cityArts March 7, 2012

March 7, 2012 • Volume 4, Issue 4

Burlesquing Media: Mel Ramos P.6 Doris Day Dawns P.14 New York’s Review of Culture • CityArtsNYC.com

Remembering John Chamberlain P.5

PROJECTIONS THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL IN ART: TERENCE DAVIES’ COMEBACK P.16

LEON BOTSTEIN, MUSIC DIRECTOR

WE’RE TURNING HEADS

ALL OVER TOWN

Vanguard Series CARNEGIE HALL

STERN AUDITORIUM/PERELMAN STAGE

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME Sun, Mar 18

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Thu, Apr 19

CLASSICS DECLASSIFIED PETER NORTON SYMPHONY SPACE

BARTÓK’S CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA

All Seats $25!

Photo: Jito Lee

Sun, Apr 29

Find out more at AmericanSymphony.org or 212.868.9ASO ASOrchestra

2 CityArts | March 7, 2012 ASOINS2117_CityArts.indd 1

ASOrch

Hundreds of recordings now at iTunes and Amazon

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GALLERIES / MUSEUMS The Ageless John Chamberlain P. 5 Mel Ramos at Bernarducci Meisel Gallery P. 6 Cindy Sherman at MoMA P. 8 Rembrandt and Degas at The Met P. 8 Ellen Gallagher at MoMA P. 10 Police Work: Photographs by Leonard Freed P. 11

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CLASSICAL New York’s Philharmonic Excess P. 12 Philadelphia and Berlin compete P. 12 JAzz Herbie Hancock’s Nonstop Voyage P. 13

P.6

POP Why Doris Day Matters P. 14 The Ting Tings’ New Album P. 15 fILM The Return of Terence Davies P. 16 GAMING The Darkness: Playing on the Edge P. 16 AUCTIONS A Preview of Upcoming Events P. 17 INTERvIEW Illustrator Flash Rosenberg P. 18

EDITOR Armond White awhite@manhattanmedia.com

PUBLISHER Kate Walsh kwalsh@manhattanmedia.com

MANAGING EDITOR Mark Peikert mpeikert@manhattanmedia.com

ACCOUNT EXECUTIvES Ceil Ainsworth, Mike Suscavage

SENIOR MUSIC CRITIC Jay Nordlinger

MANHATTAN MEDIA

SENIOR DANCE CRITIC Joel Lobenthal

PRESIDENT/CEO Tom Allon tallon@manhattanmedia.com

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Caroline Birenbaum, John Demetry, Valerie Gladstone, John Goodrich, Amanda Gordon, Steve Haske, Ben Kessler, Howard Mandel, Maureen Mullarkey, Mario Naves, Gregory Solman, Melissa Stern, Nicholas Wells

GROUP PUBLISHER Alex Schweitzer aschweitzer@manhattanmedia.com

DESIGN/PRODUCTION

NEWSPAPER GROUP PUBLISHER Gerry Gavin ggavin@manhattanmedia.com

PRODUCTION/CREATIvE DIRECTOR Ed Johnson ejohnson@manhattanmedia.com

DIRECTOR Of INTERACTIvE MARkETING & DIGITAL STRATEGy Jay Gissen jgissen@manhattanmedia.com

ADvERTISING DESIGN Quarn Corley

CONTROLLER Shawn Scott

CfO/COO Joanne Harras jharras@manhattanmedia.com

jazz at lincoln center orchestra Photo by Frank Stewart

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ACCOUNTS MANAGER Kathy Pollyea

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WWW.CITyARTSNyC.COM Send all press releases to cityarts@manhattanmedia.com CityArts is a division of Manhattan Media, publishers of New York Family magazine, AVENUE magazine, Our Town, West Side Spirit, Our Town Downtown, City Hall, Chelsea Clinton News, The Westsider and The Blackboard Awards. © 2012 Manhattan Media, LLC | 79 Madison Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10016 212.268.8600 | FAX: 212.268.0577 | www.manhattanmedia.com

CenterCharge 212-721-6500 Preferred Card of Jazz at Lincoln Center

Lead Corporate Sponsor of Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks

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Box Office Broadway at 60th

March 7, 2012 | CityArts 3

Juilliard Joseph W. Polisi, President

Thurs, Mar 15 at 8 Paul Hall at Juilliard

Ensemble ACJW L. MOZART, ALBRECHTSBERGER, CRUMB, W.A. MOZART, BARTÓK FREE; standby line forms at 7

