this week in art

TOSHIKO NISHIKAWA: SENBAZURU

Toshiko Nishikawa’s “Senbazuru” creates a thousand universes that put you at the center (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Vilcek Foundation Gallery
167 East 73rd St.
Wednesday – Saturday through December 9, free, 12 noon – 6:00 pm
212-472-2500
www.vilcek.org
www.toshikon.com
twi-ny slideshow

For “Senbazuru,” New York City-based Japanese artist Toshiko Nishikawa has turned the small gallery space at the Vilcek Foundation into a sparkling wonderland of one thousand orbs dangling at different lengths from the ceiling. Half of each sphere is a mirror, the other half translucent with hand-painted white lines, allowing visitors to see themselves in new ways, looking within and without, appearing clear and cloudy, both in and out of focus. Although you cannot touch the orbs that have been hung with straight wires, you are supposed to handle the ones with the twisted cords, spinning them, pulling them down, and bringing them right up to your face to peer inside. The orbs evoke the traditional one thousand paper cranes, which offer wishes of peace, health, and happiness, and are all connected through a network of wires, revealing the interdependence of human beings on one another while also showing each person’s limitless possibilities; when visitors walk into the blazingly white room, they immediately become replicated in every ball, one thousand representations of the self. “I want to make these one thousand orbs to help people realize how beautiful they really are. In my tiny universe within an orb, I hope to invite people to see themselves in it, and realize that each of them is this tiny, beautiful universe,” Nishikawa says in the free exhibition brochure, which features a gorgeous mirrored cover that re-creates the experience. “We all exist in this universe together, but it doesn’t mean that we are as small as particles of dust. It means that we each exist within the universe we create together. So everyone creates their own portrait by participating in this project, and each portrait is beautiful.” Nishikawa’s explanation of her work does tend to get rather New Age-y, as does Javier Peral’s music selection, but you don’t have to be all froo-froo yourself to enjoy this delightful experience.

THE ART OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL

Lynda Barry will be part of Sunday afternoon panel discussing the graphic novel at the Philoctetes Center

The Philoctetes Center
247 East 82nd St.
Sunday, December 5, free, 2:30
646-422-0544
www.philoctetes.org

The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination has brought together quite a panel of experts for its free December 5 round table looking at the past, present, and future of the graphic novel. Innovative cartoonists Lynda Barry (ERNIE POOK’S COMEEK; THE GOOD TIMES ARE KILLING ME) and Ben Katchor (JULIUS KNIPFL, REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHER; THE JEW OF NEW YORK) will be joined by University of Chicago English professor Hillary Chute, art historian N. C. Christopher Couch, and RAW publisher Françoise Mouly to talk about this constantly changing and emerging field.

FIRST SATURDAYS: LADIES’ NIGHT

Salma Hayek stars as artist Frida Kahlo in Julie Taymor’s biopic, screening as part of the free First Saturdays program at the Brooklyn Museum on December 4

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, December 4, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org
In conjunction with its “Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958-1968” exhibit, the Brooklyn Museum is handing over its monthly First Saturdays program to the ladies on December 4. Canadian singer Carole Pope will perform, Julie Taymor’s 2002 biopic, FRIDA, will screen at 5:30, performance artist Shelly Mars will present THE HOMO BONOBO PROJECT, the Hands-On Art workshop will take on the sculpture of Joyce Wieland, DJ Laylo will keep things moving at the always hopping dance party, Misako Rocks will talk about her DETECTIVE JERMAIN manga series, and CHERYL will give a multimedia performance.

FRIDA (Julie Taymor, 2002)
Saturday, December 4, 5:30
Free tickets available at Visitor Center beginning at 5:00
www.miramax.com/frida
Salma Hayek is terrific as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in this uniquely creative biopic from Julie Taymor. Kahlo’s tumultuous twenty-five-year relationship with muralist and communist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) is the centerpiece of the film, which comes alive with bright colors, Elliot Goldenthal’s Oscar-winning score, splendidly bizarre animation from the Brothers Quay, and a fun group of supporting actors that includes Antonio Banderas, Ashley Judd, Valeria Golino, Edward Norton, and Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky. Kahlo documented her difficult life on canvas, and Taymor uses those paintings in engaging and dramatic ways.

CHELSEA ART WALK: WEST 24th St.

