Who:Billy Bragg, Rosanne Cash, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Steve Earle, Shovels & Rope, Rufus Wainwright, Richard Thompson, the Indigo Girls, Jorma Kaukonen, Todd Snider, KT Tunstall, Loudon Wainwright, Amy Helm, Joseph Arthur, Stella Donnelly, Andrew Bird, Fink, Joan Osborne, the Mountain Goats, Valerie June, Stephin Merritt, Rita Houston What: Special livestreamed Mother’s Day benefit concert from City Winery Where: Private YouTube link sent two hours before showtime When: Sunday, May 10, $10, 5:00 Why: “I love you and that’s why I’m going to stay away,” Billy Bragg sings to his mother in his March 21 video, “Can’t Be There Today.” The English singer-songwriter and activist was quick to follow social distancing guidelines, even if it meant not seeing loved ones. He has now teamed up with City Winery, where he is a regular performer, for a livestreamed Mother’s Day concert on Sunday, May 10, at 5:00, and there is an all-star lineup joining him from wherever they are sheltering in place. The roster so far features Rosanne Cash, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Steve Earle, Shovels & Rope, Rufus Wainwright, Richard Thompson, the Indigo Girls, Jorma Kaukonen, Todd Snider, KT Tunstall, Loudon Wainwright, Amy Helm, Joseph Arthur, Stella Donnelly, Andrew Bird, Fink, Joan Osborne, the Mountain Goats, Valerie June, and Stephin Merritt, hosted by Rita Houston.
Tickets to the YouTube show are $10, with all proceeds benefiting the United Nations Foundation, which “addresses sexual and reproductive health and rights in the COVID-19 pandemic.” Showing as always that he is ahead of the curve, Bragg explained in a statement about the song, “The coronavirus pandemic is going to affect our lives in ways we’ve yet to grasp. In the coming months, most of us will be forced to miss family gatherings, including Mother’s Day, which in the UK fell on the first weekend of isolation [March 22]. My new song touches on the emotional cost of this crisis.” Watch the concert with your mother, or in your mother’s memory. And stay safe and healthy out there; it’s not worth risking your life — or your mother’s — just to tell her you love her in person on Sunday.
Who: Frances McDormand, John Turturro, Oscar Isaac, Jeffrey Wright, Frankie Faison, David Strathairn, Glenn Davis, Marjolaine Goldsmith, Jumaane Williams What: Live Zoom theatrical production by Theater of War Where: Eventbrite link sent with RSVP When: Thursday, May 7, free with RSVP, 7:00 Why: Theater of War Productions (TOWP) presents dramatic readings of plays and speeches by Sophocles, Tennessee Williams, Euripides, Conor McPherson, Aeschylus, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Eugene O’Neill, Frederick Douglass, and others, examining them through a contemporary sociocultural lens, focusing on such themes as addiction and substance abuse, gun violence, the prison system, natural disasters, consent, genocide, and caregiving. On May 7 at 7:00, the company, which was cofounded in 2009 by Bryan Doerries and Phyllis Kaufman, will turn its attention to the current pandemic with the Oedipus Project, a free online initiative that will feature an all-star roster of actors giving a live, dramatic reading of scenes from Sophocles’s fifth-century BCE classic, Oedipus the King. The play deals with such elements as arrogance, pride, power, guilt, and truth and was first performed during the Plague of Athens, an epidemic that killed about a third of the population. The impressive cast, who will be performing from wherever they are sheltering in place, consists of Frances McDormand, John Turturro, Oscar Isaac, Jeffrey Wright, Frankie Faison, David Strathairn, Glenn Davis, and Marjolaine Goldsmith. “There are people suffering out there, dying from the hateful plague, and this is what you choose to do with your time?” Jocasta asks in Doerries’s translation; Doerries also directs the show and will facilitate a live, interactive discussion about the impact of Covid-19 on families and communities, joined by New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams. TOWP is planning other productions to help those facing loneliness, trauma, loss, and mental and physical illness during this time of isolation.
