Risk Factors,” “Clenched Fists: Posttraumatic Stress and Fear,” and “Wrapping Up: Pain, Disability, Society, and the Individual,” Dr. Finestone gets to the root of the problem, offering relief for those aches and pains you thought would never go away, both mental and physical. “I hope that these stories will inspire some to take charge of their health and pain issues,” he explains in the book. “Everyone knows that is not easy to do. But it is worth it and it can be done.”

HENRY ROLLINS: OCCUPANTS

Thursday, October 13, BookCourt, 163 Court St. between Dean & Pacific Sts, free, 718-875-3677, 7:00
Friday, October 14, McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St. between Lafayette & Mulberry Sts., free, 7:00
www.henryrollins.com

Henry Rollins speaks his mind. For more than thirty years, the DC-born Rollins has been letting loose his anger at the world in the seminal punk groups Black Flag and Rollins Band, on spoken-word tours, on his IFC series The Henry Rollins Show, in self-published books, and on his current KCRW radio gig. He has seen a lot while traveling around the world, either on his own or with the USO, notebook and camera at the ready. “In my life, I have sought to bridge the gap I have felt between myself and the world,” he writes in the introduction to his latest book, the coffee-table-size Occupants (Chicago Review Press, October 1, 2011, $35). “I would hate to think that my understanding of life is derived in part from what I have not seen. While one cannot possibly see everything, I think the more one sees, the better.” Occupants consists of more than eighty color photographs taken since 2003 in such countries as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Mali, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam, each one accompanied by conceptual text by Rollins, in the first or second person, in which he abstractly rails about fear, terrorism, AIDS, poverty, capitalism, hunger, genocide, and the struggle for peace, letting the photograph take his mind to new places, thoughts, and ideas. “The search for serenity only makes the scars scream louder,” he writes next to a picture of a praying monk in Burma. The photographs themselves are striking, from a lone boy in a parched landscape in Mali to opulent rooms in Saudi Arabia, from a man missing a limb crawling along a Thailand street to children behind a fence in Cambodia, from a military guard in front of a public photo of Mao in China to a grassy field where a house once stood in New Orleans. Rollins devotes a special section near the end to Bhopal, where he went to experience the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fatal gas explosion in 1984; he snuck into the Union Carbide factory there, capturing powerful images of the disaster that in many ways still embodies the ongoing battle between corporations and people. The book concludes with captions that specifically describe each of the photos, although even then Rollins can’t hold back his anger. “I hope it burns to the ground,” he writes under a picture of a Ronald McDonald statue in Thailand. Rollins will be at BookCourt in Brooklyn on October 13 to discuss and sign Occupants, then will be at McNally Jackson on October 14 speaking with Thurston Moore. “That should be good,” Rollins notes on his website. “He’s an interesting person.” And so is Rollins, of course.