twi-ny recommended events

OLAFUR ELIASSON: THE LISTENING DIMENSION

Olafur Eliasson, “Rainbow bridge,” twelve partially painted and silvered glass spheres, steel, paint, 2017 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
521 West 21st St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through April 22, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-414-4144
www.tanyabonakdargallery.com
listening dimension slideshow

In describing “The listening dimension (orbit 1, orbit 2, and orbit 3),” part of Olafur Eliasson’s first solo show in New York in five years, continuing at Tanya Bonakdar through April 22, the press release explains that “the installation reinforces Eliasson’s insistence on actively engaging the viewer in the artwork.” Unfortunately, on a recent Saturday afternoon, that engagement became far too active, as a visitor to the gallery, mesmerized by the illusion created by the three-part work, poked at it, leaving a pretty serious mark that affected the power of the piece. For more than twenty years, Eliasson, who was born in Copenhagen, raised in Iceland and Denmark, and lives and works in Copenhagen and Berlin, has been creating mind-blowing works using various combinations of glass, refracted light, mirrors, and metal. “The listening dimension (orbit 1, orbit 2, and orbit 3)” consists of three large, rectangular sheets of silver Mylar from which emerge semicircles of tubes that jut out like rings around Saturn; the arcs are completed in the reflection, making them appear as full circles. Placed on three sides of the room, the work immerses the viewer into a series of repeated, neverending reflections that shimmer far off into the distance. “The listening dimension emerged against the backdrop of the 2016 US elections,” Eliasson says about the installation. “At a time when oversimplification is everywhere, I believe that art can play an important role in creating aesthetic experiences that are both open and complex. Today, in politics, we are bombarded with emotional appeals, often linked to simplistic, polarizing, populist ideas. The arts and culture, on the other hand, provide spaces in which people can disagree and still be together, where they can share individual and collective experiences that are ambiguous and negotiable. At its best, art is an exercise in democracy; it trains our critical capacities for perceiving and interpreting the world. Yet art does not tell us what to do or how to feel, but rather empowers us to find out for ourselves.” (That is true, except when it involves touching something that signs clearly say not to touch.)

Olafur Eliasson’s “The listening dimension (orbit 1, orbit 2, and orbit 3)” creates a striking illusion at Tanya Bonakdar (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eliasson also melds art and science with “Rainbow bridge,” a row of a dozen globes on stands that seem to change color as you walk past them; depending on your angle of perception, they appear as all black, all silver, all clear, or organized in the colors of the rainbow, from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to indigo to violet. The globes also function as lenses, inverting the reflection of the person on the other side, distorting reality in humorous ways. Once again, do not touch.

“Space resonates regardless of our presence” offers visitors a chance to reflect on their place in the universe (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eliasson continues his exploration of light and color, gravity and orientation, natural and technological phenomenon upstairs, where a driftwood compass called “Rouge navigator” leads you to “Midnight sun,” a slightly concave mirror behind which a monofrequency lamp casts a glow that makes it appear that the disc is surrounded by a beautiful, fiery halo. Off in a room by itself, “Colour experiment no. 78” is a grid of seventy-two circular paintings that change color when you turn a light on or off. (This is the only thing in the exhibition that you are actually supposed to touch in order to activate the experience.) The exhibition concludes with “Space resonates regardless of our presence,” a trio of ghostly wall projections made by sending pinpoints of light through a glass lens; the resultant images include multiple colors and an intensely pleasing circularity. In 2008, Eliasson dazzled New York with the wide-ranging “Take Your Time” dual exhibition at MoMA and PS1 as well as “The New York City Waterfalls,” set up along the East River. You should certainly take your time when experiencing “The listening dimension,” which offers visitors a chance to reflect on their place in the universe. Just keep your hands to yourself.

