this week in art

CRITICAL JUNCTURES: GLENN LIGON

Glenn Ligon and Samora Pinderhughes will be in conversation at YoungArts event at NYLA

Glenn Ligon and Samora Pinderhughes will discuss pivotal moments at YoungArts event at New York Live Arts on March 5

Who: Glenn Ligon, Samora Pinderhughes
What: National YoungArts Foundation Salon Series
Where: New York Live Arts Theater, 219 West 19th St., 212-691-6500
When: Sunday, March 5, $10, 2:00
Why: In 2011, New York City–based visual artist Glenn Ligon had a major midcareer retrospective, “Glenn Ligon: America,” at the Whitney. In 2009, Berkeley high school pianist and composer Samora Pinderhughes was named a YoungArts Winner in Jazz Keyboard. On March 5 at 2:00 at New York Live Arts, the two will take part in the latest edition of the National YoungArts Foundation Salon Series, “Critical Junctures: Glenn Ligon,” as they look at pivotal moments in their creative process while placing it in sociohistorical context. The Salon Series, which “brings together creative alumni voices and offers audiences an opportunity to engage with internationally renowned and emerging artists,” will be back at New York Live Arts on May 14 with “Critical Junctures: Alexei Ratmansky,” in which the Russian-American choreographer will be in conversation with 2011 YoungArts Dance Winner and ABT soloist Cassandra Trenary.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM FIRST SATURDAY: FUTURE FEMINISMS

Alfred Stieglitz, “Georgia O’Keeffe,” gelatin silver print, circa 1920–22 (© Georgia O’Keeffe Museum)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, March 4, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum goes feminist to the hilt with the First Saturday program “Future Feminisms,” part of its 2017 theme “A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum.” There will be live performances by Charlotte Dos Santos, Buscabulla, and Natasha Diggs with #SoulInTheHorn; a Blues Lounge Bar; a screening of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s The Trans List, followed by a discussion with writer Kate Bornstein and DJ and philanthropist Lina Bradford, facilitated by the Sylvia Rivera Law Project; a hands-on art workshop in which participants can make wearable handmade paper flowers inspired by the new exhibit “Georgia O’Keefe: Living Modern”; a Postcard Write-In hosted by Forward March NY; a Scholar Talk with Linda Grasso about her upcoming book Equal Under the Sky: Georgia O’Keeffe and Twentieth-Century Feminism; a screening of Suha Araj’s The Cup Reader and Pioneer High; pop-up gallery talks on “Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty,” hosted by teen apprentices; a tour of “Georgia O’Keefe: Living Modern” led by guest curator Wanda Corn; and the Brooklyn premiere of Fatimah Asghar and Sam Bailey’s web series Brown Girls, followed by a talkback with members of the cast and crew, moderated by Lindsay Catherine Harris. In addition, you can check out such exhibits as “Iggy Pop Life Class by Jeremy Deller,” “The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago,” “Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty,” “Infinite Blue,” “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt,” and, at a discounted admission price of $12, “Georgia O’Keefe: Living Modern.”

ARMORY ARTS WEEK 2017

Art on Paper: Tm Gratkowski, “No Matter What,” collaged paper on wood panel (courtesy of the artist and Walter Maciel Gallery)

It’s that time of year again when the art world descends on New York City for the start of art fair season. There are no fewer than eleven fairs this week, with the next batch scheduled for May. Below is a brief look at March’s shows, highlighted by participating artists and special events and projects.

What: Moving Image
Where: 269 11th Ave. between 27th & 28th Sts.
When: February 27 – March 2, free
Why: “A viewing experience with the excitement and vitality of a fair while allowing moving image-based artworks to be understood and appreciated on their own terms,” with works by Rebecca Allen, Marcos Bonisson and Khalil Charif, Kevin Cooley, Adriana Duque, Zachary Fabri, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani, John Craig Freeman, Claudia Hart, Robert Hodge, Marlon Hall, and Robert Pruitt, Iyvone Khoo, Christopher Manzione & Seth Cluett, Alexander Mazza, Joiri Minaya, Brenna Murphy, Damir Očko, Will Pappenheimer, Jacques Perconte, Jefferson Pinder, Jordan Rathus, Casey Reas, Michael Rees, Rick Silva, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Tamiko Thiel and Zara Houshmand, Naoko Tosa, Anton van Dalen, Arda Yalkın, Matteo Zamagni

