this week in art

JOHN LENNON 70th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

New York City will be celebrating what would have been John Lennon’s seventieth birthday with a plethora of events this week (photo © Bob Gruen)

Multiple venues
October 6-9 (and beyond)
www.johnlennon.com

It’s hard to believe that in December it’ll be thirty years since John Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of the Dakota on Central Park West. On October 9, the cool Beatle, who had fallen in love with his adopted home of New York, would have turned seventy years old. The city will be celebrating that never-reached milestone with a series of events all over town this week. Starting today and running through December 31, the Paley Center will be presenting “This Boy . . . John Lennon in Liverpool,” comprising rare photographs from John’s early years. On Thursday night at 7:00, the Paley Center will screen the American Masters film LennonNYC (Michael Epstein, 2010) as part of DocFest 2010, followed by a panel discussion with Epstein, Susan Lacy, Dick Cavett, and Dennis Elsas. In addition, the Paley Center has scheduled showings of IMAGINE: JOHN LENNON, WHAT’S HAPPENING! THE BEATLES IN THE U.S.A., THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON, and GIMME SOME TRUTH: THE MAKING OF JOHN LENNON’S IMAGINE ALBUM through the end of the year. On October 9, City Winery will be celebrating with “A John Lennon 70th Birthday Party,” featuring a VIP dinner and “Imagine Wine Flight” and performances by Kimya Dawson, Anais Mitchell, Freedy Johnston, Jesse Malin, the Chapin Sisters, Lisa Bouchelle, the Kennedys, and Tony Scherr; proceeds benefit the Food Bank of New York City. Also on October 9, LennonNYC will be screened for free at Central Park SummerStage at 7:00 (but you better get there a lot earlier). And finally, at the Morrison Hotel Gallery on Bowery, Julian Lennon’s photographs are being displayed for the first time, through October 10. Happy birthday, John!

ARTISTS ON ARTISTS

Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon will speak on the career of multimedia artist and rock writer Dan Graham as part of the Dia Foundation’s Artists on Artists series (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Dia: Chelsea
535 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Monthly Mondays at 6:30
Admission: $6
212-989-5566
www.diaart.org

Upon the opening of the excellent Dan Graham retrospective “Beyond” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in early 2009 (and later seen here at the Whitney), Graham sat down for a conversation with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon. Gordon continues that rather interesting relationship on November 8 when she talks about admitted Sonic Youth fan Graham’s life and career as part of the Dia Foundation’s Artists on Artists series. Since 2001, Dia has been sponsoring fascinating lectures in which one artist discusses the work of another artist, offering unique ruminations on creativity, influence, and the art world in general. The fall season got under way September 13 with Daniel Lefcourt speaking on Imi Knoebel. Next up is Peter Halley on Franz Erhard Walther on October 18, followed by Gordon on Graham on November 8 and Joachim Koester on Sol LeWitt on December 13. The series then continues into 2011, with Abraham Cruzvillegas on Robert Smithson on February 14, Laylah Ali on Joseph Beuys on March 21, and Josephine Meckseper on Hanne Darboven on April 4. (Although some are already sold out, there will be a first-come, first-served waiting list the night of the event.)

JUDY CHICAGO

Judy Chicago and art historian Frances Borzello will discuss their new book on Frida Kahlo at the Brooklyn Museum on October 3 (photo by Donald Woodman)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Pkwy.
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, third Floor
Sunday, October 3, free with suggested contribution of $10, 2:00
718-638-5000
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Judy Chicago, creator of the world famous “Dinner Party” installation currently at the Brooklyn Museum and one of the pioneers of feminist art, will make a special visit to the Eastern Parkway institution on Sunday afternoon, October 3, at 2:00, celebrating the release of her latest book, FRIDA KAHLO: FACE TO FACE (Prestel, September 2010, $65). Chicago will be joined by her collaborator, art historian Frances Borzello, in discussing Kahlo’s place as a painter of women’s portraits; in the book, Chicago and Borzello examine 120 such works by the renowned Mexican artist, looking at them from both a personal and professional angle. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A and book signing.

Before or after the book launch, be sure to save plenty of time to see “The Dinner Party,” which has found a long-term home in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art on the fourth floor. The world’s most remarkable dinner party is held at a triangular table that consists of three 48-foot sides with 13 place settings apiece, paying tribute to 39 women who helped shape and change the world. The plate design — a combination of a butterfly pattern and a vulva — and the embroidered silk covering are different for each historical figure, based on their life and accomplishments, which are listed in the accompanying booklet and on Heritage Panels in an adjoining room. Another 999 women are honored with their names inscribed in gold on the Heritage Floor beneath the table; Chicago arranged it so that women who were successful in the same field are placed together. For example, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other suffragists are written under Susan B. Anthony’s setting, and Harriet Tubman and other civil rights leaders are under Sojourner Truth’s setting. Chicago celebrates these women by using so-called feminine iconography, including embroidery, table setting, and tapestry weaving, all of which are generally associated with women, and placing the vulva front and center as an expression of not only life but power.

