this week in art

ARTIST TALK: AWOL ERIZKU

Artist Awol Erizku will be at FLAG on November 13 to discuss his latest solo exhibition (photography by Art Echo LLC)

Who: Awol Erizku, Alicia Quarles, and Glenn Fuhrman
What: Artist talk
Where: The FLAG Art Foundation, 545 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., tenth floor, 212-206-0220
When: Friday, November 13, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: In conjunction with the exhibition “New Flower | Images of the Reclining Venus,” New York-based artist Awol Erizku will talk about his solo show, consisting of photographs of sex workers taken in Addis Ababa in 2013 that reexamine and challenge conventional art-historical tropes. “While ‘New Flower’ importantly revises the homogeneous tradition of the ‘odalisque,’ the series also complicates the counter tradition by highlighting the tension between labor and the aesthetic — through a framing that is definitively and defiantly new,” Ashley James writes about the exhibit. On November 13, Erizku will be at the FLAG Art Foundation in Chelsea to discuss his work, in conversation with fashion journalist Alicia Quarles and FLAG founder Glenn Fuhrman. “New Flower | Images of the Reclining Venus,” which includes a mixtape you can check out here, will remain on view through December 12.

MARINELLA SENATORE AND NÁSTIO MOSQUITO: VISIBLE ON THE HIGH LINE

Nástio Mosquito will perform “S.E.F.A. Se Eu Fosse Angolano (If I Were Angolan)” to help kick off Creative Time Summit

The High Line
Gansevoort St. entrance to Chelsea Market Passage
Friday, November 13, free, 6:00
thehighline.org
creativetime.org

The Creative Time Summit, a two-day series of workshops, roundtables, and open discussions exploring the intersection of art and social justice, takes place November 14-15 at the Boys and Girls High School campus on Fulton St. in Brooklyn, featuring such participants as keynote speakers Nikole Hannah-Jones and Boots Riley along with Bill Ayers, Hans Haacke, Leonard Lopate, Luis Camnitzer, Hope Ginsburg, Tahir Hemphill, Chloë Bass, Tania Bruguera, and many others. But the summit, “The Curriculum NYC,” kicks off Friday night with the special event “Visible on the High Line,” an evening of site-specific participatory performances focusing on collaboration and social interaction, curated by Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander of the Visible Project, “a research project in contemporary art devoted to art work in the social sphere, that aims to produce and sustain socially engaged artistic practices in a global context.” Italian visual artist Marinella Senatore will present the latest iteration of her “School of Narrative Dance” project, beginning at the Gansevoort St. entrance to the High Line and continuing on to the Chelsea Market Passage above Sixteenth St., where Angolan artist and musician Nástio Mosquito will perform “S.E.F.A. Se Eu Fosse Angolano (If I Were Angolan),” a look at media and identity, with visuals by Vic Pereiro. Admission to the High Line performance is free; tickets to the Creative Time Summit run from $25 to $350, depending on what you can afford.

BLACK

The Brooklyn Hangar
140 53rd St. at Second Ave. Dr.
Saturday, November 14, $30-$80, 10:00 pm – 6:00 am
black-nyc.com
thebrooklynhangar.com

Tickets are going fast for BLACK, a combined music-and-art experience taking place at the Brooklyn Hangar, a thirteen-thousand-square-foot, two-floor warehouse space that hosts unique events. Run by MATTE Projects, the downtown Manhattan company that also promotes the Full Moon Festival and Kitsuné Club Nights, BLACK will feature music by Gesaffelstein, Jon Hopkins, GENER8ION, Virgil Abloh of FLAT WHITE, and NSR (The Deep) x Haruka. (You can hear a mix of songs from the musicians here.) While music is going on upstairs, the basement will be divided into six interactive rooms designed by six visual artists — Cara Stricker, Jesper Just, Nate Brown, Toki Series, Abloh, and Zach Walker, each in a different color. There will also be DJ sets by Tummetott and MASHA downstairs.

