this week in art

BUSHWICK OPEN STUDIOS 2013

Bushwick Open Studios will feature live performance, film, art, a neighborhood fair, a community mural, and more this weekend

Various locations indoors and outdoors in Bushwick
May 31 – June 2, most events free
www.artsinbushwick.org

The seventh annual Bushwick Open Studios takes place this weekend, consisting of three days of art, live performance, film, and other artistic endeavors. The official launch party gets going at 8:00 Friday night ($10) at Shea Stadium with Eula, Air Waves, Lodro, Darlings, and DJ Mr. Ad Hoc; there will also be concerts Friday afternoon at Don Pedro and Saturday afternoon at Lone Wolf. The neighborhood will come together for the public mural “How Does Food Unite People,” Hybrid Theatre Works will present an evening of performance art, Bossa Nova Civic Club will host a late-night Electronic Music Showcase, Brooklyn Fireproof East will be home to the Moving Forward concert, 3rd Ward will exhibit the group show “Walking into the Dashboard” (compiled from the World’s First Tumblr Art Symposium), CinemaSunday will include screenings followed by Q&As with the filmmakers, and Community Day in Maria Hernandez Park features arts & crafts, live music, family-friendly activities, yoga, and more.

PAUL McCARTHY: SCULPTURES/SISTERS

Paul McCarthy, “White Snow, Bookends,” black walnut, 2013 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Hauser & Wirth
511 West 18th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Hudson River Park, 17th St. & the Hudson River Pier
Tuesday – Saturday through June 1, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-790-3900
www.hauserwirth.com

Controversial LA-based multimedia artist Paul McCarthy continues his assault on pop culture, and particularly the Wonderful World of Disney, in his latest installations, which will be seen all over the city this spring and summer. The Salt Lake City-born artist currently has two projects that run through Saturday, June 1. At Hauser & Wirth’s vast new space on West Eighteenth St., “Sculptures” consists of a series of large-scale black walnut pieces that relate a rather adult version of the story of Snow White, combining the 1812 Brothers Grimm German fairy tale “Schneewittchen” with the 1937 animated Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Many of the girls’ faces are caught mid-orgasm, most clearly depicted in “White Snow, Cindy” (which also references supermodel Cindy Crawford) and the totem “White Snow, Erection.” McCarthy plays with the collectible aspect of Disney figures in “White Snow, Bookends,” which is divided into two parts, one on its side. The show also includes a series of pencil drawings, “Étant donnés White Snow Walt Paul Forest,” and a wall of “White Snow Tree Forest Monochromes,” square and rectangular brown sculpture paintings composed of wood, foam, and bedliner, evoking muddy woods.

Paul McCarthy, “Sisters,” bronze, 2013 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Outside and down the street, McCarthy’s bronze “Sisters” rises on the pier, a demented tableaux of decapitated animals, smiling squirrels and bunnies, an old television set, and other odd objects, centered by a pair of tall sisters on crumbling bases. It’s unlikely that Walt Disney would be happy with this scene, although the Brothers Grimm would probably be delighted. McCarthy, whose “Cultural Gothic,” a sculptural installation in which a man stands proudly next to his son, who is having sex with a goat, was a highlight of the New Museum’s recent “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star” exhibition and whose “Balloon Dog” loomed large over the Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island earlier this month, will continue his fascination with Snow White at the Park Avenue Armory from June 19 through August 4, when the multimedia “WS” takes over the immense Wade Thompson Drill Hall; admission is $15 and limited to those eighteen and older, so don’t expect your grandfather’s Snow White. Meanwhile, “Paul McCarthy: Life Cast” will continue through July 26 at Hauser & Wirth’s 69th St. space, lifelike casts of Elyse Poppers that evoke the 1960s sitcom That Girl, along with life-size casts of a naked McCarthy himself. And on June 20, “Paul McCarthy and Damon McCarthy: Rebel Dabble Babble” moves into the 18th St. gallery, as father and son examine Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause as only Paul McCarthy can.

