this week in art

IN CONVERSATION: GEORGE CONDO AND MASSIMILIANO GIONI

George Condo, Internal Riot, acrylic, pigment stick, and metallic paint on linen, 2020 (© George Condo / photo by Thomas Barratt)

Who: George Condo, Massimiliano Gioni
What: Livestreamed webinar
Where: Hauser & Wirth Zoom
When: Monday, November 9, free with advance RSVP, 1:00
Why: This past spring, Hauser & Wirth presented the online program “Distanced Figures: George Condo,” in which the New Hampshire-born, New York-based artist discussed his virtual exhibition, “Drawings for Distanced Figures,” and took attendees inside his Hamptons studio to share his working methods during quarantine. “I love to draw, and in the usual context of privacy, one doesn’t think of the term isolation or forced separation; rather, it’s a space to create without being watched,” he noted about the show. On November 9 at 1:00, the purveyor of “physiognomical abstraction” will talk about his new exhibit, “Internal Riot,” which continues in-person at Hauser & Wirth’s 542 West 22nd St. gallery, speaking with New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni; admission is free with advance RSVP. You can reserve free timed tickets see the exhibition, which Condo describes as consisting of “composites of various psychological states,” here. (You will also have access to “Jack Whitten: I Am the Object.”)

SAN FRANCISCO PLAYHOUSE: ‘ART’

The cast of ‘Art’ rehearsed in masks before filming Tony-winning play onstage together

‘ART’
San Francisco Playhouse
Through November 7, $15-$100
www.sfplayhouse.org

Perhaps the two most important members of the crew of San Francisco Playhouse’s streaming revival of ‘Art’ are production manager Maggie Johnson and general manager Danika Ingraham, who also served as the Covid compliance officers. SFP is one of the first companies in the country to get permission from Actors’ Equity to use its physical theater space to stage a play, albeit without an audience, but filmed with three actors and a full, professional crew. The ninety-minute show was rehearsed with masks and regular testing, then filmed with three cameras over three days, following strict guidelines. Yasmina Reza’s play, which won a Tony in 1998, is a natural for the pandemic, with organic social distancing; the cast spends most of the time more than six feet away from one another, in and around three chairs, with very limited touching of any kind. Yet SFP artistic director Bill English was already considering putting on the play prior to the lockdown, as the work’s central conceit serves as an apt metaphor for what is going on in America today.

Originally written in French and translated by Christopher Hampton (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Savages), ‘Art’ focuses on a white painting purchased for $200,000 by the erudite Serge (Johnny Moreno). His best friend, the cynical Marc (Jomar Tagatac), thinks it’s a “piece of shit.” Their other friend, the more middlebrow Yvan (Bobak Bakhtiari), who is about to get married, is caught in the middle; Marc desperately wants him to admit to Serge that the painting is terrible, but Yvan doesn’t want to offend Serge, regardless of what he really thinks of the work. Their fifteen-year friendship threatens to crumble as they all start saying things they are likely to regret.

Serge (Johnny Moreno), Marc (Jomar Tagatac), and Yvan (Bobak Bakhtiari) argue over more than just a painting in SFP revival

But there’s a reason the title, ‘Art,’ is in quotes. It is not really about whether an abstract painting by a supposedly famous artist is any good, about what qualifies as ‘art.’ It’s about how difficult it has become to remain civil with people who do not share the same likes and dislikes, the same beliefs, you do. Marc is so upset that Serge has bought the white painting that he is ready to lose him forever. Although Reza (God of Carnage, Life x 3) wrote the play in 1994, it has a timeless quality; the white painting is essentially a blank canvas for the audience to fill in as they please. In 2020, for example, you can imagine it as an electoral map of blue and red states, with three friends arguing over what’s best for the country, willing to end their relationships if they are not voting for the same candidate. During the coronavirus crisis, it’s happening every day over social media, with former high school classmates, family members, and best friends fighting over the virus, immigration, health care, foreign policy, and the economy; they might block one another on Facebook, but they also might not be so willing to meet face-to-face once this crisis is over and go to a museum together.

