this week in art

CHRISTMAS TREE AND NEAPOLITAN BAROQUE CRÈCHE 2013-14

The Three Kings proceed to the Magi in annual Met Christmas tree display (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Medieval Art Sculpture Hall, first floor
Through January 6, recommended admission $25
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org
christmas tree and neapolitan baroque crèche slideshow 2013

Once again the Met’s annual Christmas tree has risen in front of a 1763 Choir Screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid, and it will remain on view through the Epiphany on January 6. The twenty-foot-tall spruce is surrounded by twenty-two eighteenth-century cherubs, fifty-five angels, sixty-nine miniature Neapolitan handmade men, women, and children, and fifty animals, from the collection of Loretta Hines Howard. The terracotta polychromed figures, some created by such well-respected sculptors as Giuseppe Sammartino, Salvatore di Franco, Giuseppe Gori, and Angelo Viva, act out the Nativity (or crèche) and the Procession of the Magi as daily business goes on. The tree was originally designed by Howard and is now overseen by her daughter, Linn, along with Linn’s artist daughter, Andrea Selby Rossi, who add new touches to the settings every year; the display also has music to further the holiday spirit. The Met first displayed the figures in 1957, adding the tree, which was also donated by Howard, in 1964. Be sure to walk all around the area to see all the little scenes that are going on throughout the bustling town. And the Met now allows non-flash photography of the tree, so you can take pictures as well. A lighting ceremony is held every day, at 4:30 Sunday through Thursday and at 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30 on Friday and Saturday, and an Audio Guide is available too ($7). The Met’s celebration of Christmas also continues with such holiday-themed events as “The Crossing: A Christmas Concert” on December 22 and the Salomé Chamber Orchestra playing seasonal music on December 20, both in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. Meanwhile, the Cloisters will host “The Waverly Consort: The Christmas Story” on December 15, “ETHEL and Friends” December 20-21 and 27-28, and “Lionheart Laude: Joy and Mystery in Medieval Italy” December 22.

HOUSEWARMING: NOTIONS OF HOME FROM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE

Drew Hamilton’s “Street-Corner Project” is part of inaugural “Housewarming” show at BRIC House in Brooklyn (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Drew Hamilton’s miniature “Street-Corner Project” is part of inaugural “Housewarming” show at BRIC House in Brooklyn (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

BRIC Arts | Media House
647 Fulton St.
Through December 15, free, 10:00 am – 8:00 pm
718-683-5600
www.bricartsmedia.org

There’s an artistic revolution going on in downtown Brooklyn on the other side of the LIRR station from where the Barclays Center now resides. BAM has added the Fisher to the Howard Gilman Opera House and Harvey Theater, right near the Mark Morris Dance Center, and down the street is Theatre for a New Audience’s dazzling new Polonsky Shakespeare Center, which is currently presenting its first production, Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Another new entry in this growing community is the gorgeously revamped BRIC House, a multidisciplinary arts center that opened in its old digs at the corner of Rockwell and Fulton Sts. in October. Sunday is the last day to see its inaugural art exhibition, the appropriately titled “Housewarming: Notions of Home from the Center of the Universe.” Curated by BRIC director of contemporary art Elizabeth Ferrer, the display features works by twelve Brooklyn-based artists, including eight pieces specifically commissioned for this show, in the downstairs three-thousand-square-foot gallery. Keisha Scarville’s photographs from her “I am here” series offer dark, quiet contemplation of objects that recall home. Garry Nichols’s café mural and weather vanes evoke his Tasmanian birthplace. Abraham McNally’s small-scale wall sculptures contain fragments of a physically broken home. Margaret Reid Boyer’s “Household Objects” photos consists of domestic interiors in which something is often not quite right. Vargas-Suarez Universal’s “Star Chamber” can be seen on the building’s facade. Drew Hamilton re-creates the scene he used to see from his second-floor window at Graham Ave. and Merserole St. in Bushwick in the miniature replica “Street-Corner Project.” There are also works by Njideka Akunyili, Sonya Blesofsky, Esperanza Mayobre, Katarina Jerinic and Chad Stayrook, and Nathan Wasserbauer. It all makes for a tender welcome home to BRIC, which in the next few weeks is also hosting free dance classes with Ronald K. Brown / Evidence and Samita Sinha’s work-in-progress, Cipher, with David Levine, Christian Hawkey, and Joe Diebes’s “Wow” scheduled for January.