ART IN ODD PLACES: CHANCE

Paul Notzold’s “TXTual Healing” will project audience texts onto a 14th St. building as part of Art in Odd Places public art festival

14th St. between the Hudson & East Rivers
October 1-10
Admission: free
www.artinoddplaces.org

Everyday life in New York City is built around the idea of chance — risk as well as luck, both good and bad — as residents, tourists, workers, and other visitors are all part of a daily maelstrom filled with expected and unexpected encounters with friends and strangers, taxis and buses, parks and skyscrapers. If the city is its own massive museum, then its streets are like individual galleries, and with that in mind, curators Yaelle Amir and Petrushka Bazin have taken over 14th St. from October 1 to 10. “Chance” is the latest presentation from Art in Odd Places, which seeks to stretch the limits of public art. Playing off the themes of “proposition, luck, randomness, risk, and opportunity,” Amir and Bazin have gathered together more than two dozen site-specific projects that run the length of 14th St. from the Hudson to the East River, as passersby will come upon live music, dance, sound installations, interactive sculpture, and other participatory events. Perhaps you’ll find one of Sheryl Oring’s “To a Young Poet” envelopes, inside of which is an excerpt from Rainer Maria Rilke and a request for you to respond. Or maybe your movement will be incorporated into Simonetta Moro’s “Chance Drawing: Reverse Window Shopping” at Rags-a-Gogo. Make sure you have proper identification if you want to take one of notary public Carrie Dashow’s “Great Oaths.” Go ahead and answer that ringing phone, as it could be Christopher Dameron and Annika Newell’s “Silent Call” on the other end. Be brave and enter Einat Amir’s “Enough About You,” in which you’ll be put in a room with a stranger and then have a conversation. Although it might be raining anyway, you won’t want to get wet from BroLab Collective’s “Pump 14,” which will be transporting water down 14th St. via a manual bucket filtration system. Watch to see if Irvin Morazan, munching on Cheez Doodles while dressed in a Mayan-inspired headdress, is able to hail a cab in “Taxi!! Taxi!! Taxii!!” If someone is waving at you from across the street, be sure to wave back, because it’s probably part of Flux Factory’s “Sign a Waver.” And if three women suddenly start telling you stories on a street corner, it could very well be Jessica Ann Peavy’s “Two Lies and a Truth,” and it’s up to you to decide which rumor is real. Some of the events will continue all week, while others will take place only tonight, so check the schedule at the above website if you’re interested in a specific performance.

THE FALL AFFORDABLE ART FAIR NEW YORK CITY

7W New York
7 West 34th St.
September 30 – October 3, $15-$20 per day
www.aafnyc.com

The Affordable Art Fair has been a mainstay of the spring season, but it is now holding its first-ever New York City fall fair. From September 30 through October 3, more than seventy-five exhibitors will be selling contemporary art, including paintings, drawings, photography, and sculpture, with prices ranging from $100 to $10,000. The fair will also feature such workshops as “How to Live with Art” and “Get Your Art On: Navigating the Landscape of Collecting” and daily open studios. And as a bonus, admission is free Friday night from 6:00 to 8:00. It doesn’t get much more affordable than that.

SEVEN WORKS BY TRISHA BROWN

Stephen Petronio walks down the outside of the Whitney as part of Trisha Brown “Off the Wall” show at the Whitney (photo by twi-ny/mdr)



OFF THE WALL: PART 2
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St.
September 30 – October 3, free with museum admission of $12-$18
212-570-3600
www.whitney.org
Stephen Petronio: “Man Walking Down the Side of a Building” slideshow

The Trisha Brown Dance Company continues its fortieth anniversary celebration with four days of live performance art at the Whitney, re-creating seminal works inside a second-floor gallery, in the museum’s outdoor sculpture court, and down the side of the building. The exciting weekend begins Thursday afternoon at 3:30 with “Falling Duet I,” “Leaning Duets I,” “Walking on the Wall,” and “Spanish Dance” in the Mildred & Herbert Lee Galleries, along with films and the sound installation “Skymap,” and will be repeated on October 1 at 3:30 & 7:00 and October 2-3 at 12 noon and 3:30. “Floor of the Forest” will be staged by members of the 2010-11 Second Avenue Dance Company at 4:30 in the sculpture court on Thursday and repeated numerous times through Sunday. Yesterday people marveled as a woman made her way down the outside facade of the Whitney, but that was no mere daredevil; it was choreographer Elizabeth Streb rehearsing Brown’s “Man Walking Down the Side of a Building,” which will be performed by Stephen Petronio Thursday at 5:00 and Saturday at 1:30 and 5:00 and by Streb Friday at 5:00 and Sunday at 1:30 and 5:00.

SHIFTING THE GAZE: GALLERY TALKS

Deborah Kass, “Double Red Yentl, Split, from My Elvis,” screen print and acrylic on canvas, 1993



PAINTING AND FEMINISM
Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
Select days at 1:00 from October 4 through November 8
Free with museum admission of $12
212-423-3337
www.thejewishmuseum.org

The Jewish Museum will be hosting a series of exciting talks and discussions in conjunction with its latest exhibit, “Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism,” which runs through January 30. The series begins October 4 with Joyce Kozloff, whose “Naming II (or Who’s Jewish?)” is in the exhibition, followed by Judy Chicago (“Sky Flesh”) on October 5, Mira Schor (“Silence”) on October 11, a tour with curator Daniel Belasco on October 18, Deborah Kass (“Double Red Yentl, Split”) on October 25, Robert Kushner (“Blue Flounce”) on November 1, and Elisabeth Subrin (“Shulie: Film and Stills by Elisabeth Subrin”) on November 8, with all talks free with museum admission. In addition, the Jewish Museum will be presenting a three-part lecture series by CUNY art history professor Dr. Nanette Salomon, “Shifting Crossroads: Feminism, Art, Modernity, and Difference,” at 11:30 am on October 4 (“The Prequel: Women Painters in Early Modern Europe”), October 11 (“Impressionism and the Moment of Modernism: Women, Jews, and Other ‘Others’”), and October 18 (“Women Painters and the Jewish Museum 2010”); each lecture is $20, or you can get a series ticket for all three for $45.