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

twi-ny talk: BARBARA POLLACK / MIRROR IMAGE

Barbara Pollack first visited China in 2004 (photo courtesy Barbara Pollack)

MIRROR IMAGE: A TRANSFORMATION OF CHINESE IDENTITY
Asia Society Museum
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
Wednesday – Sunday through December 31, $7-$12
Artist Talk July 21, free, 7:00
Brooklyn Rail talk Tuesday, August 9, free, 1:00
asiasociety.org

In a 2010 twi-ny talk, Barbara Pollack noted, discussing her book The Wild, Wild East: An American Art Critic’s Adventures in China, “Until the late 1990s, the art world was extremely narrow-minded and unwilling to think that a major talent could come from somewhere other than Europe or North America. That has changed forever, good riddance.”

Pollack spent the following decade meeting with, writing about, and researching these major talents, in China and other countries, leading to her next book, 2018’s Brand New Art from China: A Generation on the Rise.

Right before Covid-19 forced the lockdown of restaurants, theaters, museums, and other businesses in March 2020, Pollack’s “Mirror Image: A Transformation of Chinese Identity” had been scheduled to open at Asia Society but had to be put on hold. Pollack, a writer, teacher, curator, and visual artist with a law degree, pivoted immediately and formed, with Anne Verhallen, Art at a Time Like This, a nonprofit that presents sociopolitical art, both on- and offline. Finally, after a more than two-year delay, “Mirror Image,” curated by Pollack with guest curatorial assistant Hongzheng Han, opened at the Park Ave. institution in June and has just been extended through the end of the year.

The exhibition, which Pollack sees as a kind of follow-up to Asia Society’s seminal 1998 show “Inside Out: New Chinese Art,” features multimedia works that explore the idea of “Chinese-ness” by seven artists who were born on mainland China in the 1980s, six of whom are still primarily based there. In her curatorial statement, Pollack explains, “These artists continue to push forward. We no longer view them as ambassadors from an exotic land but as representatives of a world we share.”

Pixy Liao, who lives and works in Brooklyn and was born in Shanghai in 1979, contributes intimate digital chromogenic still-lifes of parts of her and her partner’s bodies. Cui Jie creates futuristic cityscapes with hints of the past in large acrylic paintings. Tianzhuo Chen invites viewers into one of his ecstatic theatrical performances in the five-minute two-channel video Trance. Liu Shiyuan, who divides her time between Beijing and Copenhagen, combines found images with original footage in dizzying prints. Miao Ying, who lives and works in Shanghai and New York City, incorporates online gaming into her computer-animated film Surplus Intelligence, while Pilgrimage into Walden XII is a live simulation that learns over time. Tao Hui’s Similar Disguise Stills is accompanied by QR codes that take visitors into digital TikTok soap operas with nonbinary characters. And Nabuqi’s How to Be “Good Life” is a living room installation, influenced by Martin Heidegger and Richard Hamilton, that questions how popular culture invades personal spaces.

Tao Hui, Similar Disguise Stills, archival pigment prints mounted on aluminum panels, 2021 (photo courtesy of the artist, Kiang Malingue, Esther Schipper, and Macalline Art Center, Beijing)

On July 21, Pollack will moderate a conversation with Pixy and Miao at Asia Society and Nabuqi and Tao participating remotely; the talk can be viewed in person as well as online here.

Pollack is an old friend; her second book was represented by Stonesong, my wife’s literary agency. Pollack recently discussed the impact of the internet on Chinese art, putting together an exhibition during a pandemic, the Chinese art market, Chinese identity, and more in her latest twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: The exhibition includes a timeline that goes back to President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 and Mao’s death in 1976. I know this could take a book – and you’ve written several on the subject – but, in a nutshell if possible, what have been some of the biggest changes in Chinese art and the perception of Chinese artists since then?

barbara pollack: I begin the timeline with Nixon’s visit and Mao’s death, basically the end of the Cultural Revolution, the most repressive period in modern Chinese history. The artists in this show were mostly born five to ten years later and had no experience with that kind of scary attitude toward intellectuals and creatives. In fact, they grew up in a world where there was an art infrastructure including auction houses, galleries, and, finally, new contemporary art museums. This all happened really quickly.