The English-language version was originally performed by three white men, Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, and Ken Stott, in London in 1996; the 1999 Broadway premiere featured Alan Alda as Marc, Victor Garber as Serge, and a Tony-nominated Alfred Molina as Yvan. SFP’s diverse casting adds an innate twist to the proceedings as Moreno, Tagatac, and Bakhtiari form a quick camaraderie even amid their characters’ growing displeasure with one another. (It also answers the rhetorical question director English asks in a program note: “Why open our 2020/2021 season with a play written for three white men and their petty upper-middle-class quarrel over a work of art?”)

It’s truly wonderful to finally see a fully staged production, with actual costumes (by Randy Wong-Westbrooke), sound (by Teddy Hulsker), lighting (by Heather Kenyon), and a real set; in addition to the three comfy armchairs, there is a three-sided wall that spins around in the back before stopping to delineate which man’s apartment we are at in each scene. Both Marc and Yvan have small, framed paintings on their wall, while Serge’s is empty, perhaps to be covered by his five-foot-by-four-foot investment. The final stream is effectively edited by Wolfgang Wachalovsky, who puts you onstage with the actors; it was not shot to make you feel like you are sitting in the theater. And until we are allowed back into theaters to see live forms of “art,” this is about as close as we’re going to get.

MINISTRY OF TRUTH: 1984/2020 EXHIBITION AND Q&A

Sue Coe’s “We Are Many. They Are Few.” can be found at Morgan Ave. & Harrison St. in Brooklyn (photo courtesy Art at a Time Like This)

Who: Abigail de Ville, Marilyn Minter, Deborah Kass, Ruj Greigarn, Barbara Pollack, Anne Verhallen
What: “What Have Artists Contributed to the 2020 Election?” live, online discussion about new outdoor exhibition
Where: Art at a Time Like This Zoom
When: Monday, November 2, free with RSVP (donations accepted), 7:00 (exhibition continues through at least November 20)
Why: On March 17, just at the start of the pandemic lockdown, Barbara Pollack and Anne Verhallen launched Art at a Time Like This, a website that asked the question, “How can you think of art at a time like this?,” kicking off months of daily postings of politically charged old and new works by dozens of major artists, in addition to lively Zoom discussions exploring the role of art and the artist in the age of Covid-19. Pollack and Verhallen have now moved their activism outdoors with the ambitious “Ministry of Truth: 1984/2020,” a collection of twenty billboards located across the five boroughs, featuring new, civically conscious designs by an impressive group of emerging and established artists. The winners were chosen out of twelve hundred submissions, some through an open call, by Pollack and Verhallen with the Bronx Museum’s Jerome LaMaar, independent curator Larry Ossei-Mensah, Carmen Hermo of the Brooklyn Museum, and the Queens Museum’s Sophia Marisa Lucas, resulting in a wide range of diverse works from graduate students and international stars, responding to the failures of the current administration.

V. L. Cox reveals “The End Hate Doors” at 21st St. & 44th Rd. in Queens (photo courtesy Art at a Time Like This)

“I think what has been our way of working is that over the course of seven or eight months, we’ve always had a direct response to the moment, and so the way we worked was also very much in the moment,” Verhallen said during a recent Zoom interview. “The first day that we launched the online exhibition, we didn’t know that we were going to make it into a nonprofit, but everything was very organic, and so was this first public project. This is the first of many to come, hopefully.”

Pollack and Verhallen make no bones about the goal of “Ministry of Truth: 1984/2020,” which was organized by Art at a Time Like This with Save Art Space. The name of the exhibition refers to a trio of slogans emblazoned on the white pyramid that is the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984: “War Is Peace.” “Freedom Is Slavery.” “Ignorance Is Strength.”

“One of our main goals is to demonstrate that artists have ideas that need to be brought into the political conversation, that they envision other ways of looking at things, alternative ways of looking at things, and solutions for the future that are not part of the political debate,” Pollack said. “So we thought with the election coming up, we needed to provide some kind of special platform for art in response to crisis.”

Shirin Neshat’s “America Land of Dreams” interacts with other signage at Grand St. & Catherine St. in Brooklyn (photo courtesy Art at a Time Like This)

In an email blast, they declared, “Early voting has started and this administration has taken to the courts to cut mail-in deadlines. Other absurd restrictions and rules encouraging voter intimidation are also in the courts, facing decisions by Trump-appointed federal judges. So to ensure your vote is counted, get to your polling place early or drop off ballots before next Tuesday. Let’s hope for a clear-cut decision that leaves no question of the outcome. . . . On your way to your polling place, take a look around you. You’ll probably find one of the billboards in ‘Ministry of Truth: 1984/2020’ along your way.”

