this week in art

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY: FESTIVAL

Electronic musician Ikue Mori interprets Christian Marclay’s “Ephemera” score at the Whitney with pianist Sylive Courvoisier (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St.
Wednesday – Sunday through September 26
Admission: $12-$18 (pay-what-you-wish Fridays from 6:00 to 9:00)
212-570-3600
www.whitney.org

Since the late 1970s, New York-based multidisciplinary artist Christian Marclay has been exploring the intimate connection between sound and image through sculpture, video, photography, live music, collage, and site-specific installation. His unique approach to this relationship is on view at the Whitney in the thrilling interactive exhibition “Festival,” which includes dozens of Marclay’s highly original scores, including “Graffiti Composition,” comprising graffiti scribbled on posters by passersby in Berlin; “Pret-a-Porter,” consisting of clothing that has musical notations on them; “Zoom Zoom,” a slideshow of photographs of signs that contain onomatopoeiac language; “Mixed Reviews,” translated music reviews that run around one gallery space in a seemingly endless line of text; “Covers,” a collection of empty record sleeves; “The Bell and the Glass,” a double video projection that draws comparisons between the Liberty Bell and Marcel Duchamp’s “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors”; and “Chalkboard,” in which visitors are encouraged to write or draw anything they want on a giant musical staff. All of these scores and more are meant to be interpreted and improvised by musicians, guaranteeing that no two performances will ever be the same. Live events, all free with paid museum admission, continue daily through August 27, with such upcoming “concerts” as Peter Evans and Zeena Parkins performing “Box Set” on August 18 at 1:00, David Moss taking on “Manga Scroll” on August 20 at 7:00, Kato Hideki, Zeena Parkins, Sara Parkins, and Nels Cline teaming up for “The Bell and the Glass” on August 21 at 1:30, Robin Holcomb and Wayne Horvitz interpreting “Graffiti Composition” on August 25 at 4:00, and Bill Frisell playing “Wind Up Guitar” on August 26 at 1:00. There will also be Artist’s Talks every Friday afternoon, with Moss on August 20, Marina Rosenfeld on August 27, and Guy Klucevsek on September 3 and 17. “Festival” is indeed a festival of word, sound, and image, a fascinating celebration of aural and visual language by a masterful artist whose reach knows no boundaries.

In conjunction with “Festival,” which runs through September 26, Marclay’s “Fourth of July” has been extended at the Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea through August 24. (Also currently at the Whitney are “Jill Magid: A Reasonable Man in a Box,” “Off the Wall: Part 1 — Thirty Performative Actions,” and “Collecting Biennials.”)

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY: FOURTH OF JULY

Christian Marclay transforms a Fourth of July celebration in exhibit at Paula Cooper Gallery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Paula Cooper Gallery
521 West 21st St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Monday – Friday through August 24, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Admission: free
212-255-1105
www.paulacoopergallery.com

For more than three decades, innovative multidisciplinary artist Christian Marclay has been creating visual and aural art that comes alive in unique and captivating ways. Through film, video, sound recording, photography, and site-specific installations, Marclay lays bare the artistic process, utilizing and transforming such objects as turntables, vinyl records, and, now, fragmented photographs in his shows. For the current “Fourth of July,” which has been extended at the Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea through August 24, the New York-based artist and composer started with pictures he took of a marching band and crowd at a 2005 Independence Day parade in Hyde Park, blew up seven of the photos to large size, then tore them randomly and framed forty of the ripped pieces, creating a very different kind of musical event. The result is a fascinating new look at something old and familiar, a reexamination of the old red, white, and blue American spirit as seen by zeroing in on smaller, incomplete elements, focusing on a drum, a cymbal, or a body part that was not necessarily the central image of the original photograph. His jagged celebration has a sound and feeling all its own. The exhibition is running in conjunction with Marclay’s excellent “Festival” at the Whitney, which continues through September 26, with daily live performances of the artist’s unusual scores interpreted by a rotating group of outstanding experimental musicians through August 27.

