twi-ny recommended events

BUST MAGAZINE CRAFTACULAR AND FOOD FAIR / DEGENERATE CRAFT FAIR

BUST magazine busts into the Metropolitan Pavilion for Craftacular Fair this weekend

It’s two weeks before Christmas, and the holiday market season is kicking into high gear. There are more markets than ever, from Grand Central Terminal, Union Square Park, and Columbus Circle to Bryant Park, the LIC Flea, and Astoria Market. A pair of unique indoor markets pull into town this weekend, open only Saturday and Sunday. The eighth annual Bust Magazine Holiday Craftacular & Food Fair will take place at the Metropolitan Pavilion on December 14-15, featuring nearly two hundred and fifty vendors in addition to workshops and tutorials (led by S.W. Basics, Textile Arts Center, paper artist Julie Schneider, wedding designer Michelle Edgemont, and others), adoptable pets, and music by DJs Ali Gruber and a Good LHOOQ. Admission is three bucks, and the first three hundred attendees each day will receive a special tote bag filled with cool stuff. Among the vendors are Natural Adornment, Belindabilly, Vintage Robot, Eavesmade, Queen Bee Fibers, and wantnot, along with such eateries as i heart keenwah, Two Boots Pizza, FattyCakes NY, MitchMallows, Better Off Spread, and Vegan Wain Bakery. Things are a whole lot more DIY at the fifth annual Degenerate Craft Fair, being held in the DCTV Firehouse on Lafayette St. More than fifty vendors will be selling items mostly under fifty dollars, including 100cameras, Au Retour, Broderpress, Carrier Pigeon, Cigar Box Guitars, Hi Rise Hive, Instant Rabbit, nico icon, and Three-armed Squid. There will be an opening reception December 14 from 6:00 to 8:00 with music and free beer, while the first fifty guests on December 15 (the fair opens at 11:00 am) get a free tote of stuff.

LIV AND INGMAR — THE FILMS: SHAME

Eva (Liv Ullmann) and Jan (Max von Sydow) struggle to preserve their love during a brutal civil war in Ingmar Bergman’s SHAME

SHAME (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
Francesca Beale Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Saturday, December 14, 8:45, and Wednesday, December 18, 6:45
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

Ingmar Bergman’s Shame is a brilliant examination of the physical and psychological impact of war, as seen through the eyes of a happily married couple who innocently get caught in the middle of the brutality. Jan (Max von Sydow) and Eva Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann) have isolated themselves from society, living without a television and with a broken radio, maintaining a modest farm on a relatively desolate island a ferry ride from the mainland. As the film opens, they are shown to be a somewhat ordinary husband and wife, brushing their teeth, making coffee, and discussing having a child. But soon they are thrust into a horrific battle between two unnamed sides, fighting for reasons that are never given. As Jan and Eva struggle to survive, they are forced to make decisions that threaten to destroy everything they have built together. Shot in stark black-and-white by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Shame is a powerful, emotional antiwar statement that makes its point through intense visual scenes rather than narrative rhetoric. Jan and Eva huddle in corners or nearly get lost in crowds, then are seen traversing a smoky, postapocalyptic landscape riddled with dead bodies. Made during the Vietnam War, Shame is Bergman’s most violent, action-filled film; bullets can be heard over the opening credits, announcing from the very beginning that this is going to be something different from a director best known for searing personal dramas. However, at its core, Shame is just that, a gripping, intense tale of a man and a woman who try to preserve their love in impossible times. Ullmann and von Sydow both give superb, complex performances, creating believable characters who will break your heart. Shame is screening December 14 and 18 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Liv & Ingmar: The Films,” being held in conjunction with the theatrical release of Dheeraj Akolkar’s poetic new documentary, Liv & Ingmar; the festival continues with such other Ullmann/Bergman pairings as Scenes from a Marriage, Saraband, The Passion of Anna, and Persona.

LIV & INGMAR: PAINFULLY CONNECTED

Liv Ullmann discusses her long personal and professional relationship with Ingmar Bergman in intimate documentary

LIV AND INGMAR: PAINFULLY CONNECTED (Dheerai Alkolkar, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
December 13-19
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.livandingmar.com

