this week in art

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: SHEETS OF EVIDENCE

William Kentridge, page six of SHEETS OF EVIDENCE, watermarked cotton, 2009 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Dieu Donné
315 West 36th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Monday-Saturday through April 24
212-226-0573
www.dieudonne.org

One of the myriad delights about South African visual artist William Kentridge is that he follows no conventions; he does things his own way, resulting in engaging and unique films, drawing, operas, one-man performances, and stereoscopic installations. For the past several years, he has been collaborating with Dieu Donné on an ambitious series of limited-edition books. Through March 27, SHEETS OF EVIDENCE, his latest such work consisting of unusual watermarked images on special handmade paper, is on view, offering an exciting glimpse into the mind and working process of the ingenious creator. The small gallery has laid out all eighteen sheets of images and text, each one propped against a lightbox so they can be more easily seen; the sparse scenes primarily depict a man and a woman experiencing love, eroticism, and death. Some of Kentridge’s studio materials can be examined at the front desk; be sure to ask the person there to explain how it’s all done, as the procedures are fascinating. Dieu Donné is also displaying THINKING IN WATER, a three-piece suite made by using copper wire and watermarks, and RECEIVER, a book consisting of twenty-three Kentridge etchings that accompany poems he selected by Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska; it’s so fragile that you have to wear white gloves in order to page through it. Whether you know anything about Kentridge or not, this show is a must-see.

PUBLIC ART TALKS

Art lovers will be rushing to see a host of special talks and discussions this month, including Alexey Titarenko at Nailya Alexander

The last week of this month is filled with some intriguing, exciting public art talks all around town, offering insight into specific exhibits, artists, and movements. On March 23 (free, 6:30), photographer Barbara Probst, who takes pictures of created scenes from multiple angles at the same time, will speak at Aperture as part of the Parsons Lecture Series. Also on March 23 ($15, 6:30), architect Shigeru Ban, composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and artist Mariko Mori join moderator Stefano Tonchi at the Japan Society for “Conscious Inspiration: Juxtaposing Nature & Art Form,” a panel discussion about art and environmentalism. Béatrice Coron, who is included in the excellent “Slash” show at the Museum of Arts & Design, will participate in the latest “Rock, Paper, Scissors!” gallery talk at FIAF on March 24 ($15, 7:00), discussing “The Silhouette World of Béatrice Coron.” Also on March 24 ($15, 7:00), the Photographer Lecture Series at ICP focuses on JoAnn Verburg, who will speak with Phillip S. Block in conjunction with the opening of her latest exhibit, “Interruptions,” at Pace/MacGill, and Deborah Hay will present a Lecture on the Performance of Beauty in the Great Hall at the Cooper Union (free, 7:00). On March 25, Freedom Riders Joseph Charles Jones and George Bundy Smith will participate in a civil rights panel discussion with Blanche Wiesen Cook, Dr. Victoria Pérez-Rios, Bettina Carbonell, Lisa Farrington, and artist Charlotta Janssen at the closing of Janssen’s “Freedom Riders & Bus Boycotters” painting exhibit at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (free, 6:30). Also on March 25, Ghada Amer will speak with curator Sam Bardaouil at the Swiss Institute as part of the Across Histories series (free, 6:30), Dan Cameron will talk about Project New Orleans at the New York Academy of Art (free, 6:30), and Alfredo Jaar will screen his new short film, THE ASHES OF PASOLINI, followed by a discussion between him and David Levi Strauss at the SVA Theatre (free, 7:00). The New School will be hosting the illustration symposium “The Artist as Author” on March 27 (free, 3:00 – 8:30), featuring Ben Katchor, Patricia Mainardi, Emily Lauer, David Kurnick, and Jerry Moriarty. On March 30 (free, 5:30), photography fans can Meet the Artist at the Nailya Alexander Gallery, talking to Alexey Titarenko about his stunning series “Saint Petersburg in Four Movements.” Also on March 30 ($10, 7:00), Craig Dykers lectures on “Conditions of Architecture & Current Works” at Scandinavia House, a companion lecture to the exhibition “SNØHETTA: architecture – landscape – interior,” and Sanford Biggers and Lorraine O’Grady will speak with PERFORMA founding director and curator RoseLee Goldberg in the latest installment of MoMA’s Among Friends series, followed by a cocktail reception ($35, 7:00).