Frick Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon chose a Manhattan to drink while exploring Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert from home (courtesy the Frick Collection)
Among the things that many of us are missing the most during the Covid-19 crisis are art and travel. They might not be essential businesses, but they’re key parts of a full and rewarding life. Both serve as respites from the everyday; they entertain and educate us, offering escape from our daily toil. “How Can We Think of Art at a Time Like This?” is the titular question of Barbara Pollack and Anne Verhallen’s ongoing online exhibition, which features new and recent work from major living artists addressing the pandemic and politics. The answer, of course, is how can we not?
Xavier F. Salomon has found his own unique method of thinking about art in the time of coronavirus, adding related travel as well. Salomon, who was born in Rome to an English mother and a Danish father, was raised in Italy and England, and received his BA, MA, and PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, is the Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator at the Frick Collection. Every Wednesday and Friday, he takes over the Frick’s YouTube channel with deep dives into art history. On Wednesday’s “Travels with a Curator,” Salomon, who previously worked at the British Museum, the National Gallery and the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, and the Met here in New York — quite a resume for a man only just in his forties — gives an illustrated lecture about art and architecture in specific cities; so far he has guided us through Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome, and Ca’ d’Oro, Venice.
Frick Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon is becoming an internet star during pandemic (photo by Michael Bodycomb)
He is fast becoming an internet superstar for his Friday talks, “Cocktails with a Curator,” my preferred manner of ending the workweek. At 5:00, Salomon pairs a masterpiece from the Frick with a cocktail and spends between fifteen and twenty minutes discussing the Frick gem and the drink, placing them in context of the current pandemic. Seen in the lower-right-hand corner of the screen, the bald, bearded, handsome, and ever-charming Salomon has helped us look deeply into Rembrandt’s Polish Rider with a Szarlotka, Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert with a Manhattan, and Van Dyck’s Sir John Suckling with a Pink Gin. (On May 1, curator Aimee Ng explored Constable’s White Horse with a gin and Dubonnet.)
On May 8, Salomon will visit with Joseph Mallord William Turner’s Harbor of Dieppe: Changement de Domicile while enjoying a Widow’s Kiss. (The recipes, which include alcohol-free versions, are posted on the YouTube page in advance.) The Frick is my personal favorite museum, a place I go to often to see familiar works that both relax and energize me — including Harbor of Dieppe, which I’ve marveled at on many occasions — so I’m finding these talks, which are prerecorded but stream live (and can be also watched later), absolutely essential in every way. Salomon recently took a break from his art history forays to discuss art and travel in the age of coronavirus.
twi-ny: Last year, before the pandemic, you started examining specific works from current Frick special exhibitions in a Facebook series called “Live from the Frick!” How did that evolve into “Cocktails with a Curator”?
xavier f. salomon: The Frick Collection has had a long tradition of online offerings (exhibition virtual tours, online live streaming of scholarly lectures, and Facebook “Lives,” among many examples). As soon as the lockdown began, we started to think, as a team, as to what we could offer to as varied an audience as possible. The idea of weekly appointments – with “Cocktails” on Fridays and “Travels” on Wednesdays – is designed to take our minds away from our current problems and to “meet” virtually. The idea was to match art with something we may miss from our previous life: things such as going out with friends for a drink, or traveling.
twi-ny: Do you consider yourself a cocktail aficionado? Are you trying new drinks, or are you choosing some of your favorites?
xaf: I do like cocktails very much. I am starting with a number of favorites, but as the series will continue, I am definitely planning to explore new options.
twi-ny: As a Frick regular, I feel that many of the paintings and sculptures in the museum are like old friends and members of the family that I thought I knew so well. I’ve stared at “St. Francis in the Desert” dozens of times, but as I watched your description on “Cocktails,” I felt as if I’d never really seen it. Because you are presenting this with a slightly adjusted context, referencing the pandemic, do you find yourself learning surprising things about works that you thought you knew so well?
xaf: The Frick is a museum of masterpieces. And I always believed that great works of art, first of all, can improve our lives but can also mean a number of different things at different times. One of the most common questions I have been asked in the last few years is: “Are works of art by Old Masters relevant?” The answer is: “YES!!!” And I hope to demonstrate this with this series. One thing that this virus is making apparent to everyone is how fragile human beings are. Artworks are the best that human beings have produced in the last few thousand years, and they can help us understand why and how we live. People a thousand years ago, five hundred years ago, a hundred years ago, were dealing with life as we do, with love, with friendship, with knowledge, with financial issues . . . and with epidemics and death. So I have been working on matching works at the Frick with broad issues we are thinking about today. And – not surprisingly – it is actually quite easy. And I am enjoying thinking about our works in this way.
