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

THE PENGUIN COUNTERS

Ron Naveen counts penguins amid glorious surroundings in THE PENGUIN COUNTERS

THE PENGUIN COUNTERS (Peter Getzels & Harriet Gordon, 2016)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, April 21
212-529-6799
www.cinemavillage.com
www.penguincountersmovie.com

Peter Getzels and Harriet Gordon’s The Penguin Counters arrives at Cinema Village just in time for World Penguin Day on April 25, which celebrates the cute and cuddly black-and-white (and often yellow) aquatic birds. However, the tuxedoed animals are facing a major challenge, as climate change threatens their very existence. The film follows Ron Naveen and his small team — Thomas Mueller of Frankfurt’s Biodiversity and Climate Research Center, research ecologist Steve Forrest, Stony Brook assistant professor Heather Lynch, and PhD candidates Mike Polito and Paula Casanovas — as they go from Argentina to Deception Island, tracking three varieties of penguins and following in the footsteps of British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, who led a famously treacherous journey to the Antarctic in the first decade of the nineteenth century aboard the aptly named Discovery. In a bit of serendipitous luck, on a cruise ship he’s essentially hitchhiking on, Naveen meets Angie Butler, the biographer of Shackleton’s right-hand man, Frank Wild, who is transporting Wild’s ashes to South Georgia so they can be buried next to Shackleton’s remains, and Naveen joins her on her mission. Naveen, the founder and president of Oceanites, is gathering information for the Antarctic Site Inventory project, which has been detailing the plight of oceanic birds and the ecosystem for more than twenty years. “We’re not explorers, climbers, or athletes,” Naveen explains in a message about the film. “The weather we face is grueling. The terrain is hostile, and we’re only kitted out with golf-ball-sized tally-whackers and waterproof spiral notebooks. But our data has been instrumental in the formation of policies among polar scientists and the fifty member nations of the Antarctic Treaty Organization.”

Documentary reveals effects climate change is having on the penguin population

“Penguins are my passion!” Naveen declares at the start of the film. “And why? Because penguins are indicators of ocean health, and they’re ultimately going to be sentinels of change.” Of course, penguins are also simply adorable, so the film is loaded with heartwarming shots of the flightless birds, as well as gorgeous panoramas of the Antarctic, lovingly photographed by Getzels and Erik Osterholm. And yes, there are scenes of his dedicated team counting nests in spectacular locations. A former government lawyer, Naveen’s cheerfulness about what he does is infectious, even in the face of dwindling numbers of penguins and the onslaught of climate change. But still, they’re just so darn cute. . . . After screening at film festivals all over the globe, The Penguin Counters opens April 21 at Cinema Village, with Getzels, Gordon, and Naveen participating in Q&As following the 7:15 shows April 21–26.

ELIZABETH WARREN: THIS FIGHT IS OUR FIGHT (BOOK DISCUSSION)

this fight is our fight

Who: Elizabeth Warren
What: Author discussion on This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class (Metropolitan, April 18, $28)
Where: Union Square Barnes & Noble, 33 East 17th St., 212-253-0810
When: Tuesday, April 18, free, 7:00 (priority-seating wristbands given out to book purchasers starting at 9:00 am)
Why: “Washington works great for the rich and powerful who can hire armies of lawyers and lobbyists, but it is not working very well for everyone else,” Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement about her new book, This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class (Metropolitan, April 18, $28). “America’s once-solid middle class is on the ropes, and now Donald Trump and his administration seem determined to deliver the knock-out punch. At this perilous moment in our country’s history, it’s time to fight back — and I’m looking for more people to join me.” You can join the populist politician, who made headlines in February when she was silenced by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell while reading a 1986 letter about attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions written by Coretta Scott King, when she launches her latest book at the Union Square Barnes & Noble on April 18 at 7:00. Wristbands will be given out beginning at nine o’clock that morning to people who have purchased a presigned copy of the book from that store. The event will feature a discussion but not an individual signing. The outspoken Warren, who considered a presidential run in 2016 and whose name has been bandied about as a potential candidate in 2020, has written such previous books as A Fighting Chance; Prosperity, Peace, Respect: How Presidents Have Mortgaged the People’s Agenda; and God Caesar and the Freedom of Religion: Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion. At Barnes & Noble, expect to see lots of attendees proclaiming, “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

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.

MY ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL SINKING INTO THE SEA

Students have to fight for their future in Dash Shaw’s MY ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL SINKING INTO THE SEA

MY ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL SINKING INTO THE SEA (Dash Shaw, 2016)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Opens April 14
212-660-0312
metrograph.com
www.gkids.com

Daria and Scooby-Doo meet The Poseidon Adventure and Titanic in graphic novelist Dash Shaw’s first full-length feature animation, the awkwardly titled, awkwardly plotted, yet awkwardly entertaining My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea. In the somewhat semiautobiographical tale, Dash (voiced by Jason Schwartzman) runs the school newsletter with his best friend, Assaf (Reggie Watts); the two consider themselves investigative journalists, even if no one reads their stories. Dash is further frustrated when Assaf shows an interest in Verti (Maya Rudolph), who has different ideas for the newsletter. After publicly embarrassing Assaf, a stunt that disappoints the relatively cool Principal Grimm (Thomas Jay Ryan), Dash discovers that the high school’s new roof, which is under construction, is not up to code. Just as he starts telling everyone that, the school begins breaking apart and falling into the ocean. Dash soon finds himself with Assaf, lunch lady Lorraine (Susan Sarandon), and his archenemy, Mary (Lena Dunham), as they try to stay above water and survive the maelstrom that is swirling all around them. In order to make it, they’ll have to go from the freshman floor, the lowest one, up through the sophomore, junior, and senior floors to potential safety, a clever way of having them grow up fast. But their journey is a gory one as they encounter plenty of dead students and teachers along with lots of body parts.

