this week in art

FIRST SATURDAYS: CROSSING BROOKLYN

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, November 1, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

For its November edition of its free First Saturdays program, the Brooklyn Museum is looking at its home borough. Crossing Brooklyn will feature live performances by the PitchBlak Brass Band, Meridian Lights, John Robinson & PVD, and Norte Maar; a screening of the UnionDocs collaborative web documentary the Living Los Sures about the south side of Williamsburg; a book reading and talk by Bridgett M. Davis, author of Into the Go-Slow; a collage workshop; and a talk by assistant curator of contemporary art Rujeko Hockley on the exhibition “Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond.” In addition, you can check out such other exhibitions as “Judith Scott — Bound and Unbound,” “Revolution! Works from the Black Arts Movement,” “Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe,” and “Judy Chicago’s Feminist Pedagogy and Alternative Spaces.”

PAPER MUSIC: A CINÉ CONCERT BY PHILIP MILLER AND WILLIAM KENTRIDGE

Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
881 Seventh Ave. at 57th St.
Monday, October 27, $44-$52, 7:30
www.carnegiehall.org

For more than twenty years, South African visual artist William Kentridge has been collaborating with South African musician and composer Philip Miller, from such short films as Felix in Exile, Monument, and Weighing and Wanting to such multimedia installations as “Breathe Dissolve Return” and “The Refusal of Time.” On October 27, Kentridge and Miller will present their latest work, “Paper Music: A Ciné Concert,” at Zankel Hall as part of Carnegie Hall’s UBUNTU Music and Arts of South Africa festival. The evening will be introduced by Kentridge and consist of screenings of several short films with live accompaniment by vocalists Joanna Dudley and Ann Masina, pianist Idith Meshulam, and Miller as the gramophone DJ (on electronic sampler and Foley). Among the works being shown are Felix in Exile, Tide Table, and Other Faces along with suites from Carnets d’Egypte, The Refusal of Time, and Paper Music, which features excerpts from Kentridge’s marvelous 2012 Norton Lectures. In the program notes, Kentridge promises, “New music for old drawings. Recent music with recent films. New music written for films yet to be made,” while Miller explains, “The animated films of Kentridge allow a composer the space to suggest alternative narratives — emotions that may not even have been in his thought process when he drew these images. This gives an exhilarating but challenging sense of freedom not often found in the collaboration between composer and artist.” The UBUNTU festival continues through November 5 with performances by Kesivan and the Lights, Dizu Plaatjies and Ibuyambo, Angélique Kidjo and Friends in a tribute to Miriam Makeba, an exhibition of Kentridge’s works at the nearby Marian Goodman Gallery, and a satellite exhibition at David Krut Projects in Chelsea with works by Kentridge, Diane Victor, Stephen Hobbs, Senzo Shabangu, Vusi Khumalo, and Sam Nhlengethwa, among other events.

ROB PRUITT: MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES

Rob Pruitt’s “Multiple Personalities” includes a room of love seats and standing tabletops layered in wild doodles by his studio assistants (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Gavin Brown’s enterprise
620 Greenwich St.
Through Saturday, October 25, free, 10:00 am- 6:00 pm
212-627-5258
www.gavinbrown.biz

Rob Pruitt displays the profuse output of his mind and the many sides of his artistic vision in “Multiple Personalities,” continuing through October 25 at Gavin Brown’s enterprise. The DC-born, New York City-based provocateur has divided the solo show into four distinct parts. In the front office, a year of framed monthly calendars feature notes and drawings for every day, from birthday reminders to deadlines to the release of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, complete with a miniature version of the title object. The next room is filled with Ikea love seats (displayed atop black-and-white tiled bases) and standing tabletops that have been completely covered by Pruitt’s studio assistants with colorful doodles and sayings, a wry and often goofily pornographic take on pop culture and societal norms that features various familiar cartoon figures, Hollywood celebrities, and politicians engaging in wild sex (don’t miss Bart Simpson, Ned Flanders, Beavis and Butt-Head, and the Pink Panther in a chain next to John and Yoko) as well as tributes to Cy Twombly, Pop Rocks, and Pruitt and longtime partner Jonathan Horowitz.

Cats are hanging around Rob Pruitt’s latest show at Gavin Brown, which includes his “Therapy” and “Suicide” paintings (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

In the third room, several of Pruitt’s acrylic on linen “Suicide Paintings” hang on white walls, with Hamptons sand forming a small shore around them. The gradient works, in shades of blue, green, and purple, are a kind of melding of Mark Rothko (who committed suicide) with James Turrell and Hiroshi Sugimoto (who are both very much alive), like peaceful, inviting windows onto the sea. In the final room, small cats are checking out Pruitt’s “Therapy Paintings,” large canvases based on automatic-writing doodles the artist made during therapy sessions, using ballpoint pens and then blown up onto canvases primed with white impasto. With “Multiple Personalities,” Pruitt, who’s been hosting “Rob Pruitt’s Art Awards” at the Guggenheim since 2009 and whose “Andy Monument,” a silver sculpture of Andy Warhol, graced Union Square back in 2011, has created an impressive display of his wide-ranging talent, ingenuity, and, of course, unique sense of humor.

