this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

ARTIST TALK AND MORE: RACHEL FEINSTEIN AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM

Rachel Feinstein will discuss her survey exhibition at the Jewish Museum on February 13 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Jewish Museum, Scheuer Auditorium
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
Thursday, February 13, $12-$18, 6:30
Exhibit continues through March 22, $8-$18, pay-what-you-wish Thursday from 5:00 – 8:00, free Saturday
212-423-3200
thejewishmuseum.org

Rachel Feinstein’s first survey exhibition, “Maiden, Mother, Crone” at the Jewish Museum, leads visitors down the Arizona-born, New York City-based multidisciplinary artist’s unique rabbit hole, an abstract wonderland where mythology, fairy tales, religious iconography, sexuality, and family are interwoven through a distinctly feminist lens. Mirrors figure prominently, allowing us to take a close look at ourselves and our innate biases. In conjunction with the show, Feinstein will give the Gertrude and David Fogelson Lecture at the museum on February 13, followed by a book signing of the companion monograph. The exhibit is fashioned like a fantastical trip though winding pathways with life-size statues, maquettes, paintings, film, and installation that are not always what they initially seem. A former fashion model who studied at Columbia, Feinstein creates works layered with nuance and filled with little surprises.

Model, a wood, plaster, and enamel paint construction with mirrors, is flanked by St. Sebastian and St. Michael, equating pop culture and religion. One room features Goldstein, a white-painted, carefully carved wood wall that evokes a tropical getaway, while another offers Panorama of Rome, Mylar wallpaper of Ancient Roman architecture surrounding such classical-inspired statuary as Corinne, a swirling Majolica piece made with the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory and based on an eighteenth-century Commedia dell’Arte figurine; The Orphan and Bleeding Shepherdess, which subvert convention with frank images of the female body and its functions; and Butterfly and Puritan’s Delight, which play with fairy-tale tropes.

Rachel Feinstein’s fantastical fairy-tale world will be on view at the Jewish Museum through March 22 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Also on view are the stained wood Adam and Eve, which intertwines the biblical couple with nature in the Garden of Eden; a yearning depiction of the Crucifixion, Feinstein’s first work after having witnessed the destruction on 9/11 from her downtown apartment; the colorful Flower Girl, a Play-Doh-like youth with animals congregating all over her; Mr. Time, a fanciful black-and-white working clock based on a drawing by Feinstein’s son when he was ten; and a series of six cameo-like paintings of women on oval mirrors, five elderly ladies and a younger prima ballerina.

The inherent tension in Feinstein’s oeuvre, involving color, materials, and meaning in a kind of twisting of Hans Christian Andersen and Lewis Carroll, is also evident in her 1994-96 experimental short film Spring and Winter, in which she reconfigures Charles Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty story with an eye to the source material, Giambattista Basile’s Sun, Moon, and Talia, which was not so child friendly, as well as the true story of Art and Nan Kellam, a couple who lived in isolation on an island off the coast of Maine; in the film, Feinstein portrays a paper doll, a maiden, and a crone. There’s a theatricality to virtually everything Feinstein creates; in fact, her 2014 Folly installation in Madison Square Park was accompanied by a performance festival. “Maiden, Mother, Crone” continues through March 22; on March 12 ($18, 6:30), the panel discussion “Dialogue and Discourse — Once Upon a Time: Narrative in Art” features Feinstein with Lisa Yuskavage, Sofia Coppola, Tamara Jenkins, and Florence Welch, moderated by curator Kelly Taxter, and there will be such special gallery talks as “Mirrors of Civilization” and “The Dark Side of Fairy Tales” as well as Thursday Evening Cocktails through February, where attendees can try Feinstein’s potent potable of choice, the Negroni, an Italian favorite consisting of gin, vermouth rosso, and Campari.

ANNE TERESA DE KEERSMAEKER: MITTEN WIR IM LEBEN SIND / BACH6CELLOSUITEN

The North American premiere of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Rosas’ Mitten Wir Im Leben Sind/Bach6Cellosuiten takes place at the Skirball Center this week (photo by Anne Van Aerschot)

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 La Guardia Pl.
February 13-15, $50-$60, 7:30
212-998-4941
nyuskirball.org
www.rosas.be/en

If you haven’t seen Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Rosas perform in New York City, you haven’t been paying attention. She and her company have presented A Love Supreme at New York Live Arts in 2017, Six Brandenburg Concertos at Park Avenue Armory in 2018, and Transfigured Night at Baryshnikov Arts Center in 2019. This week de Keersmaeker and Rosas are performing the North America premiere of Mitten Wir Im Leben Sind / Bach6Cellosuiten (In the Midst of Life / Bach’s Cello Suites) at NYU’s Skirball Center, a series of solos accompanied by master French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, who plays a 1696 cello by Gioffredo Cappa, with de Keersmaeker joining each dancer for a duet.

