this week in art

HOCKNEY

Documentary celebrates the life and career of British artist David Hockney

HOCKNEY (Randall Wright, 2015)
Metrograph, 7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts., 212-660-0312
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Francesca Beale Theater, Walter Reade Theater,
West 65th St. between Amsterdam Ave. & Broadway
Opens Friday, April 22
hockneyfilm.tumblr.com

“Why are you popular?” artist David Hockney is asked in an old interview in the 2014 documentary Hockney. “I’m not that sure,” the painter and photographer answers with a laugh. “I’m interested in ways of looking, because people will respond. Everybody does look; it’s just a question of how hard.” Award-winning director Randall Wright, who in 2002 made David Hockney: Secret Knowledge, examining the artist’s theories about the use of cameras and photographic-like visualization techniques in art going back centuries, this time takes a loving, more wide-ranging look at Hockney’s professional and personal worlds. Combining new interviews with old footage and home movies and photographs from Hockney’s private archives — which have never been made public before — Wright reveals Hockney to be an absolutely charming and engaging man with a genuine passion for life but not without his demons. “The paintings all related, whether superficially or intensely, on his life, and his trying to deal with his homosexuality, and trying to deal with his fantasies, and trying to deal with the issues of a sexual identity,” fellow British artist and longtime Hockney friend Mark Berger explains. “And he used wit to play with these identities. He was really like a little high school girl about it.” Wright and cinematographer Patrick Duval insert beautiful shots of many of Hockney’s paintings, slowly moving over the canvases as Hockney and, often, the subjects being depicted discuss them. Among the glorious works shown, from portraits and realistic paintings to more experimental, surreal, and abstract pieces, are “A Bigger Splash,” “Portrait of My Father,” “Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy,” “We Two Boys Together Clinging Together,” “Picture of a Hollywood Swimming Pool,” “Beverly Hills Housewife,” “Celia with a Foot on a Chair,” and such Polaroid composites as “Still Life Blue Guitar 4th April 1982.”

David Hockney opens up his personal archives for illuminating documentary

The film reveals Hockney to be a Warholian-like figure with a much more open and fun-loving personality — complete with odd glasses, bottle-blonde hair with bangs, and a love of photography — enjoying the party life as he goes from his hometown, “dingy Bradford” in England, to New York and Los Angeles; he currently lives in England and California and still paints seven days a week at the age of seventy-eight. It’s quite a thrill to see Hockney at work in his studios, putting brush to canvas. “I paint what I like and when I like” is one of numerous Hockney quotes that Wright uses on title cards, setting them on different monochrome backgrounds and interspersing them throughout the film. Wright (Lucian Freud: A Painted Life) also explores in-depth Hockney’s relationships with such friends and/or lovers as Peter Schlesinger and Henry Geldzahler. One drawback is that the director identifies his interview subjects, Hockney’s friends, colleagues, and relatives, only by name, so it is not always clear what their relationship to the artist is; most viewers are not likely to know who Bachardy, Arthur Lambert, Tchaik Chassay, Melissa North, Wayne Sleep, John Kasmin, or even Ed Ruscha and Jack Larson are or how Margaret Hockney is related to David. (Larson is the recently deceased actor who played Jimmy Olsen on the Superman television series and became a collector of Hockney’s work, while Margaret is David’s sister.) But that’s only a minor quibble in a wonderful documentary that celebrates not only the artist but his work and process, which comes alive on the screen, digital technology allowing the paintings and photographs to pop with their brilliant colors. If you didn’t appreciate Hockney’s talent before, this documentary will change your mind about it. And if you already were a fan of him and his work, this film will make you love him even more.

AMANDA PARER: INTRUDE

Amanda Parer has filled Brookfield Place with supersized rabbits that glow in the dark (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brookfield Place
250 Vesey St.
Daily through April 30, free, 12 noon – 9:00 pm (7:00 on Sundays)
212-945-0505
www.artsbrookfield.com
intrude slideshow

No, it’s not Night of the Lepus come to life, a pack of giant bunnies come to decimate humanity. Instead, in some ways, it’s the exact opposite. In 1788, the First Fleet introduced rabbits to Australia, but the real trouble began after a man named Thomas Austin brought two dozen wild rabbits into the country for sport. It wasn’t long before they multiplied to such levels that they became an invasive, unsustainable ecological hazard, destroying crops and contributing to soil erosion. Australian artist Amanda Parer references these problems in her installation “Intrude,” continuing at Brookfield Place through April 30.