Wandering through Chelsea galleries can often be a long, hit-or-miss affair, but you can make a direct strike right now by taking advantage of the excellent shows along 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves. Abelardo Morell’s “The Universe Next Door” continues through December 11 at Bryce_Wolkowitz (505 West 24th St.), consisting of the Cuban photographer’s latest camera obscura pigment ink prints in which he turns rooms into pinhole cameras, projecting the outside world onto interior walls, resulting in such beautiful, unique images as “View of the Manhattan Bridge — April 20th / Afternoon” and “View of Florence Looking Northwest Inside Bedroom.” (Morell’s concurrent “Groundwork” exhibition, in which he utilizes a lightproof tent and periscope, is at Bonni Benrubi on East 57th St. through January 8.) Israeli-born Elad Lassry’s small C-prints of people, animals, and unusual objects in solidly painted frames will line the walls of Luhring Augustine (531 West 24th St.) through December 18, while his latest 35mm projection, of a woman and a California king snake, is shown in the back room. (Lassry is also part of MoMA’s current New Photography 2010 installation, through January 11.) German photographer Michael Wolf takes on issues of privacy and surveillance in “iseeyou,” at Bruce Silverstein (535 West 24th St.) through December 24, blowing up pixelated images he appropriated from Google Street Views and showing them along with such previous series as “Transparent City,” “Architecture of Density,” and “Tokyo Compression”; in the back gallery, Wolf has curated “City Views,” eleven voyeuristic shots of people on rooftops and in windows taken by André Kertész in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mika Rottenberg, “Squeeze” (video still), single-channel video installation, 2010 (courtesy Mary Boone Gallery)

For her latest immersive video environment, Argentine native Mika Rottenberg has installed “Squeeze” at Mary Boone (541 West 24th St.) through December 18, a usually crowded white room showing a twenty-minute film loop of a bizarre Rube Goldberg-like global factory of lettuce workers, misted butts, wall tongues, a large oracle, red ponytails, and other oddnesses creating a work of art that will never be seen by the public (be sure to read the document on the wall). And German artist Anselm Kiefer revisits his controversial 1969 show, “Occupations,” a series of photographs of him giving the Hitlergruß in historic sites throughout Europe, in “Next Year in Jerusalem” at the Gagosian Gallery (555 West 24th St.) through December 18, a massive new exhibit of vitrines of all sizes containing myriad elements that together appear to have gone through intense devastation, including clothing, typewriters, pieces of an airplane and a boat, broken glass, thorn bushes, snakeskin, burned books, metal cages, and other items. Several of the vitrines refer to such Bible stories, locations, and characters as Jacob’s Ladder, Lilith, and Mount Tabor. It’s a dizzying and overwhelming sight that evokes powerful emotions and memories.

JOE DIEBES: CHRONOLOGY

Joe Diebes’s “Scherzo” is centerpiece of frenetic multimedia installation at Paul Rodgers/9W

Paul Rodgers / 9W
529 West 20th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through December 2, free
212-414-9810
www.paulrodgers9w.com

At the beginning of this year, No Longer Empty held a music-related exhibition, “Never Can Say Goodbye,” in the old Tower Records at Fourth St. & Broadway. The star of the show was Joe Diebes’s “Scherzo,” a frenetic video installation of cellist Rubin Kodheli playing a score by Diebes as fast as he possibly can while being filmed from eight different angles by Andrew Federman. Kodheli’s virtuosic playing had been fed through a computer algorithm that resequenced the various segments into a brand-new, thrilling yet impossible sound piece that questions time and space as well as the reality of seeing and hearing. “Scherzo,” which comes off as a sort of punk-classical amalgamation, is located in one of the small rooms behind what looks like a white closet in the middle of the Paul Rodgers/9W gallery, surrounded by four other audiovisual pieces that line the walls. “One to One,” “Anachronism I,” “Anachronism 2,” and “Steeplechase” involve Diebes tracing and/or erasing scores by Bach, Beethoven, and Charlie Parker, using and/or reusing translucent vellum sheets, while the compositions can be heard through headphones. “I’m receiving and transmitting, or recording and playing, at the same time,” Diebes explains in the exhibition catalog. “My hand is the authority of the composer, but I’m not the composer. My hand is being driven by the recorded performance, so I’m really just a mass of nerves and muscle processing real time information. I’m trying to do it the best I can, but it’s all error.” Diebes might call it error, but the result is an intoxicating multimedia presentation that boggles the senses.

