this week in art

THE IMAGINED WORLDS OF MARWENCOL WITH JON RONSON AND MARK HOGANCAMP

American Folk Art Museum will host live discussion featuring Jon Ronson and Mark Hogancamp (Ronson photo by Emli Bendixen / Hogancamp photo courtesy of the artist and One Mile Gallery)

Who: Jon Ronson, Valérie Rousseau, Mark Hogancamp
What: Livestreamed discussion
Where: American Folk Art Museum Zoom
When: Tuesday, May 11, free with RSVP, 1:00
Why: In 2010, Jeff Malmberg’s documentary Marwencol introduced us to Mark Hogancamp, a man who, after suffering a nearly fatal beating from five bigots that resulted in a coma and brain damage, re-created his personal journey in his backyard using toys and dolls, captured in photographs. In 2015, Welsh-American journalist and screenwriter Jon Ronson did a feature on Hogancamp for the Guardian in which Hogancamp told him, “Marwencol was solely made up so I could kill those five guys. I had no way to do it in real life. I played it over in my head. I’d get caught. I’d go to prison. I’d get the chair. The first time I killed all five of them, I felt a little bit better. That violent hatred and anger subsided a little.” In conjunction with the American Folk Art Museum exhibition “PHOTO | BRUT: Collection Bruno Decharme & Compagnie,” consisting of works by such self-taught artists as Henry Darger, Albert Moser, Norma Oliver, Elke Tangeten, and Hogancamp, the institution is hosting the live Zoom discussion “The Imagined Worlds of Marwencol with Jon Ronson and Mark Hogancamp” with Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats, Okja), curator Valérie Rousseau, and Hogancamp, taking place May 11 at 1:00. Admission is free with RSVP; the exhibit continues through June 6.

PUBLIC ART FUND VIRTUAL TALKS: AWOL ERIZKU

Who: Awol Erizku, Daniel S. Palmer
What: Public Art Fund talk
Where: The Cooper Union on Zoom
When: Monday, May 10, free with RSVP, 5:00
Why: For his first public solo exhibition, Bronx-raised Cooper Union alum Awol Erizku has created New Visions for Iris, consisting of thirteen photographs taken during the pandemic and installed at 350 JCDecaux bus shelters around New York City and Chicago. “Certain images just need to be made, for them to be out in the world,” Erizku says in a video about the Public Art Fund project. “It’s an offering, sort of a dismantling and reconstruction of certain visual language I have seen and want to see. I think of these as like intellectual snapshots, ideas that I’m processing at that particular moment, and these things manifest in the image.” The snapshots are meant to begin dialogues, initially between the artist and his daughter but now among everyone. The exhibit continues through June 10; on May 10 at 5:00, Erizku will take part in a live conversation with Public Art Fund curator Daniel S. Palmer, presented in partnership with the Cooper Union.

MONDAY MEDITATION AT THE ROTHKO CHAPEL

Who: Dr. Alejandro Chaoul, Marc Glimcher, David Leslie
What: Virtual guided meditation
Where: Pace Gallery Zoom webinar
When: Monday, May 10, free with RSVP, 2:00
Why: I’ve spent much time standing in front of paintings by Mark Rothko, drawn into their sheer beauty and psychological and emotional depth. Next week we can all do so virtually in a special presentation from Pace Gallery. In 1964, Dominique and John de Menil commissioned Rothko to create murals for what would become known as the Rothko Chapel in Houston; the Russian-born artist completed a suite of fourteen paintings in 1967 but died before the chapel opened to the public in 1971. “The Rothko Chapel is oriented towards the sacred, and yet it imposes no traditional environment. It offers a place where a common orientation could be found – an orientation towards God, named or unnamed, an orientation towards the highest aspirations of Man and the most intimate calls of the conscience,” Dominique de Menil said of the ecumenical space. Rothko previously wrote to his benefactors, “The magnitude, on every level of experience and meaning, of the task in which you have involved me, exceeds all of my preconceptions. And it is teaching me to extend myself beyond what I thought was possible for me.” In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the space, Pace Gallery is hosting a Monday meditation led by Tibetan meditation teacher Dr. Alejandro Chaoul, recorded in the chapel. The meditation will be followed by a conversation between Pace president and CEO Marc Glimcher, Rothko Chapel executive director David Leslie, and Dr. Chaoul. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

FRAGMENTED BODY PERCEPTIONS AS HIGHER VIBRATION FREQUENCIES TO GOD

A stream winds through the center of naturalistic indoor environment at Performance Space New York (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Performance Space New York
150 First Ave., fourth floor
Wednesday-Sunday through May 9, free with RSVP, noon – 6:00
performancespacenewyork.org
online slideshow

As the pandemic lockdown in New York City begins to ease up and arts institutions slowly open, Precious Okoyomon has brought the outside inside in the beautifully meditative and welcoming Fragmented Body Perceptions as Higher Vibration Frequencies to God. The installation, in the Keith Haring Theatre on the fourth floor of Performance Space New York, offers a naturalistic ecosystem where one can grieve and reflect on the events of the past year, during which the country has been immersed in overlapping crises, from the coronavirus to police injustice to growing income inequality, all of which disproportionately affects Black men, women, and children. Continuing through May 9, Fragmented Body consists of gravel, small Delaware River rocks, boulders, soil, insects, anoles, and wildflowers, with an algae-laden stream running down the middle and kudzu ash, sourced from Okoyomon’s recent Earthseed exhibit in Germany, falling from the ceiling in a kind of wake, a ritual burning of the invasive Japanese vine that was used to prevent soil erosion in the cotton-growing south and became a metaphor for the suppression of Blacks after slavery ended.

