this week in art

FRIEZE ART FAIR WEEK 2014

Paul McCarthy’s giant “Balloon Dog” welcomes visitors to the 2013 Frieze New York art fair (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Paul McCarthy’s giant “Balloon Dog” welcomed visitors to the 2013 Frieze New York art fair (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FRIEZE NEW YORK
Randall’s Island Park
May 9-12, $43 ($76 with catalog), 11:00 am – 6:00/7:00 pm
646-346-2845
friezenewyork.com
frieze new york 2013 online slideshow

Much like the Armory Show is the anchor of March’s art-fair extravaganza, Frieze is the centerpiece of May’s explosion, which includes no fewer than eleven fairs. Of course, Frieze is also the most expensive, with admission $43 ($76 if you want the catalog as well) and a round-trip ferry ticket going for $19. (A bus from the Guggenheim is $7; bus and ferry tickets must be purchased in advance.) Still, Frieze is a sprawling, exciting fair, with art from nearly two hundred galleries placed all around Randall’s Island. This year’s Frieze Projects feature interventions by Darren Bader, a soccer installation by Eduardo Basualdo, a playground sculpture by Eva Kotátková, an alternative Tide and Current Taxi ferry by Marie Lorenz, a piece focusing on “invisible communities” by Koki Tanaka, and a Jimi Hendrix–inspired mini-music festival by Naama Tsabar. Frieze Sounds consists of newly commissioned audio works by Keren Cytter, Cally Spooner, and Hannah Weinberger. In addition, visitors can reserve a room (prices start at $350) in Al’s Grand Hotel, a collaboration between original creator Allen Ruppersberg and Public Fiction. Food and drink will be available from Blue Bottle Coffee, Court Street Grocers, Furanku, Frankies Spuntino, Marlow & Sons, Mission Cantina, Momofuku Milk Bar, Roberta’s, and the Fat Radish, with some restaurants requiring advance reservations.

Friday, May 9
Frieze Talks: Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina of Pussy Riot / Zona Prava in conversation with David Remnick, 4:00

Saturday, May 10
Frieze Talks: Adam Szymczyk in conversation with Jenny Jaskey, 4:00

Sunday, May 11
Frieze Talks: The World Wide Web at 25: Terms and Conditions, with Orit Gat, Tyler Coburn, Gene McHugh, and Christiane Paul, 12 noon

Frieze Talks: Keynote Lecture by Kenneth Goldsmith, 4:00

Monday, May 12
Frieze Talks: U.S. premiere of The Act of Killing: The Director’s Cut (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012), screening followed by Joshua Oppenheimer in conversation with Thomas Keenan and Dana Stevens, 12 noon

Andy Yoder’s “Early One Morning” is one of 2014’s Pule Projects

PULSE NEW YORK CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR
The Metropolitan Pavilion
125 West 18th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
May 8-11, $15-$35
www.pulse-art.com

Pulse is consistently one of the best fairs of the season, with innovative works spread out in a convenient layout. Held at the Metropolitan Pavilion, Pulse consists of works from approximately fifty galleries. This year’s Pulse Projects are Andy Yoder’s “Early One Morning,” Charles Lutz’s “LOAD,” Jasmina Cibic’s “Fruits of Our Land,” Samuel Jablon’s “Poet Sculpture,” Sean Fader’s “#wishingpelt,” Shantell Martin’s “You Are You,” Simon Vega’s “The Whitney Museum of Central American Art, a Post-Apocalyptic Dream,” Tamara Gayer’s “All the World’s Affair,” and Zoe Buckman’s “Present Life.” Below is a list of the “Pulse Perspectives: New Models” talks and panel discussions.

