this week in art

j-CATION: TASTE JAPAN

Japan Society will host full day of amazing Japanese food and more

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, April 10, suggested donation $5, 1:00 pm – 1:00 am
Some events require free tickets available beginning at 12:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Even though flights from New York to Tokyo have recently come down, it will still be a lot cheaper to get a taste of the Land of the Rising Sun on Saturday at the Japan Society, which is hosting the extremely exciting j-CATION from 1:00 pm to 1:00 am. The twelve-hour extravaganza, organized into Starters, Main Dishes, Sides, and Dessert, includes calligraphy and language classes, furoshiki and tea workshops, demonstrations from manga artist in residence Hiroki Otsuka, a foodie game show, a lecture by hot-dog-eating champion Takeru Kobayashi, a screening of Mitsuhiro Mihara’s food-related 2008 film FLAVOR OF HAPPINESS, live music by Me & Mars and Asobi Seksu, a cash bar, a virtual bento box battle, food vendors, and a late-night after-party with DJ Aki. If that isn’t enough, the outstanding exhibition “Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters,” a collection of gorgeous prints by nineteenth-century artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi, will be open until 9:00. For a suggested donation of a mere five bucks, you can feel like you’re in Japan, at least for one day.

THE ANNUAL THROUGH THE AGES

Cildo Meireles, “Atlas,” transparency in light box, 2007 (courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong)

185th ANNUAL EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ART
National Academy Museum
1083 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Friday, April 9, free with museum admission of $10, 6:45
Exhibition continues through June 8
212-369-4880
www.nationalacademy.org

Founded in 1825, the National Academy is in the midst of its 185th Annual, featuring painting, sculpture, and installations by sixty-five American artists who are not members of the academy, selected by a panel of National Academicians. The exhibit includes work by such artists as Ghada Amer, Petah Coyne, Barkley L. Hendricks, Valerie Jaudon, and Dana Schutz, with all but one piece dating from 2006 or later. (Delfina Nahrgang’s “Woman in the Mosque I” is from 1994.) The show, which has several empty rooms because of budget constraints (keep on moving even if you think it’s over, as that last room past a narrow hallway is often overlooked by visitors), contains some fine painting; among the award winners are Richard McLean’s “Toward Delano,” Elisa Jensen’s “Trapped Sky,” and Charles Parness’s “Sometimes the Yoni Gets Angry with the Lingham.” Richard Van Buren’s “Green Movement” captured the sculpture prize, while Chuck Holtzman’s “Untitled (#798)” won for best graphics. Be sure to sit in the chair that is part of Sam Hernandez’s “I’m Listening,” which offers a unique perspective. Alison Elizabeth Taylor’s unusual wood inlay and shellac piece, “Bombay Beach,” gets a position of prominence, standing boldly by itself. Cildo Meireles slyly comments on Piero Manzoni in the playful light-box transparency “Atlas.” Perhaps the academy’s boldest selection, for a somewhat traditional organization, is Nina Yankowitz’s multimedia installation “Buried Treasures,” which comments on great and overlooked scientific discoveries made by women.

Nina Yankowitz, “Buried Treasures,” installation with video, 2008 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

On April 9 at 6:45, chief curator David Dearinger will lecture on the history of the National Academy’s annual exhibition. In addition, there will be a guided tour of the annual on May 7 at 6:45; artists Julia Randall, Ghada Amer, and Judith Bernstein will participate in “Let’s Talk About Sex: Gender Issues in a Post-Feminist World” on April 16 at 6:45; and curator Marshall Price will host a tour and lecture of the exhibit with artist Sarah Walker on June 4 at 6:30.

TWI-NY TALK: DEAN HASPIEL

Dean Haspiel is a fixture on the comic book scene and at MoCCA, seen here pointing at Neil Swaab at 2009 art festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Dean Haspiel is a fixture on the comic book scene and at MoCCA, seen here telling Mr. Wiggles creator Neil Swaab who’s the man at the 2009 festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

MoCCA ART FESTIVAL 2010
69th Regiment Armory
68 Lexington Ave. between 25th & 26th Sts.
April 10-11, $10/day, $15-$20/both days
212-254-3511
www.moccany.com
www.deanhaspiel.com