Two-time Oscar-nominated Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann intimately and poetically discusses her five-decade-long personal and professional relationship with Swedish director Ingmar Bergman in Dheerai Alkolkar’s beautifully rendered Liv & Ingmar. Ullmann returns to Bergman’s house on Faro Island as she openly and honestly shares details of their long involvement, which began in 1965 when they were filming Persona; Ullmann was twenty-five, Bergman forty-six. Each was married and ended up leaving their spouse for what became a tumultuous five-year affair, after which they remained friends and colleagues, ultimately making twelve films together between 1966 and 2004. Alkolkar and cinematographer Hallvard Bræin zoom in on Ullmann’s expressive face as her memories go from love, loneliness, rage, and pain to longing and friendship. Alkolkar intersperses related film clips, behind-the-scenes footage, home movies, and snapshots as Ullmann walks along the beach and reads from her 1977 memoir, Changing; the film also features Samuel Fröler in voice-over reading from Bergman’s letters and autobiography, The Magic Lantern. Among the works featured prominently are Shame and Scenes from a Marriage, which eerily evoke Ullmann and Bergman’s real-life relationship. Liv & Ullmann serves as a lovely coda to this lasting partnership, which continues in its own unique way even after Bergman’s death in 2007 at the age of eighty-nine. In conjunction with the theatrical release of the film at Lincoln Center, the Film Society will also be screening nine works starring Ullmann and directed by Bergman: Shame, The Passion of Anna, Cries and Whispers, Face to Face, Scenes from a Marriage, Saraband, Hour of the Wolf, Persona, and Autumn Sonata.

LIV & INGMAR — THE FILMS: HOUR OF THE WOLF

Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman alter ego Max von Sydow pull up to shore in HOUR OF THE WOLF

HOUR OF THE WOLF (VARGTIMMEN) (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
Francesca Beale Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Saturday, December 14, 6:45, and Thursday, December 19, 9:15
Festival runs December 13-19
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

One of Ingmar Bergman’s most critically polarizing films — the director himself wrote, “No, I made it the wrong way” three years after its release — Hour of the Wolf is a gripping examination of an artist’s psychological deterioration. Bergman frames the story as if it’s a true tale being told by Alma Borg (Liv Ullmann) based on her husband Johan’s (Max von Sydow) diary, which she has given to the director. In fact, as this information is being shown in words onscreen right after the opening credits, the sound of a film shoot being set up can be heard behind the blackness; thus, from the very start, Bergman is letting viewers know that everything they are about to see might or might not be happening, blurring the lines between fact and fiction in the film itself as well as the story being told within. And what a story it is, a gothic horror tale about an artist facing both a personal and professional crisis, echoing the life of Bergman himself. Johan and Alma, who is pregnant (Ullmann was carrying Bergman’s child at the time), have gone to a remote island where he can pursue his painting in peace and isolation. But soon Johan is fighting with a boy on the rocks, Alma is getting a dire warning from an old woman telling her to read Johan’s diary, and the husband and wife spend some bizarre time at a party in a castle, where a man walks on the ceiling, a dead woman arises, and other odd goings-on occur involving people who might be ghosts. Bergman keeps the protagonists and the audience guessing as to what’s actually happening throughout: The events could be taking place in one of the character’s imaginations or dreams (or nightmares), they could be flashbacks, or they could be part of the diary come to life. Whatever it is, it is very dark, shot in an eerie black-and-white by Sven Nykvist, part of a trilogy of grim 1968-69 films by Bergman featuring von Sydow and Ullmann that also includes Shame and The Passion of Anna. Today, Hour of the Wolf feels like a combination of Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with elements of Mozart’s The Magic Flute — which Bergman would actually adapt for the screen in 1975 and features in a key, extremely strange scene in Hour of the Wolf. But in Bergman’s case, all work and no play does not make him a dull boy at all. Hour of the Wolf is screening December 14 and 19 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Liv & Ingmar: The Films,” being held in conjunction with the theatrical release of Dheeraj Akolkar’s poetic new documentary, Liv & Ingmar; the festival continues with such other Ullmann/Bergman pairings as Autumn Sonata, Shame, Persona, and Cries and Whispers.

THE DISCREET CHARM OF GEORGE CUKOR: THE WOMEN

Mrs. Stephen Haines (Norma Shearer) learns the awful truth in George Cukor’s THE WOMEN

Mrs. Stephen Haines (Norma Shearer) discovers some awful truths in George Cukor’s THE WOMEN

THE WOMEN (George Cukor, 1939)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
144/165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Friday, December 13, Francesca Beale Theater, 1:15, 6:30
Saturday, December 14, Walter Reade Theater, 4:30
Series runs December 6-8
212-875-5050 / 212-875-5166
www.filmlinc.com

