this week in art

VILLAGE HALLOWEEN COSTUME BALL

Theater for the New City hosts its annual celebration of thrills, chills, and much weirdness

Theater for the New City
155 First Ave. at Tenth St.
Sunday, October 31, $20, 3:30 – ?
www.theaterforthenewcity.net/halloween

Crystal Field’s annual Halloween Costume Ball at the Theater for the New City is another massive extravaganza of music, theater, dance, performance art, astrology, numerology, magic, and general mayhem, taking place on the bandstage outside and in the lobby as well as in the Ballroom, the Cauldron, the Cabaret, the Womb Room, and in the House of Horrors deep in the basement. Among the myriad performers are Jennifer Blowdryer, Penny Arcade, Alien Surfer Babes, Clowns with Gowns, Evan Laurence, Annie Wilson’s Haunted Pianoforte, the Hell Souls, the Hot Lavender Swing Band, the Love Show, Bambi Killers, Flahooley, Suspended Cirque, and Emperor Satan’s Rococoach, in addition to such productions as “The Land of Investment Banking,” “Clutter: I’m Saving My Life & It’s Killing Me,” and “The Red and Black Masque.” At midnight, the costume parade and contest gets under way, with such celebrity judges as Judith Malina, Matt Morillo, and Sabura Rashid. And believe it or not, admission to everything is a mere twenty bucks.

WASTE LAND

Catadore Magna shows artist Vik Muniz the ropes at world’s largest daily landfill (courtesy Vik Muniz Studio)

WASTE LAND (Lucy Walker, 2010)
Angelika Film Center
18 West Houston St. at Mercer St.
Opens Friday, October 29
212-995-2570
www.wastelandmovie.com
www.angelikafilmcenter.com

Born in São Paulo, Brazil, but based in New York City for many years, Vik Muniz has been making portraits and re-creating artistic masterpieces using such materials as sand, sugar, jewels, junk, paper, and pigments and showing them in galleries and museums around the globe. In 2007, he returned to Brazil and met with the catadores, men and women who work at Jardim Gramacho, the largest landfill in the world, picking out recyclable materials they can then sell to survive. He comes to know Tiaõ and Zumbi, who help run the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho, as well as such other catadores as Suelem, Isis, Irma, Magna, and Valter, each a character in his or her own right, with unique stories to tell. Filmmaker Lucy Walker (BLINDSIGHT, COUNTDOWN TO ZERO) documents Muniz’s interaction with these dirt-poor people, who live in Rio’s dangerous favelas, as he sets out to capture their images by using the garbage they sift through to eke out some kind of living. Despite their surroundings, they are proud and happy, welcoming in Muniz, who is not shy about calling himself the most successful Brazilian artist in the world and sharing his determination to give something back. WASTE LAND is about art and ecology, about class consciousness and the vast separation between the rich and the poor. The film proceeds in a fairly standard, straightforward manner, putting Muniz and the project on too high a pedestal, which is not surprising given that the initial idea was Walker’s; the heartwarming subject matter, more than the filmmaking itself, is the reason it has been a hit at international festivals, including winning Audience Awards at Sundance and Berlin earlier this year. Walker, Muniz, and Brazilian counselor Pedro Terra will be on hand at several shows on Friday and Saturday to introduce the film and/or participate in a postscreening Q&A.

McKIM BUILDING RESTORATION

New-Trad Octet will help welcome in restored McKim Building at the Morgan (photo by Schector Lee)

Morgan Library
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Saturday, October 30, free with museum admission of $8-$12, 4:00
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org
www.new-trad.com

After a nearly five-month restoration, the Morgan Library’s 1906 McKim Building will reopen to the public on Saturday with a full day of celebratory activities. From 12 noon to 3:00, musicians from Mannes College will perform. At 1:00, Morgan director William M. Griswold will give a lecture about the restoration of the landmark structure and the museum’s collections. And at 4:00, Jeff Newell’s New-Trad Octet will give a concert featuring their unique brand of early American music, with a focus on the splendid exhibit “Mark Twain: A Skeptic’s Progress.” Newell notes on the band’s website, “We’ll be playing our ‘restored’ arrangements of historic music from the Gilded Age, including some of Twain’s favorites.” Tickets for the events are free with museum admission on Saturday. Also on view at the Morgan are “Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961-1968,” “Degas: Drawings and Sketchbooks,” and “Anne Morgan’s War: Rebuilding Devastated France, 1917-1924.”

WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s SUTRA will make its U.S. premiere at Lincoln Center’s music-centric White Light Festival

Lincoln Center
Alice Tully Hall, Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, Rose Theater, Avery Fisher Hall, David Rubenstein Atrium
October 28 – November 18, free – $90
www.lincolncenter.org

A sort of extension of July’s annual Lincoln Center Festival, in which the vaunted institution stages more experimental works from around the world, the inaugural White Light Festival consists of three weeks of dance, theater, and concerts “focused on music’s transcendent capacity to illuminate our larger interior universe,” as explained by vice president for programming Jane Moss in the festival’s chic booklet. The series begins October 28 with Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble’s free performance of THE SOUL’S MESSENGER in the David Rubenstein Atrium at Broadway and 63rd St. at 8:30 and continues with such eagerly anticipated programs as the U.S. premiere of Belgian-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s SUTRA, Katarina Livljanić’s JUDITH (A Biblical Story from Renaissance Croatia), Tallis Scholars’ unique take on Arvo Pärt’s MAGNIFICAT, and Roysten Abel’s inventively executed THE MANGANIYAR SEDUCTION. Other highlights include Antony and the Johnsons teaming up with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Hilliard Ensemble and saxophonist Jan Garbarek playing OFFICIUM NOVUM at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, and the Hilliard Ensemble, the Latvian National Choir, the Wordless Music Orchestra, and Alex Somers and Jonsi from Sigur Rós performing CREDO at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle. There will also be free panel discussions on “The Sound of Silence” with Karen Armstrong and John Luther Adams, Janet Cardiff’s free sound installation “The Forty-Part Motet” at the Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Rehearsal and Recording Studio at Broadway and 60th St., and several postshow White Light Lounges in which ticket holders can mingle with the artists.

DAN FLAVIN

Dan Flavin, “untitled (to Barry, Mike, Chuck and Leonard),” pink and yellow light fixtures, 1972-75 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Paula Cooper Gallery
534 West 21st St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through October 30
Admission: free
212-255-1105
www.paulacoopergallery.com

There’s virtually never a time when a fluorescent light sculpture by Queens-born artist Dan Flavin isn’t shining somewhere in New York City — and that doesn’t include the stairway that is always aglow at the old Dia Art Foundation on West 22nd St. A fraternal twin, Flavin served in the Air Force and was a guard at MoMA and the American Museum of Natural History before holding his first solo light exhibit, at the Kaymar Gallery in 1964. For the next thirty-plus years, Flavin became famous putting together fluorescent bulbs of varying shapes and lengths into architectural sculptures that broke through spatial planes in fascinating ways. One of his key pieces, “untitled (to Barry, Mike, Chuck and Leonard),” will be on view through Saturday at Paula Cooper’s West 21st St. gallery, and it’s worth a special visit. The double-sided installation forms an eight-foot-by-eight-foot corridor that can be approached from two directions, one giving off a pink glow, the other yellow, allowing people to walk inside and meet at the center, where the vertical lights resemble a different kind of prison cell. It’s an intoxicating experience as well as a lot of fun. Also on display are several smaller works including a crosslike corner piece in another room.

EAR TO THE EARTH 2010: WATER AND THE WORLD

Charles Lindsay and David Rothenberg’s “Western Water” features the Mermaid Bar as part of the Ear to the Earth Festival (photo by Charles Lindsay)

Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow St., $5-$15
White Box, 329 Broome St., free-$15
Frederick Loewe Theater, 35 West Fourth St., free
Kleio Projects, 153 1/2 Stanton St., free
October 27 – November 1, Festival Pass $30
www.emfproductions.org

