twi-ny recommended events

MOONLIGHT & MOVIES: BRONX GOTHIC

Okwui Okpokwasili takes viewers behind the scenes of her one-woman show in Bronx Gothic (photo courtesy of Grasshopper Film)

SMILE, IT’S YOUR CLOSE-UP — NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARIES: BRONX GOTHIC (Andrew Rossi, 2017)
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd St.
Tuesday, June 19, $10 (includes museum admission), 8:00
212-534-1672
www.mcny.org/bronxgothic
www.maysles.org
grasshopperfilm.com

“Okwui’s job is to scare people, just to scare them to get them to kind of wake up,” dancer, choreographer, and conceptualist Ralph Lemon says of his frequent collaborator and protégée Okwui Okpokwasili in the powerful documentary Bronx Gothic, which is being shown on the terrace of the Museum of the City of New York on June 19, kicking off the uptown institution’s “Moonlight & Movies” outdoor program, part of the second annual “Smile, It’s Your Close Up: New York’s Documentaries” series, a joint venture with the Maysles Documentary Center. Directed by Okpokwasili’s longtime friend Andrew Rossi, who will introduce the screening, the film follows Okpokwasili during the last three months of her tour for her semiautobiographical one-woman show, Bronx Gothic, a fierce, confrontational, yet heart-wrenching production that hits audiences right in the gut. Rossi cuts between scenes from the show — he attached an extra microphone to Okpokwasili’s body to create a stronger, more immediate effect on film — to Parkchester native Okpokwasili giving backstage insight, visiting her Nigerian-born, Bronx-based parents, and spending time with her husband, Peter Born, who directed and designed the show, and their young daughter, Umechi. The performance itself begins with Okpokwasili already moving at the rear of the stage, shaking and vibrating relentlessly, facing away from people as they filter in and take their seats.

She continues those unnerving movements for nearly a half hour (onstage but not in the film) before finally turning around and approaching a mic stand, where she portrays a pair of eleven-year-old girls exchanging deeply personal notes, talking about dreams, sexuality, violence, and abuse as they seek their own identity. “Bronx Gothic is about two girls sharing secrets. . . . It is about the adolescent body going into a new body, inhabiting the body of a brown girl in a world that privileges whiteness,” Okpokwasili, whose other works include Poor People’s TV Room and the Bessie-winning Pent-Up: A Revenge Dance, explains in the film. National Medal of Arts recipient Lemon adds, “It’s about racism, gender politics — it’s not just about these two little black girls in the Bronx.” Rossi includes clips of Okpokwasili performing at MoMA in Lemon’s “On Line” in 2011, developing Bronx Gothic at residencies at Baryshnikov Arts Center and New York Live Arts, and participating in talkbacks at Alverno College in Milwaukee and the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, where the tour concluded, right next to her childhood church, which brings memories surging back to her.

Okwui Okpokwasili nuzzles her daughter, Umechi, in poignant and timely documentary (photo courtesy of Grasshopper Film)

Rossi is keenly aware of the potentially controversial territory he has entered. “As a white man, I was conscious of the complexity and implications of embarking on a project that revolves around the experience of African American females,” he points out in his director’s statement. “But fundamentally, I believe in an artist’s creative ability to explore topics that are foreign to the artist’s own background. I think this takes on even more resonance when the work itself has an explicit objective to ‘grow our empathic capacity,’ as Okwui says of Bronx Gothic, [seeking] an audience that is composed of ‘black women, black men, Asian women, Asian men, white women, white men, Latina women, Latina men. . . .’” Cinematographers Bryan Sarkinen and Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times, The First Monday in May) can’t get enough of Okpokwasili’s mesmerizing face, which commands attention, whether she’s smiling, singing, or crying, as well as her body, which is drenched with sweat in the show. “We have been acculturated to watching brown bodies in pain. I’m asking you to see the brown body. I’m going to be falling, hitting a hardwood floor, and hopefully there is a flood of feeling for a brown body in pain,” Okpokwasili says. Meanwhile, shots of the audience reveal some individuals aghast, some hypnotized, and others looking away.

