Tag Archives: vik muniz

TOM SACHS: TRAINING

Tom Sachs, “Training,” synthetic polymer paint on plywood, 2016 (image courtesy the artist)

The FLAG Art Foundation
545 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., ninth floor
Wednesday, July 6, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
212-206-0220
flagartfoundation.org
www.tomsachs.org

In his operation manual for his 2006 installation “The Island,” New York City native Tom Sachs quotes Yoda: “Do, or do not. There is no try.” Sachs does. And he has a lot of fun doing it. The Bennington College graduate takes a DIY approach to his art, displaying a wry sense of humor in such works as “Chanel Guillotine,” “Prada Toilet,” “Nutsy’s McDonald’s,” “Barbie Slave Ship,” and “Hello Kitty Nativity.” In 2008, he went up against the Neistat brothers in a hilarious power boat race. In 2012, he staged an intricately planned trip to the red planet in his massive interactive Park Avenue Armorny exhibition “Space Program: Mars,” which was later turned into a 2016 film. Currently, “Tom Sachs: Boombox Retrospective, 1996 – 2016” welcomes visitors to the Brooklyn Museum, while “Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony” offers an immersive experience at the Noguchi Museum. On July 6, Sachs will be at the FLAG Art Foundation in Chelsea, activating “Training,” his contribution to the group show “Summer School,” which consists of playful works by such artists as John Baldessari, Dan Colen, Tara Donovan, Mark Grotjahn, Tony Matelli, Marilyn Minter, Vik Muniz, and Ugo Rondinone. “Training” is a helicopter rescue game / wall sculpture that involves riddles and such game pieces as a bag of McDonald’s fries and an Apollo command module. Sachs and his studio team will participate in a live tournament that will put the finishing touches on the work. Admission is free, but advance RSVP is recommended; as a bonus, whiskey and wine will be served. The tournament starts at 7:00, but be sure to get there at 6:30 to check out “Summer School” as well as the tenth-floor exhibit, Patricia Cronin’s “Shrine for Girls, New York.”

GRAND CENTENNIAL PARADE OF TRAINS

The 20th Century Limited will pull into Grand Central Terminal as part of Grand Centennial Parade of Trains

Grand Central Terminal
Vanderbilt Hall, Tracks 34-37, and other locations
May 11-12, free, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
www.grandcentralterminal.com

The world’s greatest train terminal, Grand Central, continues its centennial celebration with another in what has been a series of very cool events. On May 11-12, Grand Central Terminal — it was called Grand Central Station from 1900 to 1913, when it was rechristened with its current appellation — is hosting the Grand Centennial Parade of Trains, including Railroadiana, a model-train collectible show in one half of Vanderbilt Hall; Legos, Chuggington, and other family-friendly exhibits and activities in Kid Junction in the other half of Vanderbilt Hall; and a Historic Railcar Collection on tracks 34-37, featuring such classics as the 20th Century Limited, the Babbling Brook (1949), the Berlin (1956), the Birken (1954), the Cimarron River (1948), the Dover Harbor (1923), the Hickory Creek (1947), the Kitchi Gammi Club (1923), the Montana (1947), the New York Central 43 (1947), the New York Central 448 (1947), the Ohio River (1926), the Overland Trail (1949), the Pacific Sands (1950), the Salisbury Beach (1954), the Tioga Pass (1959), and the Wisconsin (1948), many offering tours, as well as a dozen Metro-North cars. (You can find the complete schedule here, including special store discounts.) In addition, the Times Square Shuttle will be running vintage 1940s and 1950s trains on track 4, which commuters can take between Grand Central and Times Square. There will also be live music, MTA Arts for Transit tours, a “World’s Tallest Track” attempt for the Guinness Book of World Records, Metro-North’s robotic Metro Man giving safety talks, author readings by Maureen Sullivan of her GCT-set book Ankle Soup, MTA K-9 police unit presentations, games and prizes, and more. In addition, stop by the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex to check out “On Time/Grand Central at 100,” an exhibition of works about the past, present, and future of the terminal by such artists as Penelope Umbrico, Jim Campbell, Vik Muniz, Paloma Muñoz, and others. (Please note that backpacks are not allowed in event spaces, and there will be no bag check.)

