this week in art

WILLIAM BLAKE / JANE AUSTEN / CHARLES DICKENS / GIACOMO PUCCINI

William Blake, “Mysterious Dream,” watercolor over traces of black chalk

Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Closed Monday
Admission: $12 adults, $8 children under sixteen (free Fridays 7:00 – 9:00)
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org

While they’re not exactly the Rat Pack and didn’t exactly hang out together – although there is some overlap of when they existed here on earth – William Blake (1757-1827), Jane Austen (1775-1817), Charles Dickens (1812-70), and Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) make for quite a foursome at the Morgan Library this holiday season. A master engraver, painter, Romantic poet, and religious nut, Blake was a visionary artist who claimed that some of his work came from, well, otherworldly visions. “William Blake’s World: ‘A New Heaven Is Begun’” (through January 3) includes such awe-inspiring pieces as “Satan,” “Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims,” the gorgeous watercolor series he did illustrating the Book of Job (even throwing in Jesus for good measure), the wacky “First Book of Urizen,” a letter from Blake to one of his patrons, a pair of plates of his most famous poem, “The Tyger,” and his anti-New World screed, “America: A Prophecy.” Blake, who died poor and was buried in an unmarked grave, had remarkable skill and a mind that just did not quite fit in his time.

The Morgan takes a revealing look at one of England’s greatest novelists in “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy” (through March 14), comprising original manuscripts, letters, and illustrated editions as well as Blake’s portrait of Harriet Quentin, which Austen saw in London. Austen, who published anonymously because of her gender, penned such classic books as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, MANSFIELD PARK, EMMA, and SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, all dealt with in this exhibition. Her writings are placed in context alongside satiric cartoons by James Gillray and diary entries and a documentary film in which other authors discuss Austen’s lasting influence. The letter from her sister Cassandra announcing Jane’s death is simply heartbreaking.

John Leech, detail, “Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball,” original watercolor illustration for Charles Dickens’s CHRISTMAS CAROL, first edition, 1843

Running through January 10 in the McKim Building, “Charles Dickens’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL” features Dickens’s original marked-up manuscript of the holiday tale, written in six weeks in 1843 and bound in red leather shortly after its publication. The book is in the McKim Building, which will be open to the public for free on Tuesdays from 3:00 to 5:00, Fridays (except Christmas and New Year’s Day) from 7:00 to 9:00 (when the entire museum is free), and Sundays from 4:00 to 6:00. Finally, the Morgan is displaying more than three dozen items that look into the life and legacy of Italian composer Giacomo Puccini in “Celebrating Puccini” (through January 10), including letters, posters, and original manuscripts for LA BOHÈME and MADAMA BUTTERFLY.

CHRISTMAS DAY EVENTS

The Flaming Lips celebrate CHRISTMAS ON MARS with screening at IFC

Even though most arts institutions and music clubs are closed on Christmas Day, there are still plenty of cool things to do after the presents are given out, the table has been cleaned, and exhaustion is setting in. And for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, well, there’s a handful of events to choose from. Christmas is a big movie day, whether people go to the theater after celebrating the holiday with friends and family or instead pair it with Chinese food, at least partially in homage to A CHRISTMAS STORY. At 92YTribeca, screenings of Mel Brooks’s still hysterical BLAZING SADDLES (2:30) and occasionally funny but mostly silly SPACEBALLS (4:00) will be accompanied by an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet ($25-$30). Film Forum’s ongoing Madcap Manhattan series will be showing a special double feature of the original MIRACLE ON 34th STREET with Preston Sturges’s CHRISTMAS IN JULY, while the IFC Center will be presenting the rather bizarre CHRISTMAS ON MARS: A FANTASTICAL FILM FREAKOUT FEATURING THE FLAMING LIPS at midnight all weekend. Jewish singles might want to head uptown to the main branch of the 92^nd St. Y for the JDate Christmas Day Chinese Food and Comedy event, thirty-five and over only, please (3:00, $30). The Museum of Jewish Heritage will be holding its annual “Challah-lujah: The Tradition Continues,” a concert featuring Joshua Nelson and the Kosher Gospel Choir, with a family program at 11:00 am ($10-$20) and a show for general audiences at 1:00 ($35). At the Jewish Museum, the Family Celebration includes art workshops, a live performance by Metropolitan Klezmer, the “Strike a Surreal Pose” photo booth in conjunction with the Man Ray exhibition, guided tours, and free hot chocolate ($12 adults, children under twelve free). And at the Museum at Eldridge Street, Greg Wall and Klezmerfest will lead audiences on a musical journey in Klez for Kids ($8-$12, 11:00 am).

