this week in art

EBONY G. PATTERSON: . . . things come to thrive . . . in the shedding . . . in the molting . . .

A vulture spies human feet under a wall of plants in bloodred pond in Ebony G. Patterson installation at NYBG (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

. . . things come to thrive . . . in the shedding . . . in the molting . . .
The New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx
Tuesday – Sunday through October 22, $15 children two to twelve, $31 students and seniors, $35 adults, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
718-817-8700
www.nybg.org
ebonygpatterson.com
online slide show

“I’m going to give you a show that you’ve not had before,” artist Ebony G. Patterson promised New York Botanical Garden curator Joanna L. Groarke upon preparing for the exhibition “. . . things come to thrive . . . in the shedding . . . in the molting . . . ,” which has just been extended at NYBG through October 22, 2023.

The Jamaica native has done just that, presenting a wide-ranging display that incorporates sculpture, installation, video, collage, and an interactive element, “Things to Be Remembered,” which asks visitors to answer the question “What have you . . . missed . . . felt . . . loved . . . learned . . . witnessed . . . needed . . . heard . . . that you never want to forget?”

“Ebony is the first visual artist to create art at the garden through an immersive residency,” NYBG CEO Jennifer Bernstein said at the preview in May. “This exhibition celebrates the allure of the beautiful while contemplating what lies beneath the enticing surface, the complex tensions of the natural world, and how they reflect the entanglements of race, gender, and colonialism.”

The exhibition features nearly five hundred black foam turkey vultures congregating around the lawn outside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and inside the massive greenhouse, as if they’re anticipating a kind of destruction, along with hand-cast glass sculptures of body parts and extinct plants, out in the open and hidden within the confines. You can also hear Patterson’s voice in the soundscape. In the LuEsther T. Mertz Library Building, there are works from Patterson’s “studies from a vocabulary of loss” series, consisting of framed collages with cut-paper flowers and reaching hands, plastic insects, feathered butterflies, and such words as liability, should, wreckage, and goodbye kiss.

The library rotunda is home to . . . fester . . . , a stunning ten-foot horizontal piece laden with woven jacquard fabrics, vertebrae, hand-blown black and white glass plants, and more than a thousand red gloves spreading out onto the floor; yet more vultures hover on ledges above floral patterned wallpaper. Visitors can walk inside the three-channel video installation The Observation: The Bush Cockerel Project, a Fictitious Historical Narrative, in which costumed characters wander through a primordial garden, climate change surrounding the proceedings like, well, vultures.

In putting together the show, Patterson, who lives and works in Kingston and Chicago, was concerned with loss, healing, and regeneration; the intersection of art, horticulture, and science; living and dead plants as ghosts and skeletons; and the materiality of objects, recognizing that both Jamaica and America are postcolonial societies facing problematic issues of income inequality and social injustice.

“What does it mean to think about the word gardens associated with places that are working-class spaces in contrast to a place that is a wealthy neighborhood?” she said. “What does it mean to think about a garden as a site of survival, as a site of social survival? What does it then also mean to think about gardens as it relates to communities that are given particular kinds of care in terms of what is thought of as a space of investment of possibility, and what does it also then mean to think about those gardens that are not given consideration for possibility of care but thrive regardless because that is what happens in nature? Things live on, irrespective of what one puts in nature’s way.”

The centerpiece of the exhibit in the conservatory is an immersive structure topped by a white peacock, as if the rest of the installation bursts from its feathers, ending in a bloodred pond in another room where a wall of plants has seemingly fallen from the sky, a pair of white glass legs sticking out like the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East after Dorothy’s house crushes her in The Wizard of Us. Patterson, who had never before been to NYBG before beginning this project but is a regular at the Hope Botanical Gardens and the adjoining Hope Zoo Kingston in her hometown of Kingston, had only recently seen a rare white peacock there for the first time in her life.

“In seeing this peacock, the peacock was in molting, and it was in a dark enclosure, and the peacock just kind of hovered in the space, ebbing and flowing,” she explained at the preview. “It almost seemed like it was a haunt. And so thinking about what the peacock is — this incredibly beautiful bird with all of its pageantry — and to see it at its ugliest moment remained with me for a year. And so in thinking about that, I couldn’t help but think about the question of what does it mean to witness your ugliness. And so for me, unpacking the garden, in a moment of molting, in a moment of transformation, is about witnessing our collective ugliness, that even in the ugliness, beauty is possible, and in that possibility, we will always find new ways ahead.”

Ebony G. Patterson’s “studies from a vocabulary of loss” are framed collages containing words amid flowers, hands, insects, butterflies, and other elements (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Patterson was also inspired by her residency at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Arkansas, where she developed such works as . . . bugs, reptile, fruit, and bush . . . for those who bear/bare witness.

