this week in art

NEW YORK SUPER WEEK

Multiple locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan
October 5-12, free – $249
www.newyorksuperweek.com

Fretting because you didn’t get your New York Comic-Con tickets in time and it’s completely sold out now? The vast popularity of NYCC has led to New York Super Week, with related special events beginning on Monday and running for eight days. There are more than eighty panels, concerts, trivia contests, movie screenings, comedy shows, social media parties, and other geek gatherings, with appearances by the likes of Kevin Smith, Masashi Kishimoto, Seth Green, Janeane Garofalo, Kristian Nairn, Finn Jones, Danny Fingeroth, Justin Guarini, Larry Fessenden, and John Hodgman. Below are only some of the many highlights.

Monday, October 5
Celebrity Karaoke: An Epic Evening with the Stars, with Deborah Cox, Justin Guarini, Tony Vincent, and Alex Brightman, Hard Rock Café, $25-$40, 7:00

Playing a Superhero: Privilege or Curse?, with Mark Editz, author of How to Be a Superhero, the Learning and Media Center at the DiMenna Center, $8, 7:15

Star Wars vs. Star Trek: Attack of the Khan, with DJ Benhameen, Tatiana King Jones, Jean Grae, Pharoahe Monch, and Quelle Chris, Benzaquen Hall at the DiMenna Center, 410, 7:15

Tuesday, October 6
The Best American Comics 2015, with Bill Kartalopoulus, the Strand, free with suggested purchase of book or $15 gift card, 7:00

Running Late with Scott Rogowsky: Brooklyn’s Live Late Night Comedy Talk Show, with Horatio Sanz, Impractical Jokers “Sal” Vulcano & Brian “Q” Quinn, Budd Mishkin, Dale Seever, and Here We Go Magic, Littlefield, $10-$20, 9:00

Wednesday, October 7
Comics and Jews: Panel and Auction, with Danny Fingeroth, Paul Levitz, Arie Kaplan, and Paul Kupperberg, hosted by Karen Green, Center for Jewish History, $10, 6:30

Meet the Creator of Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto, discussion, Q&A, and signing with Masashi Kushimoto, Apple Store SoHo, free, 7:00

Thursday, October 8
Robot Chicken Season 8 Party, with Seth Green and Matt Senreich, Brooklyn Bowl, free with RSVP, 6:00 – 10:00

Uptown Showdown: Superheroes vs. Villains, with Janeane Garofalo, Travon Free, Jessica Delfino, Michael Hartney, Nick Turner, and Joe Garden, Symphony Space, $15, 8:00

Twentieth anniversary screening of Habit (Larry Fessenden, 1985), with Larry Fessenden and cast members in person, part of weeklong thirtieth anniversary celebration of Glass Eye Pix, IFC Center, $14, 9:00

Friday, October 9
A Night of Ice and Fire, Featuring Kristian Nairn, Finn Jones, and More, Hard Rock Café, $45, 8:00

The Thrilling Adventure Hour Presents: POW! Sparks Nevada Live, with Marc Evan Jackson, Mark Gagliardi, Hal Lublin, Janet Varney, Scott Adsit, and special guests, Littlefield, $15-$50, 10:00

Saturday, October 10
Hollywood Babble On Live! with Ralph Garman and Kevin Smith, Hammerstein Ballroom, $20-$60, 7:30

Comic Con Vixens II, with Topher Bousquet, Hazel Honeysuckle, Dangrrr Doll, Bastard Keith, Tiger Bay, Rosey la Rouge, Puss N’ Boots, and Lux La Croix, Hard Rock Café, $25-$75, 10:00

Sunday, October 11
PressPlayNYC, with Christian Leave, Tina Woods, Sigh Mike, Drew Phillips, Joey Kidney, Taylor Baxter, Chase Goehring, Alex Reininga, Pierson Oglesby, Tyler White, Dakota Brooks, Wes Finn, Chris O’Flyng, Cody Ryle, and Steffan Argus, Hammerstein Ballroom, $35-$249, 12 noon – 6:00 pm