Thursday May 8
Claire Breukel and Simón Vega, 1:00

Adarsh Alphons, Ann Fensterstock, Saul Ostrow, 3:00

Daniel Temkin and Benjamin Sutton, 6:00

Friday May 9
Mark Ellwood and Ben Hartley, 1:00

Sherry Dobbin and Carlos Pomares, 3:00

PULSE Prize Jury: discussion and announcement of the 2014 Pulse Prize winner, 6:00

Saturday May 10
Alice Gray Stites and Edward Winkleman, 1:00

Renée Vara and Patrick Regan, 3:00

Jake Yuzna and Kyle DeWoody, 6:00

Sunday May 11
Sue Stoffel, Andrew Gori, and Ambre Kelly, 1:00

Paddy Johnson, William Powhida, and Shawn Gallagher, 3:00

Cutlog brings cutting-edge art to the Clemente on the Lower East Side

CUTLOG
The Clemente
107 Suffolk St.
May 8-11, $15-$50
www.cutlogny.org

Cutlog is back for its second year, highlighting multimedia works by cutting-edge and established artists from approximately sixty galleries. Held at the Clemente on the Lower East Side, the fair features such installations as Mark L. Power’s “See God,” Guillaume Paturel’s “Shelter,” Hrafnhildur Arnardottir aka Shoplifter’s “Hairdoo for a Hallway,” Jessica Deane Rosner’s “The Ulysses Glove Project,” Joan Backes’s “Papier Mache Trees,” Igor Molochevsky’s “In Transition,” and Clara Feder’s “The Wall of Temptation.” There will also be video screenings and/or live performances by Anthony Haden-Guest, Fanni Futterknecht and Marianne Vlaschits, Robert Montgomery, Grayson Earle, Marc Grubstein, Cai Qing, and Bruno Levy & Deantoni Parks, among others.

OUTSIDER ART FAIR
Center 548
548 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
May 8–11, $20-$100
www.outsiderartfair.com

Self-taught artists are celebrated at the Outsider Art Fair, taking place at Center 548 in Chelsea. Some seventy galleries will be exhibiting the work of artists who often worked alone in obscurity, discovered only late in life or even after death. Baumann + Muksian have created a special curated space for the show, with works by “Crystal” John Urho Kemp, Sarah Lucas, Dr. Lakra, and Lewis Smith. “From very different eras and backgrounds, these works share a common ground: a masterly executed disrespect for social conventions and artistic norms in search of enlightenment and artistic freedom,” Daniel Baumann explains about the installation.

Saturday, May 10
Lost in Translation: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Self-Taught Artist, with Brooke Davis Anderson, Eric Fretz, Lenore Schorr, and Xaviera Simmons, moderated by Paul Laster, Center 548 rooftop, 2:00

Henry Darger: 40 Years Later, Anne Hill Blanchard symposium, with Michael Bonesteel, James Brett, Jim Elledge, and Jane Kallir, moderated by Valérie Rousseau, Center 548 rooftop, 4:00

CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR NYC
The Tunnel
May 8-11, $12-$20
269 11th Ave. between 27th & 28th Sts.
www.contemporaryartfairnyc.com

The fifth Contemporary Art Fair NYC, held in the Tunnel in Chelsea, focuses on independent artists and designers and the art of the craft, with prices mostly ranging from $100 to $6,000.

Marck, “Tank,” mixed media with electronical performance (photo courtesy Galerie von Braunbehrens)

DOWNTOWN ART FAIR
69th Regiment Armory
68 Lexington Ave. at 25th St.
May 8-11, $15-$45
www.downtownfair.com

Art Miami comes to New York for the inaugural Downtown Fair, comprising more than fifty galleries at the 69th Regiment Armory, promising to “provide a fresh alternative to acquire important never-before-exhibited works from both the primary and secondary markets in an intimate light.” The curators of No Longer Empty will give daily tours at 12:30, and there will be free shuttle bus service to and from the Frieze ferry.