At the preview, I had a chance to speak with Patterson, whose other projects include “Gangstas for Life,” “Disciplez,” and “Invisible Presence: Bling Memories,” a performative piece with embellished coffins.

twi-ny: The first time you ever came to the New York Botanical Garden was in 2019. What were your first impressions walking the grounds?

egp: At the time, there was a show by Roberto Burle Marx [“Brazilian Modern: The Living Art of Roberto Burle Marx”], who is a Brazilian artist.

twi-ny: Oh, I loved that show.

egp: Yeah, I mean, the sense of sprawl, and there’s a particular kind of splendor that also exists here, as a place like this does because of its expanse. And then also too because part of its mandate is to create a space of beauty. But then I think the other thing that I was also struck by was the demographics. So I was also also very aware of, oh, who are the people that spend time here? Who are the people that spend a lot of time here? And then I had to say that in thinking about the project, I thought about those people a lot. I thought I would hear stories about women who would come during particular seasons, to see particular flowers, and fussing about the fact that a flower doesn’t grow the same way the next season.

But I think about those people. And also too in terms of how this is such a heightened visual experience. Not everybody goes to museums. For some people the garden is their ultimate visual experience. So what does it mean also to disrupt that for a person so that they also think about this place differently in the same way that one would think about an exhibition very differently when one goes to a museum? Each exhibition presents something different. And I sat with that a lot over the course of thinking through the ideas here.

twi-ny: And you were given pretty much carte blanche to go and do what you needed to do?

egp: Correct. Yes. And the gardens . . . I mean, there were some things that I had proposed that I wanted us to explore that were a little difficult to do, given the time. So there is carte blanche and there is carte blanche, right? But that being said, a lot of this is truly a collaboration because as much as I use plants and I think about using plants in relation to history, all of the knowledge about what it means to grow a plant at a particular time, what it is, how it lives with something else, is not something that I consider at all.

And I come from a place of thinking about things as a painter. So I rely very heavily then on the knowledge of the people who are here, in the same way that I would rely on the knowledge of somebody who works in glass. I love glass materially, but ask me, can I go and forge it, do what’s necessary to make it whole myself? No. Can I sew? It’s the same . . . We all rely on the knowledge base of other people to make things possible, and artists are no different in that history.

twi-ny: Mentioning museums, “Dead Treez” was at the Museum of Arts & Design in 2016. Do you see a direct link between the NYBG show and that one?

egp: Oh, absolutely. When MAD gave me that opportunity in the Tiffany Galleries to make a garden inside their galleries, that was such a huge shift in my own practice. But then also too for MAD, it was a new point of departure for them, for them to be inviting an artist to curate a selection of objects. But then I had the show that was also running concurrently [“. . . while the dew is still on the roses . . .” at Pérez Art Museum Miami], and I was like, “How do I make these two things speak to each other?”

So I think for me, the Museum of Arts & Design project that I did in those Tiffany cases is essentially the seed that’s continued to grow over these years. It’s the very thing that ended up also growing the Pérez show, which was centered on this notion of thinking about a night garden. And then what does it also then mean to pull that all out into the living space? But also, too, the garden isn’t an art institution, but then at the same time, doing this at an art institution just would not be possible, it just wouldn’t.

[For a more personal look at the arts in New York City, follow Mark Rifkin on Substack here.]

MATTHEW BARNEY: SECONDARY

Matthew Barney explores America’s obsession with violence and sports in Secondary (image courtesy Matthew Barney Studio, © Matthew Barney / photo by Julieta Cervantes)

SECONDARY
Matthew Barney Studio
4-40 Forty-Fourth Dr., Long Island City
Through June 25, free, noon – 8:00 pm
secondary.matthewbarney.net
online slideshow

It was the hit heard round the world.

On August 12, 1978, the New England Patriots were playing a preseason game against the Oakland Raiders at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Late in the second quarter, the Pats have a third and eight at the Raiders twenty-four-yard line. QB Steve Grogan calls the 94 Slant, and wide receiver Darryl Stingley heads downfield. At the ten-yard line, Stingley reaches for the overthrown pass and is crushed in midair by two-time Raiders All-Pro safety Jack Tatum, known as the Assassin for his punishing style of play. Stingley immediately crumples to the ground. Four Oakland defenders look down at Stingley and walk away; Patriots wide receiver Russ Francis stands over his fallen teammate, knowing something is wrong. The twenty-six-year-old Stingley is wheeled off the field on a stretcher, a quadriplegic for the rest of his life; he died in 2007 at the age of fifty-five. Tatum wasn’t penalized on the play and never apologized to Stingley, claiming it was a legal hit and that he had done nothing wrong. Tatum, who died in 2010 at the age of sixty-one, was also involved in the Immaculate Reception on December 23, 1972, in a playoff game against the Steelers; with twenty-two seconds left and Pittsburgh down by one, future Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw was facing a fourth and ten from his own forty. He ran to his right and threw a pass down the middle. Tatum smashed into Steelers running back Frenchy Fuqua, the ball popped up into the air, and future Hall of Famer Franco Harris picked it up by his shoestrings and ran forty yards into the end zone for the winning score.