AD REINHARDT / DONALD JUDD

David Zwirner exhibit features thirteen of Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings

AD REINHARDT
David Zwirner
537 West 20th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday- Saturday through December 18, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.davidzwirner.com

DONALD JUDD: STACKS
Mnuchin Gallery
45 East 78th St.
Tuesday- Saturday through December 14, free, 10:00 am – 5:30 pm
www.mnuchingallery.com

Two of the most important and influential abstract artists of the twentieth century currently have revelatory gallery shows in New York that focus on very specific aspects of their careers. Both men were fairly or unfairly associated with Minimalism, both were key posthumous inclusions in Gagosian’s 2005 group show “Imageless Icons: Abstract Thoughts,” and both handled shape, form, color, and texture in masterful, revolutionary ways. Donald Judd and Ad Reinhardt were contemporaries who defied convention and died relatively young, Reinhardt at fifty-three in 1967, Judd at sixty-five in 1994. At David Zwirner’s Twentieth St. space, thirteen of Reinhardt’s extraordinary black paintings have been brought together, the most since a 1991 retrospective at MoMA. The exhibit, being held in honor of the centennial of the Buffalo-born artist’s birth, is designed to adhere as close as possible to Reinhardt’s exacting specifications regarding such elements as light, placement, and access. At quick glance, of course, the paintings appear to be all-black squares, but upon closer examination it becomes apparent that each one is very different, containing shades of blue, red, and green, composed in cruciform configurations that emerge into smaller squares and rectangles that Reinhardt painted while the canvas lay flat on a table in his studio. The colors and shapes move in and out of focus as one’s gaze continues, every moment morphing into a new joy. It’s a whirlwind display, thrilling and alive, as if each canvas is a living, breathing object. Here’s how Reinhardt described the black paintings: “A square (neutral, shapeless) canvas, five feet wide, five feet high, as high as a man, as wide as a man’s outstretched arms (not large, not small, sizeless), trisected (no composition), one horizontal form negating one vertical form (formless, no top, no bottom, directionless), three (more or less) dark (lightless) no-contrasting (colourless) colours, brushwork brushed out to remove brushwork, a matte, flat, freedhand painted surface (glossless, textureless, non-linear, no hard edge, no soft edge) which does not reflect its surroundings — a pure, abstract, non-objective, timeless, spaceless, changeless relationless, disinterested painting — an object that is self-conscious (no unconsciousness) ideal, transcendent, aware of no thing but art (absolutely no anti-art).” The stellar exhibit also includes a slide show of hundreds of architectural photographs Reinhardt took over the years, as well as dozens of his playful cartoons, from hysterical takes on Hitler to his “How to Look” series.

(photo by om Powel Imaging, Inc. / all artword © Judd Foundation. Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY)

Mnuchin display includes eleven of Donald Judd’s “Stacks” (Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. / © Judd Foundation)

Meanwhile, uptown at Mnuchin, “Stacks” is the first show to concentrate solely on Judd’s signature oeuvre. Spread across several rooms on two floors, the exhibit features eleven stacks from 1968 to 1990, ten of which consist of ten units of equal size and color, constructed of stainless steel, anodized aluminum, galvanized iron, or copper, most often with colored Plexiglas, the units stacked one above the other from floor to ceiling, the space between as important as the physical objects themselves. The light casts intriguing shadows that extend the works, which are composed in blue, amber, yellow, violet, green, white, or black. Just as Reinhardt spoke of brushwork removing brushwork, the Missouri-born Judd said of his stacks, “Well, I am not interested in the kind of expression that you have when you paint a painting with brush strokes. It’s all right, but it’s already done and I want to do something new. I didn’t want to get into something which is played out and narrow. I want to do as I like, invent my own interests. Of course, that doesn’t mean that people who, like Newman, still paint are worn out. But I think that’s a particular kind of experience involving a certain immediacy between you and the canvass, you and the particular kind of experience of that particular moment. I think what I’m trying to deal with is something more long range than that in a way, more obscure perhaps, more involved with things that happen over a longer time perhaps. At least it’s another area of experience.” As with Reinhardt’s black paintings, Judd’s stacks are also deserving of lengthy views to absorb their full impact as they interact with the light, especially in an upstairs room with windows. The Judd show is being held in conjunction with the opening of Judd’s house at 101 Spring St. to the public. Among the works owned by the Judd Foundation and on view in the house is Reinhardt’s “Red Painting.”