Friday, May 9
A Conversation with Hunt Slonem about Bunnies!, moderated by Bruce Helander, 12:30

Lecture on 69th Regiment Armory History, with Roslyn Bernstein, 2:00

Saturday, May 10
The Curious Legacy of Collage and Its Current Affiliation to Contemporary Art, with Anthony Haden-Guest and Bruce Helander, 2:00

Sunday, May 11
Willem De Kooning, lecture by Molly Barnes, 2:00

COLLECTIVE 2 DESIGN FAIR
Skylight at Moynihan Station
360 West 33rd St. at Eighth Ave.
May 8-11, $15-$25
www.collectivedesignfair.com

The Collective Design Fair is back for its second year, highlighting the artistic, commercial, and educational aspects of contemporary and twentieth-century design. Some three dozen exhibitors will have booths at Skylight at Moynihan Station at the post office, along with special Collective Settings installations that bring together designers and gallerists, including Robert Couturier and Cristina Grajales, Jonathan Adler and Paul Donzella, David Mann and Maison Gerard, and Alan Wanzenberg and 1950. Murray Moss and Franklin Getchell have curated a solo show by Hella Jongerius, and there are also Collective Conversations that will be held Saturday and Sunday in an area designed by BroLab.

Saturday, May 10
Car Culture, Design Culture, with Andrew Smith and Josh Rubin, 11:30 am

Nordic Influence: Designers Discuss the Scandinavian Legacy, with Glenn Adamson, Wendell Castle, Cathrine Raben Davidsen, and Joseph Walsh, 1:00

Creative License: Decorating with Collectible Design, with Sarah Medford, Cristina Grajales, India Mahdavi, and Suchi Reddy, 2:30

Jewelry Design: Quick Changes in an Ancient Medium, with Jane Adlin, Michele Oka Doner, and Jennifer Trask, 4:00

Manufacturing in Place: The Next Wave in Making and Process, with Rama Chorpash, and the Haas Brothers, 5:30

Sunday, May 11
Students Designing for the Future, with Ellen Lupton and Nikki Gonnissen, 11:30 am

Twenty Questions: New Frontiers in Design, with Henry Urbach, Murray Moss, and Franklin Getchell, 1:00

Design On Demand: New Takes on Rapid Manufacturing, with Julia Kaganskiy, Janos Stone, and Mihae S. Mukaida, 2:30

Dressing the Future: Fashion and 3D Printing, with Adam Brent, Partner, Gabi Asfour, and Bradley Rothenberg, 4:00

Select fair will feature a specially designed beer garden

SELECT FAIR
Altman Building
135 West 18th St.
May 8-11, $5-$20
www.select-fair.com

More than thirty galleries will have booths featuring progressive works at Select in the Altman Building, along with eight Select Project installations and four special projects, Lambert Fine Arts’ “The Directors Den,” “Meow Wolf” by a group of Santa Fe artists, Chelsea Maida’s “Sun Chandelier,” and the interactive performance piece “DOTART” by Tibor Hargitai. In addition, a beer garden will serve food and drink from Six Point Brewery and Brooklyn Bangers.

PooL takes a more low-key approach to the concept of the art fair

POOL ART FAIR
Off Soho Suites
11 Rivington St.
May 9-11, free
www.frereindependent-poolartf.squarespace.com

PooL Art Fair, from the same folks who put on March’s Independent, prefers a modest, low-key approach focusing on artists who do not have representation. The fair will include lectures, special projects and events, and curated installations at Off Soho Suites on Rivington St.

Chris Hefner, Detail from "The Americans (Shoreline)," charcoal on paper, 2013.

Chris Hefner, “The Americans (Shoreline),” detail, charcoal on paper, 2013

VERGE NYC
177 Prince St. between Thompson & Sullivan Sts.
May 9 – May 11, free
www.vergeartfair.com

The fifth annual boutique Verge art fair, “an ongoing experiment in art, markets, ideas, and the art culture,” consists of nearly two dozen galleries, mostly from New York, New Jersey, and Chicago, gathering at 177 Prince St., with two special exhibitions, “Tomorrow Stars” and “The Drawing Show.”