Filmmaker and installation artist Matthew Barney was eleven years old when Tatum pummeled Stingley. Seeing the collision over and over again on replay did not prevent Barney from becoming a star quarterback in high school in Idaho. But at Yale, he switched from sports to art, beginning his “Drawing Restraint” series in 1987 and making his Jim Otto Suite in 1991–92, about orifices, bodily fluids, energy, Harry Houdini, and Raiders Hall of Fame center Jim Otto, who wore the number double zero, mimicking the letters at the beginning and end of his palindromic last name.

Barney is now saying farewell to his longtime Long Island City studio with Secondary, a five-channel video installation that uses the Tatum-Stingley play to explore violence in athletic competition. Barney has transformed the studio, which is right on the East River, into a football stadium, with a long, artificial turf surface divided into geometric patterns of different colors, centered by his “Field Emblem,” his Cremaster logo, an ellipse with a line going through it, evoking –0-. There are monitors in all four corners of the field, along with a three-sided mini-jumbotron hanging from the ceiling. Visitors can sit on the field or a bench; there is also a painting on the wall, an owners booth filled with football paraphernalia, and a ditch with broken piping and mud dug into the concrete. Outside, on the facade facing the water, there is a digital countdown clock next to graffiti that says, “Saboroso,” which means “delicious.”

Written and directed by Barney, photographed by Soren Nielsen, and edited by Kate Williams, the film lasts sixty minutes, the length of a football game. It kicks off with indigenous rights activist Jacquelyn Deshchidn, a Two-Spirit Chiricahua Apache and Isleta Pueblo soprano, composer, poet, and public speaker, performing an alternate national anthem, a none-too-subtle jab at a league that still has teams using offensive Native American names and imagery. The cast, primarily consisting of dancers and choreographers, features movement director David Thomson as Stingley; Raphael Xavier as Tatum; Shamar Watt as Raiders safety Lester “the Molester” Hayes; Wally Cardona as Grogan; Ted Johnson as Francis; Isabel Crespo Pardo, Kyoko Kitamura, and Jeffrey Gavett as the line judges and referees; Barney as Raiders Hall of Fame QB Ken “the Snake” Stabler, who died of colon cancer but who was discovered to have had high Stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the disease that affects so many football players, brought on by getting hit so much in the head; and Thomas Kopache as Raiders owner Al Davis, whose motto was “Just win, baby,” no matter the cost. (Football fans will also notice cameos by actors portraying such Raiders favorites as wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff and defensive end John “the Tooz” Matuszak, who became an actor and died in 1989 at the age of thirty-eight from an opioid overdose.) The actors are generally much older than the people they represent, several of whom never made it to the age the performers are today.

Matthew Barney has turned his LIC studio into a multimedia installation (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The experimental film does not have a traditional chronological narrative; instead, Barney focuses on Tatum, Hayes, and Stingley training in slow motion in equipment rooms as if preparing for a ballet, Grogan making a football out of a gooey substance and then practicing with it, members of Raiders Nation shouting and cheering in fierce black-and-silver Halloween-like costumes, and players venturing into the muddy ditch, the broken pipe echoing Stingley’s shattered body. The music, by sound designer Jonathan Bepler, envelops the audience in a parade of noises, from hums and breathing to clangs and screams. Shots of the Manhattan skyline and the East River beckon to another life outside. The screens sometimes display the same footage, while other times they are different; it is like the viewer is at a football game, with the choice whether to watch the quarterback, the defensive alignment, or other fans in the stands. There is no actual pigskin in the film.

The game of football has always been lionized for its violence. Even as the league changes rules to try to protect the quarterback, kick returners, and receivers, the sports networks repeatedly show brutal hits like the one on Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa against the Cincinnati Bengals that resulted in severe head and neck injuries. When we think of Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann, the first thing we remember is the career-ending injury he suffered on Monday Night Football in 1985 at the hands of New York Giants linebackers Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson, brutally shattering his leg, and not his 1982–83 MVP season when he led his team to a Super Bowl victory over the Dolphins.