“Intrude” highlights invasive species through April 30 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Five large-scale white blow-up rabbits, made of 210D Nylon and reaching as tall and long as thirty-nine feet, have come across the seas; as bunnies do, they have grown in number, to seven, with four having taken root on Brookfield Place’s outside deck along the river and three more, two made specifically for New York City, inside the old Winter Garden. If you don’t speak with the people watching over each rabbit, you might not learn about the havoc the feral creatures are really causing, instead just seeing it as an adorable collection of picture-taking moments. But Parer, who is originally from Sydney but is now based in Tasmania, is very serious about spreading her message; “Intrude” has previously hopped into nineteen cities, including London, Paris, and Boston, with future migrations scheduled for Houston, Los Angeles, and Denver. Although the rabbits are cute during the day, they light up at night, becoming more than a bit ominous while adding to the ultimate cool factor, illuminating visitors in more ways than one.

There’s more than meets the eye in new installation in Battery Park City (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“I look forward to seeing the rabbits come to life at Brookfield’s properties throughout the United States,” Parer said in a statement. “I expect people will be drawn to the rabbits’ playful appearance, and I hope they will also take the time to understand the deeper meaning in the work and discuss how our actions impact the environment.” There are very specific rules for this warren of giant of rabbits: You can gently touch, kiss, pet, and hug them, but there is no kicking, punching, running, jumping, rolling, smoking, or feeding. Just remember to heed what Grace Slick once warned: “And if you go chasing rabbits / And you know you’re going to fall / Tell ’em a hookah-smoking caterpillar / Has given you the call / Call Alice / When she was just small.” And beware the Night of the Lepus

JEFF KOONS IN CONVERSATION WITH GLENN FUHRMAN

installation view of Jeff Koons's Cat on a Clothesline (Red), 1994-2001, in Cecily Brown, Jeff Koons, Charles Ray at The FLAG Art Foundation, 2016. ©Jeff Koons. Photography by Genevieve Hanson, ArtEcho LLC

Jeff Koons, “Cat on a Clothesline (Red),” 1994-2001, in “Cecily Brown, Jeff Koons, Charles Ray,” at FLAG Art Foundation, 2016 (©Jeff Koons / photography by Genevieve Hanson, ArtEcho LLC)

Who: Jeff Koons and Glenn Fuhrman
What: Artist talk
Where: The FLAG Art Foundation, 545 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., ninth floor, 212-206-0220
When: Wednesday, April 20, free with RSVP, 6:00
Why: Love him or hate him — or love or hate his art — controversial artist Jeff Koons continues to be a seminal figure in the contemporary art world. On April 20, the Pennsylvania-born, New York-based painter and sculptor will be at the FLAG Art Foundation for a free talk with FLAG founder Glenn Fuhrman, who has also recently sat down with Sean Scully and Awol Erizku. Koons is part of one of the current shows at FLAG, “Cecily Brown, Jeff Koons, Charles Ray,” which is on view through May 14. The show consists of three works from each of the artists, “address[ing] themes of youth, nostalgia, and intimacy. The exhibition casts a sense of physical wonder and a jarring disconnect between innocence and subversion.” The three works by Koons in the show are “Sling Hook,” “Winter Bears,” and “Cat on a Clothesline (Red)”; the latter two were part of the extensive retrospective that closed the uptown Whitney in 2014.

OPEN PLAN: CECIL TAYLOR

Jazz great Cecil Taylor rehearses at the Whitney in November 2015

Whitney Museum of American Art
Neil Bluhm Family Galleries, fifth floor
99 Gansevoort St.
April 14-24, free with museum admission unless otherwise noted
212-570-3600
whitney.org

