this week in art

NIGHT PAINTER: TED GAHL

Smaller works line up in a row in Ted Gahl’s “Night Painter,” on view at DODGEgallery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

DODGEgallery
15 Rivington St. between Bowery & Chrystie St.
Wednesday – Sunday through November 13
Admission: free
212-228-5122
www.dodge-gallery.com
www.tedgahl.blogspot.com

The phrase “can’t sleep” is written at the bottom of one of Ted Gahl’s acrylic paintings in his first New York solo exhibition, and that stark admission lies at the heart of the artist’s world view. We first encountered the Pratt and RISD graduate’s enticing work over the summer when he was part of DODGEgallery’s “Shakedown” group show, celebrating the Lower East Side space’s one-year anniversary. An insomniac who makes sketches on napkins by day and exquisite abstract paintings at night, Gahl fills his solo debut, “Night Painter,” on view at DODGE through November 13 (yes, it is open on Sundays), with a bold mix of acrylic, oil, pastel, graphite, and mixed media works that are wise beyond his years. The twenty-eight-year-old artist focuses on deep blues and blacks, the color of night, with splashes of red, green, and yellow, in works that open up representationally as one gets closer: Examining their many subtleties reveals doorways, mouse holes, and, often, large figures hidden away in the background. Memories that come in the darkest night lead to such larger canvases as “Sleeping Painter,” “In the Garden,” and “Sleepwalking,” joined by a series of fourteen-by-eleven-inch paintings that show Gahl’s playful sense of humor; “Dilemma (Sleepy Nail)” depicts a hammer and nail, evoking the hanging of a picture, while “Self Portrait” includes a cigarette sticking out from a colorful silkscreen.

Ted Gahl, “In the Garden,” acrylic and oil pastel on unprimed canvas, and “Church,” acrylic on stainless steel, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Since he was a child, Gahl, who was born in New Haven and is now based in Brooklyn and Litchfield, has been fascinated by sailboats, which appear in numerous pieces, most noticeably as small wooden triangles that stick out of canvases, not only lending them a unique three-dimensionality but also casting intriguing shadows and coming off as slightly threatening, their sharp edges pointing straight into the onlooker’s gaze like daggers in the eyes that keep one up at night. (In another self-reflexive reference, the triangles are actually shims, which are used in the hanging and shipping of artworks.) Many of the pieces evoke Philip Guston, another night painter who went back and forth between abstract and figural representation; “Neighbor,” “French Man at Night,” and “The Big House” even utilize Guston’s immediately recognizable color scheme. The show also features several illuminating sketches in addition to a pair of walking sticks, called “Family Jewels,” one by Gahl, the other by his father, paying tribute to his legacy. “Night Painter” is a must-see exhibit, filled with works that are well worth lingering over, by an extremely skillful and knowledgeable emerging artist whose persistent inability to sleep leads to paintings that will keep you up at night thinking about them.

FIRST SATURDAY — SANFORD BIGGERS: SWEET FUNK—AN INTROSPECTIVE

Sanford Biggers, “Calenda (Big Ass Bang!),” pure pigment, mirrored disco ball, 2004 (courtesy of the artist and Michael Klein Arts, New York)

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

The exhibition “Sanford Biggers: Sweet Funk—An Introspective” is at the center of the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturday program for November, focusing on the sociocultural, history-laden work of the L.A.-born, New York-based multidisciplinary artist, who will be on hand to give an artist talk at 8:00. The evening also includes live performances by Navegante, Ninjasonik, Kanene Holder (400 Years of GRRRRRR), and Imani Uzuri, a screening of Charles Burnett’s To Sleep with Anger, an artist talk with Matthew Buckingham about his installation “The Spirit and the Letter,” a curator talk with Teresa Carbone on “Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties,” a book club talk and signing with Paul Beatty (The White Boy Shuffle), and a dance party hosted by DJ Rich Medina with Jump N Funk paying tribute to Fela Kuti, Afrobeat, and world music. Among the other exhibitions on view are “Raw/Cooked: Kristof Wickman,” “Lee Mingwei: ’The Moving Garden,’” “Eva Hesse Spectres 1960,” “Timothy Greenfield-Sanders: The Latino List,” “reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio,” and “Split Second: Indian Paintings.”

