“Novel” examines different modes of storytelling as part of “Time Again” at SculptureCenter (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
SculptureCenter
4419 Purves St.
Thursday – Monday through July 25, suggested donation $5, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
718-361-1750
www.sculpture-center.org
Playing off of Walter Benjamin’s theory of the vanishing point in the here and now, curator Fionn Meade has put together an intriguing collection of paintings, drawings, sculpture, installation, and video for the two-floor show “Time Again.” On view at Long Island City’s SculptureCenter through July 25, the show consists of works that self-consciously examine and manipulate imagery, representation, gesture, narrative, and the past through repetition and sequencing. In “Image of Absolon to Be Projected Until It Vanishes,” Matthew Buckingham continuously projects a single slide of Christian Gottlieb Vilhelm Bissen’s 1901 statue of Copenhagen founder Bishop Absalon atop a horse; over the course of the exhibition, the heat from the projector will cause the image to fade into nothingness, taking the history it embodies with it. Uli Hohn’s six cast plaster and wood reliefs are each slightly different, creating their own time line that feels like it is still in process. Evoking Andy Warhol’s 1960s Screen Tests, Rosalind Nashashibi’s “This Quality” cuts from a series of shots of a woman staring into the camera to cars covered by fabric on the streets of Cairo; rather than protecting the automobiles from the elements, it appears that the sheets are hiding their past, especially as people walk by. In a separate area, pieces by Sergej Jensen, R. H. Quaytman, Paul Thek, and others make up “Novel,” which provides a unique look at storytelling.
SculptureCenter examines memory and repetition in “Time Again” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
The exhibit kicks into high gear in the basement, where the works are set up amid narrow concrete hallways and passages and in dark rooms. Laure Prouvost’s “It, Heat, Hit” video confronts viewers directly, demanding their attention and that they remember what they see, flash cuts of text and image that fly by in a fury as they tempt and attack all five senses. Rosemarie Trockel’s “Goodbye, Mrs. Mönipaer” consists of longer, calmer shots of a glassed-in bungalow on a beach, water lapping onto the sand as two women, one in a bikini, the other in a bathrobe, each one wearing a mask, are involved in a potential art deal. In “Untitled (David Wojnarowicz Project),” Emily Roysdon re-creates David Wojnarowicz’s “Arthur Rimbaud in New York” series, which comprised photographs of a man, most likely the artist himself, walking the streets of New York wearing a mask that replicated the only known photo of the influential French poet; Roysdon has revisited that idea by taking photos of friends wearing a mask that depicts Wojnarowicz’s visage. In “Berlin Flash Frames,” William E. Jones repurposes a 1961 propaganda film produced by the U.S. Information Agency to question history and memory as the Berlin Wall is constructed and individuals are prepared for relocation. And in “Rabbits,” Aurélien Froment details how to make various knots by using the “rabbit hole” storytelling technique about a rabbit and a snake, neatly tying everything together before taking them apart. The films, most of which are shown using old-fashioned projectors, are the star of the show at the cavernous SculptureCenter, which evokes the past itself, having taken over a former trolley factory, with various mechanical contraptions still visible, creating a kind of palimpsest. SculptureCenter is open on July 4; if you check in on foursquare, you get two-for-one admission and free lemonade. In addition, SculptureCenter will host a pair of “Time Again”-related screenings July 5-6 at 7:00 at Anthology Film Archives, including short works by Joan Jonas, Shahryar Nashat, Ursula Mayer, and exhibition artists Prouvost, Nashabishi, Buckingham, and Jones; Leslie Thornton and Lisa Oppenheim will participate in a special conversation following the July 5 show, with Jones taking part in a Q&A following the July 6 screening.
In 1979, Woody Allen and master cinematographer Gordon Willis made love to New York City architecture in gorgeous black and white in the stunning opening section of Manhattan set to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” Allen’s latest, Midnight in Paris, begins with Allen and cinematographer Darius Khondji getting intimate with the City of Light in lush color, scanning familiar Parisian landmarks to Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love.” In this beautifully shot love letter to Paris, Owen Wilson stars as Gil Pender, a Hollywood hack screenwriter working on his first novel, about a nostalgia dealer. He and his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams), are vacationing in Paris with her parents, the wealthy, ultraconservative John (Kurt Fuller) and Helen (Mimi Kennedy), who think their daughter can do much better. Gil and Inez bump into their friends Carol (Nina Arianda) and Paul (Michael Sheen), the latter a pedantic know-it-all who begins many an observation with “If I’m not mistaken” and whom Gil can’t stand. Gil is hoping Paris will get his creative juices flowing, and that’s exactly what happens late one evening when he is walking the streets alone at midnight and is invited into an old-fashioned car and taken to what appears to be a throwback party — until he meets F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston and Alison Pill), Cole Porter (Yves Heck), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), and fashion designer and Picasso muse Adriana (Marion Cotillard). Suddenly he feels more at ease in the swinging ’20s than the 2010s, heading out each night to the same spot, hoping to hang out more with the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo), and, most importantly, Adriana. Nostalgia for the past and the promise of the future collide as Gil searches deep inside himself, trying to discover just what it is that he wants and needs out of life. Combining elements of such previous films as The Purple Rose of Cairo, Alice, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex*, and Everyone Says I Love You with a rather standard Twilight Zone-esque setup and a nod to his mid-’60s Lost Generation joke — in which he hangs out with Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Picasso, and Stein talking about art and literature, with a series of punch lines involving Allen getting punched in the mouth — Midnight in Paris is a charming, if at times overwrought and just plain silly, romantic fantasy that evokes Allen’s own fondness for nostalgia and the past. As more and more famous artists keep showing up, it gets more than a tad ridiculous, although it is also kinda fun. Midnight in Paris, which opened the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, follows four Allen films set in London (Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra’s Dream, and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), one in Barcelona (Vicky Christina Barcelona), and only one in New York (Whatever Works) as Allen continues to travel the world after experiencing a dwindling audience and scandal back home. Wilson is excellent as the nostalgic writer, playing him with an edgy uncomfortablilty that makes him endearing, and Cotillard is sexy and alluring as the quintessential artistic muse. And in an inspired bit of casting, French first lady Carla Bruni plays a tour guide who butts heads with the smarmy Paul when discussing Rodin’s “The Thinker.” 
