this week in art

LOWER EAST SIDE GROUP SHOWS SUMMER 2011

You never know who’s gonna show up at the annual Vice Photo Show and other Lower East Side summer group exhibitions (photo © Jim Mangan)

Summer group shows are in full swing, and it’s often difficult to find the superstars among all the maelstrom. But there are a number of Lower East Side galleries offering up diamonds in the rough. If you’re looking for bigger names, it’s hard to beat Lehmann Maupin (201 Chrystie St., through August 19) right now. At the entrance, you’ll be greeted by Tracey Emin’s twenty-minute looped animation “Those who suffer Love,” which invites you into a woman’s nether regions. In the main gallery, Gilbert & George’s “Urethra Postcard Pictures,” which debuted at the 2011 Armory Show, is joined by four photographs by Juergen Teller, including “Paradis XVIII, 2009,” in which Raquel Zimmerman and Charlotte Rampling pose nude in the Louvre. There are also a few more works by Emin, highlighted by the controversial pink neon “Your Name Try CUNT INTERNATIONAL.” Be sure to go to the upstairs viewing room, where you’ll find multimedia collages by Tony Oursler and the miniature sculptural projection “Interstitial.”

Next door at the Hendershot Gallery (195 Chrystie St., August 18), “Of Memory and Time . . .” examines the two concepts through a series of diverse works that evoke the past, from the dangling wax figures of Julie Tremblay’s “From Memory (Collective Unconscious Unlimited)” to the framed jeans in Marie Vic’s “Les amants R.,” from Richard Bosman’s painting of “Duchamp’s Door” and “Pollock’s Door” to Arman’s violin, “Hommage á Boccioni.” In fact, music plays a central role in the exhibit, as cellist Christopher Lancaster has composed special mesmerizing interludes for a number of the works, while Nick Hooker’s swirling multiscreen video of Grace Jones’s “Corporate Cannibal” keeps thumping in the basement.

Tony Oursler, “Interstitial,” steel stand, projection, and mixed media, 2011, at Lehmann Maupin (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Salon 94 Bowery (243 Bowery, July 30) harkens back to the Paul Klee quote “Nothing has to take grand scale, if it can be expressed in a diminutive, delicate and yet no less sophisticated way” in its latest show, the cleverly titled “Paul Clay,” comprising six dozen sculptures squeezed into two floors, in addition to 120 small household items on sale in a small storeroom, ranging from Takuro Kuwata’s $80 porcelain teacups and Lisa Sitko’s $80 ceramic apples to Rob Wynne’s $1,500 “Dirty Plates” and Betty Woodman’s $17,000 “Tray with Two Cups.” Among the other artists represented are Liz Larner, Sterling Ruby, Marilyn Minter, Daniel Buren, and Ken Price. Try not to throw any garbage into Matthias Merkel Hess’s “Brute” trashcan, and be careful where you walk; you break it, you bought it.

Cutting-edge provocateurs Vice magazine, which covers music, fashion, art, and more in their own rather unique wild style, is celebrating the release of its tenth annual photo issue with the 2011 Vice Photo Show (298 Elizabeth St., July 26), consisting of pictures by Jim Mangan, Mick Rock, Terry Richardson, Richard Kern, Martin Parr, Ben Ritter, Jennifer Osborne, Peter Sutherland, Max Merz, and others. We’re particularly taken with Estelle Hanania’s “Happy Purim” series, documenting Hasidic holiday partying in North East London’s Stamford Hill; Vincent Fournier’s “The End of the Future” exploration of the Kennedy Space Center; Chris Nieratko’s “Lost Submissions,” naked Polaroids from his days as the editor of a skateboarding magazine owned by Larry Flynt; Julian Burgin’s “One Flash Bastard” portraits of reformed British gangster Dave Courtney; and Asger Carlsen’s “Hester” series of deformed bodies. RSVP now to tonight’s booze-laden opening party.