In the 1990s, art was still kind of underground, but by 2000, China hosted a major biennial, several official auction houses, and a few galleries. By the time these artists were exhibiting, China had an art market that rivaled that in the U.S. Most people here don’t realize that Shanghai now has a dozen contemporary art museums and there are several hundred galleries between Shanghai and Beijing and other cities. That creates an incredibly rich environment for artists to exhibit their works, despite censorship and other drawbacks.

twi-ny: The internet came to China in 1994, and much of the art in the show incorporates elements of AI, high-tech social media, and online gaming. How did the internet impact the work Chinese artists were creating?

bp: In 1994, China was still a pretty isolated, agrarian society. The internet changed everything for everyone, but mostly the generation born in the 1980s, as are the artists in this show. Suddenly you no longer had to smuggle in catalogues or merely read about shows of contemporary art elsewhere in the world. It took a while for the internet to improve, but soon you could get information directly. Artists in China learned rapidly how to have their own websites and how to email international curators. I know this firsthand by those who contacted me early on. But more importantly, before the establishment of the Great Firewall — China’s surveillance of all internet activity — people in China could learn about Chinese history not included in domestic textbooks. It was an eye-opening period and one of the reasons that this younger generation is so enthralled with the liberation that came from this technology.

twi-ny: In our 2010 twi-ny talk, you pointed out that Chinese artists were able to produce without the interference of the Ministry of Culture and that restrictions rarely impeded their output. Is that still true? That was two years before Xi Jinping took over as general secretary.

bp: I have no idea what has happened in the last two years, but it should be noted that in 2014, Xi Jinping gave a speech exhorting media, television, films, and art producers to “serve the people” and uphold Chinese culture. That’s a return to Mao’s rhetoric during the Cultural Revolution. As a result, there has been a rise in self-censorship for sure. I need to return to China to see how this has had an impact on cultural institutions and art making.

Miao Ying, Surplus Intelligence, single-channel film with sound, 2021-22 (courtesy of the artist)

twi-ny: Speaking of going to China, what was it like putting “Mirror Image” together during the pandemic? You’re used to traveling there often, but I imagine that because of Covid, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and other political situations, that is not possible.

bp: “Mirror Image” was supposed to open in the spring of 2020, just as Covid took over New York City and museums and galleries were closed. I was devastated that the show was canceled at that point. In fall 2021, Asia Society came to me and revived the show. By then, I knew we could not ship works from China — not because of Covid but because of shipping tariffs imposed by Donald Trump. So we used “virtual shipping,” with artists sending photo works and videos digitally.

Even Nabuqi’s great installation — originally created in Beijing with elements bought at the local IKEA — was completely assembled in NYC. The artist sent us a “shopping list.” We ordered from IKEA here and then she directed the installation via Zoom with a translator in the museum. I think that’s a perfect example of how globalization can impact — even facilitate — art making in the twenty-first century. Also, several galleries — Kiang Malingue in Hong Kong, Tanya Bonakdar in Chelsea, Pilar Corrias in London, and Chambers Fine Art downtown — were incredibly helpful in sourcing works in the U.S. I really have to thank the team at Asia Society for an extraordinary effort to pull this together.

twi-ny: The exhibition includes a wild video installation by Tianzhuo Chen; a few years back, you attended one of his performances here in the city. What was it like to experience it in person?

bp: Tianzhuo’s work is the most visceral experience I have ever had in an art institution. It’s like watching wild animals refusing to get back in their cages. The tension between the space and the performers is absolutely riveting.

Pixy Liao, Play Station, digital chromogenic print, 2013 (courtesy of the artist and Chambers Fine Art)

twi-ny: Another highlight of the show are ten digital chromogenic prints by Pixy Liao. How did you get introduced to her work?

bp: I met Pixy early in her career, around 2010, when she came to New York. She and her partner, Moro, have their own quirky band and I saw them perform at Printed Matter. I may have known her even before that. I love working with Pixy because she has no ego and comes off like a cutie pie but is actually quite brilliant and powerful. That’s the tension that comes through in the photographs. Her images really speak to people about the state of relationships in today’s gender-fluid world, not just in China or Chinese communities.

twi-ny: For people who might not know that much about contemporary Chinese art, what do you think will most surprise them about this show?

