this week in art

A COLLECTIVE INVENTION: PHOTOGRAPHS AT PLAY / THIRTY YEARS THIRTY-ONE PHOTOGRAPHERS

Attributed to Pierre Pullis, “City Hall Subway Station,” platinum print, 1904 (photo courtesy Morgan Library)

A COLLECTIVE INVENTION: PHOTOGRAPHS AT PLAY
Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Daily through May 18, $12-$18 (free Fridays from 7:00 to 9:00)
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org

THIRTY YEARS THIRTY-ONE PHOTOGRAPHERS
Laurence Miller Gallery
20 West 57th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through April 26, free, 11:00 am – 5:30 pm
212-397-3930
www.laurencemillergallery.com

A pair of current photography shows are both displaying a similar curatorial bent in celebratory exhibitions, but with significantly different results. For the first time in its ninety-year history, the Morgan Library has mounted a photography show, organized by Joel Smith, who became the institution’s inaugural photography curator in 2012. “A Collective Invention: Photographs at Play,” on view through May 18, brings together more than eighty works from the Morgan’s holdings and private collectors. The pictures are arranged in sequence, each linked by similarities to the previous photo and to the next one, in form, content, subject matter, geometrical patterns, or other elements. Some connections are easy to spot: Underwood & Underwood Studio’s 1908 photomontage of Theodore Roosevelt is next to George G. Rockwood’s 1898 portrait “Theodore Roosevelt in Rough Rider Uniform,” which is followed by the anonymous “Three-in-One Portrait of Johann Most, Peter Kropotkin, and Mikhail Bakunin” and Tomoko Sawada’s “ID400 (101-200),” multiple photographs Sawada took of herself in photobooths. But other combinations are not nearly as obvious, which is not necessarily a problem until you also realize that consecutive photos could have more than one similarity, and since the accompanying text identifies a single connection, visitors can get the feeling they are wrong if they see a different relationship. This aspect of the exhibition makes it a kind of guessing game and detracts from the overall impact of the show; however, Smith might have done it this way at least in part because the Morgan is relatively new to the world of photography and he didn’t have a lot to work with. I went back a second time to experience the show just focusing on the quality of the photographs themselves, and it still felt lacking. There are some gems here, including Acme Photography Bureau’s 1937 “Carving Lincoln on Rushmore Granite,” Heinz Hajek-Halke’s 1928-32 “Erotik—Ganz Groß! (Erotic—In a Big Way!),” Larry Sultan’s 1991 “Dad Looking into Pool,” and the anonymous 1963 “Montgomery Clift in Freud: The Secret Passion,” but not nearly enough for me to recommend the show. But hey, it’s only the Morgan’s first try. Hopefully they won’t take to heart the warnings of the final piece, Tim Davis’s 2013 “Photography Liberation Front,” an arrangement of found signs forbidding photography. (On April 15, the special program “Accumulated Wisdom: The Collector as Inventor” will feature talks and performances with Davis, Carrie Cooperider, Nina Katchadourian, Thomas Y. Levin, and others.)

Burk Uzzle’s 1970 “New Mexico Highway” vintage gelatin silver print is part of Laurence Miller’s thirtieth anniversary exhibition (photo courtesy Laurence Miller Gallery)