Thursday, May 8
Opening night party, free and open to the public, 6:00 – 10:00

NADA NEW YORK
Pier 36, Basketball City
299 South St. at the East River
May 9-11, free
www.newartdealers.org

More than one hundred exhibitors will take over Basketball City for the third annual NADA New York fair, including such twi-ny faves as Abrons Arts Center, the Hole, Klaus von Nichtssagend, Freight + Volume, and Eleven Rivington. The special projects include “Phaidon Presents Beta-Local and MOCAD,” including interactive community-centric installations, and “Shoot the Lobster,” a site-specific outdoor collaboration with pieces by Lena Henke and Marie Karlberg , Eli Ping, Jennie Jeun Lee, Ryan Foerster, Justin Lieberman, Denise Kupferschmidt, Eddie Martinez, Jeffrey Joyal, Bradley Kronz, Win McCarthy, and Nicholas Buffon.

Saturday, May 10
Contemporary Poetry, marathon reading with thirty poets, Tacombi Lounge, 12 noon – 6:00 pm

LittleCollector workshops by Amy Stevens and Shelter Serra, $20, 11:30 am

Sunday, May 11
LittleCollector workshops by Amy Stevens and Shelter Serra, $20, 11:30 am

El Local Club, conversation about Caribbean art practice and production, with Stefan Benchoam, Pablo Guardiola, and Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, 2:00

MOVIE MEDICINE: TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL

A trio of nurses deal with a deadly epidemic in early Guy Maddin cult classic, TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL

CABARET CINEMA: TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL (Guy Maddin, 1988)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, May 9, free with $10 K2 minimum, 9:30
Series continues through August 29
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

In his first feature-length film, Canadian DIY master Guy Maddin reaches into Icelandic sagas for the ultra-low-budget Tales from the Gimli Hospital. In many ways a kind of Scandinavian Frankenstein as if directed by Ingmar Bergman and George A. Romero, the seventy-two-minute mostly black-and-white Expressionist film is a story within a story (at times within another story) that an old woman, Amma (Margaret Anne MacLeod), is telling her grandchildren (Heather and David Neale) in a hospital room where their mother lies very ill. The dark, lurid fairy tale, set in “a Gimli we no longer know,” is about Einar the Lonely (assistant director Kyle McCulloch), a shy fish smoker who does not know how to relate to other people, particularly women. Felled by an epidemic, he is brought to Gimli Hospital in Manitoba, where other men battle this dread disease, which leaves stitchlike scars on their face and body. Einar is discouraged that the patient in the bed next to him, the portly Gunnar (Michael Gottli), is treated much nicer by the nurses than he is, but he is helpless to do anything about it. Gunnar is soon telling Einar the story of his true love, Snjófridur (Angela Heck), a tragic tale with a surprising twist that brings everything full circle. A unique visual stylist who regularly pays homage to the early days of cinema, Maddin, who directed and edited the picture (and wrote the script on Post-it Notes), purposely keeps things low-tech, including poor sound dubbing and bumpy, awkward cuts, incorporating such oddities as a puppet show anesthetic, Glima wrestling, fish-oil hair gel, an ominous soundtrack, and an over-the-top minstrel in blackface (McCulloch also); Maddin (My Winnipeg, Careful) also plays the weirdo surgeon who operates on Gunnar and Einar in rather strange fashion. In 2011, Maddin, who is part Icelandic, reimagined the film in the special Performa presentation Tales From the Gimli Hospital: Reframed, a reedited version with a live score by Icelandic musicians. The amateur nature of the original work led to its being rejected by the Toronto International Film Festival for ineptitude; it went on to become an instant cult classic, holding the midnight-movie slot at the Quad for nearly a year. Tales from the Gimli Hospital is screening May 9 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “Movie Medicine,” held in conjunction with the exhibition “Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine”; the festival continues May 16 with John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday and May 23 with Michael Bastian introducing Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice.