For more than two decades, Dean Haspiel has been a comic book force all his own. A wildly talented and gregarious writer, illustrator, promoter, creator, and organizer, Dino works nonstop to build up his own expansive resume as well as the industry itself. In February 2006, he started ACT-I-VATE, a web-based comics collective that features such series as Josh Neufeld’s “Lionel,” Kevin Colden’s “Fishtown,” Nick Bertozzi’s “Iraq War Stories,” and his own “Billy Dogma” and “Street Code,” the latter a terrific semiautobiographical tale set in New York City, where Dino was born and raised. Along the way, he has collaborated on prestigious projects with Harvey Pekar (AMERICAN SPLENDOR, THE QUITTER), Jonathan Lethem (the upcoming BACK ON NERVOUS ST.), Michael Chabon (THE ESCAPIST), and Jonathan Ames (THE ALCOHOLIC), and he contributes drawings and illustrations to Ames’s HBO cable series BORED TO DEATH, which features Zach Galifianakis playing a character inspired by Haspiel’s real life.

We caught up with Dino in one of his very few spare moments as he was preparing to spread the word about the ninth annual MoCCA Art Festival, a celebration of comics and graphic novels that will be held April 10-11 at the 69th Regiment Armory. In addition to being all over the fair, including participating in the panel discussion “The Art of the Superhero: When Singular Vision Meets Popular Mythology” on April 10 at 2:00, Haspiel will turn into alter ego DJ Man-Size at the official festival after-party later that night at the Village Pourhouse. “I’ll mostly be spinning old school hip-hop and electronica from the 1980s with a slant on future funk,” he explained. “Think black Kraftwerk . . . think Boba Fett with tassels instead of scalps.”

twi-ny: You’ve collaborated with such talented writers as Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, and Jonathan Ames; who is your next dream collaborator?

Dean Haspiel: I’ve been itching to collaborate with author Tim Hall on an original graphic novel and we have something planned. I’d also like to collaborate with mystery writer Joe R. Lansdale on adapting his brilliant Hap and Leonard characters into comics form. Plus, I don’t think my career would feel satisfactory if I hadn’t collaborated with some of my favorite comic book writers, the likes of Mark Waid, J. M. DeMatteis, and a handful of others.

twi-ny: Who is your favorite character to draw, whether created by you or another artist?

DH: My favorite characters to draw are my creator-owned Billy Dogma & Jane Legit. But I love drawing Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s the Thing from the Fantastic Four, and I was recently afforded the opportunity to write and draw a short Thing story in an upcoming issue of Marvel Comics’ Strange Tales sequel.

Jane Legit shows her love for Billy Dogma in Dean Haspiel’s “Bring Me the Heart of Billy Dogma,” from THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER

twi-ny: On BORED TO DEATH, Zach Galifianakis’s Ray Hueston character is based on you. Is it easy to watch him, or does it hit a little too close to home?

DH: The Ray Hueston character on BORED TO DEATH is loosely based on some events that happened to me, but I don’t think Zach Galifianakis was subjected to a parallax view of my life and my behavioral traits by any stretch of the imagination. So, I can safely declare that Zach and Jonathan Ames have wholly created Ray from spirited, albeit inspired, cloth. However, I was recently privy to the filmmaking of a certain scene in the upcoming season and I remarked how bizarre it was to watch my proposed doppelganger play out an important event, something I never got the opportunity to do in my own life, and how frustrating yet weirdly cathartic that was for me.

twi-ny How do you find the time to do all the things you do, including serving as a relentless promoter of the comics industry?

DH: Don’t even get me started. If everyone on their chosen social networking sites would just share what they liked with the simple click of a button rather than whine about this and that and publish what they had for lunch, I might be able to shrug off my self-imposed burden to cheer what is good and, instead, produce more stories and eat dinner before 10 pm with the people I love to spend time with. Alas, the internet accesses a dark gene in humanity that encourages some folks to constantly complain and act like jerks and do things they wouldn’t dare do in front of real people. I don’t do anything that we all couldn’t do together if we just took a minute to think straight and understand our information and entertainment values.

This year’s MoCCA Art Festival runs April 10-11 at the 69th Regiment Armory, featuring such participants as Kim Deitch, Emily Flake, Jaime Hernandez. Neil Kleid, Peter Kuper, Hope Larson, Frank Miller, Paul Pope, Dash Shaw, Gahan Wilson, and Klein Award recipient David Mazzucchelli. Single tickets are $10 in advance, $12 day of show, with weekend tickets available for $15 in advance and $20 at the door. The official after-party will take place April 10 at the Village Pourhouse, with drink specials and free snacks beginning at 8:00; admission is $5.