Boulders piled like cairns evoke rituals as well as spirits in immersive exhibition (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“The creation of Earthseed started this ever-flourishing garden of kudzu, which was allowed to evolve and escape and be truly wild,” Okoyomon explains in a statement. “At the end, it had to be killed: It couldn’t be transplanted to a new environment because it’s a monster. And the way I had to burn it all and the way that ash gets to have a new life here, it seemed the only reconcilable wake we could do for it, and one that would reflect the timeline of death we’ve been in. 2020 was the reckoning of death, and we’re still living in it. We have to face it and live in it and allow it to change us and be changed by it.”

Timed, limited fifteen-minute admission is free with advance RSVP; we were fortunate to go on a rainy afternoon and spend more than a half hour by ourselves in the space, sitting by the trickling stream, following the paths laid out on the gravel, and gently touching the hollow boulders, piled like cairns, in order to feel the vibration of the soundtrack, which features such found noises as construction. The haunting sound design is by Dion McKenzie, with lighting by Jørgen Skjaervold.

Precious Okoyomon’s installation offers visitors an opportunity to reflect, grieve, and revive (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The work also features a poem, “Weather report,” by the Brooklyn-based Okoyomon (Ajebota, But Did U Die?) that begins, “Today i wake up still the assemblage associated distortions bewilder me / IN THIS WORLD I AM A SHAPESHIFTER / FRAGMENTED BODY PERCEPTIONS AS HIGHER VIBRATION FREQUENCIES TO GOD / In the supernatural sky / I was restful as I had reached my place of salvation / The surface as a material structure neither heaven nor solace / Only the wind / Only quenched light / Lulled into covering until everything was the same / soul object well formed / the irreducible always already truth / Hidden in the trees / It is nothing i am here i am still here.” Visitors are encouraged to leave a little token behind as part of a community garden of objects, a reminder of solace and salvation.

NEW CAMERATA OPERA: THE BROOKLYN JOB

New Camerata Opera attempts to pull off an interactive, immersive virtual art heist in The Brooklyn Job

Who: New Camerata Opera
What: Virtual world premiere
Where: New Camerata Opera Zoom
When: Thursday, May 6, and Saturday, May 8, $40-$160, 8:00
Why: On March 18, 1990, thieves broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and got away with thirteen masterpieces worth half a billion dollars; you can learn more about the still-unsolved crime in the new Netflix documentary This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist. Immersive specialists New Camerata Opera will be pulling off its own interactive, virtual museum heist this week with the premiere of The Brooklyn Job. Written and directed by Sarah Morgan Ashey, the piece, debuting May 6 and 8 at 8:00 over Zoom as part of the sixth annual New York Opera Fest, mixes prerecorded elements filmed and edited by Erik Bagger with live performance, featuring sopranos Samina Aslam and Barbara Porto, mezzo-sopranos Eva Parr, Julia Tang, and Anna Tonna, tenors Victor Khodadad and Bagger, baritones Stan Lacy and Scott Lindroth, and bass Kofi Hayford. Dan Franklin Smith is the music director. New Camerata Opera has presented such online works as Julie, the nine-episode Ives Project, and The Prince von Pappenschmear, a Prequel during the pandemic lockdown; The Brooklyn Job is a participatory opera that invites viewers to take polls and, for an additional fee, order a cocktail box (by May 3) that comes with a Woman in Gray, Sunlight Effect, or Rhubarb Spritz, spiced caramel popcorn, and an art-focused interactive program guide.

ASK THE EXPERTS: STEFAN FALKE

Who: Stefan Falke
What: Illustrated discussion live on Zoom
Where: Coney Island USA online
When: Wednesday, April 21, $5, 7:00
Why: We have known photojournalist Stefan Falke for several decades and have enjoyed watching his career soar. The award-winning German-born, NYC-based photographer travels the world, documenting stilt walkers in the Caribbean (“Moko Jumbies: The Dancing Spirits of Trinidad”), artists on either side of the southern border (“LA FRONTERA: Artists along the US–Mexico Border”), film shoots, and, for his latest project, New Yorkers during the time of Covid in Keep Going New York!, celebrating the spirit of the city as it battles a pandemic, economic distress, and sociopolitical rage. On April 21 at 7:00, Falke, whose work is represented in “The Flag Project” at Rockefeller Center through the end of the month, will talk about his work in the popular Coney Island USA series “Ask the Experts,” which used to take place at the Coney Island Museum but is currently being held over Zoom. The series continues April 28 with lover-of-the-unusual Marc Hartzman, May 5 with visual artist and Wild Style director Charlie Ahearn, and May 12 with Sideshows by the Seashore painter Marie Roberts.