this week in art

PLATFORM 2016 — A BODY IN PLACES: EIKO SOLOS

Eiko performs one of her solos for an intimate audience in a Lower East Side textile studio as part of Danspace Project Platform series (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eiko performs one of her solos for an intimate audience in a Lower East Side textile studio as part of Danspace Project’s “Platform” series (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

A BODY IN PLACES: EIKO SOLO #4
Danspace Project
St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery
131 East Tenth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Monday – Friday through March 19, $20, varying times
Platform continues through March 23
866-811-4111
www.danspaceproject.org
eiko solo #4 slideshow

New York-based Japanese dancer and choreographer Eiko Otake’s “A Body in Places” is the centerpiece of Danspace Project’s tenth “Platform” series, a five-week multidisciplinary exploration of Eiko’s work, including live performances, art and video installations, film screenings, lectures and discussions, a book club, and more. Every Monday through Friday, Eiko will be performing “A Body in Places: Eiko Solos,” unique hour-long dances that occur around Danspace’s home at St. Mark’s Church on East Tenth St. Between ten and twenty-five ticket holders will meet at the church, then be led to a secret location, where Eiko will perform exclusively for them. On March 3, the group walked over to 44 East Third St., a three-story townhouse that once was the home of the Reuben Gallery, the site of the first Happenings back in 1959, and currently the studio of textile artist Suzanne Tick. The performance began in the basement, as Eiko, wearing a luxurious kimono, moved alongside Tick working at a loom as the audience gathered around the space. At her trademark slow pace — but with occasional bursts of energy — Eiko headed up the stairs and continued in the main room, spreading out her arms and legs, then bringing her body together in an almost fetal-like position, and even emitting guttural sounds, before heading to the top floor, where, during part of her performance, one of Tick’s cats rested next to her on the floor until Eiko got up and eventually concluded with a flourish in the outdoor patio. It was an intimate, one-of-a-kind performance, a modern-day Happening, during which the performer and the crowd bonded in touching ways amid the unusual surroundings. The solos continue through March 19 at a different time each day; among the other locations on the schedule are the ANNA clothing store on East Eleventh St., Middle Collegiate Church on Second Ave., Dashwood Books on Bond St., the Sirovich Center for Balanced Living on East Twelfth St., and the Zürcher Gallery on Bleecker St. For our interview with Eiko about the Platform series as a whole, go here.

PIA CAMIL: “A POT FOR A LATCH” EXCHANGE DAY

Visitors can exchange gifts as part of “Pia Camil: A Pot for a Latch” exhibition at the New Museum (photo by Maris Hutchinson / EPW Studio)

Visitors can exchange gifts on select Sundays as part of “Pia Camil: A Pot for a Latch” exhibition at the New Museum (photo by Maris Hutchinson / EPW Studio)

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Installation on view Wednesday – Sunday through April 17, $10-$16
Exchange Days: Sunday, March 6 & 20, April 3, 2:00 – 4:00
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org
piacamil.me

