twi-ny recommended events

OUTSIDER ART FAIR 2011

Just Folk will be exhibiting works by Bill Traylor at the nineteenth annual Outsider Art Fair (Bill Traylor, “Yellow Goat,” poster paint and graphite on cardboard, ca. 1939-42)

The Mart
7 West 34th St. off Fifth Ave.
February 11-13, $20 (includes catalog)
www.sanfordsmith.com

The nineteenth annual Outsider Art Fair gets under way tonight with an advance preview benefiting the Creative Growth Art Center, which “serves adult artists with developmental, mental, and physical disabilities,” and the Fountain Gallery, which “provides an environment for artists living and working with mental illness to pursue their personal visions and to challenge the stigma that surrounds mental illness.” The show, held at the Mart at 7 West 34th St., opens to the general public on Friday, featuring more than thirty galleries displaying works by outsider, visionary, and self-taught artists who paint, draw, and sculpt without specific training and education. Among the exhibitors are the Electric Pencil, Ricco/Maresca, Carl Hammer, Just Folk, Yukiko Koide Presents, Marcia Weber Art Objects, and Maxwell Projects. Special events include a Friday-night after-party ($50), a presentation by Dr. Thomas Röske of the Prinzhorn Collection on Saturday at 1:30 ($25), and a panel discussion on the role of artists with disabilities in outsider and contemporary art on Sunday at 2:00 ($25). Outsider Art Week continues at the American Folk Art Museum, with Anna Panszczyk delivering the Nathan Lerner Annual Lecture, “Reading Ephemera (and Fairies) in the Artworks of Henry Darger,” Friday at 4:30 (free with museum admission), followed Sunday at 10:00 by the Anne Hill Blanchard Symposium, “Uncommon Artists XIX: A Series of Cameo Talks,” with Laurel Gitlen speaking on Michael Patterson-Carver, Brett Littman on Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, Kendall Messick on Gordon Brinckle, and Tom Whitehead on Clementine Hunter connoisseurship ($35), and a 1:00 screening of Kendall Messick’s 2003 film, THE PROJECTIONIST, followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker (free with museum admission).

OSCAR WATCH: RESTREPO

Life in the Korengal Valley was not all fun and games for Specialist Misha Pemble-Belkin, Ross Murphy, and the rest of Battle Company, 173rd US Airborne at Outpost Restrepo in Afghanistan (photo © Tim Hetherington)

RESTREPO: ONE PLATOON, ONE YEAR, ONE VALLEY (Sebastian Junger & Tim Hetherington, 2010)
Paley Center for Media
25 West 52nd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Thursday, February 10, $20, 6:30
212-621-6800
www.restrepothemovie.com
www.paleycenter.org

From June 2007 to July 2008, journalists Sebastian Junger (THE PERFECT STORM) and Tim Hetherington (LIBERIA: AN UNCIVIL WAR) made a total of ten trips to the dangerous Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, documenting the full deployment of Battle Company of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. With snipers hidden all around them, the fifteen soldiers of Second Platoon built a remote, strategic outpost they named Restrepo after PFC Juan Restrepo, the well-liked company medic who was killed early on. Junger and Hetherington film such men as Captain Dan Kearney, Staff Sergeant Kevin Rice, and Sergeant Brendan C. O’Byrne as they go about their daily duties, joking around, playing the guitar, meeting with Afghan locals to get information about the Taliban, and digging trenches while prepared to be shot at at any moment. The journalists took more than 150 hours of footage, supplemented with interviews with several of the soldiers after they were safely back at home base in Italy, talking about what they went through. There is nothing political about RESTREPO, nor does it pull at the heartstrings with melodramatic, overemotional scenes; instead, it depicts the harsh realities of battle, including the long stretches of boredom punctuated by sudden life-or-death situations. There is no narration, no one discusses the possible merits of the war, and no generals or politicians are on hand to defend America’s involvement in the region. There’s no ethnocentric yahooism, nor is there racist treatment of the mostly unseen enemy. It’s just war, pure and simple, seen from the perspective of men who chose to join the army and risk their lives for their country. The film won the documentary Grand Jury Prize at last year’s Sundance Festival and also screened at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival at Lincoln Center. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary, RESTREPO is having a special presentation February 10 at the Paley Center, followed by a panel discussion with Junger, Hetherington, and THE WRONG WAR author Bing West, moderated by Foreign Affairs’ Gideon Rose.