bp: Everything! Many Americans have such a limited view of China that they don’t even believe that creativity is possible in such a repressive society. It is repressive, but that is the framework that Chinese artists push against and test the limits of. Almost all of the work in the show has been shown in China without problems. Many of these artists have major markets with a new generation of young Chinese collectors, and internationally. But this may change. I’m worried about the future. Very worried.

twi-ny: On July 21, you will be moderating a conversation with four of the artists. What are some of the main topics you will be discussing?

bp: We will start with a discussion of how being born in China has influenced their choices as artists and whether that still guides their work. Then I will allow the artists to guide the discussion more or less. But this issue of identity will obviously recur throughout the evening. Most of the artists have told me they are citizens of the internet, not China. We’ll see where that leads us.

[You can watch a recording of the panel discussion here. Pollack will also be participating in a free Brooklyn Rail New Social Environment discussion on Zoom on August 9 at 1:00 with artists Liu Shiyuan and Miao Ying, moderated by Lilly Wei and featuring a poetry reading by Abby Romine.]

QUEENS ON SCREEN: SWERVE / ENTRE NOS

Lynne Sachs’s poetic short Swerve moves to the rhythm of Queens

ENTRE NOS (Paola Mendoza & Gloria La Morte, 2009) / SWERVE (Lynne Sachs, 2022)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, July 15, 7:15, and Sunday, July 17, 1:30, $15
718-777-6800
movingimage.us

The Astoria-based Museum of the Moving Image’s monthly “Queens on Screen” series — which is not about royalty or LGBTQIA+ issues but comprises films set in one of the most diverse areas on the planet — continues July 15 and 17 with two works set in the borough. Up first is Lynne Sachs’s seven-minute Swerve, in which artist and curator Emmy Catedral, blaqlatinx multidisciplinary artist ray ferreira, director and cinematographer Jeff Preiss, film curator and programmer Inney Prakash, and actor Juliana Sass recite excerpts from Pilipinx poet Paolo Javier’s O.B.B. (Nightboat, November 2021, $19.95).

Illustrated by Alex Tarampi and Ernest Concepcion, the book, which stands for Original Brown Boy, consists of such sections as “Aren’t You a Mess,” “Goldfish Kisses,” “Restrained by Time,” and “Last Gasp.” New Yorkers Catedral, ferreira, Preiss, Prakash, and Sass share Javier’s words as they wander around Moore Homestead Playground and Elmhurst’s HK Food Court. “The words each operate on their own swerve, from music that would play in the background and from overheard conversation outside my window, on the subway, at the local Korean deli,” Javier says at the beginning, writing in a notebook.

The film was shot in one day in August 2021, during the Delta wave of Covid-19, so many people are wearing masks, and the food court is nearly empty; when Prakash orders, a plastic sheet separates him from the employee. The performers recite the poems as if engaging in free-flowing speech; words occasionally appear on the screen, including “free emptiness,” “unknown thoroughfare,” and “hum your savage cabbage leaf.”

Experimental documentarian Sachs (Film About a Father Who, Investigation of a Flame), who was the subject of a career retrospective at MoMI last year, captures the unique rhythm of both Javier’s language and the language of Queens; Javier and Sachs will be at the museum to discuss the film after the July 15 screening.

Swerve will be followed by Paola Mendoza and Gloria La Morte’s Entre Nos, a deeply personal semiautobiographical story in which Mendoza stars as a Colombian immigrant whose husband deserts her, leaving her to raise two children in Queens. The film is shot by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Bradford Young (Arrival, Selma), who makes the borough its own character.

In a director’s note, Mendoza explains, “Throughout my childhood my mother worked countless double-shifts at the toilet bowl cleaners business and flipping burgers at local fast food restaurants near me. We never talked about the roaches in the house or the yearning to see our family back in the country and culture of Colombia. Instead we had to learn to smile through the grit, the trial of tears, and dealing with heartache. As the years passed, I came to a sublime new realization that our story was not unique. Thousands of immigrant mothers, for hundreds of years, have endured problems when trying to adapt to their new immigration in the USA. My mother, like those before her, have overcome all that remains for exactly the same reason, to build the foundation for a better life for their children.”

