this week in art

RICHARD WOODS: PORT SUNLIGHT

Richard Woods has wrapped up Lever House for the holiday season (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Richard Woods has wrapped up Lever House in Victorian splendor (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Lever House
390 Park Ave. at 54th St.
Through January 30 (extended into February)
Admission: free
www.leverhouseartcollection.com
flickr slideshow

Last year, British artist Richard Woods papered two City Hall security booths in a white-and-redbrick design that made them look like they were toys; he also covered a City Hall lobby door in a graphic representation of itself, turning it into a cartoon in an otherwise formal lobby. Now Woods has taken over the inside and outside of Lever House, designing all of the posts and Noguchi benches in a series of nine decorative patterns inspired by the legacy of nineteenth-century socialist designer William Morris. Using woodblock prints, Woods packages up Gordon Bunshaft’s minimalist building in Victorian splendor, even adding two aluminum “rugs” that people can walk on in the lobby. Lever House comes alive with colorful flowers, leaves, and birds as well as black-and-white geometric shapes, repeated over and over again. The two floor pieces take Carl Andre to the next level, almost too captivating to walk on, but it’s rather thrilling to trod upon them as you watch others passing by on the concrete and asphalt of Park Ave. By titling the site-specific installation “Port Sunlight,” Woods reaches into the past of both Lever House and his childhood. When he was a small boy, the first art institution he ever visited was the Lady Lever Gallery, which was in the model village known as Port Sunlight, built by William Lever as a home for the employees of his soap factory, where their first cleaning product was Sunlight. And so Woods’s “Port Sunlight” offers a sweet respite in the middle of swirling Midtown Manhattan

ROBERT STRATTON: SEMIBONELESS

Interactive window installation brings people together in Murray Hill (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

141 East 33rd St. at Lexington Ave.
Through January 12
Admission: free
www.madbutter.com
www.chashama.org

In association with the nonprofit arts organization chashama, real estate company Stonehenge Partners, and Sensacell modular sensor surface, SVA grad and Rare Medium founding partner Robert Stratton has set up a fun, interactive art installation at the empty storefront at the northeast corner of Lexington and 33rd. While art lovers are used to being told not to touch, here you must make contact in order to see the piece operate to get the full effect. As the window display changes patterns, from vertical color bars to horizontal stripes to white clouds in a blue sky, passersby are encouraged to touch the electronic canvas to make the moving patterns stop, shift, angulate, change colors, and expand. The display is particularly attractive at night, where you’ll soon find yourself laughing with strangers as you all gather ’round and manipulate the various screens. It’s a welcome addition to a corner where many a store has failed, bringing new life to what was becoming a desolate wasteland.

ARMORY SHOW

Brennan Girard and Ryan Kelly examine the military and social history of the Seventh Regiment Armory in site-specific two-night engagement

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
February 20-21, $25, 8:00
347-463-5143
www.movingtheater.org
www.armoryonpark.org

Brennan Girard and Ryan Kelly, cofounders of the nonprofit, experimental Moving Theater, complete their stay as the first company-in-residence at the Park Avenue Armory with a multimedia performance in the historic building, designed by Charles Clinton in 1880 to house the Seventh Regiment of the National Guard, volunteer troops known as the Silk Stocking Regiment because of their ritzy members. The site-specific installation, which will take place in the armory’s fascinating period rooms, includes original music by Nathan Davis, Mario Diaz de León, and Du Yun and will be performed by Jonathan Drillet, Davon Rainey, Marlène Saldana, Jose Tena, Anthony Whitehurst, and ICE | International Contemporary Ensemble, incorporating dance, text, and video while commenting on the social and military history of the location and examining various aspects of the male identity. “This work maps our sense of loss at leaving a space we’ve worked in for such an extended period of time,” Gerard and Kelly explained in a statement. “Our attempts at capturing its complex history bring forth our own experience in this incredible building.”

HARLEM FINE ARTS SHOW

Andrew Nichols’s “Not for Sale” is main image of inaugural Harlem Fine Arts Show

369th Regiment Armory
2633 Fifth Ave. between 142nd & 143rd Sts.
February 20-21, adults $20, children twelve and under $10
914-582-1407
www.harlemfineartsshow.com

As part of Black History Month and a run-up to March’s Armory Week, the inaugural Harlem Fine Arts Show will take place February 20-21, featuring nearly five hundred works in multiple disciplines from sixty emerging and established African American artists, many of whom will be on hand to meet with attendees. Participating artists include Andrew Nichols, Sir Shadow, Kalongi, Alyce Faye, Anthony Armstrong, and Verna Hart. The first five hundred paid visitors will receive a free show poster, and a Refreshment Court will be serving drinks from the Harlem Brewing Company and food from the famous Spoonbread restaurant. The event is taking place in the historic 369th Regiment Armory, built in 1933 by Tachau & Vought for the Harlem Hellfighters and currently home to a multipurpose youth center.