SABOR! OUR ABUELAS LEGACY

Carlos Irrizary’s “Andy Warhol” is part of “Voces y Visiones” exhibit

SUPER SABADO
El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Saturday, March 20, free, 11:00 am – 8:30 pm
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org

On the third Saturday of every month, the recently renovated El Museo del Barrio opens its doors for free, hosting a full day of special programming. On March 20, the schedule includes an art workshop in which kids can create a self-portrait using food and spices, storytelling with Carmen Peláez, a photo station, a screening of WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE? (Catherine Gund, 2009), a spoken-word workshop with the Peace Poets, tortilla making, and a “Rainbow Racionality” performance. Although it’s in between temporary exhibitions right now (“Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement” opens on March 24, though if you’re good they’ll let you have an advance sneak peek), there will be gallery tours of the permanent display “Voces y Visiones: Four Decades Through El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collection,” which gives a terrific capsule history of the museum and its mission, with works going back to the Taíno Legacy through graphics and politics, traditional and devotional objects, abstraction, migration and language. And the café features some fine fare, homemade Latino plates (all under ten dollars) with an ever-changing menu; we highly recommend the spicy pulpo if it’s available.

SOUNDS FROM THE BLACK BOX

Philip Miller and Ensemble Pi team up with William Kentridge at free show at the World Financial Center (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

THE MUSIC OF PHILIP MILLER FOR THE FILMS OF WILLIAM KENTRIDGE
World Financial Center Winter Garden
200 Vesey St.
Sunday, March 21, and Monday, March 22, free, 8:00
212-945-0505
www.artsworldfinancialcenter.com

The celebration of South African multimedia artist William Kentridge continues on March 21-22 with two free screenings of his latest animation work at the World Financial Center, with Philip Miller’s score performed live by Ensemble Pi. Kentridge’s abstract narrative films are made through a series of charcoal drawings on the same paper, with erasures and additions to create the appearance of motion. The majority of his work has focused on the story of industrialist Soho Eckstein and common man Felix Teitlebaum, who is having an affair with Mrs. Eckstein. In June 2005, Kentridge’s “9 Drawings for Projection,” featuring all of his Eckstein/Teitlebaum shorts, was screened for free in both Prospect Park and Central Park to adoring crowds, with Miller’s score performed live by pianist Jill Richards, the Sontonga Quartet, trumpeter Adam Howard, and vocalist Tumelo Moloi. This time around the music is being handled by the nonprofit eight-piece Ensemble Pi, led by artistic director and pianist Idith Meshulam, along with Miller and singer Tshidi Manye. Kentridge’s subtle, surreal films are beautiful to look at, filled with imagination and resonating with meaning, its primarily black, white, and gray color scheme sparked with splashes of blue and occasional reds. The ninety-minute program at the Winter Garden consists of a dozen Kentridge films, including the rarely screened “Medicine Chest,” “Hot-el,” and the Black Box duo of “Dance of the Rhino” and “Priest’s Lament.” If you’ve seen his terrific retrospective at MoMA, you must catch this as well — not all of these works are part of the museum show — while you’ll be running over to MoMA to take in everything you can if this serves as your introduction to the genius that is William Kentridge.

CANADIAN FRONT, 2010: FATHERS AND GUNS

Fathers and sons do physical and emotional battle in French Canadian action comedy

DE PÈRE EN FLIC (FATHERS AND GUNS) (Émile Gaudreault, 2009)
MoMA Film
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Wednesday, March 17, 7:30
Saturday, March 20, 1:00
Series runs March 17-22
Tickets: $10, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

A huge hit in its native Quebec – the film was so successful that Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall will be producing an English-language remake for Sony next year – FATHERS AND GUNS is a goofy action comedy set in the world of cops and gangsters. When one of their agents, Jeff Tremblay (Hubert Proulx), is captured by an anarchistic biker gang, experienced hero cop Jacques Laroche (Michel Côté) is determined to get him back, preferably without the help of his son, Marc (baby-faced comedian Louis-José Houde), a young police sharpshooter who was unable to protect Jeff in the first place. Jacques continually abuses Marc, especially in front of the other officers, who include Geneviève (Caroline Dhavernas), who is in the process of breaking up with Marc. The team decides the only way to get Jeff back is to find a snitch, so they go after the bikers’ powerful lawyer, Charles Bérubé (Rémy Girard), who is about to head off on an adventure retreat to reconnect with his troubled son, Tim (Patrick Drolet). Much to his dismay, Jacques is ordered to attend the same retreat with his son, both undercover, where they are expected to share their feelings and do other things together that rile Jacques and his overt manliness. But it soon looks like they’re not the only father-son team with a different agenda. Directed by Émile Gaudreault (MAMBO ITALIANO), who cowrote the script with Ian Lauzon, FATHERS AND GUNS is sort of a Canadian ANALYZE THIS, with psychotherapy working its way into the lives of a pair of strong, proud men having difficulties with their sons. It’s a pleasing little film that never quite goes over the top, though it does come close, and it does feature one of the strangest scenes of the year, involving nipples, but enough said….