Editor Andrew Coffman and coeditors Thomas Rivera Montes and Rossi shift from Okpokwasili performing to just being herself, but the film has occasional bumpy transitions; also, Okpokwasili, who wrote the show when she was pregnant, does the vast majority of the talking, echoing her one-woman show but also at times bordering on becoming self-indulgent. (Okpokwasili produced the film with Rossi, while Born serves as one of the executive producers.) But the documentary is a fine introduction to this unique and fearless creative force and a fascinating examination of the development of a timely, brave work. “Smile, It’s Your Close Up: New York’s Documentaries” concludes July 11 with “Under the Influence of the Maysles Brothers,” consisting of several shorts introduced by Sean Price Williams; “Moonlight & Movies” continues August 2 with The Naked City (Jules Dassin, 1948), introduced by James Sanders and screened in conjunction with the exhibition “Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs.” Also on view at the museum are “Elegance in the Sky,” “Beyond Suffrage,” “Art in the Open,” and “New York at Its Core.”

IVANOV

Evgeny Mironov and Chulpan Khamatova star in State Theatre of Nations’ Ivanov at City Center (photo by Sergei Petrov)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
June 14-17, $45-$155
212-581-1212
cherryorchardfestival.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Originally commissioned as a comedy, Anton Chekhov’s first produced full-length play, the four-act Ivanov, was quickly revised and turned into something significantly more serious after its initial presentation. Indeed, the State Theatre of Nations adaptation currently running at New York City Center as part of the Cherry Orchard Festival is darkly comic, with its moody, depressed, seemingly apathetic protagonist as its antihero. Award-winning star of stage, film, and television in his native Russia, Evgeny Mironov is the title character, Ivanov Nikolai, a government administrator in his thirties whose life is falling apart, but he’s not exactly facing his many hardships head-on. His wife, Anna (Chulpan Khamatova) — the former Sarah Abramson, who was disinherited by her wealthy Jewish family when she married Nikolai — is dying. Her doctor, Lvov (Dmitriy Serduk), insists that Nikolai take her abroad to rest, but he claims he can’t afford it and instead goes out every night to get away from her. “She is upset by your treatment of her,” the doctor tells Nikolai. “I will speak frankly: Your conduct is killing her.”

Dr. Lvov (Dmitriy Serduk) is desperate to help the seriously ill Anna (Chulpan Khamatova) in early Chekhov play (photo by Sergei Petrov)

Nikolai attends a raucous party at the home of Pavel Lebedev (Igor Gordin) and his wife, Zinaida (Natalya Pavlenkova), to whom he owes money and whose daughter, the twenty-year-old Sasha (Elizaveta Boyarskaya), takes a romantic interest in him. Meanwhile his uncle, Matvey Shabelskiy (Victor Verzhbitsky), is a count and a wastrel who believes he can get back on his feet by marrying the rich widow Marfa Babakina (Marianna Schults). And a distant relative of Nikolai’s, freeloader Mikhail Borkin (Alexander Novin), regularly comes up with bombastic ideas to make money, including one hysterical plan involving dogs and rabies. “Nikolai, my dear friend, you’re always moody,” Mikhail says. “You’re a fine, intelligent man, but you lack nerve, a certain drive.” But Nikolai knows that there is something wrong with him. “I am terribly guilty, but my thoughts are muddled, and I’m unable to understand myself or other people,” he says. “I myself don’t understand what’s happening to me.” Things come to a head when Anna and the doctor catch him kissing Sasha, leading to yet more tragedy.