DAPHANE PARK: SUPERCONDUCTOR

Dapahane Park prepares her “Superconductor” healing installation by circling it with a feather and burning incense (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Daphane Park prepares her “Superconductor” healing installation by circling it with a feather and smudging with burning incense (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Honeyspace
148 Eleventh Ave. between 21st & 22nd Sts.
Through Saturday, April 10, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm (9:00 on April 10)
www.honey-space.com
twi-ny slide show

New York-based artist Daphane Park has reimagined Wilhelm Reich’s controversial orgone accumulator in Chelsea’s Honeyspace gallery, creating an organic “Superconductor” where visitors can gather with friends or meditate on their own while experiencing its many mysteries. Primarily composed of raw silk and cotton held together by steel wire, the welcoming tentlike space, a striking combination of deep red, pink, gold, and silver, feels as if it has an energy, a life-force, all its own, enhanced by a subtle but powerful electronic noise soundtrack by David Marshall, Rachael Bell, and Derrick Barnicoat. Incorporating holistic healing methods with shamanistic ritual, Park gives a performance every day from 3:00 to 6:00, using the architectural structure in addition to a pair of symbolic hammocks, a piano with lighted candles and a black skull on it, and a platform of old, broken musical instruments. The exhibit, curated by Karen Dorothee Peters, ends on April 10 at 7:00 with Lance White Magpie, a direct descendant of Crazy Horse, performing a special Lakota shamanic ritual set to live music. To fully experience “Superconductor,” which Park also envisions as a type of renewal, be sure to take off your shoes and go inside the installation, where you will feel like you’re experiencing another level of emotional and psychological consciousness.

TIM BURTON

Creepy exhibition entrance leads to a treasure trove of Burtonalia (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Modern Art
West 54th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through April 26 (closed Tuesdays; Fridays free from 4:00 to 8:00)
Admission: $20 (includes same-day film screening), advance timed tickets recommended
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.timburton.com
twi-ny slideshow

There are only three weeks left in MoMA’s wildly popular Tim Burton retrospective, so you better hurry over if you want to see this vastly entertaining show. (The museum is even extending its hours over the last three days, staying open until 8:45.) More than seven hundred objects are on view, from early sketchbooks and movie models to watercolors and sculpture, from robots and wild short films (Stainboy gets a corridor all to himself!) to costumes and storyboards. It’s a carnival of excess, a virtual wonderland for fans of Burton’s eclecticism. While Burton’s movies are often hit (SWEENEY TODD, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, SLEEPY HOLLOW, ED WOOD) or miss (BIG FISH, PLANET OF THE APES, BATMAN RETURNS), he has developed an often dazzling visual style that is evident throughout the exhibit. Raised in Burbank and currently based in London, Burton seems to have saved everything he has ever done, every idea that came his way, and has included it in the survey, from his early fascination with horror and Vincent Price to his foray into his own fractured fairy tales (just wait till you see the Hansel and Gretel show he made for Disney) and his creative reinvention of stop-motion animation. It’s all here, bringing to life the ecstatic imagination of a crazed genius who’s yet to fully grow up. (which is not necessarily a bad thing).

Mackinnon & Saunders, "General Bonesapart puppet," metal, cloth, resin, foam latex, and silicone, 2005 (photo by twi-ny/mdr; courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.)

Mackinnon & Saunders, "General Bonesapart puppet," metal, cloth, resin, foam latex, and silicone, 2005 (photo by twi-ny/mdr, figure courtesy Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.)

Fans of Burton’s movies will have a field day with original drawings, vitrines filled with favorite characters, and a reel of the auteur’s earliest shorts, dating from when he was a teenager. In addition to the exhibit, the film series “Tim Burton and the Lurid Beauty of Monsters” still has several screenings left, including THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE (Joseph Green, 1962) on April 8, Tex Avery cartoons on April 9, INVADERS FROM MARS (William Cameron, 1953) on April 16, and 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (Nathan Juran, 1957) on April 25.