FATHERS AND GUNS is part of MoMA’s seventh annual Canadian Front, consisting of some of the best Canadian fiction and nonfiction films of the past eighteen months. The series gets under way March 17 with Sherry White’s debut coming-of-age CRACKIE and includes Bernard Émond’s drama THE LEGACY, Brigitte Berman’s documentary HUGH HEFNER: PLAYBOY, ACTIVIST, AND REBEL, the very odd rock-and-roll vampire musical SUCK, and Denis Villeneuve’s fact-based POLYTECHNIQUE, about a Columbine-like shooting spree in Canada.

SLASH

Andrea Dezsö, “Women in Red with Black String,” hand-cut paper, thread, acrylic paint, mixed media, 2008

PAPER UNDER THE KNIFE
Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle at 59th St. & Broadway
Tuesday-Sunday through April 4, $15 (pay-what-you-wish Thursdays 6:00 – 9:00)
212-299-7777
www.madmuseum.org

It’s astounding what more than fifty international artists have managed to do in “Slash: Paper Under the Knife,” on view at the Museum of Arts & Design through April 4. Using paper, the artists have cut, sliced, folded, torn, ripped, and lasered the fragile material into a stunning array of sculptures, wall hangings, and site-specific installations bursting with creativity. Divided into such thematic sections as “Cutting as Gesture: Drawing with the Knife,” “Structure and Space: Slicing Architecture,” and “Dissecting the Past: Myths and Memories,” the exhibit, the third part of the museum’s “Materials and Process” series, highlights work that is layered with meaning either hidden right below the surface or emerging from out of it, touching on consumerism, war, slavery, and other topics while also questioning the fragility of life and what is real.

Thomas Demand, “Shed,” C-print on diasec / courtesy 303 Gallery and the Wolkowitz Collection

In “Flat File Globe 3A Red Version,” Noriko Ambe fills the drawers of a red metal cabinet with mountainous cut Yupo paper, each one its own unique landscape. For “Between the Lines,” Ariana Boussard-Reifel has cut every word out of a book. Thomas Demand meticulously re-created an actual life-size setting in “Shed,” took a photo of it that appears to be of a real shed, then destroyed the shed itself. Andrea Dezsö’s tunnel books relate offbeat scenes, as in “Alien Child with Hanging Meat” and “Mantis Resting in Utopian City.” Tom Friedman turns Quaker Oats boxes (and Quaker Oats themselves) into a “Quaker Oats” totem. Mona Hatoum uses tissue paper to portray soldiers with guns along with skulls and explosions. A forest rises from a children’s book in Su Blackwell’s “Rapunzel.” Pietro Ruffo’s “Youth of the Hills” is a tank covered in pages from the Hebrew Bible—but xeroxed copies. And Bféatrice Coron cut her enticing “Heavens & Hells” during a three-week residency at the museum last June. The exhibit also includes work by Lesley Dill, Olafur Eliasson, Nina Katchadourian, Oliver Herring, Judy Pfaff, and Kara Walker.

On March 27 from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, MAD will be hosting “Moving Paper: An International Film Festival of Cut Paper,” an afternoon of short videos made specifically for the show, all of which incorporate paper in some way. You can also watch the videos online here (www.movingpaper.madmuseum.org).

Also at MAD

Viola Frey, “Family Portrait,” ceramic with glazes, 1995 (courtesy the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution)

As fragile as most of the cut-paper works are in “Slash,” Viola Frey’s large-size ceramic sculptures are more imposing than at first assumed, each one made of several pieces totaling hundreds of pounds. “Bigger, Better, More: The Art of Viola Frey” comprises more than thirty works by the California artist, who died in 2004 at the age of seventy. The monumental sculptures are particularly impressive, mixing folk art with gender issues in a wonderland of imagination. The colorful display also includes pieces from her own collection as well as several sculptures she made with Betty Woodman, who received her own wonderful retrospective at the Met in 2006. Woodman will be part of a special presentation at MAD on March 18 at 6:30, “Viola Frey: Emphatically Present,” which begins with a lecture by curator and author Patterson Sims, followed by a discussion with Sims, Woodman, and MAD curator Lowery Stokes Sims.

