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

NEW YORK GALLERY WEEK 2011

William Kentride will be signing books at Marian Goodman on Saturday as part of New York Gallery Week (William Kentridge, “Drawing for ‘Other Faces,’” charcoal and coloured pencil on paper, 2011; courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York / Paris)

Multiple locations
May 6-8, free
www.newyorkgalleryweek.com

More than sixty galleries and organizations will be participating in this weekend’s New York Gallery Week festivities, featuring a host of opening receptions, walking tours, and other special events, including being open late Friday night (till 8:00) and all day Sunday, when most galleries are closed. Among the many Saturday highlights are William Kentridge signing books at Marian Goodman from 11:00 to 1:00, Barnaby Furnas and Ivan Witenstein in conversation at Derek Eller at 12 noon, Amy Granat/Cinema Zero and a dance performance by Felicia Ballos at Nicole Klagsbrun at 1:00, an artist talk with Sara VanDerBeek at Leo Koenig at 2:30, the panel discussion “New Directions in Curatorial Models” at Sean Kelly at 3:00, and a live performance by Black Lake at David Nolan at 5:00. On Sunday, Louise Lawler’s Birdcalls will be screening at Metro Pictures from 11:00 to 6:00, Marianne Boesky will host a panel discussion on Salvatore Scarpitta’s “Trajectory” at 12 noon (with Germano Celant, Nicholas Cullinan, James Harithas, Jeff Koons, Nancy Rubins, and Paul Schmmel, moderated by Anne-Marie Russell), Hilton Als and Kara Walker will lead an artist walk-through of Walker’s “Dust Jackets for the Niggerati — and Supporting Dissertation” at Sikkema Jenkins at 2:00, Liam Gillick and Sean Landers will lead a walk-through of Landers’s “Around the World Alone” at Friedrich Petzel at 3:00, and Stephen Vincent will give a talk and poetry reading at Jack Hanley at 6:00.

ARTIST TALK: KIM BECK

Kim Beck, “Space Available,” painted plywood and steel, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Bumble & Bumble
415 West 13th Street, third Floor
Friday, May 6, free, 6:30
Installation remains on view through January 2012
RSVP: 212-206-9922
www.thehighline.org
www.idealcities.com
space available slideshow

In addition to being a work of art itself, the renovated High Line has featured a number of site-specific installations since the initial section opened to the public in June 2009, including Spencer Finch’s “The River That Flows Both Ways,” Stephen Vitiello’s “A Bell for Every Minute,” Valerie Hegarty’s “Autumn on the Hudson Valley with Branches,” Demetrius Oliver’s “Jupiter,” and Richard Galpin’s “Viewing Station.” The latest work of art to grace the former elevated railway tracks is Kim Beck’s “Space Available,” which consists of three naked billboards on rooftops along Washington St. (between 13th & Gansevoort) that can be seen from the High Line. The sculptural structures have no advertisements on them, evoking both transition as well as the state of today’s American economy, a stark contrast to the several billboards that do indeed pitch products around the area. You might have actually already seen Beck’s painted plywood and steel pieces but not realized it, since they blend in so well with the neighborhood. But be sure to check them out from different angles, because their supposed three-dimensionality is merely an illusion. On May 6, the Colorado-born, Pittsburgh-based Beck will give an artist talk about the project, taking place at 6:30 at the Bumble and Bumble on West 13th St. and is free with advance RSVP to 212-206-9922.

GEORGE CONDO / LYNDA BENGLIS / FESTIVAL OF IDEAS FOR THE NEW CITY

George Condo, “Red Antipodular Portrait,” oil on canvas, 1996

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Festival of Ideas for the New City: May 4-8
“George Condo: Mental States” through May 8
“Lynda Benglis”: through June 19
Wednesday – Sunday, $12 (Thursdays free 7:00 – 9:00)
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org
www.festivalofideasnyc.com

