this week in art

PRESIDENT’S FORUM WITH SARAH SZE AND SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE

Sarah Sze’s “Random Walk Drawings” are universes unto themselves at Asia Society (photo courtesy Asia Society)

EXPLORING THE CREATIVE PROCESS — A CONVERSATION
Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
Wednesday, March 14, $20, 6:30
Exhibition continues through March 25
212-288-6400
www.asiasociety.org

For more than fifteen years, New York-based visual artist Sarah Sze has been creating fragile, mysterious environments that are their own little worlds. Using found objects and everyday materials, Sze employs her architectural background to build fascinating structures that combine a Rube Goldberg playfulness with what she calls an “anti-monumental” aesthetic, inspired by Japanese gardens and butoh dance. Her show at Asia Society, “Infinite Line,” delves into her creative process through drawing, sculpture, and installation, spread across two galleries. In the smaller room, such drawings and collages as “Guggenheim as a Ruin,” “Funny Feeling,” “Night,” and “Day” are like architectural plans for fantastical cities while recalling traditional Japanese scroll painting. Visitors have to be careful where they walk in the larger gallery — a security guard will make sure you don’t get too close — which is filled with delicate, expansive pieces made of string, stones, laser-engraved paper, Styrofoam cups, a blinking digital clock, bottle caps, colored tape, and other items that examine the intersection of drawing and sculpture through physical space and perspective. The eight “Random Walk Drawings,” which contain such subtitles as “Compass,” “Window,” “Air,” “Water,” and “Eye Chart,” dangle from the ceiling, spread across the floor, emerge from the wall, and even make their way onto the outside balcony overlooking Park Ave. The Boston-born Sze, who has also treated New Yorkers to such outdoor works as “The Triple Point of Water” in the Whitney’s Sculpture Court in 2003, “Corner Plot” at the Scholars’ Gate entrance to Central Park in 2006, and the current “Still Life with Landscape (Model for a Habitat)” bird feeder on the High Line, will be at Asia Society on March 14 for a discussion with her husband, Indian-born author Siddhartha Mukherjee, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2010 book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, moderated by Asia Society president Vishakha N. Desai. The galleries will remain open until 9:00 that night to allow ticket holders to see the show. If you can’t make it to the event, you can watch the live webcast here.

ARTISTS IN DIALOGUE WITH JOAN JONAS AND KATE GILMORE

Kate Gilmore’s “Break of Day” hangs over the mantelpiece at “The Annual: 2012” at the National Academy (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

National Academy Museum
1083 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Wednesday, March 14, $12, 6:30
Exhibition continues through April 29
212-369-4880
www.nationalacademy.org

“The Annual: 2012” at the National Academy, which usually focuses on American painting and sculpture, includes several excellent videos in this year’s exhibition, and two of the featured artists will be on hand March 14 to talk about their work. Longtime avant-garde video and performance artist Joan Jonas, who has had recent major shows at the Queens Museum of Art, MoMA, and Yvon Lambert, has been on the cutting edge for five decades. The Annual is displaying her video installation “Lines in the Sand,” a reimagining of the story of Helen of Troy inspired by H.D.’s “Tribute to Freud” and “Helen in Egypt” and transported to Las Vegas. Kate Gilmore, who was born when Jonas’s career was already in full force (in 1975), is represented at the Annual by “Break of Day,” a video in which she climbs up a white cube into which she drops pots of pink paint.

Joan Jonas’s “Lines in the Sand” installation reimagines the story of Helen of Troy (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The two artists will be at the National Academy on Wednesday at 6:30 for an “Artists in Dialogue” session with moderator Marshall Price, the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art. Future Annual programs include “On and On and On: Arlene Shechet and Faye Hirsch in Conversation” on March 28 and “Curator’s Insights” on April 11.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: JACCO OLIVIER

Dutch artist Jacco Olivier has made his New York City public art debut by installing six short videos on monitors located throughout Madison Square Park. The display is best seen in the evening, when the colorful animations shine brightly, bringing life to the dark park (and making them easier to find, as they blend more into their surroundings during the day). Consisting of three new works and three older ones, the show highlights Olivier’s playful stop-animation style, in which he creates a painting that he photographs as he continually changes it, resulting in child-friendly narratives of a bug trying to turn over off its back, a deer resting in the woods, and a rabbit hopping through the grass. Stumble, Hide, Rabbit Hole, Bird, Deer, and Home will remain on view through March 12, but you can also catch Olivier’s Revolution at City Center as part of the New Museum’s new video series there.

