this week in art

KATHERINE HUBBARD: BRING YOUR OWN LIGHTS (EXHIBIT AND PERFORMANCE)

The relationship between the body and the act of viewing is explored in interactive Kitchen installation by Katherine Hubbard (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Installation open Tuesday – Saturday through October 22, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Performances Friday, October 14 & 21, free, 7:00
212-255-5793 ext11
thekitchen.org
katherinehubbard.com

Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist Katherine Hubbard will be at the upstairs Kitchen gallery on October 14 and 21 at 7:00, engaging with her immersive, interactive installation “Bring your own lights.” The thirty-five-year-old artist, who is currently in residency at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa and Baxter St. at the Camera Club of New York, has been exploring the presence and absence, both physically and psychologically, of the body, and specifically the female body in performance, since 2009, in such exhibitions as “cyclops & slashes,” “Untitled (shaving performance),” “Small Town Sex Shop,” and “A thing and its thing-ness. It’s all just nouns and adjectives baby.” Curated by Matthew Lyons, the multipart “Bring your own lights” begins with “Fifty percent distance,” a small room with a handful of movable, low-to-the-ground birch plywood stools where visitors can sit as the lights dim almost imperceptibly over a period of six minutes, and then brighten again, setting a calm, reflective mood. In the main gallery, there are dozens more stools, collectively called “Clear to the legs. Clear for thighs. Your body matter.,” which can be placed together to form larger chairs and reclining benches where people can relax as they check out several series of photographs while experiencing the relationship of the body to the act of viewing. Paying homage to the Kitchen building’s previous existence as an ice storage facility, “Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments between zero and ninety.)” consists of ten silver gelatin prints made precisely as the parenthetical text of the title describes, resulting in intriguing abstract black-and-white images.

The seven photographs that make up “The state and the cause” were taken in the Kitchen’s main-floor black-box space, home to experimental dance, music, and theater, as spotlights shine on an empty stage devoid of performer or performance. And a trio of “Shoring and sheeting” shots reveal New York City construction sites, although it’s not clear if things are being torn down or built up. “It is the autonomous being that deflates the gaze by not acting with the intention of being gazed upon,” Hubbard wrote about her 2012 work, “floss the barbed subject,” continuing, “I recognize the physical body as the mediator between personal desires and socially constructed desires and insist on a self-defining ownership over pleasure.” The same statement can be applied to her Kitchen exhibit, which will remain on view through October 22; admission to the performances, which are first-come, first-served, and the installation are free.

RSVP ALERT: OPEN HOUSE NEW YORK WEEKEND 2016

(photo courtesy of Perkins Eastman, S9 Architecture)

Behind-the-scenes hardhat tour of the construction site of the New York Wheel is one of Open House New York events that requires advance RSVP (photo courtesy of Perkins Eastman, S9 Architecture)

Multiple venues in all five boroughs
Saturday, October 15, and Sunday, October 16
Advance reservations required for some sites begin October 6 at 11:00 am, $5 per guest
OHNY Passport: $150 (sold out)
212-991-OHNY
www.ohny.org

Reservation lines for the fourteenth annual Open House New York Weekend go live this morning at 11:00, so get ready if you want to gain access to some of New York City’s most fascinating architectural constructions, because last year 7,000 of the 8,500 available reserved tours and dialogues were booked within one hour. Among those locations requiring advance RSVP ($5 per guest, up to two per reservation) for the October 15-16 event are 101 Bicycle Infrastructure: The Intersection of Architecture, Urban Planning & Design; 111 Eighth Avenue Infrastructure Tour (the Google building); the Broadway Malls; Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine Vertical Tours; Cornell Tech + Four Freedoms Park hardhat tour; DSNY Manhattan 1/2/5 Sanitation Garage & Salt Shed; Fulton Center open dialogue; Ghosts of Penn Station open dialogue; Hallett Nature Sanctuary; the High Bridge; High Line Landscape Tour open dialogue; Jazz at Lincoln Center Renovation Tour; Maple Grove Cemetery; Masonic Hall; the Met Breur open dialogue; the New School: Site Specific Artworks; New York Photo Safari in and around Judson Memorial Church; New York University: Edward Hopper Studio; Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant; NYC Manhole Covers; 125th Street East-West Connection panel discussion; Pier 17 Hard Hat Tour open dialogue; Pier 5 Uplands at Brooklyn Bridge Park hardhat tour open dialogue; Red Hook Walking Tour; Sacred Spaces of the East Village; St. Patrick’s Cathedral open dialogue; Stonewall National Monument; Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse; Times Square Nighttime Spectaculars; United Nations; Victorian Flatbush Walking Tour; Walk the Waterline open dialogue; the Woodlawn Cemetery; and the Woolworth Building. Don’t worry if you don’t get lucky and snag one of these highly coveted reservations, which cost five dollars per guest; there’s still plenty to do and see during Open House New York Weekend, as there are nearly three hundred participating buildings, parks, museums, studios, neighborhoods, and other architectural wonders that will not require an RSVP and are free to enter and enjoy.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM FIRST SATURDAY: BEYOND BORDERS