TIBET IN NEW YORK

secretlives

SECRET LIVES OF THE DALAI LAMA by Alexander Norman (Doubleday Religion, February 2010, $15)
www.broadway-books.crownpublishing.com

Those Brits do tell a ripping yarn! And what better subject than Tibet, the nation once mythologized as Shangri-La? Alexander Norman is a British scholar and writer at Oxford; the Dalai Lama is a world-renowned Nobel Peace Prize–winning, sometimes controversial Tibetan spiritual leader. And a temporal leader. And a monk. And . . . Well, what, exactly? Westerners are often awed by Tenzin Gyatso, the current incarnation of Chenrezig, the bodhisattva of compassion, and frequently mistake him for something like the Pope of Buddhism, or at least of Tibetan Buddhists. Not so, not so at all, and Norman explains the how and why in SECRET LIVES OF THE DALAI LAMA. Norman’s excellent book looks at the whole span of Tibetan history and culture through the prism of the Dalai Lama. Trying to explain exactly who and what the Dalai Lamas (all fourteen of them) are and have been to the Tibetan people and the world creates a tome that does not shy away from troubling aspects of the society and its history while still conveying the magic and wisdom of Tibetan culture. (In fact, the current Dalai Lama even contributes the foreword.)

The book sparkles with insightful flashes of history, art, monastic life, magic and folklore, politics, military history, foreign affairs—the Tibetan world as a whole, warts, jewels, and all. Face it: Any book that starts with a politically motivated murder in the Dalai Lama’s compound in 1997 and proceeds to a discussion of both the doctrine of dependent origination (emptiness, or shunyata) and the living embodiment of compassion could be either dry or sensationalist. But not this one; Norman is too expert a storyteller and so devoted to the tale that one can’t help but be swept along—surprised, touched, exhilarated, and, finally, awed.

tibet in harlem

Norman was supposed to come to New York City for several talks and book signings, but those events were unexpectedly canceled. But that doesn’t mean there’s not a whole bunch of other things to do in relation to Tibet and its spiritual leader. The Dalai Lama himself will be teaching May 20-23 at Radio City Music Hall, discussing Nagarjuna’s Commentary on Bodhicitta and Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (tickets on sale now, $100-$360) and also giving a public lecture on “Awakening the Heart of Selflessness” (tickets on sale March 18, $25-$40). From March 14 to 20, the Maysles Institute’s Tibet in Harlem 2: Origins series features screenings of Sherwood Hu’s PRINCE OF THE HIMALAYAS (March 14, followed by the opening-night reception), Duan Jinchuan’s 16 BARKOR SOUTH STREET (March 15), Dorje Tsering Chenaktsang’s TANTRIC YOGI and ANI LHACHAM (March 16), Padma Tseten’s THE SILENT HOLY STONES (March 17, followed by a Q&A with the director), Sonam’s MILAREPA (March 18), Tseten’s THE GRASSLAND and Rigdan Gyatso’s THE GIRL LHARI (March 19, followed by a panel discussion and reception with Tseten and Gyatso), and Tseten’s THE SEARCH (March 20, followed by a Q&A with Tseten and the closing-night reception). The Maysles Institute will also host a short film showcase on March 22 featuring works by Tibetan filmmakers from around the world, with a number of the directors and actors present for a postscreening Q&A.

Evan Brenner will perform one-man show THE BUDDHA PLAY at Village Zendo on March 19

On March 19 at Village Zendo, you can catch a special one-night-only performance of Evan Brenner’s one-man show, THE BUDDHA PLAY—THE LIFE OF BUDDHA, which uses original texts to examine the “Triumph & Tragedy in the Life of the Great Sage.” At Tibet House, “Modern Buddhist Visions: Paintings by Pema Namdol Thaye” continues through April 16, comprising mandalas, tangkas, sculptures, and 3-D artworks. And at the Rubin Museum,“Bardo: The Tibetan Art of the Afterlife” runs through September 6, along with other exhibitions and special programs.