this week in art

WALLS AND BRIDGES: HUMAN BEAUTY AND ITS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

Clarina Bezzola’s “When I Walk Alone in the Streets” greets visitors at the Austrian Cultural Forum (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd St. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
Wednesday, October 19, free, RSVP required at 212-319-5300 ext222, 6:30
Walls and Bridges festival continues through October 28
Beauty Contest exhibition continues daily through January 3, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.acfny.org
www.wallsandbridges.net/en

Featuring works by twenty international artists, “Beauty Contest” examines the ever-evolving nature of what is considered beautiful in today’s society. Pieces by Cindy Sherman, Kalup Linzy, Rashaad Newsome, Anna Jermolaewa, Katarina Schmidl, Evangelia Kraniot, and others look at the concept of beauty from a multitude of different angles, often incorporating humor to make their point. For example, it’s hard not to initially smile upon first encountering Clarina Bezzola’s “When I Walk Alone in the Streets,” which greets visitors to the Austrian Cultural Forum with an enormous hand and teeth, but there’s more to it than just its big, bold colors. On October 19, dance writer Gia Kourlas will host the panel discussion “Human Beauty and Its Social Construction” at ACFNY, with François Chaignaud, Jon-Jon Goulian, Silke Grabinger, and Gressett Salette talking about beauty and its preconceptions, followed by a performance by Chaignaud and Grabinger. The event is part of the semiannual Walls and Bridges festival, ten days of “transatlantic insights” gathered this time under the theme of “Infinite Affinities.” The festival continues through October 28 with such programs as “The Actual Lives of Catherine Millet and Robert Storr” at FIAF on October 20 (free, 7:30), “Screening Identities: Danny Glover in Conversation with Manthia Diawara” at the Invisible Dog on October 22 (free, 3:30), “Please Kill Me: A Punk Musical Show” by Mathieu Bauer at the Invisible Dog on October 23 (free, 6:30), “Sonic Affinities: A Piano Performance by Jay Gottlieb” at the New School on October 24 (free, 8:30), and “The Space-Time Continuum: What the Future Has in Store for Human Beings” with Étienne Klein at the New York Public Library on October 26 ($15-$25, 7:00).

CARSTEN NICOLAI: PIONIER

Carsten Nicolai, “Pionier,” parachute, wind machine, sound proof panels, timer, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Pace Gallery
545 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through October 22, free
www.thepacegallery.com
pionier slideshow

In such works as “thermic,” “polar,” and “rota,” Berlin-based audiovisual artist Carsten Nicolai melds the technical with the organic, the scientific with the conceptual, the artificial with the natural, delving into the creative process itself while also examining scale and proportion. He also doesn’t mind including a “wow” factor, which is a central part of his latest work, “pionier i,” on view at the Pace Gallery in Chelsea through October 22. Every four minutes, a large wind-machine, connected to a parachute, turns on, the parachute rising up horizontally, dominating the otherwise empty white gallery space. After reaching full size, it slowly crumples to the ground as the machine automatically turns off. “In my opinion the emphasis of self-generating processes is a reaction to the claim to plan everything,” Nicolai explains on his website. “Many of my works underlie a rule and introduce a model as organizing scheme to recognize chaotic movements. I am interested in both moments, they lie really close together.” An engaging work that delights visitors by placing a familiar object in an unusual location, “pionier i” can also be seen as representing the fleeting nature of life as well as that old saw, what goes up must come down.

AHAE: THROUGH MY WINDOW

Visitors can take a break from the maelstrom of Midtown Manhattan in Ahae exhibit in Grand Central (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

VIBRANCY AND SERENITY
Grand Central Terminal
Vanderbilt Hall
Through October 22, free
www.ahae.com
www.grandcentralterminal.com

Identified as an “inventor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, martial artist, painter, sculptor, poet, and photographer” in a pamphlet handout for his exhibition “Through My Window: Vibrancy and Serenity,” the Korean artist known only as Ahae has taken more than a million pictures from a window in his studio over the past two years. Several dozen of his works are on view through October 22 in Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall, offering commuters and other travelers time to step away from the daily grind and relax among shots of nature amid the maelstrom of Midtown Manhattan. Ahae captures colorful images of the organic world from his solitary spot, averaging between two and four thousand photographs every day, focusing on numerous birds, water deer, and the changing seasons, without any digital manipulation. An avid conservationist, Ahae has included some text with the exhibition: “If you could gather together all the froth and champagne bubbles that have flowed so abundantly at moments of celebration in the course of human history, it would be nothing compared with this sight, this tranquil eruption of white clouds, surging up vibrantly and spreading widely over the hills and beyond,” he writes, referring to the exhibition’s gorgeous large-scale photograph of a snow-covered landscape. A bench in front of the picture encourages people to sit down and contemplate its beauty as a soft soundtrack plays, an unusual experience in one of the world’s most famously busy places. “Would that human thoughts / In disarray, so troubled and confused,” Ahae adds, “Might also rest like gentle snow / In hushed serenity.”

