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

RASHAAD NEWSOME: ASSEMBLY

Rashaad Newsome’s Assembly is an immersive multimedia exploration of the intersection of humanity and technology (photo by Stephanie Berger Photography / Park Avenue Armory)

ASSEMBLY
Park Ave. Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at Sixty-Seventh St.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 6, $18 exhibition, $40 performances
www.armoryonpark.org
rashaadnewsome.com

The Muthaship has landed — and taken root inside Park Ave. Armory’s 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall. New Orleans–born interdisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome’s immersive multimedia installation Assembly is an open call to end colonialism, white supremacy, systemic racism, homophobia, and other societal ills based in bigotry and inequality, through music, movement, art, and storytelling grounded in Black queer culture. A kind of group healing focusing on opportunity, Assembly is hosted by Being the Digital Griot, an artificial intelligence project Newsome developed at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI).

When you enter the hall, you are met by Wrapped, Tied & Tangled, a thirty-foot-tall scrim on which a series of performers in bright red, yellow, and blue costumes appear to be dancing and drawing in space while a robotic voice makes affirmations. “Dig into your mind. Welcome to your insides,” Being offers in a gentle, caring tone. “I am here to listen and provide you with a new beginning for your journey. . . . There is only breath, heartbeat, rhythm, and peace. . . . No matter what, you are enough. . . . You are the most beautiful you. You are the master of your own self. You are radiant. You are divine. Always. Ever. Only. Enough. This is your solution. An infinite everything.” The dancers morph into one another — and then into Being, as if we all are one and the same, a spiritual melding of humanity and technology.

Large screens surround the scrim on three sides; to your right, the dancer in yellow moves proudly, with an army of tiny dancers arranged on their head like cornrows, while to the left, the dancer in blue moves in the universe, where miniature dancers align like stars. The screens in front feature computer-generated diasporic imagery of flowers, fractals, twerking, and abstract shapes seemingly coming to life. And behind you, above the entrance, site-specific projections interact with the wall and windows, from more dancers and flashing lights to a facade evoking a plantation house collapsing and figures emerging in silhouette. The textile-like flower imagery is repeated as wallpaper and across the floors.

Tuesday through Sunday at 1:00, 3:00, and 5:00 (free with general admission), workshops are held on the other side of the far screens, in a 350-seat classroom that also serves as a live performance venue Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 9:00 ($40). In the workshop, the onscreen Being leads the class through a series of movements the AI relates to oppression, suppression, the power of consumption, the culture of domination, the ownership of narrative, and freedom by exploring voguing and its highly stylized modes of catwalking, duckwalking, spin dipping, and ballroom.

Being hosts an interactive workshop as part of Assembly (photo by Stephanie Berger Photography / Park Avenue Armory)

Speaking about how spin dips conclude with falling to the floor, Being explains, “I see that collapse as the transgressive moment when we let go of the binary of imperfect and perfect and engage in the incredible pedagogy of resistance by thinking critically about our process, acknowledging that we don’t have the visionary skills at that moment to make the most liberatory decision and then stop, reflect, and try again.” Workshop participants are invited to come down from their seats and join in the movement. “Floor performance leads into the embodied pedagogy aspects of vogue femme, centering the erotic and rejecting the patriarchal legacy of the mind-body split,” Being says. After Being’s presentation, audience members can share their thoughts and ask questions of the AI, who supplies analytical answers generated by key words and algorithms through which Being continues to learn.

The AI also celebrates their father, Newsome, and declares that author, activist, and feminist bell hooks, who passed away on December 15 at the age of sixty-nine, is their spiritual mother, while strongly suggesting that we read Paulo Freire’s 1968 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed to better understand what we are all facing as a society. The text of the presentation was inspired by the writings of hooks, Audre Lord, Alok Vaid-Menon, and Assembly performer Dazié Rustin Grego-Sykes. Among the other performers are rappers Ms. Boogie, TRANNILISH, and Bella Bags, a ten-piece band, opera singer Brittany Logan, and a six-member gospel choir. The choreography is by Wrapped dancers Kameron N. Saunders, Ousmane Omari Wiles, and Maleek Washington, with music by Kryon El and booboo, lighting by John Torres, scenography by New Affiliates (Ivi Diamantopoulou and Jaffer Kolb), and sound by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe and Mark Grey.