Later in the evening, (le) poisson rouge is hosting the Freedom Party, a night of classic hip-hop, dancehall reggae, neosoul, and more with DJ Cosi, DJ Marc Smooth, and DJ Herbert Holler ($15, 11:00 pm), while at SOB’s, T-Vice and Kreyola lead a pair of Manhattan Haitian Dance Parties at midnight and 2:00 am ($30).

INDOORS/OUTDOORS

Detail of Zeke Decker's untitled oil painting displays his style (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Hey You Gallery
61 Delancey St. at Allen St.
Saturday, December 19, 12 noon – Sunday, December 20, 12 noon
Admission: free

Zeke Decker, Matt Engel, Gabe Rizzotti, and Eleni Kontos have taken over an empty storefront and basement on the corner of Delancey and Allen, creating a makeshift gallery displaying their artwork, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and video. Particularly impressive are several pieces by Decker, who also leads the Jersey reggae hip-hop band the Homewreckers; downstairs, you can watch a short video showing how Decker created the large collage next to the monitor in twenty-four hours, while upstairs you’ll find his forty-five-square-foot abstract oil painting, made in one hundred hours, featuring thick globs of color that look ready to break off the canvas, which is merely stapled to the wall. Time is of the essence here; on Saturday afternoon, December 19, the four artists will collaborate on a new piece that they will work on continuously for twenty-four hours, resulting in a fresh, completed work by December 20 at noon.

FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES

Gonzalez-Torres leads the way to Hodges in Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FLOATING A BOULDER: WORKS BY FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES AND JIM HODGES
FLAG Art Foundation
545 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Wednesday – Saturday 12 noon – 5:00 pm through January 31
Admission: free
www.flagartfoundation.org

PAIRED, GOLD: FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES AND RONI HORN
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Through January 6 (closed Thursday)
Admission: $18 (pay-what-you-wish Saturdays 5:45-7:45)
212-423-3500
www.guggenheim.org

Even in death, Cuban avant-garde artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres continues to team up with some of his friends and colleagues and offer presents to strangers. At the beginning of 2009, Andrea Rosen presented “A Shadow Leaving an Object,” a dual exhibition matching Gonzalez-Torres’s mirror piece “Untitled (March 5th) #1” (1991) with Robert Gober’s “Prison Window.” From certain angles, you could see Gober’s work, way up at the top of a wall, in Gonzalez-Torres’s eye-level mirror in the otherwise large, empty Chelsea space. Gonzalez-Torres’s and Jim Hodges’s pieces interact similarly at the FLAG Art Foundation, where Hodges has curated a two-floor show combining his fragmented circular mirrors, stained-glass screens, colorful fabric hangings, and “the bells/black” sound installation (yes, you can ring the bells, which are all at a different pitch) with Gonzalez-Torres’s double clocks (“Perfect Lovers”), candy and poster sculptures (yes, go ahead and take one of each), and lighted go-go-dancing platform, where every day at an unannounced time a male dancer will get on the lighted stage and gyrate away for five minutes. Primarily focusing on temporality, the exhibit, which also includes six billboards by Gonzalez-Torres spread across three boroughs, closes January 31.