NYC 1993: EXPERIMENTAL JET SET, TRASH AND NO STAR

Charles Ray, “Family Romance,” painted fiberglass and synthetic hair, 1992-93 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Friday – Sunday through May 26, $12-$16
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org

Where were you in 1993? Thirty years ago, we were toiling for the Evil Empire, hoping that the Rangers would win their first Stanley Cup in more than half a century, seeing Springsteen on tour without the E Street Band, and looking for a new apartment after having just gotten married. But in general, 1993 found itself in the midst of a rather nondescript decade highlighted by the tempestuous presidency of William Jefferson Clinton and perhaps best exemplified by the Y2K nonproblem. The New Museum turns its attention on that one specific year in “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star.” Taking its name from the 1994 album by legendary New York underground giants Sonic Youth (the album was recorded in 1993), the show gathers together works created around 1993 by a rather distinguished group of artists, including Matthew Barney, Larry Clark, Martin Kippenberger, John Currin, Nan Goldin, David Hammons, Todd Haynes, Derek Jarman, Mike Kelley, Annie Leibovitz, Elizabeth Peyton, Cindy Sherman, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gillian Wearing, and Hannah Wilke. There are many stand-out pieces, from Robert Gober’s “Prison Window,” wonderfully placed near an “Exit” sign, Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled (Couple),” a string of lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling, and Lorna Simpson’s “7 Mouths,” consisting of close-ups of seven mouths on photo-linen panels, to Devon Dikeou’s lobby directory boards, Charles Ray’s “Family Romance,” depicting a naked fiberglass family of four, all the same height, and Paul McCarthy’s “Cultural Gothic,” in which a man seems proud that his son is doing a goat. And visitors get to walk on Rudolf Stingel’s carpet on the fourth floor and in the elevators.

Pepón Osorio, “The Scene of the Crime (Whose Crime?),” detail, mixed mediums, 1993 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

However, the show is not quite the time capsule curators Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari sought; not all of the work is actually from 1993 (Sarah Lucas’s simple but elegant 1991 “The Old Couple,” Jack Pierson’s 1991 four-letter, multicolored “STAY,” Kiki Smith’s 1992 life-size bronze “Virgin Mary,” Andres Serrano’s 1992 prints from the Morgue series), while others deal with events that occurred prior to 1993 (Lutz Bacher’s “My Penis,” in which William Kennedy Smith repeats that phrase over and over in a six-and-a-half-minute video loop; Glenn Ligon’s “Red Portfolio” references a 1989 direct-mail letter from Pat Robertson). Some of the older works, especially those not by New Yorkers, might have first been shown in New York in 1993, including at the Whitney Biennial, but it doesn’t feel all of a piece, the specific groupings making more sense to art insiders than to the general public. Still, “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star” is a fun sampling of the art of the early ’90s, even if it doesn’t make any grand social, cultural, or political statements.

RICHARD BUTLER: AHATFULOFRAIN

Richard Butler, “thelastauguriesofjuanitadelacruz,” oil on linen, 2013

Freight + Volume
530 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through Saturday, May 25, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-691-7700
www.freightandvolume.com
www.richardbutlerstudio.com

Before becoming a rock-and-roll star, leading the Psychedelic Furs to such 1980s hits as “Pretty in Pink,” “Love My Way,” “Forever Now,” and so many more, followed by his ’90s stint with Love Spit Love, Richard Butler studied painting at the Epsom School of Art and Design in England. As it turns out, the elegant English singer handles both the microphone and the paintbrush rather adeptly, as displayed at last fall’s excellent Psychedelic Furs show at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester and his current exhibition at Chelsea’s Freight + Volume, “ahatfulofrain.” Once again featuring his daughter in many of the works — “Some ninety percent of the paintings I make are based upon images of my daughter, usually distorted in one way or another,” he explains in a press-release interview. “She has become a cipher for me, an every man/woman.” — the Beacon-based Butler creates dark portraits with abstract geometric elements covering parts of his subjects’ faces or hovering in midair. Featuring such intriguing titles as “confessionalsinner,” “devilsbreath,” “whenisaidiloveyouilied,” and “yourheroestoowillbeforgotten,” the canvases combine melancholy with a surreal, dreamlike state bathed in a kind of eerie silence. “Inside you the time moves and she don’t fade / The ghost in you she don’t fade,” Butler sang on the Furs’ 1984 album, Mirror Moves, a chorus that can also be applied to this fine show.

