twi-ny recommended events

JAMES TURRELL

James Turrell’s “Aten Reign” bathes the Guggenheim in meditative colored light display (photo by David Heald / © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Friday – Wednesday through September 25, $18-$22 (pay-what-you-wish Saturday 5:45-7:45)
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org

During the last few years, the Guggenheim has staged several exhibitions in which the bays that line the winding interior have remained empty. In 2010, Tino Sehgal had trained men and women speak with visitors making their way to the top, with no physical art present at all. In 2011, Maurizio Cattelan’s career retrospective, “All,” consisted of an amalgamation of his works hung from the ceiling like a massive mobile, with nothing in the bays. Now James Turrell has created the site-specific “Aten Reign,” a dazzling, meditative spectacle in which five rings of light that echo the museum’s shape, beginning at the oculus at the top of the rotunda, slowly change colors in mystifying and intoxicating ways. Visitors have access only to the main floor and the first section of the spiraling ramp, with special arched benches at the bottom for more comfortable viewing, but make sure to walk around, as the display, which explores light, space, and perception, seemingly shifts form ever so slightly when seen from different positions and angles, affected by the natural daylight as well. Constructed with interlocking cones and LED fixtures, “Aten Reign” is like one of Turrell’s Skyscapes (such as his open-air “Meeting” at MoMA PS1) mixed with more subdued elements of the psychedelic Joshua Light Show while incorporating the Gazfeld effect. “I really felt to be using light as a material [is] to work or affect the medium of perception,” the L.A.-born Turrell explains in a promotional video. “For me, it’s trying to orient toward what the perception really is, rather than the object of perception, to actually, sort of, remove that. I have an art that has no image. It has no object. And even very little a place of focus, or one place to look. So, without image, without object, without specific focus, what do you have left? Well, a lot of it is this idea of seeing yourself see, understanding how we perceive.” The overall individual, hallucinatory experience grows the more you immerse yourself in its splendor, allowing it to take you to other places in your mind, body, and spirit. Take your time and let it envelop you, not worrying about anything else anywhere in the world.

James Turrell, “Afrum I (White),” projected light, 1967 (photo by David Heald / © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York)

The show is supplemented with several rooms of other works, including a series of white-light pieces from the late 1960s that play with physical space and altered reality; “Prado (White)” appears to be a rectangular hole in the wall, “Afrum I (White)” looks like a floating cube, and the vertical “Ronin” has a special trick to it. Expect a ridiculously long line to see 1976’s “Iltar,” a mysterious wall piece that you’re not allowed to get too close to; don’t ask the guard what it actually is, because he’s not allowed to tell you. The Guggenheim is also screening a pair of short exhibition-related films, David Howe’s James Turrell, Second Meeting Art21 Exclusive and Peter Vogt and Erin Wright’s James Turrell’s Roden Crater, which examine other works by the artist; on September 20 they will be joined by Carine Asscher’s Passageways: James Turrell. Also on September 20, the afternoon symposium “James Turrell: Sensing Space” will feature presentations by Thomas Crow, Miwon Kwon, and Mark Taylor and a panel discussion moderated by exhibition co-curator Nat Trotman. Expect extended wait times for the last week of the much-talked-about show, which closes September 25, but it’s well worth it.

WORLD MAKER FAIRE NEW YORK 2013

Synarcade’s Lumiphonic Creature Choir performed at the 2012 Maker Faire (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th St., Flushing Meadows Corona Park
September 21-22, $15-$30 per day, weekend pass $25-$55
718-699-0005
www.makerfaire.com
2012 maker faire slideshow

Maker Faire returns to the New York Hall of Science this year, two days of special programs and displays showing off the latest in cutting-edge technology, letting visitors geek out to their heart’s content. The 2013 edition once again features such favorite attractions as the Coke Zero and Mentos fountain explosions, the Life-Size Mousetrap, the Power Racing Series, and Circus Warehouse. The discussions, presentations, demonstrations, and live performances include Rick Schertie and Keith Violette’s “The Air Rocket Glider,” Carla Diana’s “Designing Friendly Robots: Looks Do Matter!,” Ericka Basile’s “Post-Crowdfunding Condundrum: Where Do We Go from Here?,” AnnMarie Thomas’s “Children as Makers, Makers as Children,” Dr. Seth Adventure’s “The New Flesh Worskhop: DIY Super-Humans,” Benedetta Piantella’s “Solving World Challenges Through Making — the Hard Truths,” Sam Ortega’s “NASA: Challenging America to Invent,” Arlene Ducao’s “MindRider and the Maker’s Brain,” and Mark Hatch’s “The Maker Movement Manifesto.” Both inside and outside, you’ll find amazing toys, 3-D printers, games, robotics, clothing, food, tools, jewelry, environmentally friendly planting methods, interactive activities, and even a device to keep you from biting your tongue while you sleep. You really don’t have to be a techno-nut to have a great time — and learn a whole lot — at this crazy-fun event.