Over in Midtown, Laurence Miller is celebrating his gallery’s thirtieth anniversary with “Thirty Years Thirty-One Photographers,” selecting works from approximately 250 exhibitions over the past three decades. Instead of just choosing its greatest hits, the gallery has put together an extremely well curated collection of photographs that subtly achieves precisely what the Morgan tried to do. Without announcing it or turning it into a game, Miller has organized the photos so that they organically flow one into another, both as a representation of the gallery’s sensibility as well as by theme, content, shape, subject, etc. Michael Spano’s 1978 “Vertical Subway” leads to Toshio Shibata’s 2008 “Okawa Village, Tosa County, Kochi Prefecture,” which is followed by Burk Uzzle’s 1970 “New Mexico Highway,” the thick white center line echoing Shibata’s horizontal bridge and Spano’s vertical composition in addition to the lights of the store and the road in the next photo, Uzzle’s 2007 “Desert Prada,” after which comes Lee Friedlander’s 1971 “Knoxville, Tennessee,” an empty street with a tilted triangular road sign in the middle. A rectangular light and title link Roger Mertin’s 1968 photo from his “Plastic Love Dream” series and Laurence Bach’s 1978 “Paros Dream Book #8,” while two photos each by Joan Colom and Helen Levitt depict anonymous people crowding the frame. But the connections alone are not what make the show, which runs through April 26, so successful; instead, it’s the high quality of the work — there are also photos by Emmet Gowin, Diane Arbus, Fred Herzog, Ray K. Metzker, Petah Coyne, Aaron Siskind, and Eadweard Muybridge, among others — arranged in such a way that you leave with an appreciation of the gallery’s unique identity, which centers on intriguing landscapes, street photography, fascinating experimentation, and a bold mix of black-and-white and color.

FIRST SATURDAYS: WITNESS

Philip Guston, “City Limits,” oil on canvas, 1969. (© The Estate of Philip Guston)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, April 5, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

For its April First Saturdays program, the Brooklyn Museum turns its attention on the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which many Americans want to get rid of completely), in conjunction with the exhibition “Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties,” which features painting, sculpture, video, and installation by such artists as David Hammons, Philip Guston, Barkley L. Hendricks, Robert Indiana, Sam Gilliam, Norman Rockwell, Jae Jarrell, and Norman W. Lewis. The evening will include live music by Gedeon Luke & the People, Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely, and CharlieRED; Ping Chong + Company’s Brooklyn ’63 theater piece; a curator talk with Kellie Jones about “Witness”; a Hands-On Art workshop in which participants can make protest posters; pop-up talks on activism and art; Jennifer Scott discussing the Weeksville Heritage Center and oral history; a screening of Stanley Nelson’s 2013 film Freedom Summer, followed by a Q&A with the director; an interactive performance with Aisha Cousins, Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy, and Yolanda Zama; Kevin Powell lecturing on “Civil Rights: Then & Now”; and a dance party with DJ Mursi Layne. In addition, the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out “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.

DOUG WHEELER: LC 71 NY DZ 13 DW

Doug Wheeler, “LC 71 NY DZ 13 DW,” reinforced fiberglass, flat white titanium dioxide latex, LED light, and DMX control, 2013 (photo by Tim Nighswander, Imaging4Art © 2014 Doug Wheeler; courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London)

David Zwirner
525 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through April 5, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-727-2070
www.davidzwirner.com

You’re going to want to make your reservation now if you want a chance to experience Doug Wheeler’s mesmerizing, meditative “rotational horizon work” at David Zwirner before it closes on Saturday. For his second solo show at the gallery, the Santa Fe– and Los Angeles–based Light and Space artist has created an immersive infinity environment that resembles the bubble at the end of The Truman Show, a circular room that seems to go on forever. Visitors — those with advance reservations as well as walk-ins, who are likely to have to wait in long lines — first slip paper protectors over their shoes, then walk down a narrow hallway, lured by an inviting light at the end. Only a handful of people at a time are allowed through the rectangular door and into the apparently vast space, which is bathed in shades of white and blue that change ever so slightly, like passing clouds in super-slow motion. The convex floor and the light emanating from the round edge, which mimics the glowing horizon, create an off-balance effect that is at first disconcerting yet pleasurable, then calm and welcoming. In some ways the overall feeling evokes flight, as if you’re floating above the orbiting earth; not coincidentally, Wheeler is a trained pilot. Much like the work of such other seminal Light and Space artists as James Turrell and Robert Irwin, Wheeler’s “LC 71 NY DZ 13 DW” plays with physical reality and an individual’s sense of equilibrium. But perhaps most important, it’s really, really cool.