The Electronic Music Foundation’s fifth annual Ear to the Earth Festival of Sound, Music, and Ecology will examine water and the environment in a series of special events taking place at the Greenwich House Music School, White Box, and the Frederick Loewe Theater, including discussions, concerts, poetry, and multimedia art installations. “We are heading towards a crisis in managing the waters of the world,” explains Joel Chadabe in his curator’s statement. “To address the crisis, we need to reach an understanding of the issues we face with water. And we need to become aware of the ways we use water in the context of the physical realities of our changing environment.” Ear to the Earth begins October 27 with “An Encounter with R. Murray Schafer,” in which the Canadian composer will delve into acoustic ecology and environmental sound art, and continues on October 28 with Bernie Krause’s “Fish Rap: The Life-Affirming Soundscapes of Water” and Yolande Harris’s “Fishing for Sound.” On Friday night, Kristin Norderval presents the world premiere of her interactive “Tattooed Ghosts,” inspired by Dina Von Zweck’s FLUDD — VIRTUAL POLAR ICECAP MELTDOWN; also on the bill is Matt Rogalsky’s sound installation “Memory Like Water.” On Saturday afternoon, Sheila Callaghan, Katie Down, Leah Gelpe, and Daniella Topol collaborate on “Water (or the Secret Life of Objects),” which was developed following the Katrina disaster. Saturday night features a trio of New York Soundscapes world premieres: Miguel Frasconi’s “Inside-Out,” Aleksei Stevens’s “Standing Water: Sound Map of the Gowanus Canal, 2010,” and Paula Matthuson’s “Navigable.” Sunday includes two shows at the Frederick Loewe Theater, beginning at 5:00 with David Monacchi’s “Stati d’Acqua / States of Water,” Maggi Payne’s “Liquid Amber,” and Matther Burtner and Scott Deal’s “Auksalaq,” followed at 8:00 by Phill Niblock and Katherine Liberovskaya’s “Sound Delta,” based on sounds from the Rhine and the Danube, and Michael Fahres’s “Cetacea,” which combines Senegalese Sabar drumming with dolphin sounds. The festival concludes on November 1 with Charles Lindsay and David Rothenberg’s live multimedia “Western Water” and Andrea Polli and TJ Martinez’s documentary “Dances with Waves.” In addition, Jennifer Stock’s “At Water’s Edge” and Liz Phillips’s “Here/Hear: Manhattan Is an Island” will be on display at White Box throughout the festival, while Andrea Lockwood’s “A Sound Map of the Housatonic River” will be up at Kleio Projects, with free admission to both venues. Ear to the Earth 2010 combines science and sound, ecology and music, the environment and film, and other media to offer a fresh and innovative perspective on the world’s water crisis.

INSPIRING SPACES: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF MTA ARTS FOR TRANSIT

Arts in Transit is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary with dual exhibit looking as its past, present, and future (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

New York Transit Museum
Boerum Pl. & Schermerhorn St.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 2011, $6
718-694-1600
New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex
Grand Central Terminal
Shuttle Passage next to Station Masters’ Office
Through October 31, free
212-878-0106
www.mta.info

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of its wonderful Arts in Transit program, which has been beautifying stations in the New York City subway and on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North since 1985, with a two-part exhibit that continues through October 31 at the Gallery Annex in Grand Central Terminal and through February at the Transit Museum in Brooklyn. The show examines dozens and dozens of the more than two hundred installed works, as well as some that are in progress, including a brief history of each installation and the artist and displaying photographs, fabrication samples, proposal drawings, silkscreen studies, and models of the final pieces. The exhibit also explains the selection process and divides the works into such categories as Transformation, Tradition Renewed and Reinvented, and Monumentality. Among the projects on view at the annex are Houston Cornwill’s 1986 “Open Secret” at the 125th St. 4/5/6 station, Mark Gibian’s 1996 “Cable Crossing” at the Brooklyn Bridge City Hall 4/5/6, R. M. Fischer’s 1992 “Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Clock,” Sol Lewitt’s 2009 “Whirls and Twirls” at Columbus Circle, Michele Oka Doner’s “Radiant Site” at 34th St. Herald Square, and Ming Fay’s 2004 “Shad Crossing” and “Delancey Orchard” at the Delancey St.-Essex St. F/M/J/Z.

Exhibit focuses on such Arts in Transit installations as Al Held’s “Passing Through” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The larger Brooklyn section of the exhibit includes looks at Jacob Lawrence’s 2001 “New York in Transit” in Times Square, Tom Otterness’s “Life Underground” at the 14th St. A/C/E/L, Ingo Fast’s upcoming “On and Off the Boardwalk” at the Beach 67th St. A, Faith Ringgold’s 1996 “Flying Home: Harlem Heroes and Heroines (Downtown and Uptown)” at the 125th St. 2/3, and the 2000 “For Want of a Nail” collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History at the 81st St. B/C as well as original subway posters and a short film about the program. Other prominent artists who have participated in the project are Vito Acconci, Elizabeth Murray, Nancy Spero, Jane Dickson, Doug and Mike Starn, Jean Shin, Peter Sis, Daniel Kirk, and Roy Lichtenstein. On November 25, the museum is offering a tour of new projects on the Brighton Line, featuring works by Mary Temple, Jason Middlebrook, and Rita MacDonald ($25). We absolutely love Arts in Transit and have been documenting many of the projects on twi-ny and our Flickr site since we began in 2001. In the midst of all the maelstrom of the city’s transportation system, these installations offer a much-needed respite, like mini-galleries, on your way to where you need to be. After seeing this dual exhibit, you’ll spend more time in the future checking out these splendid works. Also on display at the museum, which is one of the gems of the city and a great place for families, are “Steel, Stone & Backbone: Building New York’s Subways 1900-1925,” “On the Streets: New York’s Trolleys,” “The Triborough Bridge: Robert Moses and the Automobile Age,” and “Moving the Millions: New York City’s Subways from Its Origins to the Present.”