Ted Gahl’s “Sleepwalking” and double-sided “Night Painter” are on view at DODGEgallery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

As we said earlier, group shows can reveal a diamond in the rough, and we found a shining gem at DODGEGallery’s (15 Rivington St., July 30), “Shakedown,” a fitting way to end the space’s first year in business. Amid works by Dave Cole, Ellen Harvey, Darren Foote, Laurel Sparks, Jason Middlebrook, and others is a series of paintings by the immensely talented Ted Gahl. Still in his late twenties, Gahl, who graduated from Pratt in 2006 and got his MFA from RISD last year, has already developed his own visual language involving doorways, hard-to-decipher human and animal figures, waterborne vessels, and insomnia in tantalizing abstract works that demand extra attention, especially the double-sided “Night Painter,” which sticks out from the wall and gives insight into his creative process.

GET WEIRD: GRAY

Gray will be getting weird again at the New Museum on July 21 (photo by Linda Covello)

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Thursday, July 21, $15, 7:00 & 9:00
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org

In 1979, Jean-Michel Basquiat teamed up with performance artist Michael Holman to form the jazzy, funky experimental No Wave ambient industrial band Gray, named after Gray’s Anatomy, an influential book on Basquiat’s career. “New York is my town / Lower East Side I get down,” they declared on “Life on the Streets.” On July 21, Holman and original Gray member Nicholas Taylor, who have re-formed and released the album Shades of . . . last year, consisting of new and old songs, will play two special shows at the New Museum on the Lower East Side as part of the monthly Get Weird series, which focuses on “experimental and freaky jams.” In the past twenty-three years, the band — which has also included such members as Justin Thyme (Wayne Clifford), Shannon Dawson, and Vincent Gallo — has played live only twice, including at Basquiat’s memorial service, so this is a rare occasion indeed. There will be two performances, one at 7:00 and another at 9:00. The New Museum is very busy this weekend as well. On Friday night, Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran will give the talk “CAMP, or the Love of Technology,” and on Saturday the New Museum Block Party in Sara D. Roosevelt Park will include such acts as Lumberob, Geo Wyeth, BowWow, and Isle of Klezbos, art activities and workshops, and free admission to the museum, where you can check out the new exhibits “Ostalgia” and “Charles Atlas: Joints Array.”

FriendsWithYou: ☺

FriendsWithYou’s first solo exhibition in New York City is filled with color and smiles (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Hole
312 Bowery
Tuesday – Saturday through August 6, free
212-466-1100
www.theholenyc.com
www.friendswithyou.com
exhibition slideshow

The Hole has inaugurated its new gallery space on Bowery with the feel-good exhibit ☺ from the Miami-based FriendsWithYou duo of Samuel Borkson and Arturo “Tury” Sandoval III. Earlier this summer, the art collective helped celebrate the extension of the High Line with the interactive outdoor installation “Rainbow City,” consisting of forty colorful inflatables in various shapes and sizes, one reaching forty feet high, spread across sixteen thousand square feet. While there’s not quite so much room in the Hole’s Lower East Side Gallery, FWY has still created a color-drenched happy wonderland of sculptures placed on the walls and floors, across corners, and bursting through the ceiling, continuing their mission “to spread the idea of Magic, Luck, and Friendship.” The kinetic lasercut “Round & Round” features a pair of yellow smiley faces slowly spinning in circles. “Sonic Goo” (a tribute to New York City art rockers Sonic Youth and their album Goo?) is what you’d get if you took malleable red plastic and just threw it against the wall. “The Portal” is a rectangular black-and-white head seemingly at rest. “The Shadow of Death” and “Spirit Guide” resemble paint palettes, even though there are no traditional paintings in the show. (The latter includes a green tongue sticking out at the viewer.) In “Up & Up,” a black smiley face next to a white smiley face take turns moving up and down ever so slightly. And the candy-colored inflatable sculpture “Starburst” threatens to grow out of its own room, a giant child wanting to play. Collaborating with Native Shoes, FWY has also decorated the pop-up store next door with ghostly wall figures; inside you can buy such colorful, comfortable summer footwear as the Miller, the Jericho, the Howard, the Corrado, and the Jefferson. In an art world where exhibitions can get oh-so-serious, ☺ is an absolutely refreshing diversion, like the game of Candy Land, only there are no losers.