The two-hour piece, which debuted at the 2017 Ruhrtriennale in Germany in 2017, consists of six Bach sections written between 1717 and 1723 (BWV 1007-1012) — the allemande, courante, sarabande, two minuets, and gigue — created with and danced by Boštjan Antončič, Marie Goudot, Julien Monty, Michaël Pomero, and De Keersmaeker. The stark staging, in which the dancers move across a black space around a seated Queyras, with swirling white chalk marks and green and red tape placed on the light-colored floor, features costumes by An D’Huys, sound by Alban Moraud, and lighting by Luc Schaltin. The title comes from Martin Luther’s version of the Latin antiphon “Media vita in morte sumus”; the Lutheran hymn reads, in part: “In the midst of life / We are in death / Who shall help us in the strife / Lest the Foe confound us? / Thou only, Lord, Thou only!” In addition, Bach wrote a freestanding chorale (BWV 383) based on Luther’s three-stanza liturgy; de Keersmaeker has also discussed how she saw the Luther quote on the tombstone of legendary choreographer Pina Bausch. The February 14 show will be followed by a talk with de Keersmaeker and Queyras, moderated by Center for Ballet and the Arts founder and director Jennifer Homans.

DOC FORTNIGHT: FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO

Lynne Sachs takes a revealing look at her dad in Film About a Father Who

MoMA’s FESTIVAL OF INTERNATIONAL NONFICTION FILM AND MEDIA: FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO (Lynne Sachs, 2020)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Tuesday, February 11, 8:00, and Friday, February 14, 4:30
Series continues through February 19
www.moma.org
www.lynnesachs.com

“We’re pretty candid about who Dad is, and we’ve seen him through a lot, but we’re also able to shift what we might recognize as who he really is to what we want him to be,” experimental documentarian Lynne Sachs says in Film About a Father Who, a revealing look at the patriarch of her seemingly ever-expanding family, her dad, Ira Sachs Sr. Inspired by Yvonne Rainer’s seminal 1974 work A Film About a Woman Who . . . , a cinematic collage exploring sexual conflict, and Heinrich Boll’s 1971 novel Group Portrait with Lady, Sachs’s movie, screening February 11 and 14 in MoMA’s annual Documentary Fortnight series, consists of footage taken over a period of fifty-four years, beginning in 1965, using 8mm and 16mm film, VHS, Hi8, Mini DV, and digital images, edited by Rebecca Shapass. Now eighty-three, Ira Sachs Sr. was a sex-loving, pot-smoking minor-league hotelier, a neglectful, emotionally unavailable husband and father, both selfish and generous, carefully guarding secrets that Lynne, her sister, journalist and author Dana Sachs, and her brother, filmmaker Ira Sachs Jr., discuss with their six half-siblings, children their father had with other wives and girlfriends, some of whom they did not know about for many years.

Ira Sr.’s mother, Rose Sachs, known as Maw-maw, who left him when he was young, says of his womanizing, “I can’t stand that way of life.” His first wife, Lynne’s mother, Diane Sachs, speaks about what an easy decision divorcing him was. “Marriage was just a lot of being up at night, going to the window, wondering when he was coming home,” she explains. His second wife, Diana Lee, says through tears, “He’s a mistake.” Yet nearly all the women in his life, relatives and companions alike, profess their undying love for the long-haired, bushy-mustached man who was able to cast a spell over them despite, at least outwardly, not appearing to be a particularly eloquent Don Juan type and never remaining faithful. But there’s also more than a hint of psychological abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother. “She treated me as an enemy,” he says.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that the first three children of such a secretive man all went into the storytelling arts, mixing fiction and nonfiction in film and literature; Ira has won awards for such films as Forty Shades of Blue and Love Is Strange, Dana’s books include the novel If You Lived Here and the Vietnam memoir The House on Dream Street, and Lynne’s documentaries range from Investigation of a Flame and Sermons and Sacred Pictures to Your Day Is My Night and States of UnBelonging. There are numerous shots of family members filming other relatives; at one point, Lynne is filming Ira Jr. filming Ira Sr. while watching home movies on the television. A Film About a Woman Who . . . , which features music by sound artist Stephen Vitiello, is a striking portrait of an unusually dysfunctional family, a true story that has been in the making for more than a half century and even now provides only some of the answers. Perhaps you can find out more when it screens at MoMA’s Festival of International Nonfiction Film and Media on February 11 at 8:00, introduced by Lynne; it is also being shown February 14 at 4:30.