DANCEAFRICA 2013

The Bronx-based Harambee Dance Company is part of 2013 DanceAfrica festival at BAM (photo by Derrek Garret)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
May 24-27, free – $50
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Last week, the incomparable Baba Chuck Davis, the founder and artistic director of BAM’s annual DanceAfrica festival, was one of the grand marshals of the seventh New York Dance Parade, the theme of which was “Unity Through Dance.” That same theme can apply to Davis and DanceAfrica, which this year brings three international companies to the Howard Gilman Opera House stage. Zimbabwe’s Umkhathi Theatre Works will perform the tribal dance Isitshikitsha, the hunting-and-gathering dance Chinyambera, the Shangani tribal dance Muchongoyo, and the social gathering Setapa, joined by the BAM/Restoration DanceAfrica Ensemble. Atlanta’s Giwayen Mata’s program will include Perseverance: In My House, set to DJ Fresca’s “Amaphoyisa,” and the Lamban Dansa. Harambee Dance Company, which hails from the Bronx, will present the historical and spiritual journey Reflections, the partying Midnight in the City, and the musical piece “You Goin’ Get This Work.” As a special treat, Washington, DC’s Sweet Honey in the Rock will sing “Sabumoya,” “I Remember I Believe,” “Wholly Wholly,” and “Let There Be Peace.” As always, Davis will provide his welcoming address (“Ago!” “Amée!!”), introduce the Council of Elders, and honor those who are no longer with us. Meanwhile, BAMcinématek’s FilmAfrica will screen such movies as Taghreed Elsanhouri’s Our Beloved Sudan, Clemente Bococchi’s Black Africa White Marble, Charlie Vundla’s How to Steal 2 Million, and Rémi Bezançon and Jean-Christophe Lie’s animated Zarafa. BAMcafé Live continues the African celebration with a pair of free concerts: Abdou Mboup and Waakaw on May 24 and a Late Night Dance Party with Ralph McDaniels and Video Music Box on May 25. And the always fun DanceAfrica Bazaar will set up shop along Lafayette Ave. and Ashland Pl. Saturday through Monday, a global marketplace with great food, clothing, fashion, arts & crafts, and much more.

BE SWEET OUT THERE

Special one-day High Line installation uses Sweet Leaf bottle caps to make life sweeter for everyone (photo by twi-ny/ees)

The High Line, Chelsea Market Passage
West 16th St. at Tenth Ave.
Friday, May 17, free, 10:00 am – 8:00 pm
212-381-9349
www.thehighline.org
www.sweetleaftea.com

The High Line, the elevated freight rail line on Manhattan’s West Side that has become possibly the city’s most spectacular public park, was once utterly abandoned, a postindustrial wasteland filled with broken glass, tin cans, bottle caps, rusted metal, and nature run wild. On Friday, it will be home to a bunch of bottle caps again, this time as part of a promotion for Sweet Leaf Tea designed to encourage the kindness of strangers. Between 10:00 am and 8:00 pm, park visitors can pick up one of three thousand bottle caps from Sweet Leaf, each of which bears an instruction to do nice things, such as “Hail a cab for a stranger,” “Buy your co-worker coffee,” “Pay attention to your pet,” and “Give someone a compliment today.” In a statement, Friends of the High Line cofounder Joshua David explained, “This installation shows how public-private partnerships can present engaging opportunities for High Line visitors while also supporting the ongoing maintenance and operations of the park, which is funded entirely by the generosity of private donors.” When all the bottle caps are gone, a hidden Sweet Leaf mural will be revealed — and New York may be an even sweeter place to spend a sunny spring Friday.

DEGAS, MISS LA LA, AND THE CIRQUE FERNANDO

Edgar Degas, “Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando,” oil on canvas, 1879, (© National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY)

Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Through May 12, $10-$15
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org

The arrival of Edgar Degas’s lovely 1879 painting “Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando” on these shores is reason enough to cheer. But curator Linda Wolk-Simon has taken the canvas, on loan from the National Gallery in London, and made it the focus of the wonderful exhibit “Degas, Miss La La, and the Cirque Fernando,” continuing at the Morgan Library through May 12. Shown at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1879, the painting depicts popular circus performer Miss La La suspended in midair, her teeth clenched on a rope. The Prussian-born Miss La La, who was also known as the Black Venus and La Femme Cannon, among other nicknames, is like an angel rising to the heavens, her angled limbs and white boots and costume echoing the big top’s unique architectural structure, something that Degas actually struggled to re-create. The lines and colors of the rope, the windows, the arches, the dress, and her body come together in spectacular fashion, albeit with a gentleness that was probably not apparent at the live performance itself, which Degas attended several times. No other circus or audience members are shown; it is as if the viewer is experiencing a private show performed only for them. Degas chose to paint this act instead of another of Miss La La’s highly touted tricks, in which she uses her teeth to hold up a cannon weighing more than 150 pounds while it fires away, perhaps because this one is more elegant and spiritual. Hanging in the middle of the far wall on the second floor of the Morgan, the painting is surrounded by preparatory sketches, books, posters, letters, and related works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henry-Gabriel Ibels, and Tiepolo that place Degas’s masterpiece in historical context while also revealing his fascinating creative process. It all comes together in a kind of artistic three-ring circus, highlighted by a dynamic centerpiece that deservedly rises to the top.