If you’ve been experiencing difficulty with your mental state these days — and who hasn’t — you can find relief at the New Museum, where “George Condo: Mental States” continues through Sunday. The engaging work of the influential East Village painter is spread across two floors, from the “fake old masters” of his 1980s heyday to lush, large-scale acrylic, charcoal, and pastel on linen pieces that dazzle the mind. Condo displays his expert skill in mimicking, mocking, melding, and honoring myriad styles, whether it’s creating creepy, comic-book-like characters in his Pathos (“The Janitor’s Wife”) and Mania (“Nude Homeless Drinker”) series or a collection of stirring Abstractions (“Nothing Is Important,” “Dancing to Miles”). But the really head-spinning part of the show is on the fourth floor, where dozens of portraits are arranged on one wall in a dizzying array of colors and styles, one after another, serving as a kind of art history course all its own, part Name That Influence, part, well, whatever is going on inside Condo’s brain at the time. If you stare at it long enough, it is sure to blow your mind.

Lynda Benglis, “Phantom,” detail, polyurethane foam with phosphorescent pigments, five elements, 1971 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Lynda Benglis takes visitors on a different kind of head trip with an exciting retrospective — surprisingly, her first in New York — on the New Museum’s second floor and in the lobby gallery, comprising some fifty works, including photography, video, sculpture, and various ephemera. Be careful where you walk, because many of Benglis’s abstract creations, composed of such materials as wax, wood, glitter, latex, paper, cotton bunting, wire, plaster, polyurethane foam, aluminum, lead, and bronze, jut out from the walls and lie across the floor, forming a delicate maze closely watched by guards who will definitely let you know when you get too close. Be on the lookout for “Untitled (VW),” a pigmented polyurethane foam piece that is cut away, giving an inside look at Benglis’s creative process. There are a number of her delightful “fallen paintings,” but the highlight of the show, which runs through June 19, is 1971’s “Phantom,” which consists of five large polyurethane foam abstract works with phosphorescent pigments that glow in the dark when the lights go down.

“After Hours: Murals on the Bowery” is part of Festival of Ideas for the New City

The New Museum is also one of the hosts of this week’s Festival of Ideas for the New City, which begins today with a series of lectures and panel discussions at NYU and the Cooper Union, with such participants as Rem Koolhaas, Vito Acconci, Elizabeth Diller, David Byrne, Kurt Andersen, Jonathan Bowles, Suketu Mehta, Jonathan F. P. Rose, Sergio Fajardo, Antanas Mockus, and Pedro Reyes examining such topics as “The Heterogeneous City,” “The Networked City,” “The Sustainable City,” “Built Environment,” and “Downtown NYC Policy Issues.” On Saturday and Sunday, there will be special projects at locations all over the Lower East Side and the East Village, featuring live performances, film screenings, workshops and demonstrations, site-specific installations, and more. At the New Museum, OMA/Rem Koolhaas’s “Cronocaos” opens May 7, examining the past, present, and future of preservation, construction, and urbanism, while Maya Lin reimagines the Hudson River system in “Pin River-Hudson.” The New Museum is a central part of Saturday’s StreetFest: The institution has collaborated with the Rockwell Group to create “Imagination Playground,” a special area for family activities; teenagers from City-as-School will serve as roving reporters covering the festival; “Let Us Make Cake” will feature video interactions with scale models of the New Museum by such artists as Acconci Studio, Mia Pearlman, Dustin Yellin, Jon Kessler, and Marilyn Minter, projected onto the building’s facade; and, in conjunction with the Art Production Fund, “After Hours: Murals on the Bowery” will be unveiled, in which artists such as Matthew Brannon, Ellen Gallagher, Amy Granat, Mary Heilmann, Barry McGee, Sterling Ruby, Glenn Ligon, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Lawrence Weiner have created murals on roll-down security shutters along Bowery.

