twi-ny recommended events

NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL 2012: DAY ONE

GZA will be performing his 1995 classic, LIQUID SWORDS, on the opening night of Northside

The third annual Northside Festival gets under way tonight, expanding to eight days of special programs and events throughout Greenpoint and Williamsburg. Hundreds of bands will be playing Northside Music June 14-17, from name groups to local newcomers. Overlapping the music section will be Northside Art, comprising more than fifty open studios, group shows, and art walks June 15-17, as well as Northside Entrepreneurship on June 14-15, consisting of more than three dozen panel discussions and seminars on the business of entertainment. The festival continues next week with Northside Film, with more than sixty shorts, features, documentaries, and animated works being screened June 18-21. We’ll be posting our daily recommendations through the first part of the festival, so keep checking back as we narrow Northside down to its key ingredients. For Thursday’s opening night, the highlights include the psychedelic White Hills, the experimental Dustin Wong, eclectic duo Eternal Summers, dance funksters Aabaraki, and Wu Tang genius GZA.

Monarch presents: Pass Kontrol, Aabaraki, Mitten, Scott Matthew, Bar Matchless, $8, 7:00

NYCTaper presents: Pontiak, White Hills, Rhyton, EULA, 285 Kent, $12, 9:00

Kanine Records & Terrorbird Media present: Class Actress, Eternal Summers, Bleeding Rainbow, Beach Day, Zambri, Air Waves, Knitting Factory, $15, 7:30

GZA performing Liquid Swords, Orchestra Grupo Fantasma, Brownout (early show only), Music Hall of Williamsburg, $30, 7:30 & 11:00

Strange Victory Touring Co. presents: Mucca Pazza, Chain and the Gang, Magik Markers, M.A.K.U. SoundSystem, Starring, Dustin Wong, Dope Body, Public Assembly, $14, 10:00

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT

Performance artist Marina Abramović is present in more ways than one in intimate documentary

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT (Matthew Akers, 2012)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
June 13-26
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

For forty years, Belgrade-born performance artist Marina Abramović has been presenting cutting-edge, often controversial live works that redefine what art is. For her highly anticipated major career retrospective at MoMA in 2010, “Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present,” which was titled and curated by Klaus Biesenbach, the longtime New Yorker had something extraordinary planned: For the run of the show, from March 14 through May 31, she would spend the entire time the museum was open sitting across from strangers, gazing into each other’s eyes for as long as the visitor wanted. Documentary cinematographer Matthew Akers takes viewers behind the scenes of that remarkable show in his directorial feature debut, also called Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present. Given unlimited access to both Abramović and MoMA, Akers follows the sixty-three-year-old artist as she prepares for the exhibition; heads to a country retreat where she trains several dozen men and women who will “re-perform” some of her older works; and reconnects with former partner and lover Ulay, with whom she first performed many of the pieces in the show. Abramović is seen relaxing in a tub, chopping vegetables, and taking a rare turn behind the wheel of a car, performing relatively menial tasks compared to her art, in which she flagellates herself, carves a star into her stomach, runs into walls, gets slapped by and slaps Ulay, and allows visitors to do whatever they want to her using various objects. The film is at its best when Abramović and Ulay open up about their relationship, get emotional over seeing the old van they used to live in, and discuss their final performance, “The Great Wall Walk,” when they started at opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and walked toward each other over the course of three months, then broke up. While various art critics and curators, including Biesenbach and the Whitney’s Chrissie Iles, sing Abramović’s praises, the film never delves into the more serious meaning behind her art and avoids examining its controversial nature, save for one brief news report decrying its use of nudity. But the long scenes in which Abramović and visitors look into each other’s eyes are absolutely mesmerizing; the elegant Abramović is always steady and stalwart, her concentration intoxicating, inspiring, and more than a little frightening, the opening of her eyes a work of art in and of itself, while the person opposite her tears up, smiles, or pats their heart softly, thanking her for the intense, emotional connection occurring between them, which is essentially what all art is about. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present opens June 13 at Film Forum for a two-week run prior to its debut on HBO on July 2, with director Akers on hand to talk about the project at the 7:50 screening opening night.

SPAGHETTI WESTERNS: DUCK, YOU SUCKER!

James Coburn and Rod Steiger have a blast in Sergio Leone’s final spaghetti Western

DUCK, YOU SUCKER! (Sergio Leone, 1972)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
June 13 (1:40 & 6:50), 19 (8:00), 21 (1:00)
Series runs through June 21
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Rod Steiger and James Coburn star in Sergio Leone’s final spaghetti Western, set during the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s. Steiger is Juan Miranda, the leader of a group of bandits who have stolen a stagecoach. Coburn is Sean Mallory, an IRA man on the run who likes blowing things up. The sweaty Juan wants to rob the Mesa Verde bank, while the cool Sean just wants to be left alone, but the two of them soon find themselves fighting together in the revolution. The film is way too long, and Ennio Morricone’s music is way too goofy, but Leone fans shouldn’t miss this rare chance to see the restored version of this film. Duck, You Sucker! is screening June 13, 19, and 21 as part of Film Forum’s Spaghetti Westerns series, which also features such well-known classics and under-the-radar gems as Damiano Damiani’s A Bullet for the General, Giulio Petroni’s Death Rides a Horse, Carlo Lizzani’s The Hills Run Red, and Giulio Questi’s Django Kill . . . If You Live, Shoot!