We Got This Live! with Mark Gagliardi, Hal Lublin, John Hodgman, and Carter Parton Rogers, (le) poisson rouge, $15, 8:00

Monday, October 12
New York premiere of Wagakkiband Concert Movie (avex music creative, 2014), IFC Center, $14, 7:30

FIRST FRIDAYS! “ALL THE LADIES SAY” UNDERGROUND HIP-HOP ANNIVERSARY

1040 Grand Concourse at 167th St.
Friday, October 2, free, 6:00 – 10:00
718-681-6000
www.bronxmuseum.org

Ten years ago, the Bronx Museum partnered with Full Circle Prod Inc. to promote B-girl culture, leading to, among other things, East Harlem-raised pioneering break dancer Ana “Rokafella” Garcia’s 2010 documentary on female hip-hop culture, All the Ladies Say. On October 2, the Bronx Museum and Rokafella are teaming up again with a special free First Fridays! presentation celebrating the fifth anniversary of the film. The evening will include performances by Lah Tere and Queen Godis from Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen and DJ KS360, live painting by Lady K Fever, and a dance-off between Brooklyn B-girl Mantis and Connecticut B-girl N’tegrity. The event starts at 6:00, but be sure to get there early to check out the excellent exhibit “¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York” and the new show “Trees Are Alphabets.”

LAURIE ANDERSON WITH MOHAMMED EL GHARANI: HABEAS CORPUS

Laurie Anderson’s latest project is a dazzling immersive installation at Park Avenue Armory (photo by James Ewing)

Park Ave. Armory
643 Park Ave. between 66th & 67th Sts.
October 2-4, installation viewing $15 (12 noon – 7:00), concerts $45 (8:00)
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org
habeas corpus slideshow

With “Habeas Corpus,” multimedia artist Laurie Anderson has taken a very serious topic, the seven-year incarceration of an innocent fourteen-year-old in Guantanamo, and turned it into a stunning celebration of freedom and the indomitability of the human spirit. In 2001, Mohammed el Gharani, a Chadian raised in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in Karachi while praying in a mosque a few days after September 11. He spent the next seven years being tortured in prison until lawyer Clive Stafford Smith and his Reprieve organization finally got him a trial, and U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon granted his writ of habeas corpus and ordered his release in 2009. Anderson and el Gharani have collaborated on “Habeas Corpus,” an immersive audiovisual installation at Park Avenue Armory, but it’s about a lot more than just el Gharani’s grueling personal journey. “It’s a work about words, story, place,” Anderson said at a preview earlier this week. She pointedly noted that it asks the question “Where is America?” Near the back of the vast Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Anderson has built a sculpture that approximates the Lincoln Memorial, a giant white chair on which she has sculpted el Gharani’s body, as if his ghost is sitting there (while evoking the twelfth president, who delivered the Emancipation Proclamation). From October 2 to 4, a full-color el Gharani will be remotely projected onto the work from a studio in West Africa, where he lives; he is unable to be in New York in person because his imprisonment at Guantanamo bars his entry to the United States, despite his innocence. An amiable man who Anderson says “would make a great talk show host,” el Gharani will sit motionless in the chair every day from 12 noon to 7:00, projected live, but he will take a break once an hour, when prerecorded stories he tells about his time at Guantanamo will be shown, dealing with torture as well as developing close, important friendships.