Mexico City native Pia Camil turns the New Museum Lobby Gallery into an interactive trading post in “A Pot for a Latch” Exchange Day. On March 6 and 20 and April 3 from 2:00 to 4:00, visitors are invited to bring an object to the installation, leaving it while going home with another. The work is inspired by the ceremonial ritual of the Northwest Pacific Coast Indians, which used the potlatch as a way to distribute property. The installation consists of one hundred objects; the event will end once each item has been exchanged. There are very specific rules about what can and can’t be brought to the exhibition; in her invitation, Camil notes, “The object you bring is a talisman of sorts, and it should be thought of in the same way that the ancient Romans conceived of in their term ‘res,’ which denotes a gift that has both a personal value and a history. Bring objects of power, of aesthetic interest, and of poignancy. The monetary value of these items is insignificant; their value lies instead in their richness of meaning and in the new life that they acquire on the grid within the Lobby Gallery. Potential exchange items may include: clothes, curtains, blankets, artworks, photographs, paintings, frames, nondescript items of undetermined function, objects that resemble parts of the human body such as wigs or mannequins, costume jewelry and accessories, mirrors and reflective items, potted plants, colorful items and/or those with interesting shapes and forms, transparent materials such as shower curtains, lingerie, or X-rays, books, and trinkets. Prohibited exchange items include but are not limited to: electronics, heavy items (over twenty pounds), small-scale objects (less than six inches in diameter), loose-leaf paper, tote bags, mass-produced garments, food or other perishables, weapons, and chemicals or other hazardous materials.” In previous installations, Camil has offered fabrics for people to put on at Frieze in “Wearing-watching,” blocked off part of a museum facade with black mesh in “Cuadrado Negro,” and explored the failure of housing projects in a percussive floor video. With “A Pot for a Latch” Exchange Day, she offers visitors the opportunity to have an object of personal value be on view in a museum, giving it a different kind of meaning, while taking home a piece of meaningful art from a stranger, a direct comment on capitalism while referencing the old barter system. The installation is on view every day the New Museum is open, but the exchange takes place only on alternating Sundays.

FIRST SATURDAY: SHE KNOWS NO BOUNDS

Honeybird will be part of woman-centric lineup at Brooklyn Museums First Saturday program on March 6 (photo by Monique Mizrahi)

Honeybird will be part of woman-centric lineup at Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturday program on March 5 (photo by Monique Mizrahi)

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

Women are the headliners at the Brooklyn Museum’s free March First Saturday program. There will be live music by Honeybird, Denitia and Sene, Yahzarah, and drummers from Tom Tom magazine (with a talkback moderated by Mindy Abovitz); dance by the Erica Essner Performance Co-Op (“Reflex 2015,” followed by a Q&A); storytelling by Ashley “SAYWUT?!” Moyer and Queer Memoir; a screening of Faythe Levine and Sam Macon’s Sign Painters, followed by a talkback with Levine and sign painter Marcine Franckowiak; an art workshop; and pop-up gallery talks. In addition, the galleries are open late so you can check out such exhibitions as “Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008,” “Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (to a Seagull),’” “Forever Coney: Photographs from the Brooklyn Museum Collection,” “This Place,” and “Agitprop!”

DOUG WHEELER: ENCASEMENTS

Doug Wheeler, Untitled, vacuum-formed acrylic, sprayed lacquer on acrylic, electronic transformer, and daylight neon, 1969/2014 (© 2016 Doug Wheeler)

David Zwirner
525 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through March 5, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-727-2070
www.davidzwirner.com

Two years ago, people lined up at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea to experience Doug Wheeler’s “LC 71 NY DZ 13 DW,” a mesmerizing, meditative “rotational horizon work” that altered visitors’ perception of physical reality and sense of equilibrium. Don’t be surprised if you have to wait on line again to see his latest show, the captivating “Encasements,” which closes this Saturday. Since the late 1960s, the Santa Fe–based Light and Space artist has been creating large-size square panels (90.5 x 90.5 inches, either three, five, or nine inches deep) out of vacuum-formed acrylic, sprayed lacquer, an electronic transformer, and white UV or daylight neon. The light seeps out from the sides and transforms the space — from which all ambient light and architectural detail have been removed — into a cosmic mystery. In each Encasement, the room and the light combine to envelop the viewers’ senses completely, and many wander around, happily unable to get a grasp on where the walls are, especially the corners, without visual or spatial cues. It’s an intoxicating, dizzying experience, and at Zwirner, Wheeler is displaying five of the works, the most ever shown together. Each of the five rooms offers slightly different effects, particularly the one with the panel in an aluminum frame in which the light/color emanates from the center, one of only two such encasements Wheeler has ever made, on view to the public here for the first time. You’ll have to put paper protectors over your shoes in order to enter the pristine space, but once inside, you should glory in the fab wonder of it all, taking it in slowly, making sure not to hurry. It’s more than just an immersive experience; it overwhelms senses you’re usually in more control of, but it’s worth letting yourself go to fully enjoy this, dare we say, luminous environment.