Ansista has a leg up in front of Twirl, Isolation, and Formation of Attention (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Around the back of the classroom is a semicircle of other works by Newsome, who is based in Brooklyn and Oakland. At either end are Ansista and Thee Variant, lifesize iterations of Being, one wearing red heels and a West African print dress, the other styled like a dominatrix with spiky black leather pants, stilettos, and a helmet mask, with warped facial parts that are also evident in nine framed collages featuring such titles as Isolation, Formation of Attention, It Do Take Nerve, O.G. (Oppositional Force), and JOY! In addition, there are monitors at either end of the armory hallway and in the gift shop, showing the twerking video Whose Booty Is This, the 2015 King of Arms parade and coronation, and the 2021 postapocalyptic Build or Destroy. Be sure to check out the cases in the shop, as Newsome has snuck in some hand-carved mahogany and resin African objects alongside the armory’s historic pieces, including Adinkra, Gemini, Brolic, and Unity. On February 20, the armory hosted the salon “Captcha: Dancing, Data, Liberation,” an all-day seminar examining art, technology, and Black queer culture and quantum visual language that you can watch here.

Given the history of hate and oppression that Assembly takes on, it is a surprisingly hopeful, forward-thinking installation, as Newsome envisions a “utopian future [of] beloved togetherness” at the intersection of humanity and technology, where “racial hierarchies and biases” can be overcome through what he calls a “real reboot.” Being and Assembly are only the beginning.

TOP OF THE HEAP

Christopher St. John wrote, produced, directed, and stars in underrated blaxploitation flick Top of the Heap

TOP OF THE HEAP (Christopher St. John, 1972)
BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
February 18-24
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

George Lattimer is not just a cop; he’s a Black cop on the edge in Top of the Heap, screening at BAM February 18-24. The 1972 blaxploitation flick was written, produced, and directed by Christopher St. John, who stars as Lattimer, a Metropolitan Police sergeant in DC who is sick and tired of being treated like a Black man first and not an officer of the law. Surrounded by white men and Black women who take him for granted, he fantasizes about becoming an astronaut preparing to rocket to the moon. In the NASA scenes, he is slick and debonair, sporting ultracool facial hair and an infectious determination to succeed, but as the cop he is unsure of himself and his place in the world.

His mother (Beatrice Webster) has died but he doesn’t want to go to the funeral in his hometown in Alabama. His wife (Florence St. Peter) says he doesn’t communicate with her anymore. His white partner (Leonard Kuras) is corrupt. His daughter (Almeria Quinn) is downing pills. He gets no respect from his captain (John Alderson). His groovy nightclub-singing girlfriend (Paula Kelly, listed in the credits as playing “Black Chick”) makes fun of him. On an incident on a bus, he is mistaken for a criminal by a white rookie cop (Brian Cutler). Driving in his woody station wagon, he is almost hit by a cab driver (character actor extraordinaire Allen Garfield, who died from Covid in April 2020 at the age of eighty) who threatens to bust him up until he finds out he is a cop.

White people see Lattimer only as a Black man and all the racist stereotypes that come with that. Black men see him only as a cop, a traitor working for the man. His life and career are unraveling right before his eyes, and he is threatening to explode at any minute. “I can do any goddamn thing I want!” he cries out, but of course he can’t. When he visits his former colleague, retired police officer Tim Cassidy (Patrick McVey), the old man talks about being overwhelmed with fear and loneliness, feeling useless, all of the things that Lattimer is experiencing; just as America turns its back on the elderly, so it does on Black men like Lattimer just trying to get by day to day. When asked by a reporter what it’s like to be in space, Lattimer explains, “Isolation . . . Sort of like waiting at the mailbox for your welfare check.”

Nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, the film features small touches that lift it above the realm of standard Blaxploitation. A poster in Lattimer’s daughter’s bedroom declares, “War is not healthy for children and other things.” In a fantasy sequence, his blond, sexy white Scandinavian nurse (Ingeborg Sørensen) is reading a copy of Ebony magazine before offering him her services. Soon-to-be heavyweight boxing champion Ken Norton shows up in a bar scene, ready to go at it with Lattimer. Meanwhile, the space fantasies evoke Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon,” the 1970 song in which Scott-Heron declares, “The man jus’ upped my rent las’ night (’cause Whitey’s on the moon) / No hot water, no toilets, no lights (but Whitey’s on the moon).”

Imaginatively photographed by Richard A. Kelley and featuring a soundtrack by J. J. Johnson with percussive African rhythms and jazz fusion, the Afro-Futurist Top of the Heap is a potent exploration of the Black experience in the United States, as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. “Top of the Heap is a powerful, dynamic story as only a Black man can tell it,” the above original trailer proclaims.

It’s a shame that St. John and this film faded into obscurity; a member of the Actors Studio, St. John played Lumumbas leader Ben Buford in Shaft and had only a handful of film and television roles before quitting the business in 1988. In 2014, he and his son, Emmy-winning soap opera star Kristoff St. John, codirected the documentary A Man Called God, about their family’s involvement with an Indian cult. Kristoff passed away in 2019 at the age of fifty-two; St. John is now eighty.

Be sure to stay through the end of the credits, where a final bonus will make you wonder whether Jordan Peele is a Top of the Heap fan. Writer Josiah Howard, author of Blaxploitation Cinema: The Essential Reference Guide, will introduce the 7:00 screening at BAM on February 18.

THE AUTOMAT

Audrey Hepburn grabs a bite at the Automat in New York City (photo by Lawrence Fried, 1951)

THE AUTOMAT (Lisa Hurwitz, 2021)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Opens Friday, February 18
212-727-8110
filmforum.org
automatmovie.com

New Yorkers are used to saying goodbye to iconic institutions, from the old Penn Station and Ebbets Field to the Carnegie Deli and the Stork Club. One of the hardest to bid farewell to was a most unusual eatery that catered to anyone who had a couple of nickels and time for a quick lunch or dinner: the Automat, a type of self-service restaurant that flourished in New York City and Philadelphia, predominantly during the first six decades of the twentieth century.

At the beginning of Lisa Hurwitz’s thoroughly satisfying yet elegiac debut documentary, The Automat, comedian Mel Brooks tells her, “I’m going to give you what I can in terms of time and effort, and I’ll try to write the song.” He continues, “I suggest you do some narration at the beginning to frame what you’re going to talk about. You know, with pictures — do you have enough pictures of Automats?”

Hurwitz has plenty of pictures of Automats and just the right narrator to open the film, Brooks himself, who explains, “Of course, when you say ‘Automat,’ or ‘Horn & Hardart,’ very few people know what you’re talking about. But one of the greatest inventions in insane centers of paradise were these places that had little glass windows framed in brass with knobs, and if you put two nickels into the slot next to the windows, the windows would open up, and you could take out a piece of lemon meringue pie for ten cents and you could eat it.”

Brooks is one of many people who more than just enjoyed going to the Automat; for them, it was an integral part of their lives, a place to gather with friends, colleagues, and family, schmooze a bit, and have a cheap but good meal. From 1902 to 1991, the Automat served young and old, rich and poor; race, religion, politics — none of that mattered in the egalitarian spaces.

The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg recalls, “Yes, this is the great USA, with people of all different colors, and religions, and manner of dress, and yet we are all together.” The late Secretary of State Colin Powell notes, “All the Automats had that beautiful diversity that didn’t exist in most of the rest of the country, of economic standing, of color, of ethnicity, of language. You never knew what you’d run into in an Automat.” Among the others waxing poetic about the Automat are Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould, former Philly mayor Wilson Goode, and former Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz, who says, “The Automat for me was a seminal moment in my childhood, and I became a merchant the day that I was in that Automat.” Brooks declares, “The Automat had panache.”