A birthday party leads to a critical plot twist in Timofey Kulyabin’s production of Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov (photo by Sergei Petrov)

Director Timofey Kulyabin’s (Macbeth, Kill) sleek, nearly-three-hour production is splendidly paced, a psychodrama focusing on character. Oleg Golovko’s sets change from small rooms in Nikolai and Anna’s home to Nikolai’s crowded, claustrophobic office before opening out to the Lebedev home and a wedding hall. The scenery is pushed upstage and back by stagehands with the curtain still up so the audience can witness it. (Golovko also designed the costumes.) The cast is uniformly excellent, led by company artistic director Mironov’s (Robert Lepage’s Hamlet / Collage, Robert Wilson’s Pushkin’s Fairy Tales) poignant portrayal of a deeply troubled man who has lost control of his life and does not know if he wants it back. “In my opinion, this psychosis of mine, with all its attributes, can make one only laugh,” he says. Khamatova, who starred in Shushkin’s Stories with Mironov at City Center in 2016, is strong as Anna, a role that could easily devolve into maudlin melodrama, and Gordin (A Gentle Creature, The Lady with the Dog) excels as the conflicted Pavel, who is not so sure that he is in favor of Nikolai’s relationship with his daughter. “There’ll be a scandal; the whole town will talk,” he says to Sasha, “But it’s better to endure a scandal than to ruin your life.”

Seeing this Russian presentation of Ivanov — considered a lesser Chekhov play but an important stepping-stone for the future writer of The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull — at New York City Center is also a fascinating cultural experience. The crowd on opening night consisted primarily of Russians, many of whom chatted during the show, got up and down incessantly to change seats and use the facilities, smoked a remarkable amount of cigarettes outside at intermission, and let their cell phones go off constantly during the performance, without fear or embarrassment. They also gave entrance applause to several of the actors, who are mostly unknown in America, and laughed and nodded in agreement on a different beat than non-Russian speakers did, and not only when the English surtitles either were slightly out of sync or off completely for a few lines. But none of that took away from what is a compelling production of a work that feels fresh and alive today, asking penetrating questions that we all face, at one time or another.

RUBIN MUSEUM BLOCK PARTY: WE MAKE THE FUTURE

Participants can build a future city at Rubin Museum block party

Rubin Museum of Art
West 17th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Sunday, June 17, free (including free museum admission all day), 1:00 – 4:00
rubinmuseum.org

We always look forward to the annual Rubin Museum block party, and this year the Rubin is looking forward as well, into the future. The festivities take place on Father’s Day, June 17, from 1:00 to 4:00, with the theme “We Make the Future,” inspired by the Rubin’s yearlong exploration of what lies ahead: “By examining various perspectives — from an eighth-century Buddhist master to Einstein to contemporary artists — we invite you to consider a future that isn’t fixed but fluid,” the institution explains. The party will feature live performances by Falu’s Bazaar and Ajna Dance, a Cham dance and sand mandala by Palyul Monks, and a circle dance by elders from India Home. Visitors can participate in such activities as the “Healing Garden” indoor plant trailer, “Build a Future City,” “Social Timeline,” and “Drone Demo.” Among the organizations with booths are Adhikaar Grassroots Movement in Nepal, India Home, and Yinda Yin Coaching, with food available from Café Serai Outpost, Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Truck, Brooklyn Popcorn Truck, and Wafels & Dinges. In addition, the museum is open for free all day long, so you can check out “Masterworks of Himalayan Art,” the three-part “A Lost Future: Shezad Dawood/the Otolith Group/Matti Braun,” “A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful,” “The Second Buddha,” “Chitra Ganesh,” “Sacred Spaces: The Road to . . . and the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room,” and “Gateway to Himalayan Art.”

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL 2018

Catherine Galasso’s Of Granite and Glass at Winter Garden is part of LMCC River to River Festival (photo by Victoria Sendra)

Multiple downtown locations
June 15-24, free (some events require advance RSVP)
lmcc.net

The seventeenth annual River to River Festival gets under way today, kicking off ten days of free multidisciplinary programs in downtown Manhattan, sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. R2R specializes in presenting hard-to-categorize works in unusual locations, and this year is no different. “The River to River Festival transforms the landscape of Lower Manhattan and works with artists and communities to explore lesser known pasts, presents, and futures of our neighborhoods,” curator Danielle King said in a statement. Among the highlights are silent :: partner, a dance piece about memory and exclusion by enrico d. wey in Federal Hall; MasterVoices’ Naamah’s Ark, an oratorio in Rockefeller Park about Noah’s Ark, preceded by a family-friendly art workshop; Cori Olinghouse’s Grandma, about which Olinghouse says, “While looping through the practice of hoarding, discarding, coveting, and display, I excavate a particular formation of white southern middle classness that is built up in my memories”; and the LES Citizens Parade, consisting of a processional and performances by senior citizens in Seward Park. Below is the full schedule.