Mon, Mar 19 at 8 • Paul Hall

Juilliard Jazz Ensembles

Fresh from their appearance at the legendary Blue Note Limited FREE tickets at box office

Thurs, Mar 22 at 8 Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center

Kyle Bielfield Takaoki Onishi

Tenor Baritone

Winners of Juilliard’s 2011-12 Vocal Honors Recital Mr. Bielfield sings works by R. Strauss, Poulenc, Rorem, Rachmaninoff Lachlan Glen, Piano Mr. Onishi sings works by Ravel, Nakada, Takada, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff Nozomi Marusawa, Piano FREE tickets available 3/8

Fri, Mar 23 at 8 • Alice Tully Hall

Wed-Sat, Mar 28-31 at 8 Sun, Apr 1 at 3 Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Juilliard

Juilliard Dances Repertory Waldstein Sonata by José Limón Yuxi Qin, Piano soloist Gnawa by Nacho Duato Secus by Ohad Naharin Tickets $30; call (212) 721-6500 or buy online at events.juilliard.edu 1/2-price for students and seniors, TDF accepted only at the Juilliard Box Office

Thurs, Mar 29 at 6 • Paul Hall

Liederabend at Juilliard

Celebrating the Yveta Synek Graff Czech Opera Collection

Dvorˇák, Janácˇek, Haas, Bendl, Martinu, Kapralová, Smetana featuring Juilliard’s Collaborative Pianist and Singers from the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts FREE; no tickets required

LIGHT BULB ARMOND WHITE

“A

t Sundown,” a deceptively cheery Doris Day number from the film Love Me or Leave Me, is sampled in filmmaker Terence Davies’ The Long Day Closes to underscore the moment its isolated adolescent protagonist goes to the movies to ease his troubles and become part of the great audience. Davies doesn’t deal in trite ironies; he’s all about life’s paradoxes, and this acceptance of complexity is what good art provides.

Dennis Delrogh explores the paradoxes of Day’s extraordinary recording career in his epic career summary “A New Day Dawns,” which rescues the reputation of one of our finest yet most overlooked vocal interpreters. It’s part of the uniqueness CityArts searches for in the cultural scene.

This issue searches out many uniquely worthy subjects, from Maureen Mullarkey bringing wolf-whistle attention to the naughty niceties of Mel Ramos to Jim Long’s tribute to the master of the smashed automobile, John Chamberlain—two artists who turned trash into treasure.

Ben Kessler discovers a similar aesthetic in British pop band The Ting Tings, reviewing Sounds From Nowheresville, their follow-up to the album that produced the imperishable

Thurs, Mar 29 at 8 Alice Tully Hall

Steven Fox Conducts James DePreist Juilliard415 Conducts the and the Clarion Choir Juilliard Orchestra JS BACH Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041 Nanae Iwata, Violin HANDEL Silete Venti, HWV 242 Ying Fang, Soprano JS BACH Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243 Julia Bullock, Ying Fang, and Heather Engebretson, Sopranos Rachael Wilson, Mezzo-Soprano Spencer Lang, Tenor Davone Tines, Bass-Baritone CORELLI Concerto Grosso in D Major, Op. 6, No. 4 FREE tickets available 3/9

Tues, Mar 27 at 8 • Alice Tully Hall

Ron Carter at 75: A Life in Music

A Juilliard Jazz Benefit Celebrating faculty member and legendary bassist Ron Carter.

Actor DANNY GLOVER hosts an all-star line-up of performances by Mr. Carter and special guests CARL ALLEN, BENNY GOLSON, HUBERT LAWS, CHRISTIAN McBRIDE, MULGREW MILLER, LEWIS NASH, and others Proceeds will establish the Ron Carter Jazz Scholarship at Juilliard.

Information at (212) 769-7409 or e-mail RonCarter75@Juilliard.edu

hit “That’s Not My Name.” Kessler notes the paradoxes that make their dance floor negativity absolutely positive. His paen to their joyful noise contrasts Joseph Smith’s consideration of noise—or at least decibel level—at the Philharmonic. How’s that for thoughtful eclectism?

For more, Howard Mandel looks at the unstoppable, unpredictable accomplishments of jazz master Herbie Hancock, a comprehensive overview of a career as impressively rangy as Day’s. And Elena Oumano devotes The CityArts Interview to conversation artist Flash Rosenberg, a true original. How’s that for variety?

