twi-ny recommended events

JOE DIEBES: CHRONOLOGY

Joe Diebes’s “Scherzo” is centerpiece of frenetic multimedia installation at Paul Rodgers/9W

Paul Rodgers / 9W
529 West 20th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through December 2, free
212-414-9810
www.paulrodgers9w.com

At the beginning of this year, No Longer Empty held a music-related exhibition, “Never Can Say Goodbye,” in the old Tower Records at Fourth St. & Broadway. The star of the show was Joe Diebes’s “Scherzo,” a frenetic video installation of cellist Rubin Kodheli playing a score by Diebes as fast as he possibly can while being filmed from eight different angles by Andrew Federman. Kodheli’s virtuosic playing had been fed through a computer algorithm that resequenced the various segments into a brand-new, thrilling yet impossible sound piece that questions time and space as well as the reality of seeing and hearing. “Scherzo,” which comes off as a sort of punk-classical amalgamation, is located in one of the small rooms behind what looks like a white closet in the middle of the Paul Rodgers/9W gallery, surrounded by four other audiovisual pieces that line the walls. “One to One,” “Anachronism I,” “Anachronism 2,” and “Steeplechase” involve Diebes tracing and/or erasing scores by Bach, Beethoven, and Charlie Parker, using and/or reusing translucent vellum sheets, while the compositions can be heard through headphones. “I’m receiving and transmitting, or recording and playing, at the same time,” Diebes explains in the exhibition catalog. “My hand is the authority of the composer, but I’m not the composer. My hand is being driven by the recorded performance, so I’m really just a mass of nerves and muscle processing real time information. I’m trying to do it the best I can, but it’s all error.” Diebes might call it error, but the result is an intoxicating multimedia presentation that boggles the senses.

LEONARDO DA VINCI’S THE LAST SUPPER: A VISION BY PETER GREENAWAY

Peter Greenaway will be at the armory on December 4 for a special conversation about his massive installation of “Leonardo’s Last Supper”

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Tuesday – Sunday, December 3 – January 6, $15 (children ten and under free), 12 noon – 8:00 pm
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

Iconoclastic British director Peter Greenaway has made such films as THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (1982), THE BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT (1987), THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER (1989), and THE PILLOW BOOK (1996) over the course of his controversial thirty-year career. Recently he has turned his attention on the art world, making digital documentaries and giving lectures on such masterpieces as Paolo Veronese’s “The Wedding at Cana” and Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” as part of his Nine Classical Paintings Revisited series. Greenaway’s multimedia examination of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” including a life-size re-creation of the work within a clone of its original home, in the Refectory of Santa Maria Delle Grazie, will be on view in the Park Avenue Armory from December 2 through January 6. “Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway” will invite visitors into an immersive environment of light, sound, and illusion, offering new ways to look at the famous painting itself within its historical context as well as art in general. On December 1, Adam Lowe, founder and director of Factum Arte, will hold a lecture on “Duplicating da Vinci: The Art of Cloning a Masterpiece,” while Greenaway will participate in a special conversation on December 4 at 10:30 am about the unique installation. (Each event is $15 and does not include admission to the main gallery.)

BOB DYLAN AND THE BAND: WHAT KIND OF LOVE IS THIS?

The photos of William G. Scheele of Bob Dylan and the Band are the centerpiece of a multimedia celebration of the seminal American musicians

Friday, December 3, “Bob Dylan and the Band, Woodstock to California 1973-1975,” gallery exhibit opening night, 14th St. Y, LABA Theatre, symposium, $45, 7:00
Sunday, December 5, All Star Concert, (le) poisson rouge, 158 Bleecker St., $35, 8:30
www.14streety.org