What: The Art Show
Where: Park Avenue Armory, Park Ave. at Sixty-Seventh St.
When: March 1-5, $25
Why: “Offers collectors, arts professionals, and the public the opportunity to engage with artworks of the highest quality through intimately scaled and thoughtfully curated exhibitions that encourage close looking and active conversation with gallerists”

Friday, March 3
“Beyond New York: Cultural Vibrancy Across the U.S.,” Keynote at the Art Show, with Kaywin Feldman, Lawrence J. Wheeler, and Zannie Giraud Voss, moderated by Lindsay Pollock, Board of Officers Room, 6:00

What: NADA New York
Where: Skylight Clarkson North, 572 Washington St.
When: March 2-5, $20-$40
Why: “Contemporary Drag,” curated by Gordon Robichaux, and numerous special discussions and performances

Thursday, March 2
“Social Noise!” panel discussion hosted by Sam Hillmer, with Don Christian, Azikwe Mohammed, Maria Chavez, and Victoria Keddie, 5:00

Friday, March 3
“Contemporary Drag in Conversation: Stonewall Was a Riot,” with Lady Bunny and Horrorchata, moderated by David Yarritu, 2:00

Saturday, March 4
“Jacolby Satterwhite: Artist Talk,” with Jacolby Satterwhite, presented with Moran Bondaroff, 2:00

Sunday, March 5
“Contemporary Drag: Baby Tea,” featuring a conversation with Theda Hammel and performances by Matt Savitsky, Merrie Cherry, and Patti Spliff, presented by Tyler Ashley aka the Dauphine of Bushwick and Wise Men, 3:30

What: VOLTA NY
Where: Pier 90, West 50th St. at 12th Ave.
When: March 2-6, $25-$60
Why: “Showcases relevant contemporary art positions from emerging international artists, from cutting-edge trendsetters to next year’s rising stars [with an] approachable solo-booth format”

Friday, March 3
“Alternative Myths,” with Jesse Bransford and Dominic Shepherd, the Volta Salon with ArtNet, 1:00

Saturday, March 4
“Improv for Artists,” with Morgan Bassichis, Jill Pangallo, and Richards Smit, moderated by Hollis Witherspoon, 2:00

Sunday, March 5
“Art Meets Tech,” with Ashley Zelinskie, Valentine Uhovski, and Alicia Carbone, moderated by Ariel Adkins, 2:00

What: Spring/Break Art Show: Black Mirror
Where: 4 Times Square at 43rd St.
When: March 1-6, $15-$50
Why: “An internationally recognized exhibition platform using underused historic New York City spaces to activate and challenge the traditional cultural landscape of the art market”

What: Scope
Where: Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West Eighteenth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
When: March 2-5, $15-$150
Why: “SCOPE New York’s spirit of innovation has consistently forged the way for emerging artists and galleries. Attuned to nuances in the market and itself an influential force in the cultural sphere, SCOPE continues to usher in a new vision of the contemporary art fair.”

What: The Armory Show
Where: Piers 92 & 94, 12th Ave. at 50th St.
When: March 3-6, $25-$80
Why: “New York’s premier art fair and a definitive cultural destination for discovering and collecting the world’s most important 20th and 21st century artworks,” featuring Platform projects by Abigail DeVille, Fiete Stolte, Evan Roth, Jun Kaneko, Dorian Gaudin, Douglas Coupland, Ai Weiwei, Iván Navarro, Yayoi Kusama, Per Kirkeby & Lawrence Weiner, Abel Barroso, Patricia Cronin, Sebastian Errazuri

Friday, March 3
“What’s Technology Got to Do with It? Art in the Digital Age,” with Shiva Ahmadi, Charles Atlas, Marilyn Minter, and Thomas Allen Harris, moderated by Barbara London, 4:00

Saturday, March 4
“David Salle: The Painting Life,” artist talk with Joe Bradley, Alex Katz, Dana Schutz, and Chris Martin, moderated by David Salle, 2:30

Sunday, March 5
“Glenn O’Brien: Like Art,” artist talk with Glenn O’Brien, Jeffrey Deitch, and Andy Spade, 1:00

What: Art on Paper
Where: Pier 36, 299 South St.
When: March 2-5, $25-$40
Why: “Art on Paper’s medium-driven focus lends itself to significant projects — unique moments that have set the fair apart and established a new and important destination for the arts in New York City,” featuring special projects by Pablo Lehmann, Peter Sarkisian, Tahiti Pehrson, Valerie Hammond, and Timothy Paul Myers in collaboration with Andrew Barnes

