this week in art

NOVA BY SOFTLAB

SOFTlab’s “Nova” installation is winner of second annual design competition (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

North Flatiron Public Plaza
Median at intersection of Broadway, Fifth Ave., and 23rd St.
Through January 4, free
www.flatirondistrict.nyc
nova slideshow

The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership Business Improvement District’s “23 Days of Flatiron Cheer” may be over, but the centerpiece of the holiday celebration will be delighting visitors through January 4. On North Flatiron Public Plaza, the median at the intersection of Broadway, Fifth Ave., and 23rd St., New York City design studio SOFTlab has installed “Nova,” winner of the second annual Flatiron Public Plaza Holiday Design Competition, held in conjunction with the Van Alen Institute. “Nova” is an abstract seven-starred gazebo that people can walk inside to experience colorful kaleidoscopic views of themselves and the surrounding area — Madison Square Park, the Flatiron Building, the Met Life Tower, passing traffic — reflected in cones that are angled toward various local landmarks. The outside of the pavilion consists of aluminum panels, giving it an otherworldly appearance, like an alien space ship, while the arched interior is constructed of crystalline cells composed of acrylic laminated with 3M Dichroic Film. The three-dimensional cells light up at night, giving it an extraterrestrial glow. “Nova” will remain on the plaza until January 4, after which it will beam back home.

THE HOLLYWOOD CLASSIC BEHIND WALKERS: THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, and Cybill Shepherd prepare for adulthood in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, December 26, and Sunday, December 27, $12, 7:00
Series runs through December 27
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show is a tender-hearted, poignant portrait of sexual awakening and coming-of-age in a sleepy Texas town. Adapted from the Larry McMurtry novel by the author and the director, the film is set in the early 1950s, focusing on Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms), a teenager who works at the local pool hall with Billy (Timothy’s brother Sam), a simple-minded boy who needs special caring. Sonny’s best friend, Duane Jackson (Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges), is dating the prettiest girl in school, Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd, in her film debut), who is getting ready to test out the sexual waters, sneaking away on a date with Lester Marlow (Randy Quaid), who takes her to a naked-swimming party in a wealthier suburb of Wichita Falls. Meanwhile, Sonny breaks up with his girlfriend, Charlene Druggs (Sharon Taggart), and becomes drawn to the sad, unhappy Ruth Popper (an Oscar-winning Cloris Leachman), the wife of his football coach (Bill Thurman). The outstanding all-star cast also features Oscar-nominated Ellen Burstyn as Lois, Jacy’s mother; Eileen Brennan as a waitress in the local diner who makes cheeseburgers for Sonny; Clu Gulager as a working man who has a thing for Lois; Frank Marshall, who went on to become a big-time producer, as high school student Tommy Logan; and Oscar winner Ben Johnson as Sam the Lion, the moral center of the town and owner of the pool hall, diner, and movie theater, which shows such films as Father of the Bride and Red River. Cinematographer Robert Surtees shoots The Last Picture Show in a sentimental black-and-white that gives the film an old-fashioned feel, as if it’s a part of Americana that is fading away. Bogdanovich also chose to have no original score, instead populating the tale with country songs by Hank Williams, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Lefty Frizzell, Tony Bennett, and others singing tales of woe.

In many ways the film is the flip side of George Lucas’s 1973 hit American Graffiti, which is set ten years later but looks like it’s from another century; it also has a lot in common with François Truffaut’s 1962 classic Jules and Jim. Nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, The Last Picture Show is an unforgettable slice-of-life drama that will break your heart over and over again. It is screening December 26 & 27 at 7:00 in the Museum of the Moving Image series “The Hollywood Classics Behind Walkers,” which is being held in conjunction with the exhibition “Walkers: Hollywood Afterlives in Art and Artifact,” consisting of Hollywood-related photography, drawing, sculpture, print, and video by such artists as Francis Alÿs, Richard Avedon, Jim Campbell, Gregory Crewdson, Douglas Gordon, Isaac Julien, Ellen Mark, Tom Sachs, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and many others. Also screening December 26 & 27 is Sam Peckinpah’s classic Western, The Wild Bunch.

