this week in art

FIRST SATURDAYS: KEITH HARING’S NEW YORK

Keith Haring, still from PAINTING MYSELF INTO A CORNER, video, 1979 (© Keith Haring Foundation)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, July 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 Brooklyn Museum sends off its “Keith Haring: 1978-1982” exhibit with a late-night celebration this weekend as part of its monthly First Saturdays program. (The show officially closes on Sunday.) The free evening will feature live performances by Mon Khmer, Mickey Factz, the Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory, City Kids, and Plastiq Passion, an art battle, a hands-on workshop inspired by Haring’s “Art is for everyone” motto, clips from Jim Hubbard’s documentary United in Anger: A History of ACT UP, a signing and talk with Maripol about her book Little Red Riding Hood, a participatory sidewalk chalk mural, gallery talks, Q&As, and a dance party hosted by DJ Justin Strauss. The galleries will remain open until eleven, so be sure to check out such exhibits as “Raw Cooked: Ulrike Müller,” “Aesthetic Ambitions: Edward Lycett and Brooklyn’s Faience Manufacturing Company,” “Playing House,” “Rachel Kneebone: Regarding Rodin,” “Newspaper Fiction: The New York Journalism of Djuna Barnes, 1913–1919,” and “Question Bridge: Black Males.”

MoMA NIGHTS

Ulrich Ziegler will make their live debut at MoMA on August 16

Museum of Modern Art
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Thursday nights, July 5 – August 30, free with museum admission, 5:30 – 8:00
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

Every summer, the Museum of Modern Art’s lovely Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden becomes one of the city’s most beautiful spots to enjoy outdoor music, as various genres from around the world are featured prominently among works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Aristide Maillol, and other great artists. Free with regular admission, MoMA Nights, curated with Olivier Conan of Barbès, begins on July 5 at 6:30 (doors open at 5:30, with limited seating) with a performance by the Brooklyn-based ten-piece fusion band People’s Champs. The series continues July 12 with Rio de Janeiro singer-songwriter Mauricio Pessoa, held in conjunction with MoMA’s Premiere Brazil! film program. On July 19, Diblo Dibala and the Soukous Show from the Republic of Congo takes center stage, followed July 26 by Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and internet phenom Mallu Magalhães. In August, the eight-piece Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto will bring their percussion-based Colombian sound to the garden on August 2, with Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion presenting Revolution: The Cage Century on August 9. On August 16, Ulrich Ziegler, the new collaboration between downtowners Stephen Ulrich and Itamar Ziegler, will make its live debut, while Shara Worden will lead My Brightest Diamond on August 23. The eclectic summer festival concludes August 30 with a performance by Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang, joining the Sierra Leone vocalist with the Brooklyn-based band.

HARLEM ARTS FESTIVAL 2012

Queen Esther will close the 2012 Harlem Arts Festival with dancer-choreographer Francesca Harper tonight

Richard Rodgers Amphitheater
Marcus Garvey Park
Madison Ave. between 120th & 124th Sts.
Saturday, June 30, free, 1:00 – 8:00
www.harlemartsfestival.com

The second day of the free Harlem Art Festival, held in Marcus Garvey Park, features another fine lineup of live music, dance, and theater, emceed by DJ Stormin’ Norman. The party gets started at 1:00 with Gary Samuels & the Prayz’N Hymn Ensemble on the main stage and Isaac Katalay on the second stage at 1:30. Other performers include the Mighty Third Rail, Gwen Laster, Illstyle & Peace Productions, James Browning Kepple, Benjamin Barson, Guerilla Dance Collective, Shelah Marie, and Vernard J. Gilmore / La Verdad, with Queen Esther & the Francesca Harper Project closing the show at 7:00. There is also a kids’ corner with children’s activities in addition to local food vendors, a market, special programs in the Harlem Library, and a gallery walk with work by such artists as Leon Barber, Laura Gadson, Judy Levy, Bryce R. Zackery, and Maxine DeSeta.

CREST FEST

Crest Hardware
558 Metropolitan Ave. between Lorimer & Union
Saturday, June 30, free, 1:00 – 7:00
www.cresthardwareartshow.com

One of the grooviest events of the summer, Crest Fest is a celebration of art, music, food, crafts, and hardware. More than a hundred artists fill the Crest Hardware Store on Metropolitan Ave. with works of art that incorporate items readily available in the store and place them on the walls, racks, floor, and ceiling as if they are part of the regular merchandise — although they will cost you a little more than standard tools. Make your way through aisles and aisles of fun stuff before heading out the back to walk through the garden, grab a bite to eat, and check out some live bands. This year’s musical lineup includes PitchBlak Brass Band, Aabaraki, Workout, Hard Nips, and Grey Sky Appeal, along with DJ sets by Petey Complex, King Cut, Lucas Walters, Peter Hale, Dom Leon, and Krunk Pony. Among the vendors are Mighty Balls, Jessy’s Pastries, Tirana Jewelry, Grand Wazoo Clothing and Other Wondrous Things, Vicolo Mio, Seam, WRKN Class, Daly Pie, North Brooklyn Vineyard, Erika Day Designs, Old Hollywood, and Fantasy Clocks. The opening party and exhibit is a fundraiser for the City Reliquary, the museum and civic organization down the street on Metropolitan.

