this week in art

SAKURA MATSURI

Large crowds will gather to see the blooming cherry trees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden this weekend (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
900 Washington Ave. at Eastern Parkway
Saturday, April 26, and Sunday, April 27, $20-$25 (children under twelve free), 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
718-623-7200
www.bbg.org

In her book The Cherry Blossom Festival: Sakura Celebration, author Ann McClellan writes, “The breathtaking sight of the cherry trees blooming in Japan has inspired princes, poets, artists, and ordinary people for over 1000 years.” However, just as every rose has its thorn, “The sublime beauty of the flowers and their brief life at the beginning of each spring symbolize the essence of a human’s short life well-lived.” This weekend, the beauty, delicateness, and symbolic nature of the cherry blossom will be honored as more than a hundred cherry trees are expected to bloom at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. On Saturday and Sunday, the annual Sakura Matsuri will include live music and dance, parades, workshops, demonstrations, martial arts, fashion shows, and much more. The festival will feature Ikebana flower arranging, a bonsai exhibit, Shogi chess, a manga mural, a wall scroll show, rice shaker and origami workshops, garden tours, shopping, a bookstore, Japanese food, and more, taking place all day long. Below are just some of the highlights of other special, more time-specific events.

Saturday

Children’s Suzuki Recital, with Brooklyn College Preparatory Center, auditorium, 11:00 am

The Battersby Show, with special guest Misako Rocks, J-Lounge Stage at Osborne Garden, 12:30

Ikebana Flower Arranging Demonstration, with Sogetsu expert Fumiko Allinder, auditorium, 12:30

Dancejapan with Sachiyo Ito, Cherry Esplanade, 1:00

IchiP Dance Party, J-Lounge Stage at Osborne Garden, 1:15

BBG Parasol Society Fashion Show, featuring J-pop singer Hitomi Himekawa of Rainbow Bubble, Cherry Esplanade, 2:00

Hanagasa Odori Parade, with Japanese Folk Dance Institute of NY, J-Lounge Stage at Osborne Garden, 2:00

Urasenke Tea Ceremony, auditorium, 3:00 & 4:30

Samurai Sword Soul, Cherry Esplanade, 4:00

The Battersby Show, with special guest Jed Henry, J-Lounge Stage at Osborne Garden, 4:15

Sunday

Soh Daiko, Cherry Esplanade, 12 noon

“The Art of Bonsai” Lecture, with Julian Velasco, auditorium, 12 noon

Awa Odori Parade, J-Lounge Stage at Osborne Garden, 1:00 & 4:30

Ukiyo-e Illustration Demonstration with Artist Jed Henry, J-Lounge Art Alley at Osborne Garden, 1:30 & 3:00

Dancejapan with Sachiyo Ito, Cherry Esplanade, 2:00

Sohenryu-Style Tea Ceremony, with Soumi Shimizu and Sōkyo Shimizu, auditorium, 2:30 & 4:00

Magician Rich Kameda, J-Lounge Stage at Osborne Garden, 2:00 & 4:00

Hitomi Himekawa and the Rainbow Bubble Girls, J-Lounge Stage at Osborne Garden, 3:00

Ryukyu Chimdon Band, Cherry Esplanade, 4:00

Cosplay Fashion Show, Cherry Esplanade, 5:15

CARRIE MAE WEEMS LIVE: PAST TENSE / FUTURE PERFECT

Carrie Mae Weems, “Untitled (Kitchen Table Series),” gelatin silver print and text, 1953 (© Carrie Mae Weems. Photo: © The Art Institute of Chicago)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
April 25-27, most events free with museum admission of $18-$22, evening concerts $15-$35
Exhibition continues through May 14
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org

In her online biography, Carrie Mae Weems writes, “My work has led me to investigate family relationships, gender roles, the histories of racism, sexism, class, and various political systems. Despite the variety of my explorations, throughout it all it has been my contention that my responsibility as an artist is to work, to sing for my supper, to make art, beautiful and powerful, that adds and reveals; to beautify the mess of a messy world, to heal the sick and feed the helpless; to shout bravely from the roof-tops and storm barricaded doors and voice the specifics of our historic moment.” All this and more is evident in her current exhibition at the Guggenheim, ”Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video.” The show, which continues through May 14, is centered by her subtly powerful 1990 black-and-white “Kitchen Table Series,” which details the evolution of a woman photographed in the same domestic space, sometimes by herself, sometimes with children, sometimes with a man. In many ways it harkens back to painting series by Jacob Lawrence, capturing the African American experience, in this case with the focus on a woman. The show also includes photos from her “Colored People” grids, “Family Pictures and Stories” (accompanied by a voice-over by Weems), “Dreaming in Cuba,” “Roaming,” “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried,” “The Louisiana Project,” and “Sea Islands Series” in addition to such short films as Afro-Chic and ceramic commemoration plates, all of which explore elements of black history from an often extremely personal perspective.