LYONEL FEININGER: AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

Lyonel Feininger, “In a Village Near Paris (Street in Paris, Pink Sky),” oil on canvas, 1909 (© Lyonel Feininger Family, LLC/Artists Rights Society, New York)

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St.
Last chance: Sunday, October 16, $12-$18, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-570-3600
www.whitney.org

The Whitney’s outstanding career retrospective of cartoonist, illustrator, and painter Lyonel Feininger ends today, so this is your last chance to see the fabulous progression of this adventurous artist who was born in New York and spent much of his formative time in Germany. The father of photographer Andreas Feininger, Lyonel experimented with many different forms and styles, including creating miniatures for family, throughout his long life. (He was born in 1871 and died in 1956.) There will be free tours of this wonderful exhibit today at 12:30 and 3:30. Also currently on view at the Whitney is “David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy,” “Real/Surreal,” “Three Landscapes: A Film Installation by Roy Lichtenstein,” “Singular Visions,” and “Designing the Whitney of the Future.”

THE CREATORS PROJECT

Visitors can walk up, down, and across installation that is making waves at the Creators Project (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple locations in DUMBO
October 15-16, free with RSVP
www.thecreatorsproject.com
creators project slideshow

It’s definitely worth taking a chance to see if you can still RSVP to the second day of the Creators Project today, where you can check out extremely cool projects from emerging and established artists with installations at several locations in DUMBO. All of the live music was held yesterday, so there’s sure to be less of a crowd experiencing Jonathan Glazer and J. Spaceman’s meditative “A Physical Manifestation of Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space” at 56 Water St., interacting with Minha Yang’s “Meditation” at 81 Front St., moving in unison over Cantoni and Crescenti’s “Soil” at 30 Washington St., playing with Zigelbaum and Coelho’s “Six-Forty by Four-Eighty” and SuperUber’s “Super Pong” at 55 Washington St., and getting immersed in David Bowie, Mick Rock, and Barney Clay’s black-box four-screen video “Life on Mars Revisited.”

Attendees take a break by relaxing in meditative installation in DUMBO (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

You should wait till later in the day when it’s a little darker to see United Visual Artists and Scanner’s “Origin,” but all afternoon you can enjoy food and drink rom AsiaDog, Brooklyn Bangers, Cemita’s, Landhaus (grilled bacon on a stick!), Mile End, Milk Truck, Solber Pupusas, Red Hook Lobster Pound, Brooklyn Oyster Party, and Brooklyn Roasting Company.

SOPHIE CALLE: ROOM

Sophie Calle is expected to sleep in her hotel installation on Saturday night (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Crossing the Line: Fiction & Non-Fiction
The Lowell Hotel
28 East 63rd St.
Through October 16 at midnight, free
www.fiaf.org
sophie calle: room slideshow

As part of her deeply personal and intimate installation in the Lowell Hotel for FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival, French conceptual artist Sophie Calle is expected to be sleeping in room 3A on Saturday night, where people will be able to check in on her as they make their way through the more than forty objects from her life she has placed throughout, each one with a card detailing what it is and how it relates to her, generally focusing on her complicated relationships with men.

GALLERY NIGHT ON 57th ST.

Red Grooms, “Bumper to Bumper,” acrylic and mixed media on wood, 2009 (courtesy Marlborough Gallery)

More than forty galleries along 57th St. between Lexington & Eighth Aves. will remain open until 8:00 on Thursday night, many holding opening or closing receptions or other special programming as part of the semiannual Gallery Night on 57th St. Among the participants, and their current shows, are Edwynn Houk (“Herb Ritts,” “Hannes Schmed: Cowboy”), the Pace Gallery (“Ad Reinhardt: Works from 1935-1945”), Bernarducci.Meisel (“The New York Project: Paintings of the City by Artists from Around the World”), Marian Goodman (“Gabriel Orozco: Corplegados and Particles”), Tibor de Nagy (“John Beerman: Recent Paintings”), Gering & López (David Levinthal’s “Attack of the Bricks: Star Wars”), Michael Rosenfeld (“Evolution in Action”), Marlborough (“Red Grooms, New York: 1976-2011”), Howard Greenberg (“Beyond Words: Photography in the New Yorker”), and Galerie St. Etienne (“The Lady and the Tramp: Images of Women in Austrian & German Art”).