INNER COURSE: PANTIES FOR DIAMONDS — A PSYCHODRAMATIC AUDITION FOR LOVE IN THE AGE OF ABANDONMENT

Inner Course helps you look deep inside yourself at Honey Space

Open Casting at Honey Space
148 11th Ave. between 21st & 22nd Sts.
Tuesday – Saturday through July 28, free with advance RSVP, 1:00 – 6:00
www.honey-space.com
www.innercourse.me

Inner Course, the performance duo of Tora Lopez and Rya Kleinpeter, has staged projects in Tasmania, New Orleans, and Sonoma and is currently presenting “Panties for Diamonds — A Psychodramatic Audition for Love in the Age of Abandonment” at Thomas Beale’s nonprofit Honey Space gallery in Chelsea. Funded with donations over Kickstarter, the three-part piece requires visitors to actively participate in a mental and physical examination of the self. The less you know about “Panties for Diamonds” the better, but you need to be prepared to be touched, and the more willing you are to dig into your past and future with complete honesty, the more rewarding an experience it will be. SPOILER ALERT: If you want to be surprised — and boy, will you be surprised — then stop reading here and reserve your time now. But if you want to know just a little more — don’t worry, we’re not about to give the whole thing away — then read on.

The approximately forty-five-minute “Panties for Diamonds” begins with “The Secretary,” in which you fill out a questionnaire that features some rather odd questions. That is followed by “The Softing,” about which we will say nothing more. Those two sections lead to “The Audition,” in which you sit down and discuss various aspects of your life with Rya, an L.A.-born photographer and installation artist, and New Orleans native Tora, a fashion designer and artist who regularly collaborates with Kirsha Kaechele’s KKProjects. Among the other rotating performers are Lisa Lozano, Anne Koch, Daphane Park. Amanda Kanter, Pamala Bishop, Benjamine Heller, Carlton de Woody, John Wells, Fauzeeya Hunter, Hellen Mathers, Matt Savitsky, Tyra Bombetto, and Class Actress. It’s all free, and you are not asked to give such personal information as your age, address, or phone number. Advance reservations are suggested, although walk-ins are welcome, but they might already be booked for that afternoon. We strongly recommend you be adventurous and sign up for this strange but ultimately exhilarating experience; we’re seriously considering going back for a second time.

THE FINE ART OF COMICS, WITH GARY PANTER, ART SPIEGELMAN, AND CHRIS WARE

Lyonel Feininger, “Wee Willie Winkie’s World,” from the Chicago Sunday Tribune, November 25, 1906, commercial lithograph, © 2011 Lyonel Feininger Family, LLC/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (photograph © the Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY)

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St.
Wednesday, July 20, $8, 7:00
212-570-3600
www.whitney.org

In conjunction with the splendid exhibit “Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World,” the Whitney is presenting the special program “The Fine Art of Comics” on July 20. The wide-ranging retrospective traces New York native Feininger’s career path, which began with such comic strips as “The Kin-der-Kids” and “Wee Willie Winkie’s World” for the Chicago Tribune. Discussing the work of Feininger and the state of the comics industry will be three living legends: Art Spiegelman, who started the highly influential RAW with his wife, Françoise Mouly, back in 1980 and won the Pulitzer Prize for his two-part graphic novel Maus; painter, designer, and commercial artist Gary Panter, creator of the Jimbo books and a two-time Emmy winner for his set designs for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse; and Chris Ware, who has released such complex comics as Acme Novelty Library and Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. The panel will be moderated by journalist John Carlin.

THE (S) FILES IN TIMES SQUARE

El Museo del Barrio’s “(S) Files” bienal moves into Times Square this afternoon with free site-specific installations

The (S) Files Presenting Venue
Duffy Square
Broadway at 46th St.
Thursday, July 14, free, 4:00-8:00
www.elmuseo.org/calendar

El Museo del Barrio’s sixth bienal exhibition, “The (S) Files,” moves outside to Midtown today with four hours of special free programming. Focusing on redefining street art, the bienal consists of seventy-five New York-based emerging Latino, Caribbean, and Latin American artists, several of whom will be presenting projects in Times Square between 4:00 and 8:00. On view will be Ryan Roa’s “Times Square Beach Truck,” which visitors can enter and take pictures of themselves on a small beach; Nicoykatiushka (NyK)’s “Melt,” in which married couple Nico and Katiushka will kiss while standing on a block of ice; Irvin Morazan’s “Performance in the Center of the World,” featuring Morazan pulling into Times Square in a low rider; and Rafael Sánchez & Kathleen White’s ten-foot-tall “Somewhat Portable Dolmen.” After experiencing these site-specific installations, you can check out the rest of the bienal on Saturday, when the museum is free all day for its monthly Super Sabado celebration, which includes a block party with dance by Soul Intention, a fitness walk through Central Park, a break-dancing competition, and more.