MARCO BENEVENTO PRESENTS: A CIRCUIT BENT PIANO ROCK PICTURE SHOW IN EXPLODING COLOR

Marco Benevento will combine music and images at special presentation at the Winter Garden

Brookfield Place Winter Garden
200 Vesey St.
Thursday, September 19, free, 8:00
212-945-0505
www.brookfieldplaceny.com
www.marcobenevento.com

Pianist Marco Benevento, who has melded jazz, pop, and indie on such records as Between the Needles & Nightfall, Me Not Me, and his latest, the just-released TigerFace, will be at the Brookfield Plaza Winter Garden on September 19 for the special free presentation “A Circuit Bent Piano Rock Picture Show in Exploding Color.” Benevento will be joined by bassist Dave Dreiwitz (Ween), drummer Andy Borger (Norah Jones, Ani DiFranco), and video artist Jay Cooper, playing original songs to projections that will include new images as well as their previous videos. Benevento is entering another phase of his career, reaching the point where he can do exactly what he wants. “It’s nice to try to create with people who are in the same boat as me – they’re kind of doing well, but they’re also kind of trapped in this vague cloud of ‘what kind of music are you?’” he explained in a statement. Formerly known as the World Financial Center, Brookfield Plaza has been home to numerous productions that have combined live music with projected images, from DJ Spooky’s “Rebirth of a Nation” to the Alloy Orchestra performing to Buster Keaton shorts, so this evening should add to that welcome tradition.

TWI-NY TALK: MEGAN V. SPRENGER

Megan Sprenger will premiere her latest evening-length piece, FLUTTER, this week at the Chocolate Factory (photo by Tei Blow)

The Chocolate Factory
5-49 49th Ave., Long Island City
September 18-21, $15, 8:00
718-482-7069
www.chocolatefactorytheater.org
www.mvworks.org

Since 2005, dancer and choreographer Megan V. Sprenger and her MVworks company have been exploring the relationship between audience and performer, individuality and personal identity, and the making of connections in today’s world, drawing on inspiration from such visual artists as Gregory Crewdson and Jacob Landau and such mathematicians as Blaise Pascal and Fibonacci. In her first evening-length piece, 2007’s quietly affecting No where, Sprenger incorporated Pascal’s triangle both thematically and structurally, built around three woman dancers moving within a confined space. Two years later, Sprenger went in a different direction with the immersive, explosive . . . within us., in which four dancers interacted with the audience members first by speaking with them, then charging around them in a flurry of energy. Sprenger, who has also choreographed and performed such solo pieces as One-Shot, While Waiting, and Direction Lost, will be holding the world premiere of her third evening-length piece, Flutter, this week at the Chocolate Factory in Long Island City, examining abstract and non-narrative methods of storytelling through movement and sound. Between preparing for that and working in public relations, the always amiable and charming Sprenger took time out to discuss her creative process and more with twi-ny.

twi-ny: For Flutter, you developed movements that were very particular to the unique personalities of each of the four performers. You’ve worked with Tara O’Con since 2007, while Donna Cicchesi, Michael Ingle, and Anna Adams Stark are new to MVworks. What was that process like, especially because you are much more familiar with one of the dancers than the others?

Megan V. Sprenger: One of the most fascinating and rewarding aspects of making this work has been getting to know all of the dancers better. Regardless of how long I’ve known or worked with each of them, the process of making their “mini movement biographies” was the same. Each of the dancers was asked to improvise for a set amount of time that varied slightly per rehearsal. This process resulted in hours of footage that I culled down into four-to-five-minute solos that became the base for the work.

twi-ny: In most of your pieces, including Flutter, the dancers perform to silence or to avant-garde soundscapes, never to more traditional songs or music. Is that something you consciously set out to do with each new dance? How would you describe the role of music/sound in your creative process?

Megan V. Sprenger: Working with original sound is a critical part of my process. Jason Sebastian and I have worked together since 2007, and with each process we begin by discussing the inspiration and tone of the work and then decide what we think might be the best general direction for the composition. It’s true that both No where and …within us. utilized more of an environmental soundscape; however, for this work we decided that we wanted something more melodic and the result is a composition that is much more instrumental than what you might expect.

MVworks rehearses FLUTTER this past June

twi-ny: For many years you worked in the marketing department of Dance Theater Workshop and then New York Live Arts, specifically promoting dance. You’re now at a company that handles much more than just dance. What has that experience been like?

Megan V. Sprenger: What I love most about working at Polskin Arts & Communications Counselors is how much I am learning about other artistic fields such as music, visual art, and architecture. It has been extremely rewarding to see how what I know about dance is transferable and at the same time to be learning more about other genres.

twi-ny: In 2006, 2008, and 2010 you performed solo pieces, and in 2011 you participated in Bill T. Jones’s Continuous Replay at New York Live Arts. Are you getting the urge to get back on stage yourself? Might you be working on something you will perform in?