BRUCE NAUMAN: DAYS

The days go flying by in Bruce Nauman’s audiovisual installation at MoMA (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through August 23
Admission: $20 (includes same-day film screening)
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

As the August doldrums begin to take hold, it’s getting harder and harder to even remember what day it is. To add to the confusion, multimedia performance artist Bruce Nauman has installed “Days” at MoMA. For nearly fifty years, the Indiana-born Nauman, who has been based in New Mexico since 1979, has been challenging the conventions of art and language via neon sculptures, film and video, live performances, and unique installations. Created for the 2009 Venice Biennale, “Days” is not really much to look at: fourteen relatively bland speakers in two rows, with a handful of stools between them in an otherwise empty room. But oh, what beautiful noise reverberates throughout the gallery. Nauman recorded seven people reading off the days of the week, each person given a different, random order, none following the established Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc. Visitors can approach a particular speaker, where that specific voice and order will gain prominence, or can stand off to the side or in the middle and let all the days of the week reverberate in ways that end up being more comforting than confusing. By having men, women, and children of different ages and speech patterns calling out the days, Nauman allows the viewer/listener an opportunity to contemplate time as both a personal reality and a metaphysical concept. We recommend grabbing a stool, sitting in the middle of the room, and letting the “music” roll over you like waves on the beach. As far as forgetting what day it is goes, you should try to remember Fridays, when admission to MoMA is free after 4:00, and Tuesdays, when the museum is closed. And as long as you’re there, you might as well check out a couple of other pretty sweet exhibits, including “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917,” “Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography,” and “The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today.”

RINEKE DIJKSTRA

Rineke Dijkstra, still from “Ruth Drawing Picasso,” single-channel video, Tate Liverpool, 2009

Marian Goodman Gallery
24 West 57th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Monday – Friday through August 21
Admission: free
212-977-7160
www.mariangoodman.com

In the 2008 book IMAGE MAKERS, IMAGE TAKERS: INTERVIEWS WITH TODAY’S LEADING CURATORS, EDITORS, AND PHOTOGRAPHERS, Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra says, “I make normal things appear special.” Dijkstra, who turns fifty-one this week, takes portraits of everyday people, most often staring directly into the camera, that are subtle yet revealing, exploring the act of seeing in both subject and viewer. Her current show at the Marian Goodman Gallery expands on that theme with a trio of video installations that explore art, interpretation, and innocence as seen through the eyes of children. In the three-channel projection “I See a Woman Crying (Weeping Woman),” Dijkstra shoots a group of nine schoolkids who are looking at something ever so slightly off-camera. Their individual thoughts and ideas reveal aspects of themselves, then directly influence the group discussion as a whole. We first watched the film without knowing what they were specifically talking about, which was simply fascinating; we then took it in again, knowing that they were looking at a reproduction of Picasso’s “Weeping Woman” that was attached to the camera’s tripod, which gave the work a new perspective. In “Ruth Drawing Picasso,” a young girl, in school uniform and boots, is sitting on the floor of the Tate Liverpool, sketching that very same painting. The intensity in the girl’s eyes, her careful concentration, and the sound of pencil hitting paper come together in absolutely thrilling ways. Ruth occasionally looks to her left, where another student, off-camera, is apparently doing the same thing, as if she is checking how her work compares to the other girl’s, wanting so much to do well. And in the four-channel video “The Krazyhouse, Liverpool, UK (Megan, Simon, Nicky, Philip, Dee),” Dijkstra depicts young kids, shown individually on one screen at a time (placed on each wall of a dark room), dancing to songs that they chose. Shot against a white background, the subjects start slowly, a little nervous, before eventually letting loose, allowing the music and the experience to take over. It’s an energizing work that examines adolescent self-esteem and the ability to free oneself from self-consciousness and societal restrictions. The exhibit, which is supplemented by a series of portraits, indeed makes “normal things appear special.”