THE “CHINDIA” DIALOGUES

The Amit Chaudhuri Band will be playing a special show at “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues” at Asia Society

Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
November 3-6, free – $20
212-517-2742
www.asiasociety.org

In conjunction with its exhibit “Rabindranath Tagore: The Last Harvest,” Asia Society is hosting “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues,” an impressive four-day symposium bringing together poets, novelists, musicians, critics, activists, scholars, journalists, and other experts from China and India as part of the inaugural Asian Arts & Ideas Forum. The cultural exchange of ideas begins on November 3 when Indian writer Amitav Ghosh sits down with Chinese scholar and Yale history professor Jonathan Spence to discuss Ghosh’s new historical novel, River of Smoke, introduced by Orville Schell ($12, 6:30). On Friday at 12:30 (free), Yu Hua, Zha Jianying, Siddhartha Deb, and Murong Xuecun will delve into “Underground & Undercover: Literary Reportage,” moderated by Schell. At 8:00 (free with advance RSVP), the innovative Shanghai Restoration Project will perform with singer Zhang Le. Saturday’s full slate ($15 for one day, $20 for Saturday and Sunday) of Sino-Indian cross-culture and social, political, and historical exploration, examination, and entertainment kicks off at 1:00 with “Literary Border Crossings: The Writer as Traveler,” with Tagore translator Sharmistha Mohanty, Shen Shuang, Allan Sealy, Christopher Lydon, and Ashis Nandy via digital link, followed at 2:15 by “Cyberwriters & Cybercoolies: China’s New Literary Space,” with Zha Jianying, Emily Parker, Yu Hua, and Murong Xuecun. At 3:30, Amitava Kumar, Meena Kandasamy, Suketu Mehta, and Su Tong gather together to discuss “Literature of Migration: Where Do the Birds Fly?” followed at 4:45 by a conversation between Amit Chaudhuri and Christopher Lydon. That night at 8:00 (free with advance RSVP), Chaudhuri will lead his diverse band in a concert with opera singer Qian Yi and the Du Yun Quartet, with Du Yun on piano and electronics, Li Liqun on yangqin, Brad Henkel on trumpet, and Theo Metz on drums, performing an excerpt from the traditional story “Slaying of the Tiger General.” On Sunday at 1:00, Ha Jin, Meena Kandasamy, Amitava Kumar, Sharmistha Mohanty, Allan Sealy, Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Xu Xiaobin will read from their work for “The ‘Chindia’ Readings,” hosted by Amitava Kumar, followed at 2:30 by “Defying the Cartographer: Shared Cultures vs. Nation-States,” which features Siddhartha Deb, Zha Jianying, Yu Hua, and Amitava Kumar talking about legacy and fate. At 3:45, Ha Jin, Su Tong, Xu Xiaobin, and Meena Kandasamy will read from their works and talk about “Seeing Double: The Persistence of the Past in Contemporary Chinese and Indian Culture,” with the closing event taking place at 5:00, “Tagore and the Artist as Citizen of the World,” with Christopher Lydon, Tan Chung, Amit Chaudhuri, and Sharmistha Mohanty.

PERFORMA 11: NEW VISUAL ART PERFORMANCE BIENNIAL

Elmgreen & Dragset’s HAPPY DAYS IN THE ART WORLD kicks off the fourth edition of the Performa biennial, which runs November 1-21 all over the city

Multiple venues in all five boroughs
November 1-21, free – $75
www.11.performa-arts.org