DAVID LaCHAPELLE AND JOHN BYRNE — DARKNESS TO LIGHT: FACILITY OF MOVEMENT

John Byrne’s “Facility of Movement” takes place Wednesday afternoons at 1:00 in conjunction with David LaChapelle’s installation in Lever House (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

David LaChapelle: “From Darkness to Light”
Lever House Art Collection, 390 Park Ave. at 54th St.
Exhibition continues through September 2, with free performances Wednesdays at 1:00 through July 13
John Byrne: Transcending Form
Theatre 80, 80 St. Marks Pl. at First Ave.
Wednesdays through August 24, $15, 8:00
212-388-0388
www.theatre80.net
www.leverhouseartcollection.com
facility of movement slideshow

Introduced by nightclub fixture Amanda Lepore, photographer and director David LaChapelle and dancer-choreographer John Byrne dated for three years in the mid-2000s and, remaining close friends, are now collaborating in a different way. LaChapelle recently installed “From Darkness to Light” in the glassed-in Lever House lobby gallery, a combination of photographs and collage that references life and death, from Théodore Géricault’s “Raft of the Medusa” to the creation of humankind. The display features “Chain of Life,” a series of hundreds of connected photographs of nude men and women, dangling from the ceiling and nearly reaching the floor; “Adam Swimming Under a Microscope” and “Eve Swimming Under a Microscope,” intensely colorful circular configurations of waterborne nudes placed directly on the walls as if stained-glass rose windows in a house of worship; and “Raft of Illusion,” which re-imagines “Raft of the Medusa” as a swarm of swirling naked bodies battling the elements. Every Wednesday afternoon at 1:00 through July 13, Byrne, who has performed with such companies as Paul Taylor, Corbin Dance, and Erick Hawkins, is presenting “Darkness to Light: Facility of Movement,” an evolving site-specific piece in which Debra Zalkind, Ryan Braun, Christine Gerena, Vincent Marra, Farrah Olieri, Lior Shneior, Rob Laqui, and Kimberly Mhoon interact with LaChapelle’s installation, making their way through the Lever House lobby as well as the outside courtyard. Dressed like workers from all walks of life on their lunch hour, wearing suits or uniforms that instantly identify them, the dancers weave in around themselves, the works, and random New Yorkers on their own lunch breaks sitting outside, all set to live classical music (including the Jewish prayer “Kol Nidre”) on cello and violin. Admission is free to this wonderful reason to get away from the office for a little while.

John Byrne’s TRANSCENDING FORM takes place Wednesday nights at 8:00 at Theatre 80 in conjunction with David LaChapelle’s installation in Lever House (photo by David LaChapelle)

Byrne and LaChapelle are also collaborating on Transcending Form, Byrne’s first evening-length dance piece. Held Wednesday night through August 24 at Theatre 80 on St. Marks Pl., where LaChapelle had his first studio back in the 1980s, the seventy-minute work features the “Facility of Movement” performers along with Byrne, singer Gina Figueroa, guitarist Juancho Herrera, and the James Solomon Benn Choir. The disjointed, overly feel-good work, which is ostensibly about the creation of life and exploration of love, consists of such sections as “On Endeavor,” “Factory,” “Dysfunction,” “Before, Love,” “Ascend,” and “Compassion,” with music ranging from printer sound effects and Shirley Brown to Schubert and Elvis Presley. LaChapelle contributes art to the piece, photographic fabric images of each of the characters displayed on a clothing line at the back of the ramshackle set. The community-theater-like production, which focuses on Marra as Bambini and Olieri as the Holy Spirit, has a suggested admission of $15 but you can pay what you wish, will all proceeds going to Education in Dance and the Related Arts, which brings the arts to students in more than sixty metropolitan-area public and private high schools.