But Barney (River of Fundament, “Subliming Vessel”) is not merely commenting on football. Secondary is about America itself, its rituals and celebrations, its embracing of violence on and off the field. It’s about our lack of respect for the human body and one another, about a country torn apart into blue and red states like opposing teams, ready to do whatever is necessary to just win, baby.

DAVID BOWIE WORLD FAN CONVENTION: DERYCK TODD’S BOWIEBALL

DAVID BOWIE WORLD FAN CONVENTION: DERYCK TODD’S BOWIEBALL
Racket
431 West Sixteenth St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Saturday, June 17, 8:00, $96.83
Sold-out convention runs June 16-18
bowieconvention.com
www.bowerypresents.com

In the introduction to his revised and updated 2016 book The Complete David Bowie, Nicholas Pegg writes, “If you want to enjoy David Bowie’s work to the full, keep an open mind. What makes Bowie such a supremely fascinating artist is that his career presents an implicit challenge to conventional notions of creative continuity. He has repeatedly confounded attempts to pigeonhole him as this or that kind of artist, and the result has been one of rock music’s longest and most successful careers.”

While his career came to an end in January 2016 when the man born David Jones in Brixton died at the age of sixty-nine, the fascination with the Thin White Duke continues unabated, with museum exhibitions such as the spectacular “David Bowie Is” at the Brooklyn Museum, the pandemic livestream benefits “A Bowie Celebration” featuring a multitude of music stars, and the release of a series of posthumous live albums and box sets.

Pegg will serve as compère for the 2023 David Bowie World Fan Convention, taking place June 17 and 18 at Racket, the Chelsea club formerly known as the High Line Ballroom, where Bowie curated the inaugural High Line Festival in 2007, putting together a lineup that included Ricky Gervais, Arcade Fire, Air, Laurie Anderson, Deerhoof, the Polyphonic Spree, Daniel Johnston, Bang on a Can All Stars, and others. The convention, which has a bonus VIP day on June 16, features panel discussions, live performances, and a trivia evening; tickets are still available for Deryck Todd’s “BowieBall” Saturday night, with a “Best Dressed Bowie” costume contest, drag and burlesque, dancing, and live performances by vocalist Ava Cherry, musician and writer Jeff Slate, and Bowie DJs TheMenWhoFell2Earth. This year’s convention honors the fortieth anniversary of Let’s Dance and the fiftieth anniversary of Aladdin Sane, two of Bowie’s most popular records.

Below is the full schedule. In addition, Modern Rocks Gallery is hosting a photography exhibit at the Maker’s Studio in Chelsea Market, with pictures by Sukita, Terry O’Neill, Dennis O’Regan, Kevin Cummins, Brian Aris, and Duffy and an exclusive limited edition print of John Rowlands’s “The Archer.” And you can’t go wrong by starting the weekend with Raquel Cion’s one-woman show, Me & Mr. Jones: My Intimate Relationship with David Bowie, at the Cutting Room on Friday night; held in association with the convention, it is a personal and poignant exploration of fandom and the impact Bowie has had on people’s lives.

BowieBall features a costume contest, live performances, lots of dancing, and more (photo by Sam McMahon)

Saturday, June 17
Heroes, Zeroes, and Absolute Beginners, with bassist Carmine Rojas and guitarist Kevin Armstrong, moderated by Nicholas Pegg, 10:00 am

Planet Earth Is Blue, with singer and multi-instrumentalist Emm Gryner and producer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Plati, on “Space Oddity” performance aboard the International Space Station, Toy, the Hours Tour, and more, 11:00

Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fashion, with fashion designer Keanan Duffty and musicians Ava Cherry and Joey Arias, 12:15

Fantastic Voyage, with producer, arranger, bassist, and vocalist Tony Visconti and studio engineer and backing vocalist Erin Tonkon, moderated by Nicholas Pegg, 2:00

Golden Years, with guitarist Carlos Alomar, singer Robin Clark, and bassist George Murray, moderated by Nicholas Pegg, 3:00

BowieBall, live performances by vocalist Ava Cherry, musician and writer Jeff Slate, and Bowie DJs TheMenWhoFell2Earth, a “Best Dressed Bowie” costume contest, drag and burlesque, and more, hosted by Michael T, 8:00

Sunday, June 18
Red Shoes, Blue Jeans, and Glass Spiders, with guitarist Carlos Alomar, singer Robin Clark, and bassist Carmine Rojas, moderated by Nicholas Pegg, 11:00