SAMARA

The Drunk (Paul Lazar) and the Messenger (Jasper Newell) take a break at a mysterious outpost in SAMARA (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Soho Rep.
The Mezzanine Theatre at the A.R.T./New York Theatres
502 West 53rd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 14, $35-$65
sohorep.org/samara

Richard Maxwell’s Samara is an eloquent and poetic existential Western that takes audiences on a soul-searching journey across a dark, mysterious frontier. Perhaps inspired by John O’Hara’s 1934 novel The Appointment in Samarra, ancient parables, and the Central Asian city of Samarkand, known as the Crossroads of Cultures, the play opened last night at Soho Rep.’s temporary home at the Mezzanine Theatre on West Fifty-Third St., where an intimate black box space has been constructed out of palettes of grayish-black plastic milk-crate-like blocks, evoking the muqarnas of Samarkand, formed into walls, benches, and the spare set itself. The show consists of sixteen short scenes totaling seventy-five minutes, with folk-country rocker Steve Earle reading the stage directions in front of a music stand off to one side; in opposite corners, Ivan Goff plays uilleann pipes and an Irish concert flute and Anna Wray contributes atmospheric percussion on a prepared piano. The play begins with the Messenger (fourteen-year-old Jasper Newell) demanding payment from the Supervisor (Roy Faudree) for work rendered; the Supervisor claims he can’t pay him and instead offers the Messenger an IOU for a larger debt that he can collect himself. With nowhere else to turn, the Messenger takes the paper and sets out on a treacherous sojourn to an outpost in the middle of nowhere, where he finds the Manan (Becca Blackwell), whose father owes the debt, and the Drunk (Big Dance Theater cofounder Paul Lazar). They don’t all get along, and soon the Manan is traveling back to Samara, encountering the sage Agnes (ninety-two-year-old Vinie Burrows) and her two sons, Cowboy (Modesto Flako Jiménez) and Beast (Matthew Korahais).

Steve Earle serves as narrator and composer of new Richard Maxwell play (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

North Dakota native Maxwell, who usually directs his own avant-garde and experimental works (which include Good Samaritans, Neutral Hero, Isolde, and the Obie-winning House), primarily with his New York City Players company, has entrusted Samara to Obie-winning director Sarah Benson, the Soho Rep. artistic director who has helmed such plays as Branden Jacobs-Jenkins An Octoroon and Sarah Kane’s Blasted. (Maxwell was last at Soho Rep. in 1999 with another Western of sorts, Cowboys and Indians, about real-life Oregon Trail historian Francis Parkman.) Just as there are no standard rules in Maxwell’s plays, there are nonstandard narrative guidelines in Samara. “Back home, we knew what the rules were. Right? It was clear,” the Messenger tells the Manan. “Oh, those were some times, weren’t they! Do you even remember? I would say those were some times, and Samara was a good place. And, who knows, maybe it will be good again.” When the Drunk talks about power, the Messenger explains, “True power? Is that what you’re asking? True power, is in the mind.” Much of Samara takes place in the mind, with a kind of Buddhist/Sufi ethos in a postapocalyptic future. The play is also about debts of all kinds, real and imagined, monetary and psychological. “Oh, I wish I knew . . . I owe something, and I have to pay it back,” says the Manan, whose monicker means “thoughtfulness” in Sanskrit. Even the name Samara evokes the Sanskrit word “samsara,” which refers to the cyclic nature of life and the world itself. Maxwell and Benson provide just the right mix of abstraction and exposition, packing a whole lot into a small amount of time, following unique characters that serve as unpredictable archetypes of the Old West, men and women who would feel at home in a Coen brothers film. Gone is the trademark stilted delivery of Maxwell’s actors in past shows, although it’s hard to call the performances naturalistic, but Maxwell still provokes the audience with his penchant for revealing the staged theatricality of his presentations.

Richard Maxwell’s SAMARA is running at Soho Rep. through May 7 (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Samara also explores such concepts as responsibility, fear of death, and karma. “Damn! After fifty years, a man has got to realize that he is living on top of a fence,” the Drunk says. “He begins by thinking he knows what it all means, and what he should do. Then, he becomes sure what it all means and what he should do, and apologizes for what he thought it meant and all the things that he did do. Later on, he puts what he should do against the things he really wants to do. And now . . . It is pure fear. Fear and sound, can’t bring them together. What’s going to happen to him? What is the fence dividing? Old and new? Pleasure and duty? Life, death? Good bad? Known unknown? . . . COME DOWN OFF THE FENCE!!” he declares. Earle, who has appeared as an actor in such popular cable series as The Wire and Treme, eventually steps out from behind the stand to deliver a strangely beautiful soliloquy. Louisa Thompson’s set is sometimes slightly rearranged, as characters move around pieces of the palettes, and Annie-B Parson’s choreography and Matt Frey’s lighting form quite a one-two punch as the end nears and your discomfort rises, even if you’re sitting on one of the cushions provided to the audience. What does it all mean? What does anything mean? Samara is another superb foray into the known and the unknown by Maxwell, who perhaps is primarily telling us all to “come down off the fence.”