LEONARDO DA VINCI’S THE LAST SUPPER: A VISION BY PETER GREENAWAY

Peter Greenaway will be at the armory on December 4 for a special conversation about his massive installation of “Leonardo’s Last Supper”

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Tuesday – Sunday, December 3 – January 6, $15 (children ten and under free), 12 noon – 8:00 pm
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

Iconoclastic British director Peter Greenaway has made such films as THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (1982), THE BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT (1987), THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER (1989), and THE PILLOW BOOK (1996) over the course of his controversial thirty-year career. Recently he has turned his attention on the art world, making digital documentaries and giving lectures on such masterpieces as Paolo Veronese’s “The Wedding at Cana” and Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” as part of his Nine Classical Paintings Revisited series. Greenaway’s multimedia examination of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” including a life-size re-creation of the work within a clone of its original home, in the Refectory of Santa Maria Delle Grazie, will be on view in the Park Avenue Armory from December 2 through January 6. “Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway” will invite visitors into an immersive environment of light, sound, and illusion, offering new ways to look at the famous painting itself within its historical context as well as art in general. On December 1, Adam Lowe, founder and director of Factum Arte, will hold a lecture on “Duplicating da Vinci: The Art of Cloning a Masterpiece,” while Greenaway will participate in a special conversation on December 4 at 10:30 am about the unique installation. (Each event is $15 and does not include admission to the main gallery.)

TONY OURSLER / BRUCE NAUMAN

Tony Oursler, “Castouts,” mixed media, 2010 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

TONY OURSLER: PEAK
Lehmann Maupin, 201 Chrystie St. between Stanton & Rivingston Sts.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 4, 212-254-0054
www.lehmannmaupin.com
BRUCE NAUMAN: FOR CHILDREN / FOR BEGINNERS
Sperone Westwater, 257 Bowery at Stanton St.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 18, 212-999-7337
www.speronewestwater.com

Two longtime stars of the multimedia installation currently have exceptional exhibits right around the corner from each other on the Lower East Side. For decades, New York native Tony Oursler has been projecting faces and other images onto a multitude of objects, creating what appear to be living, breathing sculptures. His current show at Lehmann Maupin’s space on Chrystie St., “Peak,” consists of seven technologically virtuosic miniature dioramas in which theatrical scenes and performance art takes place, delving into obsession, festishism, and the human psyche. In “Artificial Hazard,” a man is trapped in a glass cage, an infantile face screaming behind him, a finger pointing upward in the corner. Numerous minuscule projections cover “Via Regia,” “Valley (Flowchart),” and “Castouts,” so be sure to scan every inch of the pieces, while a naked woman delivers a monologue in “Black Box” and a shirtless man seen in multiple sections of a chunk of disintegrating metal gets serious in “Mirror Return.” Meanwhile, Oursler’s companion to “Peak,” “Valley,” is currently on view at the online Adobe Museum of Digital Media.

Bruce Nauman, “For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and fingers),” HD video installation (color, stereo sound), continuous play, 2010

Following the success of his multimedia “Topological Gardens” installation at the 2009 Venice Biennale, which earned him the Golden Lion, Indiana-born artist Bruce Nauman has put together the captivating “For Children / For Beginners” at Sperone Westwater on Bowery, just around the corner from Lehmann Maupin. The central piece of the show is the two-story-high HD video projection “For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and fingers),” with two large hands at the top, and two more at the bottom, closing fingers as an unseen voice calls out “thumb,” “first finger,” “second finger,” etc. However, what is said and what is seen do not necessarily match; in addition, the hands occasionally flip upside down while the background changes from white to black and Terry Allen’s piano soundscape echoes throughout the gallery (emerging from the far elevator). The work is supplemented with a pair of graphite drawings and a smaller monitor showing one pair of hands responding to instructions. As with his recent “Days” exhibit at MoMA (also part of the Venice Biennale), in which different voices came out of fourteen speakers all calling out the days of the week in varying order, “For Children / For Beginners” is both exhilarating and confounding, a trademark of Nauman’s work. But don’t bother trying to figure it all out; just let the meditative sound and images take you away. It’s fascinating to see how well the two shows work together, as Oursler and Nauman each uses very different sizes in their installations — with fingers playing a role in both exhibits.