The 14th St. Y will be paying tribute to the legacy of Bob Dylan and the Band with a series of special events, including a photography show, a symposium, and an all-star concert. Benefiting the renovation of the Y’s LABA Theatre, “Bob Dylan and the Band: What Kind of Love Is This?” kicks off Friday, December 3, with the opening of the gallery exhibit “Bob Dylan and the Band, Woodstock to California 1973-1975,” a collection of photos taken by William G. Scheele, who served as the Band’s equipment and stage manager from 1969 to 1976. The opening will feature a ticketed symposium ($35) discussing the enormously influential collaboration between Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Garth Hudson, which resulted in such seminal albums as PLANET WAVES, THE BASEMENT TAPES, and BEFORE THE FLOOD; the extremely impressive panel will include Greil Marcus, Christopher Ricks, John Niven, Dana Spiotta, Matt Friedberger, D. A. Pennebaker, Stephen Hazan Arnoff, John Wesley Harding, and Scheele. Then, on Friday night, December 5, (le) poisson rouge will host an all-star tribute ($45) to Dylan and the Band, with performances by Steven Bernstein, John Medeski, Rob Burger, Tony Scherr, Jolie Holland, Laura Cantrell, Nicole Atkins, John Wesley Harding, and Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces. This multimedia celebration honors some of the finest American music of the twentieth century while also helping out a great local organization.

THE PIGLET PARTY

David Tanis cookbook has made it past the first two rounds

92YTribeca
200 Hudson St. at Canal St.
Tuesday, November 30, $38, 7:00
212-415-5500
www.92ytribeca.org
www.brownpapertickets.com/event/136148

The blog explosion has led to a surfeit of sites dedicated to food and drink, for everyone from elegant gourmet groupies to just plain meat-and-potatoes burger-lovin’ folk. One such site, food52, run by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, focuses on home cooking. “We love spending time in the kitchen,” they explain online, “and we believe that memorable cooking doesn’t have to be complicated or precious.” On November 30, Hesser and Stubbs will be joined by food writer Charlotte Druckman as hosts of the Piglet Party, celebrating the second annual Tournament of Cookbooks. Since November 9, sixteen cookbooks have been battling it out in a bracketed competition judged by such experts as Ezra Klein, Peter Kaminsky, Ree Drummond, Susan Orlean, Francis Lam, and Mario Batali. In round one, Bill Yosses and Melissa Clark’s THE PERFECT FINISH beat Kate Moses’s CAKEWALK before losing to Kim Boyce and Amy Scattergood’s GOOD TO THE GRAIN in round two, while David Tanis’s HEART OF THE ARTICHOKE has made it past Katie Caldesi’s COOK ITALY and Frank Falcinelli, Frank Castronovo, and Peter Meehan’s FRANKIES. Also surviving the first two rounds is Dorie Greenspan’s AROUND MY FRENCH TABLE, having disposed of Darnia Allen’s FORGOTTEN SKILLS OF COOKING and Sarah Marx Feldner’s A COOK’S JOURNEY. Winners are announced every Wednesday, with the champion being crowned on December 1, so everyone will party at 92YTribeca the night before, with food supplied by such local vendors as Van Leeuwen, June Taylor, Mexicue, Liddabit Sweets, Rick’s Picks, and Theo Peck, wine from Hanna Winery, and beer from Kelso of Brooklyn. And Frank Bruni, Chris Cosentino, Ben Leventhal, and Falcinelli will participate in a panel discussion on food porn. Tickets are $38, with $5 going to the nonprofit organization Wellness in the Schools.

EIKO & KOMA

Eiko & Koma will be making special appearances in December and January that examine their creative process (photo by Anna Lee Campbell)

Saturday, December 4, Delicious Movement Workshop, Japan Society, 333 East 47th St., $40, 1:00 – 5:00
Friday, January 21, Performance & Lecture, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, Miller Theatre, Columbia University, 116th St. & Broadway, free with RSVP
www.eikoandkoma.org

For nearly forty years, the Japanese team of Eiko & Koma have been choreographing and performing humanistic dances and site-specific events around the world, focusing on the intense, emotional beauty of slow physical movement. The MacArthur Fellowship winners, who have created such pieces as WHITE DANCE, BREATH, OFFERING, HUNGER, MOURNING, and THE CARAVAN PROJECT, will be presenting two special evenings that examine their working process. On December 4, Eiko & Koma will be at the Japan Society for the four-hour “Delicious Movement Workshop,” in which they will lead participants, who need no prior dance experience, through a series of mental and physical exercises that fall into their seventeen-part manifesto; “When we give workshops,” they note on their website, “we share what we think and what we do with the hope that other people can also enjoy the movements and images we like to be engaged in. In our class, people discover commonalities and differences between each other and with us.” Then, on January 21, Eiko & Koma will be at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre for a free performance and lecture in honor of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture’s twenty-fifth anniversary; admission is free but advance RSVP is required.