Friday, June 15
through
Sunday, June 17
Catherine Galasso: Of Granite and Glass, part of Of Iron and Diamonds, based on Boccaccio’s Decameron, with performers Doug LeCours, Jordan D. Lloyd, Ambika Raina, and Mei Yamanaka and music by Dave Cerf, Winter Garden, Brookfield Place, 230 Vesey St. 6/15-16 at 7:00, 6/17 at 6:00

enrico d. wey: silent :: partner, Federal Hall, advance RSVP required, 8:00

Friday, June 15
through
Sunday, June 24
Elia Alba: The Supper Club, art installation, NYC DOT Art Display Cases on Water St. between Wall St. & Maiden Ln. and Gouverneur Ln. between Water & Front Sts.

Friday, June 16
and
Saturday, June 17
Cori Olinghouse: Grandma, performance installation created and directed by Cori Olinghouse, performed by Martita Abril and Cori Olinghouse, with visual design by Dean Moss and Cori Olinghouse, LMCC Studios at 125 Maiden Ln., 6/16 at 1:00 & 5:00, 6/17 at 1:00

Sunday, June 17
MasterVoices: Naamah’s Ark, oratorio composed by Marisa Michelson, with libretto by Royce Vavrek, performed by MasterVoices with Victoria Clark as Naamah and Sachal Vasandani as Merman, conducted by Ted Sperling, Rockefeller Park, 7:00 (preceded by art workshop 1:00 – 5:00)

It’s Showtime NYC! will make a statement on the steps of Federal Hall for R2R Festival (photo by Chloé Mossessian for FIAF)

Monday, June 18
through
Friday, June 22
It’s Showtime NYC!, site-responsive intervention by street dance company, directed by choreographer Marguerite Hemmings, steps of Federal Hall at Broad & Wall Sts. across from New York Stock Exchange, 4:00

Tuesday, June 19
Night at the Museums, free entry to African Burial Ground National Monument, China Institute, Federal Hall National Memorial, Fraunces Tavern Museum, Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, National Archives at New York City, National Museum of the American Indian — Smithsonian Institution, National September 11 Memorial & Museum, 9/11 Tribute Museum, NYC Municipal Archives, Poets House, the Skyscraper Museum, South Street Seaport Museum, and more, 4:00 – 8:00

Thursday, June 21
Tribeca Art + Culture Night, with fine art galleries, art nonprofits, artists studios & residencies, university galleries, design galleries, museums, creative & crafts spaces, and public parks open late, some with special performances and talks, 6:00 – 9:00

Performance parade will feature senior citizens along the waterfront (photo courtesy of Laura Nova)

Friday, June 22, 5:30
and
Sunday, June 24, 4:00
Naomi Goldberg Haas & Laura Nova: LES Citizens Parade, activist processional and performances by senior citizens cocreated by choreographer and Dances for a Variable Population artistic director Naomi Goldberg Haas and visual artist Laura Nova, Seward Park

Saturday, June 23
Engaging LES: Daytime Movement Workshops, movement-based activities including cardio, dance & sweat, Latin, jazz, hip-hop, lindy hop, jazz funk at 10:30 am, Tai Chi workshop at noon, boxing/self-defense at 1:30, and Movement for Life workshop at 3:00, East River Esplanade at Rutgers Slip under the FDR Dr.