LIGHTNESS OF BEING

“Lightness of Being” offers fun in City Hall Park through December 13 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

City Hall Park
Through December 13, free
www.publicartfund.org
lightness of being slideshow

There’s nothing unbearable about the Public Art Fund’s “Lightness of Being,” an airy, playful look at the lighter side of life through shape, form, and color. Continuing in City Hall Park through December 13, the exhibit, curated by Nicholas Baume and Andria Hickey, features an all-star lineup of established and emerging artists having fun with steel, bronze, marble, aluminum, concrete, and other materials. James Angus’s red-and-green “John Deere Model D” tractor lies sideways on the grass, looking like it’s been stretched out in Photoshop. Olaf Breuning’s “The Humans” is a ritualistic circle of white comic-book-like creatures, while Gary Webb’s “Buzzing It Down” is a childlike four-part totem. Be sure to get up close to check out the detail on Evan Holloway’s “Willendorf Wheel.” Stand on the platform in Daniel Buren’s “Suncatcher” to see how the circuslike top transforms the light shining through it and right onto your body. Don’t trip over David Shrigley’s “Metal Flip Flops,” which look more out of place than ever now that the cold weather is here. No, that bicycle is not twisted into a circle as the result of a bad accident but instead is Alicja Kwade’s “Journey without Arrival (Raleigh).” Franz West’s untitled pastel pieces form a set of exclamation points on his career, as these were finished after his death last year. Grab a seat on Sarah Lucas’s cast concrete vegetable benches named “Florian and Kevin.” Cristian Andersen’s “Inverse Reverse Obverse” totem melds cubism with surrealism. And you don’t need to be scared of that clown sitting on the bench; it’s actually Ugo Rondinone and Victoria Bartlett’s “Dog Days Are Over,” a performance piece that takes place Fridays from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.

COSMOPOLIS: 49 WALTZES FOR THE WORLD

Roberta Friedman and Daniel Loewenthal follow John Cage’s advice and take a waltz around the world in COSMOPOLIS

A VIDEO INSTALLATION BY ROBERTA FRIEDMAN + DANIEL LOEWENTHAL
Baryshnikov Arts Center, Studios 4A + 4B
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
December 11-15, free, times vary
866-811-4111
www.bacnyc.org

In 1977, avant-garde composer John Cage published the graphic score 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs: For Performer(s) or Listener(s) or Record Maker(s), a map of forty-nine triangles marking locations in New York City where people were encouraged to go to experience, take part in, or record the natural, everyday sounds there. The score also offered the following enticement: “Transcriptions may be made for other cities (or places) by assembling through chance observations a list of 147 addresses and then, also through chance operations, arranging these in 49 groups of three.” Experimental filmmaker Roberta Friedman and documentarian Daniel Loewenthal have done just that to create the video installation Cosmopolis: 49 Waltzes for the World, on view December 11-15 at Baryshnikov Arts Center. Friedman and Loewenthal visited such cities as Cairo, Beijing, Graz, Detroit, and New York, filming street scenes, capturing pure, unadulterated human life, then bringing them all together in an installation designed for BAC by Andrew Matusik that immerses the viewer into multiple cultures, sort of a day in the life of the world. Also on display will be Friedman and Loewenthal’s 49 Waltzes for the Gated City, 49 Waltzes for Graz, 49 Waltzes for the Motor City, the work-in-progress 49 Waltzes for Al-Qahira, and the original 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs. Admission is free, and no advance reservations are required.

GIVEAWAY: SKIP THE LINE TO SEE YAYOI KUSAMA’S “I WHO HAVE ARRIVED IN HEAVEN”

David Zwirner
525 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 21, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm (line stops around 4:00)
212-727-2070
www.davidzwirner.com
infinity room slideshows

No one knows lines like we New Yorkers do. We line up for burgers, advance movie screenings, new sneaker releases, free Shakespeare in the park. When we see a line, our first thought is to find out what it’s for because it might be something really cool. We particularly pride ourselves on getting on lines to see such lofty, high-culture things as art, and the biggest such line these days is for “I Who Have Arrived in Heaven,” Yayoi Kusama’s dazzling exhibition at David Zwirner in Chelsea. (See below to find out how one lucky twi-ny reader and a guest can get a chance to skip the line to see two of Kusama’s spectacular infinity rooms without having to wait.) Kusama’s first show at Zwirner occupies all three spaces of the Nineteenth St. location, consisting of twenty-seven new paintings, two immersive installations, and a video projection. The canvases, all nearly six feet by six feet square, feature a bright, bold color palette laid out in playful, childlike geometric shapes and patterns, with smiling faces and floating eyes, profiles, green landscapes, blue rivers, and obsessive accumulations of small dots, all coming together in ritualistic compositions that are instantly happy-making, which is Kusama’s intent. “As I’m getting closer to death, I’m still full of big hope that we all have the power to spread the love and peace, and I can do so with my work,” the wheelchair-bound Kusama said through a translator at a press conference held at the gallery the day before the opening. “If you can be happy through my artwork, there’s nothing more joyous than that.” Many of the paintings’ titles have that same positive energy, from “Everything About My Love” and “Praying for Peace in the World” to “Brilliance of Life” and “All the Love Overflowing,” bringing much happiness to the viewer.