HALLOWEEN: BangOn! NYC WAREHOUSE OF HORRORS

Mystery location in East Bushwick
Friday, October 31, third tier $50, 10:00 pm – 6:00 am
www.bangon-nyc.com

Tickets are running out for BangOn!NYC’s Warehouse of Horrors, a Halloween extravaganza to be held in a mystery site in Bushwick. This year’s frightening musical lineup features Break Science on the Live/Bass/Glitch/Trap Stage, Random Rab inspired by Burning Man, Zebra Katz, Space Jesus, Sleepy & Boo, an “aural hallucination” DJ set by Twin Shadow, the U.S. debut of PurpleDiscoMachine, and other acts. The party, which begins on Halloween night at ten o’clock and continues through six in the morning, also includes a silent disco, cuddle puddle chill zones, 3D art, a haunted house, carnival rides, a demonic performance by Team Kitty Koalition, circus and freak-show surprises, and more.

MODERN MONDAYS: AN EVENING WITH BILL MORRISON

MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art, the Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Monday, October 20, $12, 7:00
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.billmorrisonfilm.com

There’s a reason why Bill Morrison calls his production company Hypnotic Pictures; for more than twenty years, the Chicago-born, New York-based experimental director has been making hypnotic, mesmerizing films that pair spectacular found footage in various states of decay with gorgeous original soundtracks. The results are as much about its main subjects — natural disasters, societal ills, Frankenstein — as about the history of film, particularly the physical celluloid itself, especially poignant now in the digital age. On October 20, Morrison will be at MoMA for the museum’s latest installment of Modern Mondays, discussing his work in conjunction with the midcareer retrospective “Re-Compositions,” comprising a rotating selection of his oeuvre shown in the Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Building Lobby through March 31. The exhibition is supplemented with “Compositions,” a series of screenings through November 21 consisting of Morrison’s full-length and short films and videos, including The Great Flood, with the score performed live by composer Bill Frisell and Ron Miles, Tony Scherr, and Kenny Wollesen; the trio of All Vows, Just Ancient Loops, and Light Is Calling, with live musical accompaniment by cellist Maya Beiser; a collection of eight 16mm films made between 1990 and 1996; three dystopian works (Gotham, Dystopia, The Highwater Trilogy) made between 2004 and 2008; five 35mm projects from 2000 to 2005; and his 2002 masterpiece, Decasia.

CROSSING THE LINE — RYOJI IKEDA: SUPERPOSITION

(superposition, 2012 © Kazuo Fukunaga / Kyoto Experiment in Kyoto Art Theater, Shunjuza)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
October 17-18, $35, 7:00
212-570-3949
www.fiaf.org
www.metmuseum.org

In the summer of 2011, Japanese multimedia artist Ryoji Ikeda dazzled New Yorkers with the immersive site-specific work the transfinite, which invited visitors to sit down in the Park Avenue Armory and merge with a two-sided monolithic wall, extended onto the floor, that came alive with a mind-blowing array of experimental digital music and mathematically based projections, as if welcoming people inside the mind of a cutting-edge computer. Things will be only slightly more contained for the U.S. premiere of superposition, Ikeda’s theatrical piece being presented October 17 & 18 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. Ticket holders may be sitting in seats, but what’s happening onstage will take them through mesmerizing sound and visuals that combine art and science, mathematics and human behavior in unique ways, exploring technology, philosophy, probability, and the future of existence, zeroing in on a single subatomic particle. The work is being presented as part of the French Institute Alliance Française’s annual Crossing the Line Festival, consisting of multidisciplinary projects and performances at locations throughout the city. In conjunction with superposition, Salon 94 on East Ninety-Fourth St. is hosting a solo exhibition of Ikeda’s work October 20-31, and his black-and-white test pattern [times square] is being projected on nearly four dozen digital screens in Times Square nightly from 11:57 to midnight for the October installment of “Midnight Moment,” the monthly program organized and supported by the Times Square Advertising Coalition in partnership with Times Square Arts; on October 16, the visuals will be accompanied by an Exclusive Sound Experience, with limited headphones available beginning at 11:00. (If you’re attending the October 17 performance of superposition, be sure to arrive at the museum early, as Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir will be playing a special pop-up concert at 6:00 in the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court (Gallery 548) inspired by the Costume Institute’s upcoming “Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire,” which opens October 21.)

HALLOWEEN: THE HAUNTED PUMPKIN GARDEN

Haunted Pumpkin Garden at NYBG offers Spooky Nighttime Adventures

The New York Botanical Garden, Everett Children’s Adventure Garden
2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx (easily accessible via Metro-North)
Tuesday – Sunday through October 31 (special events October 18-19, 24-26, 31), $20
718-817-8700
www.nybg.org

The Haunted Pumpkin Garden opened last month at the New York Botanical Garden, featuring a vast array of pumpkins and gourds of all shapes and sizes. Continuing through All Hallow’s Eve, the display is accompanied by daily family-friendly activities in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, including interactive puppet shows, a pumpkin sprouting demonstration, a scavenger hunt, and parades (Tuesday – Friday, 1:30 – 5:30; Saturday & Sunday, 10:00 am – 5:30 pm). On October 18-19 and 25-26, there will also be a Creepy Creatures of Halloween picnic with live animals (12 noon & 2:00). On October 18 & 25, children (recommended eight and up) can participate in a Budding Masters Creepy Pumpkin Carving Adventure ($50, 10:00), while Spooky Nighttime Adventures take place October 18, 24-25, and 31 ($20, 6:30 & 7:15) with programs geared for children four to twelve; flashlights will be supplied as families encounter ghost stories at the Wild Wetland Trail gazebo, make trick-or-treat bags (and go trick-or-treating), decorate gourds, carve pumpkins, dissect owl pellets, and more. On October 18-19, pumpkin carver extraordinaire Ray Villafane will give demonstrations (10:00 am – 6:00 pm) and take part in Q&As with growers (12 noon – 4:00), while the giant pumpkins will make their way into the garden October 25-26.