this week in art

DANCING IN THE STREET: La MaMa BLOCK PARTY

La MaMa hosts multidisciplinary block party on May 20

La MaMa
East Fourth St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
Saturday, May 20
lamama.org/block_party

La Mama will be celebrating its fifty-fifth season on May 20 with its annual block party, held in conjunction with the twelfth La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival. “Dancing in the Street” takes place from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm on East Fourth St. between Bowery and Second Ave., also known as Ellen Stewart Way, named after La MaMa’s beloved founder, who passed away in 2011 at the age of ninety-one. The afternoon will feature free performances and workshops with Al Son Son Tablao Flamenco, Alexandra Amirov, Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, the Blue Bus Project, Brooklyn United Marching Band, DJ Todd Jones, East Village Dance Project, Janice Rosario, Kinding Sindaw, Kinesis Dance Project, Kinetic Architecture Dance Theater, Lei Making, Hula, Malcolm-x Betts, Pua Ali’I Illima O Nuioka, Reggie ‘Regg Roc’ Gray and the D.R.E.A.M. Ring, Reyna Alcala, Rod Rodgers Youth Ensemble, Company, Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Stefanie Batten Bland, Silver Cloud Singers, Thurgood Marshall Academy’s Step Team, White Wave Young Soon Kim Dance Company, and Yoshiko Chuma. Food and drink will be available from La Contrada, Proto’s Pizza, the Bean, Express Thali, Sobaya, Hasaki, Otafuku, Robataya, Harlem Seafood Soul, Miscelanea, the 4th St Co-op, and Obsessive Chocolate Disorder. There will also be video montages running in the lobby of the theater highlighting the campaign for creative activism (#HereToDance). Attendees are encouraged to bring plastic bags, which Maura Nguyen Donohue will collect and incorporate into her Tides Project: Drowning Planet immersive, interactive installation.

IN CONVERSATION — “IF I HAD POSSESSION OVER JUDGEMENT DAY: COLLECTIONS OF CLAUDE SIMARD”

The life and career of influential artist and collector Claude Simard will be celebrated at Jack Shainman Gallery on May 17

Who: Hank Willis Thomas, Leslie Wayne, Sarah Douglas, Ian Berry, Jack Shainman
What: Roundtable discussion in conjunction with “If I Had Possession over Judgement Day: Collections of Claude Simard,” running through September 24 at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College
Where: Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 West 20th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., 212-645-1701
When: Wednesday, May 17, free with RSVP, 6:30
Why: In September 2014, influential gallerist and artist Claude Simard, the cofounder of Jack Shainman Gallery (first in DC, then NYC), passed away suddenly at the age of fifty-eight. In conjunction with the new exhibition “If I Had Possession over Judgement Day: Collections of Claude Simard,” at the Tang Museum at Skidmore, Jack Shainman Gallery will host a roundtable discussion on Simard, with artists Hank Willis Thomas and Leslie Wayne and ARTnews editor in chief Sarah Douglas, a former assistant to Simard and Shainman. The event will be hosted by Tang director and exhibition curator Ian Berry, and Shainman will be in attendance. “Simard dedicated over thirty years of his life to engaging with and enriching the lives of artists as both muse and patron,” the exhibition website explains. “His voracious drive to collect and discover resulted in a sizable collection of art and artifacts from across centuries and continents.” The Skidmore show features works by John Ahearn, Matthew Barney, Alighiero e Boetti, Nick Cave, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Leon Golub, Kerry James Marshall, Roberto Matta, Chris Ofili, Gabriel Orozco, Nancy Spero, Jessica Stockholder, Wayne, Thomas, and many others. You can read the reactions of Skidmore students to specific works in the show here. Currently on view at Jack Shainman is “Becky Suss: Homemaker.”