ARMORY ARTS WEEK 2016

Christian Jankowski directs CRYING FOR THE MARCH OF HUMANITY, which is being shown at Spring/Break Art Show

It’s that time of year again, when the art world descends on New York City for the start of art fair season. There are no fewer than eleven fairs this week, with the next batch scheduled for May. Below is a brief look at March’s shows, highlighted by participating artists and/or galleries and special projects. The anchor is the Armory Show; prices range from free to a hefty forty-five bucks.

What: Spring/Break Art Show: ⌘COPY⌘PASTE
Where: Skylight at Moynihan Station, 421 Eighth Ave. at 34th St.
When: March 2-7, $10 in advance, $15 at the door
Why: Mira Dancy, Nick Darmstaedter, Sue de Beer, Vanessa Castro, Renee Dykeman, Brock Enright, Daniel Gordon, Christian Jankowski, Janus, Jim Jarmusch, Oliver Jeffers, Joan Jonas, Maripol, Coke Wisdom O’Neal, Walter Robinson, many more

What: The Art Show
Where: Park Avenue Armory, Park Ave. at Sixty-Seventh St.
When: March 2-6, $25
Why: Sherrie Levine, Alex Katz, Gillian Wearing, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Marcel Dzama, Edward Hopper & Company, Frank Stella, Carolee Schneemann, Beauford Delaney, Wolfgang Laib, Sigmar Polke, Milton Avery, Ellsworth Kelly, Cy Twombly, Brice Marden, Richard Diebenkorn, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Richard Artschwager, Daniel Buren, many more

Wednesday, March 2
“Tree Talk” by Maria Elena González, 2:00 & 6:00

What: VOLTA NY
Where: Pier 90, West Fiftieth St. at Twelfth Ave.
When: March 2-6, $25
Why: Ronald Cyrille, Tom Anholt / Günther Förg, Jessica Peters, Florian Heinke / Gavin Nolan, Toshiya Masuda, Paul Brainard, Philip Taaffe, Elad Kopler, Jorge Pineda, Becca Lowry, Anthony Goicolea, Dawit Abebe, Shoplifter, many more

Friday, March 4
Shaun Leonardo: “I Can’t Breathe Workshop and Performances,” 5:00

Mike and Doug Starn’s “Structure of Thought 30” will be on view at the Edwynn Houk Gallery booth at the Armory Show (photo courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery)

What: The Armory Show
Where: Piers 92 & 94, Twelfth Ave. at Fiftieth St.
When: March 3-6, $45
Why: Special projects by Kapwani Kiwanga, Emeka Ogboh, Lebohang Kganye, Karo Akpokiere, Ed Young, Athi-Patra Ruga, Jared Ginsburg, Mame-Diarra Niang, Stephen Burks, Sung Jang, Carlo and Mary-Lynn Massoud, Modern, Contemporary, African Perspectives, Armory Presents, Open Forum, more

Thursday, March 3
“Looking Back, Leading the Way,” with El Anatsui and Sam Nhlengethwa, moderated by Bisi Silva, part of the Armory Show 2016 Symposium: African Perspectives, Media Lounge, Pier 94, 5:30

Saturday, March 5
“A Spell That Flows Both Ways,” lecture-performance by Kapwani Kiwanga, Media Lounge, Pier 94, 1:00

What: Art on Paper
Where: Pier 36, 299 South St.
When: March 3-6, $25
Why: Special projects by Suzanne Goldenberg, Libby Black, Laurence Vallières, Alex Paik, Lower Eastside Girls Club, Bob Gill, Javier Calleja, Glenn Goldberg, Federico Uribe, Takaaki Tanaka, Li Hongbo

What: New City Art Fair
Where: hpgrp Gallery, 434 Greenwich St.
When: March 3-6, free with pass
Why: Fumi Ishino, Keigo Nishikiori, Harumi Shimizu, Shuji Terayama, Daisuke Takahashi, snAwk, So Sekiyama, Meguru Yamaguchi

