this week in art

FLUX FACTORY AUCTION AND GALA

Center 548
548 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Wednesday, December 15, $15-$1,000, 7:00
718-707-3362
www.fluxfactory.org

Long Island City’s Flux Factory, “a not for profit arts organization supporting innovation in things,” will be holding its annual auction Wednesday night in Chelsea, with live performances, light food and drink, and an impressive list of artists selling works to benefit the art collective. Among the participating artists are Andrea Dezsö, Dan Colen, Kathryne Hall, Marie Losier, Molly Surno, Peter Doig, Ryan McNamara, Stefany Anne Golberg, Swoon, and Ward Shelley, with Angela Washko, Daupo, Douglas Paulson, Elizabeth Larison, Gabriela Vainsencher, Sarah Glidden, and Will Harris serving as “knock-off” live artists, creating customized copies on demand. Guests of honor Elizabeth Dee and city councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer will also be feted by a performance by Alison Ward, video art by Jaime Iglehart, Matthew-Robin Nye’s creative seating, silkscreening by Bread and Butter Collective, and DJ Sondies leading a dance party. You don’t have to attend the festivities in order to bid on the works, which are all detailed online.

CAROLEE SCHNEEMAN — BOOK RELEASE EVENT!

Carolee Schneeman will introduce MEAT JOY and other short works at Anthology Film Archives on December 16 in celebration of the publication of her letters

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Thursday, December 16, 7:30
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
www.dukeupress.edu

American performance artist Carolee Schneeman has been shaking up the art world since the late 1950s, staging happenings and making short films in which she bares it all in shocking, controversial ways, holding nothing back. Among her many works are FUSES, MEAT JOY, MORTAL COILS, and VULVA’S MORPHIA, which investigate such themes as erotics, kinetics, dreams, war, and cats. Born in Pennsylvania in 1939, Schneeman has opened up a fascinating aspect of her life in the new book CORRESPONDENCE COURSE: AN EPISTOLARY HISTORY OF CAROLEE SCHNEEMAN AND HER CIRCLE (Duke University Press, November 2010, $99.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback), allowing Duke University professor Kristine Stiles to publish letters that Schneeman has kept throughout her career. “The letters were edited and selected for how they document charged personal and artistic struggles, arguments, and displays of ego; how they illuminate internecine aesthetic politics, conflicting ethics, and values; and how countless mundane activities constitute the exasperating vicissitudes of making art, building an artistic reputation, and negotiating an industry as unpredictable and demanding as the art world in the mid-to-late twentieth century,” Stiles writes in the preface. “For her part, Schneeman discusses financial dilemmas; grapples with her career; shares her success, joy, and love; and contends with loneliness, aging, and disappointment.” Schneeman will celebrate the publication of the book on Thursday, December 16, at Anthology Film Archives, where she will introduce and screen FUSES, MEAT JOY, KITCH’S LAST MEAL, ASK THE GODDESS, and MYSTERIES OF THE PUSSIES and discuss her work and career in what should be quite an unusual evening.

DRAW BOOK RELEASE PARTY

Karen O’s “So Trashed” is among the many works collected in DRAW

Fuse Gallery
93 2nd Ave between Fifth & Sixth Sts.
Wednesday, December 15, free, 7:00 – 10:00
212-777-7988
www.fusegallerynyc.com

In October 2006, Erik Foss and Curse Mackey curated “Draw,” an exhibition at Fuse Gallery of drawings by illustrators, skateboarders, animators, graphic novelists, musicians, tattoo artists, and others. The show traveled to Austin, London, San Francisco, and, most recently, Mexico City, where El Museo de la Ciudad de México has put together the catalog with curator Miguel Calderon. On December 15, Fuse will host a party for the launch of the book, making one hundred advance copies available for a mere $25, with posters going for $10. The 256-page book features drawings by such artists and musicians as Raymond Pettibon, Tom Sachs, Chris Johanson, Terence Koh, Dan Colen, Swoon, Ozzy Osbourne, DAZE, Karen O, R. Crumb, HR Giger, Clive Barker, Barry McGee, Rick Griffin, Ron English, Neck Face, David Byrne, Hank Williams III, WK Interact, Doze Green, Tara McPherson, Les Claypool, and Shawn Barber. Also on view in the gallery is Benjamin Bertocci’s “Stutter.”