THE MUSIC OF NEIL YOUNG AT CARNEGIE HALL

Carnegie Hall
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
881 Seventh Ave. at West 57th St.
Thursday, February 10, $45-$250, 8:00
www.neilyoungcarnegie.com

Music impresario Michael Dorf’s annual benefit honoring rock-and-roll icons this year turns to Canadian Hall of Famer Neil Young, after previously paying tribute to such megastars as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the Who, R.E.M., Elton John, and others. Dorf, the Knitting Factory guru who now runs City Winery, has once again put together a stellar lineup of musicians to play songs from throughout Young’s long, diverse career, which took off when Young was part of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young in the mid-to-late 1960s, then exploded with the success of his early-’70s solo albums, AFTER THE GOLD RUSH and HARVEST. The ridiculously prolific anticorporate rocker has released more than thirty studio albums and eight live records (in addition to those with the Springfield and CSNY), ranging from acoustic folk and country to rockabilly and grunge, from electronic noise and the blues to environmental activism and antiwar screeds. The tribute, taking place at Carnegie Hall on February 10, raises funds for such music and arts programs for underprivileged youth as Fixing Instruments for Kids in Schools, Church Street School for Music & Art, the Pinwheel Project, Music Unites, the American Symphony Orchestra, and Young Audiences New York. The impressive roster of performers includes Patti Smith & Jesse Smith, the Roots, Nada Surf, Cowboy Junkies, Juliana Hatfield & Evan Dando, Bettye LaVette, Shawn Colvin, Bebel Gilberto, Aaron Neville, the Wood Brothers, Keller Williams, Joan Osborne, Jakob Dylan, J Mascis, Glen Hansard, Mason Jennings, DeVotchKa, Ben Ottewell, Pete Yorn, Joe Purdy, and house bandleader Larry Campbell, who will be hosting a sold-out live rehearsal of the show tonight at City Winery. In past “Music of” shows, the Boss and members of R.E.M. participated in their own tributes, so there’s always a chance that car and train enthusiast Young might be on hand, although we wouldn’t bet on it.

THE SUSAN SARANDON PICTURE SHOW

Susan Sarandon will participate in celebratory career tribute at BAM this week

BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
February 10-13
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Perhaps no contemporary American actress other than Meryl Streep has given the world of motion pictures as many iconic characters and memorable cinematic moments as Susan Sarandon, but there’s one thing Sarandon has that not even Streep does — a simmering sexuality portrayed with comfort and ease, still burning at the age of sixty-four. The Academy Award-winning, New York City-born sex symbol has been on the scene since her dazzling debut as Melissa Compton in JOE (John G. Avildsen, 1970), going on to star in such unforgettable films as THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (Jim Sharman, 1975), PRETTY BABY (Louis Malle, 1978), ATLANTIC CITY (Louis Malle, 1980), THE HUNGER (Tony Scott, 1983), BULL DURHAM (Ron Shelton, 1988), THELMA & LOUISE (Ridley Scott, 1991), and DEAD MAN WALKING (Tim Robbins, 1995). If the last decade has not been quite as kind to her, she still has already amassed one helluva resume, and her career is being celebrated this week with a too-brief retrospective at BAM. “The Susan Sarandon Picture Show” begins February 10 with a screening of ROMANCE & CIGARETTES (John Turturro, 2006), which will be followed by a Q&A with Sarandon and writer-director Turturro, after which Sarandon will switch theaters for a Q&A with writer-director Paul Schrader following a screening of the underrated LIGHT SLEEPER (Paul Schrader, 1992). Friday’s lineup includes JOE GOULD’S SECRET (Stanley Tucci, 2000), PRETTY BABY, THE FRONT PAGE (Billy Wilder, 1974), and a late-night showing of ROCKY HORROR, with Saturday steaming up with THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (George Miller, 1987) and THE HUNGER. On Sunday afternoon, BAM will hold concurrent screenings of DEAD MAN WALKING, THELMA & LOUISE, ATLANTIC CITY, and BULL DURHAM, after which all attendees will move into the Howard Gilman Opera House for a conversation with Sarandon, moderated by Bob Balaban.