Carrie Mae Weems will cohost three days of art and activism at the Guggenheim this weekend (photo by Scott Rudd)

The Portland, Oregon-born artist will be at the Guggenheim this weekend presenting “Carrie Mae Weems LIVE: Past Tense/Future Perfect,” three days of discussions, live music, processions, readings, and more, cohosted by Weems and multidisciplinary artist Carl Hancock Rux. On Friday, there will be a tribute to conceptual sculptor and saxophonist Terry Adkins, who passed away at the age of sixty in February, with Vijay Iyer, Vincent Chancey, Dick Griffin, Marshall Sealy, and Kiane Zawadi, followed by “The Blue Notes of Blues People,” consisting of four sets of presentations by such visual artists, curators, choreographers, and scholars as Julie Mehretu, Leslie Hewitt, Shinique Smith, Thomas Lax, Michele Wallace, Camille A. Brown, Shahzia Sikander, Mark Anthony Neal, Sanford Biggers, Lyle Ashton Harris, and Xaviera Simmons. Other programs include “Written on Skin: Posing Questions on Beauty,” “Slow Fade to Black: Explorations in the Cinematic,” and “Laughing to Keep from Crying: A Critical Read on Comedy,” with Nelson George. The first two nights will conclude with ticketed concerts and conversations, with Jason Moran and the Bandwagon (Friday, with Weems) and the Geri Allen Trio (Saturday, with Weems and Theaster Gates). on Sunday, visual artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons will lead the procession “Habla Lamadre” before Weems offers closing remarks. Select programs on Friday and Saturday will be streamed live here.

LIVE IDEAS: JAMES BALDWIN, THIS TIME!

The life and career of James Baldwin will be celebrated at second annual Live Ideas festival at New York Live Arts this week

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St.
April 23-27
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org

Last year, New York Live Arts presented its inaugural Live Ideas festival, honoring Dr. Oliver Sacks with a series of dance performances, special talks, and other programs. For the 2014 edition, as part of the citywide Year of James Baldwin celebration, NYLA is hosting “Live Ideas: James Baldwin, This Time!,” which runs April 23-27 at its home on West Nineteenth St. Every day at twelve o’clock, “Jimmy at High Noon” (free with advance RSVP) will feature actors, musicians, artists, and others reading from Baldwin’s works, which include Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, The Amen Corner, Another Country, and Jimmy’s Blues; among those scheduled to participate are Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Laurie Anderson, André DeShields, Kathleen Chalfant, Jesse L. Martin, Tonya Pinkins, Vijay Isher, and Toshi Reagon. In addition, Hank Willis Thomas’s free video installation, A person is more important than anything else…, will play continuously in the lobby, where the mural “Letter from a Region of My Mind,” incorporating the text of a piece Baldwin wrote for the November 17, 1962, issue of the New Yorker, will be on view. On April 23 at 2:30 ($15), Live Ideas curator Lawrence Weschler will moderate the discussion “Baldwin’s Capacious Imagination & Influence” with Roberta Uno and Margo Jefferson. That night the Opening Keynote Conversation ($40-$70, 8:00) brings together the impressive trio of choreographer and NYLA executive artistic director Bill T. Jones, photographer Carrie Mae Weems, and author Jamaica Kincaid. On April 23 at 5:00 and April 24 at 8:00 ($15-$40), director Patricia McGregor and actor Colman Domingo will premiere Nothing Personal, a stage adaptation of the collaboration between Baldwin and Richard Avedon, who went to high school together. The festival also includes “Baldwin & Delaney” (April 24, $10, 2:00), consisting of a reading by Rachel Cohen and a panel discussion about Baldwin’s encounter with painter Beauford Delaney; the multidisciplinary conversation “After Giovanni’s Room: Baldwin and Queer Futurity” (April 25, $10, 2:00) with Kyle Abraham, Rich Blint, Matthew Brim, Laura Flanders, and Jones; and “Jimmy’s Blues: Discussing the Poetry of James Baldwin,” comprising discussion and readings by poets Nikky Finney, Edward Hirsch, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ed Pavlić, Meghan O’Rourke, and Nathalie Handal.