What: Scope
Where: 639 West Forty-Sixth St. at Twelfth Ave
When: March 3-6, $35
Why: Breeder Program (Haven Gallery, Kallenbach Gallery, One Mile Gallery, Jenn Singer Gallery, Barbara Edwards Contemporary, Cordesa Fine Art), Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series winner Aron Belka

What: Pulse
Where: Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West Eighteenth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
When: March 3-6, $25
Why: Special projects by Erin D. Garcia, Armando Marino, Melissa Pokorny, Anna Paola Protasio, Macon Reed, Yumi Janairo Roth, Mia Taylor, Richard Vivenzio, Jason Willaford

Thursday, March 3
through
Sunday, March 6
Macon Reed, “Eulogy for the Dyke Bar” events, including Last Call podcast broadcast, DJ Happy Hour, Rocky and Rhoda Trivia Night, Stashes and Lashes Drag Show, and Eulogy Ritual, multiple times

What: Clio Art Fair
Where: 508 West Twenty-Sixth St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
When: March 3-6, free
Why: Detlef Ewald Aderhold, Thierry Alet, KO-HEY Arikawa, Manss Aval, Sarah Hai Edwards, Sunil Garg, Andrea Goldsmith, Seunghwui Koo, Emily Madrigal, Jamie Martinez, Roberto Perotti, Kerstin Roolfs, Daniel Rosenbaum, Raimonda Sanna, Gisella Sorrentino, Zoya Taylor, Anthea Zito, others

Maija Blåfield’s GOLDEN AGE will be screening at the Moving Image art fair (photo courtesy AV-arkki)

What: Moving Image
Where: 269 Eleventh Ave. between Twenty-Seventh & Twenty-Eighth Sts.
When: March 3-6, free
Why: Amalie Atkins, Perry Bard, Maija Blåfield, Marcos Bonisson and Khalil Charif, boredomresearch, Jeremy Chandler, Sarah Choo Jing, Clément Cogitore, Jennifer Dalton, Rico Gatson, Sofia Hultén, Anthony Iacono, Erdal İnci, George Jenne, Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev, Kalliopi Lemos, Pablo Lobato, LoVid, Alexandre Mazza, Olivia McGilchrist, Lorna Mills, Tameka Norris, Anne Spalter, Mika Taanila, Sergio Vega, Saya Woolfalk, Gil Yefman

What: alt_break art fair
Where: Multiple locations
When: March 3-6, free
Why: alt_break 2016: SHIFT_ consists of site-activated exhibits at Creative Art Works, Fountain House Gallery, and the Center for Social Innovation as well as at the Armory Show, Scope, and Spring/Break, with such artists as Anne-Marie Lavigne, Jee Hee Kang, Lizz Brady, Reba Hasko, Geraldo Mercado, and Sean Naftel

Friday, March 4
Launch event with artists, curators, raffle prizes, and a live performance by Ryan Krause, Fountain House Gallery, 702 Ninth Ave. near Forty-Ninth St., 6:00

Sunday, March 6
Closing panel discussion and reception with curators Audra Lambert, Kimi Kitada, Victoria Manganiello, and Adam Zucker and special guests, moderated by Andrew Kaminski, Center for Social Innovation, Starrett-Lehigh Building, 601 West Twenty-Sixth St. west of Eleventh Ave., third floor, 2:00

What: The Independent
Where: Spring Studios, 50 Varick St.
When: March 4-6, price TBD ($20 in 2015)
Why: The Approach, London; Artists Space, New York; The Box, Los Angeles; Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York/Rome; Elizabeth Dee, New York; Delmes & Zander, Cologne/Berlin; gb agency, Paris; Herald St, London; Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo; the Modern Institute, Glasgow; Galerie Nagel Draxler, Cologne/Berlin; Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt; Office Baroque, Brussels; others