I’ve Got to Write It Down, with Nacho; Chris O’Leary, author of Pushing Ahead of the Dame; Stephen Pitalo, author of Bohemian Rhapsodies, Thrillers & November Rains; and Nicholas Pegg, author of The Complete David Bowie, moderated by Nacho, 12:15

You Belong in Rock’n’Roll, with guitarist Kevin Armstrong and producer Tim Palmer, moderated by Nicholas Pegg, 2:00

Brilliant Adventure, with producer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Plati, moderated by Nicholas Pegg, 3:00

Everyone Says “Hi”: Tony Visconti and Friends, with guitarist Carlos Alomar, singer Robin Clark, studio engineer and backing vocalist Erin Tonkon, bassist George Murray, and producer Tony Visconti, moderated by Nicholas Pegg, 4:00

Nacho’s Videos Presents, with Nacho, Ava Cherry, Michael T, TheMenWhoFell2Earth, and more 5:45

Nicholas Pegg’s David Bowie Quiz, the Cutting Room, 7:30

Closing Party, with TheMenWhoFell2Earth DJs, Bowery Electric, 8:00 pm – 2:00 am

KAGAMI

Ryuichi Sakamoto extends his legacy with jaw-dropping Kagami at the Shed (photo courtesy Tin Drum)

KAGAMI
The Griffin Theater at the Shed
The Bloomberg Building at Hudson Yards
545 West 30th St. at Eleventh Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 9, $33-$38
646-455-3494
theshed.org

“I honestly don’t know how many years I have left,” composer, musician, producer, and environmental activist Ryuichi Sakamoto says in the 2017 documentary Coda. “But I know that I want to make more music. Music that I won’t be ashamed to leave behind. Meaningful work.”

The Tokyo-born Oscar and Grammy winner died this past March 28 at the age of seventy-one, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to see him perform live — sort of — ever again. Over the last nine years of his life, Sakamoto battled various types of cancer. Knowing his time on Earth was limited, he continued working, releasing the album async in 2017 and 12 just before his death, composing the scores for such films as The Revenant, Rage, The Fortress, and Love After Love, and preparing the cutting-edge project Kagami, which opens today at the Shed in Hudson Yards.

On the wall outside the theater, Sakamoto writes:

There is, in reality, a virtual me.
This virtual me will not age, and will continue to play the piano for years, decades, centuries.
Will there be humans then?
Will the squids that will conquer the earth after humanity listen to me?
What will pianos be to them?
What about music?
Will there be empathy there?

Empathy that spans hundreds of thousands of years.
Ah, but the batteries won’t last that long.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, director Todd Eckert, and Rhizomatiks work behind the scenes on Kagami (photo courtesy Tin Drum)

Kagami is a spectacular, breathtaking mixed-reality concert experienced with specially designed optically transparent devices, making it appear that Sakamoto is playing live piano, enveloped in augmented reality art. Visitors are first led into a room in the repurposed Griffin Theater with large-scale posters of Sakamoto and a screening of clips from Coda, in which he wanders through a lush forest and the Arctic, searching for the harmonies and melodies of nature. Sitting by a hole in the ice, he dips a microphone into the water and says, “I’m fishing with sound.”

The group of no more than eighty next enter another space, where chairs are set up in one row around a central area with cubic markings on the floor. Each person receives tight-fitting goggle-like glasses and, suddenly, a hologram of Sakamoto appears in the middle of the room, seated at his Yamaha grand piano; he was volumetrically captured in December 2020, during the height of Covid, by director Todd Eckert and his Tin Drum collective, which previously made the mixed-reality installation The Life with Marina Abramović.

The audience is warned before the show starts that the technology is not perfect — it turns out that the hologram is not very sharp, and it’s difficult to understand what Sakamoto says in brief introductions to two of the songs — but it’s jaw-droppingly gorgeous nonetheless. The fifty-minute concert begins with the jazzy “Before Long” from the 1987 album New Geo; as the white-haired Sakamoto tickles the ivories, smoky clouds rise from the floor and float in the air. Near the end of the number, one audience member got up and walked over to the image of Sakamoto at the piano. A few others, including me, soon joined him, and more followed. As Sakamoto played the ethereal, New Agey “Aoneko no Torso” from 1995’s Smoochy, I approached Sakamoto and slowly sauntered around the piano, seeing the maestro from all different angles, close enough to determine the length of his fingernails and follow his eye movement. Even though he’s slightly out of focus, it’s hard to believe he’s not really right there, questioning reality itself as a construct. Although you could walk through him, no one did, as if out of respect.

