William Kentridge invades New York this fall with an opera at the Met, a multimedia performance at BAM, and a number of discussions and lectures (photo courtesy the Metropolitan Opera)
When William Kentridge comes to town, he really comes to town. Back in 2010, the South African multidisciplinary artist was all over New York City, with the smashing “Five Themes” retrospective at MoMA, his production of Shostakovich’s The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera, a unique artist book at Dieu Donné, a screening of some of his animated films accompanied by live music at the World Financial Center, and a performance of his one-man show “I am not me, the horse is not mine” at MoMA. He’s back in the city this fall, with a host of wide-ranging events, exhibits, and performances all over town. On October 12 (free, 7:00), he’ll be giving a lecture, “The Sentimental Machine,” at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting & Sculpture. On October 13 ($30, 6:30), he’ll be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in conversation with printer Andrew Hoyem in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium discussing the limited-edition letterpress book The Lulu Plays, delving into the nature of human imagination and time. On October 14 (free, 5:00), Kentridge will deliver the Belknap Lecture at Princeton, “O Sentimental Machine,” about his Trotsky-inspired multimedia installation.
From October 22 to 25 ($30-$100), Kentridge teams up with longtime collaborator Philip Miller for the audiovisual chamber opera Refuse the Hour at the BAM Harvey, a wildly inventive lecture-performance with dance, music, projections, and more, a companion piece to his wildly inventive “The Refusal of Time” 2013 installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In conjunction with Refuse the Hour, Kentridge will be at BAM Rose Cinemas on October 24 ($15, 5:00) for a discussion with physicist and Refuse the Hour collaborator Peter Galison, moderated by Dennis Overbye. From November 2 to December 31 (free), the Marian Goodman Gallery will be showing works by Kentridge in the third-floor project room. From November 4 to 8 ($10-$40), The Lulu Plays will be on view at the IFPDA Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory. And from November 5 through December 3 ($27-$335), there will be eight performances of Kentridge’s four-hour-plus version of Alban Berg’s Lulu at the Met, featuring Marlis Petersen in the title role, Susan Graham as Geschwitz, Paul Groves as the painter and the African prince, and Johan Reuter as Dr. Schön and Jack the Ripper, conducted by Lothar Koenigs. We’re exhausted just reading about all the sixty-year-old Kentridge has planned; we can’t even begin to imagine doing it all, but we’re going to see as many of these events as we can, and we urge you to do the same.
When filmmaker Alex Sichel was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer a few years ago, she turned to her stock in trade: making movies. But Sichel, the writer-director of the indie gem All Over Me and an episode of HBO’s If These Walls Could Talk 2 starring Michelle Williams and Chloë Sevigny, decided to share her situation in an unusual way, combining documentary with fiction in the intimate, moving A Woman Like Me. In the film, which she codirected with Elizabeth Giamatti, Sichel shows herself going through chemotherapy, meeting with holistic healers, and dealing with family issues with her husband, Erich Hahn, who is not exactly thrilled with many of his wife’s choices and constantly being on camera himself; their seven-year-old daughter, Anastasia, with whom they have chosen not to share the details of Sichel’s illness; and Sichel’s parents and sisters, who have their own opinions about how she should be facing her cancer, which doctors say is terminal. As the film opens, Sichel’s voice floats over a black screen, talking about the Buddhist meditation on death. “The point is, we’re all going to die, and it sounds so obvious, but that’s the point that I don’t accept,” she says. “Somehow I’m going to be the exception. It’s crazy.”