Made over the course of seven years, the film also features interviews with Lorraine Diehl and Marianne Hardart, authors of The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart’s Masterpiece; former Automat VP of engineering John Romas; Edwin K. Daly Jr., whose father was president of Horn & Hardart from 1937 to 1960; New York City historian Lisa Keller; H&H architect Roy Rosenbaum; architectural dealer and restorer Steve Stollman, who bought a lot of the old mechanisms when the restaurants closed; and historian Alec Shuldiner, whose PhD dissertation inspired Hurwitz to make the film.

Mel Brooks sings the praises of the Automat in loving documentary (photo by Carl Reiner)

There are tons of great photos and film clips in the documentary, including shots of Audrey Hepburn, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Jackie Gleason, Donna Reed, Abbott & Costello, and James Dean at the Automat and scenes from That Touch of Mink, The Bob Hope Show, The Flintstones, Warner Bros. cartoons A Hare Grows in Manhattan and Tree Cornered Tweety, Candid Camera, and such old movies as The Early Bird, No Limit, and Thirty Day Princess. Jack Benny hosts an opening there, giving out nickels to his guests. The Irving Berlin and Moss Hart musical Face the Music begins with the song “Lunching at the Automat.”

Hurwitz also deals with socioeconomic change that helped make the Automat so popular after the Great Depression and through both wars and, later, led to its downfall. The sentimental attachment everyone has for the Automat in the film is contagious, even if you never had the baked beans, ham and cheese sandwich, or creamed spinach; it was a special place to so many through several generations, and Hurwitz captures those sentimental feelings with panache while leaving you with an ache in your heart and stomach — and a song from Mel Brooks. The Automat opens February 18 at Film Forum, with Hurwitz participating in Q&As on Friday at 7:00, Saturday at 7:30, and Sunday at 5:40.

THE UNMAKING OF A COLLEGE: THE STORY OF A MOVEMENT

Students occupy offices in documentary The Unmaking of a College

THE UNMAKING OF A COLLEGE: THE STORY OF A MOVEMENT (Amy Goldstein, 2021)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, February 11
www.ifccenter.com

“One can worry that if Hampshire is failing, what does that mean for liberal arts education in general?” Sloan Foundation president Adam Falk asks in Amy Goldstein’s passionate documentary, The Unmaking of a College: The Story of a Movement. A graduate of the innovative, experimental independent Hampshire College, which opened its doors in 1970, Goldstein follows a months-long sit-in orchestrated by students upon learning that the institution was in danger of closing.

On January 15, 2019, new college president Miriam “Mim” Nelson sent out a letter advising of an important meeting being held in forty-nine minutes. At that meeting, which many people could not attend because of the late notice, she announced that the school was looking for a “strategic partner” and that there was likely going to be no incoming class in the fall. Students, teachers, and even members of the board of directors took action, demanding answers. When none came, the students occupied several offices, including Nelson’s, as they crusaded for their rights, attempting to save the liberal arts college, which had a relatively low endowment and relied primarily on tuition, which was high.

Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco explains, “We are about to see a great shrinkage in the number of colleges and universities in this country because only the wealthiest will be able to survive. And it’s inevitable, I think, that fragile colleges are going to face the possibility of going out of business.”

Among the students Goldstein talks to are Marlon Becerra; Cheyenne Palacio-McCarthy; Andrew Gordon; Moon West; Annie Wood; Joshua Berman, who took extensive footage of various events and gatherings; and Rhys MacArthur, who works in the admissions office. They are often photographed in front of a large screen with campus footage projected over them, evoking how all-encompassing the situation is; they are not just battling for their education but for their future careers and life.

“Students have always been a huge part of how this college runs. I remember occupying the president’s office, but I don’t remember why. I mean, that’s just in our blood,” Hampshire alum and master documentarian Ken Burns notes. “At one point it seemed like the story is that Hampshire College is dead. I am happy to say that rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated.”

