this week in literature

BROOKLYN MUSEUM FIRST SATURDAY: BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled, 1982. Acrylic, spray paint, and oilstick on canvas, Collection of Yusaku Maezawa. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York

Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Untitled,” acrylic, spray paint, and oilstick on canvas, 1982 (Collection of Yusaku Maezawa. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, February 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum honors Black History Month with its free February First Saturday program, featuring live performances by Aaron Abernathy, the Skins, Brooklyn Dance Festival, Everyday People, Latasha Alcindor (presenting All a Dream: Intro to Latasha), and Urban Word NYC, including teen poets William Lohier, Shakeva Griswould, Roya Marsh, Jive Poetic, and Anthony McPherson, hosted by Shanelle Gabriel; a screening of Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis’s Whose Streets? followed by a discussion with Folayan and museum Teen Night Planning Committee senior member Elizabeth Rodriguez; pop-up gallery talks by teen apprentices in the “American Art” galleries; a community talk by Kleaver Cruz, founder of the Black Joy Project; a Black Joy photo booth with photographer Dominique Sindayiganza; a hands-on workshop inspired by the scratch and resist technique of Jean-Michel Basquiat; a curator talk by Eugenie Tsai on Basquiat’s “Untitled” (1982), part of the exhibition “One Basquiat”; and the community talk “Malcolm X in Brooklyn” by oral historian Zaheer Ali. In addition, the galleries will be open late so you can check out “One Basquiat,” “Roots of ‘The Dinner Party’: History in the Making,” ““Arts of Korea,” “Infinite Blue,” “Ahmed Mater: Mecca Journeys,” “Rodin at the Brooklyn Museum: The Body in Bronze,” “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt,” and more.

CONVERSATION WITH JANE BIRKIN

Jane Birkin will be at FIAF on January 29 to talk about her life and career (photo © Nico Bustos)

Who: Jane Birkin, Elia Einhorn
What: An evening with Jane Birkin
Where: French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves., 212-355-6160
When: Monday, January 29, $35, 7:00
Why: In 2010, London-born French actress, model, and singer appeared at the French Institute Alliance Française for two concerts and a staged reading with Wajdi Mouawad. On January 29, she returns to FIAF for a conversation, Q&A, and book signing three days before her highly anticipated “Birkin Gainsbourg The Symphonic” show at Carnegie Hall with Wordless Music Orchestra, pianist Nobuyuki Nakajima, and special guest Rufus Wainwright. In 2013, Birkin told the Independent that she found it “very flattering to have the most beautiful songs, probably, in the French language written for one,” referring to Gainsbourg, who passed away in 1991 at the age of sixty-two, while also asking, “How much talent did I really have? Perhaps not that much.” Birkin first caught the public’s attention with roles in such films as Richard Lester’s The Knack . . . and How to Get It, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup and Kaleidoscope, and Joe Massott’s Wonderwall. (She has also been in films by Jacques Rivette, James Ivory, and Hong Sang-soo.) Birkin is most famous for the ten-year relationship she had with Serge Gainsbourg, with whom she made several films and records, including the album and movie Je t’aime . . . moi non plus; they also had a child together, actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist, Melancholia). In addition, Birkin has children from her relationships with British composer John Barry and French director Jacques Doillon, as well as five grandchildren. The seventy-one-year-old philanthropist and two-time César nominee recently announced her retirement from acting after starring in the Oscar-winning short La femme et le TGV. Birkin’s achievements are many, but for the fashion-obsessed crowd, she’s probably most adored as the inspiration for the Hermés Birkin bag — one can barely type it without calling it “the iconic Birkin bag” — an incredibly expensive, instantly recognizable handbag from the high-end French accessories firm. The English-language conversation at FIAF, moderated by Pitchfork’s Elia Einhorn, will be followed by a signing of Birkin’s Attachments, her 2014 photo-essay collaboration with photographer Gabrielle Crawford.

SUNDAY SESSIONS: ANTI BODIES

Analisa Teachworth and Jonas Wendelin, Dependency Demographics, 2017; Photo: Hamburger Bahnhof Museum

Analisa Teachworth and Jonas Wendelin, seen above performing “Dependency Demographics” last year in Germany, will be at MoMA PS1 for “Anti Bodies” on January 28 (photo courtesy Hamburger Bahnhof Museum)

MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Sunday, January 28, $15, 2:00 – 6:00
718-784-2084
www.moma.org
topicalcream.info

For the January 28 edition of its Sunday Sessions series held in the VW Dome, MoMA PS1 is teaming with Topical Cream, a self-described “New York-based platform [that] has supported a community of artists, writers, designers, and technologists through digital publishing and public programming initiatives.” From 2:00 to 6:00, there will be live performances, readings, film, and installations exploring how artists deal with self-preservation and resistance. The afternoon includes a performance by Analisa Teachworth with Jonas Wendelin, videos presented by Jacksonville-based artist Redeem Pettaway, live music by Zsela and Deli Girls, and a new piece by Julia Scher on surveillance and security. In addition, there will be video and poetry in the main museum building by Michelle Young Lee, Sara Hornbacher, Sarah Zapata, Maya Martinez, Rin Johnson, Sophia Le Fraga, and Natasha Stagg.