TODD HAYNES IN PERSON WITH FAR FROM HEAVEN

Todd Haynes’s FAR FROM HEAVEN reveals the dark underside of suburbia

FAR FROM HEAVEN (Todd Haynes, 2002)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Thursday, June 14, $20, 7:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.farfromheavenmovie.com

Douglas Sirk and Thomas Mann would be proud. In Todd Haynes’s wonderfully retro Far from Heaven, Oscar-nominated Julianne Moore is amazing as 1950s housewife Cathy Whitaker, who thinks she has the perfect idyllic suburban life — until she discovers that her husband (Dennis Quaid) has a secret that dare not speak its name. Mr. & Mrs. Magnatech they are not after all. When she starts getting all chummy with the black gardener (Dennis Haysbert), people start talking, of course. Part Imitation of Life, part Death in Venice, and oh-so-original, Haynes’s awesome achievement will have you believing you’re watching a film made in the 1950s, propelled by Elmer Bernstein’s excellent music, Edward Lachman’s remarkable photography, and Mark Friedberg’s terrific production design. Far from Heaven is screening at the Museum of the Moving Image on June 14 at 7:00, with Haynes in person to talk about the film in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition “Persol Magnificent Obsessions: 30 stories of craftsmanship in film,” which focuses on artifacts from works by Ed Harris, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Trumbull, Ennio Morricone, Dean Tavoularis, Clint Eastwood, Haynes, and others.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: THE BAD AND THE BETTER

The Peter Jay Sharp Theater
416 West 42nd St.
June 14 – July 21, $49.95
www.thebadandthebetter.com
www.theamoralists.com

Last summer, the “rocking, rebellious, and raw” Amoralists theater company presented Derek Ahonen’s sexually charged Pink Knees on Pale Skin as part of the HotelMotel double feature set inside a makeshift room at the Gershwin Hotel. This summer the Amoralists are back with associate artistic director and cofounder Ahonen’s detective noir The Bad and the Better, running June 14 through July 21 at the more traditional Peter Jay Sharp Theater on West 42nd St. Featuring a cast of more than two dozen, the story follows two brothers who are caught up in internal and external battles with hypocrisy, injustice, corruption, and family loyalty. The show is directed by Daniel Aukin, who is also currently elming the multiple-Obie-winning 4000 Miles at the Mitzi E. Newhouse.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: We have a pair of tickets to give away for free for The Bad and the Better, good for any night in June. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time favorite detective-noir story to contest@twi-ny.com by Thursday, June 14, at 3:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; one winner will be selected at random.

TITLE AND DEED

Conor Lovett asks the audience to join him on an unusual but rewarding journey in Will Eno’s TITLE AND DEED (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through June 17, $25
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Written specifically for actor Conor Lovett, Will Eno’s Title and Deed is an endearingly existential foray into language, communication, and humanity’s deep-seated need to be part of a greater whole. In a stunningly understated solo performance, Lovett stars as a soft-spoken man who has just arrived in America, either from another country or a different planet. Speaking directly to the audience, the unnamed character has trouble finishing sentences, and he allows his mind to wander away on the sound and meaning of words, gets caught up in tangential soliloquys, or just plain loses his train of thought. He bandies about ideas and then watches them float away as he mutters under his breath or mumbles asides that are not nearly as random as they might first appear. For seventy minutes, Lovett shuffles across the nearly bare stage on a journey to find a new home, and he welcomes — actually, a better word might be “needs” or even “requires” — the audience to help him find it. Award-winning Brooklyn-based playwright Eno (Middletown, Oh, the Humanity and other exclamations) has crafted an offbeat, involving little slice of theater that is heavily inspired by Beckett, primarily Waiting for Godot, and directed by Lovett’s wife, Judy Hegarty Lovett; the Lovetts have previously collaborated on such productions as Molloy, First Love, and, not surprisingly, The Beckett Trilogy. Running in the Signature’s cozy Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre through June 17, Title and Deed will have you taking a trip through your own mind, with plenty of strange yet calming detours.

LARRY RIVERS: LATER WORKS

Larry Rivers, “Art and the Artist: Mondrian,” oil on canvas mounted on sculpted foamboard, 1992 (courtesy Tibor de Nagy Gallery)

Tibor de Nagy Gallery
724 Fifth Ave. between 56th & 57th Sts.
Tuesday – Friday through June 15, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-262-5050
www.tibordenagy.com

Born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg in the Bronx in 1923, multidisciplinary artist and jazz saxophonist Larry Rivers, who died ten years ago at the age of seventy-eight, was a key influential figure in the ever-changing world of twentieth-century art, impossible to pigeon-hole into any one specific category or movement. This refusal to maintain the status quo is evident in his current solo show at Tibor de Nagy, which focuses on paintings and drawings made between 1975 and 2002. “A number of things strike me about Rivers’s late work. One is its range,” writes American poet and critic John Yau in the exhibition’s hardcover catalog. “He can go from doing a self-mocking send-up of his friend, the French artist Jean Hélion, to sensitively addressing the legacy of the Holocaust. This alone convinces me that his late work needs a longer and deeper look, and that his entire oeuvre needs to be reconsidered.” Indeed, the pieces on view deal with two primary subjects: three-dimensional sculpture paintings that pay homage to other artists, and poignant drawings that address family and loss, especially in regard to World War II. What first jumps out at Tibor de Nagy are brightly colored depictions of Groucho Marx, Charlie Chaplin, Piet Mondrian, Henri Matisse, Hélion, and others at work, painted on intricately sculpted foamboard that gives added life to them without feeling gimmicky. Rivers also re-creates Matisse’s “La Danse” with a more abstract vision. Meanwhile, in the back room, such poignant color pencil drawings as “The Frank Family,” “Four Seasons: Fall in the Forest of Birkenau,” and “Erasing the Past I” and “Erasing the Past II” take on a more serious tone, the yellow stars on the subjects’ tattered clothes emerging as haunting reminders of the Holocaust. While the works might evoke a wide range of emotions, from glee and wonder to sadness and pain, they are all about one thing, a past as remembered by a truly American artist.