One of the cattiest movies ever made, The Women is a screwball comedy that has the distinction of not having a single man in it; it was written by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin, based on Clare Booth’s 1936 Broadway play, and helmed by George Cukor, who is often considered “the women’s director.” (Even the animals in the film are female.) Set in Manhattan, the film follows the intrigue and gossip surrounding a group of socialite women who yap yap yap all day long while shopping in ritzy stores, eating in fancy restaurants, and getting their nails done in high-end salons. Their attention is suddenly turned to the sweetly innocent Mary Haines (Norma Shearer) when it is believed that her husband, Stephen, is having an affair with conniving perfume salesperson Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford). Mary’s supposed best friends, Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell), Edith Potter (Phyllis Povah), and Peggy Day (Joan Fontaine), at first keep the story from her, but as the facts continue to pile up, Mary considers heading to Reno to get a quickie divorce, even as her mother (Lucile Watson) tells her to just live with the deception, as most women do. In Reno, Mary stays at a ranch with other wives trying to get out of their marriages, including a boisterous, oft-wed countess (Mary Boland), a tough-talking chorus girl (Paulette Goddard), and a few surprises. As the women discuss life and love, wealth and poverty, heartache and motherhood — Mary is desperate to protect her daughter, also named Mary (Virginia Weidler), from the nasty proceedings — relationships twist and turn, loyalty is questioned, and the possibility of true love is clouded in doubt.

An all-star cast discuss what went wrong with their marriages in THE WOMEN

The Women is a riotous, fast-paced romp that flies by despite clocking in at more than two hours. The opening title sequence sets the stage, with each of the main characters represented by a different animal: deer (Mary), leopard (Crystal), black cat (Sylvia), monkey (the countess), hyena (Miriam), sheep (Peggy), owl (Mary’s mother), cow (Edith), doe (Mary’s daughter), and horse (Lucy). The narrative mixes slapstick humor and tender moments with scenes of backstabbing bravado. Dennie Moore nearly steals the show as fabulously gossipy manicurist Olga, who unwittingly sets the main plot in motion and is responsible for painting many of the characters’ nails in the critical color Jungle Red. (Among the other highlights are an exercise class at the spa and the maid spying on a heated argument between Mary and Stephen.) The cast also features Hedda Hopper as gossip columnist Dolly Dupuyster, Butterfly McQueen as Crystal’s assistant, Lulu, and Marjorie Main as Lucy, who runs the Reno divorce ranch. Although the film was primarily shot in black-and-white, it has an oddball Adrian fashion show in Technicolor that feels out of place, and some of the ideas regarding a woman’s freedom versus her dependence on men don’t quite hold up, but The Women is still one of the greatest Hollywood pictures ever told from the perspective of the fairer sex. Amazingly, Cukor’s film did not receive a single Oscar nomination, having come out the same year as Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Gone with the Wind, Ninotchka, Love Affair, Dark Victory, The Wizard of Oz, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips. On December 13 & 14, The Women will kick off the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “The Discreet Charm of George Cukor,” which runs through January 7 and includes all fifty of the Lower East Side native’s films, from Grumpy and The Virtuous Sin to The Corn Is Green and Rich and Famous; in between are such unforgettable classics as Adam’s Rib, The Philadelphia Story, Holiday, Born Yesterday, Dinner at Eight, My Fair Lady, Little Women, A Star Is Born, and many others.

AD REINHARDT / DONALD JUDD

David Zwirner exhibit features thirteen of Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings

AD REINHARDT
David Zwirner
537 West 20th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday- Saturday through December 18, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.davidzwirner.com

DONALD JUDD: STACKS
Mnuchin Gallery
45 East 78th St.
Tuesday- Saturday through December 14, free, 10:00 am – 5:30 pm
www.mnuchingallery.com