PULSE CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR

Fairgoers can take part in Inner Course’s psychic playroom “Knowing Me, Knowing You” at Pulse

The Metropolitan Pavilion
125 West 18th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
May 3-6, $20 per day, $25 four-day pass
www.pulse-art.com
pulse favorites slideshow 2012

In order to avoid the mad rush of art fairs that took over the city, several regulars moved their dates to the first week of May. While Red Dot ended up canceling the 2012 edition because of labor union disputes, you can still check out Verge NYC, NADA is holding its inaugural fair, and there’s a deafening buzz about the Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island. But one of our annual favorites, Pulse, will be at the Metropolitan Pavilion May 3-6, with its usual highly manageable mix of painting, sculpture, video, installation, and performance. This year’s special projects include Shannon Gillen & Guests’ “BOTLEK,” Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo’s “City Surface,” Jennie C. Jones’s “Rest, Dopamine Rising,” Kristofer Porter’s “Tappan Zee Burro,” Risa Puno’s interactive “Good Faith & Fair Dealing,” Fred Wilson’s “Sneaky Leaky” and “Reign,” and Inner Course’s participatory “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” The selection committee of Stefan Roepke, Thomas Von Lintel, and Cornell DeWitt have invited nearly fifty galleries, which will be showing works by such artists as Kim Dorland, Vik Muniz, Jim Campbell, Marco Breuer, William Eggleston, Deborah Kass, Matthias Meyer, David LaChapelle, Courtney Love, Tracey Moffatt, Andrew Masullo, and Ed Ruscha, but the most intriguing lineup comes courtesy of Creative Capital, which will be presenting an all-star grouping of Ralph Lemon, Dread Scott, Eve Sussman, Stephen Vitiello, Zoe Leonard, Futurefarmers, and others. The Pulse Play lounge will feature video, video game, and technology works, while the Impulse section highlights recent solo shows.

Update: The 2012 edition of Pulse is another highly satisfying, well-organized fair boasting a fine collection of contemporary international artists. Andreas Bauer’s (balzerARTprojects) cut-paper collages of comic books and magazines, in which he excises all words, are little architectural wonders. At RH Gallery, Soledad Arias’s text-based acoustic prints and neon sculptures give a preview of her current show on Duane St. Works by Chuteppa, Clemencia Labin, Daniel Verbis, Graciela Sacco, Michael Scoggins, and others emerge from the walls at Diana Lowenstein. The New Jersey-born, Oakland-based Chris Duncan (Halsey McKay) creates a dazzling effect with string, mirrors, and wood in “Mirror, Mirror.” An alluring physicality emerges from Ralph Fleck’s (Purdy Hicks) thickly painted cityscapes. Reinier Gerritsen’s (Julie Saul) Wall Street subway photos are composites of multiple images, resulting in an exact moment that actually never occurred inside trains, while Eve Sussman’s (Creative Capital) 3D panoramic view finders reveal trains from outside. Matt Haffner (Pentimenti) uses cut paper and acrylic to create silhouetted scenes. Paul Paddock’s (frosch&portmann) watercolors are significantly more devious upon closer inspection, while you’ll get a surprise when you delve deeper into Mary Tsiongas’s (Richard Levy) “Vanish II.” You can take a break by playing Risa Puno’s (Galerie Stefan Roepke) “Good Faith & Fair Dealing” maze game. If you missed Dare Wright’s recent show at Fred Torres, you can still see the star photograph from “The Lonely Doll.” Geoff McFetridge’s (Cooper Cole) stylized acrylic paintings are graphic charms. Sigrid Viir’s (Temnikova & Kasela) photographs of constructed scenes set up like paintings won the Pulse Prize for the Impulse section. And Andrew Masullo’s (Daniel Weinberg) brightly colored small canvases of different geometric shapes, which unfold as he paints them, not knowing which way they will eventually hang, are a highlight of Pulse just as they are one of the standouts at the current Whitney Biennial.

CELEBRATING 100 YEARS

The final draft of George Washington’s 1796 farewell address is among the many amazing artifacts in NYPL exhibit (photo by Jonathan Blanc/New York Public Library)

New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Gottesman Exhibition Hall
Fifth Ave. at 41st St.
Through Sunday, March 4, free, 1:00 – 5:00
www.nypl.org

Today is your last chance to catch the New York Public Library exhibit “Celebrating 100 Years,” featuring a treasure trove of more than 250 items of literary paraphernalia. Divided into Observation, Contemplation, Creativity, and Society, the display honors the centennial of the landmark Beaux-Arts building on Fifth Ave. between 40th & 42nd Sts., built by Carrère and Hastings and dedicated by President William Howard Taft in 1911. Curated by Thomas Mellins, “Celebrating 100 Years” includes a bevy of fascinating memorabilia, from a Gutenberg Bible to a copy of Mein Kampf, from Jack Kerouac’s glasses and rolling paper to Charles Dickens’s letter opener, from a lock of Mary Shelley’s hair to Charlotte Brontë’s traveling writing desk, from Malcolm X’s briefcase and hat to Virginia Woolf’s walking stick and diary, showing a page she wrote just four days before her suicide. There are photographs, prints, and drawings by Diane Arbus, Man Ray, Faith Ringgold, Lewis Wickes Hine, Otto Dix, Francisco Goya, and Vik Muniz, marked-up manuscripts, speeches, and scores from Jorge Luis Borges, George Washington, Ernest Hemingway, John Coltrane, and T. S. Eliot, a copy of “The Star-Spangled Banner” with a bad typo, letters from Pablo Picasso, Harry Houdini, and Groucho Marx, and self-portraits by Kiki Smith, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Chuck Close, and Käthe Kollwitz. The exhibit, a kind of wonderful self-portrait of the library’s holdings, looks at the past, with cuneiforms dating back to the third century BCE, as well as aims forward, with a peek into their impressive digital archives.