WIKIPEDIA EDIT-A-THON: BASQUIAT STILL FLY @55

You can help MoMA update Wikipedia articles on black artists on November 10

Museum of Modern Art
The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
The Library and Archives Reading Rooms, sixth floor
4 West 54th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Tuesday, November 10, free with RSVP
www.moma.org

Influential artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died at the age of twenty-seven in 1988, would have turned fifty-five this December 22, so MoMA is using that as the inspiration behind its November 10 event, “Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Basquiat Still Fly @55.” On Tuesday night at 6:00, everyone is invited to bring their own laptops and power cords and help update Wikipedia articles on Basquiat and other black artists, focusing on “the multicultural and gender gaps in Wikipedia.” No art, editing, writing, or HTML experience or knowledge is required, and light refreshments will be served. Advance RSVP is required here.

THE HOLLYWOOD CLASSICS BEHIND WALKERS: BE KIND REWIND

Mos Def and Jack Black have a wacky plan to save their video store in BE KIND REWIND

BE KIND REWIND (Michel Gondry, 2008)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, November 8, 4:30
Series runs through November 8 – December 27
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

When old man Fletcher (Danny Glover) takes off for a week, leaving Mike (Mos Def) in charge of his soon-to-be-demolished video store called Be Kind Rewind (they don’t have any DVDs or recent movies), his most important rule is to “Keep Jerry Out.” Jerry (Jack Black) is a crazy conspiracy theorist who covers himself in metal to ward off alien rays. After a botched attack on the local power plant, Jerry becomes a walking magnet (in a laugh-out-loud hysterical scene) and unknowingly erases all the videos in the store. Taking a page from the Little Rascals plots when Spanky and Alfalfa would suddenly put on a show for some local cause, Mike and Jerry recruit Alma (Melonie Diaz) as they proceed on their very strange attempts at Sweding — making their own versions of such films as Ghostbusters, Rush Hour 2, and Robocop and renting them out as if they were the real thing. Following the brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the extremely strange The Science of Sleep, writer-director Michel Gondry has fashioned a really stupid movie that has an overabundance of heart and charm. Glover and Mos Def are soft and gentle in this Capra-esque comedy, offsetting Black’s hyperactivity. Every time you’re ready to write the film off as being just too silly and ridiculous, something comes along to make you double over in laughter. Be Kind Rewind kicks off the Museum of the Moving Image series “Walkers: Hollywood Afterlives in Art and Artifact,” being held in conjunction with the new exhibition that examines how contemporary artists have used iconic Hollywood imagery in their work, with sculptures, photographs, paintings, videos, drawings, and more by Francis Alÿs, Richard Avedon, Jim Campbell, Gregory Crewdson, Jean-Luc Godard, Douglas Gordon, Isaac Julien, Martin Kippenberger, Guy Maddin, Mary Ellen Mark, Richard Prince, Tom Sachs, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Piotr Uklanski, Pierre Bismuth, and many others. Be Kind Rewind is screening November 8 at 7:00, preceded by Oscar winner Bismuth’s Where Is Rocky II? trailer. Bismuth will introduce the films, then participate in an artist talk with curator Robert M. Rubin afterward. After a break, the series picks up after Thanksgiving, continuing through December 27 with such iconic and influential classics as Dr. Strangelove, Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, Chinatown, Psycho, and The Wild Bunch as well as several cult faves by Maddin, who will be on hand to talk about his latest, The Forbidden Room, on December 12.