TONY CONRAD: AT THE EDGES OF ART

Multimedia performance artist Tony Conrad will present a free illustrated lecture about his fascinating career on May 3 at the SVA Theatre

SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday, May 3, free, 7:00
212-592-298
www.schoolofvisualarts.edu
www.tonyconrad.net

For nearly fifty years, experimental sound and visual performance artist Tony Conrad has been making minimalist drone music and short films that reexamine and reinvent form, content, and structure. He has collaborated with such musicians and filmmakers as John Cale, Rhys Chatham, Tony Oursler, and Jack Smith, and he is also a faculty member of the Department of Media Study at the University of Buffalo. “My personal work feels like an oil slick on this flowing current, spreading in two or three directions at once,” he notes on his UB faculty page. On May 3, Conrad will present a free multimedia lecture at the School of Visual Arts Theatre on West 23rd St., discussing his long and varied career in a multitude of disciplines. He will also premiere newly edited versions of experimental videos he made back in the 1970s and 1980s. This is a fabulous opportunity to get inside the mind of one of the twentieth century’s most intriguing and influential underground artists.

WORLD NOMADS MOROCCO

Najia Mehadji’s “Mystic Dance,” from the series Volutes, will be part of multidisciplinary site-specific Moroccan exhibit at FIAF Gallery

French Institute Alliance Française (and other venues)
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St.
Le Skyroom, 22 East 60th St.
Tinker Auditorium, 55 East 59th St.
April 30 – May 31, free – $40
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

in its annual World Nomads celebration of global culture, the French Institute Alliance Française journeyed to Africa in 2008, Haiti in 2009, and Lebanon last year; this year’s destination is Morocco, where the festivities began April 30 with a sold-out concert featuring the Orchestra of Fes with Françoise Atlan. Special events continue throughout May, with a pair of free literature talks Sunday with Abdellah Taïa (1:00) and Mahi Binebine (5:00) at the Cooper Union, screenings of Nour Eddine Lakhmari’s controversial 2008 film, Casa Negra, which deals realistically with contemporary social problems in Morocco, on May 3 ($10), a free concert with multi-instrumentalist Brahim Fribgane and trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf on May 5 at 8:30 at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium, the New York debut of Rabat rapper Soultana at Joe’s Pub on May 6 ($15), and the installation “Untangling Threads: Soundwalk & Kantara Crafts” on May 7 that is also part of the Festival of Ideas for the New City. Other highlights include the panel discussion “Regenerating Morocco’s Architecture” on May 9 at 7:00 in FIAF’s Tinker Auditorium ($15), the May 11 keynote talk “Essaouira and Fes: Sustaining Cultures” with Royal Advisor André Azoulay and cultural critic Faouzi Skali at Le Skyroom (free with RSVP), a Master Gnaoua Musicians concert May 21 at 8:00 at Florence Gould Hall ($20, preceded by the free talk “Stories from the Gnaoua and World Music Festival”), and pianist Marouan Benabdallah performing at Zankel Hall on May 26 at 8:00 ($25). Additional screenings of Moroccan film will take place every Tuesday as part of FIAF’s regular CinémaTuesdays series, and the FIAF Gallery will hos the site-specific exhibition “Senses and Essence: Amina Agueznay, Safaa Erruas, and Najia Mehadji,” focusing on the work of three leading woman contemporary artists from Morocco (May 5-28, free).

BEYOND BULLETS: GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA

BULLETS IN THE HOOD is part of special Maysles Institute program examining gun violence in America

Maysles Cinema
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
Wednesday, April 27, suggested donation $10, 7:30
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org

Last month Sylvia Savadjian curated a True Crime program at the Maysles Institute that looked at homelessness in New York City; she will be back on April 27 with an examination of gun violence, with all proceeds going to Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E. The evening will consist of three documentary shorts, Kevin Breslin’s Living for 32, Terence Fisher and Daniel Howard’s Bullets in the Hood: A Bed-Stuy Story, and Ivana Todorovic’s A Harlem Mother, followed by a panel discussion with Breslin; Living for 32 subject Colin Goddard, who survived being shot four times at the Virginia Tech massacre; Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E. cofounder Jean Corbett-Parker, whose son was shot and killed outside a Harlem nightclub in 2001; and Stephanie Skaff, the director of Downtown Community Television’s “Beyond Bullets” media campaign.

PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 2011

David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel, THE PALE KING, will be explored in depth at the seventh annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature

Multiple locations
April 25 – May 1, $5 – $30
866-811-4111
www.pen.org

Celebrating the written word and freedom of expression while fighting censorship and human rights abuses, the seventh annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature will feature more than one hundred writers and artists from more than three dozen countries participating in seven days and nights of panel discussions, conversations, readings, and live performances. In addition, the Celluloid Literature Film Series will screen documentaries every night at the Instituto Cervantes New York, including such shorts and full-length works as Paul Bowles: Creating a Legend (Karim Debbagh, Coon Prager, 2006), Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said (Sato Makoto, 2006), Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous (Charlie McCarthy, 2009), and The Erotic Man (Jørgen Leth, 2010). “We live in a time of great changes and challenges, and the need to remind ourselves of our basic values is as important as ever,” explain director László Jakab Orsós, chair Salman Rushdie, and PEN American Center president K. Anthony Appiah. “We have to reinforce our power to be able to analyze and understand the turbulent phenomena of our culture.” The festival runs April 25 – May 1, with the hubs the Standard, New York and the High Line, and consists of multiple events each day; below are our recommended highlights.

Monday, April 25, the Standard, $20, 11:00 pm: Yael Hedaya, Honor Moore, Irvine Welsh, Edmund White, and others will take part in the PEN Speakeasy “Sex; Erotic Readings,” hosted by Katie Halper, re-creating the feel of a speakeasy and sharing erotic stories.

Tuesday, April 26, St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral Gymnasium, 268 Mulberry St., $15, 7:30: Rick Moody, Michael Silverblatt, Sandro Veronesi, Michael Pietsch, and others will delve into the fascinating story behind the publication of David Foster Wallace’s unfinished final novel in “Everything and More: The Pale King by David Foster Wallace.”

Wednesday, April 27, Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35 Ave., $15, 7:00: HBO’s outstanding series In Treatment, starring Gabriel Byrne as a therapist in need of some treatment of his own, is based on the Israeli television series Be-tipul, written by novelist Yael Hedaya; Hedaya will be in Astoria to talk about therapy and television and screen an episode of the show.

Thursday, April 28, Westbeth Home of the Arts, Community Room, 155 Bank St., $12, 6:30: For “A Literary Safari: A Unique Experience,” sixteen writers will be situated throughout the Westbeth Center, reading from their works, including Nathacha Appanah, Rahul Bhattacharya, Abdelkader Benali, Amélie Nothomb, Ksenia Shcherbino, Teresa Solana, John Burnside, Mircea Cărtărescu, Manuel de Lope, Deborah Eisenberg, Marcelo Figueras, Jonas Hassan Khemiri, Hervé Le Tellier, Daniel Orozco, Gunnhild Øyehaug, and Lynne Tillman.

Friday, April 29, 92nd St. Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., $25, 7:30: Multidisciplinary artist and musician Laurie Anderson has curated “Poetry: The Second Skin,” an evening that explores the connections between poetry and music with John Burnside, Ernesto Cardenal, David-Dephy Gogibedashvili, Hasina Gul, Yusef Komunyakaa, Juan Carlos Mestre, Piotr Sommer, Joachim Sartorius, and Pia Tafdrup.

Saturday, April 30, the Cooper Union, Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, 41 Cooper Sq., $15, 12 noon: For “Get Super Lit: Comic Books Come Alive on Stage,” Jeff Newelt has put together a multimedia presentation of works that feature a wide range of superheroes created by Kate Beaton, Nick Bertozzi, Kevin Colden, Mike Dawson, Ludovic Debeurme, Dean Haspiel, Michael Kupperman, Benjamin Marra, R. Sikoryak, and Harvey Pekar, all of whom, save for the late Pekar, will participate in the program.

Sunday, May 1, New York Public Library, Celeste Bartos Forum, Fifth Ave. at 42nd St., $25, 3:00: Literary critic and deconstructionist Harold Bloom will talk with the NYPL’s Paul Holdengräber about writing and read some of his favorite poems, including his own, in “From the Anxiety to the Anatomy of Influence: A Conversation with Harold Bloom.”