Edvard Munch, “Badende gutter (Bathing Boys),” oil on canvas, 1904-1905 (private collection)
Scandinavia House
58 Park Ave. at 38th St.
Thursday, January 26, $10, 6:30
Saturday, February 11, $40, 9:30 am – 6:00 pm
Exhibition continues through February 11 (Tuesday-Saturday, $5, 12 noon – 6:00 pm)
212-847-9740
www.scandinaviahouse.org
One hundred years ago, the American-Scandinavian Foundation put together a survey of modernist art from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden that visited several cities in the United States, introducing America to Nordic art and the region’s vast, diverse landscape and culture. Scandinavia House is celebrating the centennial of that important, influential show with “Luminous Modernism: Scandinavian Art Comes to America, 1912,” on view through February 11. The show includes twenty artists and eight of the paintings from the original exhibition, divided into sections devoted to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as well as Iceland and Finland, with works by such artists as Prince Eugen, Anna Boberg, Harald Sohlberg, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Thorvald Erichsen, Thórarinn Thorláksson, Karl Norstrom, Pekka Halonen, Anders Zorn, Ásgrímur Jónsson, and Edvard Munch. As part of the centennial celebration, Scandinavia House will present “Universal Truths and Local Fictions: Nordic Art on the Edge,” a lecture by curator Dr. Patricia Berman, on January 26 ($10, 6:30), and the all-day symposium “Regional Modernism: New Art in Scandinavia, 1880-1912” on February 11 ($40, 9:30 am – 6:00 pm).
In 1961, Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin wrote, “I’d like to thank the guy / who wrote the song / that made my baby / fall in love with me.” The title of that be-bop song, “Who Put the Bomp,” inspired one of music’s first fanzines and later the punk record label Bomp! Records. In their 1999 song “Deceptacon,” the riot grrrl group Le Tigre flipped that question around, asking, “Who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp? / Who took the ram from the ramalamadingdong?” In the song they also dare, “Let me hear you depoliticise my rhyme.” Formed in 1998 by former Bikini Kill leader Kathleen Hanna, zine writer Johanna Fateman, and visual artist Sadie Benning, who was replaced in 2000 by DJ and projectionist JD Samson, Le Tigre challenged the male-dominated world of rock and punk, championing individuality and sexual freedom while redefining gender roles. In 2004, Hanna, Fateman, and Samson set out on a world tour in support of their third and final album, This Island, and asked their lighting designer, Carmine Covelli, to capture it all on film. The result is the engaging Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour, in which Covelli and director Kerthy Fix go onstage, backstage, and behind the scenes as the influential trio heads across four continents and ten countries, playing exciting live shows, meeting the media, taking pictures with Slipknot, revealing what they pack in their luggage, exercising in the gym, and talking about facial hair. They also discuss more serious issues such as gender identity, lesbianism, and their DIY mentality, which flew in the face of the music industry. The seventy-two-minute film, which features live multimedia performances of such songs as “Hot Topic,” “Keep on Livin’,” “Viz,” and “Deceptacon,” is screening on January 25 at 9:00 at the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn and will be followed by a Q&A with members of the band.
In 1954, the St. Louis Housing Authority completed a massive urban renewal project, Pruitt-Igoe, a thirty-three-building complex for low-income families that was like a city unto itself. Eighteen years later, mired in crime, violence, poverty, and horrifically unsanitary and unsafe conditions, Pruitt-Igoe was torn down, the implosion famously being shown on news channels around the country as an example of the failure of public policy planning. The short, contentious history of Pruitt-Igoe is explored in the revealing documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. Director Chad Freidrichs (Jandek on Corwood, First Impersonator) revisits Pruitt-Igoe through archival footage, new interviews, and a drive past the site where the iconic housing development, designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki, once stood, revealing the fascinating story of what was first a symbol of the post-WWII boom and then a prime example of the nation’s financial and racial problems of the 1970s. “It was like an oasis in the desert,” Ruby Russell remembers. “I never thought I would live in that kind of a surrounding.” But Brian King, who spent his childhood there, sees it a little differently. “It was hell on earth,” he says. Freidrichs speaks with urban historians Robert Fishman and Joseph Heathcott, sociologist Joyce Ladner, and former residents as they chronologically follow the rise and fall of “the poor man’s penthouse.” Narrated by actor Jason Henry, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells a shameful chapter in American history, one that should still be used today as a blueprint on what not to do. “It seemed to me that we were being penalized for being poor,” says former resident Jacqueline Williams. “That caused so much anger.” Named Best Documentary at several festivals and winner of the American Historical Association’s John E. O’Connor Film Award, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth opens January 20 at the IFC Center, with Freidrichs on hand to talk about the film at the 8:20 showings on Friday and Saturday night.