You can rent a car, take public transportation, or get on a bike and trek around to see as many of the billboards as you can; there are ten in Brooklyn, four in Queens, three in the Bronx, two in Staten Island, and one in Manhattan. (You can find the complete map here.) On Atlantic Ave. and Classon Ave., Deborah Kass proclaims, “Yo Vote!” in bold yellow letters on a blue background. Marilyn Minter calls for “Justice Now!” (Eleventh Ave. & Forty-Fifth St.) in glam graffiti. Sue Coe’s “We Are Many. They Are Few.” (Morgan Ave. and Harrison St.) is a graphic black-and-white depiction of two giant cops trampling over a Black Lives Matter rally as a city burns in the background. Helina Metaferia’s “Headdresses 6” (Webster Ave. and East 173rd St.) reveals a black woman’s headdress to include leaders of the Black Power Movement. Mel Chin’s “Flag of America 2020” (Jackson Ave. at the Pulaski Bridge) shows Old Glory with the stars divided in two, twenty-five on each side, while Holly Ballard Martz also incorporates the Stars and Stripes in “The Greatest Show on Earth” (Calyer St. and McGuinness Blvd.), complete with a “No Exit” sign. And in Ruj Greigarn’s “The Marching” (Myrtle Ave. and Cornelia St.), a nonbinary person in a blue blouse, black pants, and black high-heeled boots walks down the street carrying a rainbow flag. Other billboards by Shirin Neshat, Dread Scott, Abigail de Ville, Dan Perjovschi, Aaron Gilbert, Akinbo Akinnouye, Guerrilla Girls BroadBand, Lola Flash, Angela Portillo, Rachel Hsu, Holly Martz, Terry Berkowitz, V. L. Cox, and Ileana Hernandez also involve dissent, racism, hate, injustice, immigration, police brutality, and an America that is supposed to be the land of dreams.

“Sometimes it’s hard to find words around everything that’s happening, and artists are so attuned to how our communities feel,” Verhallen said over Zoom. “So besides giving the artist a voice in a public space, it also provides the audience with a sense of camaraderie and catharsis.”

Lola Flash’s “i pray” makes its point at Utica Ave. & Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn (photo courtesy Art at a Time Like This)

Talking about reviewing the submissions, Pollack notes, “It was this great outpouring of humanity. It was really moving to look through them. It was amazing how much people had to say.”

Verhallen adds, “Both Barbara and I got really emotional when we went through it because it really felt like an outpouring of people’s hearts. The last couple of months, there’s been a real demonstration from voices that have been unheard, so it was quite an experience to go through the works.”

On November 2 at 7:00, election eve, Pollack and Verhallen will host the live, interactive Zoom discussion “What Have Artists Contributed to the 2020 Election?,” joined by Greigarn, de Ville, Minter, and Kass, each of whom has previously contributed work to Art at a Time Like This. Admission is free with RSVP.

Oh, and no matter where you are, be sure to vote, because that’s what all of this is about.

INSIDE THE MANDALA: A VIRTUAL GALA

Who: Mingyur Rinpoche, Ponlop Rinpoche, Laurie Anderson, Sivamani, Preeti Vasudevan, Deepak Chopra, Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, Stuart Firestein, Daniel Goleman, Ana Lucia Valencia, Erin Reid
What: Rubin Museum virtual gala
Where: Rubin Museum online
When: Wednesday, October 21, free with RSVP (donations accepted, $25-$5,000), 6:00
Why: The Rubin Museum couldn’t have had any idea how prescient its 2020 theme would be when it first came up with it: “Impermanence: A Yearlong Exploration.” It’s been quite a year, from protests over police brutality to a global pandemic, from a bitter presidential race that has torn apart the country to a fierce economic crisis. The Rubin will offer a look back as well as a way forward at its annual gala, taking place online on October 21 at 6:00. “Inside the Mandala” promises to guide audience members into the symbolic circular spiritual object, with appearances by meditation teachers Mingyur Rinpoche and Ponlop Rinpoche, visual artist and musician Laurie Anderson, musician Drums Sivamani, choreographer Preeti Vasudevan, Rubin teaching artist Erin Reid, neuroscience researcher Ana Lucia Valencia, author and alternative medicine practitioner Deepak Chopra, emotion scientist Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary and her family, biological scientist Stuart Firestein, and psychologist and science journalist Dr. Daniel Goleman.