MARK BRADFORD: BE STRONG BOQUAN

Mark Bradford, “Waterfall” (foreground), mixed media, 2015, and “Black and White” (background), mixed media on canvas, 2015 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: Mark Bradford
What: “Be Strong Boquan”
Where: Hauser & Wirth, 511 West 18th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., 212-790-3900
When: Through Wednesday, December 23, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Why: Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford has had quite a 2015, highlighted by a major exhibition, “Scorched Earth,” at the Hammer Museum; setting a personal record when his painting “Smear” sold for $4.4 million at Sotheby’s in May; being named Artist of the Year by The Week magazine; completing a commission for a lobby work at Rockefeller Center; and having his first New York City solo show at his new gallery, Hauser & Wirth. The H&W exhibit, “Be Strong Boquan,” which continues through December 23, is breathtaking, consisting of nine large-scale mixed-media collages, two short films, a text-based work, and “Waterfall,” which encompasses dozens and dozens of strips of scraps from his studio, all draped over a metal bar. Bradford’s “paintings” are actually palimpsestual collages made out of billboard flyers, colored paper, posters, newsprint, and photographs layered with clear shellac on a stretched canvas; he also adds twine and other objects that he pulls to form rivulets that tear through the pieces. From a distance they look like abstract paintings, but up close you can see the depth and density of the materials, adding a mesmerizing sculptural physicality to the works, which reference urban violence, race riots, the AIDS crisis, gender identity, and other social concerns. Bradford gives the works such titles as “Hunger with Salt and Pepper Tastes Better,” “Killing the Goodbye,” and “Dead Hummingbird,” names that stand in stark contrast to the visceral beauty of the canvases. In the long, horizontal video installation “Deimos,” Bradford brings roller-skate wheels to animated stop-motion life, dancing to the soul funk of Sylvester’s “Grateful,” paying tribute to the “Queen of Disco” who died from AIDS in 1988 at the age of forty-one. (The wheels were left over from the old Roxy nightclub, which previously inhabited the H&W space on Eighteenth St.) Bradford’s “Spiderman” reimagines Eddie Murphy’s controversial 1983 “Delirious” stand-up special; a red spotlight shines on a vacant space as a black comedian can be heard on the film, which shows only the words being said, not the speaker, who discusses Michael Jackson, Eazy-E, and AIDS as an unseen audience laughs at his jokes. “Be Strong Boquan” is a breakthrough exhibit for Bradford, who at the age of fifty-four is experiencing a well-deserved surge in his career.

HIMALAYAN STYLE: HOW TO REBUILD NEPAL

Thomas L. Kelly and Claire Burkert explore ways to rebuild post-earthquake Nepal in discussion at Rubin Museum (photo by Thomas L. Kelly)

Who: Claire Burkert and Thomas L. Kelly
What: Himalayan Style: How to Rebuild Nepal
Where: Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave., 212-620-5000
When: Wednesday, December 9, $20, 7:00
Why: Earlier this week, we returned from a seventeen-day visit to Kathmandu, where we saw firsthand the destruction wrought by the April and May 2015 earthquakes as well as the intoxicating resiliency of the Nepalese people, who are also currently in the midst of a significant fuel blockade imposed by India, with far-reaching effects. Among the most impressive things we witnessed during our travels was a stop in Bungamati, where an international group of architecture students are working hand-in-hand with local residents to help the community get itself back on its feet. On one wall in an old temple, Bungamati residents can indicate whether they will “clean up,” “reuse materials,” “rebuild,” “repair,” or “do nothing.” On December 9, a similar conversation will take place at the Rubin Museum of Art, when Janakpur Women’s Development Center founder Claire Burkert and photo-activist Thomas L. Kelly will discuss “Himalayan Style: How to Rebuild Nepal,” inspired by their book Himalayan Style (Roli, March 2015, $49.95), which came out shortly before the earthquake hit. Burkert, a crafts expert with Nepal’s Poverty Alleviation Fund, and Kelly, who runs Wild Earth Journeys with his wife, Carroll Dunham, will sign copies of the book after their illustrated lecture, which will include photographs Kelly has taken following the earthquakes, many of which you can see here. You can contact twi-ny directly if you are interested in seeing some of the photos we took in Nepal as well.