About the cover: This image from The Long Day Closes captures Davies’ idea of the great audience—also CityArts’ ideal readership—unifying art connoisseurs despite their personal differences and interests. In all of Davies’ superb films, his subject is memory but his method is projection. He uses film to bring out the awful and wondrous essence of soulful isolation, desire, joy and despair. The immensity of human experience is thrown upon the screen in panoramic montages that probe our deepest feelings.

If you don‘t know his movies, you should.

Davies knows that we look at cinema the way we look at all art: for amazement and for insight.

Review

Jiyoung Lee, Cello WALKER Lyric for Strings SCHUMANN Cello Concerto BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4 FREE tickets at box office 3/15

March 15 - May 5, 2012 Part One: March 15 - April 7

Thurs-Sun, Mar 29-Apr 1 at 8 Willson Theater at Juilliard

Beyond The Machine 12.1 – Synchroneity A Festival of Electro-Acoustic and Intermedia Art

Edward Bilous, Director CAGE Radio Music (1956) Third Construction (1941 Winter Music (1957) Nick DIDKOVSKY “Zero Waste” Base Track on Multimedia Artwork by Teru Kuwayama; Adapted by Roderick Hill Juilliard Music Technology Center LIMITED FREE SEATING; reservation required by e-mailing beyondthemachine@juilliard.edu

Part Two: April 12 - May 5 Paul Brach, Untitled, 1954

Part One: March 15 - April 7 Alechinsky, Bearden, Brach, Dubuffet, Gerlovin and Gerlovina, Heerup, Jorn, Levy, Pedersen, Recanati, Ringgold, Schapiro, Stein, Steir

J U I L L I A R D 155 W. 65th St. • Box Office M-F, 11AM-6PM • (212) 769-7406

events.juilliard.edu 4 CityArts | March 7, 2012

Rimma Gerlovina and Valeriy Gerlovin, Mini Lab, 2003, edition 1/5

Tribute to Dynamism AppreciAting the Ageless sculptures of John chAmberlAin (1927-2011)

By JIM LONG

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vegetal forms. During the five years before his recent untimely death, however, he began working again with automotive metal, carefully chosen “vintage” colors from the ’40s and ’50s. These bring back scale and volume to some of his most monumental work, completing the multifaceted self-portrait of this profound artist.

John Chamberlain: Choices through may 13, solomon r. guggenheim museum, 1071 5th Ave., 212-423-3500, www.guggenheim.org/new-york.

LaPlacaCohen 212-675-4106

ohn Chamberlain’s sculptures of crushed automobile metal are as immediately iconic as Hokusai’s wave. Careful to explain that the material he used was not found but chosen, Chamberlain conceived sculpture as groups of semi-chaotic modules that could be coaxed to fit, and the result seemed the most natural thing for sculpture to be: uncontrived, casual masterworks.

Like de Kooning, whose work he admired, Chamberlain’s subject matter was most often girls, jazz and cars. He found a way to sculpt color, and the “dynamic obsolescence” of Detroit’s industry insured he would have an unending supply of

sculptural vocabulary from David Smith.

Nearby, we see “Shortstop” (1958), a breakthrough assemblage of rusty fenders.

Chamberlain developed the fit by repeatedly running over them until they resembled a baseball mitt. This convergence of instinctive choice of material and random act would inform his work for the following decades.

The hydraulic baler soon became Chamber-

lain’s tool of choice, although a sledgehammer was employed for finesse work.

In the work of the early 1960s he was able to bring an organic and voluminous lightness to the steel, contradicting its actual weight. The works pulse with elusive convolutions, as do the titles. “Miss Lucy Pink” (1962) sports an eye and floppy ear.

In minimalism’s moment, Chamberlain collapsed grid, line and plane all at once.

After a seven-year filmmaking break from sculpture in the ’60s, he returned with unique versions of figuration and brittle

TH E S TE I N S CO LLEC T Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde

Publication: CITY ARTS Insertion date: MARCH 07, 2012

John Chamberlain, Dolores James, 1962, painted and chromium-plated steel.

Photo: David Heald/Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Through June 3 The exhibition is made possible by The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation and the Janice H. Levin Fund.

Additional support provided by The Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky Foundation.

The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais, Paris.

It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

MET-0124-Steins_CityArts_7.341x8.75_v1.indd 1

metmuseum.org/steinscollect Henri Matisse, Woman with a Hat, 1905, oil on canvas, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, bequest of Elise S. Haas. © 2012 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Ian Reeves.