WHITNEY BIENNIAL PERFORMANCES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

Lisa Anne Auerbach will activate her “American Megazine” on Friday nights at the Whitney Biennial (photograph © Lisa Anne Auerbach)

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St.
Through May 25, $18 (pay-what-you-wish Fridays 6:00 – 9:00)
Many programs require advance registration and/or tickets
212-570-3600
www.whitney.org

The 2014 Whitney Biennial, the last to be held in Marcel Breuer and Hamilton P. Smith’s 1960s building on the corner of Madison and Seventy-Fifth, is another mixed bag, further complicated by the curious decision to have three floors organized by three different curators, creating a more disjointed survey of the state of American art than usual. Perhaps the best time to take in this year’s model is when you get the added bonus of a special performance or program, many of which require advance RSVP or tickets. On May 7 at 7:30 ($8), the curators, Stuart Comer, Anthony Elms, and Michelle Grabner, will participate in a roundtable discussion with Jay Sanders that should shed plenty of light on their choices, but there are lots of other events as well. From April 2 to 6 in the second-floor Kaufman Astoria Studios Film and Video Gallery, Academy Records and Matt Hanner present the concurrent film loop The Bower with the three-hour audio No Jets, combining visuals of a cherry tree with audio of flight delays immediately following the events of September 11, while Gary Indiana’s Stanley Park merges images of a Cuban prison with shots of jellyfish. Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst’s twenty-three-minute short, She Gone Rogue, plays April 2-6 and 9-13 in the lobby gallery. On April 4, New York City teens in grades nine through twelve are invited to a free artist workshop led by the collective My Barbarian; the program continues April 11 with Joshua Mosley. On Friday nights through May 23, Lisa Anne Auerbach will activate her large-scale American Megazine on the third floor.

Miguel Gutierrez and Mickey Mahar team up for dance performance that examines midcareer anxiety (photo by Eric McNatt)

On April 6 at 4:00, James Benning’s re-creation of the 1969 classic Easy Rider will be shown in the Kaufman gallery in conjunction with Julie Ault’s “Afterlife: a constellation.” Composer Robert Ashley and director Alex Waterman will present the world premiere of their opera, Crash, April 10-13 ($20); their Spanish-language TV opera, Vidas Perfectas, runs April 17-20 ($20), while their reimagined speaking opera, The Trial of Anne Opie Wehrer and Unknown Accomplices for Crimes Against Humanity, with Amy Sillman, Wayne Koestenbaum, Mary Farley, and Barbara Bloom, plays April 23-27 ($20). Fred Lonidier will lead a teach-in on April 11 at 7:00 that looks at art and labor. On April 12 and 26 ($10 per family), Whitney Wees offers kid-friendly tours and workshops for families with children ages four to five, in addition to the sketching tour “Sculpture and Drawing” for families with kids ages six to ten ($10); also on April 12, Mosely will be leading an Artist’s Choice Workshop for families with children ages eight to twelve ($10), and the Open Studio program, for kids of all ages, will examine Sheila Hicks’s “Pillar of Inquiry / Supple Column.” (Other family workshops are scheduled for April 26 in the Whitney Studio, May 2 with Dan Walsh, May 10 for kids with autism and with My Barbarian, and May 17 with Sara Greenberger Rafferty.) From April 16 to 20, Taisha Paggett will debut a new performance piece in the lobby gallery. On April 17 at 7:00 ($8), Miguel Gutierrez and My Barbarian’s Alexandro Segade have put together “Take Ecstasy with Me,” an evening of performances and reflections by Kalup Linzy, Jacolby Satterwhite, Nao Bustamante, Jorge Cortiñas, A. L. Steiner, Kate Bush Dance Troupe, Juliana Huxtable, and others, inspired by the work of the late Cuban theorist José Esteban Muñoz; Gutierrez will perform the duet Age & Beauty Part 1: Mid-Career Artist/Suicide Note or &:-/ with dancer Mickey Mahar April 23 – May 4 ($20).