TURNER’S MODERN AND ANCIENT PORTS: PASSAGES THROUGH TIME

Joseph Mallord William Turner, “The Harbor of Dieppe: Changement de Domicile,” oil on canvas, exhibited 1825 but subsequently dated 1826 (© The Frick Collection)

The Frick Collection
1 East 70th St. at Fifth Ave.
Through May 14, $12-$22 (pay-what-you-wish Sundays 11:00 – 1:00)
212-288-0700
www.frick.org

There’s less than a week left to see the Frick’s splendid exhibition “Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports: Passages through Time,” a two-part show that continues through May 14. The exhibit expands on two of the Frick’s finest monumental works by Joseph Mallord William Turner, “The Harbor of Dieppe: Changement de Domicile” from 1825 and “Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet-Boat: Evening” from 1826, which have been moved from the West Gallery into the Oval Room, where they are joined by four other lovely canvases, three from the Tate and one from the Met, all depicting port scenes. In her exhibition catalog essay “Liminal Spaces: Turner’s Paintings of Dieppe and Cologne,” Frick senior curator Susan Grace Galassi writes of “Dieppe,” “Cologne,” and “The Harbor of Brest: The Quayside and Château,” which is also in the Oval Room, “This trio of grand-scale paintings of the mid-1820s, which follow from ‘Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed’ exhibited in 1818, attests to the significance of the port in Turner’s work during the decade after the Continent had been newly reopened to British travelers at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Sea and river ports, whether of the present or past, exerted a powerful hold on Turner’s imagination as transitional spaces of arrival and departure, and as a country’s or city’s welcoming gateways or defensive barriers. While Turner drew upon various models of the past for his port scenes, he departed daringly from naturalism through his use of high-keyed color and effects of transparency and luminosity, provoking criticism and controversy when the works were first exhibited.”

Joseph Mallord William Turner, “Shields, on the River Tyne,” watercolor on paper, 1823 (© Tate, London 2016)

Seen together, the works are majestic in both skill and scope, with the golden light of the sun forging entrancing passageways that emanate from the paintings’ vanishing point until the glow seemingly permeates the room. Boats, logs, buildings, and people are brilliantly reflected in the shimmering water as everyday life goes on. Each work has its unique charms and special details, from the dog nipping at the water in “Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet-Boat: Evening” to the men and women huddled on the side of the mountain in the unfinished “The Harbor of Brest: The Quayside and Château” (which harkens to Turner’s later, abstract canvases), from the daytime moon in “Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus. The Triumphal Bridge and Palace of the Caesars Restored” to the shadow of a statue in “Ancient Italy — Ovid Banished from Rome.” And in “Regulus,” Turner takes a wicked shot at his critics, who had complained of the “blinding” nature of his use of light, here depicting Roman general Marcus Atilius Regulus — he is not actually very easy to spot in the right side of the painting — who was blinded by the Carthaginians in a particularly nasty way: They either cut off his eyelids or sewed his eyes open, then forced him to stare into the sun as he was tortured to death. Turner’s revenge on his naysayers was to make them stare into the sun in his painting, although it is, of course, far from torturous to do so.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, “Sun-Rise: Whiting Fishing at Margate,” watercolor on paper, 1822 (private collection)

Working primarily from sketches, memory, and imagination, Turner also took advantage of the lifting of European travel bans, venturing to France and Germany in addition to various locations in England and Wales, making wonderful watercolors, more than two dozen of which line the Frick’s East Gallery, along with several prints. The seascapes include the rare vertical “On the Upper Rhine,” in which lumber is being transported on a rickety raft making its way through a narrow gorge; “Shields, on the River Tyne,” with the moon casting its glow on coal workers toiling away on a cargo ship; “Cologne: Colour Study,” in which Turner’s brushstrokes are clearly evident; and “Devonport and Dockyard, Devonshire,” with swirling clouds giving way to the sun as well-dressed women and soldiers rowing toward the shore at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Be sure to grab a magnifying glass to catch every exquisite detail. Making my way through the exhibit, I couldn’t help but think of Timothy Spall portraying the artist in the 2014 film Mr. Turner, the grunting iconoclast heading to his favorite seaside town where he would paint water scenes. If you can’t make it to the Frick, then you must check out its fantastic virtual exhibition, a 360-degree tour of the Oval Room and the East Gallery, featuring zooms as well as links to every piece in the show, with wall text and enlarged images of these illustrious works, which celebrate the natural world while also referencing the rise and fall of civilization. “Turner has some golden visions, glorious and beautiful,” rival artist John Constable said after attending the 1828 Royal Academy Exhibition. “They are only visions, but still, they are art, and one could live and die with such pictures.”

