twi-ny recommended events

NOW HEAR THIS PODCAST FESTIVAL

Larry Wilmores Black on the Air podcast is part of festival

Larry Wilmore’s Black on the Air podcast is part of Now Hear This festival

Javits Center
655 West 34th St. at 11th Ave.
September 8-10, Saturday pass $125, Sunday pass $50, three-day GA pass $180, VIP pass $340
nowhearthisfest.com
www.javitscenter.com

You might be used to listening to podcasts with headphones on while at your desk or wandering through the city, but now you can see some of the best of these audio shows at the second annual Now Hear This Podcast Festival, taking place at the Javits Center this weekend. More than two dozen shows are participating, featuring such podcastors as Chris Gethard, Phoebe Judge, Jon Lovett, Aaron Mahnke, Sam Roberts, Jon Gabrus & Lauren Lapkus, Larry Wilmore, LeVar Burton, Alex Schmidt, Colt Cabana, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Kulap Vilaysack & Howard Kremer, and Ryback. Day passes for Friday are sold out, but you can still catch those shows with a three-day pass; single-day passes are still available for Saturday and Sunday. According to the website, among the items not allowed in are pets, weapons, and emotional baggage. Be ready to make some tough choices, as several of the best podcasts are scheduled for the same time; below are only some of the highlights.

Friday, September 8
Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People, with Chris Gethard, Fracture Theatre, 7:00

Lovett or Leave It, with Jon Lovett & Friends, Virtue Stage, 7:00

Found, with Davy Rothbard and special guests, Podswag Stage, 7:00

Saturday, September 9
Black on the Air, with Larry Wilmore, Virtue Stage, 11:30 am

Nancy, with Kathy Tu and Tobin Low, Podswag Stage, 1:30

The Flop House, with Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington and guest flopper Ronny Chieng, Fracture Theatre, 3:30

LeVar Burton Reads, with LeVar Burton and special guests, Virtue Stage, 5:30

Comedy Bang! Bang! with Scott Aukerman and special guests, Stitcher Stage, 7:30

Sunday, September 10
Doughboys, with Nick Wiger and Mike Mitchell, Virtue Stage, 11:00 am

The Art of Wrestling, with Colt Cabana and special guests, Mack Weldon Stage, 12:15

StarTalk All-Stars, with Helen Matsos and Neil deGrasse Tyson, Virtue Stage, 1:00

The Weeds (from VOX), with Matt Yglesias, Sarah Kliff, and special guest, Fracture Theatre, 1:00

Conversation with the Big Guy, with Ryback, Pat Buck, and friends, Mack Weldon Stage, 1:30

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG: AMONG FRIENDS

“Mud Muse” is one of many collaborations in MoMA exhibit “Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Mud Muse” is one of many collaborations in MoMA exhibit “Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through September 17
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

“Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” is almost too much of a good thing, a massive MoMA retrospective of the interdisciplinary artist who died in 2008 at the age of eighty-two. The exhausting exhibition consists of more than 250 works, highlighting his collaborations while celebrating the vast nature of his practice. “Oh, I love collaborating, because art can be a really lonely business, if you’re really just working from your ego,” he says in an old interview on the audio guide. The show follows the Texas native from his Black Mountain College years through his time in Italy and North Africa, from his early combines and classical-influenced pieces to performances, silkscreens, objects, “Experiments in Art and Technology” (E.A.T.), and more. Many of his greatest hits are here, including “Bed,” “Monogram,” “Canyon,” “Gift for Apollo,” and his illustrations for Dante’s Inferno, alongside collaborations with Jasper Johns, John Cage, Jean Tinguely, Willem de Kooning, Susan Weil, Brice Marden, Sturtevant, Alex Hay, and more. Among the most unusual works is the bubbling “Mud Muse” created with Carl Adams, George Carr, Lewis Ellmore, Frank Lahaye, and Jim Wilkinson. And most entertaining is Rauschenberg’s involvement in the dance world, making sets for and even performing in pieces by Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown and Laurie Anderson, Harry Shunk and Janos Kender, and others, some filmed by Charles Atlas. The exhibition is supplemented with works by such Rauschenberg contemporaries as Aaron Siskind, Cy Twombly, Lucinda Childs, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Robert Whitman. Meanwhile, the audio guide includes contributions from Yvonne Rainer, Calvin Tompkins, Weil, Marden, Brown, Virginia Dwan, Atlas, Julie Martin, and Rauschenberg’s son, Christopher. So how does one make sense of it all? MoMA is hosting a series of talks and performances to help sort everything out. The exhibition continues through September 17; the below “gallery experiences” are free with museum admission, with no advance RSVP required. (Only the September 12 “Dante Among Friends” performance requires paid ticketing.)