FIRST SATURDAY — CONNECTING CULTURES: A WORLD IN BROOKLYN

Details of four works in the “Connecting Cultures” installation, from top: “Girl in a Japanese Costume,” circa 1890, William Merritt Chase; “Seated Shakyamuni Buddha,” late 19th–early 20th century; “Warrior Figure,” Huastec, 13th or 14th century; “Mask (Ges),” 19th century

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, November 7, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum is making its long-term installation, “Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn,” the focus of its November free First Saturday program. There will be live performances by Ilusha Tsinadze, Lafawndah, and OSHUN, an artist talk and performance by calligraphy master Wang Dongling, a calligraphy workshop with Society of Scribes, a movement workshop with Afro Flow Yoga, a music workshop with Afrika Meets India, a book club discussion with Patricia Park about her novel Re Jane, Belladonna* poetry readings by R. Erica Doyle, Kyoo Lee, and Nathanaël Stephens, a curator talk with Kevin Stayton, an interactive reading by Selina Alko of B Is for Brooklyn for kids, pop-up gallery talks, an art workshop inspired by Syrian mosaics, and Brooklyn Film Festival screenings of Girls Gone J-1 (Mikhail Shraga & Alina Smirnova, 2014), Green Card (Pilar Rico & David Whitmer, 2014), and Born into This (Lea Scruggs & Sean Ryon, 2014). In addition, the galleries are open late so you can check out such other exhibitions as “Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World,” “Kara Walker: ‘African Boy Attendant Curio (Bananas),’” “KAWS: ALONG THE WAY,” “Ai Weiwei: LEGO Collection Point,” and “Zanele Muholi: Isibonelo/Evidence.”

ERNESTO PUJOL: 9 – 5

Eleven performers dressed in white take notes on passersby in Ernesto Pujol’s “9 – 5” at Brookfield Place (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brookfield Place
230 Vesey St.
October 26-28, free, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
brookfieldplaceny.com
9-5 slideshow

Social choreographer Ernesto Pujol takes the concept of the open office plan to a whole new level with 9 – 5, a site-specific durational performance running October 26 to 28 just inside the fifty-five-foot-tall front windows of the Pavilion at Brookfield Place. The Havana-born, New York–based Pujol has situated eleven performers, all dressed in white, at small desks, where they take notes, silently and calmly reflecting on what they observe as some thirty-five thousand people swirl about, on their way to Le District, Hudson Eats, the Winter Garden, the subway, or back to their own desks in their own offices. Meanwhile, outside and behind the eleven people, West St. is a whirlwind of activity, with massive construction, speeding cars, and the building of the new World Trade Center train station. There is a heavenly, meditative feeling in the air around the performers (Dillon de Give, Kate Harding, Young Sun Han, Sara Jimenez, Bess Matassa, James Rich, Valarie Samulski, Catilin Turski, Michael Watson, Joy Whalen, and Jayoung Yoon), almost as if they are guardian angels watching out for us as they jot things down in their notebooks; then again, they could also be spying on us in a very public form of surveillance. But mostly, Pujol is trying to get all of us — commuters, tourists, office workers, shoppers, passersby, etc. — to just slow down: “Close your eyes / Take a deep breath / Open your eyes and look around / (Repeat this if necessary) / Take a deep breath with eyes wide open / Begin to see.”

Ernesto Pujol’s “9 – 5” continues at the Brookfield Place Pavilion through October 28 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

There’s a Zen-like philosophy to what Pujol does, particularly as he examines the monotony of the 9 – 5 world. On his website, he explains, “I perform as a form of ephemeral, collective, and psychic portraiture. My public, durational, group performances seek to reveal the unseen, the intangible, the invisible, and the lost. It is performance practice as a form of perception, reclamation, and mourning. To memorialize and to mourn may result in transformative experiences, in steps toward forgiveness, reparation, and healing.” A collaboration with Brookfield Place and More Art, 9 – 5 is that much more powerful with the Freedom Tower standing outside, reminding viewers of the invisible and the lost, of what isn’t there — and what has arisen in its place, phoenix-like. Pujol, who has previously staged such works as Speaking in Silence in Hawaii in 2011, Farmers Dream in Kansas in 2010, and Baptizing a Garden in South Carolina in 2008, will be leading a free workshop, “Embodied Meditation,” on November 2 & 4 at 12:30 with body practice teacher Samulski and will deliver a free lecture, “The Art of Mindful Presence,” on November 4 at 6:30; advance RSVPs are required.