FIRST SATURDAY: CONEY ISLAND

Harvey Stein, “The Hug: Closed Eyes and Smile,” digital inkjet archival print, 1982 (© Harvey Stein, 2011)

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

The Brooklyn Museum is honoring the most dramatic, historic, and entertaining part of the world’s greatest borough for the December edition of its monthly free First Saturday program. On the always eclectic bill are live music by Fright Barker and Sons and Raya Brass Band, a theatrical drawing performance by Amour Obscur, sideshow acts curated by Adam Rinn, the issues-oriented BodySpeak by Brown Girls Burlesque, a curator talk and Q&A about the new exhibition “Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008” with Robin Jaffee Frank, a wire workshop where you can make your own Coney Island ride, a book club discussion with Harvey Stein about his photography book Coney Island: 40 Years, 1970–2010, a screening of Sidney Lumet’s The Wiz, and a Visual AIDS screening of Radiant Presence, followed by a discussion with Ted Kerr, Shawn Torres, Rusti Miller-Hill, and Jawanza Williams held in conjunction with World AIDS Day/Day With(out) Art. In addition, the galleries are open late so you can check out such other exhibitions as “Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (To a Seagull),” “Forever Coney: Photographs from the Brooklyn Museum Collection,” “Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World,” and “KAWS: ALONG THE WAY.”

ARTIST TALK: SEAN SCULLY AND GLENN FUHRMAN

Sean Scully, “Landline Deep Blue Sea,” oil on aluminum, 2015 (©Sean Scully / courtesy of Timothy Taylor Gallery, London)

Who: Sean Scully 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: Friday, November 20, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: In 2006, Irish-born American artist Sean Scully said, “I remember growing up in Ireland and everything being chequered, even the fields and the people.” The two-time Turner Prize nominee creates abstract canvases lush with horizontal and vertical rectangles and stripes that are filled with power and emotion while always displaying the hand of the painter. The seventy-year-old artist will be at FLAG on November 20, discussing his work with FLAG founder Glenn Fuhrman in conjunction with the group exhibition “Surface Tension,” where Scully’s 2015 “Landline Deep Blue Sea” can be seen along with pieces by El Anatsui, Mark Bradford, Sam Gilliam, Sterling Ruby, Rebecca Ward, and others in an exploration of materiality, texture, and depth.

EXPLORATIONS: IRRESISTIBLE RESISTANCE

The New Negress Society will present a program of short films in conjunction with “Irresistible Resistance” exhibit at Made in NY Media Center

Who: Members of the New Negress Film Society
What: “Irresistible Resistance”
Where: Made in NY Media Center by IFP, 30 John St., DUMBO, 718-729-6677
When: Friday, November 20, free, 7:00
Why: Formed in 2013 by Frances Bodomo, Ja’Tovia Gary, Kumi James, Stefani Saintonge, and Dyani Douze, the New Negress Film Society identifies itself as “a core collective of Black woman filmmakers whose priority is to create community and spaces for support, exhibition, and consciousness-raising.” On November 20 at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP in DUMBO, the society is hosting an evening of experimental short films and discussions about power relations around the world, held in conjunction with the exhibition “Irresistible Resistance,” which runs through November 27. The lineup consists of Gary’s An Ecstatic Experience, Saintonge’s Seventh Grade, Bodomo’s Boneshaker, James’s savage, and Douze and Nontsikelelo Mutiti’s Pain Revisited. It is all part of “Explorations,” a series of programs examining the creative process from multiple angles.