this week in art

NAM JUNE PAIK: BECOMING ROBOT

Nam June Paik, “Family of Robot: Father” and “Family of Robot: Mother,” single-channel video sculptures with vintage television and radio casings and monitors, tuner, liquid crystal display, color, silent, 1986 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Asia Society Museum
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 4, $12, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm (free Fridays 6:00 – 9:00)
212-288-6400
www.asiasociety.org
www.paikstudios.com

I was on the subway late last week, reading one of the chapters in the “Nam June Paik: Becoming Robot” catalog for the splendid exhibition at Asia Society, when I looked up and saw an ad for a company that proclaimed, “The most powerful inventions are playful. . . . The most playful inventions are powerful,” touting a robot head, a remote pet feeder, and a synthar. The advertisement made me immediately think of the life and work of Paik, who instilled his highly technological, often futuristic sculptures, musical compositions, videos, drawings, installations, and live performances with an innate playfulness. If you’re not ready, willing, and able to have fun with the innovative, visionary Paik, then don’t bother going to Asia Society, because the exhibit, which continues through January 4, is nothing if not a whole lot of fun. The chapter I was reading on the subway was “Ok, Let’s Go to Blimpies: Talking about Nam June Paik,” a lively, informative, and, yes, playful discussion between museum director Melissa Chiu, former Paik studio manager Jon Huffman, former Paik studio assistant Stephen Vitiello, and Paik’s nephew, Ken Hakuta, that gets to the very essence of the international artist. Paik, who was born in Korea in 1932, moved to Hong Kong, studied in Japan, and lived and worked in Germany and New York, was way ahead of his time as he experimented with electronic music and images, television circuitry, and robots that could go to the bathroom, but with a unique, personal, warm touch that predated cell phones, social media, and interactive video games. “He wanted to redefine television [not as a] passive object, but [as] an object that we interact with,” Vitiello, who is a multimedia artist in his own right, says in the catalog. “We control our destiny. He was a humanist; he wanted to humanize everything, and technology was just a way of getting more time in which we could make better artwork, better software, have better lives.”

Nam June Paik, “TV Bra for Living Sculpture,” cello, two television sets, microphone, amplifiers, deflection coils, “fussbedienungsgerate,” cables, 1975 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The exhibition consists of more than five dozen sculptures, photographs, writings, videos, and other ephemera from throughout Paik’s career. The centerpiece is “Robot K-456,” Paik’s first automated, remote-control-operated, hermaphrotidic robot, which initially could poop beans. (It seems to have lost this function after being purposely hit by a car as part of a major 1982 show at the Whitney.) Also on display is “Family of Robot,” a mother, father, and baby created out of television monitors that blast images across their screens; “Golden Buddha,” a statue watching itself on television (and on which visitors can see themselves as well); “TV Chair,” which features a surveillance camera above and a monitor on the seat; a pair of antique television cabinets on which he has drawn over the surface; a robot brain in a glass dome; and “Three Camera Participation / Participation TV,” which gets a room unto itself, inviting everyone to see colorful, psychedelic projections of themselves in a far corner.

Nam June Paik, “Golden Buddha,” video installation with twenty-seven-inch monitor and closed circuit video camera, painted bronze Buddha with the artist’s additions in permanent oil marker, 2005 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Perhaps most fascinatingly, “Becoming Robot” explores the artistic relationship between Paik and classically trained cellist Charlotte Moorman, who would play topless or wearing Paik’s “TV Bra for Living Sculpture” or “Light Bikini.” The show documents various performances, includes a room of many of Moorman’s outfits, and delves into her arrest for indecent exposure while playing Paik’s Opera Sextronique. Nudity also play a role in “Reclining Buddha,” a stone sculpture of a female Buddha relaxing on her side, right hand holding up her head in a classic pose, atop a pair of color monitors depicting a real naked woman in the same position; nearby is a collection of Paik’s decidedly childlike toys. And be sure to allow extra time to watch clips from Paik’s 1984 satellite installation, Good Morning, Mr. Orwell, a different kind of variety show with Moorman, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Allen Ginsberg, Merce Cunningham, Philip Glass, and Joseph Beuys, as well as a sampling of Paik’s live performances. In his 1966 Great Bear Pamphlet, “Manifestos,” Paik declared, “Cybernated art is very important, but art for cybernated life is more important, and the latter need not be cybernated.” Eight years later, Paik coined the phrase “electronic superhighway.” As “Becoming Robot” so ably shows, Paik was at the crossroads of technology and culture long before the rest of us, predicting a world that would become obsessed with broadcasting personal information and images on handheld devices that resemble their own personal television stations. All the while, though, he remained philosophical and hopeful about the future, deeply serious about his work but intent on incorporating an intoxicating playfulness that is just plain fun — and decidedly human.