AN EVENING WITH CINEMA 16

Standish Lawder’s COLOR FILM is one of several experimental works being presented with a special new score at latest Cinema 16 event

The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday, June 26, $12, 7:00
212-255-5793 ext11
www.thekitchen.org

In her first Cinema 16 presentation since her June 2011 show at the Met and the April 2012 passing of original Cinema 16 founder Amos Vogel, photographer and curator Molly Surno continues to keep the experimental aesthetic alive and well with another unique program at the Kitchen. On June 26, the Los Angeles-born, Brooklyn-based Surno will pair a specially commissioned score by New York City musician and visual artist Matteah Baim with a quartet of shorts: Standish Lawder’s 1971 Color Film, in which different colored strips make their way through a projector to music by the Mothers of Invention; Sabrina Ratte’s 2010 Mirages, a kaleidoscopic collaboration with Le Révélateur; Viking Eggeling’s 1924 Symphonie Diagonale, an early abstract silent examination of time and space; and Len Lye’s 1953 Color Cry, a series of photograms initially set to Sonny Terry’s “Fox Chase.” Following the presentation, everyone is invited to the after-party across the street at Gasser & Grunert gallery, which is currently displaying Rodney Dickson’s “Painting” exhibition.

RAFAEL BARRIOS

Rafael Barrios, “Malabarismo Lineal,” stainless steel and acrylic lacquer, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Park Avenue Malls
Park Ave. between 50th & 68th Sts.
Through June 30
www.nycgovparks.org
rafael barrios slideshow

Baton Rouge-born Venezuelan-American artist Rafael Barrios has dotted the Park Ave. Malls between Fiftieth & Sixty-eighth Sts. with nine stainless-steel sculptures painted in primarily single-color acrylic lacquer that create fascinating optical illusions as the traffic, particularly yellow taxis, zooms by and clouds pass over the sun. The geometric constructions, in such colors as blue, white, pink, gray, and purple, look flat when seen from some angles, impossibly thin from others, and like three-dimensional cubes floating in space from other directions, displaying what the artist calls “virtualism.” The works — which feature such mysterious names as “Obtusa,” “Triphasique,” “Acrobatica,” “Centrifuga,” “Trifascica,” and “Malabarismo Lineal” — are best experienced by walking around them, as they offer up shifting perspectives that have a magical, playful quality to them. As the sixty-four-year-old Barrios, who is based in Miami, Paris, and Caracas, explains, “Volume is virtually modeled and modified in form — depending on distance — shifting with the position of the observer and the changes in light throughout the day.” The sculptures, which will remain up through the end of June, are worth revisiting if you haven’t seen them in a few months, as the summer sun and the blooming flowers and green grass that surround them add new shades of light and color.

PHOTOVILLE

Model of Photoville by Dave Shelley of United Photo Industries (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Pier 3 Uplands, Brooklyn Bridge Park
June 22 – July 1, free
photovillenyc.org

Following hot on the heels of last month’s New York Photo Festival in DUMBO, the inaugural Photoville begins today, held in a collection of shipping containers across sixty thousand square feet on Pier 3 in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Sponsored by United Photo Industries, the show will feature exhibits from around the world, a series of workshops and talks, a dog run surrounded by a photo fence, an interactive greenhouse with camera flowers designed by André Feliciano, and a beer garden where visitors can down Brooklyn Brewery selections while watching nighttime projections and eating food from a rotating group of trucks. Getting there will be part of the fun, with a display on board the East River Ferry of shots either of the various vessels in the fleet or taken from them. Among the more than two dozen exhibitions are analog photos from Lomography, the multimedia presentation “2084” from SVA, Russell Frederick’s “Dying Breed: Photos of Bedford Stuyvesant,” Bruce Gilden’s “No Place Like Home: Foreclosures in America,” Sim Chi Yin’s “China’s Rat Tribe,” Wyatt Gallery’s “Tent Life: Haiti,” 2012 Pulse Prize winner Sigrid Viir’s “Routine Crusher,” Josh Lehrer’s “Becoming Visible” series of portraits of homeless transgender teens, Lorie Novak’s multimedia installation “Random Interference,” and Candace Gaudiani’s “Between Destinations” photos taken from inside train windows. Advance registration is recommended for such panel discussions and artist talks as “Li Hao: ‘Worshippers’” and “Cruel and Unusual: The Prisons, the Photography or Both?” on June 23, “The New Documentary” and “Human Rights Through Visual Storytelling” on June 24, “The Art of Fashion Portraiture” on June 28, “Photographs Not Taken” on June 29, and “Janelle Lynch: ‘Los Jardines de Mexico’” and “Photography as Activism” on July 1.