SUPER SÁBADO: MAD ABOUT LIBROS

Angélica Negrón will be telling musical stories at free Super Sabado at El Museo del Barrio

Angélica Negrón will be telling musical stories at El Museo del Barrio for free Super Sabado celebration of books

FREE THIRD SATURDAYS
El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Saturday, April 19, free, 12 noon – 5:30 pm
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org

For the April edition of its free Super Sabado program, El Museo del Barrio celebrates the written word with “Mad About Libros.” From 12 noon to 3:00 on April 19, you can head over to the educational ArteXplorers Family Corner in the lobby or take part in a Manos a la Obra workshop where you can make your favorite book character. At noon and 2:00, in conjunction with Colorin Colorado, singer and actress Flor Bromley will be in the café, telling the stories of Librito and Juan Bobo and the Magic Book; composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón will share the participatory musical tale of Amigos at 1:00 and 3:00. From noon to 4:00, there will be a book fair outside the museum. And at 4:30, Roger Cabán of Poetas con Café will host poetry readings by Myrna Nieves, Jesus Papoleto Meléndez, and others. In addition, you can check out the special exhibition “Museum Starter Kit: Open with Care” as well as “Presencia: Works from El Museo’s Permanent Collection,” featuring pieces by Luis Mendez, Shaun El C. Leonardo, Oscar Muñoz, Benvenuto Chavajay, Christian Cravo, Roberto Juárez, Fernando Salicrup, Rafael Tufiño, and more.

PAWEŁ ALTHAMER: THE NEIGHBORS

Visitors can contribute to “Draftsmen’s Congress” through Sunday, then take a piece home with them April 23-27 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Second & fourth floors: Wednesday – Sunday through April 20, $16
Thursday, April 17, 11:00 am – 9:00 pm: one-day exhibition of new sculptures, 231 Bowery, free
April 23-27, “Draftsmen’s Congress” disassembled and distributed to public for free
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org

The work of Polish artist Paweł Althamer is very much about collaboration, cooperation, and community, fostering a positive sense of togetherness and sharing without getting treacly. As his first U.S. museum retrospective, “Paweł Althamer: The Neighbors,” winds down at the New Museum, Althamer still has a few surprises in store, as he says in the exhibition catalog, “to share the experience of what we are doing — to see people doing one thing together. . . . The idea is to switch the rules of the game a little so that everybody is included.” Since the show opened back in February, museum visitors and local organizations have been contributing in its evolution, painting on the walls and floors in the participatory, palimpsestual “Draftsmen’s Congress.” The painting will come to a stop on Easter Sunday, but that’s not the end of the piece; from April 23 to 27, the work will be disassembled, cut into pieces, and handed out to visitors free of charge, furthering Althamer’s democratization not only of the creation of art but of its ownership. On April 17, Althamer, whom Joanna Mytkowska’s catalog essay calls “The People’s Artist,” has collaborated with Dogon sculptor Youssouf Dara, the Bowery Mission, and other neighbors for a free one-day exhibition that will be held in the New Museum’s next-door space at 231 Bowery. (Dara’s work can also be seen in the museum’s window display.)

Paweł Althamer’s “Venetians” mix with visitors on the second floor (Courtesy New Museum, New York. Photo: Benoit Pailley)

In addition, the second floor of “The Neighbors” will remain on view through April 20, where museumgoers can walk among dozens of Althamer’s “Venetians,” gray, life-size steel-and-plastic skeletal sculptures of strangers he encountered in the Italian city and made face casts of, with a specific focus on those who often find themselves excluded or marginalized in one way or another. “It’s about being with them and identifying with them,” Althamer tells cocurator Massimiliano Gioni in the catalog. “People are generally scared of outsiders, but if we can confront and then lose our fear, it’s fantastic.” It’s no accident that the figures, which have gathered around eight video screens showing Althamer’s “So-Called Waves and Other Phenomena of the Mind,” in which he films himself in various altered mental states, have an alienlike quality. (The third floor, which closed April 13, featured many sculptural portraits, which he refers to as “totems,” of the artist himself and members of his family, as well as the miniature landscape “Mezalia” and an accompanying film.) Social collaboration is at the heart of Althamer’s practice, and that extends even to museum admission, as visitors can get in free if they bring a new or gently used men’s coat, which will be donated to the Bowery Mission.