More than a hundred venues will be hosting cutting-edge experimental productions at Performa 11, the fourth edition of the biennial multidisciplinary arts festival being held all over the city November 1-21. Featuring art, music, dance, theater, film, architecture, and more in exciting combinations, the three-week festival consists of long-term exhibitions, special one-night stands, and other limited engagements that push the envelope of contemporary performance. Elmgreen & Dragset revisit Beckett in Happy Days in the Art World at the Skirball Center, with Joseph Fiennes and Charles Edwards. L’Encyclopédie de la parole’s Chorale turns political speeches, text messages, and movie quotes into choral works at the Performa Hub on Mott St. Rashaad Newsome holds a medieval rap joust Tournament in conjunction with his new exhibit at Marlborough Chelsea. Anthology Film Archives screens rare footage of one of Lenny Bruce’s last performances, as well as routines by Richard Pryor, Albert Brooks, and Andy Kaufman. Innovative installation artists Mika Rottenberg and Jon Kessler team up to create the chakra sauna Seven at Nicole Klagsbrun Project Space. Matthew Stone journeys into shamanism at the Hole. Mai-Thu Perret’s Love Letters in Ancient Brick at the Joyce SoHo reimagines Krazy Kat as a love-triangle dance. Dripping paint drives Jonathan VanDyke’s storefront drama With One Hand Between Us at Scaramouche. Israeli collective Public Movement choreographs public demonstrations in various parks for Positions. Daido Moriyama restages his thirty-year-old Printing Show—TKY at the Aperture Foundation. Deaf artist Christine Sun Kim will go from audio to visual with Lukas Geronimas in Feedback at Recess. Liz Glynn’s Utopia or Oblivion: Parts I and II will take place in several outdoor venues, using Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome as inspiration. Raphael Zarka mixes skateboarding and sculpture in Free Ride at the Performa Hub. Gerard Byrne turns the Abrons Arts Center into an interactive theater for In Repertory. Varispeed’s Perfect Lives Manhattan is an all-day performance of Robert Ashley’s opera. Performa Ha! gathers comedians and musicians at the HA! comedy club. And that’s only the first week of this outstanding collection of diverse talent and unique performances, with many of the events free.

SUE DE BEER: HAUNT ROOM

Sue de Beer’s “Haunt Room” offers psychological thrills and chills on the High Line (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The High Line, 14th Street Passage
Daily through Sunday, December 4, free, 12 noon – 6:00 pm
www.thehighline.org
www.suedebeer.com
haunt room slideshow

In such recent site-specific works as “Black Sun” and “The Ghosts” and such gallery shows as “Depiction of a Star Obscured by Another Figure,” Sue de Beer creates multimedia sculptural installations that delve deep into the human psyche using dreamlike imagery. Last week de Beer unveiled her latest work, which seeks to give visitors nightmares instead. Two years in the making from its original concept, “Haunt Room” is an infrasound-based fourteen-sided chamber that warns all ye who enter that it might cause “changes in blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing rate. Infrasound exposure may also temporarily induce feelings of drowsiness, extreme sorrow, pressure in the ears, loss of concentration, and disorientation.” Appropriately enough, the New York-based de Beer was raised in Salem, Massachusetts, and there are likely to be plenty of witches showing up on Halloween to partake of the chills “Haunt Room” offers. The structure stands behind the wall on the High Line’s Fourteenth St. Passage, with a round center room with smoke-colored Plexiglas walls bathed in soft, glowing light and emitting creepy creaks and rumbling noises in addition to inaudible low-frequency sounds meant to induce physical and emotional feelings associated with haunted spaces. If you go in with a group of friends who are chatting away about their trip to Uniqlo or how plastered they got the night before, “Haunt Room” is likely to be a disappointment; however, if you get the chance to experience it with a few like-minded souls who remain quiet, close their eyes, and allow the installation to take over — we recommend imagining yourself trapped in a low-budget horror flick, with no way out — “Haunt Room” will set you off balance, making you feel dizzy and out of sorts.

