this week in art

HENRY CHALFANT: ART vs. TRANSIT, 1977-1987

(photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Henry Chalfant’s train photos fill up a wall and more at Bronx Museum exhibit (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Bronx Museum of the Arts
1040 Grand Concourse at 165th St.
Through March 8, free
718-681-6000
www.bronxmuseum.org

In 1985, the MTA began its Arts for Transit and Urban Design program (now known as MTA Arts & Design), connecting art with public transportation. But before that, art and transit went together like oil and water; hence the name of a fab exhibit that continues at the Bronx Museum through March 8, “Henry Chalfant: Art vs. Transit, 1977–1987,” the title of which was also inspired by the late graffiti artist SHY147. After arriving in New York City from Pittsburgh in 1973 and beginning as a sculptor, Chalfant was quickly enamored with street art, train graffiti, and hip-hop culture and started documenting it. Since train graffiti was impermanent — in addition to the MTA relentlessly trying to clean trains, other taggers and writers would spray paint right over existing tags — his photographs often became the only evidence of the work, so much so that soon graffiti artists would call him up to ask him to take pictures of trains and buildings they’d tagged. Chalfant would go to aboveground stations such as Intervale Avenue and East Tremont on the 2 and 5 lines and take multiple photos with his 35mm camera as trains whizzed by; he would then develop the photos and splice them together to create panoramic shots of full trains.

(photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Duster UA visits re-creation of Henry Chalfant’s SoHo studio (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

This first US museum retrospective, which was curated by Spanish graffiti artist SUSO33 for the Centro de Arte Tomás y Valiente in Madrid, includes dozens of Chalfant’s long, rectangular photographs, hung on the walls one above another, from floor to ceiling, exploding in a glorious blaze of colors and shapes, with wild lettering and cartoonish characters. Among the artists whose work he preserved on film are Dondi, Futura, Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones, Zephyr, Blade, Crash, DAZE, Dez, Kel, Mare, SEEN, Skeme, and T-Kid, some of whom are interviewed for a short film made by multimedia, multidisciplinary artist, producer, and chronicler Sacha Jenkins. I was fortunate enough to watch the film, which is screened continuously within a re-creation of Chalfant’s SoHo studio, alongside a graffiti artist who added biting commentary about some of the figures in the film and pointed out one of his pieces as it passed by.

(photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Life-size cloth murals are arranged like train cars at the Bronx museum (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

In the back room, a series of wooden structures are covered with full-length cloth murals to replicate spray-painted subway cars at actual size, while dozens of Chalfant’s photos are projected at the top of a wall at one end of the room, roaring into the station, then pulling out, complete with sound effects. Also on view are some of Chalfant’s notebooks and more than a hundred photographs of the burgeoning street hip-hop culture as well as newspaper and magazine articles and other ephemera. “The story of the neglected children of NYC, victims of poverty, racism, poor schools lacking art and music instruction who overcame their circumstances with creative expression, is a powerful and inspiring one,” Chalfant says in the beautiful bilingual catalog. “There are plenty of examples in the various cultures that emerged from the mean streets of New York that have been a powerful inspiration to youth everywhere. I’m happy and proud to be bringing it home.” The catalog also features essays by Jenkins, Sharp, SUSO33, and Carlos Mare.

Chalfant, a Stanford grad whose 1984 collaboration with Martha Cooper, Subway Art, is the bible of the genre and who coproduced with director Tony Silver the seminal 1983 documentary Style Wars, did the world a great service by capturing these works of art, which turned drab silver train cars into canvases of free expression, where men and women on the margins could scream out for all to experience. Be on the lookout for such photos as “Dondi,” “EYE JAMMIE by AOne,” “Mad (by Seen),” “Style Wars by Noc 167,” and “Stop the Bomb.”

Exhibit extends past New York and into other cities where hip-hop and graffiti blossomed (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Exhibit extends past New York and into other cities where hip-hop and graffiti blossomed (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

On March 6, the Bronx Museum will host a free screening of Chalfant’s award-winning 2006 documentary, From Mambo to Hip-Hop: A South Bronx Tale; advance registration is recommended here. Also at the museum is the eye-opening “José Parlá: It’s Yours,” a major solo show by the Miami-born, longtime Bronx resident and former street artist known as “Ease”; his dazzling paintings and collages require up-close viewing to fully experience his exploration of gentrification and systemic racism while also celebrating street art and the Bronx.