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7.341 X 8.5 4C NP

extremely sophisticated material. (At GM, Harley Earl and a staff of 75 developed color intentionally to create deluxe objects; economically and socially seductive.) It was no accident the sculptor admired the painting of de Kooning: the Dutch painter was choosing his “American” palette from the advertising of the day.

Chamberlain’s Guggenheim retrospective begins with the amazing “Doomsday Flotilla” (1982), a seven-part, floor-hugging hellish armada of skeletal lengths of black chassis parts fitted out with cream colored sails and chrome engines. It’s a blast of Dantesque radical imagination.

On the back wall hangs the relief “Essex” (1960).

Works on the ramp spiral upward in roughly chronological order, mixing wall reliefs with free-standing objects. “Calliope” (1954) is an early work borrowing its

GALLERIES

CRITICS PICkS

Burlesquing Media mel rAmos’ sexy vAriAtions

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6 CityArts | March 7, 2012

Keith De Lellis Gallery: “heart & soul: portraits of African Americans by African American photographers.” through march 17, 1045 madison Ave. #3, 212-327-1482, keithdelellisgallery.com. [valerie gladstone] Pierogi Gallery: “Ward shelley: unreliable narrator.” through march 18, 177 n. 9th st., brooklyn, 718-599-2144, pierogi2000.com. [melissa stern]

By MAUREEN MULLARkEy t is when a cigar is not just a cigar that it is really fun. Mel Ramos understood that from the get-go. The playful, bawdy, brash retrospective selection at Bernarducci Meisel Gallery testifies to the gamesmanship that has made Ramos—and pop art, for all its flaws—so popular. In material and cultural terms, much has changed, disappeared or made an about-face since pop’s heyday in the 1960s and ’70s. What is left grants this condensed survey a certain piquancy.

Born in Sacramento in 1935, Ramos grew up in the confident post-World War II era. America was flush with moral and military victory over two lethal enemies. Manufacturing was at a peak; we were still an export nation. Consumer culture stretched across the country like Route 66, the Mother Road of growing prosperity.

Ramos came of age as a painter at the very moment pop art, cocksure and heedless, asserted its claim to the promises of affluence and the reigning assumption of its permanence.

If this exhibition declared a theme song, it would be Mary Hopkin’s 1968 single, “Those Were the Days, My Friend.” We thought they’d never end.

Ramos’ hallmark bawdiness drew equally from the pinup queens of the war years and Hollywood’s postwar invention, the sex goddess. His pictorial chicanery, particularly in the first two decades of his career, drew its vitality from an association with images that kept to the naughty-but-nice side of a cultural line between erotica and pornography—a divide that no longer exists. The best of his subsequent work holds to that initial tongue-in-cheek genius, one that straddles the contradictory convergence of second wave feminism and the sexual revolution.

Ramos’ D-cup sweetie, holding on to a mammoth spark plug and smiling over her shoulder, is the air-headed descendent of a leggy Betty Grable, whose image, back to the viewer and in swimsuit and heels, was reproduced on the noses of hundred of bombers.

From Fort Sill to the Siegfried Line, tens of thousands of pilots, sailors, GIs and marines kept themselves company with photos of the wartime bombshell. Even a test version of the atomic bomb was named “Rita” and carried Rita Hayworth’s picture. Jane Russell, her back against a haystack, was the sultry predecessor of “Lucky Lulu Blonde” (1965), its bare-breast-

GALLERIES

CLASSICAL Il Magico Liquor: “l’elisir d’Amore” (“the elixir of love”), by Donizetti, comes to the metropolitan opera in eight performances in march. heading the cast are Diana Damrau and Juan Diego flórez, more than capable. march 5–31, metoperafamily.org. [Jay nordlinger] Cello Power: Alisa Weilerstein, the formidable young American cellist, plays the barber concerto with the new york philharmonic at Avery fisher hall. three performances, march 8, 10 and 13, nyphil.org. [Jn] JAzz Avant-Gutbucket Orchestra: saxophonist David murray and guitarist James blood ulmer lead their new 17-piece blues big band at iridium. march 7–8, 1650 broadway, 212-582-2121, theiridium.com; 8 & 10, $30. [howard mandel] Mel Ramos, Giant Panda, 1971, oil on canvas, 52 x 60 inches.

Image courtesy of Bernarducci Meisel Gallery.

ed girl rampant on a pack of Lucky Strikes.