TALK TO ME: DESIGN AND THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PEOPLE AND OBJECTS

Yann Le Coroller, “Talking Carl,” 3DSmax, Vray, and Xcode software, 2010 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Wednesday – Monday through November 7, $25
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

On October 14, Apple released the iPhone 4S, the latest iteration of the handheld device that reached a whole new synthesis of design, technology, and communication with Siri, which responds to voice commands with a voice of its own. Although not part of MoMA’s interactive “Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects,” the iPhone is a prime example of how the relationship between man and machine has changed over the decades. “The bond between people and things has always been filled with powerful and unspoken sentiments going well beyond functional expectations and including attachment, love possessiveness, jealousy, pride, curiosity, anger, even friendship and partnership,” writes senior curator Paola Antonelli in the exhibition catalog, which also contains essays by Jamer Hunt, Alexandra Midal, Khol Vinh, and Kevin Slavin. Indeed, there is surprising warmth to the exhibit, which invites visitors to explore not only the many items’ visual splendor but their interactivity as well. People are greeted at the entrance by Yann Le Coroller’s “Talking Carl,” a cute and silly Etch-a-Sketch-like animated being that responds to sound and touch, a fun opening to a wide-ranging wonderland of high- and low-tech displays that examine both form and function.

“MetroCard Vending Machine,” vending machine: steel and other materials; interface: Director, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Visual Basic software, 1999 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Divided into six sections — “Objects,” “I’m Talking to You,” “Life,” “City,” “Worlds,” and “Double Entendre” — “Talk to Me” features sociological projects that help the blind, the homeless, and the maimed, geographic grids that impact business and transportation, and three-dimensional charts and graphs that detail private and public information. There are also plenty of innovative works that are just plain fun. In “The Wilderness Downtown,” people plug in the name of their street or hometown, which soon becomes a visual part of Arcade Fire’s music video for the song “We Used to Wait.” Straphangers can buy a real MetroCard from a vending machine that has been slightly reconfigured for the show. Dishes and silverware morph with a heated argument excerpted from the Oscar-winning film American Beauty in Geoffey Mann’s “Cross-fire.” Chris Woebken and Natalie Jeremijenko use voice-recognition software for “Bat Billboard,” which broadcasts messages from bats who live behind it. A close look at Maarten Bass’s “Analog Digital Clock” reveals that it is not quite what it seems, combining people and time in a unique way. Marcos Weskamp’s “Newsmap” arranges news stories by how much coverage they receive in the media. Sissel Tolaas’s “Berlin, City Smell Research” uses the olfactory sense to create a different kind of map of Germany’s capital. Andy and Carolyn London give life to manhole covers, pay phones, and other objects to relay interviews with tourists in “The Lost Tribes of New York City.” And “N Building facade” turns the outside of a Tokyo building into an immense QR code that offers all types of information about the structure. In fact, every item in “Talk to Me” has its own QR code, so adventurous museumgoers can delve deeper into the works and interact with them further. “Talk to Me” is an engaging exhibition that takes an entertaining look at the shape of things to come. The show is now in its final week, with several special events still scheduled: Rob Walker will moderate the discussion “The Language of Objects,” with Kenneth Goldsmith, Ben Greenman Leanne Sharpton, and Cintra Wilson, on November 2 at 6:00 ($10), and gallery conversations will take place with Jennifer Gray on November 3 at 6:00, Marianne Egler on November 5 at 11:30 am, and Diana Bush on November 6 at 1:30, all free with museum admission.

OLAF BREUNING: THE ART FREAKS

In “The Art Freaks,” Olaf Breuning combines painting, photography, and art history in entertaining ways (photo courtesy Olaf Breuning / Metro Pictures)

Metro Pictures
519 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through October 29, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-206-7100
www.metropicturesgallery.com

For his latest show at Metro Pictures, New York-based Swiss artist Olaf Breuning has taken large-scale photographs (74 3/8 x 34 1/8 inches) of nearly two dozen models who have been painted in the style of some of the most famous and important artists of the twentieth century. In “The Art Freaks,” Breuning re-creates iconic works on the naked bodies of men and women, honoring such seminal figures as Edvard Munch, Yves Tanguy, Joseph Cornell, Frida Kahlo, Piet Mondrian, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Andy Warhol, On Kawara, Jackson Pollock, and others. As always with Breuning’s work, his playful sense of humor shines through as he gives a unique art history lesson; we strongly suggest you first walk through the upstairs gallery space trying to identify the referenced artists yourself before confirming it by checking the photos’ titles.