this week in art

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.

MAURIZIO CATTELAN: “AMERICA”

Maurizio Cattelan has replaced the Guggenheim’s fifth-floor toilet with a golden throne called “America” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Friday – Wednesday (ongoing), $18-$25 (pay-what-you-wish Saturday 5:45-7:45)
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org
“america slideshow”

In November 2011, Italian artist and prankster Maurizio Cattelan held a very public execution of his career, literally hanging his works from the Guggenheim’s skylight ceiling in a unique and extremely popular retrospective, called “All,” that he said marked his retirement from the art world, at the age of fifty-one. But five years later, the provocateur who drowned Pinocchio (“Daddy Daddy”), dropped a meteor on the pope (“La Nona Hora”), made a gentle, kneeling sculpture of Adolf Hitler (“Him”), taped his gallerist to a wall (“A Perfect Day”), constructed the famous Hollywood sign on a garbage dump in Palermo (“Hollywood”), and placed a giant marble middle finger in front of the Milan stock exchange (“L.O.V.E.”) is back with his first new piece in five years, “America.” In the Guggenheim’s fifth-floor single-occupancy restroom, Cattelan has installed an exact replica of the museum’s standard toilet, cast in glittering eighteen-karat solid gold — and yes, it’s fully functional. Since September 2016, museumgoers have been waiting anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours for the privilege of going number one or number two on the majestic throne, which is obsessively cleaned every fifteen minutes. You must sit on it; the seat should not be lifted, as one unlucky male user discovered early on after breaking it. Although the piece was created before Donald Trump won the presidential election, “America” certainly references his preference for gold objects, particularly when his name is involved; Cattelan has called it “one-percent art for the ninety-nine percent.” (Death might be the great equalizer, but so is the basic human need to evacuate waste; everybody poops.) The piece is also intrinsically linked with Toilet Paper magazine, a publication run by Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari. In addition, the work is an homage to Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” the upside-down porcelain urinal, credited to “R. Mutte,” that was rejected on April 10, 1917, from a supposedly all-inclusive exhibition; the ready-made urinal, which forever changed the art world, is currently celebrating its centennial, with special events and shows being held around the world.

You can do a lot more than just touch this work of art at the Guggenheim (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“America” is also reminiscent of the scene in Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part One when a caveman (Sid Caesar) creates the first known work of art, a painting of an animal on a cave wall — and then the first critic (Andréas Voutsinas) comes along and urinates on it. Cattelan has been met with much criticism during his thirty-year career — along with, of course, high praise and works going at auction for millions of dollars — but he’s probably reveling in the thought that so many people are happily relieving themselves on his usable sculpture. In fact, people are so used to being told not to touch art that many of those on line don’t initially understand that “America” is fully participatory; it is not meant to merely be gawked at and photographed. The “Guggen-head,” as Cattelan dubbed it, has also been added to the second edition of the “All” catalog, with former Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector explaining that it offers “unprecedented access to something of unquestionable value.” To find out more about Cattelan, who loves playing games with virtually every aspect of his life and career, check out Maura Axelrod’s documentary Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back, which opened April 14 at the Quad; although it is named for Cattelan’s first major show, in which he locked the door of a gallery and put a sign on it that read “Be Right Back” (in Italian), it could also refer to his return to the art world with “America,” which is on long-term view at the Guggenheim; however, there’s been no word whether it’s a onetime thing or the beginning of a new phase of his career, and even if there was, that doesn’t mean it’s real. In the meantime, head over to the Guggenheim and make full use of “America,” coming up with whatever metaphor you’d like as you relieve yourself of at least part of your daily burden. Or just simply enjoy the rare privilege of having private time with a rather beautiful and expensive work of art.

MAURIZIO CATTELAN: BE RIGHT BACK

MAURIZIO CATTELAN: BE RIGHT BACK explores career of controversial Italian artist and provocateur

MAURIZIO CATTELAN: BE RIGHT BACK (Maura Axelrod, 2016)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, April 14
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.mauriziocattelanfilm.com

Italian artist and prankster extraordinaire Maurizio Cattelan has built his wildly successful career out of controversy, provocation, and mystery, taking on the very art world that has made him a superstar. Documentarian Maura Axelrod includes the same elements in her vastly entertaining film, Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back. The title refers to both the beginning of Cattelan’s career, a Milan solo show in which he locked the gallery door and hung a sign on it that said “Torno Subito” (Be Right Back) as well as what might or might not be the end, as he announced his retirement following the brilliant 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim, “All,” in which he hung all of his works from the Guggenheim ceiling, as if signaling their death. “His career is based on anecdotes and lies and imaginary stories,” Milan gallerist Massimo De Carlo says in the film. “Some people are suspicious that Maurizio is pulling the wool over their eyes and he is some kind of flamboyant artistic con man,” adds art historian Sarah Thornton. “I think he’s probably one of the greatest artists that we have today, but he could also be the worst. It’s gonna be one or the other; it’s not gonna fall in the middle,” cracks one of his collectors. Axelrod also speaks with former Guggenheim artistic director Nancy Spector, former Public Art Fund director Tom Eccles, Cattelan archive director Victoria Armutt, Guggenheim curator Katherine Brinson, gallerists Marian Goodman and Emmanuel Perrotin, art critics Calvin Tomkins and Dodie Kazanjian, and Cattelan’s sister, Giada, former fiancée Victoria Cabello, and current girlfriend Victoria Yee Howe. They share stories about Cattelan’s working methods and proclivities, delving into such pieces as “Daddy Daddy,” a facedown Pinocchio in a pool of water that was inspired by Cattelan’s childhood; “La Nona Ora” (The Ninth Hour), a lifelike sculpture of the pope knocked down by a meteorite; “Another Fucking Readymade,” in which he stole the inventory of another artist’s show and claimed them as his own; “Him,” a rendering of a kneeling child who turns out to be Adolf Hitler; and “L.O.V.E.” (Libertà, Odio, Vendetta, Eternità), a marble sculpture of a giant middle finger in Milan’s financial district. He even staged his own pseudo–Caribbean Biennial, featuring such artists as Wolfgang Tillmans, Elizabeth Peyton, Gabriel Orozco, Pipilotti Rist, Chris Ofili, and Mariko Mori gathered together on the island of St. Kitts. (The critics were not amused.)