THE LAST LOFT SHOW

A CELEBRATION OF 15 YEARS IN SOHO
The Puffin Room
435 Broome St. between Broadway & Crosby St.
Saturday, April 3, $5, 6:00 – 9:00
212-343-2881
www.puffinroom.org

After fifteen years, the Puffin Room will be saying goodbye to SoHo, but not without one last send-off. On Saturday night, their final exhibition, “The Last Loft Show,” which will indeed be the last show in the loft space, kicks off with special events celebrating the history of the alternative performance venue. Using as its guiding theme the Walt Whitman quote “Resist much, obey little,” the show will include photos from the Spanish Civil War, “Shocked and Awed” children’s drawings from Iraq, political posters, Dorothea Lange’s dramatic “Photos of the Japanese American Internment,” and pictures from Allan Tannenbaum’s “John Lennon in NYC” series. There will also be pieces by such loft artists as Barbara Thomas, Gene Thompson, Christa Grauer, Louis Mendez, Marion Pinto, and Puffin Room director and curator Carl Rosenstein. The opening party, on April 3 from 6:00 to 9:00, will feature live performances by Cui Fei, Ilse Schreiber-Noll, Irving Epstein, Margaret Silverman, Miriam Rosenstein, Song Xin, and Yana Schnitzler’s Human Kinetics troupe, which specializes in site-specific dance installations. On April 10, Steve Ben Israel, Michael Schwartz, Ngoma, and others will participate in “The Last Word,” while things promise to get funky on April 17 with “The Last Dance” party the day before the exhibit closes. The three Saturday events are $5 each, with proceeds benefiting Greenpeace. (Above photo by Harry Schnitzler: Human Kinetics will be performing the site-specific movement “Poem #3” at the opening party for the Puffin Room’s closing exhibition)

FIRST SATURDAYS: TO LIVE FOREVER

“Anthropoid Coffin of the Servant of the Great Place, Teti,” Egypt, from Thebes, circa 1339-1307 BCE, wood, painted box with lid in place

“Anthropoid Coffin of the Servant of the Great Place, Teti,” Egypt, from Thebes, wood, painted box with lid in place, circa 1339-1307 BCE

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, April 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

In conjunction with the exhibition “To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt,” the Brooklyn Museum’s free monthly First Saturdays program on April 6 will feature such special events as a discussion with curators Edward Bleiberg and Lisa Bruno, live music by Arab group Zikrayat, a Hands-On Art workshop in which you can create an Egyptian-style amulet, a book talk with Joshua Cohen about his novel A HEAVEN OF OTHERS, a dance party hosted by DJ Nickodemus and the Spy from Cairo, and a screening of the Oscar-winning Japanese film DEPARTURES. In addition, all of the museum’s exhibitions will be open late, including “Kiki Smith: Sojourn,” “Healing the Wounds of War: The Brooklyn Sanitary Fair of 1864,” “Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets,” and the aforementioned “To Live Forever.”

Japanese Oscar winner takes unusual look at death

DEPARTURES (Yojiro Takita, 2008)
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, April 3, free, 6:30 (free tickets distributed at the Visitor Center at 5:00)
212-864-5400
www.departures-themovie.com

After the orchestra in which he plays cello is dissolved, Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) and his wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) leave Tokyo and head back to his hometown in Yamagata. Seeing a classified ad in the local paper listing a job in “departures,” Daigo schedules an interview, thinking it is a travel agent position. But as it turns out, the boss, Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki), claims it was a typo — it should have read “the departed” — and immediately hires Daigo as his assistant encoffinor. Daigo quickly learns that he and Sasaki attend to the newly dead, picking them up for funeral directors and then preparing the bodies, in front of grieving friends and family, for the coffins and cremation through an elaborate, detailed ceremony. Daigo takes the job out of financial desperation — Sasaki throws money at him to come on board — but doesn’t tell anyone, including Mika, what he is doing, since people who work in businesses involving corpses are shunned in Japan, considered dirty. But as Daigo grows to appreciate the importance of what Sasaki does, everything he has built threatens to fall apart when his secret starts getting out. Winner of the 2008 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (As well as ten Japan Academy Prizes), DEPARTURES is a moving portrait of life and death, told beautifully by director Yojiro Takita (WHENT THE LAST SWORD IS DRAWN, ONMYOJI) and screenwriter Kundo Koyama. Motoki, who had the original idea for the film, gives a wonderfully subtle performance as a Daigo, while Yamazaki is a riot as the stern boss with a sly sense of humor. Despite an embarrassingly unnecessary montage scene and sappy music by Joe Hisaishi (who’s never met an emotion he couldn’t overexploit), DEPARTURES is a moving portrait of a man searching for his place in the world — and meeting personal and professional obstacles when he thinks he might have found it.