Gonzalez-Torres leads the way to Horn at the Guggenheim (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Guggenheim has gotten into the action as well, teaming up Gonzalez-Torres, who died of AIDS in 1996, with another living artist, New York native Roni Horn, in “Paired Gold,” which can refer to both the material itself as well as their brief but treasured friendship. After winding your way through the Guggenheim’s Kandinsky retrospective – we’ll have more to say about this wonderful show in an upcoming post – make sure to go into the very last gallery at the top of Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling structure, where you’ll have to walk through Gonzalez-Torres’s large-scale ceiling-to-floor gold-colored beaded curtain, “Untitled” (Golden), in order to see Horn’s “Gold Field,” two pounds of pure gold pounded into a delicate sheet that looks like it would disintegrate at the merest touch. (Don’t try this or the security guard will be very unhappy.) Gonzalez-Torres called Horn’s 1990 sculpture, “Forms from the Gold Field,” a “new landscape, a possible horizon, a place of rest and absolute beauty”; it’s simply delightful to see these two innovative and influential sculptors back together again, sharing a place of rest.

LAST CHANCE: CHELSEA ART STROLL

Dan Flavin show warms the heart in cold Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

You don’t have to seek out a fireplace, Christmas tree, and cup of cider to escape the chills of the holiday season; instead, you can bask in the warm glow of “Dan Flavin: Series and Progressions,” at David Zwirner in Chelsea through December 19, multiple connected spaces in which Flavin’s minimalist light sculptures bounce soft reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and more off one another. But as welcoming as most of the show is, one of Flavin’s barriers, “untitled (to Helga and Carlo, with respect and affection),” cuts the last room in half, a stark difference from the other pieces, as well as “alternating pink and gold,” which runs around the walls of the cavernous gallery next door. Several other shows worth seeing are also closing on December 19. In Luke Smalley’s “Sunday Drive – A Memorial Exhibition” at ClampArt, the photographer, who passed away in May at the age of fifty-three, has created a narrative series in which three hot young women visit their hot young boyfriends in prison, but Smalley, as was his wont, focuses on the macho males, who seem to have walked right out of a Bruce Weber shoot.

Form meets function in Judd furniture show (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

If you’re still seeking warmth, stop in to see “Bill Viola: Bodies of Light” at James Cohan and allow yourself to be hypnotized by the thirty-minute high-def video “Old Oak (Study),” as the sun rises and sets behind a stunning tree. The show also features eight other short video projects, including several that involve water in a fascinating way. And if you do decide to head to Chelsea to see these last-chance displays, be sure to stop by Julie Saul from 4:00 to 6:00, when New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast will be signing copies of THEORIES OF EVERYTHING in conjunction with the exhibition “Sad Sacks, Worry Warts, Hellions & Bad Eggs: A New Print Series,” which continues through January 9. In addition to the fun prints are several of Chast’s charmingly decorated pysanka Easter eggs. Also on view at Julie Saul is “Heads: A Group Exhibition,” featuring works by Rineke Dijkstra, Soo Kim, Gary Schneider, Tanya Marcuse, and others. Finally, if you find yourself getting tired from all the running around, do not – we repeat, do not – take a seat in any of the chairs at Sebastian + Barquet, where a little-known side of Donald Judd is being revealed through December 23. It turns out that he loved making functional furniture, and several examples of his work are on display, looking very Judd-like.