The step down from real women in coy poses to Ramos’ vacuous counterfeits is exquisitely tuned to the temper of its age.

When selling the war effort had run its course, selling brand names rushed in to fill the vacuum. The shift from sacrifice and service to gratification and consumption was hardly an even trade. Ramos picked up on the disparity between the ethos of the barracks and of Madison Avenue with a sly humor that earns his stylized females a permanent place in 20th-century cultural history.

Tousle-haired doxies ride oversized Havanas, rise out of banana peels, candy wrappers and corn stalks. They play peek-a-boo behind ketchup bottles and perch, tellingly, on Velveeta cheese boxes. All kittenish artifice, they are plausible, if sardonic, analogues to Madison Avenue’s fetishizing of the female to stimulate lust for goods. They remain permanent participants in the American conversation between high art and low.

When Ramos’ imagery retreats from rambunctious postwar optimism, it edges toward the cynicism of a Larry Flynt and the pole-dancing-as-empowerment mentality of contemporary pop culture. If feminism turned around to bite him, it was not without warrant. Many of his art historical appropriations, for example, suffer a slackening of wit.

The play goes out of them, leaving cleverness in the titles—e.g. “You Get More Salami With Modigliani”—but sparse on canvas.

His series of vacant studio models conforms to the Playboy paradigm while seeming to mock it. These gals have all the tactile appeal of inflatable dolls. Separated from the iconic logos that bind the work to media postures, his figures become ciphers in search of a purpose.

Nudity notwithstanding, they cannot be called sensual, a quality distinct from nakedness.

Inherent in Ramos’ early burlesques is recognition of media’s dependence on female props for pumping everything from clothes and cosmetics to cars and, today, TV news.

Absent that real-world link, with its wry undertone, the tour de force flattens; there is less to compel attention. Even so, it is hard now to fault Ramos for providing an accurate barometer of vulgarity’s rise to popular stature.

In retrospect, Ramos’ steamy female superheroes, his Ketchup Queen (as in the 1963 “Ketsup Kween”) and all her fey sisters, stand in witness to a cultural moment that coarsened with our consent. “We’d live the life we’d choose…

For we were young and sure to have our way.”

Mel Ramos: Selections from the Retrospective through march 31. bernarducci meisel gallery, 37 W. 57th st., 212-593-3757, www.bernarduccimeisel.com.

The Lady Got Chops Jam Session: march being Women’s history month, check out the Jazz foundation of America’s Jazz Women’s Jam and showcase at tammany hall, featuring Women in Jazz organizer/bassist Kim clarke. march 14, 152 orchard st., 212-228-7556, tammanyhallny.com; 7, $10. [hm] POP Two for Tuesday: los cintron, the world music duo that rocked the metropolitan opera in “carmen,” gets audiences to their feet every tuesday night at euzkadi. 108 e. 4th st., 212-982-9788, euzkadirestaurant.com; 7:30. [Judy gelman myers] Folk Harmonies: vocal collective l’Arpeggiata explores multicentury connections in their concert of italian baroque music and corsican folk tunes at carnegie hall’s Zankel hall. march 14–17, 7th Ave. at 57th st., 212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org; 7:30, $43+. [Jgm] Reign from Spain: tunisian vocalist sonia m’barek reframes classical and popular traditions in 15th-century Andalusian songs at the cuny graduate center’s proshansky Auditorium. march 23, 365 5th Ave., 212-817-7571, memeac.gc.cuny. edu; 7, $25+. [Jgm] DANCE On Your Toes: eifman ballet of st. petersburg brings russian and vigor and soul to the city center stage. march 9–11, 131 W. 55th st., 212581-1212, nycitycenter.org; $60+. [Joel lobenthal] Taylor with a Twist: paul taylor Dance company, representing an American master, performs at the David h. Koch theater at lincoln center. march 13–April 1, 212-496-0600, davidhkochtheater.org; $10+. [Jl]

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March 7, 2012 | CityArts 7

MUSEUMS

Petty, Humane and Perfect shermAn, rembrAnDt AnD DegAs in portrAit

of visitors is guaranteed. Still, cynicism shouldn’t prevail—at least, not initially. Part of a curator’s job is to explore the possible and render it revelatory.

Turns out Rembrandt and Degas isn’t revelatory in the least. Sure, Degas made a copy of Rembrandt’s “Young Man in a Velvet Cap” (1637) and paid keen atten-

By MARIO NAvES

W

hat would art be without fiction— that is to say, without the allusive sweep of metaphor?