NICK CAVE: THE LET GO / WEATHER OR NOT / THESE BAGS WE CARRY ARE FILLED WITH PROMISE

Jorell Williams holds his hands up near the beginning of Nick Cave’s Up Right presentation at the Park Avenue Armory (photo by James Ewing)

Park Avenue Armory and other locations
Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. between 66th & 67th Sts.
Through July 1, $17-$45
www.armoryonpark.org
nickcaveart.com

Multidisciplinary artist and fashion educator Nick Cave offers relief and release from these hard times with Up Right, a ritual-laden immersive performance that slowly builds to an explosive dance party in the massive Wade Thompson Drill Hall in the Park Avenue Armory, part of his major installation The Let Go. As visitors enter the hall, they encounter the hundred-foot-long, forty-foot-high “chase,” two enormous curtains made of many-colored Mylar strips, representing social justice, that glitter in the light as they glide across the space. You can walk through them, but don’t sit on any of the small stools among them, which are for the performers. Ticket holders sit on the periphery on the floor, on benches, or in folding chairs as the curtains stop moving and Darrell Nickens begins playing the piano. Members of Vy Higginsen’s Sing Harlem Choir, consisting primarily of teen girls of color, enter the room, followed by a dozen men with their hands up, in the now-all-too-familiar “Don’t shoot” pose. Jorell Williams starts singing the gospel classic “Wonderful Change” while he and the other men sit in the stools and are dressed by men and women in white lab coats, putting them in Cave’s shaman-like soundsuits, made of colorful accessories that completely cover the body, hiding their gender, age, race, ethnicity, etc. The Sing Harlem Choir then performs a gospel version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” from Carousel, as the men in the soundsuits march and dance around the room to choreography by Francesca Harper and Cave and approach some audience members, taking their hands and making connections. It’s all rather tame, obvious, overly simplistic, and repetitive, like the United Colors of Benetton telling us that we can indeed all get along. But after the ninety-minute show, the hall turns into a dance party where some of the performers return and move and groove to the hot beats with anyone who wants to now cut loose as “chase” winds around the space again.

Nick Cave’s soundsuits are activated as part of The Let Go (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Taking place Wednesdays through Fridays through July 1, Up Right ($35, 8:00) is only one of a number of Let Go programs that are part of the installation, which is curated by Tom Eccles. On Saturdays and Sundays, the general installation is open to the public ($17, 11:00 am to 6:00 pm), with DJs getting things rocking at 2:00, including Joe Claussell on June 16, JD Samson on June 17, Noise Cans on June 23, Sabine Blaizin on June 24, Sammy Jo on June 30, and Tedd Patterson on July 1, with games of Twister, Soul Train lines, soundsuit invasions, a special line dance that you can rehearse here, and more. Numerous sections of the soundsuits are on display in various period rooms, bursting with color and mystery. On June 14 ($25, 7:00), the Freedom Ball should be a splashy evening of fashion, music, and dance, hosted by Matthew Placek and featuring Marshall Jefferson, Ladyfag, Papi Juice, Saada of Everyday People, and others. There will be a Dress to Express ball-style costume contest at 11:00 with $20,000 in prize money spread around three categories, State of the World, Unlike Anything Else, and Dare-Flair; among the judges are artist Mickalene Thomas, art collector and consultant Racquel Chevremon, and Cave. And on June 26 ($45, 7:30), “An Evening of Artistic Responses: The Let Go” brings together songwriter and musician Nona Hendryx, vocalist and artist Helga Davis, dancer and choreographer Harper, and FLEXN dance pioneer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray and the D.R.E.A.M. Ring for site-specific performative responses curated by Cave, who in 2013 transformed Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall into a wildly inventive petting zoo for “Heard•NY.”

Nick Cave’s Tondos deliver a critical message in “Weather or Not” at Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Cave fans will also want to check out “These bags we carry are filled with promise,” the new kaleidoscopic three-dimensional mural he and his design collaborator, Bob Faust, have installed in the lobby of New York Live Arts; the opening reception is June 15 from 4:30 to 6:30. On view through September, the soundsuit mural is made from woven bags and is meant to represent the hopes, dreams, and aspirations we all carry inside us but don’t always let out. And through June 23, Cave’s “Weather or Not” exhibition at Jack Shainman in Chelsea is a gorgeous collection of eye-catching wire Tondos that swirl with life on the walls; the mesmerizing, bold colors are based on weather patterns, but they’re superimposed on barely visible scans of the brains of black youths suffering from PTSD because of gun violence. As always, Cave offers beauty and originality tinged with both hope and fear.

