this week in art

DOC WATCHERS PRESENTS JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD

Tamra Davis examines the life of her friend Jean-Michel Basquiat in revealing documentary (photo courtesy of Lee Jaffe)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD (Tamra Davis, 2010)
Maysles Cinema
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
November 11-14, $10, 7:30
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org
www.jean-michelbasquiattheradiantchild.com

Director Tamra Davis (GUNCRAZY) transports viewers back to the 1980s New York art scene in the intimate documentary JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD. In 1986, just as the career of street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was exploding, Davis filmed him being interviewed by designer Becky Johnson, a revealing portrait that she put away in a drawer for more than twenty years. Davis finally brings out that footage, making it the centerpiece of this new examination of the ambitious, influential artist and musician who experienced massive success before falling hard and fast and dying of a drug overdose at the age of twenty-seven in 1988. Davis, a friend of Basquiat’s, conducts new interviews with many of the people from his inner circle, including art dealers Jeffrey Deitch, Larry Gagosian, Annina Nosei, Tony Shafrazi, and Bruno Bischofberger; Basquiat’s girlfriends Suzanne Mallouk and Kelle Inman; close Basquiat friends Diego Cortez and Fab 5 Freddy; NEW YORK BEAT cable TV host Glenn O’Brien; and fellow artist Julian Schnabel, who directed Basquiat in DOWNTOWN 81. Davis has also dug up amazing footage from the 1980s of Basquiat that shows him to be a unique, driven figure who used whatever he could — from broken windowframes and doors he’d find on the street to immense canvases — to spread his art and world view, which began with drawings in which he identified himself as Samo, criticizing contemporary art as “the same old shit.” Ultimately, though, it was his relationship with Andy Warhol that was the beginning of the end. JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD is a dazzling document of a fascinating time and a cautionary tale of success that comes too fast, too soon. The film is screening November 11-14 as part of the Maysles Institute’s Doc Watchers Presents series.

OTHER ISRAEL FILM FESTIVAL

Havin Yaim’s ID BLUES — JEWISH AND DEMOCRATIC examines Jewish and Arab identity in Israel

JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at West 76th St.
Cinema Village, 22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
November 11-21, $11
www.otherisrael.org

The Other Israel Film Festival was founded in 2007 by Carole Zabar as “a vehicle for cultural change and social insights into the nature of Israel as a democracy and the complex condition of the lives of its minorities that are living in the Jewish State.” The fourth annual festival runs November 11-21 at the JCC in Manhattan and Cinema Village, comprising feature-length works, a photography exhibit, panel discussions, and other gatherings that focus on Arab society in Israel. Mohammad Bakri fights to save his family’s land in Rani Bleier’s ADAMA, a fourteen-year-old girl leaves her home in Galilee and marries a Muslim in a refugee camp in Noa Ben Hagaii’s BLOOD RELATION, a Filipino worker adopts a blind Israeli child in Anat Tel’s I’M NOT FILIPINA, and Haim Yavin completes his trilogy about Arabs living in Israel with ID BLUES — JEWISH AND DEMOCRATIC. Other highlights include the U.S. premiere of the Israeli version of Ricky Gervais’s THE OFFICE (HA’MISRAD), the New York premiere of episodes from the second season of Sayed Kashua’s ARAB LABOR, and selections from the Israeli SESAME STREET (RECHOV SUMSUM). Each screening will be followed by a Q&A with the writer, director, producer, and/or star, including Sofi Tzdaka, Bakri, Tel, Edna Kowarsky, Uri Rosenwaks, and Shlomi Eldar. Among the special events — many of which are free but require advance registration — are “The Search for Justice” with Naomi Ragen, “Hot Off the Press” with Amy Goodman, Gideon Levy, and Khalil Rinnawi, a conversation about ARAB LABOR with Debra Winger, Danny Paran, and Kashua, a coffee tasting with Saul Zabar, a screening of Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti’s Oscar-nominated AJAMI, and “Crossover,” a concert by Mira Awad and Tamar Muskal. In addition, Natan Dvir’s photography exhibit, “18,” consisting of pictures of eighteen-year-old Arabs who live in Israel, will be on view through November 18 at Columbia University’s Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life on 115th St.

CONVERSATIONS WITH CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS: REINVENTING ARTIST COMMUNITIES

Mildred’s Lane artist project will be discussed at MoMA panel on November 8

Museum of Modern Art, Celeste Bartos Theater
The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Monday, November 8, and Wednesday, November 17, $10 each, 6:00
212-708-9781
www.moma.org

On November 8, MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry will moderate “Reinventing Artist Communities” with artists Mark Dion and J. Morgan Puett and critic Alastair Gordon, who will be discussing the Mildred’s Lane project, while on November 17 MoMA senior deputy director of curatorial affairs Peter Reed will moderate a talk with artists Andrea Zittel and Lisa Anne Auerbach about their High Desert Test Sites. Dion’s “Rescue Archaeology” uncovered fascinating historical artifacts under MoMA during its renovation and reconstruction earlier this decade, while Puett’s large-scale installations combine living environments with multimedia performance art; the two are collaborating on the Mildred’s Lane Historical Society and Museum in Pennsylvania, which “incorporates questions of our relation to the environment, systems of labor, forms of dwelling, new sociality — all of which compose an ethics of comportment.” Zittel, whose “Small Liberties” Whitney Altria exhibit consisted of customized Wagon Stations, and Auerbach, who keeps journals about the project, are two of the cofounders of High Desert Test Sites, which invites artists to create alternative, experimental living spaces in desert communities “to challenge traditional conventions of ownership, property and patronage.”