Survival is the name of the game in animated disaster epic set in high school

Shaw (Cosplayers, Bottomless Belly Buttons) wrote and directed the film, with his partner, Jane Samborski, serving as lead animator, creating much of the DIY-style art in his Brooklyn kitchen; the two previously collaborated on the online series The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D., based on Shaw’s 2009 graphic novel. The cartoon style is all over the place, from sketchy and purposely amateurish to hallucinogenic and surreal, incorporating images of real fire and water; at times it looks like the film is being projected by the iconic 1960s psychedelic Joshua Light Show. (In fact, one of the other animators was Curtis Godino, who has worked with JLS and founder Joshua White; Frank Santoro also contributed to the film.) A cool elevator sequence pays homage to early German animator Lotte Reiniger. The narrative contains ginormous plot holes; try to suspend disbelief and just let the tongue-in-cheek madness play out onscreen. Shaw and Samborski do a good job of capturing the general angst and ennui of high school life, although it does become repetitive during the too-long seventy-seven-minute running time. And a direct reference to Shaw’s publisher is completely gratuitous. The film also features the voices of Alex Karpovsky as slacker Drake, John Cameron Mitchell as jock Brent Daniels, and Louisa Krause as popular girl Gretchen, with music by Rani Sharone of the band Stolen Babes and the haunting solo project Thrillsville. A selection of the New York Film Festival, My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea opens April 14 at Metrograph, with Q&As with Shaw, Samborski, and producer Kyle Martin at the 7:00 shows April 14-16. (The April 14 Q&A will be moderated by Mitchell.)

TICKET ALERT: AN EVENING WITH GEORGE TAKEI

George Takei will be at BAM on May 1 to discuss social media, online activism, LGBTQ rights, and his life and career (photo courtesy George Takei)

Who: George Takei, Jay Kuo
What: “Where No Story Has Gone Before”: George Takei in conversation with Jay Kuo
Where: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St., 718-636-4100
When: Monday, May 1, $28-$75, 7:30
Why: On April 1, social media sensation and Star Trek favorite George Takei announced that he was running for Congress, moving out of LA and to Visalia, California, with his husband to make a grab for embattled Republican representative Devin Nunes’s seat in 2018. It turned out that it was all an April Fools’ Day setup to endorse Jon Ossoff, who is a candidate in a special election in Georgia on April 18. But it’s no joke that Takei, who will turn eighty on April 20, will be at BAM on May 1 for the special presentation “Where No Story Has Gone Before,” where he will talk about his life and career with theater composer Jay Kuo, who wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Allegiance, the Broadway musical inspired by Takei’s experiences in a Japanese internment camp during WWII. Takei played Sam Kimura in the show; the portrayer of Hikaru Sulu is currently appearing as the Reciter in Classic Stage Company’s revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures. Takei and Kuo will also explore activism and the internet; with millions of followers, Takei is a major figure in the fight for social justice, marriage equality, and LGBTQ rights. Meanwhile, Kuo (Upwardly Mobile, Insignificant Others, Worlds Apart), the head of Team Takei and the chief creative officer at the Social Edge, recently tweeted, “The Ministry has fallen. Obamadore has left Hogwarts. Bellatrix Conway shrieks lies. Elizabeth McGonnowarren is holding back the Dementors.” As Takei has been known to say, “Oh my!”

JOHN WATERS: MAKE TROUBLE

Tuesday, April 11, Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 East 17th St., 212-253-0810, free, 7:00
Thursday, April 13, Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn, 445 Albee Square West, 718-513-2547, 8:00
www.maketrouble.com

On May 30, 2015, filmmaker, writer, artist, and provocateur John Waters, aka the People’s Pervert and the Prince of Puke, gave the commencement speech at the Rhode Island School of Design, offering his unique advice about life after college, telling the graduating students, “Go out in the world and fuck it up beautifully.” That talk has now been adapted into the eighty-page book Make Trouble (Algonquin, April 11, $14.95), featuring line drawings by Eric Hanson. On April 11, Waters, who has made such films as Hairspray, Female Trouble, and Pink Flamingos, will be at the Union Square Barnes & Noble for a conversation with Christopher Bollen, editor at large at Interview magazine and author of Lightning People and Orient. After the conversation, Waters will sign copies of Make Trouble and just about anything else fans bring, and he will pose for photos as well. Wristbands will be given out beginning at 9:00 that morning to people who have purchased the new book at that B&N. Then, on Thursday, April 13, Waters will head to the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Brooklyn for a screening of his 1970 cult classic, Multiple Maniacs, preceded by a Q&A with Waters; a copy of Make Trouble comes with every ticket.

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.)