Anthony Elms, Stuart Comer, and Michelle Grabner will discuss their curatorial choices at May 7 panel discussion (photo by Filip Wolak)

On April 18 at 7:30, Kevin Beasley, with Leon Finley and Christhian Diaz, will present the interactive audio piece “Public Programs in Sonic Masses.” (Beasley will also host a teen workshop on May 2 and activate his sound sculptures on May 14 at noon, May 16 at 1:00, and May 17 at 3:00 in the lobby gallery.) On April 26 at 6:30 ($8), Triple Canopy will investigate “Media Replication Services.” Doug Ischar’s Come Lontano, Tristes Tarzan, and Alone with You will screen April 30 – May 4 in the Kaufman gallery. On May 1 at 6:30 ($8), Joseph Grigely will deliver a “Seminars with Artists” lecture about communication and miscommunication, followed by Susan Howe’s talk on the “telepathy of archives” on May 14 at 6:30 ($8) and Amy Sillman examining the materiality of color on May 22 at 6:30 ($8). On May 6 at 7:00 ($8), Ault, Benning, and William Least Heat-Moon will discuss “Histories of Place.” On May 11, Travis Jeppesen will read his novel The Suiciders in a durational performance on the third floor. And on May 19 at 7:00 ($8), Dawoud Bey will lead a roundtable Conversations of Art discussion about the portrayal of southern blacks during the civil rights movement. Tickets are available in advance for all of the above events that require an additional fee, as indicated in parentheses; some free programs require preregistration, so don’t hesitate if you want to attend any of these Whitney Biennial bonuses.

FINDING VIVIAN MAIER

Documentary turns the camera on mysterious street photographer Vivian Maier (photo by Vivian Maier / courtesy of the Maloof Collection)

FINDING VIVIAN MAIER (John Maloof & Charlie Siskel, 2013)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway between 62nd & 63rd Sts., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, March 28
www.vivianmaier.com
www.findingvivianmaier.com

By their very nature, street photographers take pictures of anonymous individuals, capturing a moment in time in which viewers can fill in their own details. In the wonderful documentary Finding Vivian Maier, codirectors John Maloof and Charlie Siskel turn the lens around on a street photographer herself, attempting to fill in the details of the curious life and times of Vivian Maier, about whom very little was known. “I find the mystery of it more interesting than her work itself,” says one woman for whom Vivian Maier served as a nanny decades earlier. “I’d love to know more about this person, and I don’t think you can do that through her work.” In 2007, while looking for historical photos for a book on the Portage Park section of Chicago, Maloof purchased a box of negatives at an auction. Upon discovering that they were high-quality, museum-worthy photographs, he set off on a mission to learn more about the photographer. Playing detective — while also developing hundreds of rolls of film, with thousands more to go — Maloof meets with men and women who knew Maier as an oddball, hoarding nanny who went everywhere with her camera and shared little, if anything, about her personal life. “I’m the mystery woman,” Maier says in a color home movie. Her former employers and charges, including talk-show host Phil Donahue, debate her background, the spelling and pronunciation of her name, her accent, and how she might have felt about a documentary delving into her secretive life.

Street photographer Vivian Maier captured a unique view of the world in more than 100,000 pictures (Vivian Maier / courtesy of the Maloof Collection)

Street photographer Vivian Maier captured a unique view of the world in more than 100,000 pictures (photo by Vivian Maier / courtesy of the Maloof Collection)

Maloof also discusses Maier’s work with such major photographers as Joel Meyerowitz and Mary Ellen Mark. “Had she made herself known, she would have become a famous photographer. Something was wrong. . . . A piece of the puzzle is missing,” Mark says while comparing Maier’s work to such legends as Robert Frank, Lisette Model, Helen Levitt, and Diane Arbus. Maloof tries to complete what becomes an ever-more-fascinating puzzle in this extremely enjoyable documentary that gets very serious as he finds out more about the mystery woman who is now considered an important twentieth-century artist. Finding Vivian Maier also has an intriguing pedigree; codirector and producer Siskel (Religulous) is executive producer of Comedy Central’s Tosh.0, executive producer Jeff Garlin (I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With) is a comedian who played Larry David’s best friend and agent on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Kickstarter contributor and interviewee Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs, Lie to Me) is an Oscar-nominated actor who collects Maier’s work. Finding Vivian Maier opens March 28 at Lincoln Plaza and the IFC Center, with Maloof, who has also published two books on Maier, 2011’s Vivian Maier: Street Photographer and last fall’s Vivian Maier: Self-Portraits, appearing at IFC for Q&As following the 5:50 and 7:55 screenings on Friday and Saturday night of opening weekend.