Mohammed el Gharani takes a moment while recalling his time at Guantanamo (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Upon entering the hall, visitors step into a dark world lit by the glow of el Gharani in the chair as well as swirling lights emanating from a disco ball that causes immediate disorientation. Balance becomes precarious as you teeter toward the sculpture of el Gharani and the chair. But there’s also something exhilarating about it as you forge ahead through the loss of equilibrium. (Long strips of cardboard are provided if you need to take a seat or lie down, and you very well might have to.) Meanwhile, a droning guitar feedback score composed by Anderson’s late husband, Lou Reed, is played by his guitar tech, Stewart Hurwood, on a platform near the front that appears to be moving but is not, presenting yet another illusion, and nearby some of el Gharani’s words flash by on a wall like a ticker tape of memory and crackly snippets of military radio transmissions emanate from covered speakers. It all makes for a dizzying yet thrilling experience that delves into the nature of torture, identity, surveillance, borders, technology, personal responsibility, fighting injustice, and the very future of civilization. Make sure to allow yourself a few hours when you come to the armory in order to really absorb “Habeas Corpus”; walk around it (very carefully), contemplate its multiple meanings, meditate on its messages, and just enjoy the sheer spectacle of it. If you’re lucky, you might get a chance to walk right up to el Gharani and smile or wave at him, and he’ll smile and wave back; he’s been loving the direct interaction with the public. Also, look out for the cellist who occasionally wanders through the crowd, and that violin you hear just might be Anderson playing live, improvising with the cellist and Hurwood. Each night, Anderson will be joined by Syrian musician Omar Souleyman, Pakistani American performer Shahzad Ismaily, the Oakland-based Merrill Garbus (aka tUnE-yArDs), Hurwood, and surprise guests for what Anderson promises will be “a great dance party.” In addition, in the Mary Divver Room, el Gharani shares some of his stories in a short documentary, talking about his friend Shaker Aamer, the construction of Camp 5, how he taught himself English, and imploring Obama to keep his promise and close Guantanamo. He tells his tales very directly, not seeking sympathy or complaining about what happened to him but instead hopeful there will be positive change in the world. And Anderson’s “From the Air,” a monologue about her dog, Lolabelle, and 9/11, plays in the Colonel’s Room, projected onto miniature sculptures of chairs on which tiny versions of Anderson and her dog sit; the text (which is not the lyrics from her 1982 song of the same name) is also part of her new seventy-five-minute film, Heart of a Dog, which will screen at the New York Film Festival on October 8, with Anderson at the Walter Reade Theater to discuss the work.

CHAMBRE

Jack Ferver channels Lady Gaga and Jean Genet in brilliant CHAMBRE (photo by Jason Akira Somma)

CROSSING THE LINE: CHAMBRE
New Museum Theater
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Installation: through October 4
Performances: October 1-2, 7:00, October 3, 3:00 & 7:00, October 4, 3:00, $15
www.fiaf.org
www.jackferver.org

Writer, actor, dancer, and choreographer Jack Ferver holds nothing back in his electrifying, emotionally charged performances. In his latest piece, Chambre, he took things to the next level, literally bleeding for his art. In a climactic moment during the work’s official New York City premiere last week at the New Museum, Ferver put his hand through a window in Marc Swanson’s set, shattering the glass and apparently cutting his palm. At first the audience was uncertain, wondering if it was part of the show or just more artifice. Ferver has an innate knack for pushing audiences into bouts of uncomfortable laughter and challenging them to separate the real from the imagined, fact from fantasy. Blood seemed to well on his palm, and his fellow performers, Michelle Mola and Jacob Slominski, very carefully navigated around the sea of glass shards on the floor; the mystery of whether it was real or staged continued into a closing monologue in which a diva-like Ferver complained about barely being able to afford health insurance. Not until later that night did it become clear that it was indeed accidental when Ferver posted a photograph of the broken window on Facebook and publicly apologized to Swanson. But it all fit in rather well with the work itself, a slyly playful and inventive reimagining of Jean Genet’s The Maids, which itself was inspired by the true story of two sisters, Christine and Léa Papin, who perpetrated a horrific crime in France in 1933. At the beginning of Chambre, ticket holders can walk around Swanson’s set, which includes unfinished walls, windows, mirrors, a rack of white dresses (designed by Reid Bartelme), and three statues representing the main characters. After the statues are moved out of the way, Ferver emerges in a glittering, glamorous gold-chained outfit and, with the audience still gathered around him, delivers a deliciously wicked monologue taken verbatim from a bitter deposition Lady Gaga gave in 2013 when being sued by a former personal assistant. It’s a classic celebrity rant: “I’m quite wonderful to everybody that works for me, and I am completely aghast to what a disgusting human being that you have become to sue me like this,” Ferver spits out venomously into a microphone.