PERFORMANCES INSPIRED BY ALFRED JARRY

DJ Spooky (photo courtesy Subliminal Kid Inc.) and Tony Torn and Julie Atlas Muz (photo by Max Basch) will pay tribute to Alfred Jarry at the Morgan on February 28

DJ Spooky (top, photo courtesy Subliminal Kid Inc.) and Tony Torn and Julie Atlas Muz (bottom, photo by Max Basch) will pay tribute to Alfred Jarry at the Morgan on February 28

Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Friday, February 28, $25, 7:00
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org

In conjunction with its current exhibit “Alfred Jarry: The Carnival of Being,” the Morgan is hosting a special event on February 28, bringing together a wide range of performers celebrating the vast influence of Jarry, the French Symbolist who died in 1907 at the age of thirty-four, having left behind an important legacy of plays (Ubu Roi), novels (Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician), essays (The Green Candle), illustrations, and more. The evening includes musical excerpts from actor Tony Torn and Julie Atlas Muz’s Ubu Sings Ubu, a mashup of Ubu Roi and songs by Cleveland art-punk provocateurs Pere Ubu; a screening of British speculative sculptor Lawrence Lek’s two-minute 2010 film The Time Machine, “a translation of surrealist science fiction into physical form” based on Jarry’s 1899 essay “How to Construct a Time Machine”; “Reading Jarry,” a collaboration between DJ Spooky and Belgian actor and producer Ronald Guttman; and live scoring by DJ Spooky to clips from the late Polish graphic designer and cartoonist Jan Lenica’s 1979 film, Ubu et la grande Gidouille. The program begins at 7:00, but ticket holders are invited to check out the exhibition, which continues through May 10, beginning at 6:00.

NOAH DAVIS

Noah Davis,  1975 (8), oil on canvas in artist's frame, 2013 (courtesy David Zwirner)

Noah Davis, 1975 (8), oil on canvas in artist’s frame, 2013 (courtesy David Zwirner)

David Zwirner
525 and 533 West 20th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through February 22, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.davidzwirner.com

Doug Wheeler’s immersive light installation 49 Nord 6 Est 68 Ven 12 FL at David Zwirner is supposed to make you feel dizzy, but it’s the Noah Davis painting retrospective that will make you go weak in the knees. The Washington-born artist, who died of a rare form of cancer in 2015 at the age of thirty-two, left behind a dazzling legacy, both in his exquisitely beautiful and affecting canvases as well as his cofounding of the Underground Museum in LA with his wife, sculptor Karon Davis, and his brother, filmmaker Kahlil Joseph. “He made some four hundred paintings, collages, and sculptures, although I think it’s fair to say the deep DNA truth of Noah was that he was first and foremost a painter. His paintings are both figurative and abstract, realistic and dreamlike; they are about blackness and the history of Western painting, drawn from photographs and from life; they are exuberant and doleful in their palette,” museum board member and exhibition curator Helen Molesworth said in a statement.

Noah Davis, Untitled, oil on canvas, 2015 (courtesy David Zwirner)

Noah Davis, Untitled, oil on canvas, 2015 (courtesy David Zwirner)

The works at David Zwirner are simply staggering, breathtaking depictions of primarily black men, women, and children that often include a touch of magical realism. In an untitled painting from 2015, two girls sleep back-to-back on a couch, a partly covered figure at the left, an open door to the right, allowing us to peek into this intimate scene. In Prey, a Modigliani-esque, Giacometti-like faceless woman balances on a mountain, a deer peering off in the distance in front of her. Pueblo del Rio: Stain Glass Pants bursts to life with colorful geometric shapes and patterns that extend to every corner. The pool scene 1975 (8) offers a unique counterpart to David Hockney. Hung side by side, it appears that the pianist in Pueblo del Rio: Concerto is playing for the six dancers in Pueblo del Rio: Arabesque. Mark Rothko is specifically referenced in The “Fitz,” two very different depictions of a house. And in the surreal Imaginary Enemy, a man on fire is walking toward a second man wearing a strange item on his head and stepping on a giant golden bracelet that is taller than him.

Noah Davis, Imaginary Enemy, oil on wood panel, 2009 (courtesy David Zwirner)

Noah Davis, Imaginary Enemy, oil on wood panel, 2009 (courtesy David Zwirner)

The hand of the artist is vividly present in works that are superbly composed with a spectacular use of color, giving the paintings a visceral quality that gets down into your soul. As I walked around the gallery spaces, I saw other viewers who seemed to be experiencing the same power, immersed in Davis’s palpable world view. In the back room, Zwirner has re-created part of the Underground Museum, with two models of shows he was curating, family photographs, a bookshelf, a sculpture of a child by Karon Davis, Shelby George furniture designed by Davis’s mother, Faith Childs-Davis, and a video loop playing Joseph’s BLKNWS, a two-channel alternative news station that will come to BAM next month. The overall museum-quality exhibition is dizzying, in only the best way, a fitting tribute to a supremely talented artist who left us too soon.