ART ON VIEW: FOOD FOR ART, ART FOR THOUGHT

T. Charnan Lewis’s “Chocolate Road” uses candy to pave the way at chocolate-infused art show

MIGRATION OF SENSES: CHOCOLATE & I NEW YORK
511 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
February 8-14
Admission: free – $75
www.chocolateandi-newyork.com

We were crushed when the downtown Ritz-Carlton shut down its luxurious Rise bar, where pastry chef extraordinaire Laurent Richard had been creating majestic works of art made out of chocolate every February. Well, Migration of Senses’ Virginie Delavaud and Marco Antonio Castro also know about the art of chocolate; they have teamed up to curate a Chelsea exhibition dedicated to chocolate and its relationship to us addicted humans. For the show, which runs one week leading up to Valentine’s Day, CW&T will drip chocolate from the ceiling for “Chocolate Timepiece”; Jason Krugman uses LED technology in “Firefly”; Michelle Mayer delves back into the history of chocolate in “Conflict Confection,” an installation that will make gold-leafed chocolate bullets; Carolina Vallejo takes her thoughts and writings and turns them into chocolate pieces she will serve to visitors in “You will eat my words”; T. Charnan Lewis takes on corporate globalization and America’s past in three pointillist paintings that use such materials as candy dots and Styrofoam; EMA’s mixed-media mural “Hedonistic Cloud” features the artist’s imaginary characters; and Elim Chen’s “I Need You to Need Me” looks into our need to need.

In addition to sponsoring the free art show, Chocolate & I will also be holding a series of chocolate-related lectures, discussions, workshops, and tastings all week long at the gallery, which will be divided into Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, and White Chocolate Rooms. Among the special events (some are free, but most cost $35-$95) are “What Would the Gods Say?,” in which Bond Street’s Lynda Stern and Sakaya’s Rick Smith pair chocolate with sake; “The Art of Artisanal Chocolate Making” with Bespoke’s Rachel Zoe Insler; “Save the World Through Silliness & Chocolate” with Fine & Raw’s Daniel Sklaar; a fondue party for singles; a chocolate-infused Valentine’s Day dinner designed by Anne Apparu; and much more.

NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE

Meredyth Sparks, “Roxy” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Former Tower Records Building
14 East Fourth St. at Broadway
Through February 13, Wednesday – Sunday 12 noon – 7:00 pm
Admission: free
www.nolongerempty.com
www.flickr.com/slideshow

In 1983, Tower Records took over the ground floor of the Silk Building on Broadway, selling music and hosting live performances for more than twenty years. It was one of the East Village’s places to see and be seen, a gathering spot for lovers of all kinds of music, with a heavy emphasis on indies and imports But the digital age ultimately forced the chain into bankruptcy, and the space has remained vacant since 2006. The storefront has now been taken over by No Longer Empty, an arts organization that puts together exhibitions in empty locations around New York City. Paying tribute to the legacy of Tower Records, “Never Can Say Goodbye” features music-related multimedia installations by more than a dozen artists, set up very similarly to the old store, even including bins with fake LPs that visitors can look through. Meredyth Sparks turns up the glam quotient with “Roxy” and “Space Oddity.” Paul Villinksi adds wings to melted and twisted LPs he actually purchased at Tower. Invader re-creates such album covers as the Clash’s LONDON CALLING using Rubik’s Cube pieces. Ryan Brennan blasts hip-hop from a bunch of boom boxes arranged where the store’s in-house magazine, Pulse , used to be distributed. Joe Diebes’s “Scherzo” video will get your motor running. And Ted Riederer invents a new label, “Never Records,” with contributions from a host of musicians and a wicked-cool bong people are encouraged to smoke from. But longtime East Village singer-songwriter Paul Clements, a fixture Wednesday nights at the Bitter End from 1979 through 2004, puts it all into perspective with “The Song That Will Never Be Heard.” Clements explained to twi-ny at the opening that he wrote and recorded a song by himself, then destroyed everything but one CD copy, which he encased in a nearly indestructible Lucite box, asking future owners of the piece to respect the tune’s privacy. Thus, the only person who will ever “hear” the song is Clements himself when he played it that one time; ultimately, it will fade into memory, much like Tower Records itself and many of the artists who were unable to ever get their albums sold there.

Paul Clements, “The Song That Will Never Be Heard” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

In addition to the free art exhibit, there will be several concerts (suggested donation $10) held in the space, including Dirty Mirrors on January 21, V Count Macula on January 22, Il Collettivo on January 24 and February 7, Nehedar and Jon Taub on January 31, Disco Monkeys and Oxygen Ensemble on February 4, and Steve Conte & the Crazy Truth on February 12. And on January 26 at 7:00, NLE will hold a panel discussion in the space, “Discs to Downloads: New Directions in the Music Industry,” with attorney Elliot Groffman, manager Kevin Patrick, editor David Weiss, artist Ted Riederer, and executive David Goodman, moderated by Brad LeBeau.

STAR BLACK: THE COLLAGED ACCORDION

Star Black will present collaged accordion books at artist talk and reception tonight at Center for Book Arts

The Center for Book Arts
28 West 27th St. between Sixth Ave. & Broadway, third floor
Wednesday, February 3, suggested admission $10, 6:30
212-481-0295
www.centerforbookarts.org

Poet and photographer Star Black will be at the Center for Book Arts in the Flatiron District tonight for an artist talk and reception in conjunction with the opening of her new exhibit, “The Collaged Accordion.” Black is displaying a series of accordion books made of found material, along with individual collages and original writings; among the pieces in the show are “A Room of My Own,” “Memorandum/Furs,” “Schirmer’s Abstracted,” and “The Blue Door.” The exhibition will continue through April 3; also on view at the center are “Narrative Sequences,” organized by artist Maddy Rosenberg and featuring work by Ben Katchor, Julia Schmid, Chris Bierl, and others, and “Leah Oates: Transitory Spaces,” a collection of books and book spreads.