Over the next several songs, ranging from “The Seed and the Sower” and the title track from the 1983 film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, “Andata” from async, “Energy Flow” and “Aqua” from 1999’s BTTB, and “MUJI2020” from the “Pleasant, somehow” campaign about humanity’s responsibility to the environment, raindrops created ripples in a pond at our feet; diagonal neon lights hovered ominously over our heads; snowflakes fluttered by; multiple screens projected archival black-and-white footage of old cities and a snowstorm; and a tree grew out of the piano, its roots then digging far into the ground, mimicking the circulatory system. The highlight was when the Griffin became like the Hayden Planetarium, with stars and constellations everywhere and the spinning earth underneath, making me feel like I was floating in the air, a wee bit dizzy until I let the music bring me back.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the technology is its ability to essentially allow you to see right through anyone standing in front of you. At a concert with a real pianist, if a tall person gets in your way, you can’t see the performer. But here, they are like ghosts; you can make out their outlines but still have a clear path to Sakamoto. Of course, the other people are actually there, so you have to avoid bumping into them by using your peripheral vision.

Kagami means “mirror” in Japanese, and the show certainly makes you look at who you are both as an individual and as part of the greater environment. The special effects cause sensations reminiscent of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s thrilling Infinity Rooms, which use lights and mirrors to extend visions of our universe. The presentation is no mere money grab by an estate trying to resurrect their dead cash cow with posthumous holographic tours. Kagami is an intricately designed multimedia installation that the artist was deeply involved in; Sakamoto fashioned his own unique legacy, pushing the boundaries yet again, playing one last concert that can last forever, or at least as long as the planet he so loved and protected is still here and the batteries last.

FREE TICKET ALERT: RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL 2023

Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith will present Zero Station at R2R 2023 (photo courtesy LMCC)

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL
Multiple downtown venues
June 9-18, free
Some events require advance RSVP beginning June 1 at noon
lmcc.net/river-to-river

The twenty-second annual River to River Festival runs June 9-18, ten days of cutting-edge art, dance, music, tours, and participatory events at such locations as the Seaport, the Clemente, Governors Island, and Battery Park City. Everything is free, although advance RSVP is recommended or required for several happenings; tickets are available beginning June 1 at noon.

This year’s festival is also a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), the sponsoring organization that has been a resource for independent artists since 1973; many alumni are involved in R2R 2023 to honor that milestone.

This year’s lineup includes Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith continuing their exploration of hypersexualization, trauma, and othering in Zero Station. Antonio Ramos and the Gangbangers stage the dance-theater ceremony CEREMONIA, focusing on cultural misappropriation and reappropriation. Seventeen artists will share one-on-one encounters through a lottery in Lotto Royale. Scholar and historian Linda Jacobs will lead walking tours of Little Syria on Washington St. And Guinean musician and activist Natu Camara will close things out with a grand finale concert in Rockefeller Park.

Tickets are sure to go fast, so don’t hesitate if you want to catch any of these unique and special presentations. Below is the full schedule.

Friday, June 9
through
Friday, June 30
Exhibition: “El Camino: Stories of Migration,” by Nuevayorkinos, Fulton Market building windows at the Seaport, opening June 9 at 4:00

Saturday, June 10
and
Sunday, June 11, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Participatory Tape Installation: Mahicantuck, “River that flows two ways,” by Marta Blair, Belvedere Plaza, Battery Park City

Saturday, June 10
and
Sunday, June 11, 1:00 – 6:00
Performance Lottery: Lotto Royale, one-on-one encounters with luciana achugar, Lauren Bakst, Amelia Bande, Raha Behnam, mayfield brooks, Moriah Evans, Julia Gladstone, Nile Harris, Niall Jones, Jennifer Monson, Elliot Reed, Alex Rodabaugh, nibia pastrana santiago, Keioui Keijaun Thomas, ms. z tye, Mariana Valencia, and Anh Vo, RSVP required

Saturday, June 10
through
Sunday, June 18
Studio Residency and Public Program: Archive Barchive, by AUNTS, with talks, performances, toasts, and other gatherings, Studio A4, the Arts Center at Governors Island

Marta Blair invites the community to participate in River to River installation (photo courtesy Marta Blair)

Sunday, June 11, 11:00 am
Tuesday, June 13, 11:00 am
Thursday, June 15, 11:00 am
and
Saturday, June 17, 3:00
Walking Tours: Little Syria, New York: Walking Tours of Washington Street, with Linda Jacobs of the Washington Street Historical Society, Washington St. & Battery Pl., RSVP recommended

Monday, June 12, 7:30
Performance: Zero Station, by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith, Flamboyan Theater, the Clemente, RSVP recommended

Thursday, June 15, 7:00
Performance: CEREMONIA, by Antonio Ramos and the Gangbangers, La Plaza, the Clemente, RSVP required