Kathleen Foster’s PROFILED will screen at the Brooklyn Museum for free Saturday night, followed by a panel discussion

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, October 1, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum breaks out for its free October First Saturday program, “Beyond Borders.” There will be live performances by Maria Usbeck, Sol Nova, and M.A.K.U. Soundsystem; a screening of Kathleen Foster’s Profiled, followed by a talkback with Foster, Natasha Duncan, Joseph L. Graves Jr., Kristine Anderson Welch, Jill Bloomberg, and Joël Díaz; a salsa party with Balmir Latin Dance Company; pop-up gallery talks and a curator tour of the refreshed American Art galleries with Nancy Rosoff; a hands-on workshop in which participants will use the Mexican folk art technique of repujado; and a book club reading and talk by Gabby Rivera, author of Juliet Takes a Breath. In addition, you can check out such long-term installations as “Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn,” “Double Take: African Innovations,” and “The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago.” Entry to the new exhibition “Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present” requires a discounted admission fee of $10.

LUNGS HARVEST ARTS FESTIVAL

lungs-harvest-arts-festival

Multiple community gardens on the Lower East Side
Saturday, September 24, and Sunday, September 25, free
www.lungsnyc.org

More than fifty community gardens on the Lower East Side are participating in the fifth annual LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens) Harvest Festival, a weekend of free special events, including music, dance, film screenings, walking tours, workshops, art, poetry, karaoke, meditation, and more. Below are only some of the recommended events for Saturday and Sunday; there are also activities at the M’Finda Kalunga Garden, Fireman’s Garden, Liz Christy Garden, Secret Garden, El Sol Brillante, Doroty Strelsin Suffolk St. Garden, East Side Outside Garden, Umbrella House Rooftop Garden, Creative Little Garden, Lower East Side People Care Garden, Kenkeleba House Garden, Children’s Magical Garden, Green Oasis, Elizabeth St. Garden, Toyota Children’s Garden, Sam & Sadie Koenig Garden, and many others. The festival is a great way to become familiar with and support these small gems that can be found all over the Lower East Side.

Saturday, September 24

Permaculture tour with Ross Martin and Marga Snyder, La Plaza Cultural, Ave. C at Ninth St., 12 noon

Live music with Elizabeth Ruf, Ben Cauley, Avon Faire, Tammy Faye Starlight, Witch Camp with Amber Martin & Nath-Ann Carrera, Salley May, and Val Kinzler, DeColores Garden, East Eighth St. between Aves. B & C, 1:00 – 5:00

Guided meditation, with Matthew Caban and Jaquay Saintil, the Lower East Side People Care Garden, Rutgers St. between Henry and Madison Sts., 2:00

Collaborative poetry workshop with Rhoma Mostel, La Guardia Corner Gardens, Bleecker & Houston Sts., 3:00

“The Bride” performance piece by Theresa Byrnes, La Plaza Cultural, Ave. C at Ninth St., 4:00

Dance performance with Heidi Henderson and students from Connecticut College, Kizuna Dance, John Gutierrez, Sheep Meadow Dance Theater, Rina Espiritu, Lauren Kravitz, and Shantel Prado, Cornfield Dance, Rod Rodgers Teen Dancers, El Jardín del Paraíso, Fourth St. between Aves. C & D, 4:00

Dimensions of Ecology panel discussion, with Stuart Losee, Felicia Young, Anna Fitzgerald, and Chloe Rosetti, La Plaza Cultural, Ave. C at Ninth St., 5:00