AHMED MATER: MECCA JOURNEYS

Ahmed Mater, “Ka’aba,” C-print, 2015/2017 (courtesy of the artist and Galleria Continua)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia Gallery of Contemporary Art, fourth floor
Through June 17, $10-$16
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

While the crowds line up to see the time-ticketed “David Bowie is” exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, a wide-ranging tribute to the late, beloved Thin White Duke, there’s a much quieter, beautifully elegiac show on the fourth floor of the institution. Visitors will find it well worthwhile to take the stairs and “turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes” in one of the holiest sites in the world documented in “Ahmed Mater: Mecca Journeys.” The show consists of spectacular large-scale photographs, video, and sculpture by Saudi artist Ahmed Mater, who was born, raised, and still lives and works in his native country. Splendidly curated by Catherine J. Morris based on Mater’s 2016 book, Desert of Pharan: Unofficial Histories Behind the Mass Expansion of Mecca, the exhibit focuses on Mecca as a living city that is much more than a destination for pilgrims on the annual hajj. “I was compelled to document the rapidly disintegrating and soon-to-be-lost narratives of the place and its people,” Mater, a former community doctor, writes, noting how modern technological advancement and a more consumerist culture are eradicating the older infrastructure. “What is not yet clear is the impact this will have on the emotional and psychological well-being of the inhabitants of the city,” he adds. Mater has contributed personal and informational wall text and labels to accompany the stunning works.

In the dye-sublimation print “Jibreel (Gabriel),” a construction worker is tethered to a minaret being lifted high in the air to take its position atop the Grand Mosque amid a pollution-ridden sky. In the C-print “Walkway to Mina,” tens of thousands of pilgrims are heading to Mecca. “Ka’aba” depicts the mass of humanity in and around the cube at the center of the holy site, while the calm “Gas Station in Leadlight” reveals a small gas station — where Mater refuels when he travels to Mecca — glowing at night in an empty area. Several photographs were taken in local settlements that have since been demolished. “Because it is rarely perceived as a living city, the idea of Mecca remains unencumbered by the reality of its own inhabitants and historical development,” Mater, who also visited with Burmese Muslims from the Rohingya community, opines. “The symbolic city is replacing the real city.”

Ahmed Mater: Mecca Journeys Installation Image. Photo by Jonathan Dorado

“Ahmed Mater: Mecca Journeys” reveals the changes undertaken in the holy city (photo by Jonathan Dorado)

The two-channel video Road to Mecca II shows the madness and mayhem as pilgrims arrive for the hajj, where non-Muslims are not allowed, while the videos King Kong and Disarm Surveil take viewers around the Mecca Royal Clock Tower, the third tallest building in the world. In Leaves Fall in All Seasons, footage taken by workers follows Jibreel astride the golden crescent being installed on the tower. A giant sculpture of the Qur’an made by Saudi artist Dia Aziz Dia can be seen in the C-print “On the Haramain Highway.” A collection of painted window frames hung on the wall is all that is left of many small homes that were torn down in the supposed name of progress. “Room with a View” was taken in an upscale hotel room, going for as much as $3,000 a night, offering a remarkable view of Ka’aba. “The division that luxury hotels impose is anathema within the context of the dignified, fundamental leveling principles that are the very basis of the hajj,” Mater states. “The core tenets of Islam, eloquently articulated by the rituals of the hajj and protected since the days of the Prophet, were never meant to compete with superluxurious hotels or brand names.” In “Mecca Journeys,” Mater makes it clear that what is happening goes beyond mere gentrification, consumerism, and corporate greed; it’s a knife in the back of the city’s history and culture. The exhibit serves as a striking counterpoint to “David Bowie is,” each revolving around different types of worship over something that is already lost, or well on its way, although Bowie’s work will of course stand the test of time.