The fourth stage of the Whitney’s “Open Plan” series, which previously saw Andrea Fraser, Lucy Dodd, and Michael Heizer take over the large fifth-floor space in the new downtown building, hands the reins over to free jazz legend, poet, and New York City native Cecil Taylor. The eighty-seven-year-old pianist will be celebrated in a series of programs beginning April 14 at 8:00 ($50), when Taylor will make a rare public appearance, collaborating with British drummer Tony Oxley and Japanese dancer and choreographer Min Tanaka. On April 15 at 7:00, cellist Tristan Honsinger will perform a solo set, while writer Thulani Davis, dancer and professor Cheryl Banks-Smith, and bassist Henry Grimes join forces for a unique presentation. On April 16 at 2:00, Banks-Smith will moderate “Cecil Taylor and Dance,” a panel discussion with Dianne McIntyre, Heather Watts, and Tanaka. That evening at 7:00, trumpter Enrico Rava, double bassist William Parker, and drummer Andrew Cyrille will perform as a trio, in addition to a solo set by Cyrille. On April 20 at 3:00, a Poetry and Music gathering brings together poets A. B. Spellman and Anne Waldman and saxophonist Devin Brahja Waldman, Anne’s nephew. On April 21 at 3:00, Poetry and Music features Steve Dalachinsky, Clark Coolidge with Michael Bisio, and Nathaniel Mackey with Grimes. That night at 9:00 ($10), Hilton Als directs a restaging of Adrienne Kennedy’s one-act play A Rat’s Mass, starring Helga Davis; Taylor wrote and directed the music for the show. And on April 22 at 6:00, Chris Funkhouser, Tracie Morris and Susie Ibarra, Fred Moten and William Parker, and Jemeel Moondoc/Ensemble Muntu (featuring Parker, Mark Hennen, and Charles Downs) will present an evening of poetry and music. Throughout this part of “Open Plan,” there will also be listening sessions hosted by Davis, Archie Rand, André Martinez, Gary Giddins, Moten and Funkhouser, Ben Young, and Nahum Chandler in addition to screenings in the Kaufman Gallery of such films as Sheldon Rochlin’s Cecil Taylor: Burning Poles, Chris Felver’s Cecil Taylor: All the Notes, Billy Woodberry’s And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead, and the world premiere of Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s The Silent Eye about Taylor and Tanaka (and followed by Q&As with the director, who sat on Taylor’s stoop until the pianist would finally talk to him). There will also be documents, videos, audio, scores, photographs, poetry, and ephemera from throughout Taylor’s life and career on view.

ALICIA GRULLÓN: FILIBUSTER

Alicia Grullón will reenact Wendy Davis’s eleven-hour filibuster of Texas Senate Bill 5 in its entirety on April 13 at BRIC House

Who: Alicia Grullón
What: Special performance as part of “Whisper or Shout: Artists in the Social Sphere”
Where: BRIC Arts | Media House, stoop, 647 Fulton St., 718-683-5600
When: Wednesday, April 13, free, 10:00 am – 9:00 pm
Why: On June 25, 2013, Texas state senator Wendy Davis, in pink sneakers, held the floor for eleven hours, filibustering against Senate Bill 5, which “[related] to the regulation of abortion procedures, providers, and facilities; providing penalties.” Davis became an instant media superstar; however, the bill pass passed in a special session held in July. On April 13, performance artist Alicia Grullón, with Davis’s blessing, will reenact the eleven-hour filibuster at the BRIC House Stoop in Fort Greene. Yes, she will be wearing pink sneakers. Admission is free, and people can come and go as they please. “Senator Davis’s filibuster fell along the lines of these other events where moments of protest or tragedy highlight the impact of imbalanced history and policies on the social sphere and on the body of other[s],” Grullón said in a statement. “Her filibuster on women’s healthcare highlighted and reignited the necessity for an equitable feminist history and a call for younger women of color to take the lead since many of the women affected by the closing of clinics are poor and/or of color.” Previously, Grullón has covered her face in newsprint while trying to sell such staples as rice, flour, and beans for between $1000 and $5000 per pound to bring attention to food riots in Haiti (“Revealing New York: The Disappearance of Other”); spent four hours standing in the snow in Van Cortlandt Park to let people know about an undocumented worker who froze to death in a Long Island forest, his body found days later (“Illegal Death”); and led a one-person boycott of the closed Stella D’Oro factory in the Bronx (“No Cookies”). “Filibuster,” which is being held in conjunction with the BRIC House exhibition “Whisper or Shout: Artists in the Social Sphere,” will be streamed live here; you can also tweet questions to Grullón (#BRICfilibuster) and follow the event on Periscope.

WORDPLAY: MATTHIAS BUCHINGER’S DRAWINGS FROM THE COLLECTION OF RICKY JAY

Matthias Buchinger, “Ten Commandments, personalized to John Thomson and family, merchant of Edinburgh,” ink on vellum, 1723 (collection of Ricky Jay)

The Met Fifth Avenue
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Robert Wood Johnson Jr. Gallery, Gallery 690, second floor
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Daily through April 11, recommended admission $12-$25
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org
www.rickyjay.com