THE SUPPLIANTS PROJECT: UKRAINE

Who: Oscar Isaac, Willem Dafoe, David Strathairn, Kira Meshcherska, Dmytro Zaleskyi, Lyudmila Yankina, Olena Martynenko, Tatiana Tolpezhnikov, Roman Tolpezhnikov, Bryan Doerries, Oksana Yakushko
What: Live, dramatic reading followed by community discussion
Where: Theater of War Zoom
When: Saturday, July 16, free with RSVP, 1:00
Why: “Zeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands / Look down benign on us who crave / Thine aid — whom winds and waters drave / From where, through drifting shifting sands, / Pours Nilus to the wave. / From where the green land, god-possest, / Closes and fronts the Syrian waste, / We flee as exiles, yet unbanned / By murder’s sentence from our land; / But — since Aegyptus had decreed / His sons should wed his brother’s seed, — / Ourselves we tore from bonds abhorred, / From wedlock not of heart but hand, / Nor brooked to call a kinsman lord!” So the chorus chimes at the beginning of Aeschylus’s The Suppliants, the 460s BCE play involving immigration, the military, borders, and political activism.

Theater of War Productions, which performs Greek tragedies and contemporary texts with all-star casts, followed by community discussions on topics related to the works, including climate change, the pandemic, racialized police violence, caregiving, mental health, incarceration, substance abuse, and homelessness, now turns its attention to the emergency situation in Ukraine. On July 16 at 1:00, Oscar Isaac, Willem Dafoe, Kira Meshcherska, and David Strathairn will headline a staged reading on Zoom of The Suppliants, part of Aeschylus’s Danaid Tetralogy, after which Theater of War artistic director Bryan Doerries will facilitate an interactive discussion with Dr. Dmytro Zaleskyi of the Mobile Medical Center of Ukrainian Territorial Defense, Lyudmila Yankina of the ZMINA Human Rights Center in Ukraine, Kyiv-based communication manager Olena Martynenko, and Mariupol refugees Tatiana Tolpezhnikov and Roman Tolpezhnikov. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

MONTHLY CLASSICS: MOTHRA

Mothra flies into Japan Society for special screening on July 8

MOTHRA (KAIJU) (Ishirō Honda, 1961)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, July 8, $15, 7:00
www.japansociety.org

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s — well, eventually, it’s a gigantic gynnidomorpha alisman, commonly known as a moth. But first, it’s an enormous caterpillar that moves across Japan slower than the giant breast in Woody Allen’s 1972 Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask. And while the mammoth mammary Victor Shakapopulis is hunting down in Allen’s comedy shoots out mother’s milk, the giant lepidoptera, labeled Mothra, dispenses powerful silk.

In the 1950s and ’60s, a series of Japanese films featured monsters born of the aftereffects of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the fear of alien invasion. It all started with Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla in 1954 and also included Honda’s Rodan and King Ghidorah and Noriaki Uasa’s Gamera as well as endless sequels.

In 1961, Honda gave us Mothra, a melding of Godzilla — Gojira in Japanese, the last two letters of which were added to the otherwise harmless word “moth” to make it appear much more dangerous — and the basic plot of King Kong. In fact, the next year Honda made King Kong vs. Godzilla.

The tale begins as human life is discovered on Infant Island, where the government of Rolisica (a combination of Russia and America) conducted hydrogen bomb tests thinking the land mass was uninhabitable. A group of explorers is assembled to investigate, led by the evil Rolisican Clark Nelson (Jerry Ito), who has ulterior motives. Among the others on the expedition are Dr. Shin’ichi Chûjô (Hiroshi Koizumi), an anthropologist and linguist who is excited by what might be discovered, and Zen’ichirō Fukuda (Frankie Sakai), a stowaway reporter (and comic relief) who is trying to get the big story for his demanding editor, Sadakatsu Amano (the great Takashi Shimura of Akira Kurosawa fame).

