El Anatsui’s hanging works welcome visitors to fascinating retrospective (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Brooklyn Museum
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing and Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, fifth floor
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Wednesday – Sunday through August 18, suggested donation $12
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org
Over the last decade, Ghana-born, Nigerian-based abstract artist El Anatsui has been gaining international fame for his unique sculpture-paintings that hang from ceilings and walls and climb across floors. The works, which often resemble maps, are composed of aluminum liquor bottle caps of a multitude of colors, woven together with copper wire by a team of assistants into patterns that Anatsui then puts together to form larger pieces that evoke African history, mass consumption, environmentalism, and the intimate physical connection between people all over the world. This continuing series welcomes visitors to the outstanding Brooklyn Museum exhibition “Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui,” which also looks back at the artist’s past while revealing his fascinating process.
El Anatsui’s “Waste Paper Bags” look back at African history while also evoking modern-day environmentalism (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Much of Anatsui’s oeuvre changes every time it’s shown at a new location, hung a little differently, without the same type of lighting, allowing them to be experienced anew; they also benefit from being viewed from a distance and then close up, offering varying perspectives. The show is expertly laid out, from the mazelike hallway entrance to the side-by-side “Red Block” and “Black Block” to the inclusion of several videos that show Anatsui at work in his studio and walking around, seeking out found objects and ideas for future projects. “I don’t believe in artworks being things that are fixed,” the artist and longtime teacher has said. “You know, the artist is not a dictator.” Indeed, painted wood reliefs such as “Motley Crowd” and “Amewo (People)” from the 1980s and ’90s are meant to be altered, with curators encouraged to rearrange the blocks of wood as they see fit. It’s all part of Anatsui’s “nomadic aesthetic” and dedication to the “nonfixed form,” representing multiple materials in varying shapes and sizes while also celebrating personal freedom. His titles also capture an international flavor, with such names as “Drifting Continents,” “Earth’s Skin,” and “Amemo (Mask of Humankind).” And make sure to get up close to “Ozone Layer,” which has the added bonus of air being blown in through the wall, creating sound and movement.
“Red Block” and “Black Block” hover behind “Peak” in beautifully curated exhibition (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
The exhibition, Anatsui’s first solo show in a New York museum, also features charcoal and graphite drawings, acrylic works on paper, and “Waste Paper Bags,” a collection of large-scale sculptures made of discarded aluminum printing plates that relate to Nigerian culture as well as go-bags that Ghanaian refugees packed when escaping their country in a hurry. It’s a terrific show that has been extended two weeks through August 18; there is also still time to see his “Broken Bridge II” outdoor wall piece on the High Line, which runs through September. Admission to the Brooklyn Museum is free on August 4 for the monthly First Saturdays program, the theme of which is Caribbean, with live performances by Casplash, Los Hacheros, and Zing Experience, curator talks, screenings of the omnibus film Ring Di Alarm and Storm Saulter’s Better Mus’ Come, an artist talk with Miguel Luciano, dance workshops, a discussion with author Nelly Rosario about her debut novel, Song of the Water Saints, and pop-up gallery talks focusing on specific works by Anatsui.
The 2013 Human Rights Watch Film Festival came to a close this past June 23 with Jeremy Teicher’s heart-wrenching Tall as the Baobab Tree, an involving, powerful, yet gentle drama about a Senegalese family trapped by tradition in a modernizing world. Real-life sisters Dior and Oumoul Kâ star as Coumba and Debo, close siblings who live in the tiny rural village of Sinthiou Mbadane (where they actually are from). When their older brother, Silèye (Alpha Dia), falls out of a baobab tree and breaks his leg, their father (Mouhamed Diallo) doesn’t have enough money to pay for the necessary medical care so he instead sends Coumba out to do Silèye’s job of herding the cows and decides to sell off eleven-year-old Debo to suitors for marriage. Their mother (Mboural Dia) is unwilling to stand up to her husband, so Coumba hatches a plan in which her friend Amady (Cheikh Dia), who has a crush on her, will watch the herd for her secretly while she heads into the city and gets a job until she makes enough money to help Silèye heal and prevent Debo from having to marry so young. Unfortunately, not everything goes quite as planned. But through it all, no matter how difficult things get, all of the characters maintain their faith, praising peace and continually saying, “God is great.” 
Ingmar Bergman’s darkly comic 1958 film The Magician is one of the Swedish auteur’s lesser-known, underrated masterpieces, an intense yet funny, and fun, work about art, science, faith, death, and the power of the movies themselves. When Vogler’s Magnetic Health Theater comes to town, the local triumvirate of Dr. Vergérus (Gunnar Björnstrand), police commissioner Starbeck (Toivo Pawlo), and Consul Egerman (Erland Josephson) brings the traveling troupe in for questioning, forcing them to spend the night as guests in Egerman’s home. The three men seek to prove that mesmerist Albert Emanuel Vogler (Max von Sydow), his assistant, Mr. Aman (Ingrid Thulin), a witchy grandmother (Naima Wifstrand), and their promoter, Tubal (Åke Fridell), are a bunch of frauds. The interrogations delve into such Bergmanesque topics as science vs. reason, good vs. evil, life and death, and the existence of God. As various potions are dispensed to and tricks played on a staff that includes maid Sara (Bibi Andersson), cook Sofia Garp (Sif Ruud), and stableman Antonsson (Oscar Ljung) in addition to Starbeck’s wife (Ulla Sjöblom) and Egerman’s spouse (Gertrud Fridh), a series of romantic rendezvous take place, along with some genuine horror, leading to a thrillingly ambiguous ending.
In the new documentary When Comedy Went to School, Mickey Freeman describes what it’s like to “die” onstage, that terrible feeling of experiencing flop sweat while bombing in front of a live audience. Unfortunately, this film is dead on arrival, dripping wet. Made by Mevlut Akkaya (director and producer), Ron Frank (director, producer, and editor), and Lawrence Richards (writer and producer), the thankfully short film, which clocks in at a mere seventy-seven minutes, purports to tell the history of the Catskill comedians at such resorts as Kutsher’s, Grossinger’s, and the Concord. The filmmakers speak with such comic giants as Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar, Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory, Jackie Mason, and Jerry Stiller, who describe what it was like in the Borscht Belt’s heyday of the 1950s and 1960s. There are also plenty of archival clips of those men as well as Rodney Dangerfield, Woody Allen, Henny Youngman, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, and Lenny Bruce (however, very few from actual Catskills performances), with additional commentary from Joe Franklin, Larry King, and Hugh Hefner. But timing is everything in comedy, something When Comedy Went to School is sorely lacking; the film drags and sputters as Akkaya, Frank, and Richards — onscreen host and narrator Robert Klein is the poor soul relegated to reading the increasingly dull script — try to delve into the social and historical aspects of the Catskills, from the comedians themselves to the people who owned the resorts and the families that went there year after year, but it’s slow moving, repetitive, and, worst of all, boring. Although some of the comedians have interesting anecdotes — Lewis steals the show with his insights on the relationship between performer and audience — most of it falls flat, reminiscent of the old vaudeville convention of bringing out the weakest act to clear the house after the stars are done. When Comedy Went to School runs July 31 to August 6 at the JCC in Manhattan and the IFC Center, with Akkaya, Frank, and Richards on hand to talk about the film at the 7:05 show on opening night at IFC; the trio will be back at IFC for the 7:05 screening on August 1, joined by Klein and Cory Kahaney.
