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

EAST HARLEM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Heitor Dhalia’s ADRIFT kicks off the inaugural East Harlem International Film Festival tonight at the Poet’s Den

The Poet’s Den, 309 East 108th St.
The Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave.
The New York Academy of Medicine, 1216 Fifth Ave.
June 1-5, $12 per screening
www.ehiff.com

Founded by Raphael Benavides, Victor Cruz, and Yenny Love, the East Harlem International Film Festival kicks off its inaugural year tonight with two screenings of Heitor Dhalia’s Brazilian tale Adrift at the Poet’s Den and continues through June 5 with more than forty shorts, documentaries, and narratives shown there as well as at the Museum of the City of New York and the New York Academy of Medicine. Other full-length dramas include Eliana Ujueta’s Beneath the Rock, Albert Wu Tiange’s Ru Yun, Malcolm Goodwin’s True Story: Based on Things That Never Actually Happened . . . and Some That Did, Neerraj Pathak’s Right Yaaa Wrong, J. W. Cortes’s Conscientious Objector, and Olivier Bernier’s The Sunset Sky. Among the feature documentaries are Olumide Earth’s Feldstein, which looks at Mad magazine cofounder Al Feldstein; Ana Rokafella Garcia’s All the Ladies Say, about breakthrough female street dancers; and Iris Morales’s 1996 ¡Palante, Siempre Palante! The Young Lords, which examines Latino communities’ fight for equality led by the radical group. The festival will also host the panel discussions “The Perfect Cast,” “The World of Miedo: The Business of Horror,” “The Journey of a Film,” and “Go West, Young Actor: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Being a West Coast or Bicoastal Actor,” the latter two events free and held at the East Harlem Café.

WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL 2011

Multiple venues
June 1-5
www.worldsciencefestival.com

The mind-expanding World Science Festival kicks off June 1 with a gala celebration at Alice Tully Hall as a group of stars (Liev Schreiber, Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and others) will read Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie, a new play written by WSF veteran Alan Alda and directed by Bob Balaban. What follows are more than three dozen events over four days that examine the impact of science on today’s world, including panel discussions, lectures, film screenings, live music, magic, and more. Tickets are still available for most programs, including “Spotlight: Women in Science” on June 2 at Galapagos, a cabaret happy hour featuring Joy Hirsch, Jean Berko Gleason, Priyamvada Natarajan, Corina Tarnita, and Tal Rabin, moderated by Faith Salie; “World Science Festival Salon: The Mystery of Dark Matter” on June 3 at the Rosenthal Pavilion, where you can mingle with Elena Aprile, Glennys Farrar, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Katherine Freese, Jocelyn Monroe, and Priyamvada Natarajan; “A Thin Sheet of Reality: The Universe as a Hologram” June 3 at the Skirball Center, a cutting-edge discussion with John Hockenberry, Gerard ’t Hooft, Leonard Susskind, Raphael Bousso, and Herman Verlinde; “Scents and Sensibilities: The Invisible Language of Smell” June 4 at the New School, with Juju Chang, Leslie Vosshall, Sissel Tolaas, Consuelo De Moraes, and Avery Gilbert; “Music and the Spark of Spontaneity” June 4 in the Great Hall of the Cooper Union, in which Pat Metheny will perform and Jamshed Bharucha, Charles Limb, Aaron Berkowitz, and Gary Marcus will focus on his brain and creativity, moderated by John Schaefer; “Man-Made Minds: Living with Thinking Machines” on June 4 at the Kaye Playhouse, as IBM’s Watson supercomputer will be joined by Hod Lipson, David Ferrucci, Eric Horvitz, and Rodney Brooks; and “Chemistry on Canvas: A Revealing Portrait of Monsieur and Madame Lavoisier” on June 5 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Garrick Utley, Kathryn Calley Galitz, Harold Varmus, and Roald Hoffmann. There are also several free events, including the opening reception of “BIORHYTHM: Music and the Body” at Eyebeam on June 3 at 6:00, with Chesney Snow, the Theremin Inspectors, Sonic Bed, Optofonica Capsule, and Stone Forest Ensemble; “From the City to the Stars: A Night of Stargazing at Brooklyn Bridge Park” on June 3 at 8:30; “Science on Site: Explorations on Governors Island” on June 4 with Timothy Ferris, Mark Kurlansky, Dean Pesnell, and Robert Naczi; and the 2011 World Science Festival Street Fair in Washington Square Park on June 5.

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).