MOVING IMAGE CONTEMPORARY VIDEO ART FAIR

Daniel Phillips’s three-channel installation RIVER STREET is one of the highlights of Moving Image fair (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Waterfront New York Tunnel
269 11th Ave. between 27th & 28th Sts.
Through March 11, free
212-643-3152
www.moving-image.info

The second annual Moving Image Contemporary Video Art Fair is back in the long, narrow Waterfront New York Tunnel in Chelsea, featuring more than thirty videos and installations from around the world. Upon entering the space from the Eleventh Ave. side, you will find yourself immersed in Janet Biggs’s Predator and Prey, where you can take a seat in the middle of two large screens that follow a polar bear, a horse, and an eagle. For the three-channel River Street, Daniel Phillips documented his rehabilitation of the dilapidated area around his studio and projects the videos on three blocks made from objects and materials he gathered from the construction site. The always playful and innovative Kate Gilmore is represented by Built to Burst, which captures the artist from above as she smashes pots of paint on a series of platforms to create something wholly new. Alex Prager’s Despair, which was recently shown at MoMA, employs colorful, fantasy-like imagery to tell the story of a possible suicide. Martha Wilson uses makeup and camera angles “to deform myself in the way that I fear the most” in the large-screen I have become my own worst fear / Deformation. In Marina Zurkow’s charming black-and-white animation Mesocosm (Northumberland UK), a naked man sits on a tree stump as the seasons pass by around him. There are also creative videos by Sama Alshaibi, Josh Azzarella, Eelco Brand, Susanne Hofer, Jesse McLean, Jenny Perlin, and Yael Kanarek, among others. And be sure not to miss Jesse Fleming’s agonizing The Snail and the Razor, in which a snail ominously attempts to climb over a sharp razor blade. Since you could easily spend much of the day at Moving Image, you can narrow down which videos you want to see by checking out excerpts of every one included in the fair in advance here. On Saturday at noon, Bridgette Howard will moderate the panel discussion “Moving Image Technology of Tomorrow” with Jacob Gaboury, Steven Sacks, and Anne Spalter, followed at 2:00 with Rebecca Cleman moderating the spotlight panel “What Do You Get When You Buy Video Art?” with Lisa Dorin, Jefferson Godard, and Fabienne Stephan.

JON KESSLER: THE BLUE PERIOD

Jon Kessler goes blue at Salon 94 Bowery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Salon 94 Bowery
243 Bowery between Stanton & Rivington Sts.
Through Saturday, March 10
212-979-0001
www.salon94.com
www.jonkessler.com
the blue period slideshow

Yonkers-born multimedia artist Jon Kessler, whose “Seven” collaboration with Mika Rottenberg was one of the standouts of the recent Performa 11 festival, uses cameras and moving parts to create installations filled with unusual perspectives. In “The Blue Period,” which is making its U.S. debut at Salon 94 Bowery through March 10, the New York City–based artist and Columbia professor invites viewers to be more than just spectators as they make their way through the immersive environment, which features two-sided life-size cardboard cutouts of men and women scattered about various cameras, framed collages, and a swirling collection of small moving heads. The color blue abounds, as blue paint has been splattered on the white walls, one side of most of the cardboard figures has been splashed with blue paint, and film and video clips show scenes in which characters are painted blue, including excerpts from Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou, Shawn Levy’s Big Fat Liar (an all-blue Paul Giamatti), and Blue Man Group. Those clips alternate with live shots of the room, shown on several flat screens placed throughout the display as well as on a Nam June Paik–like bank of monitors at the front. As you walk around the exhibit, you’ll get the feeling you’re being watched, and you are — either by the rotating cameras, which project your image onto the screens and monitors, by the cardboard cutouts, or by other visitors. There’s no escaping the constant surveillance, either down here at Salon 94 Bowery or, of course, out on the streets of the city. Kessler was inspired by Guy Debord’s 1967 tome The Society of the Spectacle, which offers up such philosophical statements as “Images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the former unity of life is lost forever” and “The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.” In “The Blue Period,” Kessler has created an involving, humorous world of moving images that grows just a little more frightening as you realize how pervasive and unreal it all really is. You might be able to get out, but those smiling cardboard cutouts are trapped for the duration.