CONVERSATION WITH CATHERINE CUSSET: VIE DE DAVID HOCKNEY

Catherine Cusset will discuss the life and work of David Hockney in FIAF talk (photo © Francesca Mantovani / éditions Gallimard)

Who: Catherine Cusset, Eric Mourlot
What: Conversation and book signing
Where: French Institute Alliance Française, Le Skyroom, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves., 212-355-6160
When: Wednesday, January 24, $35, 7:00
Why: On January 24, French writer Catherine Cusset will be at FIAF to discuss her new book, Vie de David Hockney, which explores the intersection of the life and work of British painter David Hockney as she imagines he thinks and feels about it. Farther uptown, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently hosting a superb Hockney retrospective, an expansive, color-drenched exhibition that continues through February 25. Cusset, who has written such award-winning novels as Le problème avec Jane and L’autre quvon adorait, will be speaking with Eric Mourlot, the founder of Galerie Mourlot on East Seventy-Ninth St., whose family has been in the art business for more than a century. The conversation, which will take place in English, will be followed by a book signing

THE ’60s: THE YEARS THAT CHANGED AMERICA

You Say You Want a Revolution exhibition at NYPL is part of Carnegie Halls festival

“You Say You Want a Revolution: Remembering the Sixties” exhibition at NYPL is part of wide-ranging Carnegie Hall festival

Multiple locations
January 14 – March 24
www.carnegiehall.org

America came of age in the 1960s, from the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X to Vietnam and the Summer of Love. Carnegie Hall is paying tribute to the turbulent decade with the two-month series “The ’60s: The Years that Changed America,” inspired by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Robert A. Caro. The native New Yorker, who turned eighty-two this past October, is the author of such books as The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York and the four-part The Years of Lyndon Johnson, with a fifth tome on the way. “Luther King gave people ‘the feeling that they could be bigger and stronger and more courageous than they thought they could be,’ Bayard Rustin said — in part because of the powerful new weapon, non-violent resistance, that had been forged on the Montgomery battlefield,’” Caro wrote in Master of the Senate, a quote obviously apt for MLK Day. Running January 14 through March 24 all across the city, the festival features concerts, panel discussions, film screenings, dance, art exhibitions, and more. Below are only some of the many highlights; keep watching this space for more additions.

Sunday, January 14
through
Saturday, March 24
“Max’s Kansas City,” photos and writings, Mark Borghi Gallery, free

Friday, January 19
“You Say You Want a Revolution: Remembering the Sixties,” Library After Hours opening night program with experimental films, album-cover workshop, games and puzzles, curator tour led by Isaac Gewirtz, dance party with Felix Hernandez, and more, exhibit continues through September 1, the New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, free, 7:00

Kronos Quartet, works by Stacy Garrop (world premiere inspired by “I Have a Dream” speech), Zachary J. Watkins (world premiere inspired by Studs Terkel), Terry Riley, John Cage, and Janis Joplin, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, $62-$72, 9:00

Tuesday, January 23
through
Friday, May 18
“The Global Interconnections of 1968,” Kempner Exhibition Gallery, Butler Library (sixth floor), Columbia University, free

Thursday, January 25
Snarky Puppy with David Crosby and Friends, including Chris Thile and Laura Mvula, Stern/Perelman at Carnegie Hall, $26-$100, 8:00

Friday, January 26
Bernard and Irene Schwartz Classic Film Series: Coming Home (Hal Ashby, 1978), Justice in Film presentation introduced by Susan Lacy, New-York Historical Society, free with pay-what-you-wish museum admission, 7:00

Tuesday, February 6
through
Sunday, February 11
March, duet from Lessons inspired by civil rights movement, part of winter season program by Ronald K. Brown / Evidence, a Dance Company, the Joyce Theater, $26-$46

Friday, February 16
“Philip Glass Ensemble: Music with Changing Parts,” Stern/Perelman at Carnegie Hall, $14.50 – $95, 8:00

Wednesday, February 21
“The Summer of Law and Disorder: Harlem Riot of 1964,” panel discussion, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, free with advance registration beginning February 7, 6:30

Tuesday, March 13
Bernard and Irene Schwartz Distinguished Speakers Series: “The ’60s from Both Sides Now: An Evening with Judy Collins,” in conversation with historian Harold Holzer, New-York Historical Society, $38, 6:30

Saturday, March 24
“The Vietnam War: At Home and Abroad,” multimedia presentation with Friction Quartet performing George Crumb’s “Black Angels” and more groups to be announced, narrated by John Monsky, Zankel at Carnegie Hall, $35-$45, 2:00

MLK DAY: MAKE IT A DAY ON, NOT A DAY OFF

The legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will be celebrated all over the city and the country this weekend

Multiple venues
Monday, January 15
www.mlkday.gov

It’s hard to believe that this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and that half a century later racism is still such a central issue in America and around the world. In 1983, the third Monday in January was officially recognized as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, honoring the birthday of the civil rights leader who was shot and killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Dr. King would have turned eighty-nine on Monday, and you can celebrate his legacy on Monday by participating in a Martin Luther King, Jr., Day of Service project or attending one of numerous special events taking place around the city. Below are some of the highlights.