What: Clio Art Fair: The Anti-Fair for Independent Artists
Where: 508 West 26h St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
When: March 2-5, free
Why: “Focuses attention on the kinds of contemporary art and interventions that are being created by independent artists the world over,” featuring works by Piero Manzoni, Carla Accardi, Maurizio Cattelan, Nina Berman, Denise Adler, Sonia Aguessy, Paul Bouchard, Peter Bradley Cohen, Robby Davis, Monica Delgado, Matthew Demers, Wenjun Fu, Orit Fuchs, Rachel Goldsmith, Larry Jones, Rusudan Khizanishvili, Gary Low, Rafael Melendez, Hayley Palmatier, Alicia Piller, Claudia Shapiro, Emily Strange, Kimberly Zeluck, more

What: The Independent
Where: Spring Studios, 50 Varick St.
When: March 2-5, $25
Why: “An invitational art fair devised by and for gallerists, which reexamines the traditional methods of presenting, viewing, and experiencing contemporary art”

What: New City Art Fair
Where: hpgrp Gallery, 434 Greenwich St.
When: March 3-6, free
Why: “A boutique art fair which aspires to globalize contemporary Asian art,” this year featuring works by Japanese artists Daisuke Takahashi, snAwk, So Sekiyama, Meguru Yamaguchi, more

AN EVENING WITH BILLIE JEAN KING

Billie Jean King will talk about her life and career at special Women’s History Month event at New-York Historical Society (photo by Andrew Coppa)

Who: Billie Jean King, David M. Rubenstein
What: Discussion with athlete and activist Billie Jean King
Where: The Robert H. Smith Auditorium, New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West at Richard Gilder Way (77th St.), 212-873-3400
When: Tuesday, March 7, $48, 6:30
Why: In conjunction with the March 8 opening of “Saving Washington” in the Joyce B. Cowin Women’s History Gallery and the April unveiling of the Center for Women’s History at the New-York Historical Society, the institution is hosting a series of special events focusing on women’s history, beginning with a lecture by Amanda Foreman, “The Ascent of Woman,” on March 1 and a conference on “Reproductive Rights in Historical Context” on March 5. On March 7, “An Evening with Billie Jean King” features the groundbreaking tennis superstar and social justice activist talking about her life and career and her longtime fight for gender equality, in a wide-ranging conversation hosted by philanthropist David M. Rubenstein. In 2009, the winner of thirty-nine Grand Slam titles was the first female athlete and LGBTQ community member to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “We honor what she calls ‘all the off-the-court stuff’ — what she did to broaden the reach of the game, to change how women athletes and women everywhere view themselves, and to give everyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation — including my two daughters — a chance to compete both on the court and in life,” President Obama said in presenting her the medal. “Tennis is a platform, and I fight for everybody,” King said. Throughout March, the historical society will also display items from King’s personal archives. Among the other upcoming programs are “Women and the White House” moderated by Lesley Stahl on March 9 and a screening of Woman of the Year on March 24 with remarks by Kati Marton.

TICKET ALERT — AGNÈS VARDA: VISUAL ARTIST

French legend Agnès Varda will discuss her life and career as a visual artist at FIAF

French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, February 28, $30, 7:30
Series continues Tuesday nights through March 21
212-355-6100
fiaf.org

Over the years, FIAF has shown many films by Nouvelle Vague master Agnès Varda, the celebrated auteur behind such classics as Vagabond, Cléo from 5 to 7, The Gleaners and I, Jacquot de Nantes, and The Beaches of Agnès. Now the French Institute Alliance Française is bringing Varda herself to Florence Gould Hall for the special talk “Agnès Varda: Visual Artist,” taking place on February 28 at 7:30, moderated by art dealer Olivier Renaud-Clément. The Belgium-born, France-based Varda, who was married to Jacques Demy for nearly thirty years, will be focusing not only on her film career but her upcoming gallery show at Blum & Poe, which runs March 2 to April 15. The discussion also kicks off FIAF’s CinéSalon series “Agnès Varda: Life as Art,” which consists of Varda’s Daguerréotypes on March 7, with the 7:30 screening followed by a talk with Varda and curator Laurence Kardish, Jacqot de Nantes on March 14, and Lola on March 21. This is a very special chance to see the remarkable eighty-eight-year-old Varda, so get your tickets now.

