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

FILM COMMENT SELECTS: KEYHOLE

KEYHOLE (Guy Maddin, 2011)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday, March 20, $20, 8:30
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
keyhole-movie.tumblr.com

Inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, and the Bowery Boys’ Spooks Run Wild, Canadian experimental filmmaker Guy Maddin has made Keyhole, a 1930s-style psychological gangster/ghost story set in a haunted house in which each room offers different thrills and chills and it’s nearly impossible to tell who is alive and who is dead. Shot in his trademark black-and-white (except for one quick image in color) but digitally for the first time, Maddin relates the barely decipherable tale of Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric), who has returned home after being away for many years. As he makes his odyssey through the house on a mission to find his ill wife, Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini), who has shackled her naked father, Calypso (Louis Negin), to her bed, Ulysses carries a drowned girl, Denny (Brooke Palsson), and drags a bound-and-gagged teenager, Manners (David Wontner), the son he does not recognize. A confident, determined man, Ulysses battles Big Ed (Daniel Enright) over control of the gang, including a tense scene with an electric chair at the center. Going door-to-door, Ulysses peers through keyholes as screams pierce through the night and clocks endlessly tick and tick and tick. “The happiness the house has known is free to vanish the moment its inhabitants leave,” Calypso intones in a voice-over, “but sorrow, sorrow must linger.” Maddin, who has previously made such gems as Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Careful, and My Winnipeg, has a unique cinematic style that veers away from linear, dialogue-laden narrative and instead concentrates on mood, offbeat characters, mysterious music, and captivating visuals that harken back to the silent-film era. In Keyhole, he has created an old-fashioned yet modern noir that, despite a meandering plot, is a captivating look at life, death, family, memory, and the human psyche. Keyhole is having a special screening March 20 at 8:30 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Film Comment Selects” series, with the engaging, self-deprecating Maddin in attendance to discuss the work, before opening theatrically April 6 at the IFC Center.

KEHINDE WILEY IN CONVERSATION WITH LOLA OGUNNAIKE

THE WORLD STAGE: ISRAEL
Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
Thursday, March 15, $15, 6:30
Exhibition continues through July 29
212-423-3337
www.thejewishmuseum.org
www.kehindewiley.com

Born in Los Angeles and based in New York City, painter Kehinde Wiley has been traveling the global diaspora for his “World Stage” series, taking portraits of men of color in Brazil, China, Nigeria, India and Sri Lanka, and Lagos and Dakar. The Jewish Museum has just opened “The World Stage: Israel,” fourteen large-scale works that feature young men standing in front of elaborate backgrounds, staring directly at the viewer. The decorative background patterns, based on Jewish ceremonial art, include plants and animals that also twist and climb in the foreground, entwining the subject. Each work is shown in a black hand-carved frame topped by a pair of Judean lions surrounding tablets containing either the Ten Commandments (for Jewish men, several of Ethiopian descent) or the Rodney King plea “Can we all get along?” (for Arab men) in Hebrew. Some of the men take distinctly homoerotic poses, confronting the viewer with their gaze; all stand in familiar “heroic” poses representative of European portraiture. The paintings are accompanied by Torah ark curtains, bed covers, Ketubahs (elaborately designed wedding certificates), and papercuts selected by Wiley from the museum’s permanent collection that work in dialogue with Wiley’s backgrounds, placing them in artistic and historical context. The exhibition also includes a short film in which Wiley discusses his process and meets with some of his subjects. “I think there is a strong correlation between being on the margins of society as a person of color in America,” Wiley says in the film, “and that which we see in the streets of Israel.” Portrait subject Solomon Mashash adds, “It’s very hard to live your daily life as a black person here in Israel. When somebody tells you you’re not worth something, if you believe him, your mind believes him. If you change your mind, he cannot do anything to you.” Wiley’s paintings seek to reassert the identity of diverse cultures, empowering individuals to present themselves with pride. You can hear more from Wiley when he takes part in a conversation with culture reporter Lola Ogunnaike at the Jewish Museum on March 15 at 6:30.

GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING

Gerhard Richter reveals his creative process in fascinating new documentary (photo courtesy of Kino Lorber)

GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING (Corinna Belz, 2011)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
March 14-27
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.gerhard-richter-painting.de

There’s nothing abstract about the title of Corinna Belz’s documentary on German artist Gerhard Richter, no missing words or punctuation marks. Gerhard Richter Painting is primarily just that: Ninety-seven minutes of Gerhard Richter painting as he prepares for several exhibitions, including a 2009 show at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York City. In 2007, Belz got a rare chance to capture Richter on camera, making a short film focusing on the stained-glass window he designed for the Cologne Cathedral. Two years later, the shy, reserved German artist, who prefers to have his art speak for itself, invited Belz into his studio, giving her remarkable access inside his creative process, which revealingly relies so much on chance and accident. Belz films Richter as he works on two large-scale canvases on which he first slathers yellow paint, adds other colors, then takes a large squeegee and drags it across the surface, changing everything. It’s fascinating to watch Richter study the pieces, never quite knowing when they are done, unsure of whether they are any good. It’s also painful to see him take what looks like an extraordinary painting and then run the squeegee over it yet again, destroying what he had in order to see if he can make it still better. “They do what they want,” he says of the paintings. “I planned something totally different.” About halfway through the film, a deeply concerned Richter starts regretting his decision to allow the camera into his studio. “It won’t work,” he says. “At the moment it seems hopeless. I don’t think I can do this, painting under observation. That’s the worst thing there is.” But continue he does, for Belz’s and our benefit. Belz (Life After Microsoft) even gets Richter to talk a little about his family while looking at some old photos, offering intriguing tidbits about his early life and his escape to Düsseldorf just before the Berlin Wall went up. Belz also includes clips from 1966 and 1976 interviews with Richter, and she attends a meeting he has with Goodman about his upcoming show, lending yet more insight into the rather eclectic artist. “To talk about painting is not only difficult but perhaps pointless, too,” Richter, who turned eighty last month, says in the 1966 clip. However, watching Gerhard Richter Painting is far from pointless; Belz has made a compelling documentary about one of the great, most elusive artists of our time. “Man, this is fun,” Richter says at one point, and indeed it is; watching the masterful artist at work is, well, a whole lot more fun than watching paint dry. Gerhard Richter Painting opens on March 14 at Film Forum, with Yale School of Art dean Robert Storr introducing the 8:00 screening.

PRESIDENT’S FORUM WITH SARAH SZE AND SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE

Sarah Sze’s “Random Walk Drawings” are universes unto themselves at Asia Society (photo courtesy Asia Society)

EXPLORING THE CREATIVE PROCESS — A CONVERSATION
Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
Wednesday, March 14, $20, 6:30
Exhibition continues through March 25
212-288-6400
www.asiasociety.org

For more than fifteen years, New York-based visual artist Sarah Sze has been creating fragile, mysterious environments that are their own little worlds. Using found objects and everyday materials, Sze employs her architectural background to build fascinating structures that combine a Rube Goldberg playfulness with what she calls an “anti-monumental” aesthetic, inspired by Japanese gardens and butoh dance. Her show at Asia Society, “Infinite Line,” delves into her creative process through drawing, sculpture, and installation, spread across two galleries. In the smaller room, such drawings and collages as “Guggenheim as a Ruin,” “Funny Feeling,” “Night,” and “Day” are like architectural plans for fantastical cities while recalling traditional Japanese scroll painting. Visitors have to be careful where they walk in the larger gallery — a security guard will make sure you don’t get too close — which is filled with delicate, expansive pieces made of string, stones, laser-engraved paper, Styrofoam cups, a blinking digital clock, bottle caps, colored tape, and other items that examine the intersection of drawing and sculpture through physical space and perspective. The eight “Random Walk Drawings,” which contain such subtitles as “Compass,” “Window,” “Air,” “Water,” and “Eye Chart,” dangle from the ceiling, spread across the floor, emerge from the wall, and even make their way onto the outside balcony overlooking Park Ave. The Boston-born Sze, who has also treated New Yorkers to such outdoor works as “The Triple Point of Water” in the Whitney’s Sculpture Court in 2003, “Corner Plot” at the Scholars’ Gate entrance to Central Park in 2006, and the current “Still Life with Landscape (Model for a Habitat)” bird feeder on the High Line, will be at Asia Society on March 14 for a discussion with her husband, Indian-born author Siddhartha Mukherjee, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2010 book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, moderated by Asia Society president Vishakha N. Desai. The galleries will remain open until 9:00 that night to allow ticket holders to see the show. If you can’t make it to the event, you can watch the live webcast here.