JCC Harlem: Community Carnival at All Souls Church, MLK Day-themed art projects for community children, 88 St. Nicholas Ave., free, 10:00, 12:30, 3:00

Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative March: “A New Revolution: Youth and Social Change,” Eleanor Roosevelt Monument in Riverside Park at 72nd St. at 10:00 am to Manhattan Country School at 150 West 85th St. at 2:00, free

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Celebration: Martin’s Mosaic, 10:00 am and 1:00 pm; Museum of Impact visits CMOM, Upstanders Fest, 12 noon – 4:00, Children’s Museum of Manhattan, 212 West 83rd St., $11-$14

Thirty-second Annual Brooklyn Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with keynote speaker Jelani Cobb, Martha Redbone, and the Brooklyn Interdenominational Choir, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, free, 10:30 am; Unbound: Patrisse Cullors and asha bandele, launch of When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, moderated by Rashad Robinson and followed by a book signing, BAM Fisher, Fishman Space, free, 1:00; screening of 4 Little Girls (Spike Lee, 1997), BAM Rose Cinemas, free, 1:00

Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., including visits to “King in New York” and “Activist New York” exhibits and poster workshop, Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave at 103rd St., free with museum admission of $12-$18, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm

Family Matinees: Selma, Lord, Selma (Charles Burnett, 1999), $7-$15, 11:00 am; The Wiz (Sidney Lumet, 1978), $7-$15, 1:00, Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Ave. at 36th St., price includes admission to galleries

I Have a Dream Celebration: Make Art Not War: Interactive Handprint Mural, 11:30; I Have a Dream Cloud, 1:00; Kids Take Action! Letter Writing for Change, 1:30; Sylvia’s Story Corner on the Bus, 3:30, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, 145 Brooklyn Ave., $11

Harlem Gospel Choir Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Matinee, B. B. King Blues Club & Grill, 237 West 42nd St., $25-$30 (plus $10 minimum per person at tables), 12:30

Soul to Soul, with Lisa Fishman, Cantor Magda Fishman, Elmore James, Tony Perry, and musical director Zalmen Mlotek, followed by a discussion with the artists and creators, presented by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Pl., $25 (use discount code “Mishpokhe” for 20% off online tickets), 2:00

Hands On | Harlem Dreams, Legends, and Legacy, teen photo studio, time capsules, mixed-media art, scavenger hunt, and in-gallery collage, Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th St., $3-$7, 2:00 – 6:00

Cinematters: Muhammad Ali: Me Whee (Arny Stone, 1975), followed by a Q&A with executive producer Drew Stone, Lou DiBella, and Craig Setari, JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave., $5, 5:00

NEW YEAR, NEW FUTURES

Brooklyn Museum screening of I Am Not Your Negro will be followed by discussion of activism with James Baldwin’s niece

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, January 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum looks to 2018 with its January First Saturday program, “New Year, New Futures.” There will be live music by Sinkane, BEARCAT, Zaven of Resonator Collective (an in-gallery soundscape for the terrific exhibition “Proof: Francisco Goya, Sergei Eisenstein, Robert Longo”), and New Kingston; a curator tour of “Rodin at the Brooklyn Museum: The Body in Bronze” with Lisa Small; a hands-on art workshop in which participants can make zines inspired by “Proof”; a community talk with Murad Awawdeh, the vice president of advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition; a screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary about James Baldwin, I Am Not your Negro (Raoul Peck, 2017), followed by a discussion with activists Jessica Green and Aisha Karefa-Smart (Baldwin’s niece); a Feminist Book Club event focusing on the 1970 book Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement, edited by Robin Morgan, hosted by Glory Edim of Well-Read Black Girl based on selections by Judy Chicago; pop-up gallery talks on “Roots of ‘The Dinner Party’: History in the Making”; a Brooklyn Dance Festival movement workshop and live performances; pop-up poetry with DéLana R. A. Dameron (Weary Kingdom) and Rickey Laurentiis (Boy with Thorn), followed by a signing; and a NYLaughs comedy showcase with Negin Farsad, Nimesh Patel, and Jordan Carlos, hosted by Ophira Eisenberg and followed by a discussion on humor, activism, and crisis. In addition, the galleries will be open late so you can check out “Roots of ‘The Dinner Party’: History in the Making,” “Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt,” “Proof: Francisco Goya, Sergei Eisenstein, Robert Longo,” “Arts of Asia and the Middle East,” “Infinite Blue,” “Ahmed Mater: Mecca Journeys,” “Rodin at the Brooklyn Museum: The Body in Bronze,” “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt,” and more.