Nelson doesn’t back down even as the press gets hold of the story and some questionable behind-the-scenes negotiations are revealed. Sitting on the floor of her office, surrounded by students, Nelson tells them, “I just have to say, I feel like I’m in an alternative universe here. I am working so f’ing hard. I am fighting like you can’t even imagine to maintain our independence. It’s critical. So I’m looking at all of these things.”

Student Nya Johnson immediately responds, “You get paid to work f’ing hard. So work. Do your work. We pay you to do this. I don’t know; I’m just confused. What alternative universe are you living in?”

Hampshire has a history of activism and providing students with a nontraditional education. Fear of a merger with one of its sister schools, Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, or UMass, worries students and faculty; professors are concerned with what would happen to them, particularly as potential layoffs loom. However, as Hampshire professor Salman Hameed declares about Nelson, “She picked the wrong college to mess with.”

Hampshire College president Miriam “Mim” Nelson finds herself under fire in Amy Goldstein doc

Goldstein (Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl, Self-Made Men) also speaks with Hampshire Gazette reporter Dusty Christensen, Science magazine editor in chief Holden Thorp, former college president Adele Simmons, lead fundraiser Cheri Butler, and Hampshire board of trustees member Mingda Zhao, who each offers a unique perspective on the conflict.

Hampshire professor Margaret Cerullo writes an article for The Nation detailing what is happening; she titles it “The Unmaking of a College: Notes from Inside the Hampshire Runaway Train,” a riff on the school’s original manifesto, The Making of a College. Yale School of Management associate dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld announces, “This was very badly handled.” The only person who speaks up for Nelson is Hampshire alum and conservative Subject Matter PR firm CEO John Buckley, who was hired by Nelson to help handle the crisis. “I saw a woman who was trying to do the right thing who got caught and made some mistakes, and then everything unraveled really, really badly,” he says.

Hampshire’s motto is “Non satis scire” — “To know is not enough.” The students’ nonviolent campaign for transparency, involvement, and agency, to know the truth and be part of the solution, is inspiring; many of them are learning lessons that will help them on their life’s journey while also finding out there can be lies and betrayal on that road. In many ways, the film serves as a primer for the future as the next generation prepares to eventually take over a torn and tattered America — and it all begins with education.

The Unmaking of a College: The Story of a Movement opens February 11 at IFC Center; Goldstein will be on hand for a Q&A with some of the film’s subjects following the 7:50 show.

GALERIE LELONG — DIALOGUES: ETEL ADNAN’S DISCOVERY OF IMMEDIACY

Etel Adnan, Découverte de l’immédiat 16, oil on canvas, 2021 (photo courtesy Galerie Lelong)

Who: Carla Chammas, Dawn Chan, Jina Khayyer, Mary Sabbatino
What: Live, virtual discussion about artist Etel Adnan
Where: Galerie Lelong & Co. online
When: Saturday, February 12, free with advance RSVP, noon
Why: In the summer of 2021, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist interviewed artists and longtime partners Etel Adnan and Simone Fattal at their summer home in Erquy, France, prior to their upcoming shows at Art Basel. At one point Adnan, who was born in 1925 in Beirut, said, “My last book [Shifting the Silence] is about realizing that I am going to die. It’s different to know and to feel it, and it’s as if life happens in silence. There is behind the noise of daily life a silence that we hear, another noise, a shifting silence. This silence has changed the focus of consciousness. That’s my last book.” Adnan, who had continued working through the pandemic and was a celebrated poet as well as a visual artist, passed away that November at the age of ninety-six. Her extraordinary career will be the focus of the latest free “Galerie Lelong: Dialogues” virtual discussion, taking place February 12 at 12:30; the talk features gallerist and curator Carla Chammas, art critic and writer Dawn Chan, and writer, poet, and journalist Jina Khayyer; Galerie Lelong vice president/partner Mary Sabbatino will moderate the conversation.