NAN GOLDIN: THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL / THE BALLAD OF SEXUAL DEPENDENCY

Nan Goldin (American, born 1953). Nan and Brian in Bed, New York City. 1983. Silver dye bleach print, printed 2006, 15 1/2 × 23 3/16" (39.4 × 58.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Jon L. Stryker. © 2016 Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin, “Nan and Brian in Bed, New York City,” silver dye bleach print, 1983, printed 2006 (the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Jon L. Stryker. © 2016 Nan Goldin)

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Wednesday, February 8, free with museum admission, 11:30 am
Exhibition continues through April 16, $14-$25
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

“The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is the diary I let people read. My written diaries are private; they form a closed document of my world and allow me the distance to analyze it. My visual diary is public,” Nan Goldin wrote about her seminal 1985-86 multimedia exhibition and book. “There is a popular notion that the photographer is by nature a voyeur, the last one invited to the party. But I’m not crashing; this is my party. This is my family, my history.” Goldin and the Museum of Modern Art are currently inviting everyone to the party, showing The Ballad of Sexual Dependency in its complete audiovisual form through April 16. Consisting of nearly seven hundred portraits set to music by James Brown, Maria Callas, the Velvet Underground, Nina Simone, and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Ballad is set primarily amid the heroin subculture of downtown New York from 1979 to 1986, just as AIDS started ravaging the city, as well as in Berlin, Paris, Boston, Provincetown, and Mexico. Born in Washington, DC, in 1953, Goldin, who left home when she was just fourteen, took intimate photos of her chosen family — friends, lovers, junkies, drag queens, and others, including artists Greer Lankton and Vivienne Dick, actress and writer Cookie Mueller, Andy Warhol, Jim Jarmusch, and performer Suzanne Fletcher. Deeply affected by her sister Barbara’s suicide — she killed herself in 1964 at the age of eighteen, when Nan was eleven — Goldin sees the photos as a way to hold on to her memories. The photos are not chic glamour shots but instead captured moments of real life, with natural lighting and what would technically be considered imperfect composition. Yet they have an immediacy and emotion that overstaging and multiple takes would ruin. Although reminiscent of the work of Larry Clark and Diane Arbus, Ballad finds Goldin boldly revealing her life, particularly in two of the most famous shots, one of her boyfriend Brian sitting on the edge of a bed, smoking a cigarette, as sunlight pours in over Goldin’s face on a pillow, her eyes slyly looking at him, while in the other, a horribly beaten Goldin — the culprit was Brian —looks into the camera, her left eye nearly swollen shut, her red lipstick, dangling earrings, and pearl necklace defining her feminism and strength.

Nan Goldin, “Nan One Month After Being Battered, 1984,” silver dye bleach print, printed 2008 (the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase)

Nan Goldin, “Nan One Month After Being Battered,” silver dye bleach print, 1984, printed 2008 (the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase)

On February 8 at 11:30 am, independent educator Diana Bush will lead a Gallery Session at MoMA, “Nan Goldin: The Personal Is Political,” exploring the relationship between photography, memory, and diary, elements that are central to Goldin’s entire oeuvre, which also includes such books and series as “I’ll Be Your Mirror” and “The Devil’s Playground.” (You can find out more about Goldin in Sabine Lidl’s 2013 documentary, Nan Goldin — I Remember Your Face.) Named after a song in Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s 1928 classic, The Threepenny Opera (“They’re all the same / In meeting love’s confusion / Poor noble souls / Get blotted in illusion”) — The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is in its own viewing room at MoMA, where visitors feel like guests at this decades-old party, watching photos of acquaintances pass by, each one a not-so-distant memory tinged with joy and sadness. The central slide show is supplemented by numerous posters from the early versions of Ballad as well as silver dye bleach prints of more than a dozen of the photos, including “The Parents’ Wedding Photo, Swampscott, Massachusetts,” “Trixie on the Cot, New York City,” “Nan One Month After Being Battered,” and “Philippe H. and Suzanne Kissing at Euthanasia, New York City.” Goldin also wrote in the Ballad book, “The diary is my form of control over my life. It allows me to obsessively record every detail. It enables me to remember.” Extended through April 16, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is hard to forget.