Amid all the excitement over the opening of the Met Breuer in the old Whitney space, it was possible to overlook what was going on at the museum’s longtime home base, now known as the Met Fifth Avenue. But it would be a shame if you missed “Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay,” on view through April 11. In fact, you might have missed it even if you’ve been to the Met since January 8, when it opened in the long hallway gallery on the second floor. Magician, actor, curator, writer, consultant, television host, and conjurer Ricky Jay has been collecting works by the extraordinary German artist and performer Matthias Buchinger (1674–1739) for decades; nineteen pieces by Buchinger are included in the exhibition, alongside drawings, engravings, lithographs, etchings, books, and prints by Jasper Johns, Louise Bourgeois, Glenn Ligon, Cy Twombly, and various seventeenth- and eighteenth-century artists, placing Buchinger’s oeuvre in historical, artistic, and thematic context. Known as the Greatest German Living and the Little Man of Nuremberg, Buchinger was born in 1674 without hands, feet, or thighs, as he often noted on his works along with his signature. He reached only twenty-nine inches tall but led quite a life, marrying four times and having at least fourteen children by eight women before his death in 1739. Using the stumps of his arms, he created amazingly intricate drawings, from coats of arms to family trees to depictions of the Ten Commandments to portraits, incorporating calligraphy and micography, the latter an exquisitely detailed writing form in which tiny lines are actually made up of words. The Met provides magnifying glasses so you can fully experience such intricate works as “Ten Commandments, personalized to John Thomson and family, merchant of Edinburgh,” “Buchinger Family Tree,” “Coat of Arms, Norwich,” and the breathtaking pen and ink on vellum “Portrait of Queen Anne,” containing text from the Book of Kings, written even in the curls of her hair.

Anonymous, “Portrait of Matthias Buchinger,” engraving, 1707 (collection of Ricky Jay)

A relentless self-promoter, Buchinger described himself thusly: “This Little Man performs such wonders as have never been done by any but himself. He plays on various sorts of music to admiration, [such] as the hautboy, [a] strange flute in consort with the bagpipe, dulcimer and trumpet; and designs to make machines to play on almost all sorts of music. He is no less eminent for writing, drawing of coats of arms, and pictures to the life, with a pen; he also plays at cards and dice, performs tricks with cups and balls, corn and live birds; and plays at skittles or nine-pins to a great nicety, with several other performances, to the general satisfaction of all spectators.” The exhibition’s centerpiece is a gorgeous 1705 portrait of Buchinger, dressed in regal clothing, standing next to a writing desk and a rifle, a window behind him looking into the vast world beyond. Another highlight is Elias Baeck’s 1710 “Portrait of Matthias Buchinger Surrounded by Thirteen Vignettes,” celebrating all the different entertainments he performed. The show reveals that he was not alone; there are also portraits of several other artists from around the same time period who did not have arms or legs, including Thomas Inglefield, Johanna Sophia Liebschern, and Johannes Wynistorff, in addition to printed announcements of the skills of Miss Beffin and Martha Anne Honeywell. Even the title of the catalog, by Jay, is a treat: Matthias Buchinger: “The Greatest German Living”: By Ricky Jay, Whose Peregrinations in Search of the “Little Man of Nuremberg” are herein Revealed. A far-too-early 1722 elegy written for Buchinger states: “Buckinger’s gone, and quit this earthly Stage, / Who was the only Wonder of this Age; / This little Worthy, inwardly compleat, / His Soul inspired with celestial Heat, / Perform’d his Wonders with such artful Grace, / You’d judge him one of more than humane Race.” This exhibition displays his wonder and grace, as well as his fascinating humanity.

FREE TICKET ALERT — DUKE RILEY: FLY BY NIGHT

Duke Riley brings his pigeons to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for special weekend performances from May 7 to June 12 (photo by Will Star)

Who: Creative Time and Duke Riley
What: “Fly by Night”
Where: Brooklyn Navy Yard, Sands St. at Navy St.
When: Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, May 7 – June 12, free but advance tickets required, 7:00 or 7:30
Why: In his winter 2013–14 exhibition at Magnan Metz in Chelsea, “See You at the Finish Line,” the Boston-born, Brooklyn-based artist Duke Riley documented in astounding detail his use of camera-carrying homing pigeons he sent between Cuba and Key West. Riley has now teamed up with nonprofit arts organization Creative Time, whose previous projects include Kara Walker’s “A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby” at the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg and “Drifting in Daylight” in Central Park, for “Fly by Night,” in which thousands of pigeons will emerge from a former naval aircraft carrier docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on weekend nights at dusk in May and June and put on a performance in the sky involving LED lights with special messages. “With the keen timing of a conductor, this winged symphony weaves together the narrative threads of overlapping histories — a forgotten waterfront island, a creature we see daily in our landscape but rarely look at, and an artist who stands on a rooftop linking his past to his present in a swirling crescendo,” curator Meredith Johnson explains in a statement. “Like the birds themselves, no two performances are the same. Lacing together old New York and new, ‘Fly by Night’ asks us to stop, watch, listen, and revere this extraordinary creature that has shared the triumphs and tragedies of the human experience — uniting individuals, cultures, and generations of fanciers in a tale of both the ancient and modern city.” Admission to the performances are free but must be reserved in advance here. In addition, the project is seeking volunteers to help engage the public, ensure safety, and assist with tech issues; you can find out more about those opportunities and benefits here.