ARTIST TALK AND MORE: RACHEL FEINSTEIN AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM

(photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Rachel Feinstein will discuss her survey exhibition at the Jewish Museum on February 13 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Jewish Museum, Scheuer Auditorium
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
Thursday, February 13, $12-$18, 6:30
Exhibit continues through March 22, $8-$18, pay-what-you-wish Thursday from 5:00 – 8:00, free Saturday
212-423-3200
thejewishmuseum.org

Rachel Feinstein’s first survey exhibition, “Maiden, Mother, Crone” at the Jewish Museum, leads visitors down the Arizona-born, New York City-based multidisciplinary artist’s unique rabbit hole, an abstract wonderland where mythology, fairy tales, religious iconography, sexuality, and family are interwoven through a distinctly feminist lens. Mirrors figure prominently, allowing us to take a close look at ourselves and our innate biases. In conjunction with the show, Feinstein will give the Gertrude and David Fogelson Lecture at the museum on February 13, followed by a book signing of the companion monograph. The exhibit is fashioned like a fantastical trip though winding pathways with life-size statues, maquettes, paintings, film, and installation that are not always what they initially seem. A former fashion model who studied at Columbia, Feinstein creates works layered with nuance and filled with little surprises.

Model, a wood, plaster, and enamel paint construction with mirrors, is flanked by St. Sebastian and St. Michael, equating pop culture and religion. One room features Goldstein, a white-painted, carefully carved wood wall that evokes a tropical getaway, while another offers Panorama of Rome, Mylar wallpaper of Ancient Roman architecture surrounding such classical-inspired statuary as Corinne, a swirling Majolica piece made with the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory and based on an eighteenth-century Commedia dell’Arte figurine; The Orphan and Bleeding Shepherdess, which subvert convention with frank images of the female body and its functions; and Butterfly and Puritan’s Delight, which play with fairy-tale tropes.

(photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Rachel Feinstein’s fantastical fairy-tale world will be on view at the Jewish Museum through March 22 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Also on view are the stained wood Adam and Eve, which intertwines the biblical couple with nature in the Garden of Eden; a yearning depiction of the Crucifixion, Feinstein’s first work after having witnessed the destruction on 9/11 from her downtown apartment; the colorful Flower Girl, a Play-Doh-like youth with animals congregating all over her; Mr. Time, a fanciful black-and-white working clock based on a drawing by Feinstein’s son when he was ten; and a series of six cameo-like paintings of women on oval mirrors, five elderly ladies and a younger prima ballerina.

The inherent tension in Feinstein’s oeuvre, involving color, materials, and meaning in a kind of twisting of Hans Christian Andersen and Lewis Carroll, is also evident in her 1994-96 experimental short film Spring and Winter, in which she reconfigures Charles Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty story with an eye to the source material, Giambattista Basile’s Sun, Moon, and Talia, which was not so child friendly, as well as the true story of Art and Nan Kellam, a couple who lived in isolation on an island off the coast of Maine; in the film, Feinstein portrays a paper doll, a maiden, and a crone. There’s a theatricality to virtually everything Feinstein creates; in fact, her 2014 Folly installation in Madison Square Park was accompanied by a performance festival. “Maiden, Mother, Crone” continues through March 22; on March 12 ($18, 6:30), the panel discussion “Dialogue and Discourse — Once Upon a Time: Narrative in Art” features Feinstein with Lisa Yuskavage, Sofia Coppola, Tamara Jenkins, and Florence Welch, moderated by curator Kelly Taxter, and there will be such special gallery talks as “Mirrors of Civilization” and “The Dark Side of Fairy Tales” as well as Thursday Evening Cocktails through February, where attendees can try Feinstein’s potent potable of choice, the Negroni, an Italian favorite consisting of gin, vermouth rosso, and Campari.

FANFAIRE NYC

fanfaire nyc

The High School of Art and Design
245 East 56th St.
Saturday, February 8, and Sunday, February 9, $5-$15 per day, $10-$20 two-day pass, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.fanfairenyc.com

Fanfaire NYC takes place this weekend, a two-day festival celebrating cartooning, animation, graphic design, architecture, and fashion. An annual benefit for the High School of Art and Design, the multidimensional fest features more than 125 artists and vendors, talks and panels, workshops, costume contests, video games, movie screenings, and portfolio reviews. This year’s guests range from artists and professors to cosplayers and editors, from character designers and executives to writers and high school alum, including Neal Adams, Abe Audish, Bob Camp, Klaus Janson, Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear, and David Mazzucchelli. Founded in 1936, the High School of Art and Design, which is a public school, has boasted such graduates as Adams, Tony Bennett, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Art Spiegelman, Amy Heckerling, and Steven Meisel. Below are only some of the highlights:

Saturday, February 8
Graphic Design & Illustration Portfolio Review, with Joann Hill and Cryssy Cheung, Library, sixth floor, advance registration required, 10:00 am

Careers in Animation, with Bob Camp, Sachio Cook, Chrissy Fellmeth, and Abe Audish, moderated by Kiara Arias and Jaydan Hyman, Black Box, LL2, 10:30