STEPHEN VITIELLO: LIGHT READINGS

Stephen Vitiello’s site-specific “Light Readings” installation includes a performance on December 9

Baryshnikov Arts Center, Studio 6A
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
December 8-18, free, various times
December 9 performance, $15, 7:00
www.bacnyc.org
www.stephenvitiello.com

Interactive multimedia artist Stephen Vitiello, whose geographic sound installation, “A Bell for Every Minute,” rang out on the High Line back in 2010-11 and was later acquired for MoMA’s sculpture garden, will be adding a glow to the Baryshnikov Arts Center with the New York premiere of “Light Readings,” translating light into sound using photocells. The unique environment will be open for free December 8-18 from 3:00 to 5:00 or 8:00 during the week and 12 noon to 6:00 on Saturday in Studio 6A, where the natural light will keep things ever changing; Vitiello, a Guggenheim Fellow and an associate professor of kinetic imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University, will also be at BAC on December 9 for a special one-time-only forty-five-minute ticketed performance.

SEBASTIÃO SALGADO: GENESIS

Iceberg between Paulet Island and South Shetland Islands on Weddell Sea in Antarctic Peninsula, 2005 (photo © Sebastião Salgado)

International Center of Photography
1133 Sixth Ave. at 43rd St.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 11, $10-$14 (pay what you wish Fridays 5:00 – 8:00)
212-857-0000
www.icp.org
www.institutoterra.org

In a 2003 International Center of Photography lecture about a year and a half after his “Migrations: Humanity in Transition” exhibit at ICP, Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado said, “I came out of ‘Migrations’ very pessimistic about the prospect, for me, of the survival of the human species because I saw so many tough things on this planet. . . . After seven years on the road, seeing these things, I was a little bit disappointed with all the relations that we create between us and this planet.” Mr. Salgado and his wife, curator Lélia Wanick Salgado, further explore this relationship in “Genesis,” going back to the beginning for his third large-scale series. The eye-opening show, which fills both floors at ICP, consists of more than two hundred fifty primarily black-and-white photos of vast landscapes and indigenous peoples and animals divided into five sections: “Amazonia and Pantanal,” “Northern Spaces,” “Africa,” “Sanctuaries,” and “Planet South.”

Eastern part of Brooks Range in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, 2009 (photo © Sebastião Salgado)

Although the Salgados primarily let the dazzlingly composed photos speak for themselves, the images have a very specific mission. “As well as displaying the beauty of nature, ‘Genesis’ is also a call to arms,” they state in the exhibition catalog. “We cannot continue polluting our soil, water, and air. We must act now to preserve unspoiled land and seascapes and protect the natural sanctuaries of ancient peoples and animals. And we can go further: We can try to reverse the damage we have done.” And these are no mere words. Like the Genesis Device in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which brought “life from lifelessness,” the Salgados are reforesting the Valley of the River Doce in Brazil, planting more than two million trees from more than three hundred different species as part of their Instituto Terra project. “‘Genesis’ is a quest for the world as it was, as it was formed, as it evolved, as it existed for millennia before modern life accelerated and began distancing us from the very essence of our being,” Ms. Salgado writes in the catalog. “And it is testimony that our planet still harbours vast and remote regions where nature reigns in silent and pristine majesty.” That “silent and pristine majesty” is on display in full force in the exhibit. Mr. Salgado, whose first large-scale series was “Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age,” goes back to the land for “Genesis,” pointing out that nearly half of the Earth “is still as it was in the time of genesis.” His photos often require extended viewing, as many contain striking details that slowly emerge only as one spends time with them. He frames his images with natural horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines that cut through the pictures like masterful brushstrokes, from a lightning-like river winding in between a mountain range in Alaska to a sweeping expanse of sand dunes in the Namib Desert in Namibia, from thousands of chinstrap penguins on an iceberg in the South Sandwich Islands to a close-up of one leg of a marine iguana in the Galápagos. Heavenly sunlight glows over a herd of lechwe in Botswana, clouds circle the Roraima Tepui in Venezuela, Zo’é women with poturu cones in their lips color their bodies with the urucum in Brazil, and a Yali man forages for food on a tree in West Papua.