On the island, they discover a pair of “tiny beauties” (identical twins Yumi Ito and Emi Ito of the pop duo the Peanuts) called the Shobijin, singing sisters who are a mere one foot tall. Using weapons against the peaceful indigenous population, Nelson captures the fairies and brings them to Japan to exploit them. The islanders then perform a ritual ceremony to summon a great monster from its shell to bring the women back. “Whatever some giant monster does is completely unrelated with our work,” Nelson’s cohort declares, setting the stage for a final showdown in New Kirk City, a version of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Mothra is a bizarrely masterful movie, a warning about the dangers of atomic warfare, government greed, rampant capitalism, and disregard for indigenous societies. Written by Shinichi Sekizawa, who penned dozens of monster flicks, the film is a kind of parable of the human life cycle from birth to death. The Shobijin, two miniature women, are found on the deftly titled Infant Island, and they are almost like children, growing up in front of us as they learn to speak. Mothra evolves from egg to caterpillar to moth. It’s as if the whole world has been reborn in the aftermath of WWII, with Russia and America merging together to try to become the parents of the planet.

The special effects, courtesy of Eiji Tsuburaya, are often hilarious. When Nelson picks up the tiny beauties, it is obvious he is holding two small dolls. It is clear that many of the cars are toys, and the breaking of a dam looks like a kid’s unwieldy science experiment. Pre-CGI superimposition of characters over various locations is shaky. For some reason, the military pauses for what seems like hours while Mothra spins its cocoon. The skin of the actors portraying the indigenous denizens of Infant Island was (poorly) darkened in a way that would be totally unacceptable today (and should have been in 1961).

But then, amid an attack by Japanese planes on Mothra doing the breaststroke across the ocean, an unintended rainbow flashes for just a second, as if the heavens are declaring him our hero and promising that things will turn out okay, a feeling that is echoed in the Peanuts’ haunting, memorable song.

Mothra is screening in 35mm at Japan Society on July 8 at 7:00 and will be introduced by Kevin Derendorf, author of SF: The Japanese Science Fiction Film Encyclopedia and Kaiju for Hipsters: 101 Alternative Giant Monster Movies. In addition, there will be a Kaiju-themed pop-up sponsored by Seismic Toys, with an exclusive limited-edition Mothra Mini-Print by Robo7 on sale in the lobby.

FIAF’s BASTILLE DAY 2022

BASTILLE DAY
French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)
Madison Ave. between Fifty-Ninth & Sixty-Third Sts.
Sunday, July 10, free – $75, noon – 5:00 pm
fiaf.org

On July 14, 1789, a Parisian mob stormed the Bastille prison, a symbolic victory that kicked off the French Revolution and the establishment of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Ever since, July 14 has been a national holiday celebrating liberté, égalité, and fraternité. In New York City, the Bastille Day festivities are set for Sunday, July 10, on Madison Ave. between Fifty-Ninth & Sixty-Third Sts., where the French Institute Alliance Française hosts its annual daylong party of food and drink, music and dance, and other special activities. The celebration features free live music by Paul Beaubrun, street dance by Cal Hunt, a dance party with DJ Orson, and an excerpt from the French musical Notre Dame de Paris on the main stage at Fifty-Ninth St. from noon to 5:00; a Summer in the South of France Tasting in Tinker Auditorium from 12:30 to 5:00 ($35), with wines from Maison Antech, Château Maris, and Château Haut-Blanville, nonalcoholic wines from Le Petit Béret, gazpacho from Karine & Jeff, and cheese selections from cheese2u.com; a sneak preview screening of Matthieu Rozé’s Azuro starring Valérie Donzelli in Florence Gould Hall at 5:30 ($17); and the elegant Champagne & Musette Party at 1:30 ($65-$75) in Le Skyroom, with live music by Chloé Perrier & the French Heart Jazz Band, Champagnes from Billecart Salmon, Delamotte, and Henriot, macarons from Thierry Atlan, and hors d’oeuvres from Miss Madeleine.

A sneak preview of Matthieu Rozé’s Azuro is part of FIAF Bastille Day festivities

The French Garden between Sixtieth & Sixty-First consists of booths from Thermomix, Thierry Atlan, Stephane Koerwyn, Angelina Paris, Bichon, OCabanon, Oliviers & Co, Opinel, Payot, Silpat, and Tissage Moutet, while Market Booths between Sixtieth & Sixty-Third include Brasserie Cognac, Maman Bakery, Mille-feuille Bakery Cafe, Hanami Designs, Barachou, Miss Madeleine, and dozens more. The FIAF Language Center Booth between Fifty-Ninth & Sixtieth will present special activities for children and a trivia contest for adults from 1:00 to 4:00. And this year’s prize drawing can win you skincare baskets, a wellness collection, a FIAF Premier Membership, a two-night stay at Sofitel New York, or a Dream Getaway for Two to France’s Occitanie region.