ART SEEN: THE ART OF THE STEAL

NITEHAWK BRUNCH SCREENINGS: THE ART OF THE STEAL (Don Argott, 2009)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Saturday, April 19, 12 noon
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
www.ifcfilms.com

Director Don Argott details a very different kind of art theft in the gripping documentary The Art of the Steal. But in this case, it’s not a famous painting that disappears from a museum in the middle of the night but an entire collection, as well as a man’s legacy, absconded with in full view of the art world. In 1922, Dr. Albert C. Barnes established the Barnes Foundation, displaying his remarkable collection of post-Impressionism art in an arboretum in Merion, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. His goal was to share his magnificent works — including a stunning array of paintings by Cézanne, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, Seurat, and Van Gogh — with bona fide art lovers and students, setting up a school and denying access to the general public, the mass media, and the rich and powerful. He adamantly refused to let any single piece ever be loaned, sold, or moved, outlining the demand very specifically in his will. After his death in 1951, Violette de Mazia continued to carry out his wishes as the Arboretum School expanded, but when she died in 1988, the trust was put in the hands of small Lincoln University and suddenly the Barnes Foundation, which had treasured its privacy, was put into play as politicians, charities, collectors such as the Annenbergs, the press, and the public at large descended on the Barnes like vultures, everyone wanting a piece of the action. Argott follows the money with archival footage and photographs and new interviews with many of those involved on both sides of the caper — although several of the more prominent “thieves” refused to participate. The Art of the Steal is a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the ritzy art world, a must-see for art lovers who get to peek behind the scenes of a multibillion-dollar heist going on in plain sight. The Art of the Steal is being shown April 19 at noon, preceded by the frieze magazine video Audience Appreciation, as part of two Nitehawk Cinema series, “Art Seen” and “Brunch Screenings.” “Art Seen” returns May 5 with Jamie Shovlin’s Rough Cut, while “Nitehawk Brunch Screenings” continues April 26-27 with the Coen brothers’ unstoppable The Big Lebowski.

THE BIG EGG HUNT

Jane Morgan’s penny coin sculpture is one of more than 260 eggs scattered across all five boroughs (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

From 1885 to 1916, Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé and his company created fifty lavish, jewel-encrusted Easter eggs for the imperial royal family, primarily as gifts the emperor could present to the empress. Over the years, mystery has surrounded some of the eggs, eight of which appear to have gone missing. In tribute to its famed history, Fabergé is sponsoring the Big Egg Hunt, “hiding” more than 260 large, artist-designed eggs across all five boroughs. As you come upon the eggs, you can use an app to claim them, making you eligible for the weekly prize of a Fabergé Zenya jeweled egg pendant. (The just-released map is sure to help.) The eggs are also being sold at auction (starting at $500), benefiting Studio in a School, which teaches the visual arts to underserved New York City children, and Elephant Family, which protects Asian elephants and their habitats. Among the artists and designers who have crafted eggs for the occasion are Pat Steir, Bruce Weber, Carolina Herrera, Peter Beard, April Gornik, Clifford Ross, Martha Stewart, Peter Max, Diane von Furstenberg, D*FACE, Julian Schnabel, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Donald Baechler, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Leo Villareal, Mary Mattingly, Tommy Hilfiger, Betty Woodman, Robert Wilson, Cynthia Rowley, and Ralph Lauren; the hottest eggs so far are Zaha Hadid’s “Liquid Skyline” at $27,000, Tracey Emin’s untitled sculpture at $14,000, the Prince’s Drawing School’s “The Royal Egg — Humpty Dumpty” at $13,000, Marc Quinn’s untitled orb at $11,000, Emma Clegg’s “B” at $8,000, and Jon Koon’s “The Golden Child” at $7,000. Oh, and then there’s Jeff Koons’s colorful seal egg balancing a silver ball, which is estimated as “priceless” and can currently be had for a mere $140,000. If those prices are a bit too steep for you, there are also postcards for $10, T-shirts for $30, tote bags for $25, miniature eggs for $45, and ostrich eggs for $130. On April 18, all of the large eggs will be nesting together at Rockefeller Center, followed by the grand auction at Sotheby’s on April 22.