URS FISCHER

Urs Fischer’s “last supper” inaugurates new Gagosian uptown space (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

LAST SUPPER
Gagosian Gallery, Park & 75
821 Park Ave. at 75th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 8, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.gagosian.com
twi-ny online slideshow

Last year at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, in conjunction with a major career survey, Swiss-born, New York City–based artist Urs Fischer created the sprawling sculptural installation “YES,” working with 1,500 volunteers for three weeks on-site to turn 308 tons of clay into all kinds of representational and abstract shapes and figures of their own choosing. Fischer has now taken select parts of the unfired final product, warts and all, and cast them in unpatinated and gilded bronze. The centerpiece of the project is a large-scale “last supper,” a life-size version of Jesus leading a seder that inaugurates Gagosian’s airy new small space, Park & 75. The clay food on the table includes McDonald’s French fries, fruit, cans of beer and “malt licker,” a hot dog in a bun, a slice of pizza, and a chicken. The apostles are joined by miniature people, a boxy smiley face, a rat crawling on a head, a wad of cash, and some playing cards, among other items that probably weren’t part of the actual dinner in which Jesus revealed that he was about to be betrayed. Fischer leaves in every crack and fissure, every hand- and footprint used to mold the work, which still appears to be made out of malleable clay. It is meant to be an outdoor piece, where the weather can further change it over time, but it currently sits perpendicular to Park Ave. in Gagosian’s windowed room, where curious passersby stop in for a look.

Urs Fischer has placed a host of objects and figures throughout former bank on Delancey St. (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

MERMAID / PIG / BRO W/ HAT
104 Delancey St.
821 Park Ave. at 75th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 23, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.gagosian.com
twi-ny online slideshow

Meanwhile, Fischer and Gagosian have populated an abandoned downtown bank with dozens of other cast-bronze pieces from the original “YES” installation, carefully — and often humorously — placing them throughout the various rooms. A miniature bed resides in front of a vault; a one-legged boy relaxes across a chair; a chained lion sits in a corner; a wildly mustached Napoleon bust stands behind a counter, as if about to take care of a customer; train tracks emerge from a fireplace; a mermaid dribbles water into a fountain; and a giant, disembodied foot waits in the back. Perhaps most relevant is a gold sculpture of a man having sexual relations with a pig; this was a bank, after all.

You can reflect on Fischer’s mirrored boxes at Lever House (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

UNTITLED
Lever House Art Collection
390 Park Ave. at 54th St.
Through May 30, free
www.leverhouseartcollection.com
twi-ny online slideshow

In addition to the uptown and downtown Gagosian shows, nine of Fischer’s mirrored-boxes-on-pedestals aggregrations can be found at Lever House, across the street from where his giant lamp bear sat back in the fall of 2011. Fischer has silkscreened photographic images on four sides and the top of mirrored cubes of varying dimensions and placed them on white plinths; most of the images do not completely cover the surfaces, so the plants, traffic on Park Ave., and other elements are reflected on many sides, giving them a surreal, Magritte-like quality. The images include a pencil, chess pieces, a bottle of soy sauce, a banana, an alarm clock, a level, a box of mints, a camera, and a twenty-dollar bill. Virtually everything about the show is random, from the shapes and sizes to the positioning and organization to which objects were photographed and how. Much like the downtown Gagosian show equates an art gallery with a bank, this collection turns the gallery into a kind of very clean, austere store, which also evokes the Lever Brothers themselves, who made their fortune in soap.

If all of that’s not quite enough Urs Fischer for you, then you can catch two free documentaries May 19-21 at the SVA Theatre as part of the Zürich Meets New York festival, Iwan Schumacher’s Urs Fischer, about the artist’s 2009-10 solo show at the New Museum, and Feuer und Flamme (The Art Foundry), in which Schumacher reveals the working process of Fischer as well as Katharina Fritsch, Peter Fischli, and David Weiss at Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen.

CINCY IN NYC: CINCINNATI BALLET

HUMMINGBIRD is one of three pieces to be presented by Cincinnati Ballet in the company’s Joyce debut (photo by Peter Mueller)

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
May 6-11, $10-$59
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
www.cballet.org