JULIAN SCHNABEL: A PRIVATE PORTRAIT

Documentary paints private portrait of superstar artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel

JULIAN SCHNABEL: A PRIVATE PORTRAIT (Pappi Corsicato, 2017)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, May 5
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
cohenmedia.net

It’s very possible that superstar artist Julian Schnabel is one of the greatest guys in the world, beloved by friends, family, colleagues, and anyone else who comes into contact with him. I met him once briefly and he was very funny and charming. In Italian writer-director Pappi Corsicato’s Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait, praise upon praise is heaped on Schnabel, a marvelously talented painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, with nary a glib or less-than-glowing word anywhere to be seen or heard. A longtime friend of Schnabel’s, Corsicato followed the artist for two years and was given full access to his personal archives, resulting in a bevy of fab footage and home movies and photos, from Schnabel as a baby to his surfing days to his family life with his kids and grandchildren. Daughters Lola and Stella rave about him, as do sons Vito, Cy, and Olmo, sister Andrea Fassler, friend Carol McFadden, and ex-wives Jacqueline Beaurang Schnabel and Olatz Schnabel. Also glorying in all things Julian are actors Willem Dafoe, Al Pacino, Mathieu Amalric, and Emmanuelle Seigner, artist Jeff Koons, musicians Bono and Laurie Anderson, gallerist Mary Boone, art collector Peter Brant, French novelist and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, and the late writer-director Héctor Babenco, who all gush about Schnabel’s ingenuity. (Dick Cavett, Takashi Murakami, Christopher Walken, and Francesco Clemente did not make the final cut.)

Of course, Schnabel is an extraordinary artist with wide-ranging interests; Corsicato explores such Schnabel films as Basquiat, Before Night Falls, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and Berlin as well as such exhibitions as 1988’s “Reconocimientos: Pinturas del Carmen (The Recognitions Paintings: El Carmen),” retrospectives at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Brant Foundation, and a pair of 2014 shows in São Paulo. The film goes back and forth between Montauk and Manhattan, where Schnabel lives and works, including an extended look at his pink Palazzo Chupi in the West Village. Watching Schnabel paint on his large canvases or using broken plates (often in his pajamas) and set up the exhibitions are the best parts of the film, although he never does quite delve into specifics about the artistic choices he makes. The rest of the film is a sugary love letter that he himself contributes to; although he gave full control to Corsicato, who has previously made video documentaries about Koons, Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg, Anish Kapoor, Gilbert & George, and others, it is telling that Schnabel is credited as an executive producer. In the end, Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait feels like a vanity project, lacking any kind of cinematic tension or narrative conflict; it’s the type of movie one might show at an intimate celebration, not on screens to strangers. So even if Schnabel is an all-around terrific, creative human being, that doesn’t mean a film about his life is entertaining and illuminating, at least not in this case. Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait opens May 5 at the Quad, with Corsicato participating in a Q&A at the 8:10 show Friday night.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM FIRST SATURDAY: BANG ON A CAN MARATHON