Peter Moore. Performance view of Robert Rauschenberg’s Pelican (1963), 1965. © Barbara Moore/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

Peter Moore, “Performance view of Robert Rauschenberg’s Pelican (1963),” 1965 (© Barbara Moore/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York)

Wednesday, September 6, 11:30 & 3:30
“Dance among Friends: Robert Rauschenberg’s Collaborations with Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, and Paul Taylor,” featuring Changeling, Three Epitaphs, Tracer, You Can See Us, and excerpts from other works, Sculpture Garden

“Robert Rauschenberg’s Process,” with Lauren Kaplan

Wednesday, September 6, 11:30
Thursday, September 7, 1:30
Wednesday, September 13, 1:30
Thursday, September 14, 11:30 & 1:30
“No One Is an Island,” with Kerry Downey

Thursday, September 7, 1:30
“Rauschenberg Among Friends,” with Elisabeth Bardt-Pellerin

Saturday, September 9, 11:30
Sunday, September 17, 1:30
“100 Ways to Make a Picture,” with Petra Pankow

Sunday, September 10, 11:30
Monday, September 11, 11:30
“A Bit of This and That: Robert Rauschenberg’s Combines,” with Jane Royal

Tuesday, September 12
“Collaborators, Friends, Lovers,” with Tamara Kostianovsky, 11:30

“Dante among Friends,” with Robin Coste Lewis and Kevin Young responding in music and poetry to Rauschenberg’s Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno, curated and hosted by Terrance McKnight, $5-$15, 7:00

ALEXANDRA PIRICI: THRESHOLD

Bucharest-based artist Alexandra Pirici re-created Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc” in 2014 (photo courtesy of the artist)

Bucharest-based artist Alexandra Pirici re-created Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc” in 2014 (photo courtesy of the artist)

On the High Line at 30th Street between 11th & 12th Aves.
September 5-7, free, 4:00 – 7:00
art.thehighline.org

Donald Trump might be seeking to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, but a very different kind of wall is going up on the High Line this week. On September 5-7 from 4:00 to 7:00, Romanian dancer, choreographer, and performance artist Alexandra Pirici will construct “Threshold” at the gate that separates the eastern and western rail yards at Thirtieth St. The architectural boundary is not made of wire, concrete, or wood but performers who will move about and transform the public space. Among the participants lining the flexible human wall — which visitors can interact with — will be Marissa Brown, Catherine Cabeen, Miguel Angel Guzmán, Samuel Hanson, Casey Hess, Jordan Isadore, Jhia Louise Jackson, Annie Kloppenberger, Elizabeth Mulkey, Candace Tabbs, and Jessica Weinstein. In such pieces as “Leaking Territories,” “Aggregate,” “Monument to Work,” and “If You Don’t Want Us, We Want You,” Pirici, who cites Tino Sehgal, Jérôme Bel, and La Ribot as influences, mixes in the political in both clear and subtle ways. Admission is free, and no advance RSVP is required.

OCTFEST

octfest

The Brooklyn Hangar
2 52nd St., Sunset Park
Saturday, September 9, $60 (two for $100), 1:00 – 9:00
www.octfest.co

You can celebrate Octoberfest a little early at the Brooklyn Hangar on September 9, when an excellent lineup of music joins an all-day beer tasting for OctFest. More than forty breweries are participating in the event, including Radeberger, Kona, Oskar Blues, Blue Point, 4 Hands, Rogue, Stony Creek, Braven, Citizen Cider, Shmaltz, ABK, Lord Hobo, and Alphabet City, offering unlimited craft beer. Considering the bands that are scheduled to play, the $60 ticket is one of the best deals in town — and a pair goes for $100. On the impressive bill are Guided by Voices, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Kilo Kish, Okkervil River, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and the Sadies. The event is sponsored by October magazine, which “aims to capture the spirit, ambition, and wort-soaked labor of the gambrinus pursuit — the making and drinking of the good life.”