NOT QUITE OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Visitors enter the Hole’s group show through a hole in the wall (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Hole
104 Greene St.
Tuesday – Saturday through August 21, 12 noon – 6:00 pm
Admission: free
www.theholenyc.com

When Jeffrey Deitch closed his two SoHo galleries upon accepting the directorship at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art earlier this year, his Deitch Projects executive staff set out on their own, looking for just the right venue and show to announce their next venture. But curators Kathy Grayson and Meghan Coleman and collaborator Suzanne Geiss were quickly faced with a series of problems, including a corporate sponsor pulling out, losing a desired space, and having the artist for their first show tell them that he wouldn’t be ready in time. Ever creative, they decided to take another angle, presenting “Not Quite Open for Business,” a group show featuring unfinished painting, sculpture, drawing, video, and installation by more than two dozen artists, including Terence Koh, Barry McGee, Kembra Pfahler, Steve Powers, Robert Lazzarini, Matt Leines, Rosson Crow, Erik Foss, and Jules de Balincourt. Be careful where you step, because there’s art everywhere, from floor to ceiling. The cool space, named the Hole because Grayson and Coleman are intent on “filling a hole in the downtown community,” a favorite phrase of Deitch’s, was designed by Taylor McKimens, inviting visitors to literally enter through a hole in a wall. There’s also a groovy room in the back called Holey Books, designed by Rafael de Cardenas, which sells music, hats, shirts, books, and other merch. Grayson and Coleman are off to a fun start; up next for them is Mat Brinkman’s “Phantasmatgoria,” opening September 18.

KING TUT IN NEW YORK

Special King Tut exhibit will be in Times Square through January 2011 (photo by Steve Garrin)

TUTANKHAMUN AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE PHARAOHS
Discovery Times Square Exhibition
226 West 46th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Through January 2, 2011
Tickets: $19.50-$75 (children under four free)
888-988-8692
www.discoverytsx.com/exhibitions/kingtut

The mystery of the Boy King, Tutankhamun, has continued to grow ever since his tomb was discovered in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter for Lord Carnarvon. For the first time in more than thirty years, since “The Treasures of Tutankhamun” was on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the late 1970s, King Tut (1341-1323 BCE) is back, in two exhibitions. The traveling show “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” is currently in Denver and Times Square. The New York exhibit features some 130 artifacts, including burial objects, a childhood chair of Tut’s, a look at the time immediately preceding Tut’s reign, and a video narrated by Omar Sharif. Presented by National Geographic, the show runs through January 2.

Head of Tutankhamun, limestone, ca. 1336-1327 B.C.E. (courtesy Rogers Fund, 1950)

TUTANKHAMUN’S FUNERAL
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Egyptian Special Exhibitions Gallery
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 6
Recommended admission: $20 adults, children under twelve free
212-570-3828
www.metmuseum.org

About 110 meters from where Carter discovered King Tut’s tomb, American archaeologist Theodore Davis had found storage jars in the Valley of the Kings in 1908, a collection that was later realized to be ritual objects from the mummification of the Boy King. In conjunction with the exhibit at the Discovery Times Square Exposition, the Met is showing “Tutankhamun’s Funeral” through September 6, a display of sixty bowls, bandages, jars, floral collars, and other items that give insight into the burial of King Tut and Egyptian funeral rites in general. The Met has also made available Herbert E. Winlock’s “Materials Used at the Embalming of King Tūt-‘ankh-Amūn,” with a new introduction by Dorothea Arnold.

RAFAEL SANCHEZ: THE LIMIT AS THE BODY APPROACHES ZERO

Rafael Sanchez's performance series at Exit Art concludes today with a six-hour extravaganza

Exit Art
475 Tenth Ave. at 36th St.
Saturday, July 31, free, 12 noon – 6:00 pm
Exhibition continues through August 25 (closed Sunday & Monday)
212-966-7745
www.exitart.org

Since his solo show “The Limit as the Body Approaches” opened at Exit Art, Newark-born artist Rafael Sanchez has been presenting live performances on weekends, examining street fashion, chaos, masculinity, sexuality, love, and music. The performances conclude today with five pieces beginning at 12 noon and continuing through 6:00 pm, including “Can’t Keep Running Away” about avoidance coping; a reenactment of a Bad Brains song; “Habibi Adid,” in which Sanchez will be in a plexiglas case being filled with sand, honey, and ants; an improvised performance with four acquaintances of Sanchez; and “Diamond Sea (Part Two),” set to the Sonic Youth song.