Sunday, September 25

Pysanky workshop: How to Make Ukrainian Easter Eggs, with Anna Sawaryn, 6B Garden, Ave. B at Sixth St., 11:00 am – 2:00 pm

“Garbagia Island” Creatures Performance and Fashion Show, El Jardín del Paraíso, Fourth St. between Aves. C & D, 1:00

Vangeline Theater’s “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee,” contemporary Butoh dance, El Jardín del Paraíso, Fourth St. between Aves. C & D, 2:00

“Garden to Table Nutrition,” with Vanessa Berenstein, La Guardia Corner Gardens, Bleecker & Houston Sts., 3:00

Fountain installation: “Jeux d’Eaux” by Nicholas Vargelis, Le Petit Versailles, Second St. between Aves. B & C, 4:00

Laughter Yoga, with Sara Jones, La Guardia Corner Gardens, Bleecker & Houston Sts., 5:00

Photography show: George Hirose’s “Midnight in the Garden,” Campos Garden, Twelfth St. between Aves. B & C, 6:30

Dance party with Ray Santiago Band, Campos Garden, Twelfth St. between Aves. B & C, 7:30-9:30

THE LANGUAGE OF THINGS

The seven sculptures that make up Claudia Comte’s “The Italian Bunnies” are named after Italian sculptors (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

City Hall Park
Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers St.
Through September 29, free
www.publicartfund.org
www.nycgovparks.org

If you find yourself walking through City Hall Park and a woman gazes into your eyes and starts singing to you and you alone, it might not be some weirdo but actually part of the Public Art Fund group exhibition “The Language of Things.” The show was inspired by Walter Benjamin’s 1916 essay “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man,” in which the German philosopher and critical theorist explores “the difference between human language and the language of things.” He writes, “Every expression of human mental life can be understood as a kind of language, and this understanding, in the manner of a true method, everywhere raises new questions. It is possible to talk about a language of music and of sculpture, about a language of justice . . . all communication of the contents of the mind is language, communication in words being only a particular case of human language and of the justice, poetry, or whatever underlying it or founded on it.” The multiple works in this exhibition vary wildly in conception and execution, but they all communicate. The only work that features spoken human language is the above-mentioned Tino Sehgal piece “This You,” the artist’s first outdoor work, in which one of a rotating cast of women singers approach strangers and warble something meant specifically for them. Chris Watson’s four-channel “Ring Angels” is named for the suspicious concentric patterns that appeared on British radar in the 1930s, which turned out to be roosting starlings; Watson’s audio piece plays the sounds of modern-day starlings moving in close formation while referencing the arrival of starlings to America in 1890–91, when Eugene Schieffelin released first sixty and then forty starlings into Central Park in an effort to introduce to North America all the avian species mentioned in Shakespeare.

The Black Lives Matter movement brought its message to Adam Pendleton’s “Untitled (code poem)” in City Hall Park (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

In Claudia Comte’s “The Italian Bunnies,” seven marble sculptures resembling bunny ears, and named for Italian artists (Guido, Pietro, Gian Lorenzo, Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Properzia), appear to be in the midst of a silent conversation. Carol Bove’s “Lingam” refers to ancient Hindu phallic sculptures dedicated to Shiva and brings together petrified wood and steel as if they are engaged in some kind of symbolic ritual. Michael Dean’s reinforced concrete “4sho (Working Title)” developed from his own texts and typography. Don’t spend too much time trying to figure out how Hannah Weiner’s “Code Poems” work; in 1969, the poet and performance artist wrote, “i consider this code an exploration of linear communication, which has served the binary neurological function of the brain. the most useful thing for me here, in the code, is the understanding of the equivalents: one kind of signal may equally be substituted for another with the exact same meaning.” Directly influenced by Weiner’s work, Adam Pendleton’s “Untitled (code poem)” consists of eighteen concrete blocks in the shape of large-scale Morse code dots and dashes; for several days, people from the Black Lives Matter movement took over the space, using the blocks as seats as they spread their oft-misunderstood message, giving the piece an unexpected twist on the idea of communication. “The linguistic being of things is their language; this proposition, applied to man, means: the linguistic being of man is his language. Which signifies: man communicates his own mental being in his language,” Benjamin further explains. “It should not be accepted that we know of no languages other than that of man, for this is untrue.”