FIVE SEASONS: THE GARDENS OF PIET OUDOLF

Landscape designer Piet Oudolf and filmmaker Thomas Piper visit lush gardens around the world in gorgeous documentary (photo by Adam Woodruff)

FIVE SEASONS: THE GARDENS OF PIET OUDOLF (Thomas Piper, 2017)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Wednesday, June 13
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
fiveseasonsmovie.com

Thomas Piper’s Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf is a beautifully composed documentary that unfolds much as flowers and plants grow, evolving over fall, winter, spring, summer, and then fall again. In 2014-15, Piper followed innovative Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf as he visited gardens around the world and developed a brand-new one, Durslade Farm, for the Hauser & Wirth Somerset gallery in Bruton, England, which will ultimately be home to fifty-seven thousand plants. For more than thirty years, Oudolf has taken a unique, radical approach to gardens, as demonstrated in the 1999 book Dreamplants: A New Generation of Garden Plants, which he cowrote with garden designer and writer Henk Gerritsen. “I wanted to go away from traditional planting, [using] plants that were not seen in gardens but were very good garden plants. The more difficult thing was to learn what plants do,” Oudolf tells Hermannshof Garden director Cassian Schmidt in the film. “Your work teaches people to see things they were unable to see,” designer and photographer Rick Darke says to Oudolf as they walk through White Clay Creek Preserve in Landenberg, Pennsylvania. In designing his gardens, Oudolf first creates a multicolored blueprint that is a work of art in itself, like abstract drawings and paintings. He combines plants that would never be together in the wild. “It may look wild, but it shouldn’t be wild. This is what you’d like to see in nature,” he explains in his home base, the lovely Oudolf Garden in Hummelo, where he’s lived with his wife, Anja and their children since 1982. For him, it’s not just about color or size but about character. “I put plants onstage and I let them perform,” he says.

Piet Oudolf’s preparatory drawings and paintings are works of art unto themselves, including this rendering for a garden at the Serpentine Gallery pavilion

Piper, who has previously directed, edited, and/or photographed films about artists Eric Fischl, Sol LeWitt, and Milton Glaser, author James Salter, and architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, includes lengthy, poetic shots of many of Oudolf’s creations as they change over the seasons, accompanied by piano and guitar interludes composed and performed by Charles Gansa and Davíð Þór Jónsson. Among the people the soft-spoken Oudolf meets with to talk shop are High Line horticulture director Tom Smarr, Northwind Perennial Farm designer and nurseryman Roy Diblik, Lurie Garden horticulture director Jennifer Davit, High Line lead designer James Corner, and Hauser & Wirth presidents Iwan and Manuela Wirth. Oudolf gets ideas for “landscapes that you would dream of but will never find in the wild” everywhere he goes; while driving along the Willow City Loop in Texas, he continually stops by the side of the road to take pictures of the spectacularly colored meridian.

Oudolf envisions his gardens as communities, consisting of native and nonnative species, just like communities of people welcoming immigrants. Although he doesn’t consider his work political, he does understand that the natural environment is under siege by climate change and other factors. Serpentine Gallery artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist explains, “If you look at the incredible multiplicity of plants Piet Oudolf has been using in his gardens, it’s not only a celebration of the beauty of plants but it is also the sheer diversity of plant species, and I think that is a wonderful statement to protest against this notion of extinctions.” Oudolf also sees the annual evolution of gardens as representative of the birth, life, and death process of humans, with one major difference. “It’s like what we do in our whole life span happens here in one year, and I think that works on your soul,” he philosophizes. “I won’t come back, but they will.” Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf opens at IFC Center on June 13, with Piper and Oudolf participating in Q&As at the 5:30, 7:00, and 7:30 shows that day; the 5:30 screening will be introduced by High Line horticulture director Andi Pettis.