The Bang on a Can Marathon moves to the Brooklyn Museum for its thirtieth anniversary (photo © Ben Gancsos)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, May 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The May edition of the free First Saturday program at the Brooklyn Museum focuses on the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the innovative new-music ensemble that held its first marathon concert in 1987. On May 6, the group will be at the Brooklyn Museum for its thirtieth anniversary, performing from 2:00 to 10:00. (Suggested admission is $16 before 5:00 and free after.) “Thirty years ago we started dreaming of the world we wanted to live in,” founding members David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe said in a statement. “It would be a kind of utopia for music: all the boundaries between composers would come down, all the boundaries between genres would come down, all the boundaries between musicians and audience would come down. Then we started trying to build it. Building a utopia is a political act – it pushes people to change. It is also an act of resistance to the things that keep us apart.” In addition to the marathon, there will be pop-up teen apprentice gallery discussions in “Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas”; a Found Sound Nation interactive workshop in which you can record in the Mobile Street Studio; David Parker’s Turing Tests, a Brooklyn Dance Festival presentation featuring dancers from the Bang Group, with a score by Dean Rosenthal; a hands-on art workshop in which participants can make their own musical instrument and then join the Orchestra of Original Instruments in the Biergarten, with Bang on a Can All-Star guitarist and instrument designer Mark Stewart; and pop-up poetry and conga drumming curated by Jaime Lee Lewis, with Jennifer Falu, Hadaiyah Bey, Ahlaam Abduljalil, and Jamie Falu. In addition, you can check out such exhibits as “Iggy Pop Life Class by Jeremy Deller,” “Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty,” “Infinite Blue,” “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt,” “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85,” and, at a discounted admission price of $12, “Georgia O’Keefe: Living Modern.”

FRIEZE NEW YORK 2017

Frieze 2017 takes place May 5-7 on Randall’s Island

FRIEZE ART FAIR
Randall’s Island Park
May 5-7, $46 per day ($69 including magazine subscription and ferry)
frieze.com

While visiting many art fairs year in and year out can feel more like a chore than a privilege, Frieze continues to be one that we look forward to every May. Held on Randall’s Island, the fair features more than two hundred galleries from around the world, organized into manageable aisles that tend not to get too ridiculously crowded. Plus, you get to take a ferry. For this year’s special projects, Dora Budor will employ cinematic doubling, Jon Rafman will create a secret movie theater, and Elaine Cameron-Weir will offer a peek into an outdoor air-raid shelter. Frieze 2017 will pay tribute to Galleria La Tartaruga’s 1968 exhibition “Il Teatro delle Mostre” with a restaging of Fabio Mauri’s Luna on Sunday and new commissions by Ryan McNamara on Friday and Adam Pendleton on Saturday. This year’s Frame artists, each of whom gets a solo presentation, are Eva LeWitt, Zhou Siwei, Jan Vorisek, Jared Ginsburg, Thomson & Craighead, Milano Chow, Susan Cianciolo, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Sven Loven, Hudinilson Jr., Daniel Boccato, Akira Ikezoe, Lea Cetera, Piotr Lakomy, Daiga Grantina, Ulises Carrión, and Li Qing, while Spotlight: 20th-Century Pioneers consists of solo installations by avant-garde artists Katalin Ladik, Francis Newton Souza, Agustin Fernandez, Judith Linhares, Waltercio Caldas, Etienne-Martin, Thomas Kovachevich, Amilcar de Castro, Jaime Davidovich, Felipe Jesus Consalvos, Kenny Scharf, Dieter Krieg, Paul Feeley, Dumile Feni, Virginia Jaramillo, Tatsuo Kawaguchi, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Peter Young, Irma Blank, Tony DeLap, Julio Plaza, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Lee Mullican, Alfred Leslie, USCO and Gerd Stern, Jared Bark, Teresa Burga, Tatsuo Kawaguchi, and Kimiyo Mishima. Even the curation of the restaurants is thoughtful, with food from Café Altro Paradiso, Court Street Grocers, Frankies Spuntino, Marlo & Sons, Roberta’s, Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream, Russ & Daughters, Sant Ambroeus, and TYME Fast Food. Below are the special events scheduled for the weekend, including several not taking place on Randall’s Island.