twi-ny: I’m also appreciative of how fresh your analysis is. In the most recent Frick Collection magazine, you wrote about van Dyck’s “Sir John Suckling,” but your “Cocktails” talk about it explored the painting differently. I gather you would agree that “perspective is everything”?
xaf: Yes, I fully agree. And that is the importance of great works of art. They can be understood in a number of ways and can touch different chords in us. The same work of art meant different things to me when I was a teenager, or ten years ago. . . . We change as we go through life, and a truly great masterpiece can be for us a travel companion or a great friend. We change and they alongside us.
twi-ny: The camerawork is extraordinary, taking us deep inside the paintings. Is that footage already available, or might someone be taking new shots inside the museum?
xaf: The Frick has always had an in-house photographer, and our works have been very well photographed over the years by very talented people. All of the photographs of our works are from our archives. No new photography has been commissioned for these online programs. And many of the photos of locations I have taken myself over the years on my travels.
twi-ny: For the third “Cocktails” presentation, you cleverly changed where you were sitting when giving the talks. What part of the city are you sequestered in, and are you sheltering in place with any humans or animals?
xaf: I have been playing with different corners of my apartment to find an ideal location for the filming. It is a first for me, to film myself in my own apartment. I live in Washington Heights, in Manhattan, an area I like very much. I am, unfortunately, sheltering in place alone, as my partner (in the same situation) is across the Atlantic, in Europe. I would love to have a pet, especially during these times. But I cannot complain, because in my “hermitage” at least I have books.
Xavier F. Salomon brings the Frick into his home and ours in weekly online series (courtesy the Frick Collection)
twi-ny: Most curators exist in the background; the public might read essays by them in catalogs and wall text, or maybe see them if they go to an illustrated lecture at a museum. But you’re becoming a virtual sensation, with fans tuning in not just to hear about a masterpiece but to specifically see you and have a drink together. How does that feel?
xaf: I am not sure I would describe myself as a “virtual sensation.” But I also don’t believe that curators or art historians should live in the “background.” Art is for everyone, and if people want to know more about museums or works of art, curators need to be accessible. It is not about spending our lives in ivory towers and being buried in our libraries or our museums. As much as many of us (myself included) don’t necessarily dislike that idea, there is the fundamental fact that we need to put our knowledge and studies somewhere out there and have it available for the general public. I am not looking for fans, but I have to confess that it feels very rewarding to know that, with a very small contribution, I have somewhat enhanced people’s lives at a particularly difficult time.
twi-ny: You appear to love what you do, and you can be very funny, but on camera you never break character as a serious art historian. What does it take to make you burst out laughing?
xaf: I love, adore, what I do. I live for it. I could not imagine doing anything else with my life. I don’t know why, but I always feel awkward when laughing in public. But many things make me laugh out loud, and, it is usually female comedians. Women have such a wonderful sense of humor! But, maybe, you are right, I should be less serious on my online programs. . . .
twi-ny: What artworks might be coming up, or would you prefer to keep them a secret until closer to showtime? If you take requests, I have a few.
xaf: The answer is that I know a few works (Turner, Velázquez, Holbein, Bronzino) and places (the Monastery of the Temptation in Jericho, Santa Maria delle Carceri in Prato, the towns of Osuna in Spain and Valenciennes in France) that will come up, but I am still not sure about the exact timing and I do not have a full list. I keep thinking and choosing as I go along. And, yes, suggestions are well received!!! I was surprised to see that people have written to me with suggestions for specific cocktails (and I apologize for all those people who really expected me to offer a Bellini with a Bellini painting — come on, guys!!! — I need to be a bit more original than that . . .), but no one so far has suggested a work of art or a place. Please send me your ideas! [ed. note: How about Goya’s The Forge, Vermeer’s Officer and Laughing Girl, El Greco’s Purification of the Temple, or Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds?]