THE SOUND OF ONE HAND: PAINTINGS AND CALLIGRAPHY BY ZEN MASTER HAKUIN

Hakuin Ekaku, “Two Blind Men on a Bridge,” ink on paper (Man’yo-an Collection)

Japan Society Gallery
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Through January 9, $10-$12, free Friday from 6:00 to 9:00
212-832-1155
www.japansociety.org

One of the current New York City exhibitions most deserving of applause is also one of the most contemplative ones, sparking a quiet awe and fascinaton from those who experience its subtle wonder. “The Sound of One Hand: Paintings and Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin,” at Japan Society thorugh January 9, features sixty-nine scroll paintings by artist and teacher Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768), made primarily for his students, lay followers, and other monks as teaching tools, never for sale. Able to create marvelous scenes with an intuitive economy of line, Hakuin displays a sly sense of humor and a deep understanding of human behavior in his works. The centerpiece is “Hotei’s Sound of One Hand,” a depiction of Hakuin’s favorite subject, the wandering monk Hotei, sitting in a meditative position, one hand raised, asking what has since become one of the great existential questions, the famous koan, “What is the sound of one hand [clapping]?” Hotei, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, is surrounded by such sayings as “Young shop-clerks, no matter what you say / if you don’t hear the sound of one hand, it’s all rubbish!” Hakuin also shows Hotei playing kickball, juggling while spinning a plate from his chin, watching sumo mice, and transformed into a kite. “Hakuin’s Hotei paintings demonstrate that Zen is not an unfathomable discipline restricted to a few determined monastics, but a lively force available to everyone in every daily activity,” writes cocurator Stephen Addiss in his essay “Hotei as Everyman” in the gorgeous exhibition catalog (Shambhala, $65), which also features such chapters as “Life in Art, Art in Life,” “Buddhist, Shinto, and Folk Deities,” and “Confucian Themes and Painting-Calligraphy Interactions.” Hakuin’s immense skill and humble nature are also evident in such works as “Monkey and Cuckoo,” “Sixth Patriarch’s Rice Mill,” “Ant on a Grindstone,” “Two Blind Men on a Bridge,” and “Daruma’s Shoe,” ink-on-paper scroll paintings imbued with both mystery and meaning but never overladen with heavy messages. As you make your way through “The Sound of One Hand,” you’ll continually want to stop and applaud — and break out into laughter — but instead, slowly breathe in its quiet splendor and unending charm in silence, evoking the sound of one hand. (On December 12 and January 8 at 11:00 am, Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara of Village Zendo will lead a discussion about Hakuin, followed by a meditation; tickets are $25 and include admission to the gallery. While at Japan Society, also be sure to go downstairs to see the free exhibition “oxherding,” an extraordinary collaboration between painter Max Gimblett and writer and translator Lewis Hyde.)

PASS THE BLUTWURST, BITTE

La MaMa Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
Thursday – Sunday through December 19
Tickets: $25-$30
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org

In 1928, Austrian painter Egon Schiele died at the age of twenty-eight. Perhaps not coincidentally, visual artist John Kelly is retiring his masterwork, a dance-theater piece about Schiele’s life and career, in its twenty-eighth year. PASS THE BLUTWURST, BITTE was first performed in a very different, much shorter version back at the Pyramid Club in 1982. The constantly evolving piece earned Kelly an Obie for its 1986 run at Dance Theater Workshop, then was revived in an expanded version at La MaMa in 1995. As part of La MaMa’s fortieth anniversary season, founder and artistic director Ellen Stewart convinced Kelly to once again bring back BLUTWURST, which is now running at the Ellen Stewart Theatre through December 19. Kelly has vowed that this will be the last time he ever performs the show, which in its fourth version features several new dances and videos. It’s a thrilling production about art and love that pits the bohemian lifestyle against a repressive culture, told in brilliant and unique ways. The rubbery-limbed Kelly marvelously embodies the sharp, angular Schiele, accompanied by a pair of Alter Egons (Luke Murphy and Eric Jackson Bradley) as he first woos free-spirited Wally Neuzil (Tymberly Canale), whom he meets in a café chugging beer and eating sausage, as his muse and mistress, and later the more traditional Edith (MacKenzie Meehan), who soon becomes his wife. Kelly alternates between silent-movie-like vignettes, set dance pieces, and short Expressionistic film segments, including a marvelous one in which he incorporates glass, his own drawing, and one of Schiele’s most famous self-portraits. The scenes between Schiele and Wally are particularly effective, as Kelly and Canale nearly melt into each other despite Schiele’s social awkwardness. Kelly has kept the show decidedly low-tech, with lo-fi music played on an old record player, the videos choppy and old-fashioned, and Huck Snyder’s sets sparse and intimate. BLUTWURST, which also garnered Kelly an NEA American Masterpieces Award, is playing Thursdays through Sundays through December 19.