Jacob Slominski and Jack Ferver take role-playing to a new level in immersive presentation at the New Museum (photo by Jason Akira Somma)

Meanwhile, the audience can watch him, as well as themselves, in a large horizontal mirror hung from the ceiling behind white-draped rows of seats, multiplying the number of visible Fervers, who is not attacking Lady Gaga as much as celebrity culture. It’s also a terrific lead-in for the role-playing done by Ferver as Christine and Jacob as Léa, mocking how they are treated by Madame (Mola), exaggerating how the wealthy take advantage of and abuse the poor. “I know you are necessary, like ditch diggers and construction workers are necessary, but I hate having to see you,” Slominski-as-Léa-as-Madame says. But soon the sisters take their revenge, doing what so many only fantasize about doing to the rich and privileged. “I’m surprised things like this don’t happen more often,” Ferver says shortly after the opening soliloquy. Eventually, the audience gets to sit down and experience Chambre in a more traditional arrangement, although there’s very little that’s traditional about the thoroughly engaging and entertaining production, which also features a subtly ominous score by Roarke Menzies. Ferver examines class division, sibling rivalry, gender, and the “monetization of performance” as only he can, with a wickedly potent sense of humor loaded with hard-to-swallow truths. In his introduction to Genet’s The Maids and Deathwatch, Jean-Paul Sartre writes, “For Genet, theatrical procedure is demoniacal. Appearance, which is constantly on the point of passing itself off as reality, must constantly reveal its profound unreality. Everything must be so false that it sets our teeth on edge.” Ferver (Rumble Ghost, Night Light Bright Light,), Swanson, Slominski, Mola, and Menzies set our teeth and more on edge with the seriously funny Chambre, which continues at the New Museum through October 3 as part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival, an apt name for Ferver’s fiendishly clever work.

FROM MINIMALISM TO ALGORITHM: SEPTEMBER SPRING

“September Spring” combines music, dance, painting, and installation at the Kitchen (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Installation open Tuesday – Saturday through October 10, free
Performances Tuesday to Thursday at 5:00 and Friday and Saturday at 2:00 & 5:00 through October 3
212-255-5793 ext11
thekitchen.org

Writer, photographer, and installation artist Sam Falls has created a beautifully intimate tribute to his late godbrother, Jamie Kanzler, with “September Spring,” continuing at the Kitchen through October 10. In 2013, Kanzler, who wrote poetry under the name September Spring and recorded music as Oldd News, died suddenly at the age of twenty-four. Falls has teamed up with dancers Hart of Gold, the New York-based duo consisting of Elizabeth Hart and Jessie Gold, for the durational work, which combines music, dance, and art in unique ways. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 5:00 and Saturdays at 2:00 and 5:00 since September 9, Hart of Gold has been performing an intricate dance on two stacks of twenty-four canvas rugs each, representing every year Kanzler was alive, separated by a translucent black scrim with a doorway at the center, in the Kitchen’s upstairs gallery. First, dabs of paint are carefully applied across each canvas. Then Hart and Gold, dressed in white, begin moving on the surface to the lo-fi, scratchy sounds of Oldd News, played on a turntable in another room. The dancers initially form a large yellow circle (Kanzler’s favorite color), then follow Falls’s choreography as they create a kind of action painting with their feet, at times evoking how a needle moves across a record, with Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew’s lighting going from bright to dark to stroboscopic and one of the dancers changing into a black costume. The audience is encouraged to walk around during the show, experiencing it from changing lines of sight. After each performance, which lasts about an hour, the resulting paintings are removed from the stack and hung from cords; although the choreography and color and initial placement of the paint are the same for every performance, each canvas comes out different. The last performance is on October 3, but the exhibition of the paintings will remain on view for another week. Falls, who was partly inspired by Kanzler’s cover version of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” notes in a deeply personal statement, “Jamie had twenty-four dynamic years and over the course of the show the twenty-four rugs become representations of this time, blending the lightness of days to the darkness at the end, the colorful depth of the center, the core of every mortal life.” But despite all the sadness associated with the concept behind the piece, it is an exhilarating experience, focusing much more on life than on death. “September Spring” is part of “From Minimalism to Algorithm,” a series of works curated by Lumi Tan that examine the legacy of Minimalist art in the digital age.