Southard Reids Threshold, 2017, HD video projection, painted steel, concrete, safety glass, glazed porcelain, resin, plastic, glass, ocean pebble, silicone rubber, bronze, cigarette butts, ash, HD video projectors, media players, speakers, dimensions variable. Courtesy: the artist and Southard Reid, London; (photo by Ernst Fischer)

Southard Reid’s “Threshold” is part of Frieze Frame program (courtesy of the artist and Southard Reid, London; photo by Ernst Fischer)

Friday, May 5
Symposium panel: Discussing Latin American and Latino Art, with Edward Sullivan, Deborah Cullen, Guillermo Kuitca, and Chon Noriega, 9:15 am; “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985,” with Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, María Evelia Marmolejo, and Sylvia Palacios Whitman, 10:30; “Art, Architecture & Visions of Modernism,” with With Dan Fox, Jonathas de Andrade, Clara M. Kim, and Clarissa Tossin, 11:30, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, the James B. Duke House, 1 East 78th St., $50

Lower East Side and Soho Morning: apexart, Bridget Donahue, Callicoon Fine Arts, Daata Editions x Vanity Projects, David Lewis, Derek Eller Gallery, Foxy Production, Galerie Perrotin, James Cohan, James Fuente, Lehmann Maupin, Kate Werble Gallery, Martos Gallery, Miguel Abreu Gallery, On Stellar Rays, Rachel Uffner Gallery, RxArt, Salon 94, Simon Preston Gallery, Simone Subal Gallery, the Drawing Center, WhiteBox, free, 10:00 am – 12 noon

Conversation: Complicating the Modern, with Laura Owens and Ann Temkin, free with Frieze admission, 11:30 am

ARTnews: Meet the Editors, Reading Room, 12:30

frieze: Asad Raza, author of Home Show, in conversation with Andrew Durbin, Reading Room, 2:30

Artforum: Tobi Haslett and David Velasco review the 2017 Whitney Biennial, Reading Room, 4:30

Saturday, May 6
Upper East Side and Harlem Morning: Americas Society, Acquavella Galleries, Almine Rech, Anton Kern Gallery, Blum & Poe, Castelli Gallery, Ceysson & Bénétière, Elizabeth Dee, Hauser & Wirth, Henrique Faria, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, Jason Jacques Gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery, Mendes Wood DM, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Skarstedt, Taka Ishii Gallery, 10:00 am – 12 noon

Panel: The activity of a lifetime, with Tania Bruguera, Anri Sala, and Jeanne van Heeswijk, chaired by Shuddhabrata Sengupta, free with Frieze admission, 11:30

ArtMag by Deutsche Bank: Approaching the End, with Rebecca Rose Cuomo and Andrea Galvani, Reading Room, 12:30

W Magazine Presents Custom Portraits with Ian Sklarsky, Reading Room, 2:30

#SolarTalks: The rise of Narco culture, with Igor Ramírez García-Peralta and Beatriz López, Reading Room, 4:30

Chelsea Night: 303 Gallery, Andrew Kreps Gallery, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, David Zwirner, Dia: Chelsea, Fredericks & Freiser, Gagosian Gallery, Galerie Lelong, Garth Greenan Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Jack Shainman Gallery, James Cohan, Lehmann Maupin, Lisson Gallery, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Pace Gallery, Paul Kasmin Gallery, Sean Kelly, Skarstedt, Tanya Bonakdar, Tina Kim Gallery, free, 6:00 – 8:00

Sunday, May 7
Reading & discussion: Claudia Rankine, free with Frieze admission, 11:30

ARTBOOK + Koenig Books: book signing with Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American Lyric, Reading Room, 12:30