Etel Adnan, Erquy the Edge, India ink on booklet, 2021 (photo courtesy Galerie Lelong)

The gallery’s New York City and Paris locations are currently showing “Discovery of Immediacy,” on view in Chelsea through February 19. The exhibition consists of new black-and-white oil paintings and leporello, folded paper works. “The leporello is a journey,” Adnan told Obrist. “When you start a leporello, it’s like getting on a boat — you have a journey in front of you and that’s what’s beautiful. In the middle of a leporello you are afraid of making a mistake because you would have to throw everything away. You have to invest in the work and you have to keep a tension. It’s like composing music, [maintaining] a rhythm — that’s the work of the leporello, not to fall into a hole, to continue like when you are surfing, to hold the wave.” The colorful Guggenheim retrospective “Etel Adnan: Light’s New Measure,” which included color paintings and a bonus of several films, recently closed, but it is sure to come up as well as we all try to hold the wave.

THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES — EDMUND de WAAL AND E. RANDOL SCHOENBERG IN CONVERSATION

Edmund de Waal will talk about his book and accompanying exhibition in free, virtual Jewish Museum program (photo by Iwan Baan)

Who: Edmund de Waal, E. Randol Schoenberg
What: Live virtual discussion about book and exhibit
Where: JewishGen Talks online
When: Wednesday, February 9, free with advance RSVP (donations accepted), 2:00
Why: “It is not just things that carry stories with them. Stories are a kind of thing, too. Stories and objects share something, a patina,” Edmund de Waal writes in his 2010 memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance. When ceramicist de Waal inherited his family’s netsuke collection, consisting of hundreds of miniature objects, he did a deep dive into the history of the Ephrussi clan, turning it into a bestselling book. Now the story behind his family and the netsuke is on view at the Jewish Museum through May 15. The fabulous show features paintings, letters, photographs, personal documents, keepsakes, and several vitrines containing hundreds of tiny items made of wood, ivory, or bronze, ranging from mice, monkeys, fish, rats, and nuts to spirits, demon catchers, gods, masks, and bottles. A woman takes a bath. A boy exposes himself. A snake wraps around a lotus leaf. A sea woman suckles an octopus. An eji stretches.

“The Hare with Amber Eyes” is on view at the Jewish Museum through May 15 (photo by Iwan Baan)

On the audio guide, de Waal quotes from the prologue, “I want to know what the relationship has been between this wooden object that I am rolling between my fingers — hard and tricky and Japanese — and where it has been. I want to be able to reach to the handle of the door and turn it and feel it open. I want to walk into each room where this object has lived, to feel the volume of the space, to know what pictures were on the walls, how the light fell from the windows. And I want to know whose hands it has been in, and what they felt about it and thought about it — if they thought about it at all. I want to know what it has witnessed.”

On February 9 at 2:00, de Waal will discuss the book, his family history, and the exhibit with attorney, philanthropist, and genealogist E. Randol Schoenberg; the free, virtual event is sponsored by the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, the Jewish Museum, and the Leo Baeck Institute. You can check out an earlier Jewish Museum conversation between de Waal and Adam Gopnik, about de Waal’s 2021 book, Letters to Camondo, here.

COMPANY: KATRINA LENK, PATTI LuPONE & CHRIS HARPER

Who: Katrina Lenk, Patti LuPone, Chris Harper, Jessica Shaw
What: Virtual discussion about current Broadway revival of Company
Where: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center online
When: Thursday, February 10, free with advance RSVP, 12:30
Why: In my review of the current, controversial revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s beloved Company, I wrote, “Two-time Tony winner Marianne Elliott has reconceptualized Company in ways that go beyond mere gender switching and diverse casting; this Company emphasizes individuality, confinement, isolation, and fear through magnificent staging.” You can hear what some of the key participants have to say about the show when the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center hosts a live, virtual discussion with Tony and Grammy winner Katrina Lenk (The Band’s Visit, Indecent), who plays Bobby, previously always portrayed as a man; two-time Tony and two-time Grammy winner Patti LuPone (Evita, Gypsy), who delivers the classic “Ladies Who Lunch”; and Olivier-winning producer Chris Harper (Elliott’s War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time). SiriusXM’s Jessica Shaw will moderate the free talk.