Admission is free, but donations will be accepted at any amount. As deputy executive director and chief programmatic officer Tim McHenry noted in an email blast, “Wednesday night we take you on a journey. Inside the mandala. We are revealing for the first time our plans to convert a whole floor of the museum into an experiential (and experimental) zone for social and emotional learning using the tantric precepts of the Vairocana mandala as our model. Yes, we are…” See you there, in mind and spirit if not body.

ARTISTS ON ARTWORKS — DREAD SCOTT ON JACOB LAWRENCE

Jacob Lawrence, We have no property! We have no wives! No children! We have no city! No country! — petition of many slaves, 1773, 1955 (Collection of Harvey and Harvey-Ann Ross. © 2019 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York)

Who: Dread Scott, Sylvia Yount
What: Artist talk
Where: Met Museum Facebook or YouTube
When: Friday, October 23, free, 6:30 (exhibition continues through November 1)
Why: In his artist statement, Dread Scott explains, “I make revolutionary art to propel history forward. I look towards an era without exploitation or oppression. I don’t accept the political structures, economic foundation, social relations, and governing ideas of America. . . . I work in a range of media: performance, installation, video, photography, printmaking, and painting. Two threads that connect them are: an engagement with significant social questions and a desire to push formal and conceptual boundaries as part of contributing to artistic development.” On October 23 at 6:30, the Met will be livestreaming the prerecorded program “Artists on Artwork — Dread Scott on Jacob Lawrence,” in which Dread looks at his own work and puts it in context with that of Lawrence, focusing on the intensely beautiful “American Struggle,” on view at the Met through November 1. The show features Lawrence’s extraordinary “Struggle: From the History of the American People,” a mid-1950s series consisting of thirty historical twelve-by-sixteen-inch tempera paintings that trace US history from 1775 to 1817, depicting, in Lawrence’s words, “the struggles of a people to create a nation and their attempt to build a democracy.”

The Met has twenty-five of the thirty original canvases on display (the other five are represented by black-and-white facsimiles), organized in chronological order, reminiscent of Lawrence’s more famous 1940-41 “The Great Migration.” Like that series, “Struggle” engages with social questions — many of which are still relevant today — while pushing formal and conceptual boundaries. [Ed. note: On October 22, it was announced that one of the missing paintings, There are combustibles in every State, which a spark might set fire to. — Washington, 26 December 1786, depicting Shays’ Rebellion, has been found and will be reunited with the rest of the series at the Met.] Colors explode off the panels, which favor sharp angles and striking imagery melding representation and abstraction that often requires rapt concentration to decipher, coming to life slowly before your eyes. Lawrence used descriptive titles often taken from published quotations to name the pieces. In We crossed the River at McKonkey’s Ferry 9 miles above Trenton . . . the night was excessively severe . . . which the men bore without the least murmur (Tench Tilghman, December 27, 1776), bayonets point up to the sky as Gen. George Washington leads three rowboats over the ocean, being carried by treacherous blue waves. In . . . we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour, words taken from the conclusion of the Declaration of Independence, a man is barely visible through the wagon of hay he is pulling while blood drips down the right side of the painting. And Lawrence celebrates military veteran Margaret Cochran Corbin at the Battle of Fort Washington in And a Woman Mans a Cannon, with sharp horizontals offset by a tall, vertical figure at left.

Dread Scott’s Slave Rebellion Reenactment was performed last November 8-9 in the outskirts of New Orleans (photo by Soul Brother)

In a 1968 interview with Carroll Greene for the Archives of American Art, Lawrence said about the work, “Several years ago I started an American history series, which did not pertain strictly to the Negro theme but I think my reason for doing it had something with the Negro consciousness. I wanted to show how the Negro had participated — and to what degree the Negro had participated — in American history. In fact I call it the ‘Struggle.’ As late as a few years ago in the 1950s, the Negro had not been included in the general stream of American history. We don’t know the story, how historians have glossed over the Negro’s part as one of the builders of America, how he tilled the fields and picked cotton and helped to build the cities. But I wanted to do a series showing the American Revolution. Again, this had to do with struggle — the struggle of man. This was not a Negro series; it isn’t just Negroes. It dealt with Negroes who were with Washington when he crossed the Delaware. Not as slaves. These were people who had signed up to take part in the American Revolution.” For more on Lawrence, check out a short 1993 video portrait here; born in Atlantic City and raised in Harlem, he passed away in 2000 at the age of eighty-two.