FIRST SATURDAYS: TOMASELLI’S UNIVERSE

Fred Tomaselli, “Echo, Wow, and Flutter,” leaves, pills, photocollage, acrylic, and resin on wood panel, 2000 (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. James G. Forsyth Fund)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, November 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturday program for November focuses on the institution’s current midcareer retrospective of hybrid collage artist Fred Tomaselli, and the Williamsburg-based Tomaselli will be on hand to give a talk at 8:00. The evening also includes a screening of ALICE IN WONDERLAND (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske, 1951), live performances by the Wingdale Community Singers, Laura Cantrell, and the Isle of Klezbos, a book discussion with Rick Moody, a lecture on Tomaselli by psychiatrist Julie Holland, a curator talk by Catherine J. Morris on the exhibit “Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958–1968,” and an electronica dance party hosted by Wolf + Lamb.

KingCon II

Dean Haspiel and Neil Swaab will both be part of KingCon II in Brookly this weekend (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brooklyn Lyceum
227 Fourth Ave. between President & Union Sts.
Friday, November 5, $3, 8:00
November 6-7, $3-$10, 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
718-857-4816
www.kingconbrooklyn.com

The second annual KingCon independent comics and animation convention got under way with two panel discussions on Thursday night at the Brooklyn Lyceum and has a hoppin’ party scheduled for tonight, with readings and live music by such guests as Jeff Newelt, Jen Ferguson, Paul Pope, Dean Haspiel, Joan Hilty, Joe Infurnari, Americans UK, and the Charles Soule Band. The convention kicks into high gear Saturday and Sunday, featuring appearances by such writers and illustrators as Kyle Baker, Simon Fraser, Michael Kuperman, Neil Swaab, Mike Cavallaro, and Becky Cloonan, with such panels as “Collaboration Counseling,” “The Funny Pages: Comedy in Comics,” “How to Draw Comic Characters for Kids of All Ages,” and “Hips, Lips & Pencil Tips: The Sexual Female as Feminist Focal Point.” We can’t wait for Saturday afternoon’s look at the Brooklyn-set HBO series BORED TO DEATH, a discussion with creator Jonathan Ames and graphic artist Haspiel, moderated by Newelt.

LIVE ACTION NEW YORK 10

Scandinavia House
58 Park Ave. at 38th St.
November 5-7, free
212-847-9740
www.scandinaviahouse.org
www.liveactionnewyork.org

The second annual Live Action New York series continues at Scandinavia House Friday through Sunday, following shows Wednesday and Thursday at Grace Exhibition Space, featuring performance art by emerging artists as well as established stars from Scandinavia and North America curated by critic, artist, and historian Jonah Stampe. Friday night’s program includes Mari Novotny-Jones’s “Tender,” Rita Marhaug’s “Norwegian Liquid,” Maurice Blok’s untitled piece, and Joshua Selman’s “Full Massage.” Saturday night begins with Johanna Householder’s “Verbatim 3: Moon,” followed by Kjetil Skøien’s “Still Life,” Peter Rosvik’s “Abandoned Identities,” and Jessica Higgins and Mary Averill’s “Pick Up Sticks.” The festival concludes Sunday afternoon with Birgit Salling Hansen’s “Contours (Writing in the Rain),” Magnus Logi Kristinsson’s “Understandable Not Understandable Words,” and Jörgen Svensson’s “The Wedding.” Although all events are free, advance reservations are suggested.

ZHANG HUAN: THREE LEGGED BUDDHA

Zhang Huan’s “Three Legged Buddha” was officially dedicated with a special ceremony at Storm King on October 30 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Storm King Art Center
Old Pleasant Hill Rd., Mountainville
Wednesday – Sunday through November 14, $8-$12 (children under five free), 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
www.stormking.org
www.zhanghuan.com

On Saturday, October 30, the Storm King Art Center in upstate Mountainville celebrated Chinese artist Zhang Huan’s gift of his monumental 2007 forged-copper sculpture “Three Legged Buddha” with a special dedication ceremony that included chanting by Tibetan monks, a performance by Tibetan teen singing sensation Tenzin Kunsel, and a ritual circumambulation of the work, led by one of the monks and Zhang. Donated as part of Storm King’s fiftieth anniversary, the twenty-eight-foot-high, twelve-ton “Three Legged Buddha” consists of three giant legs facing the ground and forming an arch as if in an elaborate yoga pose with just the bottom half of a body, two feet balanced on pins, the third standing on an eight-foot-high human head, as if pushing it into the earth, or perhaps the head is rising up from below. The detailing is exquisite, from the anklets to the ears, the toes to the face.

Zhang Huan’s “Three Legged Buddha” was officially dedicated with a special ceremony at Storm King on October 30 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The work, which has been placed in Storm King’s South Fields amid sixty-four sugar-maple trees, is inspired by fragments of destroyed Buddhist statuary that Zhang, one of China’s most successful and innovative artists, has been collecting during his travels in Tibet. Also on view as part of Storm King’s fiftieth anniversary is “5+5: New Perspectives,” featuring outdoor works by Mark di Suvero, Andy Goldsworthy, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Maria Elena González, and Alyson Shotz, as well as the indoor exhibit “The View from Here: Storm King at Fifty,” but you better hurry, because the massive, spectacular sculpture center closes for the season November 14. And now is a particularly great time to visit, as the leaves are changing color as fall heads toward winter. Zhang’s 2010 piece “Head from Buddha Foot” is also currently on view at the 590 Atrium on Madison Ave. at 56th St.