SOUNDWALK 9:09

The Met Breuer photograph by Ed Lederman; The Met Plaza © MMA

Free app will provide site-specific soundscape for trip between the Met Breuer (photo by Ed Lederman) and the main Met (photo © MMA)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
The Met Breuer
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St.
Free app available March 1
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org
johnlutheradams.net

In 2011, it was announced that the Metropolitan Museum of Art would take over the landmark Breuer building that served as the Whitney Museum of American Art’s third home, from 1966 to 2014. With the Whitney now firmly entrenched on Gansevoort St. at the south end of the High Line, the Met is ready to move into 945 Madison Ave., where it will focus on the art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The modernist building, which was designed by Bauhaus-trained architect Marcel Breuer with Hamilton Smith, will open to Met members March 8-13 and to the general public March 18-20, but on March 1 the institution will start offering a unique way for people to familiarize themselves with the short trip between the Met’s main museum on Fifth Ave. and Eighty-Second St. and the Breuer. MetLiveArts has commissioned Mississippi-born American composer John Luther Adams, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for Become Ocean, to create his first New York City work, “Soundwalk 9:09,” two new pieces that last nine minutes and nine seconds, the amount of time it is estimated it takes to go from the Met to the Met Breuer. “Soundwalk 9:09,” which includes sounds Adams recorded between the two buildings in addition to crowd-sourced material, will be available for free through the Met and WQXR.

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO: SEA OF BUDDHA

Hiroshi Sugimoto’s three-channel video, “Accelerated Buddha,” explores the nature of time and space, life and death, art and spirituality (photo courtesy the artist’s studio and Pace Gallery)

Pace Gallery
510 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through March 5, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-255-4044
www.pacegallery.com
www.sugimotohiroshi.com

Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto explores the nature of impermanence and the relationship between art and spirituality in his multimedia installation “Sea of Buddha,” on view through March 5 at Pace on West Twenty-Fifth St. In 1995, after a seven-year effort, Sugimoto was given permission to photograph the one thousand gilded wooden Buddha statues at Sanjῡsangen-dō (Hall of Thirty-Three Bays) in Kyoto, at a specific time in the morning when the general public is not allowed in and the summer sun casts a particularly special glow on the objects. Perhaps “given” is the wrong word, as he had to pay the temple handsomely for the privilege (and still has to hand over an additional fee every time he displays the photographs). Sugimoto, who lives and works in Tokyo and New York and has previously re-created reality in such series as “Portraits,” “Dioramas,” and “Theaters,” took forty-eight black-and-white pictures of the very similar but not identical statues. Only thirty-six were able to fit in his installation at Pace, where they are arranged at eye level on two sides of an oval room that serves as a kind of shrine. Numbers are critical to the project; Sugimoto, who was inspired by Walter De Maria’s “The Broken Kilometer,” has stated that the total number of photos relate to the forty-eight stages of death; thirty-three (the number of bays at Sanjῡsangen-dō) is a popular numeral in the Bible, associated with Noah, Jesus, King David, Jacob, and others; and some Buddhist teachings state that one thousand enlightened Buddhas will bring wisdom to the world. At first glance, the photos look the same, taken from the same angle, but each Buddha is as different as each human on the planet. An enveloping serenity can be felt as you make your way through the space, more spiritual than religious. In a small adjoining area, Sugimoto’s “Accelerated Buddha” plays on a loop, a mesmerizing five-minute immersive video, projected corner-to-corner onto three sides of the room, in which Sugimoto cuts between the forty-eight photos at an ever-faster pace, starting off very slowly and ending up in a furious blur, echoing the subjective human experience of time from birth to death while also evoking Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms. The exhibition also features five of Sugimoto’s “Seascapes,” gelatin silver prints of horizon lines on the ocean, quiet, entrancing shots of water and air. “Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home,” Sugimoto has said of the series. “I embark on a voyage of seeing.” Sugimoto’s latest show at Pace is yet another voyage well worth seeing.