THE CONTENDERS 2010: WASTE LAND

Catadore Magna shows artist Vik Muniz the ropes at world’s largest daily landfill (courtesy Vik Muniz Studio)

WASTE LAND (Lucy Walker, 2010)
IndieScreen, 285 Kent Ave. at South Second St.
Thursday, December 23, $10-$12, 7:00
Wednesday, December 29, $10-$12, 8:00
347-227-8030
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd St., $10, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk
Wednesday, December 29, 4:00
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.wastelandmovie.com
www.indiescreen.us

Born in São Paulo, Brazil, but based in New York City for many years, Vik Muniz has been making portraits and re-creating artistic masterpieces using such materials as sand, sugar, jewels, junk, paper, and pigments and showing them in galleries and museums around the globe. In 2007, he returned to Brazil and met with the catadores, men and women who work at Jardim Gramacho, the largest landfill in the world, picking out recyclable materials they can then sell to survive. He comes to know Tiaõ and Zumbi, who help run the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho, as well as such other catadores as Suelem, Isis, Irma, Magna, and Valter, each a character in his or her own right, with unique stories to tell. Filmmaker Lucy Walker (BLINDSIGHT, COUNTDOWN TO ZERO) documents Muniz’s interaction with these dirt-poor people, who live in Rio’s dangerous favelas, as he sets out to capture their images by using the garbage they sift through to eke out some kind of living. Despite their surroundings, they are proud and happy, welcoming in Muniz, who is not shy about calling himself the most successful Brazilian artist in the world and sharing his determination to give something back. WASTE LAND is about art and ecology, about class consciousness and the vast separation between the rich and the poor. The film proceeds in a fairly standard, straightforward manner, putting Muniz and the project on too high a pedestal, which is not surprising given that the initial idea was Walker’s; the heartwarming subject matter, more than the filmmaking itself, is the reason it has been a hit at international festivals, including winning Audience Awards at Sundance and Berlin earlier this year. WASTE LAND is being screened at the Museum of Modern Art on December 29 as part of the series “The Contenders 2010,” a collection of influential and innovative international movies the institution believes will stand the test of time. MoMA has already shown such works as Luca Guadagnino’s I AM LOVE, Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION, Roman Polanski’s THE GHOST WRITER, and Mads Brügger’s THE RED CHAPEL, and upcoming films include Tom Hooper’s THE KING’S SPEECH, Mark Romanek’s NEVER LET ME GO, and Banksy’s EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP. WASTE LAND is also being shown December 23 and 29 at IndieScreen in Williamsburg.

WASTE LAND

Catadore Magna shows artist Vik Muniz the ropes at world’s largest daily landfill (courtesy Vik Muniz Studio)

WASTE LAND (Lucy Walker, 2010)
Angelika Film Center
18 West Houston St. at Mercer St.
Opens Friday, October 29
212-995-2570
www.wastelandmovie.com
www.angelikafilmcenter.com

Born in São Paulo, Brazil, but based in New York City for many years, Vik Muniz has been making portraits and re-creating artistic masterpieces using such materials as sand, sugar, jewels, junk, paper, and pigments and showing them in galleries and museums around the globe. In 2007, he returned to Brazil and met with the catadores, men and women who work at Jardim Gramacho, the largest landfill in the world, picking out recyclable materials they can then sell to survive. He comes to know Tiaõ and Zumbi, who help run the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho, as well as such other catadores as Suelem, Isis, Irma, Magna, and Valter, each a character in his or her own right, with unique stories to tell. Filmmaker Lucy Walker (BLINDSIGHT, COUNTDOWN TO ZERO) documents Muniz’s interaction with these dirt-poor people, who live in Rio’s dangerous favelas, as he sets out to capture their images by using the garbage they sift through to eke out some kind of living. Despite their surroundings, they are proud and happy, welcoming in Muniz, who is not shy about calling himself the most successful Brazilian artist in the world and sharing his determination to give something back. WASTE LAND is about art and ecology, about class consciousness and the vast separation between the rich and the poor. The film proceeds in a fairly standard, straightforward manner, putting Muniz and the project on too high a pedestal, which is not surprising given that the initial idea was Walker’s; the heartwarming subject matter, more than the filmmaking itself, is the reason it has been a hit at international festivals, including winning Audience Awards at Sundance and Berlin earlier this year. Walker, Muniz, and Brazilian counselor Pedro Terra will be on hand at several shows on Friday and Saturday to introduce the film and/or participate in a postscreening Q&A.