[There will be three special FEED events ($10) following select shows; on April 20, Blackwell will tell stories about an out-of-work Pussy Clown and take part in a Q&A; on May 4, Jiménez will perform his poetry, Oye Para mi Querido Brooklyn (Listen for My Dear Brooklyn); and on May 5, Lazar will present Cage Shuffle, consisting of one-minute stories by John Cage, choreographed by Parsons.]

CASABLANCABOX

CASABLANCABOX takes a unique view of the making of a Hollywood favorite (photo by Benjamin Heller)

HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
Wednesday – Sunday through April 29, $30-$45
212-647-0202
www.here.org

Since 2008, creator, director, and designer Reid Farrington has been staging wildly inventive multimedia re-creations of movies using a unique combination of live action and original footage. His past presentations include The Passion Project, based on Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, Gin & “It,” which went behind the scenes of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, and A Christmas Carol, which brought together dozens of adaptations of the Charles Dickens classic. Farrington and his wife, Sara, have now turned their attention to the making of one of the greatest films in Hollywood history, Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca. In the 1942 movie, Humphrey Bogart stars as Rick Blaine, an American nightclub owner in Casablanca who encounters a former lover, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), who is in town to meet with her husband, resistance fighter Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), seeking letters of transit that would allow them to escape the Nazis. Written by Sara Farrington and directed by Reid Farrington, who also designed the sets and the video, CasablancaBox takes the audience in front of and behind the camera, as the actors portray the characters in the film as well as the actors playing that character, and the film is “made” before our eyes. Thus, Roger Casey plays Bogart and Rick, Catherine Gowl plays Bergman and Ilsa, and Matt McGloin portrays Henreid and Laszlo. The proceedings are intricately choreographed by Laura K. Nicoll (who was Joan in The Passion Project), as actors carry flat wooden scrims of varying sizes on which clips from Casablanca are projected; behind them, the actors either mouth the parts, so film dialogue is heard, or they speak the lines, with the film sound turned off. (Travis Wright is the sound engineer, while the black-and-white lighting design is by Laura Mroczkowski.) The Farringtons use backstage discussions to lead into the final dialogue, particularly when Peter Lorre (Rob Hille), who plays the sleazy Ugarte, is worried when he is given new lines (“I won’t be fired. I’m the only actor in Hollywood who can make murderers into lovable little teddy bears,” he convinces himself) and when Henreid’s real life as an escapee of the Nazis affects his performance in several takes of a critical scene.

Light and shadow play a key role in Reid and Sara Farrington’s behind-the-scenes exploration of CASABLANCA (photo by Benjamin Heller)

Meanwhile, director Curtiz (Kevin R. Free) barks orders and gets a massage, a pair of Eastern European refugees (Gabriel Diego Hernandez and McGloin) argue about being extras and playing Nazis merely as background atmosphere, Bogart’s wife, actress Mayo Methot (Erin Treadway), stalks the set, and the four screenwriters — Lenore Coffee (Lynn Guerra), Philip Epstein (Adam Patterson), Howard Koch (Kyle Stockburger), and Julius Epstein (Jon Swain) — argue over key plot points. Trying to hold it all together is Irene (Stephanie Regina), who serves as a kind of stage manager as well as the announcer. (The real stage manager, Alex B. West, deserves kudos as well.) The show also tackles censorship issues, shares an anecdote about Errol Flynn and horses, and delves into how no one knew how the film was going to end. The cast also includes Zac Hoogendyk as Claude Rains and Captain Renault, Patterson as Conrad Veidt and Major Strasser, Stockburger as Sydney Greenstreet and Signor Ferrari, Toussaint Jeanlouis as Dooley Wilson and Sam, and Hoogendyk as Bergman’s husband, Peter Lindstrom, and her lover, Roberto Rosselini. Not all of the behind-the-scenes detail is completely factual, and a few scenes grow repetitive, but the Farringtons accomplish their stated goal to “tell the beautiful, chaotic, and sometimes accidental story of a work of artistic genius.” Inspired by the cinematic style of Robert Altman and what the Farringtons refer to as “theatricalizing the camera,” CasablancaBox is also surprisingly relevant, given the current refugee crisis and the spread of hate crimes around the world. But mostly it’s a lot of fun, a creative look at an American classic.