CROSSING THE LINE 2016

Jérôme Bel’s THE SHOW MUST GO ON will go on at the Joyce as part of FIAF’s tenth annual Crossing the Line festival

French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 22 – November 3, free – $55
212-355-6160
crossingthelinefestival.org
www.fiaf.org

We can’t help but get excited for FIAF’s annual multidisciplinary fall festival, Crossing the Line, now celebrating its tenth anniversary. Every summer, we eagerly await the advance announcement of what they’ll be presenting, then scour the lineup for the most unusual events to make sure we see them. This year is another stellar collection of cutting-edge international dance and theater, beginning September 22 and 24 with screenings of concluding episodes seven, eight, and nine of Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s epic Life and Times at Anthology Film Archives ($11), along with a Thursday night party in FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall ($10) that begins with a screening of the eighth chapter of Kristin Worrall’s rather ordinary life, with the artists themselves serving up PB&Js. The festival features a special focus on French choreographer Jérôme Bel, who will be involved in four programs, beginning October 17 (free with RSVP) with a screening of his short biographical film on Paris Opera dancer Véronique Doisneau, followed by a discussion with Bel and Ana Janevski. Bel’s award-winning The Show Must Go On will go on at the Joyce October 20-22 ($36-$46), with Bel hanging around for a Curtain Chat after the 2:00 show on October 22. Bel will present the New York premiere of his controversial eponymous 1995 signature work at the Kitchen October 27-29 ($20) while also moving over to the Museum of Modern Art October 27-31 (free with museum admission) for Artist’s Choice: MoMA Dance Company, a site-specific piece for MoMA’s Marron Atrium that will be performed by members of the MoMA staff.

Tenth annual Crossing the Line festival features special focus on breakdance world champion Anne Nguyen, including AUTARCIE (….): A SEARCH FOR SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Tenth annual Crossing the Line festival features special focus on breakdance world champion Anne Nguyen, including U.S. premiere of AUTARCIE (….): A SEARCH FOR SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Breakdance world champion Anne Nguyen is making her U.S. debut with a pair of works: the free Graphic Cyphers will take place September 23 at Roberto Clemente Plaza in the Bronx at 2:00 and in Times Square September 25 at 2:30 and 4:30, while Autarcie (….): a search for self-sufficiency has its American debut September 29 to October 1 ($20) at Gibney Dance. “I seek to reconcile the peculiarities of hip-hop with demanding theatrical performance to question the place of human beings in the modern-day world,” Nguyen says; you can hear more from her at the October 1 artist talk “Towards Cultural Equity: The Artist’s Perspective” (free with RSVP) with fellow panelists David Thomson, Mohamed El Khatib, and Rokafella, moderated by George Emilio Sanchez. The UK’s Forced Entertainment, which is “interested in confusion as well as laughter,” will likely dish out a healthy portion of both at the New York premiere of Tomorrow’s Parties in Florence Gould Hall September 28 and 30 and October 1 ($20). From September 30 to October 2 ($35-$55), Venice Biennale lifetime achievement award winner Romeo Castellucci will deliver the one-man show Julius Caesar. Spared Parts, making the most of Federal Hall’s marble columns. This past June, dancer-choreographer Maria Hassabi gave an informal preview of her latest work, Staged, on the High Line; she will now bring the final piece down to the Kitchen, below the High Line, where it will be performed by Simon Courchel, Jessie Gold, Hristoula Harakas, and Oisín Monaghan October 4-8 ($20).

Romeo Castellucci will make his New York City debut channeling Julius Caesar at Federal Hall

On October 6-8 and 13-15 ($35), drag fabulist Dickie Beau will conjure up Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, and Richard Meryman at Abrons Arts Center for Blackouts. [Ed. note: All performances of Blackouts have been canceled because of unexpected travel circumstances.] Also on October 13-15 ($20), Lora Juodkaite and Annie Hanaeur will perform the U.S. premiere of Rachid Ouramdane’s Tordre (Wrought) at Baryshnikov Arts Center; CTL veteran Ouramdane will take part in the October 15 artist talk “Towards Cultural Equity: The Institutional Perspective” (free with RSVP) with keynote speaker Patrick Weil, panelists Firoz Ladak and Zeyba Rahman, and moderator Thomas Lax. On October 25 (free with RSVP), Aaron Landsman will host Perfect City, in which a group of young people from the Lower East Side will gather at Abrons Arts Center and discuss what the future holds in store for them, particularly in their neighborhood. The festival ends on November 3 with My Barbarian’s Post-Party Dream State Caucus at the New Museum (free with RSVP), held in conjunction with the exhibition “The Audience Is Always Right.” Throughout the festival, you can check out Mathieu Bernard-Reymond’s “Transform” art exhibit in the FIAF Gallery, and Tim Etchells’s multichannel video installation “Eyes Looking” will be projected at 11:59 each night in Times Square as October’s Midnight Moment.