Chinstrap penguins on Saunders Island in South Sandwich Islands, 2009 (photo © Sebastião Salgado)

“[‘Genesis’] is a visual tribute to a fragile planet that we all have a duty to protect,” Ms. Salgado points out, and after experiencing this exhibit, which includes a look at the Instituto Terra project, you’ll feel more responsible for the planet as well. In conjunction with the show, which continues through January 11, ICP will be hosting a series of special events. “Friday Evenings with Climate Scientists” features seismologist Arthur Lerner-Lam on December 5 and climate scientist William D’Andrea on December 12 examining specific parts of the exhibition, while Adam Harrison Levy will moderate “Frack Off!” on December 15, a panel discussion on fracking with photographer Nina Berman and Cornell civil and environmental engineering professor Anthony Ingraffea.

FIRST SATURDAYS: BROOKLYN FASHION

Christian Louboutin, “Printz,” Spring/Summer 2013 (courtesy of Christian Louboutin; photograph by Jay Zukerkorn)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, December 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum has fun with its new exhibit, “Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe,” in the December edition of its free First Saturdays program. “Brooklyn Fashion” will feature live performances by the Hot Sardines and TK Wonder; a shoe-making art workshop; a talk with Manufacture New York CEO Bob Bland; screenings of Julie Benasra’s 2011 documentary, God Save My Shoes, and Tom Kalin’s Alternate Endings, short films made in collaboration with artists Rhys Ernst, Glen Fogel, Lyle Ashton Harris, Derek Jackson, My Barbarian, and Julie Tolentino in honor of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art; a talk with “Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe” curator Lisa Small; an interactive story hour with Aunt Helen’s Closet; a “Killer Heels” photo booth; and a social club with dapperQ.com that includes pop-up shops, a Dapper Academy, and a fashion show. In addition, you can check out such exhibitions as “Revolution! Works from the Black Arts Movement,” “Judith Scott — Bound and Unbound,” and “Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond.”

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: GENERATOR

Marina Abramovic, “Portrait with Blindfold,” framed fine art pigment print, 2014 (photo by Marco Anelli)

Marina Abramović, “Portrait with Blindfold,” framed fine art pigment print, 2014 (photo by Marco Anelli)

Sean Kelly Gallery
475 Tenth Ave. at 36th St.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 6, 10:00/11:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-239-1181
www.skny.com
www.immaterial.org

First, a word of warning: If you want to get all you can from “Generator,” Marina Abramović’s new show at Sean Kelly, just go and experience it with as little advance information as possible. Don’t go to the Tumblr site where you can see photos of people in the space. Don’t look at pictures on the Internet or the postcard at the gallery until after you’re done. Not having this knowledge will greatly enhance your involvement in this sensory-deprivation participatory event. All you need to know is that after putting all bags, jackets, and electronic devices in a locker, you will be blindfolded, and noise-canceling headphones will be placed over your ears by facilitators trained by artist Lynsey Peisinger. You will be led into a large, brightly lit room and told that it’s a slow-movement space and that you should raise your hand when you’re ready to be guided out. You can stay as long as you want; you can sit, you can lean against a wall, you can stand stock-still in the middle, or you can carefully wander around. You’ll be able to hear some sounds and see hints of light, but if you allow yourself to become immersed in the piece, you’ll soon find you are looking deep inside yourself, both frightened and exhilarated, feeling lost and lonely as you yearn for any kind of contact. Finding a wall is comforting, but brushing by another human, a complete stranger, is such a necessary relief that you’ll want to hug that person, although that’s probably not a great idea. However, occasionally Abramović herself will be in the gallery, giving out hugs of her own. I went on an afternoon in which there were very few other people there, so I had large swaths of space to myself, increasing my loneliness, but when there is a line to get in, you’re obviously far more likely to make much more contact while you slither your way through. (Capacity is sixty-eight.)