Although you don’t have to know anything about Schiele’s extraordinary work to fall in love with the show, we suggest you do just a bit of homework before you go; you can find numerous images and an excellent essay on Schiele online from his New York dealer, Galerie St. Etienne, and several of his works are usually on view at the Neue Galerie. In addition, “Schiele-Kelly,” a collection of new photographs of Kelly posing as Schiele as well as ephemera from the show’s history, continues December 9-12 at La MaMa La Galleria at 6 East First St.

AN EVENING WITH KATRIN SIGURDARDOTTIR

Katrin Sigurdardottir, “Boiserie” (detail), 2010 (Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Bruce Schwarz, The Photograph Studio. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Uris Center for Education, ground floor
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Friday, December 10, $18, 7:00
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org
www.katrinsigurdardottir.info

Spectrum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s initiative to introduce midcareer artists to younger audiences through social events, has previously staged gathering with Pablo Bronstein, the Moth storytelling collective (with Jonathan Ames and Kyp Malone), and Ringo Starr playing with Ben Harper & Relentless7. On Friday night, December 10, Icelandic artist Katrin Sigurdardottir, who was born in Reykjavik and lives and works in New York, will discuss her current exhibit, “Katrin Sigurdardottir at the Met,” with curators Anne Strauss and Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheid, followed by a reception and a viewing of the works. The exhibit consists of a pair of site-specific installations that re-create two of the Met’s eighteenth-century French period rooms known as boiseries from the Hôtel de Crillon and the Hôtel de Cabris, one of which can be viewed through one-way mirrors while the other can be physically entered, offering opposing museum experiences.

BROOKLYN COMICS AND GRAPHICS FESTIVAL

Art and music collective Uninhabitable Mansions will be among the more than fifty exhibitors at Brooklyn festival

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church
275 North Eighth St.
Saturday, December 4, free, 12 noon – 9:00 pm
www.comicsandgraphicsfest.com

A mere month after KingCon II, Brooklyn continues its growing love affair with comic books and graphic novels at the second annual Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, which will take place on December 4 at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Williamsburg, an all-day free event featuring an exciting lineup of exhibitors, panels, and more. Organized and curated by Desert Island, PictureBox, and Bill Kartalopolous, the festival includes such guests as Kate Beaton, Jordan Crane, Jillian Tamaki, Adrian Tomine, and Gabrielle Bell and such exhibitors as Drawn & Quarterly, Uninhabited Mansions, the Jack Kirby Museum, Koyama Press, Doug Allen, and Rabid Rabbit, among many others. The festival has a great lineup of programs, beginning at 1:00 with “Lynda Barry and Charles Burns in Conversation,” followed by “The Art of Editing” with Françoise Mouly and Sammy Harkham (2:00), “Taking Inventory: The Story of Things” with Renée French, James McShane, Jungyeon Roh, and Leanne Shapton (3:00), “Irwin Hasen: When Comic Books Were New” with Irwin Hasen, Evan Dorkin, and Paul Pope (4:00), a Q&A with the great Anders Nilsen (5:00), “How Nancy Is: The Semiotics of the Gag” with Bill Griffith, Mark Newgarden, and Johnny Ryan (6:00), and “Chaos and Pattern” with Brian Chippendale, Jordan Crane, Keith Jones, and Mark Alan Stamaty (7:00). Festival cofounder Kartalopolous will moderate all discussions except for the Irwin Hasen panel, which will be moderated by Dan Nadel.