ELIZABETH WARREN: THIS FIGHT IS OUR FIGHT (BOOK DISCUSSION)

this fight is our fight

Who: Elizabeth Warren
What: Author discussion on This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class (Metropolitan, April 18, $28)
Where: Union Square Barnes & Noble, 33 East 17th St., 212-253-0810
When: Tuesday, April 18, free, 7:00 (priority-seating wristbands given out to book purchasers starting at 9:00 am)
Why: “Washington works great for the rich and powerful who can hire armies of lawyers and lobbyists, but it is not working very well for everyone else,” Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement about her new book, This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class (Metropolitan, April 18, $28). “America’s once-solid middle class is on the ropes, and now Donald Trump and his administration seem determined to deliver the knock-out punch. At this perilous moment in our country’s history, it’s time to fight back — and I’m looking for more people to join me.” You can join the populist politician, who made headlines in February when she was silenced by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell while reading a 1986 letter about attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions written by Coretta Scott King, when she launches her latest book at the Union Square Barnes & Noble on April 18 at 7:00. Wristbands will be given out beginning at nine o’clock that morning to people who have purchased a presigned copy of the book from that store. The event will feature a discussion but not an individual signing. The outspoken Warren, who considered a presidential run in 2016 and whose name has been bandied about as a potential candidate in 2020, has written such previous books as A Fighting Chance; Prosperity, Peace, Respect: How Presidents Have Mortgaged the People’s Agenda; and God Caesar and the Freedom of Religion: Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion. At Barnes & Noble, expect to see lots of attendees proclaiming, “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

PICNIC / COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA: WILLIAM INGE IN REPERTORY

The Transport Group is presenting William Inge’s PICNIC (above) and COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA in repertory at the Gym at Judson

THE TRANSPORT GROUP
The Gym at Judson
243 Thompson St. at Washington Square South
Through April 23, $65-$75
transportgroup.org
www.judson.org

Ten years ago, the Transport Group presented a revival of William Inge’s last major play, and his most autobiographical, 1957’s The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, directed by company cofounder and artistic director Jack Cummings III. The troupe is currently revisiting two of Inge’s most popular plays, 1950’s Come Back, Little Sheba and 1953’s Picnic; the former earned the Independence, Kansas, native the title of “most promising playwright of the 1950 Broadway season,” while the latter brought him the Pulitzer Prize. The plays, both of which were turned into successful films (with nine Oscar nominations and three wins between them), are being staged in repertory at the Gym at Judson across the street from Washington Square Park, where they continue through April 23, with Cummings helming both. Come Back, Little Sheba involves a boarder shaking things up in a midwestern town; the cast consists of Hannah Elless as Marie, David Greenspan as Elmo, John Cariani as Service Men, Joseph Kolinski as Doc, Heather Mac Rae as Lola, David T. Patterson as Turk, Jennifer Piech as Mrs. Coffman, Jay Russell as Ed, and Rowan Vickers as Bruce. Picnic begins on Labor Day, when the arrival of a hunky drifter changes the dynamic in a small town; the cast features Cariani as Howard, Elless as Millie, Ginna Le Vine as Madge, Mac Rae as Mrs. Potts, Stephen Mir as Bomber, Patterson as Hal, Michele Pawk as Flo, Piech as Irma, Krystal Rowley as Christine, Emily Skinner as Rosemary, and Vickers as Alan. “Independence lies in the very heart of our country, and so maybe its people have more heart in human affairs,” Inge, who committed suicide in Hollywood in 1973 at the age of sixty, wrote. “Big people come out of small towns.”