Megan V. Sprenger: I haven’t decided what will be next for me artistically. Making work for yourself can be a tricky business, though I love performing and I do miss it. Who knows, a short solo for myself isn’t out of the question.

twi-ny: You’ve now been involved in the New York City dance world for ten years. What are some of the most important changes you’ve noticed over the last decade? One thing that strikes me is how the internet has come into play; for example, people can go to your website and follow the progress of Flutter, as you’ve posted videos of a number of rehearsals going back nearly a year.

Megan V. Sprenger: Over the past ten years the internet has definitely played an increased role in the dance industry. In particular, crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and RocketHub and video sharing websites like Vimeo and YouTube have changed the way dances are made, promoted, and shared. I would also add that popular culture interest in dance through television shows like So You Think You Can Dance have significantly shifted how dance is viewed and appreciated across the country.

twi-ny: In your free time, if you have any, do you try to keep up with what’s going on in the dance world, or do you prefer to see other types of art and live performance?

Megan V. Sprenger: I try to see as many dance performances as possible. That’s honestly one of the things I miss most about working at New York Live Arts, where I was constantly exposed to new work and artistic voices.

twi-ny: Are there any companies that you consider a must-see?

Megan V. Sprenger: Must-sees? That’s a really hard question. I suppose I would just encourage people to try something new. I vary rarely regret going to a show that I know very little about or created by an artist I am not familiar with.

THE MACHINE

THE MACHINE depicts the epic battle between grandmaster Garry Kasparov and IBM computer Deep Blue (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Through September 18, $45-$90
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org
www.donmarwarehouse.com

In The Machine, playwright Matt Charman and director Josie Rourke turn the 1997 chess match between grandmaster Garry Kasparov and IBM’s Deep Blue computer into a lively, riveting, edge-of-your-seat multimedia sports event. With the audience sitting on raised bleachers on all four sides of the stage in the Park Avenue Armory’s massive Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Kasparov (Hadley Fraser) battles Deep Blue, operated by its cocreator Dr. Feng-Hsiung Hsu (Kenneth Lee). As the hard-fought six-game match continues, flashbacks reveal critical moments in the main competitors’ lives. Kasparov, who lost his father at a young age, is still a child when he takes on grandmaster Anatoly Karpov (Cornelius Booth), his mother (Francesca Annis) determined to have him be accepted to Karpov’s famous school. Hsu, at Carnegie Mellon, teams up with fellow student Murray Campbell (Trevor White) to attempt to improve a chess computer built by their professor, Dr. Hans Berliner (John Ramm), while struggling to commit to his cheerleader girlfriend, Tamsin (Antonia Bernath). During the match itself, cameras move around Lucy Osborne’s inventive set, projecting images onto an overhead Jumbotron while a pair of announcers detail the action. Two of the most thrilling moments occur when at first chessboards, then computers are pushed around the square stage along lighted tracks, beautifully choreographed scenes (by Jonathan Watkins) that continue the theme of man vs. machine, equating the two fields. Fraser plays Kasparov with a nervous energy that highlights his growing fear and worry as the games go on, while Lee’s Hsu is jumpy and awkward as he gives up any chance of a personal life in order to invent the best. During the course of the show, Kasparov is alternately referred to as both “too human” and a “monster,” while he accuses the IBM team of cheating because Deep Blue made what he believes to clearly be human moves in the second game, as this engaging Donmar Warehouse production once again focusing on the similarities between the machine that is man and the machine that is built by man. Be sure to arrive early, as there are many chess sets at the armory where visitors are encouraged to sit down and play.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF ORDER: THE ICP TRIENNIAL

Gideon Mendel, “Shopkeeper Suparat Taddee, Chumchon Ruamjai Community, Bangkok, Thailand,” chromogenic print, November 2011 (photo courtesy the artist)

International Center of Photography
1133 Sixth Ave. at 43rd St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 22, $10-$14 (pay what you wish Fridays 5:00 – 8:00)
www.icp.org

For the International Center of Photography’s fourth triennial, curators Kristen Lubben, Christopher Phillips, Carol Squiers, and Joanna Lehan have organized “A Different Kind of Order,” a powerful survey of sociopolitical and environmentally conscious work from around the world with a focus on digital technology and manipulation and the widespread reuse of internet images. In “Touch Parade,” A. K. Burns re-creates five odd fetish videos she found on YouTube. Mishka Henner’s “Dutch Landscapes” series at first appear to be aerial shots of the countryside overlaid with abstract splotches but turn out to be actual Google images that the Dutch government has censored. Thomas Hirschhorn’s “Touching Reality” video depicts a hand scrolling through photos of victims of war, from bloody corpses to bodies missing limbs, occasionally stopping to pinch the shot into close-up, not usually the kind of images people look at on their phones. Gideon Mendel’s “Drowning World” photos and video (in the gallery as well as in a window display) show people in communities that have been devastated by massive flooding, as men, women, and children, each of whom she specifically identifies, wade through environmental calamities in England, India, Nigeria, Thailand, and other locations.