Two of the most important and influential abstract artists of the twentieth century currently have revelatory gallery shows in New York that focus on very specific aspects of their careers. Both men were fairly or unfairly associated with Minimalism, both were key posthumous inclusions in Gagosian’s 2005 group show “Imageless Icons: Abstract Thoughts,” and both handled shape, form, color, and texture in masterful, revolutionary ways. Donald Judd and Ad Reinhardt were contemporaries who defied convention and died relatively young, Reinhardt at fifty-three in 1967, Judd at sixty-five in 1994. At David Zwirner’s Twentieth St. space, thirteen of Reinhardt’s extraordinary black paintings have been brought together, the most since a 1991 retrospective at MoMA. The exhibit, being held in honor of the centennial of the Buffalo-born artist’s birth, is designed to adhere as close as possible to Reinhardt’s exacting specifications regarding such elements as light, placement, and access. At quick glance, of course, the paintings appear to be all-black squares, but upon closer examination it becomes apparent that each one is very different, containing shades of blue, red, and green, composed in cruciform configurations that emerge into smaller squares and rectangles that Reinhardt painted while the canvas lay flat on a table in his studio. The colors and shapes move in and out of focus as one’s gaze continues, every moment morphing into a new joy. It’s a whirlwind display, thrilling and alive, as if each canvas is a living, breathing object. Here’s how Reinhardt described the black paintings: “A square (neutral, shapeless) canvas, five feet wide, five feet high, as high as a man, as wide as a man’s outstretched arms (not large, not small, sizeless), trisected (no composition), one horizontal form negating one vertical form (formless, no top, no bottom, directionless), three (more or less) dark (lightless) no-contrasting (colourless) colours, brushwork brushed out to remove brushwork, a matte, flat, freedhand painted surface (glossless, textureless, non-linear, no hard edge, no soft edge) which does not reflect its surroundings — a pure, abstract, non-objective, timeless, spaceless, changeless relationless, disinterested painting — an object that is self-conscious (no unconsciousness) ideal, transcendent, aware of no thing but art (absolutely no anti-art).” The stellar exhibit also includes a slide show of hundreds of architectural photographs Reinhardt took over the years, as well as dozens of his playful cartoons, from hysterical takes on Hitler to his “How to Look” series.

(photo by om Powel Imaging, Inc. / all artword © Judd Foundation. Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY)

Meanwhile, uptown at Mnuchin, “Stacks” is the first show to concentrate solely on Judd’s signature oeuvre. Spread across several rooms on two floors, the exhibit features eleven stacks from 1968 to 1990, ten of which consist of ten units of equal size and color, constructed of stainless steel, anodized aluminum, galvanized iron, or copper, most often with colored Plexiglas, the units stacked one above the other from floor to ceiling, the space between as important as the physical objects themselves. The light casts intriguing shadows that extend the works, which are composed in blue, amber, yellow, violet, green, white, or black. Just as Reinhardt spoke of brushwork removing brushwork, the Missouri-born Judd said of his stacks, “Well, I am not interested in the kind of expression that you have when you paint a painting with brush strokes. It’s all right, but it’s already done and I want to do something new. I didn’t want to get into something which is played out and narrow. I want to do as I like, invent my own interests. Of course, that doesn’t mean that people who, like Newman, still paint are worn out. But I think that’s a particular kind of experience involving a certain immediacy between you and the canvass, you and the particular kind of experience of that particular moment. I think what I’m trying to deal with is something more long range than that in a way, more obscure perhaps, more involved with things that happen over a longer time perhaps. At least it’s another area of experience.” As with Reinhardt’s black paintings, Judd’s stacks are also deserving of lengthy views to absorb their full impact as they interact with the light, especially in an upstairs room with windows. The Judd show is being held in conjunction with the opening of Judd’s house at 101 Spring St. to the public. Among the works owned by the Judd Foundation and on view in the house is Reinhardt’s “Red Painting.”

LIGHTNESS OF BEING

“Lightness of Being” offers fun in City Hall Park through December 13 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

City Hall Park
Through December 13, free
www.publicartfund.org
lightness of being slideshow

There’s nothing unbearable about the Public Art Fund’s “Lightness of Being,” an airy, playful look at the lighter side of life through shape, form, and color. Continuing in City Hall Park through December 13, the exhibit, curated by Nicholas Baume and Andria Hickey, features an all-star lineup of established and emerging artists having fun with steel, bronze, marble, aluminum, concrete, and other materials. James Angus’s red-and-green “John Deere Model D” tractor lies sideways on the grass, looking like it’s been stretched out in Photoshop. Olaf Breuning’s “The Humans” is a ritualistic circle of white comic-book-like creatures, while Gary Webb’s “Buzzing It Down” is a childlike four-part totem. Be sure to get up close to check out the detail on Evan Holloway’s “Willendorf Wheel.” Stand on the platform in Daniel Buren’s “Suncatcher” to see how the circuslike top transforms the light shining through it and right onto your body. Don’t trip over David Shrigley’s “Metal Flip Flops,” which look more out of place than ever now that the cold weather is here. No, that bicycle is not twisted into a circle as the result of a bad accident but instead is Alicja Kwade’s “Journey without Arrival (Raleigh).” Franz West’s untitled pastel pieces form a set of exclamation points on his career, as these were finished after his death last year. Grab a seat on Sarah Lucas’s cast concrete vegetable benches named “Florian and Kevin.” Cristian Andersen’s “Inverse Reverse Obverse” totem melds cubism with surrealism. And you don’t need to be scared of that clown sitting on the bench; it’s actually Ugo Rondinone and Victoria Bartlett’s “Dog Days Are Over,” a performance piece that takes place Fridays from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.