twi-ny recommended events

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.

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS

Richard Butler and the Psychedelic Furs are back on tour, sounding as fresh as ever (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Best Buy Theater
1515 Broadway at 44th St.
Sunday, October 21, $40, 8:00
www.thepsychedelicfurs.com
www.bestbuytheater.com
capitol theatre slideshow

The last time we saw the Psychedelic Furs (way back when), singer and cofounder Richard Butler spent the entire show sitting in a chair, his legs crossed, elegantly smoking a cigarette. At the time, we all thought he was the coolest dude on the planet. The current version of Butler is still pretty cool, but it is also infused with an innate charm and even a playful goofiness, demonstrating sheer joy in leading the group through a fab set of memorable hits that somehow come off sounding fresh despite their vintage. Formed in 1977 by Butler and his brother, bassist Tim Butler, the Furs defined the postpunk ’80s British sound with a string of successful albums (Talk Talk Talk, Forever Now, Mirror Moves) that spawned such great singles as “Love My Way,” “Heartbreak Beat,” “Heaven,” and their breakthrough, “Pretty in Pink,” all of which showed up Saturday night at the recently renovated Capitol Theatre in Port Chester. Richard twirled, jumped, knelt in front of the drum kit, held his arms out in welcoming gestures, and marched back and forth across the front of the stage, greeting his adoring audience and posing in still-elegant ways, a perpetual, infectious smile on his face. The Furs might not have released a record since 1991 — the Butlers did take a ten-year hiatus, forming Love Spit Love — but they managed to not make the ninety-minute show feel retro. In fact, they are even performing a new song, “Little Miss World,” so hopefully more are to follow. The current lineup also features Richard Good on guitar, Mars Williams on saxophone, Amanda Kramer on keyboard, and Paul Garisto on drums, bringing to life such other favorite tunes as “Run and Run,” “Mr. Jones,” LSL’s “Believe,” and the political “President Gas,” in which Butler stuck out his right hand in a fascist salute and sang, “Don’t cry / Don’t do anything / No lies / back in the government / No tears / Party time is here again / President Gas is up for president.” The Psychedelic Furs will be at the Best Buy Theater tonight in Times Square, with Leeds’ the Chevin and the Lemonheads opening up.

LAST CHANCE: THE FEVERISH LIBRARY

“The Feverish Library” features a different kind of book collection (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Friedrich Petzel Gallery
537 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through October 20, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-680-9467
www.petzel.com

How can you go wrong with an exhibition whose main image is a still of Burgess Meredith as book lover Henry Bemis holding up his glasses at the end of the classic Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last”? Well, there actually isn’t time enough, as today is your last chance to see a celebration of a potentially dying breed, the printed book. Taking its name from a quote by Jorge Luis Borges, “The Feverish Library,” organized in cooperation with Matthew Higgs at Friedrich Petzel in Chelsea, features works by more than three dozen artists that incorporate books and the concept of reading. Gavin Brown creates a grid of paperbacks on the floor. Cindy Sherman photographs herself in front of a bookshelf. Richard Artschwager’s “Book” is a huge open wooden tome that can’t be read. Erica Baum’s “Author” shows a cross-section of printed pages. Liam Gillick’s “Prototype Construction of One Manuscript” is a wrapped pile of four reams of red paper. The all-star collection of artists also includes works by John Baldessari, Martin Creed, Hans-Peter Feldman, Taba Auerbach, Carol Bove, Martin Kippenberger, Richard Prince, Wade Guyton, Rachel Whiteread, Sean Landers, Wolfgang Tillmans, David Hammons, and others. In addition, in a nod to Joseph Kosuth, at the front is a collection of the favorite books of Petzel artists; Dana Schutz picks Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Nicola Tyson goes with Laurie Weeks’s Zippermouth, Troy Brauntuch selects Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Sarah Morris prefers Vladimir Nabokov’s Transparent Things, and John Stezakar chooses Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.

CHESSFEST

Some of the stars of the new documentary BROOKLYN CASTLE will take on chess players in Sara D. Roosevelt Park for Chessfest

Sara D. Roosevelt Park
Houston & Chrystie Sts.
Saturday, October 20, free, 12 noon – 5:00 pm
www.facebook.com
www.brooklyncastle.com

Katie Dellamaggiore’s documentary Brooklyn Castle, which opened in theaters yesterday, follows the determination and success of five students from I.S. 318 — Justus “the Master,” Alexis “the Dreamer,” Rochelle “the Competitor,” Pobo “the Politician,” and Patrick “the Newcomer” — who use the game of chess to change their lives. In celebration of the film, Chessfest is taking place on Saturday, October 20, from 12 noon to 5:00 in Sara D. Roosevelt Park, where visitors can play against the stars of the film, get tips from Grandmasters Irina Krush and Robert Hess, win special prizes, contribute to a large-scale Brooklyn Castle drawing, and more. And then they can go see the film, which is playing just around the corner at the Landmark Sunshine as well as at the Elinor Bunin Theater at Lincoln Center.