DASHAINLAYA

dashainlaya

Who: Cobweb, Raju Lama and the Angels Band, Aditya Lama, Dewaj Thapa, Karanjit Singh, Rahul Rai, Tshering Dorje, Teddy, Kunga Chemi, Suraj, Jay Gurung, Akesha Bista, DJ Rokesh, DJ Reet, DJ Spin
What: DashainLaya concert in Queens
Where: Melrose Ballroom, 36-08 33rd St.,
When: Friday, September 8, 8:00, through Saturday, September 9, 4:00 am, $35-$50
Why: KTMEntertainment is hosting DashainLaya, an all-night festival of Nepalese and Tibetan music, on September 8-9 at the Melrose Ballroom in Queens. A portion of the proceeds from the show, headlined by Cobweb and Raju Lama (playing with the Angels Band) and emceed by Akesha Bista, Miss Nepal 2012, will go to families suffering from the devastating floods in southern Nepal. General admission tickets are $35, while $50 VIP seats come with a meet-and-greet with the artists. Anybody born in September gets in free. This summer, floods in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh have resulted in more than twelve hundred fatalities and affected twenty million people. Of course, if you can, you should also contribute to organizations helping the victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, including the Red Cross, the Humane Society, and many others.

KAARI UPSON: GOOD THING YOU ARE NOT ALONE

Kaari Upson invites visitors into her strange world of consumption and reproduction at the New Museum (photo by tw-ny/mdr)

Kaari Upson invites visitors into her strange world of consumption and reproduction at the New Museum (photo by tw-ny/mdr)

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Through Sunday, September 10, $16
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org
good thing you are not alone slideshow

In Kaari Upson’s first solo New York museum show, “Good thing you are not alone,” the California native goes in search of the perfect double as it relates to consumption, mass production, the ideal of America, and her relationship with her mother. Consisting of drawing, painting, sculpture, and video, the exhibition is centered by “Hers” and “Idiot’s Guide Womb Room,” an interactive installation, constructed of steel Costco shelves, urethane foam, aluminum, plastic, and wood, in which visitors can take a seat, watch videos of Upson dressed as her mother and performing rituals, read various Complete Idiot’s Guide books, and check out piles of life-size replicas of her mother made of latex, synthetic hair, fabric, foam, duct tape, and debris. Upson, who has portrayed her mother in more than thirty videos, sees it as an “amalgamation of it being not just my own real mom but a multiplicity of a type of woman that’s transitioning from being objectified, like a certain particular age where she almost becomes invisible,” she tells curator Margot Norton on the audio guide. “So that idea that she can almost have agency through her invisibility allowed me to go up in spaces and do very strange things.”

Kaari Upson, “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue,” urethane, pigment, and aluminum, 2014 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Kaari Upson, “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue,” urethane, pigment, and aluminum, 2014 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Upson references her mother’s fondness for soda in “Teeth on Pepsi Plinth,” rows of fossilized aluminum-cast cans (“Lifetime Supply”) with crystalline teeth (“Crocodile Mother”) on top of them, part of her ongoing “MMDP (My Mother Drinks Pepsi)” project. She recasts discarded furniture into drooping wall pieces that recall the work of Lynda Benglis and Claes Oldenburg, in “Brown Recluse,” “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue,” and “You Don’t Need a Rope to Pinch a Stranger’s Butt.” In the intense video Split Eye, Upson films her eye in close-up, using glass and mirrors to create intriguing, often disturbing effects. And in her latest body of work, a series of graphic drawings explores a family living in a Las Vegas tract house, incorporating such phrases as “Where all autonomy is lost” in “home’” and “Caught in a pattern of endless reproduction” in “event horizon.” In “Good thing you are not alone,” Upson makes the private public, and the public private, delving into the subconscious of contemporary American culture with a forensic approach, uncovering a repetitive world from which there appears to be no escape.