CANE RIVER

The prodigal son returns in restoration of Horace B. Jenkins’s long-lost Cane River

CANE RIVER (Horace B. Jenkins, 1982)
BAMfilm, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
February 7-20
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

After nearly forty years, Horace B. Jenkins’s Cane River is finally being released theatrically, playing at BAM Rose Cinemas from February 7 to 20, not uncoincidentally during Black History Month. Shortly after its premiere in 1982, Jenkins died at the age of forty-two and the film disappeared without distribution. The original negative was found in 2013 in the DuArt Film & Video Vault and is now screening in a new 4K digital restoration overseen by IndieCollect. Cane River is a touching love story set amid colorism, classism, misogynoir, and the far-reaching tentacles of slavery in Natchitoches Parish in Louisiana, where tensions between blacks, whites, and Creoles have festered for hundreds of years.

A cast of mostly first-time actors (many in their only film) is led by Richard Romain as Peter Metoyer, a college football star who returns to his rural hometown of Cane River instead of pursuing a gridiron career; he was drafted by the New York Jets but would rather be a poet and a writer, choosing to help run the family farm with his father (Lloyd La Cour) and sister, Dominique (Barbara Tasker). One day he is visiting the Melrose plantation — where his ancestor Marie Thérèse Coincoin became a freed slave and successful land owner who married French merchant Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer, had ten children, and controversially kept slaves as well — when he meets eighteen-year-old Maria Mathis (Tommye Myrick), who is getting ready to leave for college at Xavier. She is reading The Forgotten People: Cane River’s Creoles of Color by Gary B. Mills, a book partly about the very real Metoyer family history and the Melrose plantation. She is so desperate to get away from the boring and staid Cane River while he has come back to make a calm, easygoing life there. Despite his being a Catholic Creole and her being a black southern Baptist, they fall in love, which angers her mother (Carol Sutton), but Maria doesn’t want to stay, adamant to not get caught in the trap her brother (Ilunga Adell) is in, working in the hatchery, getting drunk, and having no perceptible future. “What is more poetic than planting a seed and watching it grow?” Peter asks Maria, both filled with hope.

A response to the blaxploitation movies of the 1970s and partially inspired by the true story of Jenkins’s longtime partner, Carol Balthazar, who served as a consultant on the project, Cane River is a film entrenched in dichotomy, mixing fact and fiction to explore the inherent differences between the country and the city, in the expectations of men versus women, of factory work and higher education, of flashy convertibles speeding down the highway and horseback rides along a beautiful lake, and, most centrally, the color of one’s skin. “You Creoles are different people,” Maria tells Peter, but that statement is more loaded than she realizes. The low-budget film is too static; cinematographer Gideon Manasseh’s camera seldom moves (although it does focus on many gorgeous natural landscapes), and editor Debi Moore can’t establish a consistent rhythm and pace. The acting is often less than compelling, the script can be overly earnest, and Leroy Glover’s score features songs with lyrics that often repeat exactly what you’re seeing onscreen. But there’s a deep-rooted charm to the film, which explores topics that are still hot-button issues today, especially colorism. “Black folks don’t stand a chance,” one character says, evoking the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement. It’s important to have this film back in circulation, and BAM is celebrating its return by hosting four Q&As opening weekend with Romain, Myrick, Jenkins’s son Sacha, and, at one, his daughter Dominique.

FANFAIRE NYC

fanfaire nyc

The High School of Art and Design
245 East 56th St.
Saturday, February 8, and Sunday, February 9, $5-$15 per day, $10-$20 two-day pass, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.fanfairenyc.com

Fanfaire NYC takes place this weekend, a two-day festival celebrating cartooning, animation, graphic design, architecture, and fashion. An annual benefit for the High School of Art and Design, the multidimensional fest features more than 125 artists and vendors, talks and panels, workshops, costume contests, video games, movie screenings, and portfolio reviews. This year’s guests range from artists and professors to cosplayers and editors, from character designers and executives to writers and high school alum, including Neal Adams, Abe Audish, Bob Camp, Klaus Janson, Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear, and David Mazzucchelli. Founded in 1936, the High School of Art and Design, which is a public school, has boasted such graduates as Adams, Tony Bennett, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Art Spiegelman, Amy Heckerling, and Steven Meisel. Below are only some of the highlights:

Saturday, February 8
Graphic Design & Illustration Portfolio Review, with Joann Hill and Cryssy Cheung, Library, sixth floor, advance registration required, 10:00 am

Careers in Animation, with Bob Camp, Sachio Cook, Chrissy Fellmeth, and Abe Audish, moderated by Kiara Arias and Jaydan Hyman, Black Box, LL2, 10:30

Tracing Is Not a Crime, with Neal Adams, moderated by Josh Adams, Classroom 1, sixth floor, 10:30