Friday, June 16, 4:00
Performance: Talk to Me About Water, by Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Lower Gallery, the Arts Center at Governors Island, 110 Andes Rd., RSVP required

Friday, June 16, 7:00
Performance: duel c, by Andros Zins-Browne, Outlook Hill, Governors Island, RSVP required

Saturday, June 17, noon – 6:00
Open Residency: LMCC’s Workspace Open Studios, 101 Greenwich St., RSVP recommended

Saturday, June 17, 4:00
Poetry in the Park: al Qalam: Poetry in the Park featuring New York Arabic Orchestra, with Hani Bawardi and Rita Zihenni, the Battery Labyrinth

Saturday, June 17, 6:30
Performance: River to River 2023 Closing Concert with Natu Camara, Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City

YOSHIKO CHUMA AND THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: SHOCKWAVE DELAY

Ursula Eagly is one of many collaborators in Yoshiko Chuma’s Shockwave Delay, which explores war and utopia (photo © Julie Lemberger)

SHOCKWAVE DELAY
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
The Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
June 1-11, $35-$40 (use code FAM10 for $10 tickets)
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org

In her artistic statement for her latest show, Shockwave Delay, Bessie-winning multidisciplinary artist and creator Yoshiko Chuma explains, “My work has been called ‘choreographed chaos.’ I have intentionally avoided presenting an ordered universe in my work because I don’t see an ordered universe in my life. I don’t usually think of myself as a choreographer. Sometimes, I think of myself as a counterpoint composer, pitting note against note, placing several singular voices in parallel motion, creating a new harmony. Sometimes, I still consider myself a journalist because my work tends to begin with an outside point of view. I’m interested in the little personal issues of everyday life and how they can affect survival. It is a struggle for me to expand my concepts into something larger that an audience can share. I am always looking for a twist or a variance. Some people have called my work ‘spectacle,’ but I don’t think in these terms. ‘Organized happening’ is a term that might better suit me.”

Running at La Mama June 1-11, Shockwave Delay should be a fascinating “organized happening,” in part a culmination of a forty-year oeuvre but not a retrospective. The world premiere consists of ten unscripted docudramas overlapping twenty chapters melding sound, text, and movement, considering war and utopia in relationship to the circle of life through music, film dance, and theater, early iterations of which have been staged at numerous venues over the last handful of years. It will be performed by a rotating cast of actors (Jim Fletcher, Eileen Myles, Kate Valk), dancers (Agnê Auželyte, Ursula Eagly, Claire Fleury, Mizuho Kappa, Stephanie Maher, Miriam Parker, Emily Pope, Owen Prum, Ryuji Yamaguchi, Yoshiko Chuma), musicians (Robert Black, Jason Kao Hwang, Christopher McIntyre, Dane Terry, Aliya Ultan), and other special guests, ensuring that every performance will be unique. The team also includes visual artists Tim Clifford, Claire Fleury, Elizabeth Kresch. Jake Margolin & Nick Vaughan, Van Wifvat, and Kelly Bugden and photographers Hugh Burckhardt and Julie Lemberger. The June 11 finale will be followed by an auction of archival items accumulated by the School of Hard Knocks since its founding in New York City in 1982. In addition, forty artists and collaborators will be named to Chuma’s “Final Exam: Graduation.”

The Osaka-born Chuma adds, “It has been seventy-nine years since WWII, but Japan still smells of occupation, as if it is a US colony. The United States is my home, but the country’s aggressive influence over the world intrigues me artistically. In the sixties and early seventies, there were a growing number of anti-American and anti-war demonstrations in Japan. I was swept up in this sentiment and attended and ultimately led a number of demonstrations. A demonstration is a like a ‘production,’ and this was truly where I received my artistic training. I was not the type to stand in front of a microphone and rally the crowd, so I did the publicity papers for the demonstrations. I was a silent agitator. I still am an agitator, both silent and not so silent. Art can be revolutionary, but is not always. Art must be guided, and there are limits. I can organize people in space, but it’s hard to organize people in life.”

There’s no telling what might happen at each show, so don’t delay to get tickets to what promises to be a series of unpredictable and awe-inspiring events.