Who: Marlo Thomas, Phil Donahue, Rob Reiner What: Live online book launch and conversation celebrating fortieth wedding anniversary Where:92nd St. Y online When: Thursday, May 7, $20, 7:30 Why: To celebrate their fortieth anniversary, actress and social activist Marlo Thomas and longtime talk show host Phil Donahue wrote What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secret to a Happy Life (HarperCollins, May 2020, $29.99), in which they interview dozens of other happily married celebrity couples, including Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, James Carville and Mary Matalin, Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan, Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone, John McEnroe and Patty Smyth, Tony Shalhoub and Brooke Adams, Sting and Trudie Styler, Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, and Rob and Michele Reiner. On May 7 at 7:30, Rob Reiner will interview Thomas and Donahue, who got married on May 21, 1980, via the 92nd St. Y’s online portal. Virtual tickets are $20 and go to help the losses suffered by the 92nd St. Y because of the pandemic.
Who: Cynthia Nixon, Bobby Cannavale, Derek McLane, Edie Falco, Erica Schmidt, Donja R. Love, Scott Elliott What: Weekly discussions about the draw and power of theater Where:The New Group Facebook page When: Wednesdays at 4:00, May 6 – June 10, free with advance RSVP, followed by limited Zoom Q&A for $100 donation Why: Theater companies have been coming up with unique ways to stay in touch with their audiences now that all live, in-person staged productions have been postponed or canceled for the near future. The New Group is joining the online gatherings with “Why We Do It,” a weekly conversation series hosted by company founding artistic director Scott Elliott. Every Wednesday at 4:00, Elliott will speak live online with a member of the New Group family, beginning May 6 with Cynthia Nixon, who has directed Steve and Rasheeda Speaking for the troupe. The impressive lineup continues May 13 with Bobby Cannavale (Hurlybury), May 20 with set designer extraordinaire and board chairman Derek McLane, May 27 with Edie Falco (The True), June 3 with playwright and director Erica Schmidt (Cyrano,All the Fine Boys), and June 10 with playwright Donja R. Love (one in two). All conversations are free, but advance registration is necessary. Each talk will be followed by a smaller “Drinks with” Zoom Q&A with the main guest, limited to twenty participants who make a $100 tax-deductible donation and will get a recipe for an original drink from mixologist Sammi Katz.
Catalonian auteur Albert Serra’s Liberté seems tailor made for these challenging times, as so much of America hunkers down at home, sheltering in place because of the coronavirus. The fetishistic fête, which played festivals last year and is currently enjoying its exclusive virtual theatrical release via Film at Lincoln Center’s website, is a voyeur’s dream or nightmare, depending on how you look at sadomasochistic rituals and orgies. In Serra’s previous film, 2016’s brilliant The Death of Louis XIV, nearly all the action took place in the crowded bedchamber of the Sun King as he faced the end of his life. Liberté, set in a German forest, “a cursed place,” on the eve of the French Revolution, has a similarly claustrophobic feel. Both films were shot with three cameras: Serra’s technique means the actors don’t know which camera to perform to and don’t know exactly what the cameras are focusing on or which parts of their bodies are in the frame. In Liberté, this results in a dark vulnerability, especially given what body parts are shown, from afar and in extreme close-up.
For 132 slow-moving but intense minutes, we watch a cast of professional and nonprofessional actors touch themselves and one another, remove articles of extravagant clothing, perform ever-more-graphic acts of sex and violence (it’s often difficult to tell what is simulated and what is not), discuss bestiality, God and Jesus, killing, and politics, and, perhaps most important, gaze luridly at each other. In every scene, as we, the audience at home, follow the radical, vivid goings-on, at least one other character, and often more, are already in the composition, watching as well, or slowly entering the scene from the periphery, and our vision picks up the slightest motion emerging from behind a tree or a bush as we spot another voyeur, like a bug or a wild animal materializing from the darkness. At one point, a man with an extended spyglass peers around the area and ultimately faces us directly; thus, everyone knows they are being watched — we are all implicated. In addition, cinematographer Artur Tort rarely moves his camera; there are no active zooms, pans, or dollies, very little camera movement at all. Serra is not telling us what to look at; we scan the scenes individually, deciding for ourselves where to direct our attention (and what to turn away from). This is especially poignant when we are in our house or apartment on a computer, where we value our privacy and, perhaps, dabble in bits of pornography here and there, at least when our partners or children might not be around, which of course they always are now. Watching Liberté in a crowded theater with strangers would be a very different experience.