Mishka Henner, “Unknown Site, Noordwijk aan Zee, South Holland,” from the series “Dutch Landscapes,” archival inkjet print, 2011 (photo courtesy the artist)

For his “Blow Up” project, Rabih Mroué narrates frightening scenes of Syrians risking their lives taking camera-phone pictures of the military firing on its citizens, and them, found images that might or might not be real. Mikhael Subotzky captures contemporary Johannesburg in a trio of lightboxes (“Windows,” “Doors,” “Televisions”) that examines the psyche of the city that reveal what is going on in each room of the fifty-four-floor Ponte City building, which Subotzky and collaborator Patrick Waterhouse explain “has always been a place of myth, illusion, and aspiration. Sohei Nishino creates maps of New York and Jerusalem by combining thousands of photographs he takes while making his way through those cities. Meanwhile, Lucas Foglia’s photographs of people living off the land harken back to a time pre-internet. The exhibition also includes intriguing works by Luis Molina-Pantin, Andrea Longacre-White, Oliver Laric, Elliott Hundley, Jim Goldberg, Wangechi Mutu, Trevor Paglen, Walid Raad, and others that explore the nature of images — both how they are made and how they are viewed — in a technology-obsessed world.

ART SEEN / LOCAL COLOR: CUTIE AND THE BOXER

Documentary tells the engaging story of a pair of Japanese artists and the life they have made for themselves in Brooklyn

CUTIE AND THE BOXER (Zachary Heinzerling, 2013)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Thursday, September 19, 7:30
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
www.facebook.com/cutieandtheboxer

Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer is a beautifully told story of love and art and the many sacrifices one must make to try to succeed in both. In 1969, controversial Japanese Neo Dada action painter and sculptor Ushio Shinohara came to New York City, looking to expand his career. According to the catalog for the recent MoMA show “Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde,” which featured four works by Ushio, “American art had seemed to him to be ‘marching toward the glorious prairie of the rainbow and oasis of the future, carrying all the world’s expectations of modern painting.’” Four years later, he met nineteen-year-old Noriko, who had left Japan to become an artist in New York as well. The two fell in love and have been together ever since, immersed in a fascinating relationship that Heinzerling explores over a five-year period in his splendid feature-length theatrical debut. Ushio and Noriko live in a cramped apartment and studio in DUMBO, where he puts on boxing gloves, dips them in paint, and pounds away at large, rectangular canvases and builds oversized motorcycle sculptures out of found materials. Meanwhile, Noriko, who has spent most of the last forty years taking care of her often childlike husband and staying with him through some rowdy times and battles with the bottle, is finally creating her own work, an R. Crumb-like series of drawings detailing the life of her alter ego, Cutie, and her often cruel husband, Bullie. (“Ushi” means “bull” in Japanese.) While Ushio is more forthcoming verbally in the film, mugging for the camera and speaking his mind, the pig-tailed Noriko is far more tentative, so director and cinematographer Heinzerling brings her tale to life by animating her work, her characters jumping off the page to show Cutie’s constant frustration with Bullie.

Ushio Shinohara creates one of his action paintings in CUTIE AND THE BOXER

During the course of the too-short eighty-two-minute film — it would have been great to spend even more time with these unique and compelling figures — the audience is introduced to the couple’s forty-year-old son, who has some issues of his own; Guggenheim senior curator of Asian Art Alexandra Munroe, who stops by the studio to consider purchasing one of Ushio’s boxing paintings for the museum; and Chelsea gallery owner Ethan Cohen, who represents Ushio. But things never quite take off for Ushio, who seems to always be right on the cusp of making it. Instead, the couple struggles to pay their rent. One of the funniest, yet somehow tragic, scenes in the film involves Ushio packing up some of his sculptures — forcing them into a suitcase like clothing — and heading back to Japan to try to sell some pieces. Cutie and the Boxer is a special documentary that gets to the heart of the creative process as it applies both to art and love, focusing on two disparate people who have made a strange yet thoroughly charming life for themselves. Cutie and the Boxer is screening September 19 at 7:30 as part of two Nitehawk Cinema monthly series, “Art Seen” and “Local Color,” and will be followed by a Q&A with the director. “Art Seen” continues September 21-22 with Chris Marker’s La Jetée and Ben Rivers’s Slow Action, while “Local Color” returns October 30 with Amy Nicholson’s Zipper.