MAURIZIO CATTELAN: “AMERICA”

Maurizio Cattelan has replaced the Guggenheim’s fifth-floor toilet with a golden throne called “America” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Friday – Wednesday (ongoing), $18-$25 (pay-what-you-wish Saturday 5:45-7:45)
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org
“america slideshow”

In November 2011, Italian artist and prankster Maurizio Cattelan held a very public execution of his career, literally hanging his works from the Guggenheim’s skylight ceiling in a unique and extremely popular retrospective, called “All,” that he said marked his retirement from the art world, at the age of fifty-one. But five years later, the provocateur who drowned Pinocchio (“Daddy Daddy”), dropped a meteor on the pope (“La Nona Hora”), made a gentle, kneeling sculpture of Adolf Hitler (“Him”), taped his gallerist to a wall (“A Perfect Day”), constructed the famous Hollywood sign on a garbage dump in Palermo (“Hollywood”), and placed a giant marble middle finger in front of the Milan stock exchange (“L.O.V.E.”) is back with his first new piece in five years, “America.” In the Guggenheim’s fifth-floor single-occupancy restroom, Cattelan has installed an exact replica of the museum’s standard toilet, cast in glittering eighteen-karat solid gold — and yes, it’s fully functional. Since September 2016, museumgoers have been waiting anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours for the privilege of going number one or number two on the majestic throne, which is obsessively cleaned every fifteen minutes. You must sit on it; the seat should not be lifted, as one unlucky male user discovered early on after breaking it. Although the piece was created before Donald Trump won the presidential election, “America” certainly references his preference for gold objects, particularly when his name is involved; Cattelan has called it “one-percent art for the ninety-nine percent.” (Death might be the great equalizer, but so is the basic human need to evacuate waste; everybody poops.) The piece is also intrinsically linked with Toilet Paper magazine, a publication run by Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari. In addition, the work is an homage to Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” the upside-down porcelain urinal, credited to “R. Mutte,” that was rejected on April 10, 1917, from a supposedly all-inclusive exhibition; the ready-made urinal, which forever changed the art world, is currently celebrating its centennial, with special events and shows being held around the world.

You can do a lot more than just touch this work of art at the Guggenheim (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“America” is also reminiscent of the scene in Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part One when a caveman (Sid Caesar) creates the first known work of art, a painting of an animal on a cave wall — and then the first critic (Andréas Voutsinas) comes along and urinates on it. Cattelan has been met with much criticism during his thirty-year career — along with, of course, high praise and works going at auction for millions of dollars — but he’s probably reveling in the thought that so many people are happily relieving themselves on his usable sculpture. In fact, people are so used to being told not to touch art that many of those on line don’t initially understand that “America” is fully participatory; it is not meant to merely be gawked at and photographed. The “Guggen-head,” as Cattelan dubbed it, has also been added to the second edition of the “All” catalog, with former Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector explaining that it offers “unprecedented access to something of unquestionable value.” To find out more about Cattelan, who loves playing games with virtually every aspect of his life and career, check out Maura Axelrod’s documentary Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back, which opened April 14 at the Quad; although it is named for Cattelan’s first major show, in which he locked the door of a gallery and put a sign on it that read “Be Right Back” (in Italian), it could also refer to his return to the art world with “America,” which is on long-term view at the Guggenheim; however, there’s been no word whether it’s a onetime thing or the beginning of a new phase of his career, and even if there was, that doesn’t mean it’s real. In the meantime, head over to the Guggenheim and make full use of “America,” coming up with whatever metaphor you’d like as you relieve yourself of at least part of your daily burden. Or just simply enjoy the rare privilege of having private time with a rather beautiful and expensive work of art.