Liberté was first staged as a controversial German play in 2018 at the Volksbühne in Berlin, followed by the multimedia art installation Personalien at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid last year. The bold, daring cast, which improvises heavily throughout the film, features Helmut Berger as Duc de Walchen, Marc Susini as Comte de Tésis, Iliana Zabeth as Mademoiselle de Jensling, Laura Poulvet as Mademoiselle de Geldöbel, Baptiste Pinteaux as Duc de Wand, Théodora Marcadé as Madame de Dumeval, Alexander Garrcía Düttmann as Comte Alexis Danshir, Lluís Serrat as Armin, Xavier Pérez as Capitaine Benjamin Hephie, Cătălin Jugravu as Catalin, Montse Triola as Madam Montavrile, Safira Robens as Mademoiselle Rubens, and Francesc Daranas as the Libertine. While the women are beautiful by traditional standards, the men come in all shapes and sizes, some stunningly handsome but most not. The acts they perform will entice some viewers and disgust others; very little is left to the imagination (although there are no scenes of actual penetration).
The film recalls Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, David Cronenberg’s Crash, and William Friedkin’s Cruising, with an ample dose of Charles Bukowski, going well beyond Fellini’s Casanova, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, and Tinto Brass’s Caligula. The costumes, compositions, and scenery, which includes a palanquin where certain more private seductions occur, were inspired by the Baroque paintings of Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard and François Boucher, lending an elaborate elegance that speaks to class, wealth, and power. Dialogue is sparse but striking. “Let me describe a scene that would be most pleasurable for me,” one man says. “Is that enough?” someone asks of a woman who cries out for more. “Finally, an image that satisfies me,” a character declares approvingly of a sight that might not satisfy you. Editors Ariadna Ribas, Serra, and Tort had more than three hundred hours of continuous footage to sift through, shot in less than three weeks, using no music till the end, the primary sounds being insects, groans, whispers, grunts, and screams. It has been intricately edited down to portray one debauched night during which no holds are barred and everyone can act as freely as they desire, societal morals be damned. We are immersed in this perverse world that grows more and more shocking by the second, exposed to tableaux most of us have never seen before onscreen – or in real life. Serra (Honor of the Knights, Birdsong, Story of My Death) is not judging anyone, and he’s not asking us to judge either, although you’ll be hard-pressed not to want to know more about the making of this ravishing, rebellious film and Serra’s intentions. To do so, check out his 2019 Q&A at the New York Film Festival and the May 3 online Q&A, although he only gives up so much.
Pamela Adlon and Mario Cantone will talk about Better Things on May 5 online
Who:Pamela Adlon,Mario Cantone What: Live online conversation and Q&A about Better Things Where:92nd St. Y Facebook page When: Tuesday, May 5, free, 5:00 Why: During this pandemic, many of us have been catching up on shows we’ve missed over the years. For me, I’ve become obsessed with the Peabody-winning Better Things, the FX show on Hulu about a single mother and actress (Pamela Adlon) navigating through her career, raising three daughters, trying to find love (maybe), and taking care of her cheeky mom who lives across the street. The semiautobiographical show, which just completed its fourth season, was created by Emmy winners Adlon and Louis C.K.; Adlon played C.K.’s wife on the 2006 HBO comedy Lucky Louie and his best friend on the FX sitcom Louie. Adlon, who voiced Bobby Hill on King of the Hill and has starred in such other series as Californication, Bob’s Burgers, Rugrats, and The Facts of Life, created the show with C.K., and they wrote much of the first two seasons together (and often directed), but FX dropped C.K. once he was hit with a flurry of sexual misconduct allegations that he admitted to. Adlon is a force as Sam Fox, who mothers her kids, Max (Mikey Madison), Frankie (Hannah Alligood), and Duke (Olivia Edward), in tough, unique ways that might not win her any Mother of the Year awards but is touching nonetheless without ever being maudlin, while Celia Imrie is a hoot as her doddering British mom. On May 5 at 5:00, Adlon will be live on the 92nd St. Y’s Facebook page talking about Better Things with Tony-nominated comedian and former children’s television show host Mario Cantone (Sex and the City, Steampipe Alley), followed by a live Q&A. Admission is free.