WANGECHI MUTU: INTERTWINED AND IN CONVERSATION

Wangechi Mutu, Shavasana I, bronze, 2019 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: Wangechi Mutu, Vivian Crockett, Margot Norton
What: Discussion about current exhibition “Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined”
Where: New Museum Theater, New Museum, 235 Bowery at Prince St.
When: Thursday, June 1, $10, 6:30 (exhibition continues through June 4, $12-$18)
Why: In the catalog for “Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined,” cocurators Vivian Crockett and Margot Norton discuss various elements of the exhibit, which is named after a 2003 watercolor with collage on paper in which two figures have human bodies and animal heads. The Nairobi-born, New York City–based multimedia artist responds, “Multitudes of stories need to be listened to and taken into consideration. I still have a lot of heartache about how schools teach and marginalize so many histories and art. I’m thinking about the association between animals and primitivity and between so-called ‘inferior’ or ‘lower’ creatures and that which is female and African. I’m a big lover of animals and nature. Why do we insult one another with the names of these incredible creatures that we share this world with? Coming from Kenya, where we still have so much natural beauty, it’s hard to express how powerful that is. You have to take into consideration how small humans are and how symbiotic our relationships with nature and with each other really are.”

On June 1 at 6:30, Mutu, whose multidisciplinary, immersive Banana Stroke at the Met was a highlight of Performa 17 in 2017, will be at the New Museum to talk more with Crockett and Norton about the exhibit, which consists of more than one hundred paintings, sculptures, collages, videos, and drawings, incorporating such elements as red soil, pulp, bells, bones, beads, shells, and glass, filling all six levels of the New Museum. Her hybrid works mix art historical references and pop culture with sociocultural themes dealing with race, femininity, myth, colonialism, immigration, Afro-futurism, and the African diaspora. The human and natural world both fight and envelop each other through an interconnectedness she depicts in fascinating visual stories.

In the seventh-floor Skyroom, the bronze sculpture Shavasana I is all by itself, a life-size figure on the ground, feet in high heels and hands extended, the rest of her form covered by a woven yoga mat; the title references śavāsana, the corpse pose that takes its name from the Sanskrit word for “dead body.” The large-scale Crocodylus sculpture features a futuristic being riding atop a crocodile that is revealing its huge, sharp teeth; the two figures meld into one at the back. In the Subterranea collage series, Mutu has placed a different character in each of its six parts, their arms outstretched amid sci-fi-esque branches, sinews, and flowers. In the thirteen-minute black-and-white video Eat Cake, a disheveled Mutu wears a long gown and sits under a tree in a forest, bending down to eat a chocolate cake, shoveling bites into her mouth with her hand, evoking Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, but here caught up in consumerism, racism, misogyny, slavery, and humanity’s destruction of land.

In the six-minute Cutting, Mutu, seen from a distance, silhouetted against the setting sun in a Texas border city shortly after 9/11, uses a machete called a panga to chop repeatedly at a log; the panga is not only a farm tool but was also wielded by Rwandan militia during the genocide there. In the animated The End of eating Everything, Santigold portrays a creature reveling in consumption and greed in a world that needs explosive renewal. On June 4, Eat Cake, The End of eating Everything, Amazing Grace, and the extraordinary My Cave Call will be screened in the New Museum Theater.

Red gouges in the wall in the shape of Kenyan lakes make it seem like the natural world is bleeding in Moth Collection, in which seventy-five feathered moth-human hybrids are arranged in chalk boxes, referencing colonization, genocide, institutional education, self-destruction, and categorization. “There’s something vast and unknowable or inexplicable about how all of us fit together,” Mutu says in the catalog. “The amount of creatures that have been killed to study and understand is also obscene. There’s this hypocrisy in trying to understand something, conserve it, and take care of it while killing thousands for experimentation.” During one installation of the piece, she hurt her elbow. She explained, “I felt like I was hurting myself in trying to express how enraged I was, which was not helping. I wanted to find a way to resolve and understand what was happening to me and other people who come to the United States and who cross borders. I felt deep sadness and became obsessed with the Rwandan genocide, which I felt had a lot to do with borders and confining or defining a people through colonization and eugenics.”

In the lobby gallery, In Two Canoe features a pair of fantastical hybrid beings sitting in a canoe that serves as a self-contained bath or fountain, their limbs extending like roots, merging with each other, the canoe, and the landscape. At the far end is For Whom the Bell Tolls, a creature made of red soil, paper pulp, and wooden bells. Below black splotches on the wall, dark gray emergency relief blankets form a silhouette of Kĩrĩnyaga, which is the name of Mount Kenya as well as a 1998 science fiction novel about an African utopia written by white American author Mike Resnick.

On June 3 at noon, the New Museum will host “Teen Summit: Beyond the Essence, More than Critical,” in which Youth Spectrum Arts members and teaching artists troizel and Eden Chinn will answer the question “What happens after we observe what occupies the space of the museum? Art isn’t simply there to be beautiful; it has a message that can inspire action.”

That certainly is true of this marvelous show.