My Life in Ink, with tattoo artist Keith “BANG BANG” McCurdy, Black Box, LL2, 12:00

Breaking into Comics and Other Tales, with Klaus Janson, moderated by Chris Allo, Black Box, LL2, 1:30

Storytelling in Comics with David Mazzucchelli, Classroom 1, sixth floor, 3:00

Mythconceptions — Behind the Scenes of George O’Connor’s Olympians, with George O’Connor, Black Box, LL2, 4:30

Sunday, February 9
Ink Flow: Learning to Ink Like Neal Adams, with Neal Adams, moderated by Josh Adams, Classroom 1, sixth floor, 10:00 am

Freelance isn’t Free — How to Build Yourself as an Artist and Run a Business, with Lucinda Lewis, Chrissy Fellmeth, Nik Virella, and Cristian S. Aluas, moderated by Miss Kill Joy, Auditorium, LL2, 12:00

Cosplay Competition: People’s Choice Masquerade, Auditorium, LL2, 2:00 – 5:00

Inside the Art of Sequential Visual Storytelling, with Carl Potts, Black Box, LL2, 2:30

Children’s Books: More than Drawing Cute Bunnies, with Joann Hill, Classroom 3, sixth floor, 3:00

DYNAMIC DUO: The art of last impressions, slide presentation, discussion, and book signing, with Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear, and Charles Kochman, Black Box, LL2, 4:00 – 6:00

NY INDIE THEATRE FILM FESTIVAL

Attending the NY Indie Theatre Film Festival won’t be as traumatic as visiting Natalie Johnson’s The Taxidermist, which screens on February 8

New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher St.
February 6-9, individual events free – $10, day/fest passes $15-$30
866-811-4111
newohiotheatre.org

New Ohio Theatre’s fourth annual NY Indie Theatre Film Festival finishes in a big way on February 9 with a special screening of Charles Busch’s 2006 coming-of-age tale A Very Serious Person, in which the writer-director stars as a gay male nurse taking care of an ailing woman portrayed by Polly Bergen. Busch, whose work includes The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, The Tribute Artist, and the current Primary Stages production The Confession of Lily Dare at the Cherry Lane, will participate in a talkback after the screening. The festival begins February 6 at 7:00 with a screenplay reading of Brooke Berman’s Polly Freed with Annie Parisse, Paul Sparks, Sadie Seelert, Alysia Reiner, Jamie Harrold, Austin Ku, Sebastian Martinez, Clara Young, Becca Lish, Erin Gann, and Julienne Kim and a free opening-night party at 9:00. There will be five screening blocks of short films and web series episodes February 7-8, including works written and/or directed by Victoria Clark, David Zayas Jr., Wendy MacLeod, Caroline V. McGraw, and Alyssa May Gold. On February 9 at 2:00, the competitive Film Race will take place, a benefit for F*It Club in which teams present movies they made only after getting required script elements on February 5; at 4:00, the panel discussion “What Makes a Pitch Sizzle?” brings together Thom Woodley, Sarah Donnelly, and Gideon Evans. “Our mission is to support indie theatre artists wherever their inspiration takes them. If it takes them into new mediums, we want to be there to help,” New Ohio artistic director Robert Lyons said in a statement. Individual events are $5 to $10, with day or festival passes ranging from $15 to $30.

DIANE KEATON / EDIE FALCO AT 92Y

New York City native Edie Falco will be at the 92nd St. Y on February 6 to talk about her new police drama on CBS

New York City native Edie Falco will be at the 92nd St. Y on February 6 to talk about her new LA-set police drama on CBS

92nd St. Y
1395 Lexington Ave. between 91st & 92nd St.
Diane Keaton: Kauffman Concert Hall, Tuesday, February 4, $50-$65, 7:00
Edie Falco: Buttenwieser Hall, Wednesday, February 5, $35-$40, 7:00
www.92y.org/events

A pair of iconic actresses will be at 92Y this week to discuss their latest projects. On February 4, LA-born Oscar winner Diane Keaton will be in Kauffman Concert Hall in conversation with editor and author David Ebershoff (The Danish Girl), talking about her new book, Brother and Sister: A Memoir, which deals with her relationship with her younger sibling, Randy. Tickets includes a copy of the book. On February 5, Manhattan native Edie Falco will be in Buttenwieser Hall in conversation with CBS This Morning: Saturday cohost Michelle Miller (replacing the previously announced Jane Pauley), chatting about Falco’s new TV series, Tommy, in which the four-time Emmy winner and Tony nominee stars as the first woman police chief of the LAPD, a single mother who is gay. The show is created by the Bronx-born Paul Attanasio, whose other series include Homicide: Life on the Street and Bull.