Abramović’s career took a giant leap forward during her 2010 MoMA retrospective, “The Artist Is Present,” which re-created many of her previous performance pieces (including one in which visitors walk through a narrow doorway “guarded” on each side by naked men and women) and, most famously, an interactive work in which individuals sit across from her at a table and engage in a unique kind of staring contest. So now, even though the artist is usually not present at Sean Kelly, she hovers on the edge of your mind as you delve into this stark world she has created. “It took me twenty-five years to have the courage, the concentration, and the knowledge to come to this, the idea that there would be art without any objects, solely an exchange between performer and public,” she writes about the exhibition. “I needed to go through all of the preparations that I did, I needed to make all the works that came before; they were leading to this point.” Nothingness has never quite felt like this before.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “SHE GUTTA” BY MYKKI BLANCO

This is not your bubby’s Jewish Museum. On November 20, the latest edition of the Upper East Side institution’s “The Wind Up” features Mykki Blanco, the cross-gender rapper, poet, and performance artist also known as Michael David Quattlebaum Jr. As Quattlebaum, he has written From the Silence of Duchamp to the Noise of Boys, a compilation of twenty-three poems including “The Intimacy of Being,” “Freak Jerk,” “Black Boys Are Flowers Too,” and “I Am Young Please Forgive Me,” several of which have been turned into songs by her band, Mykki Blanco & the Mutant Angels, which has released such albums as Betty Rubble: The Initiation and the three-track EP Spring/Summer 2014. In “Poem I” he writes, “I am not a man of reason / And that is exact / I am precisely not a man of logic / And that is inarguable / At some point my soul left me / It was all very casual, you know, in / that way things can sometimes be / It grew tired of my body, I suppose.” Blanco will appear in Scheuer Auditorium along with DJ P. Morris in conjunction with the Abstract Expressionist exhibition “From the Margins: Lee Krasner and Norman Lewis, 1945–1952”; the evening will also include spin art T-shirt making, a painting station, a beer and wine bar, and exhibition tours.

MY FORMATIVE YEARS: THE HIRED HAND

Harry Collings (Peter Fonda) has some reckoning to do in revisionist Western THE HIRED HAND

CABARET CINEMA: THE HIRED HAND (Peter Fonda, 1971)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, November 14, free with $10 bar minimum, 9:30
Series continues Fridays through December 5
212-620-5000
www.rubinmuseum.org

After many years away from the homestead, Harry Collings (first-time-director Peter Fonda) returns to his farm, only to find that his wife (Verna Bloom) has kept herself rather busy once she assumed he was not coming back, in The Hired Hand, a so-called hippie Western written by Scottish novelist Alan Sharp, who also wrote Ulzana’s Raid and Night Moves. Warren Oates is his usual fine self as Harry’s dedicated sidekick, Arch Harris, as they do battle with the likes of the evil McVey (Severn Darden). The quiet, beautiful Fonda is like a Zen cowboy, trusting in karma to right the world’s wrongs, but that doesn’t always work out. Fonda considers the film, photographed by a young Vilmos Szigmond (McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Deer Hunter), to be a Greek tragedy within a Western; indeed, it’s a little gem that that goes way beyond the trappings of the genre, laying the groundwork for such later anti-Westerns as Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. The film is being shown November 14 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “My Formative Years,” curated by artist Francesco Clemente in conjunction with his current solo show, “Inspired by India,” and will be introduced by playwright Neil LaBute. Clemente says about the film, “I’m in favor of psychedelia in all manifestations and to find psychedelia in a Western is always nice when it happens, but it never happens.” The film series continues with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain on November 21 and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom on November 28 (introduced by choreographer Karole Armitage), before concluding with Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro GRA on December 5.