“Daddy Daddy” holds one of the keys to the mystery that is Maurizio Cattelan

Meanwhile, the artist speaks profusely on camera, sharing such insights as “I knew what was expected of me and I decided I was going to be something else” and “I’ve always been very good at faking things.” Indeed, about two-thirds of the way through the film, there is a fabulous twist that only art-world insiders are likely to have guessed, as Axelrod takes a page from Orson Welles’s magical F for Fake. Writer, producer, and director Axelrod incorporates home movies, family photographs, playful animation, and new and old footage to try to figure out just what makes Cattelan tick, what he’s really like, but she lets viewers in only so far, like his tiny elevator installation in which no one can fit. Among the many words used to describe the iconoclastic artist and his oeuvre are “tasteless,” “profound,” “funny,” “tragic,” “disrespectful,” “vulnerable,” and “uncanny beauty,” as people also point out that he is anxious, very demanding to live and work with, and, while seeing art as commodity, uses the vanity of collectors against themselves. Of course, all of those are true, in one way or another. His art can be as thrilling as it is offensive, as silly as it is prescient as he explores such themes as failure, alienation, mortality, and personal identity. “You need to go pretty far, otherwise the piece doesn’t exist,” he says. “You need to push your friends and enemies and collaborators further, and you have to be uncomfortable about it. The further you go, the more satisfaction is created by the level of discomfort in which all the participants were put.” The last section of the film details “All,” which a clearly uncomfortable Spector had her doubts about but insisted that “the risk had to be real,” worrying that it would cause the Guggenheim to collapse within itself but they had to proceed. And as far as Cattelan’s retirement is concerned, this past September he installed “America” at the Guggenheim, an eighteen-karat-gold fully functional toilet, the first new piece he has exhibited since “All.” Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back opens April 14 at the newly renovated Quad Cinema, with Axelrod participating in Q&As on April 14 (with Spector and New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni) and April 15 at 7:45 and April 16 at 5:30.

MARCEL DUCHAMP’S “FOUNTAIN” TURNS 100

Marcel Duchamp, “Fountain,” (1950 version of 1917 original), Philadelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition, gift (by exchange) of Mrs. Herbert Cameron Morris, 1998 (© Artists Rights Society, ARS, New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp)

On Sunday, April 9, at 3:00, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has an extensive collection of works by French ready-made Dada master Marcel Duchamp, will host The Richard Mutt Case, a site-specific performance by members of Pig Iron Theatre Company reenacting the scandal over Duchamp’s most famous piece, the upside-down porcelain urinal known as “Fountain,” which the Society of Independent Artists rejected for an open New York exhibition exactly one hundred years ago. In celebration of the centennial, the museum is offering free entry between 3:00 and 4:00 on Sunday to visitors who say “Richard Mutt” or “R. Mutt,” the name used to sign “Fountain” (it actually says “R. Mutt”), at the admissions desk. The event is being held in conjunction with the exhibition “Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal,” which continues through December 3. So why is a publication entitled “This Week in New York” hyping something happening in Philadelphia? Well, there are numerous museums around the world participating in the free-admission password homage, including institutions in Beijing, Jerusalem, Stockholm, Basel, London, Kyoto, Amsterdam, Paris, and Berlin. No New York City museum has officially stated that it will be taking part in the program, which is too bad. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try. Getting rejected could make you empathize a bit with Duchamp, who wrote at the time to his sister, “One of my female friends under a masculine pseudonym, Richard Mutt, sent in a porcelain urinal as a sculpture; it was not at all indecent — no reason for refusing it. The committee has decided to refuse to show this thing. I have handed in my resignation and it will be a bit of gossip of some value in New York.” One hundred years later, it is still valuable gossip. (For an additional New York City angle, on April 10, Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, a major Duchamp collector located on West Fifty-Seventh St., will open “Marcel Duchamp Fountain: An Homage,” consisting of related works by John Baldessari, Marcel Dzama, Sherrie Levine, Sophie Matisse, Richard Pettibone, Ai Weiwei, and more than two dozen others that were directly influenced by “Fountain,” which went missing many years ago.)