NEW AGORA: JULY — ART, MUSIC, YOGA, AND MORE AT SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK

The art in Socrates Sculpture Park will be activated with special programs on July 9 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: Woomin Kim, Greg Hammontree, Douglas Paulson and Nicole Brancato, Rudy Walker Ensemble, Cooper-Moore, Ununu, Elliott Sharp, Duology, more
What: Jazz Foundation of America presentation for Second Saturdays
Where: Socrates Sculpture Park, 32-01 Vernon Blvd. at Broadway, Long Island City
When: Saturday, July 9, free, 9:30 am – 8:00 pm
Why: Socrates Sculpture Park and the Jazz Foundation of America have teamed up for a special day of live music, workshops, and more on July 9, activating the historic park and its current art installations. There will be yoga at 9:30 and 11:00 in the morning; from 10:00 to 2:00, the Hellgate Farm Stand will be open, and the Astoria Food Pantry will distribute free clothes, books, and essential items and collect nonperishables and clean clothing; at 11:00, Field Guide: Wildlife Among Us — Finding Shelter will take preregistered participants on a tour of the park, focusing on where animals and insects make their home; and at noon, artist Woomin Kim, whose “Shijang Project” quilts are at Susan Inglett Gallery in Chelsea until July 29, will lead a collage workshop with Noguchi Museum educators. In addition, Greg Hammontree’s ambient soundworld Trumpet Echoes will ring out all day in the Grove of Trees, where you can walk through the adaptive sonic space.

The afternoon will include live thirty-to-forty-five-minute concerts, featuring part I of .soundfullness by Douglas Paulson and pianist Nicole Brancato at the front gate BBQ area at 2:00, the Rudy Walker Ensemble at the Cobblestone Stage at 3:00, pianist Cooper-Moore inside Hélio Oiticica’s Subterranean Tropicália Projects PN15 at 4:00, improv trio Ununu at the North Gate Stage and part II of .soundfullness at the front gate BBQ area at 5:00, the legendary Elliott Sharp playing “Monkulations” on acoustic guitar in Oiticica’s installation at 6:00, and Michael Marcus’s Duology at the Main Stage at 7:00.

As you enter the park, you encounter the Broadway Billboard The Marooned Picturesque Series (Socrates) by New York City native Joiri Minaya, which was selected by the Socrateens. On view through August 14, Oiticica’s Subterranean Tropicália Projects PN15 is an immersive circular environment of an unrealized work by the late Brazilian artist and activist Oiticica, who was honored with a terrific exhibition at the Whitney in 2017, “To Organize Delirium.” Originally conceived for Central Park, the piece is now centered at Socrates, where visitors can follow narrow, winding paths to surprise places; facing the front of the park is a small platform and screen behind mesh, where live performances and screenings are held. Sharp and Cooper-Moore will play inside on July 9; on August 14, the closing reception is highlighted by “We are one only heart, one only earth, one only soul,” an invitation to the public by Brazilian Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa to learn about the violence the Yanomami people are facing at the hands of the Brazilian government.

In the Grove of Trees, where you can hear Trumpet Echoes, you will find Maren Hassinger’s Two Bushes, a new pair of sculptures made of iron wire hiding in plain sight among the natural elements of the park, harkening back to Hassinger’s Three Bushes, which were part of the 1988 group exhibition “Sculptors Working” at Socrates. The New York–based artist has also installed “Steel Bodies” throughout the park, consisting of ten steel sculptures inspired by different types of vessels throughout history; some of them resemble open cages, which you can walk into, offering a unique perspective on your relationship to the people and nature around you, while their placement, and the shadows they create, interacts dramatically with the surrounding trees, skyscape, and outdoor studio of Socrates cofounder Mark di Suvero. [To see all the artwork in the park, go here.]