“Infinity Mirrored Room — The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Infinity Mirrored Room — The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away,” wood, metal, glass mirrors, plastic, acrylic panel, rubber, LED lighting system, and acrylic balls, 2013 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Now eighty-four, Kusama lives by choice in a psychiatric facility in Japan, and as she makes clear in the title of the exhibit as well as in some of the names of some of the new works, her ultimate fate awaits. While walking around her tantalizingly gorgeous “Love Is Calling” Mirrored Infinity Room, a wondrous forest of light-up spotted leglike rubber and acrylic objects that change colors, she can be heard reciting, in Japanese, the love poem “Residing in a Castle of Shed Tears,” which begins, “When the time comes around for people to encounter the end of their life / having put on years, death seems to be quietly approaching / It was not supposed to be my style to be frightened, but I am / In the shadows of my loved one’s footprints, distress revisits me at the dead of the night refreshing my memories / Being in love with and longing for you, I have locked myself up in this ‘castle of shed tears.’” The serious words play off the scintillating delight of wandering through the room, which extends ad infinitum in all directions. The exhibit is highlighted by her latest Infinity Room: “The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away,” which, like “Fireflies on the Water” in her otherwise underwhelming 2012 Whitney retrospective, puts visitors at the center of a vast, unending universe filled with LED lights sparkling on the water and across the galaxies, playing with the mind as it lifts the spirits, evoking life, death, and the afterlife on three physical planes.

“Manhattan Suicide Addict,” still (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Still from “Manhattan Suicide Addict,” video projection and mirrors, 2010-present (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

After waiting as much as three hours or more, visitors are allowed forty-five seconds in “Infinity Mirrored Room — The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” and approximately twice that in “Love Is Calling,” which can fit about eight to ten people at a time. There is no wait to see the paintings or the short music video Manhattan Suicide Addict, in which Kusama sings such lines as “Swallow antidepressants and it will be gone” and “Amidst the agony of flowers, the present never ends,” the single projection being reflected off to the right and the left in an endless succession of Kusamas singing in front of her art. But despite all the mentions of death, “I Who Have Arrived in Heaven” is primarily about life and love, peace and hope, and it is certainly the most happy-making art exhibit in town right now.

SKIP THE LINE! The wait to see “Infinity Mirrored Room — The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” and “Love Is Calling” is currently estimated to be between one and three hours, and it is likely to only grow longer as the exhibition reaches its closing date of December 21. But twi-ny can offer one lucky couple special access to the two remarkable rooms without having to wait on line. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time-favorite Yayoi Kusama work of art to contest@twi-ny.com by Tuesday, December 10, at 5:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; one winner will be selected at random.

FIRST SATURDAY: WANGECHI MUTU

Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, b. 1972). The End of eating Everything (still), 2013. Animated video, color, sound, 8 min. Courtesy of the artist. Commissioned by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. © Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu, still from “The End of eating Everything,” animated video, color, sound, 8 min., 2013 (courtesy of the artist / © Wangechi Mutu)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, December 7, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The December edition of the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturdays program takes a look at Brooklyn-based Kenyan visual artist Wangechi Mutu in conjunction with the midcareer survey “Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey.” The evening will include a curator talk by Saisha Grayson on the Mutu show, an arts workshop demonstrating how to make Mutu-inspired collages, pop-up gallery talks, an artist talk by Nigerian-born Njideka Akunyili, a screening of Arthur Jafa and Kahlil Joseph’s 2013 documentary Dreams Are Colder Than Death about being black in America, live music by Pegasus Warning and Rebellum, a spoken-word performance by Saul Williams, and book club readings by Kiini Ibura Salaam and Bridgett M. Davis, followed by a discussion examining their work in the context of Mutu’s art, moderated by Tayari Jones and presented by Bold as Love magazine. In addition, the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out “War / Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath,” “Twice Militant: Lorraine Hansberry’s Letters to ‘The Ladder,’” “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt,” “Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas,” “Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn,” “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk,” and other exhibits.