Usually when you talk about Cincinnati being in New York, it means that the Reds are taking on the Mets at CitiField or the Bengals are in town taking on the Jets or the Giants at the Meadowlands. But this week it refers to Cincy in NYC, seven days of art, music, dance, theater, and food celebrating the Queen of the West. The centerpiece is the Cincinnati Ballet, returning to New York City for the first time in thirty-five years as part of its fiftieth anniversary season. The company, which features six Cuban dancers, will be presenting three recent works at its Joyce debut from May 6 to 11. Resident choreographer Adam Hougland’s 2013 Hummingbird in a Box is a piece for eight dancers, set to seven specially commissioned songs by guitar god Peter Frampton and Gordon Kennedy; Frampton, who performed the music live at the Cincinnati premiere, will be on hand to introduce the work on opening night at the Joyce. Trey McIntyre’s 2004 Chasing Squirrel is a wildly energetic and fanciful piece for ten dancers in dazzling costumes by Sandra Woodall, with raucous Latino-infused music recorded by the Kronos Quartet. And Val Caniparoli’s 2013 Caprice is an elegant piece that brings together live musicians and ten dancers to Paganini’s “Violin Caprices.” Cincinnati Ballet artistic director Victoria Morgan will participate in a Joyce Dance Chat following the May 7 show.

Cincy in NYC also includes University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music jazz alums performing at Lincoln Center, “Music and Words with Ricky Ian Gordon” at the National Opera House, a Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park staged reading of Cincinnati native Theresa Rebeck’s new play, Fool, at Pearl Studios, the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, seven Cincy chefs preparing a special meal at the James Beard House, the CCM Ariel Quartet playing Haydn, Berg, and Beethoven at the 92nd St. Y’s downtown SubCulture, and, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the reunion of Rembrandt’s separate portraits of a husband and wife, the Taft Museum’s “Portrait of a Man Rising from His Chair” and the Met’s “Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan.”

FIRST SATURDAYS — AI WEIWEI: ART AND ACTIVISM

Ai Weiwei, detail, “Ritual,” one of six dioramas in fiberglass and iron, from the work “S.A.C.R.E.D.,” 2011-13 (courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio. © Ai Weiwei)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, May 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center; $10 reduced fee to see Ai Weiwei show)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has gained international fame not only for his innovative and controversial art projects but because of his ongoing battle with the authorities, which has led at one point to his famous disappearance and later house arrest. But his fight for freedom of expression continues, as evidenced by the multimedia exhibition “Ai Weiwei: According to What?,” which will be the focus of the Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturdays program on May 3. The evening will investigate the intersection of art and activism with live performances by Magnetic North, Taiyo Na, JD Samson, GHOSTLIGHT Chorus, and the great Jean Grae; a sneak preview of Andreas Johnsen’s new documentary Ai Weiwei The Fake Case; a discussion with Friends of Ai Weiwei, a group that raises awareness for freedom of expression and human rights around the world; pop-up gallery talks about art and activism; a workshop in which participants can make protest flowers in solidarity with Ai’s flower protest; an interactive dialogue about Asian American activism; and a curator talk with Sharon Matt Atkins about the Ai Weiwei exhibition. Although all of the events are free (some do require tickets that can be picked up at the Visitor Center), admission to “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” is $10, reduced from its regular $15 fee. In addition, the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out, without charge, “Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties,” “Swoon: Submerged Motherlands,” “Chicago in L.A.: Judy Chicago’s Early Work, 1963–74,” “Revolution! Works from the Black Arts Movement,” “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt,” “Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas,” “Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn,” and other exhibits.

JAMES FRANCO: NEW FILM STILLS

“I’m getting bored,” James Franco writes in the poem accompanying “Untitled Film Still #58,” his re-creation of the Cindy Sherman original

Pace Gallery
534 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through Saturday, May 3, free, 19:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-989-4258
www.thepacegallery.com