TONY OURSLER / BRUCE NAUMAN

Tony Oursler, “Castouts,” mixed media, 2010 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

TONY OURSLER: PEAK
Lehmann Maupin, 201 Chrystie St. between Stanton & Rivingston Sts.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 4, 212-254-0054
www.lehmannmaupin.com
BRUCE NAUMAN: FOR CHILDREN / FOR BEGINNERS
Sperone Westwater, 257 Bowery at Stanton St.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 18, 212-999-7337
www.speronewestwater.com

Two longtime stars of the multimedia installation currently have exceptional exhibits right around the corner from each other on the Lower East Side. For decades, New York native Tony Oursler has been projecting faces and other images onto a multitude of objects, creating what appear to be living, breathing sculptures. His current show at Lehmann Maupin’s space on Chrystie St., “Peak,” consists of seven technologically virtuosic miniature dioramas in which theatrical scenes and performance art takes place, delving into obsession, festishism, and the human psyche. In “Artificial Hazard,” a man is trapped in a glass cage, an infantile face screaming behind him, a finger pointing upward in the corner. Numerous minuscule projections cover “Via Regia,” “Valley (Flowchart),” and “Castouts,” so be sure to scan every inch of the pieces, while a naked woman delivers a monologue in “Black Box” and a shirtless man seen in multiple sections of a chunk of disintegrating metal gets serious in “Mirror Return.” Meanwhile, Oursler’s companion to “Peak,” “Valley,” is currently on view at the online Adobe Museum of Digital Media.

Bruce Nauman, “For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and fingers),” HD video installation (color, stereo sound), continuous play, 2010

Following the success of his multimedia “Topological Gardens” installation at the 2009 Venice Biennale, which earned him the Golden Lion, Indiana-born artist Bruce Nauman has put together the captivating “For Children / For Beginners” at Sperone Westwater on Bowery, just around the corner from Lehmann Maupin. The central piece of the show is the two-story-high HD video projection “For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and fingers),” with two large hands at the top, and two more at the bottom, closing fingers as an unseen voice calls out “thumb,” “first finger,” “second finger,” etc. However, what is said and what is seen do not necessarily match; in addition, the hands occasionally flip upside down while the background changes from white to black and Terry Allen’s piano soundscape echoes throughout the gallery (emerging from the far elevator). The work is supplemented with a pair of graphite drawings and a smaller monitor showing one pair of hands responding to instructions. As with his recent “Days” exhibit at MoMA (also part of the Venice Biennale), in which different voices came out of fourteen speakers all calling out the days of the week in varying order, “For Children / For Beginners” is both exhilarating and confounding, a trademark of Nauman’s work. But don’t bother trying to figure it all out; just let the meditative sound and images take you away. It’s fascinating to see how well the two shows work together, as Oursler and Nauman each uses very different sizes in their installations — with fingers playing a role in both exhibits.

MATISYAHU: FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

Matisyahu will once again ight the night at special Hanukkah shows (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple venues in Brooklyn and New Jersey
November 29 – December 5, $38
www.matisyahuworld.com

Matisyahu, the Hasidic reggae rapper formerly known as Matthew Paul Miller, will be celebrating Hanukkah again with his Festival of Light tour, which will burn bright for five nights November 29 – December 5. The man behind such praiseworthy songs as “King Without a Crown,” “Jerusalem (Out of the Darkness Comes Light),” “Late Night in Zion,” “Aish Tamid,” and “Tzama L’Choi Nafshi (Psalm 63:2-3)” — and who is also known to throw in a prayer or two during his live shows — will be at Brooklyn Bowl November 29 with Dub Trio, the Music Hall of Williamsburg November 30 with Tally Hall, Northern Lights in Clifton Park on December 1 with Dub Trio, then back at the Music Hall December 4 with DJ Rehka and December 5 with Moon Taxi. We’ve celebrated Hanukkah with Matisyahu in the past, and it’s a blast, a night of fun music and lots of dancing that you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy. But just in care you are, Matisyahu has just released a special Hanukkah song, “Miracle,” that is currently streaming for free on his website. “There are so many Christmas songs out there,” he explains. “I wanted to give the Jewish kids something to be proud of.”