Dread’s work includes the 2019 performance piece Slave Rebellion Reenactment, a timely exploration of suppression, resistance, and revolution; the controversial What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?; and Money to Burn, in which he burned cash on Wall Street. Right now he has a billboard on Morgan Ave. and Harrison St. in Brooklyn in the group show “Ministry of Truth 1984/2020,” declaring, “9-1-1. There’s a white male running down the street.” For more on Dread Scott, watch this interview from April. The MetSpeaks talk is moderated by Sylvia Yount, the Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge of the American Wing. And don’t forget to see the Lawrence show, which is utterly stunning and closes soon.

FROM HERE TO THERE: PROGRAMS AND EVENTS

Aki Sasamoto will present three live, collaborative, improvisational performances from Japan Society as part of online exhibition

Who: Nobutaka Aozaki, Hanako Murakami, Aki Sasamoto, Daisy Nam, Felipe Arturo, Kyle Dancewicz, more
What: Livestream performances and artist Q&As
Where: Japan Society online
When: October 22 – December 17, $10 per program ($40 for all exhibition-related programs), 6:00
Why: On September 24, Japan Society unveiled its first virtual exhibition, in response to the pandemic lockdown resulting from the coronavirus crisis. On view through January 21, “From Here to There” consists of three visual artists taking on isolation and community, the physical versus the digital, and issues of control and agency. The works will evolve over time and take the audience behind the scenes of their progress. New York-based Nobutaka Aozaki is maintaining a conceptual map of found items and ground-floor businesses along Broadway. In Imaginary Landscapes, Paris-based Hanako Murakami repurposes vintage film and photographic plates and paper to explore the nature of memory (followed by “Palpebra” on October 22, “Film Reels” on November 19, and “Magic Lantern” on December 17).

And New York-based Aki Sasamoto is staging, with collaborators from the Yale School of Art, three livestreamed performances and Q&As from Japan Society, on October 22 with Armando Cortes, Sae Jun Kim, Erik Nilson, Hyeree Ro, Amina Ross, Audrey Ryan, Jeenho Seo, Pap Souleye, Lucas Yasunaga, Stella Zhong, and moderator Daisy Nam, November 19 with moderator Felipe Arturo, and December 3 with moderator Kyle Dancewicz, all at 6:00. The improvised pieces will reconsider live performance in the age of Covid-19, announcing, “Let’s sing together. Physically transport objects. Think about speech patterns. Throw a workout session.” In addition, Murakami will give a photo processing demonstration from her personal darkroom on November 5 and will speak with Maison Européenne de la Photographie director Simon Baker on January 7, and Aozaki will give an artist talk and gallery walkthrough of his intervention at Japan Society on December 17. You can watch the virtual opening of the exhibit with the artists, gallery director Yukie Kamiya, and assistant curator Tiffany Lambert here.

MICHAEL MENCHACA: THE WALL

Who: Michael Menchaca, Claudia Zapata
What: Online launch of The Wall (link goes live October 22)
Where: El Museo del Barrio Zoom
When: Thursday, October 22, free with advance RSVP, 6:00
Why: On October 22, Texas-born artist Michael Menchaca will launch the online version of his three-channel video project The Wall, as part of El Museo del Barrio’s “Estamos Bien — La Trienal 20/21.” Previously presented live at the American University Museum in DC last year, The Wall, which features music from Jorge Ramos Avalos’s January 2019 video op-ed “Trump Is the Wall,” addresses issues of borders and immigration using gaming and video art as seen through Chicanx aesthetics. The event will include a discussion between Menchaca, Smithsonian American Art Museum curatorial assistant Claudia Zapata, and curators from El Museo del Barrio. “With the virtual presentation of The Wall, my intention is to offer a space for contemplation on one of the central campaign promises of the forty-fifth U.S. president as he seeks reelection,” Menchaca said in a statement. The on-site exhibition “Estamos Bien — La Trienal 20/21” is scheduled to open at El Museo on March 13.