Right up front, we need to admit that we consider ourselves to be Francophiles. We have full admiration and respect for the many guises worn by James Franco. From his days as Daniel Desario on Freaks and Geeks to his work in such films as 127 Hours, Milk, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, from novels and writings to appearances in art films by Paul McCarthy and Isaac Julien, through his current Broadway debut in Of Mice and Men. So at first, we were more than willing to give Franco, who just turned thirty-six, the benefit of the doubt with his latest gallery installation, “New Film Stills,” which continues at Pace through May 3. For the project, Franco re-created (in general, not painstaking detail) more than two dozen of Cindy Sherman’s seminal “Untitled Film Stills,” in which Sherman photographed herself as different female protagonists from 1977 to 1980, as if playing clichéd woman characters in unknown movies, commenting on gender and class identity, power, and the male gaze. Walking through the gallery, we found ourselves entertained by Franco’s homage/appropriation as he, replete with beard and mustache, lounged on a bed in lingerie, examined himself in a mirror, stood outside wearing a hat or kerchief, or walked gingerly down steps. “Cindy is an artist who used cinema as a source for her work; she ‘played’ at being an actress,” Franco has said about the series. “I am an actor who inserts himself into his work. Where Cindy used cinema as a starting place, I use art as a starting place.”

James Franco name-checks D. H. Lawrence, Jack Nicholson, and Dennis Hopper in poem about “Untitled Film Still #42”

But upon further investigation, including perusing the catalog, the cover of which also mimics Sherman’s, we actually grew somewhat agitated and angry at the well-intentioned Franco. Part of the beauty of Sherman’s original photographs were their originality, as well as the mystery and magic that accompanied each one; they were untitled in order to let viewers enjoy and interpret them on an individual basis. In the introduction to the Franco catalog, American academic, poet, and Franco mentor Frank Bidart writes, “To my eye, there’s nothing ‘camp’ about this male figure inhabiting the scenes and tensions and atmospheres in Sherman’s photographs. Just as there is nothing camp or ironic or mocking when he doesn’t imitate them.” They might not be camp, but they lack the magic and mystery — and, of course, originality — of their primogenitors, eventually feeling lazy before unraveling when you read Franco’s accompanying poetry, which is available only in the catalog and comes off more like a school project. Franco has written a poem — four quatrains, some with an additional line — for each of Sherman’s sixty-nine stills. In “Untitled Film Still #27b,” in which Sherman/Franco holds a cocktail glass, a mascara’d tear running down the left side of his/her face, Franco writes, “Living inside one’s skull / Unable to communicate with the outside. / Are we all artists or is a bunch just / Crazy and another bunch just boring? / Tennessee Williams’s sister Rose / Went nuts and was lobotomized / And Tenn put such material into his work. / Did he disrespect her or help us all / By giving us The Glass Menagerie?” In the end, Franco is disrespecting both Sherman, whom he calls “a hero in my pantheon,” and the viewer by deciding what each photograph might or might not mean while name-dropping famous movies, books, and locations. When philosopher and art critic Arthur C. Danto asked Sherman, “Why did you stop doing the untitled film stills?” she responded, “I ran out of clichés.” In the end, “clichés” are exactly where Franco’s misappropriation begins.

POETRY IN MOTION SPRINGFEST

Grand Central Terminal, Vanderbilt Hall
89 East 42 St.
April 26-27, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.grandcentralterminal.com

For more than twenty years, MTA Arts for Transit and Urban Design has been presenting “Poetry in Motion,” posting placards of poetry in subway cars. Since March 2012, the poems, selected in conjunction with the Poetry Society of America, have been pairing poetry with images from the permanent art installations from the Arts for Transit program. This weekend, the MTA and PSA are hosting Poetry in Motion Springfest, a two-day celebration of the written word. The free family-friendly party runs April 26 & 27 in Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall, where attendees can stop by “The Poet Is In” booth and receive a personally created poem from New York State Poet Laureate Marie Howe, Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang, or Bowery Poetry Club founder Bob Holman; visit “Poetry Projected,” consisting of interactive installations by Yu-Ting Feng (“Dear Deer,” in which you can help a deer get over writer’s block) and Sarah Rothberg (“Vital Signs: Pulse Poems,” where your pulse affects verses) as well as poetry projections by New Media artist and 2014 TED senior fellow Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, who teaches the Poetry Everywhere class with Howe in NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program; take part in “The Poet Is You” workshop (advance RSVP required) or “The Human Mic,” where you can step right up and read works by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and Lucille Clifton; and check out live performances courtesy of the MTA’s Music Under New York program.