THE KEEPER

Ydessa Hendeles’s “Partners (The Teddy Bear Project)” dominates one floor of “Keeper” exhibit at New Museum (photo by Maris Hutchinson / EPW Studio)

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Wednesday through Sunday through September 25, $10-$16
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org

Just about everyone collects something. From baseball cards to Wedgwood, coins to stamps, rocks to dolls, and so much else, most people have something they like to stockpile, many to the point of hoarding. The New Museum explores that natural instinct in “The Keeper,” a four-floor extravaganza of unique items that continues through September 25. “‘The Keeper’ is an unusual exhibition in that it multiplies the function of the museum by presenting, within one show, an array of imaginary museums and personal collections — what one might consider to be museums of the individual. Organized as a series of case studies or portraits, ‘The Keeper’ tells the stories of various figures through the objects they chose to protect and preserve — some extraordinarily precious and others apparently trivial or valueless,” museum director Lisa Phillips writes in the catalog foreword. “‘The Keeper,’ of course, is not simply a treatise on collections or on objects and their relative value. Rather, it points beyond these objects to the acts of those who have given themselves the task of safeguarding them, tracing the passions and impulses that inspire their intrepid undertakings, subjective quests, and chronicles of experience.” Spread across three floors plus the glassed-in lobby gallery, “The Keeper” is often reminiscent of the kind of exhibits the old American Folk Art Museum used to mount, particularly Arthur Bispo do Rosário’s tapestries and constructions using cans, dolls, beaded necklaces, bicycle wheels, clothing, and other odd items, created during fifty years in a Rio psychiatric hospital, and Hilma af Klint’s occult paintings, which she did not allow to be seen in public until twenty years after her death in 1944.

Vanda Vieira-Schmidt Weltrettungsprojekt [World Rescue Project] consists of more than thirty thousand drawings (photo by Maris Hutchinson / EPW Studio)

Vanda Vieira-Schmidt’s “Weltrettungsprojekt (World Rescue Project)” consists of more than thirty thousand drawings (photo by Maris Hutchinson / EPW Studio)

Perhaps the most obsessive collection is Ydessa Hendeles’s “Partners (The Teddy Bear Project),” an enormous two-story installation of three thousand vintage family-album photographs in which children pose with a teddy bear, along with related ephemera, spiral staircases, and classic teddy bears in vitrines, a kind of museum exhibition unto itself. Tony Bingxue has preserved sixty-two photographic studio portraits of Ye Jinglu taken in 1901 and then from 1907 to 1968, which reveal a changing culture while calling into questions of authorship. After her family escaped Germany following Kristallnacht, Hannelore Baron started making assemblages using found objects and personal mementos. Novelist Vladimir Nabokov collected butterflies, discovering nearly twenty species and naming them after family members. Yuji Agematsu picks up detritus from New York City streets and displays them in clear plastic wrappers. One of the most fascinating works is Ed Atkins’s The Trick Brain, a sixteen-minute video of found footage that scans André Breton’s personal collection of rare books and tribal artifacts, made after the poet’s death. For The Last Silent Movie, former anthropologist Susan Hiller recorded dozens of endangered or extinct languages, played over a black screen that identifies in white text what language it is and translates what is being said into English. “Today you will get to know me through my tongue,” the last known speaker of K’ora says. It’s a haunting film in an exhibition that ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime while exploring the basic human need to collect, revealing that what we are collecting and preserving is, of course, ourselves, our irreproducible minds with their endless capacity for order and choice. (On Friday, September 23, at 12:30, there will be a New Perspectives tour of the exhibit, “Keeping to Change,” led by New Museum Teaching Fellow Maggie Mustard.)