PATTI SMITH WITH LENNY KAYE

Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye will celebrate forty years since they first played together at the Poetry Project on Wednesday night (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East Tenth St. at Second Ave.
Wednesday, February 9, $15, 7:30
212-674-0910
www.poetryproject.org

“Everything changed after Lenny Kaye and I performed at St. Mark’s,” Patti Smith writes in JUST KIDS, her National Book Award-winning memoir about her life with Robert Mapplethorpe. That career-making event took place at the Poetry Project on February 10, 1971, as Smith read her work and Kaye played guitar. Kaye, a music journalist and record-store employee, would go on to play in the Patti Smith Group and the Jim Carroll Band, produce hits for the likes of Suzanne Vega, and put together the seminal Nuggets collection, while Smith went on to become one of the leading woman punk rockers and an influential poet who took nearly a decade off to raise two children with her husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith. Smith and Kaye, who have played together on and off ever since that historic moment, will be back at the Poetry Project on February 9, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of that initial performance in a benefit to raise funds for the nonprofit organization. They will be joined by poet, artist, and Jersey City native Janet Hamill for the special show; tickets are only $15 but available at the door only, not in advance, so be sure to get there early — and we mean early.

(Smith will also be at the 92nd St. Y the following Wednesday, February 16, at 8:00 for “An Evening with Patti Smith,” in which she will discuss her relationship with Mapplethorpe and JUST KIDS and sign copies of the book; although tickets [$29] are sold out, a limited number might be made available an hour before showtime.)

THE BIG TIME COMEDY SHOW: FOR GREG GIRALDO’S FAMILY

The life and career of Greg Giraldo will be honored at Beacon Theatre benefit on February 9

Beacon Theatre
2124 Broadway at 74th St.
Wednesday, February 9, $74.50-$248.50, 8:00
212-465-6500
www.beacontheatre.com

A fixture on Comedy Central for most of this century, Bronx-born, Queens-raised Greg Giraldo was a favorite performer of both fans and other comedians, his star on the rise when he suddenly died last September 29 of a prescription drug overdose at the age of forty-four. The King of the Roast, a regular on such shows as TOUGH CROWD WITH COLIN QUINN and Lewis Black’s ROOT OF ALL EVIL, had been married and divorced twice and left behind three kids. On February 9, a group of his friends and colleagues will honor the Columbia undergrad and Harvard Law grad at “The Big-Time Comedy Show,” a benefit for the Giraldo Children’s Fund being held at the Beacon Theatre. Hosted by Tom Papa, the event will honor and, most likely, roast the extremely funny but clearly troubled Giraldo, with a lineup that includes Black, Quinn, Jim Norton, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Attell, Judy Gold, Ted Alejandro, and Jesse Joyce.

LES FILM FESTIVAL

Flash Rosenberg live-draws a John Waters conversation as part of inaugural Lower East Side festival

Grand Opening
139 Norfolk St. between Rivington & Stanton Sts.
February 8-27, $10, 8:00
646-875-8078
www.lesfilmfestival.com

The LES Film Festival gets under way tonight, kicking off three weeks of shorts and features made for less than thirty thousand dollars. Screenings take place every night through February 27 in the intimate Grand Opening, with only thirty seats available per show, each of which will include Q&As with members of the cast and/or crew. The competitive event will be judged by actress Eva Amurri, pop artist Marco of MarcoArt, comedian Murray Hill, Fox Searchlight publicist John Maybee, and restaurateur, screenwriter, and HOWL! Festival founder Phil Hartman. Among the films being screened in competition are Harvey Wang and Amy Brost’s ADAM PURPLE AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN, about the Lower East Side environmental activist and artist; BILLY CASH, Zack McTee’s profile of a Las Vegas Elvis impersonator; Kirsten Lepore’s beach-set stop-motion short BOTTLE; Richard Sandler’s BRAVE NEW YORK, which examines changes in the East Village over the last dozen years; Sean Gill’s hairy, apocalyptic MUSTACHE PARTY; Mark Cersosimo’s PLAYING FOR POCKET CHANGE: SAW LADY, a portrait of street performer Natalia “Saw Lady” Paruz; and a series of “Conversation Portraits” in which artist Flash Rosenberg live-draws talks previously held at the New York Public Library with Jay-Z and John Waters. The BYOB festival has been broken down into such themes as shorts showcases, Love Night, Experimental Night, Animation Night, Back to School Night, International Night, and Neighborhood Night; some evenings are already sold out (tickets are only five bucks), so don’t hesitate to be part of what will hopefully become a growing annual event.