BroadwayCon 2022

Who: Anthony Rapp, LaChanze, Andrew Barth Feldman, Carolee Carmello, Ben Cameron, Erin Quill, Fredi Walker-Browne, Julie White, Telly Leung, Ilana Levine, Jacqueline B. Arnold, Jennifer Ashley Tepper, Vanessa Williams, Judy Kuhn, Lesli Margherita, Nik Walker, Ryann Redmond, Thayne Jasperson, Hillary Clinton, more
What: BroadwayCon 2022
Where: Manhattan Center, 311 West Thirty-Fourth St., and the New Yorker Hotel, 481 Eighth Ave.
When: July 8-10, day passes $80, general pass $200, gold pass $425, platinum pass $1,250
Why: BroadwayCon is back with an in-person edition taking place July 8-10 at the Manhattan Center and the New Yorker Hotel, right by Madison Square Garden and Penn Station and just a few blocks south of the Theater District. This year’s edition includes panel discussions, interviews, live performances, podcasts, a cosplay contest, workshops, photo and autograph sessions, singalongs, meetups, and celebrations of and inside looks at such shows as A Strange Loop, Six the Musical, Chicago, POTUS, Dear Evan Hansen, Beetlejuice, Thoughts of a Colored Man, Kimberly Akimbo, SpongeBob SquarePants, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Kite Runner, Assassins, and Hamilton.

Among those participating at the three-day festival are Anthony Rapp, LaChanze, Carolee Carmello, Ben Cameron, Erin Quill, Julie White, Telly Leung, Vanessa Williams, Judy Kuhn, Lesli Margherita, and Hillary Clinton, talking about such topics as racial and gender diversity, disability, understudies, anxiety, body positivity, and Stephen Sondheim.

Below are select highlights for each day:

Friday, July 8
Ensemble screening, with Telly Leung, 10:00 am, followed by a talkback at 11:20, Crystal Ballroom, the New Yorker Hotel

BroadwayCon 2022 Opening Ceremony, with Ben Cameron, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 12:40

Here’s to the Ladies: Hillary Rodham Clinton Live at BroadwayCon, with LaChanze, Julie White, and Vanessa Williams, moderated by Hillary Clinton, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 1:00

Making a Living and Having a Life in Theatre Production, with Jameson Croasdale, Mary Kathryn “MK” Blazek, Rebecca Zuber, Lauren Parrish, and Gary Levinson, moderated by Naomi Siegel, Sutton Place Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 2:20

Lights, Overture, Stage Fright! Breaking Down Performance Anxiety, with Kira Sparks, Sutton Place Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 3:40

POTUS is one of several Broadway shows that will be featured at BroadwayCon (photo by Paul Kolnick)

Saturday, July 9
Black Lives Matter on Broadway, with T. Oliver Reid, Britton Smith, Emilio Sosa, Michael Dinwiddie, and Lillias White, moderated by Linda Armstrong, New Yorker Hotel Grand Ballroom, 10:00

Broadway Livestreaming: Expanding the Reach of Live Theatre, with Timothy Allen McDonald, Sean Cercone, Luke Naphat, Tralen Doler, Nathan Gehan, and Jen Sandler, moderated by Joshua Turchin, Gramercy Park Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 11:20

Getting the Show Back on the Road: The Pandemic and Its Impact on Touring Broadway, with Jacob Persily, Sutton Place Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 2:20

Paul Gemignani and Sondheim’s Musical Legacy, with Margaret Hall and Meg Masseron, Crystal Ballroom, the New Yorker Hotel, 3:40

BroadwayCon Cabaret, with special secret guest, hosted by Ben Cameron, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 5:00

Sunday, July 10
Cheers to Understudies: The Broadway Cast Live!, with Amber Ardolino, Mallory Maedke, Tally Sessions, and Lauren Boyd, hosted by Ben Cameron, New Yorker Hotel Grand Ballroom, 10:00

Body Liberation on Broadway, with Amara Janae Brady, Shantez M. Tolbut, and Evan Ruggiero, moderated by Stephanie Lexis, Gramercy Park Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 10:00

Directors on Debuts, with Zhailon Levingston and Tina Satter, moderated by Zeynep Akça, Crystal Ballroom, the New Yorker Hotel, 1:00

Tell Me More! Tell Me More!, special guests TBA, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 2:20

Broadway Anecdotes II: Golden Age Gossip, with Kenneth Kantor, Joshua Ellis, and Mimi Quillin, moderated by Ken Bloom, Gramercy Park Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 5:00