this week in art

MoMA NIGHTS

Pascal Parisot will perform with Fredda in MoMA’s sculpture garden this summer (photo by Frederique Dastrevigne)

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden
Thursdays in July and August, live sets at 5:30 and 7:00 pm
Free with museum admission of $20 (includes same-day film screening)
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

MoMA’s annual music series in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden gets under way July 1 with Nation Beat, kicking off five consecutive Thursday nights of Brazilian music, held in conjunction with the film series “Premiere Brazil 2010,” followed by four weeks of French music, held in conjunction with the art exhibit “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917.” The schedule, which includes sets at 5:30 and 7:00, continues July 8 with Wax Poetic Brasil, July 15 with Alexia Bomtempo and Pierre Aderne, July 22 with the Adriano Santos Brazilian Jazz Quartet, and July 29 with Kay Lyra. Holden introduces music lovers to France on August 5, followed by Pascal Parisot and Fredda on August 12, Arnaud Fleurent-Didier on August 19, and Marianne Dissard on August 26. The museum will remain open on these Thursday nights until 8:45. The sculpture garden is such a city treasure that it doesn’t really matter whether you know anything at all about these artists and the type of music they play; it’s worth it just to sit in these lovely environs and enjoy a beautiful evening of art and song.

SUMMERNIGHTS

Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys have added a second night to annual Jewish Museum series after selling out opener

Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
Thursday nights in July, $15, 7:30
212-423-3337
www.thejewishmuseum.org

The Jewish Museum’s annual summer evening music series is off to a hot start, with July 1’s opening concert, featuring Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys, already sold out, but they’ve just added a second night, with the band returning for an encore performance on July 29. The Sexteto Rodriguez Cuban-Jewish All Stars have also sold out their July 15 show, so you better hurry if you want to see Ansambi Mastika on July 8 or Rana Santacruz on July 22. The galleries remain open until 8:00 on SummerNights; current exhibitions include “Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H. A. Rey,” “Modern Art, Sacred Space: Motherwell, Ferber and Gottlieb,” “South African Photographs: David Goldblatt,” “The Monayer Family: Three Videos by Dor Guest,” and “South African Projections: Films by William Kentridge.”

BRONX BOOK FAIR

Bronx Museum of the Arts
1040 Grand Concourse at 166th St.
Sunday, June 27, 12 noon – 5:00 pm
Admission: free
www.bronxmuseum.org

The Bronx Museum of the Arts celebrates small presses at its annual book fair, which this year includes children’s workshops, panel discussions, DJ sets from Wepa Man Victor Vargas, open studios from artists-in-residence Niang Ibrahima and Seydi Samba from Senegal, poetry readings, an ARTfarm site-specific installation, a film screening, and more. Currently the museum is exhibiting “After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy,” “Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968,” “Lobby-for-the-Time-Being” by Acconci Studio, and “Urban Archives: Happy Together — Asian and Asian-American Art from the Permanent Collection.”

THE CREATORS PROJECT

Milk Studios
450 West 15th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Admission: free with advance RSVP confirmation only
www.thecreatorsproject.com

A joint venture between Vice and Intel, the Creators Project seeks to redefine the future of creativity and culture for the twenty-first century through art, film, music, and digital technology. The ambitious global initiative launches today at Milk Studios in the Meatpacking District before heading to London July 17, São Paulo August 14, Seoul August 28, and Beijing September 17-19. Open only to those with confirmed RSVPs, which “sold out” almost immediately, today’s hotly anticipated event features twelve hours of art installations, film screenings, panel discussions, DJ sets, and live performances spread across several floors, with works by such artists as Takeshi Murata, Danny Perez & Animal Collective, Spike Jonze, Nick Zinner & Martyn Ware, Graffiti Research Lab, the xx, Radical Friend, and many more, and live music from the Rapture, Gang Gang Dance, Sleigh Bells, Interpol, Neon Indian, MIA, and others. If you weren’t lucky enough to receive an e-mail confirmation, you can watch the event streaming live at the above website, and of course twi-ny will be there to bring you all the action as well.

Creators Project sweeps up visitors into immersive environments by Muti Randolph and others (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Follow-up: The much-touted launch of the Creators Project in the Meatpacking District on June 26 was a huge success. For some twelve hours, more than thirty-five hundred people got the opportunity to experience four floors of art, music, and film at Milk Studios, organized by Vice and Intel. Experience is the right word, as virtually every installation relied on human interaction of some kind, whether it be looking into a mirror that archives and melds together its previous gazers (United Visual Artists’ “Hereafter”), participating in a Rock Band-type trio where videos play instead of music (LEGS’ “Shred Master Pro”), entering a chamber pod where one’s face merges with others in the creation of a new type of holographic being (Radical Friend’s “The Digital Flesh”), setting off monolithic LED monitors that evoke space-age sound and vision (United Visual Artists’ “Triptych”), using hand motion to make a 3D computer image ([z]ink’s “DSP”), entering an Animal Collective album (Danny Perez’s “ODDSAC”), or walking into a light sculpture that changes color and sound based on presence and movement (Muti Randolph’s “Deep Screen”).

Mira Calix collaboration features haunting music and ghostly imagery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Spike Jonze’s piece included three sections: the screening of his charming short film about robot love, I’M HERE, followed by a live performance by ASKA, playing songs from the soundtrack, and then inviting the audience to share their reaction to the movie in a specially designed video booth that gives each person a watermarked printout of themselves. And we were absolutely mesmerized by Mira Calix’s “My Secret Heart,” a collaboration between composer Calix, Streetwise Opera, video artist Flat-e, and sound designer Dave Sheppard, projecting haunting images, which include the outlines of people, floating around a 360-degree screen, set to a rare performance of Gregorio Allegri’s mysterious “Miserere Mei.” Oh yeah, there were also some pretty hot bands taking over various stages as the afternoon flowed into night. It’s really a shame that this marvelous project was here for only one day; it deserved to be seen — and experienced — by many more here in New York before it continues on its journey.

NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL: ROB LIST PERFORMANCES

Tjebbe Roelefs and Olivia Reschovsky perform Rob List’s “Injerto/Greffe” at Parker’s Box (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Parker’s Box
193 Grand St., Brooklyn
June 24-27, 1:00 – 12 midnight
Admission: free
718-388-2882
www.parkersbox.com
www.ozu.nl

American-born European-based performance artist Rob List has been creating unique pieces built around silence, natural light, everyday clothing, and minimal movement primarily in nontheatrical spaces for a quarter century. For example, in “Injerto/Greffe,” two male dancers stand face-to-face for an extended period of time, their hands grasped together, only their fingers moving, weaving in and around each other. This month List has been presenting several of his works in the all-white front room of Parker’s Box in Williamsburg, a melding of art, sculpture, and dance that places performer and viewer on equal footing. Joined by Melissa Cisneros, Diego Gil, Constance Neuenschwander, Olivia Reschovsky, Tjebbe Roelefs, and David Weber-Krebs, List will be staging “On the Balcony” (1:00 – 4:00), “Natura Morta” (4:00 & 6:00), and “Engrave” (11:00) in his final weekend in New York, as well as five-minute personal-request dances.

NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL

We Are Country Mice are among the growing lineup of excellent bands hitting Williamsburg this week for the Northside Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple locations throughout Williamsburg & Greenpoint
June 24-27
Admission: free – $19, badges $50
www.thelmagazine.com/blogs/NorthsideFestivalNews

The second annual Northside Festival is like a mini-CMJ, featuring a great lineup of mostly local bands — including the Fiery Furnaces, Takka Takka, Au Revoir Simone, Savoir Adore, Pillow Theory, Grooms, We Are Country Mice, Wavves, White Hills, High Places, Titus Andronicus, Ribbons, the Black Hollies, Les Savy Fav, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Harper Blynn, and Islands, among dozens of others — packing them in at Coco 66, Europa, Glasslands Gallery, the Knitting Factory, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Pete’s Candy Store, Public Assembly, Red Star Barn, Shea Stadium, Spike Hill, the Trash Bar, Union Pool, and Warsaw. In addition, Northside Film at IndieScreen will show such works as Zeina Durra’s THE IMPERIALISTS ARE STILL ALIVE, Ry Russo-Young’s YOU WON’T MISS ME, Todd Solondz’s LIFE DURING WARTIME, James Franco’s THE FEAST OF STEPHEN, and Neil Marshall’s CENTURION as well as host an animation block party, shorts programs, and more. And Arts at Northside includes exhibitions and special events, including Conrad Ventur’s “Screen Tests Revisited” at Momenta Art, Rob List’s collaborative dance at Parker’s Box, and live music by Party of Virgins and Live Footage at the opening of Liubo Borissov’s “Crowdsource” at Eye Level BQE. Expect massive crowds, an unusually high hipster quotient even for Williamsburg, and lots of awesome music. Keep watching twi-ny for specific recommendations and must-sees over the next few days.

CREST FEST ’10

Crest Hardware
558 Metropolitan Ave. between Lorimer & Union
Saturday, June 19, free, 12 noon – 11:00 pm
Exhibit runs through July 30
www.cresthardwareartshow.com
slideshow

The third annual Crest Fest, a celebration of art, music, and hardware, takes place today on Metropolitan Ave., benefiting the City Reliquary Museum. More than one hundred artists have taken over fifteen thousand square feet of space with exciting multidisciplinary works. The opening will feature food, drink, a design market, and live performances by such bands as Deluka, the Sundelles, Motel Motel, Oberhofer, Zongo Junction, Darlings, and Wizardry, along with DJ sets by DJ Teenwolf, Faux Mex, Lucas Walters, and others. Curated by Joe Franquinha, the manager of Crest Hardware (a store that was founded by his father, Manny, in 1962), the show has very quickly become a Brooklyn tradition and is an absolute blast, as the artists generally use materials found in hardware stores to create pieces that comment on hardware, incorporating screws, saws, blades, plungers, air fresheners, plaster, paint, metal, sockets, switches, buckets, wire, cords, mops, planters, and even toilet seats into their work. The nearly two hundred paintings, sculptures, drawings, collages, and other creations are then placed throughout the store and outside garden, many hidden within the long, narrow aisles as if they were just another product. So be careful; that shovel might be a lot more than forty bucks if it’s one of the ones Dave Tree painted on. Most of the pieces are for sale, ranging in price from twenty bucks to thirty thousand, although most fall in the $100-$1,000 range. Some of our favorite works and titles include Fanny Allie’s “Crossed Fingers,” white plaster fingers cleverly stored in the electric saw case; Xian Lee’s romantic painting “Love Screw”; Larry Heintjes’s “Silicone Stalagmite”; Kim Beury’s “The Nail That Stands Up Gets Pounded Down”; Leslye Learess’s “For a Feminine Touch” air fresheners; Wendy Klimperer’s “African Crested Porcupine”; Ted Stanke’s “Claw Hammer” and “Wrench,” both made out of pocket change; Alexandre Sazonov’s “Hammer and Jesus” painting; and Mike Houston’s playful signs. It’s a riot that while you’re searching for all the art, that person next to you is actually looking for a power drill, a paintbrush, or a pale to finish up some work on his apartment. You’ll also develop a whole new love of the tool, as not everything you might think is art is art; a hammer, after all, is sometimes just a hammer.