TICKET ALERT: THE DREAM-OVER

Rubin Museum
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Tickets on sale Tuesday, March 25, $108, 11:00 am
Event takes place May 10-11, 8:00 pm – 9:00 am
212-620-5000
www.rubinmuseum.org

Tickets go on sale this morning at eleven o’clock for a uniquely satisfying and rewarding program at the Rubin Museum. The Dream-Over, which began in 2011, will be held this year on Mother’s Day weekend, May 10-11, offering visitors the opportunity to spend a special evening inside the museum, exploring the inner workings of their mind in a fascinating way. Each lucky participant fills out a Dreamlife Questionnaire in advance, giving details about themselves that will help consultants, under the leadership of Dr. William Braun of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, select a specific work of art in the museum under which they will sleep; hopefully the painting, photograph, or sculpture will influence their dreams. Dreamers are required to arrive at the Rubin already in pajamas, robe, and slippers and must bring their own bedding. Food and drink are not allowed; there will be a midnight snack and a Tibetan breakfast. Couples can sleep and dream under the same work of art. In the morning, Dream Gatherers and Dream Interpreters will speak individually with the participants to figure out what their dreams might mean. This year’s theme is Tibetan medicine, in conjunction with the new interactive exhibit “Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine,” in which visitors can determine which of three healing forces are dominant within them. (You can take the quiz here.). Tickets for the Dream-Over sell out immediately, so don’t hesitate if you want to take part in this ultracool event. In addition, as part of the “Bodies in Balance” programs, “Diagnosis III: Dreams” brings together a Tibetan doctor and Jungian analyst Morgan Stebbins for ninety-minute discussions involving the Four Tantras and urinalysis on April 9 and pulse on April 16 and May 7.

MATTHEW PILLSBURY: TALK AND BOOK SIGNING

Matthew Pillsbury, “Sitting on the High Line, Thursday, November 10, 2011,” archival pigment ink print (image courtesy Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York)

CITY STAGES
Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Wednesday, March 12, suggested donation $5, 6:30
Exhibition continues through March 27
www.aperture.org
www.matthewpillsbury.com

In such series as “Screen Lives,” “Time Frame,” and “City Stages,” French-born photographer Matthew Pillsbury has taken pictures of New York and other urban locations (London, Paris, Vancouver, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Miami) with a black-and-white eight-by-ten camera, using exposures ranging from a few minutes to an hour. The results are mysterious, mesmerizing photos that capture several moments in time at once, a kind of past, present, and future rolled together in an often ghostly evocation of an alternate reality mimicking our own. “City Stages” features such locales as Zuccotti Park, the High Line, the Main Reading Room in the New York Public Library, and Washington Square Park in addition to such events as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Village Halloween Parade, and the Lunar New Year Parade, while “Time Frame” goes to the Guggenheim, Grand Central, and the American Museum of Natural History; “Screen Lives” features more personal interiors, with shots of people in rooms with a television on. In conjunction with his current show at Aperture, Pillsbury will be at the Chelsea gallery on March 12 at 6:30 to lead a tour of the exhibition and to sign copies of his first monograph, City Stages (Aperture, October 2013, $55.25), which contains works from all three series. The “City Stages” exhibit will remain on view through March 27 at Aperture; in addition, Pillsbury’s “Nate and Me,” which focuses on the photographer and his former partner who still works with him, is running at Sasha Wolf on Orchard St. through April 20.