Leo Villareal, “Cylinder,” white LEDs, mirror-finished stainless steel, custom software, electrical hardware, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Phillips de Pury & other locations
450 Park Ave. at 57th St.
Thursday, August 18, $25, crawl 5:30 – 8:00, cocktail reception 8:00 – 10:00
www.artlog.com
Phillips de Pury, the Humble Arts Foundation, and Artlog have teamed up with six local galleries for this summer’s 57th St. Art Crawl, being held on August 18. Ticket holders first check in to the auction house’s new space on Park Ave. and 57th St., then can head over to Gering & López, where gallery associate director Julie Bills will give a talk at 6:00 on Leo Villareal’s glittering “Cylinder,” a dazzling installation composed of more than twenty thousand white LED nodes, more than 160 vertical rods, and a mirror at the top. At 6:30, art writer Kristen Lorello will discuss the group exhibition “Damnatio Memoriae (or) Creating Memory” at Greenberg van Doren, consisting of works by goldiechiari, Sissi, Cesare Pietroiusti, and Giacinto Occhionero. At 7:00 at Marian Goodman, Dara Birnbaum will discuss her current exhibit, “Arabesque,” a multichannel installation that features YouTube videos of people playing “Arabesque Opus 18,” composed by Robert Schumann for his wife, Clara, and “Romanze 1, Opus 11,” composed by Clara for Robert, along with clips from Clarence Brown’s 1947 biopic Song of Love, in which Katharine Hepburn plays Clara and Paul Henreid portrays Robert. In addition, several other galleries will remain open late, including David Findlay Jr. Fine Art (which is showing the group exhibition “Summerset”), Frederico Seve (“Gego: Prints & Drawings 1963 -1991”), and Pace/MacGill (“Wanna See My Portfolio?”). The evening concludes with a cocktail party back at Phillips de Pury, where crawlers will receive a copy of the Humble Arts Foundation’s The Collector’s Guide to New Art Photography Vol. 2.
One of the ultimate cult classics and the best bowling movie ever, the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski has built up such a following since its 1998 release that fans now gather every year for Lebowski Fest, where they honor all things Dude. This time around they’ll be partying even harder, celebrating the August 16 release of the limited-edition Blu-Ray at a pair of special events. On August 15, Achievers can go bowling at Chelsea Piers and take part in costume and trivia contests. The next night, the movie will be screened at the Hammerstein Ballroom, followed by a Q&A with stars Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, and Julianne Moore and music impresario T Bone Burnett, as well as other festivities. As far as the film itself goes, if you’ve never seen it, well, this would be a fine time to finally catch this intricately weaved gem. Bridges is awesome as the Dude, a laid-back cool cat who gets sucked into a noirish plot of jealousy, murder, money, mistaken identity, and messy carpets. Moore is excellent as free spirit Maude, Tara Reid struts her stuff as Bunny, and Peter Stormare, Flea, and Torsten Voges are a riot as a trio of nihilists. Also on hand are Philip Seymour Hoffman, David Huddleston, Aimee Mann, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, David Thewlis, Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara, Jon Polito, and other crazy characters, but the film really belongs to the Dude and his fellow bowlers Jesus Quintana (John Turturro, who is so dirty he is completely cut out of the television version), Donny (Buscemi), and Walter (Goodman), who refuses to roll on Shabbos. And through it all, one thing always holds true: The Dude abides. (August 16 also marks the release of Bridges’s latest CD, which he will be signing August 18 at 6:30 at the B&N at 555 Fifth and 46th St.; please note that he will not be signing anything else, including Blu-Ray copies of The Big Lebowski.)
For The Interrupters, director, producer, and editor Steve James (Hoop Dreams, At the Death House Door) teamed up with journalist Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here) to hit the dangerous inner-city streets of Chicago with the men and women of CeaseFire, a grass-roots organization of former gang members who are now trying to stop the violence. Inspired by Kotlowitz’s New York Times Magazine article, the two men concentrate on three primary stories. Ameena Matthews, the Muslim daughter of notorious gang leader Jeff Fort, is working with a deeply troubled young woman who’d rather fight than flee, even if it means being sent back to prison. Cobe Williams has his hands full with the angry, recently released Flamo, who thinks the whole world is against him. And Eddie Bocanegra is attempting to come to grips with a cold-blooded revenge murder he committed when he was a teenager by visiting schools and talking about turning his life around. One of the most poignant moments of the film occurs when Williams brings Lil Mikey back to the barbershop he and several of his cohorts robbed at gunpoint as he again faces some of his victims. Matthews, Williams, and Bocanegra are paid employees of CeaseFire, which was founded by Dr. Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist who believes that violence is a disease that can be treated in similar ways, and is run by Tio Hardman, who handles his extremely tough task with intelligence and dignity as he deals with what he calls “the madness.” But in a society in which “words’ll get you killed,” as Matthews says early on, these tireless violence interrupters put their own lives on the line every day, battling a sickness that seems to have no end in sight. The award-winning film, a hit at numerous film festivals, felt a bit long at its original 144 minutes, but James has since edited it down to a more streamlined 124 minutes for its theatrical release, which began July 29 at the IFC Center and expands August 5-11 to the Maysles Institute as part of the “