FIRST SATURDAY: HISPANIC HERITAGE

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, October 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum’s October free First Saturday program pays tribute to National Hispanic Heritage Month — which actually runs September 15 to October 15 — on October 3, kicking things off with a performance by Garifuna traditionalist Aurelio Martínez, who is not only a singer-songwriter but was the first black member of Honduras’s National Congress. Known simply as Aurelio, he will be highlighting songs from his latest record, 2014’s Lándini, which includes such tracks as “Sañanaru,” “Milaguru,” and “Durugubei Mani.” (You can sample the songs here; Aurelio will also be playing a free show at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center on October 15.) First Saturday also features live performances by Danza Fiesta: Baile y Teatro Puertorriqueno, DJ duo iBomba (DJ Beto and DJ Ushka), the Gregorio Uribe Big Band, the Humberto Ramírez Quintent, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and Cave Canem poets Willie Perdomo, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Rio Cortez. In addition, Richard Aste and Edward J. Sullivan will lead a curator talk on the new exhibition “Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World,” art workshops will teach participants how to paint still lifes like Francisco Oller, you can settle in for a game of dominoes, Raquel Cepeda will read from and discuss her most recent book, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina, with her husband, Sacha Jenkins, and children are invited to sing and dance to Spanish and English songs with ¡Acopladitos! And the galleries are open late so you can check out such other exhibitions as “The Rise of Sneaker Culture,” “Kara Walker: ‘African Boy Attendant Curio (Bananas),’” “KAWS: ALONG THE WAY,” and “Zanele Muholi: Isibonelo/Evidence.”

PUBLIC ART FUND TALKS AT THE NEW SCHOOL: JEPPE HEIN

Jeppe Hein will be at the New School on September 29 to discuss his interactive Brooklyn Bridge Park installation (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Jeppe Hein will be at the New School on September 29 to discuss his three-part interactive Brooklyn Bridge Park installation (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

PUBLIC CONTEXT, PRIVATE MEANING
The New School, Tishman Auditorium
63 Fifth Ave. between 13th & 14th Sts.
Tuesday, September 29, $10, 6:30
www.publicartfund.org

Jeppe Hein invites people to experience his work in tactile ways in “Please Touch the Art,” a three-part installation spread across Brooklyn Bridge Park. For the Public Art Fund project, the Danish artist, who lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen, has created “Appearing Rooms,” a dancing water sculpture that visitors are encouraged to walk through and play in; “Modified Social Benches,” sixteen brightly colored red and orange uniquely shaped benches that people can sit on and climb; and “Mirror Labyrinth NY,” a circular maze of mirror-polished stainless-steel vertical planks that offers fun and fascinating reflections as you make your way in and around it, including mimicking the downtown Manhattan skyline across the river. (“Appearing Rooms” is on view until October 4, while the other two will remain in the park through April 17 of next year.) “People can use it; they don’t need to know it’s art or not,” Hein explains in a promotional video. “It’s just something twisting everyday life.” On September 29, Hein will give a participatory talk at the New School as part of the Public Art Fund series “Public Context, Private Meaning,” combining performance, audience interactivity, and interview. The Fall 2015 Public Art Fund Talks at the New School continue October 21 with Hank Willis Thomas and November 18 with Fiona Banner.