MAURIZIO CATTELAN: BE RIGHT BACK

MAURIZIO CATTELAN: BE RIGHT BACK explores career of controversial Italian artist and provocateur

MAURIZIO CATTELAN: BE RIGHT BACK (Maura Axelrod, 2016)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, April 14
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.mauriziocattelanfilm.com

Italian artist and prankster extraordinaire Maurizio Cattelan has built his wildly successful career out of controversy, provocation, and mystery, taking on the very art world that has made him a superstar. Documentarian Maura Axelrod includes the same elements in her vastly entertaining film, Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back. The title refers to both the beginning of Cattelan’s career, a Milan solo show in which he locked the gallery door and hung a sign on it that said “Torno Subito” (Be Right Back) as well as what might or might not be the end, as he announced his retirement following the brilliant 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim, “All,” in which he hung all of his works from the Guggenheim ceiling, as if signaling their death. “His career is based on anecdotes and lies and imaginary stories,” Milan gallerist Massimo De Carlo says in the film. “Some people are suspicious that Maurizio is pulling the wool over their eyes and he is some kind of flamboyant artistic con man,” adds art historian Sarah Thornton. “I think he’s probably one of the greatest artists that we have today, but he could also be the worst. It’s gonna be one or the other; it’s not gonna fall in the middle,” cracks one of his collectors. Axelrod also speaks with former Guggenheim artistic director Nancy Spector, former Public Art Fund director Tom Eccles, Cattelan archive director Victoria Armutt, Guggenheim curator Katherine Brinson, gallerists Marian Goodman and Emmanuel Perrotin, art critics Calvin Tomkins and Dodie Kazanjian, and Cattelan’s sister, Giada, former fiancée Victoria Cabello, and current girlfriend Victoria Yee Howe. They share stories about Cattelan’s working methods and proclivities, delving into such pieces as “Daddy Daddy,” a facedown Pinocchio in a pool of water that was inspired by Cattelan’s childhood; “La Nona Ora” (The Ninth Hour), a lifelike sculpture of the pope knocked down by a meteorite; “Another Fucking Readymade,” in which he stole the inventory of another artist’s show and claimed them as his own; “Him,” a rendering of a kneeling child who turns out to be Adolf Hitler; and “L.O.V.E.” (Libertà, Odio, Vendetta, Eternità), a marble sculpture of a giant middle finger in Milan’s financial district. He even staged his own pseudo–Caribbean Biennial, featuring such artists as Wolfgang Tillmans, Elizabeth Peyton, Gabriel Orozco, Pipilotti Rist, Chris Ofili, and Mariko Mori gathered together on the island of St. Kitts. (The critics were not amused.)

“Daddy Daddy” holds one of the keys to the mystery that is Maurizio Cattelan

Meanwhile, the artist speaks profusely on camera, sharing such insights as “I knew what was expected of me and I decided I was going to be something else” and “I’ve always been very good at faking things.” Indeed, about two-thirds of the way through the film, there is a fabulous twist that only art-world insiders are likely to have guessed, as Axelrod takes a page from Orson Welles’s magical F for Fake. Writer, producer, and director Axelrod incorporates home movies, family photographs, playful animation, and new and old footage to try to figure out just what makes Cattelan tick, what he’s really like, but she lets viewers in only so far, like his tiny elevator installation in which no one can fit. Among the many words used to describe the iconoclastic artist and his oeuvre are “tasteless,” “profound,” “funny,” “tragic,” “disrespectful,” “vulnerable,” and “uncanny beauty,” as people also point out that he is anxious, very demanding to live and work with, and, while seeing art as commodity, uses the vanity of collectors against themselves. Of course, all of those are true, in one way or another. His art can be as thrilling as it is offensive, as silly as it is prescient as he explores such themes as failure, alienation, mortality, and personal identity. “You need to go pretty far, otherwise the piece doesn’t exist,” he says. “You need to push your friends and enemies and collaborators further, and you have to be uncomfortable about it. The further you go, the more satisfaction is created by the level of discomfort in which all the participants were put.” The last section of the film details “All,” which a clearly uncomfortable Spector had her doubts about but insisted that “the risk had to be real,” worrying that it would cause the Guggenheim to collapse within itself but they had to proceed. And as far as Cattelan’s retirement is concerned, this past September he installed “America” at the Guggenheim, an eighteen-karat-gold fully functional toilet, the first new piece he has exhibited since “All.” Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back opens April 14 at the newly renovated Quad Cinema, with Axelrod participating in Q&As on April 14 (with Spector and New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni) and April 15 at 7:45 and April 16 at 5:30.