HIGH LINE ART TALK: CHARLES MARY KUBRICHT AND DR. TIMOTHY O’NEILL

Charles Mary Kubricht’s “Alive-nesses” combines patterns in nature with new forms of pixelated military camouflage (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Bumble and Bumble Recreation Center
415 West 13th St., third floor
Thursday, March 8, free (RSVP required), 7:30
www.thehighline.org

Inspired by Abbott Handerson Thayer’s dazzle camouflage style of art based on protective coloration in nature, Charles Mary Kubricht has painted three large storage containers at the Thirtieth St. end of the High Line. “Alive-nesses: Proposal for Adaptation” consists of a trio of containers covered in abstract black-and-white geometric patterns that help them disappear into the city skyline when seen from a distance, especially at night. They become that much more mysterious because they are located in a still-closed section of the abandoned railway, hovering over the Hudson Rail Yards. They also reference military camouflage used to disguise WWI battleships, an odd sight on such a peaceful urban plateau. On March 8 at 7:30 at the Bumble and Bumble Recreation Center, Kubricht, who divides her time between Texas and New York, will discuss the work with camouflage consultant and retired army officer Dr. Timothy O’Neill, who developed MARPAT (U.S. Marine Corps Disruptive Pattern), a pixelated form of camouflage thought to be more effective than traditional military camouflage. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

THINKSWISS: GENÈVE MEETS NEW YORK

Foofwa d’Imobilité will pay tribute to Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham, and Michael Jackson as part of ThinkSwiss festival

A FESTIVAL OF GLOBAL IDEAS BORN IN GENEVA: JEAN CALVIN, JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, ALBERT GALLATIN, HENRY DUNANT
Multiple locations
March 6-12, free – $35
212-599-5700, ext 1061
www.thinkswissny.org

“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless,” Geneva philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote nearly three centuries ago. The Social Contract author’s native country is celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of the master thinker’s birth with a series of events around the world, including this month’s ThinkSwiss Festival of Global Ideas Born in Geneva. Examining issues that impact both America and Switzerland, the week-long festival includes live music and dance, panel discussions, literary readings, film screenings, and art exhibits, most of which are free but require advance RSVP. Things get under way on March 6 ($10) with a screening of Swiss director Jacob Berger’s 2002 feature film Loving Father (Aime Ton Père) and his 2002 short I Think About Alain Tanner (Je pense à Alain Tanner) as part of FIAF’s weekly CinémaTuesdays series, with Berger on hand to participate in a Q&A at 7:00. On March 7, the American Red Cross will host “Can the Geneva Conventions Still Protect Civilians and Non-Combatants in Contemporary Warfare?” a roundtable with Philip Gourevitch, Colonel (ret.) Dick Jackson, Roger Mayou, and Gabor Rona, moderated by Walter A. Füllemann. On March 8, the exhibition “L’Esprit de Genève by Its Posters” will open at Posters Please, and the NYU Presidential Medal Ceremony will include a conversation between honoree Michel Butor and Lois Oppenheim examining “L’Esprit de Genève: From Albert Gallatin to Michel Butor.” On March 9 ($35, lunch included), Adam Gopnik will moderate the discussion “A la Table de Rousseau: What Is Progressive About Education Today?” at FIAF with Butor, Megan Laverty, Jean-Michel Olivier, and Shimon Waronker, followed by “How to Read Rousseau in the 21st Century,” led by François Jacob. Also on March 9 ($25), Pascal Couchepin, Thomas Kean, Eliot Spitzer, Benjamin Barber, Guillaume Chenevière, Victor Gourevitch, Amin Husain, Laura Flanders, Nannerl Keohane, Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, and Simon Schama will occupy the Celeste Bartos Forum at the New York Public Library for “Occupy Rousseau: Inequality & Social Justice,” which seeks to answer the question “What would Jean-Jacques Rousseau say about our democracies if he were among us today?” On March 10, pianist Louis Schwizgebel, cellist Lionel Cottet, and violinist François Sochard will perform the U.S. premiere of “Variations on a Theme by J.J. Rousseau” by Friedrich W. Kalkbrenner and André-François Marescotti, Ravel’s “Ondine,” Brahms’s “Scherzo in C Minor” and “Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 2, 6 and 7,” Mendelssohn’s “Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 49,” and Liszt’s “Les Cloches de Genève” in the program “Soloists from L’Orchestre International de Genève” at Merkin Concert Hall. On March 11 at 4:00, Foofwa d’Imobilité will pay tribute to dance legends Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham, and Michael Jackson in “Pina Jackson in Mercemoriam” at the Kitchen, and the Marc Perrenoud Trio will perform at 7:00 at the Allen Room. And on March 12, Rebecca MacKinnon will moderate “Breaking Through Internet Censorship” at the Cooper Union with Stéphane Koch, Ebtihal Mubarak, Thérèse Obrecht, Anas Qtiesh, and a surprise guest, and journalist and writer Jean-Michel Olivier will give a lecture in French at the Haskell Library at FIAF.