Tracing Is Not a Crime, with Neal Adams, moderated by Josh Adams, Classroom 1, sixth floor, 10:30

My Life in Ink, with tattoo artist Keith “BANG BANG” McCurdy, Black Box, LL2, 12:00

Breaking into Comics and Other Tales, with Klaus Janson, moderated by Chris Allo, Black Box, LL2, 1:30

Storytelling in Comics with David Mazzucchelli, Classroom 1, sixth floor, 3:00

Mythconceptions — Behind the Scenes of George O’Connor’s Olympians, with George O’Connor, Black Box, LL2, 4:30

Sunday, February 9
Ink Flow: Learning to Ink Like Neal Adams, with Neal Adams, moderated by Josh Adams, Classroom 1, sixth floor, 10:00 am

Freelance isn’t Free — How to Build Yourself as an Artist and Run a Business, with Lucinda Lewis, Chrissy Fellmeth, Nik Virella, and Cristian S. Aluas, moderated by Miss Kill Joy, Auditorium, LL2, 12:00

Cosplay Competition: People’s Choice Masquerade, Auditorium, LL2, 2:00 – 5:00

Inside the Art of Sequential Visual Storytelling, with Carl Potts, Black Box, LL2, 2:30

Children’s Books: More than Drawing Cute Bunnies, with Joann Hill, Classroom 3, sixth floor, 3:00

DYNAMIC DUO: The art of last impressions, slide presentation, discussion, and book signing, with Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear, and Charles Kochman, Black Box, LL2, 4:00 – 6:00

FIRST SATURDAYS: FUTURA NOIR

Common will sit down for a fireside chat as part of Brooklyn Museum First Saturday program this week

Common will sit down for a fireside chat as part of Brooklyn Museum First Saturday program this week

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, February 1, free (some events require advance tickets), 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum has a wide-ranging program with several surprises for its annual Black History Month edition of its free First Saturday gathering. There will be live performances by Topaz Jones, Niles Luther, NVR Sleep (Rodney Hazard, Mikey, Fab Roc, and ClassicNewWave), and Bri Blvck; an Ancestral Healing sound bath from HealHaus, with intention-setting by Omar Davis and a sound bath facilitated by Phyllicia Bonanno; a screening of Billy Gerard Frank’s 2019 short film Second Eulogy: Mind the Gap, followed by a talkback with artist and activist Renee Cox, artist Christopher Udemezue, and Frank, moderated by writer and curator Ebony L. Haynes; a Scholar Talk with Niama Safia Sandy on race, power, nationalism, and imperialism; a curator tour of “Jacques-Louis David Meets Kehinde Wiley” led by Lisa Small and Eugenie Tsai; teen apprentice pop-up gallery talks focusing on works by Black artists in the American Art galleries; a hands-on art workshop where participants can make an urban garden, inspired by Kehinde Wiley; a poetry reading with Osyris Antham, Chanice Hughes-Greenberg, and Cyrée Jarelle Johnson; and “Real People: A Fireside Chat with Common,” a conversation with artist, actor, and activist Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn), moderated by Peloton cycling instructor Tunde Oyeneyin. In addition, the galleries will be open late so you can check out “Jacques-Louis David Meets Kehinde Wiley,” “Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection,” “One: Xu Bing,” “JR: Chronicles,” and more.

ANTONY GORMLEY AT PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley, rendering of New York Clearing (© the artist)

Who: Antony Gormley
What: Artist talk at Parsons School of Design addressing the question “What is sculpture good for?”
Where: The New School, the Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West Twelfth St.
When: Tuesday, February 4, free with advance registration, 6:00
Why: On February 4, British sculptor Antony Gormley will be at Parsons School of Design to discuss his latest work, New York Clearing, which will be on view in Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 3 from February 5 to March 27. The “drawing in space,” consisting of eighteen kilometers of looping and coiling square aluminum tubing, is part of the global project CONNECT, BTS, organized by K-pop sensation BTS. “It’s a truth universally acknowledged that creativity can transcend the boundaries of language, culture, and history,” the superstar boy group explains on the official website. “Art embodies a will to respond to the world, and to communicate that response to others; it is always there, no matter what the era, moving with or despite the times. . . . CONNECT, BTS reaches for a collective experience that might be only the beginning of new communication between art, music, and people.” Curated by Daehyung Lee, CONNECT, BTS also includes Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s Catharsis in London, the performance series Rituals of Care curated by Stephanie Rosenthal and Noémie Solomon in Berlin, and Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno’s Aerocene Pacha in Buenos Aires, as well as a yet-to-be-named work in Seoul. “Art only becomes art when it is shared,” the London-born Gormley, whose Event Horizon dazzled and frightened people in Madison Square Park nearly ten years ago, has said. Admission to the February 4 discussion is free with advance registration.