Even: Jason Farago in conversation with Kanishk Tharoor, author of Swimmer Among the Stars, Reading Room, 2:30

frieze in conversation with Hands off our Revolution: conversation and workshop with Ana Marie Peña and Brooke Lynn McGowan, Reading Room, 4:30

OLAFUR ELIASSON: THE LISTENING DIMENSION

Olafur Eliasson, “Rainbow bridge,” twelve partially painted and silvered glass spheres, steel, paint, 2017 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
521 West 21st St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through April 22, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-414-4144
www.tanyabonakdargallery.com
listening dimension slideshow

In describing “The listening dimension (orbit 1, orbit 2, and orbit 3),” part of Olafur Eliasson’s first solo show in New York in five years, continuing at Tanya Bonakdar through April 22, the press release explains that “the installation reinforces Eliasson’s insistence on actively engaging the viewer in the artwork.” Unfortunately, on a recent Saturday afternoon, that engagement became far too active, as a visitor to the gallery, mesmerized by the illusion created by the three-part work, poked at it, leaving a pretty serious mark that affected the power of the piece. For more than twenty years, Eliasson, who was born in Copenhagen, raised in Iceland and Denmark, and lives and works in Copenhagen and Berlin, has been creating mind-blowing works using various combinations of glass, refracted light, mirrors, and metal. “The listening dimension (orbit 1, orbit 2, and orbit 3)” consists of three large, rectangular sheets of silver Mylar from which emerge semicircles of tubes that jut out like rings around Saturn; the arcs are completed in the reflection, making them appear as full circles. Placed on three sides of the room, the work immerses the viewer into a series of repeated, neverending reflections that shimmer far off into the distance. “The listening dimension emerged against the backdrop of the 2016 US elections,” Eliasson says about the installation. “At a time when oversimplification is everywhere, I believe that art can play an important role in creating aesthetic experiences that are both open and complex. Today, in politics, we are bombarded with emotional appeals, often linked to simplistic, polarizing, populist ideas. The arts and culture, on the other hand, provide spaces in which people can disagree and still be together, where they can share individual and collective experiences that are ambiguous and negotiable. At its best, art is an exercise in democracy; it trains our critical capacities for perceiving and interpreting the world. Yet art does not tell us what to do or how to feel, but rather empowers us to find out for ourselves.” (That is true, except when it involves touching something that signs clearly say not to touch.)

Olafur Eliasson’s “The listening dimension (orbit 1, orbit 2, and orbit 3)” creates a striking illusion at Tanya Bonakdar (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eliasson also melds art and science with “Rainbow bridge,” a row of a dozen globes on stands that seem to change color as you walk past them; depending on your angle of perception, they appear as all black, all silver, all clear, or organized in the colors of the rainbow, from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to indigo to violet. The globes also function as lenses, inverting the reflection of the person on the other side, distorting reality in humorous ways. Once again, do not touch.

“Space resonates regardless of our presence” offers visitors a chance to reflect on their place in the universe (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eliasson continues his exploration of light and color, gravity and orientation, natural and technological phenomenon upstairs, where a driftwood compass called “Rouge navigator” leads you to “Midnight sun,” a slightly concave mirror behind which a monofrequency lamp casts a glow that makes it appear that the disc is surrounded by a beautiful, fiery halo. Off in a room by itself, “Colour experiment no. 78” is a grid of seventy-two circular paintings that change color when you turn a light on or off. (This is the only thing in the exhibition that you are actually supposed to touch in order to activate the experience.) The exhibition concludes with “Space resonates regardless of our presence,” a trio of ghostly wall projections made by sending pinpoints of light through a glass lens; the resultant images include multiple colors and an intensely pleasing circularity. In 2008, Eliasson dazzled New York with the wide-ranging “Take Your Time” dual exhibition at MoMA and PS1 as well as “The New York City Waterfalls,” set up along the East River. You should certainly take your time when experiencing “The listening dimension,” which offers visitors a chance to reflect on their place in the universe. Just keep your hands to yourself.