ARTISTS IN DIALOGUE WITH JOAN JONAS AND KATE GILMORE

Kate Gilmore’s “Break of Day” hangs over the mantelpiece at “The Annual: 2012” at the National Academy (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

National Academy Museum
1083 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Wednesday, March 14, $12, 6:30
Exhibition continues through April 29
212-369-4880
www.nationalacademy.org

“The Annual: 2012” at the National Academy, which usually focuses on American painting and sculpture, includes several excellent videos in this year’s exhibition, and two of the featured artists will be on hand March 14 to talk about their work. Longtime avant-garde video and performance artist Joan Jonas, who has had recent major shows at the Queens Museum of Art, MoMA, and Yvon Lambert, has been on the cutting edge for five decades. The Annual is displaying her video installation “Lines in the Sand,” a reimagining of the story of Helen of Troy inspired by H.D.’s “Tribute to Freud” and “Helen in Egypt” and transported to Las Vegas. Kate Gilmore, who was born when Jonas’s career was already in full force (in 1975), is represented at the Annual by “Break of Day,” a video in which she climbs up a white cube into which she drops pots of pink paint.

Joan Jonas’s “Lines in the Sand” installation reimagines the story of Helen of Troy (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The two artists will be at the National Academy on Wednesday at 6:30 for an “Artists in Dialogue” session with moderator Marshall Price, the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art. Future Annual programs include “On and On and On: Arlene Shechet and Faye Hirsch in Conversation” on March 28 and “Curator’s Insights” on April 11.

MONDAY NIGHTS WITH OSCAR: CAVALCADE

CAVALCADE gets a rare public screening Monday night as part of Noël Coward in New York festival

CAVALCADE (Frank Lloyd, 1933)
Academy Theater at Lighthouse
111 East 59th St.
Monday, March 12, $5, 7:00
www.oscars.org
www.noelcowardinnewyork.com

Hailed in ads as the “Picture of the Generation,” Frank Lloyd’s 1933 historical family epic, Cavalcade, took home the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with trophies for Best Art Direction (William S. Darling) and Best Director. The tale of the British Marryott clan from 1899 to 1933, the film was based on the 1931 play by Noël Coward and adapted by Russian screenwriter Sonya Levien (State Fair, Oklahoma!) and Hollywood scribe Reginald Berkeley (Dreyfus). Featuring songs by Coward, George M. Cohan, and others, the film earned a Best Actress nod for Diana Wynyard as family matriarch Jane Marryot and also stars Clive Brook, Una O’Connor, and Bonita Granville. The only Best Picture winner not available as a single DVD — it’s part of a three-volume Fox seventy-fifth anniversary package — Cavalcade will get a rare public screening tonight at the Monday Nights with Oscar series at the Academy Theater, hosted by Brad Rosenstein, curator of the exhibition “Star Quality: The World of Noël Coward,” on view at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center through August 18. The screening and the display are part of the Noël Coward in New York festival, which continues with a series of special events including lectures, live performances, staged readings, and a master class at Juilliard.

IN CONVERSATION: FYVUSH FINKEL AND HIS SON IAN FINKEL

Fyvush Finkel will participate in a special conversation with his son Ian as part of the Eldridge Street Synagogue’s 125th anniversary programming

Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge St. between Canal & Division Sts.
Sunday, March 11, $25, 3:00
212-219-0302
www.eldridgestreet.org

The Eldridge Street Synagogue opened its historic doors in 1887, and it is in the midst of celebrating its 125th anniversary with a series of events all year long. On March 11, the “In Conversation at Eldridge Street” series continues with Yiddish legend Fyvush Finkel talking about his life and career, interviewed by his son Ian, a musical arranger. Fyvush Finkel, an Obie and Emmy winner who will turn ninety in October, is most well known for his roles in such David E. Kelley television shows as Picket FencesBoston Public, such Broadway productions as Fiddler on the Roof, and such off-Broadway shows as Little Shop of Horrors. He started performing at the age of nine, spending nearly four decades as a leading figure in Yiddish theater on the Lower East Side. A big, burly teddy bear of a man, Finkel is a wide-eyed, engaging character who will share stories both old and new in this special program. Upcoming conversations at Eldridge Street pair Kenneth Turan and Henry Bean on March 29 and Rabbi Eliot Dorff and Dr. Regina Stein on May 30.