TAKE ME (I’M YOURS)

Jewish Museum exhibit gives visitors a chance to go home with actual objets d’art (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
Thursday – Sunday, $7.50 – $15 (free admission Saturday 11:00 am – 5:45 pm, pay-what-you-wish Thursday 5:00 – 8:00)
212-423-3200
thejewishmuseum.org

“Don’t just look. Touch, take, share,” the Jewish Museum advises about its interactive exhibition “Take Me (I’m Yours),” which continues through Sunday. In 1995, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and artist Christian Boltanski teamed up at the Serpentine Gallery in London for a show of the same name, in which a dozen artists created works that visitors could literally take home, exploring such ideas as creation, engagement, interactivity, participation, ownership, value, consumerism, and the art market itself. The Jewish Museum show features pieces by forty-two artists and collectives, several from the original Serpentine presentation; a Kickstarter campaign helped fund approximately ten thousand of each work so visitors could add to their own personal art collection. “In principle a work of art has always been reproducible,” Walter Benjamin wrote in his 1935 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” adding, “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” Andrea Bowers’s “Political Ribbons,” featuring feminist mottos, were taken from the museum and worn by protesters at the recent women’s march on Washington. Boltanski’s “Dispersion” consists of used clothing that is meant to be taken and used; the ever-changing mound evokes Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s nearby “Untitled (USA Today),” edible (and kosher) sugar-free candies that, when taken, not only change the shape of the work as a whole but reference loss, especially poignant since Gonzales-Torres and his partner both died of AIDS in the 1990s. Carsten Höller’s “Pill Clock (Red and White),” a mechanism high in a corner, slowly dispensing edible capsules one by one, and Ian Cheng and Rachel Rose’s untitled container of fortune cookies call into question material possession as visitors decide whether to take the objects home to keep or to just eat them, which is a completely different experience.

“Take Me (I’m Yours)” is filled with items that call into question consumerism, consumption, and the art market itself (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The concepts of immateriality and ownership are also raised in such pieces as aaajiao’s “Email Trek,” in which the art is an email; Kelly Akashi’s “Cavelike,” a sound installation; Alison Knowles’s “Shoes of Your Choice,” involving audience performance; James Lee Byars’s “Be Quiet,” in which a slow-moving woman in a dark dress approaches people who are talking and silently gives them a small, circular piece of colored paper that says, “Be Quiet”; General Sisters’ “No One Is Disposable” recycled, sustainable toilet paper that declares “I am not illegal”; and Daniel Spoerri’s “Eat Art Happening,” a large-scale skeleton made of nonkosher sugar paste that will be devoured by museumgoers on February 5 in “Everything Must Go,” providing the sweet taste of death on the last day of the exhibition. Other pieces to look out for are Uri Aran’s untitled plaster casts of the tops of takeout coffee lids, Andrea Fraser’s “Preliminary Prospectuses” detailing art as corporate commodity, Gilbert & George’s anarchistic buttons, Yngve Holen’s wearable “Evil Eye” contact lenses, Jonas Mekas’s “With Thanks to Joseph Cornell and Rose Hobart” filmstrip (a museum employee will cut a segment for those who ask), Yoko Ono’s “Air Dispenser” capsules (which cost a quarter), Rirkit Tiravanija’s “Untitled (Form Follows Function or Vice Versa No. Two)” T-shirts, Daniel Joseph Martinez’s “(America) Adopt a Refugee” kit, and Jonathan Horowitz’s “Hillary 16” poster depicting the official portraits of all the presidents — except with Hillary Clinton following Barack Obama. Scattered throughout the exhibition are definitions of such words and phrases as New Materialism, Economy, Market, Gift, Charity, Relics, Immateriality, Relational Aesthetics, Exchange, and Democratization, placing it all in sociopolitical perspective. Perhaps it is all summed up by Lawrence Weiner’s pidgin English installation “NAU EM I ART BILONG YUMI,” which translates as “The art of today belongs to us.” Among the other artists giving away cool stuff are Luis Camnitzer, Maria Eichhorn, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Alex Israel, Rivane Neuenschwander, Martha Rosler, Allen Ruppersberg (paying homage to Gonzalez-Torres), Tino Sehgal, and Haim Steinbach. (Note that some works are not available on Saturday.) You’re likely to go home with a bag filled with goodies, but how many will you keep long-term as you reevaluate their worth over time? However, the experience will never go away; just be sure not to pocket any items throughout the rest of the museum.