CABARET CINEMA: IN A LONELY PLACE

: Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart go on quite a ride in Ray classic

IN A LONELY PLACE (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, December 18, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org/cabaretcinema

Humphrey Bogart stars in Nicholas Ray’s powerful, intense film about a cynical Hollywood screenwriter with a violent side. Dixon Steele (Bogart, in one of his strongest performances) is asked to write a screenplay based on a pulpy romance he has little interest in, so he brings home a coat-check girl who has read the book so she can tell him the story. The girl turns up dead, and Steele, known for his drunken forays and abuse of women, is the main suspect. Aspiring star Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), who has recently moved into the same Beverly Hills apartment complex, supplies an alibi for Steele, but she might have ulterior motives for doing so. Ray’s moody, introspective gem keeps you guessing until the very end. This special screening, introduced by Ken Brown, is part of the Rubin Museum’s weekly Friday-night film series, which is currently focusing on the exhibit “The Red Book of C. J. Jung,” is in the gallery space right outside the downstairs theater. (All of the museum’s galleries are open for free after 7:00.) Upcoming screenings in this series include Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’ECLISSE on January 8, David Lynch’s BLUE VELVET on January 15, and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s THE FACE OF ANOTHER on January 22.

SUPER SABADO

Joaquín Torres-García, “New York Street Scene (Escena de una calle de Nueva York),” oil on board, 1920

EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Tuesday – Sunday, suggested donation $6, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Saturday, December 19, free, 11:00 am – 9:00 pm
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org

For its fortieth anniversary, El Museo del Barrio reopened in October with much fanfare following an extensive renovation, enhancing its stature at the top of Museum Mile. Dedicated to Latino arts and culture, El Museo is kicking off its next era with a spectacular new exhibit, “Nexus New York: Latin / American Artists in the Modern Metropolis.” Running through February 28, the exhibition traces the history of Latin artists with direct ties to New York City – either living here, studying here, or working with New York-based artists in Europe, South America, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, and other locations. “Artists do not work in vacuums,” curator Deborah Cullen notes in her introduction to the excellent accompanying catalog. “The city itself is yet another character in the story, for it was the very nature of New York that invited and fostered such creative energy.”

“Nexus New York” links together such artists as Joaquín Torres-García and Adolph Gottlieb, Maria Martins Pereria e Souza and Marcel Duchamp, Marius de Zayas and Francis Picabia, Roberto Matta and Robert Motherwell, Al Hirschfeld and Miguel Covarrubias, and David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jackson Pollock, offering a fascinating look inside unique aspects in the development of twentieth-century contemporary art. The work of Torres-García, specifically, is nothing short of a revelation, including drawings, wooden figures, watercolors, and such dazzling paintings as “Fourteenth Street (Calle Catorce)” and “New York Street Scene (Escena de una calle de Nueva York).” There’s a reason why an entire chapter in the catalog is dedicated to reconsidering Torres-García: “Unlike many native artists who believed a ‘truly’ American art should reflect nature and the landscape,” Cecilia de Torres writes, “his New York work was all about the spirit of the modern city, rather than its realistic depiction.”

Alice Neel, “Carlos Enríquez,” oil on canvas, 1926

The centerpiece of “Nexus New York” is the extensive section devoted to the relationship between American painter Alice Neel and Cuban artist Carlos Enríquez. The couple married in 1925 and first lived in Cuba before the tragic loss of their first child doomed their relationship. Their individual portraits of their second child, Isabetta, is quite telling; in 1930, Neel paints her as a scary, doll-like figure, while Enríquez, four years later, shows her to be much more real and human. An excerpt from a documentary made by Neel’s grandson, Andrew, further looks into their life. The exhibit also delves into work by a more familiar couple, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, particularly the political implications of Rivera’s aborted Rockefeller Center mural. There are also exemplary pieces by Wilfredo Lam, José Clemente Orozco, Jean Charlot, Camilo Egas, and many others.

The free Saturday program on December 19 celebrates the Three Kings with a photo booth in the courtyard, holiday storytelling with Papoleto Melendez, live music from the Children’s Aid Society Chorus and José Obando and friends, an art workshop for kids, gallery tours, a spoken word performance by the Peace Poets, the eighth annual Coquito Tasting Contest, and comedy from Latina Divas Marga Gomez and Carmelita Tropicana. In addition to “Nexus New York,” El Museo also has on view “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 more, as well as “Raíces: The Roots of Latin Music in New York City.” 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.