Literature, music, painting, poetry, dance, film—you name it, every medium thrives when it embodies something beyond its material means. “Art that conceals art” is old news, of course, but that’s not to say it isn’t desirable or, in fact, an ongoing necessity. The human animal has craved the stuff since Day 1.

Nowadays, you know, we’re more advanced than that. Fiction—it’s so passé.

At least, that’s the lesson of Cindy Sherman, an eponymous retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Devotees of the postmodernist pioneer would argue otherwise. Hasn’t Sherman been devoted to fiction or, at least, its attendant limitations since the first time she planted herself in front of a camera? She’s made a substantial career assuming an array of divergent identities, among them B-movie ingénue, corpse, biker chick, fashionista, fairy tale princess, Upper East Side dowager, pinup girl and, in a recent work, an Icelandic Norma Desmond.

Sherman’s photographs are purposefully ersatz in costume and affect. Cakedon makeup, thrift shop wigs, garish mood lighting, cut-rate stage sets, desultory photographic technique and thank God for the advent of Photoshop—artifice is Sherman’s all. Arrant contrivance is a tool for investigating “the construction of contemporary identity,” “the nature of representation” and “the tyranny…of images.”

Reasonable avenues of inquiry, I suppose, but there’s a difference between inhabiting an invented persona and, as one wit had it, pretending to pretend. Novelty tits and a blank stare don’t prompt much in the way of sociological insight, let alone create a compelling fiction. The purpose they serve is to let us know that Cindy Sherman—front, center and oddly puritanical—is calling the shots. Here is an artist who doesn’t—or can’t—venture beyond the strictures of self.

No amount of irony can redeem her cold, callow art.

8 CityArts | March 7, 2012

HASN’T SHERMAN BEEN DEvOTED TO fICTION OR, AT LEAST, ITS ATTENDANT LIMITATIONS SINCE THE fIRST TIME SHE PLANTED HERSELf IN fRONT Of A CAMERA?

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #137, 1984, chromogenic color print.

Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures, New York © 2012 Cindy Sherman.

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pples and Oranges—that’s a colleague’s alternate title for Rembrandt and Degas: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has a point: What commonality is shared between history’s most humane artist and its most perfect? (Really,

did anything Degas touch not turn to gold?)

Box office receipts may have prompted The Met, along with co-organizers The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, to mount this jewel-box exhibition. Place the name of either artist on a banner and a steady stream

tion to the Dutch master’s distinctive way with line, light and “the depth he is able to achieve.” The Frenchman was a voracious student of tradition; it’s fair to say every artist Degas came into contact with was funneled through his steely, elegant intellect. Rembrandt was one amongst many, that’s all.

As a study in contrasts, the Met exhibition has its uses. Degas’ exercises in selfportraiture are heady and pitiless, their rigor is risky, pointed and sure. Psychological insight wasn’t alien to Degas’s vision, but neither was it a driving force. Rembrandt, on the other hand, couldn’t make a mark without embodying a distinctive and inquisitive generosity of spirit.

Even as a cocky young buck, Rembrandt was a mensch—take a look at the showy “Self-Portrait as a Young Man” (1629). In it, the 23-year-old artist daubs oil paint with a brilliance that borders on the vulgar. Then check the gaze, hidden in shadow: Rembrandt is both startled and haunted—as if he had become aware of, and daunted by, his own boundless empathy. It’s a disquietingly naked moment.

Forget historical illumination: As a tidy array of exquisite little pictures, Rembrandt and Degas is a welcome anti-blockbuster of a show.

Cindy Sherman through June 11, the museum of modern Art, 11 W. 53rd st., 212-708-9400, www.moma.org.

Rembrandt and Degas: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man through may 20, the metropolitan museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710, www.metmuseum.org.

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March 7, 2012 | CityArts 9

A Deluxe Act gAllAgher connects the Dots At momA

By MELISSA STERN

M

useum exhibitions curated by artists are always an interesting journey into the artist’s brain. Sometimes we find out things we really didn’t want to know, like a hidden passion for paintings of big-eyed children or a love of the color beige. Sometimes, however, we get to peer deeply into the artist’s mind and actually connect the dots of how what interests them relates to their work.

Printin’, a new show in the print galleries at MoMA, is such an exhibition. It is showing concurrently with the major but unwieldy exhibition Print/Out, and trust me, you can skip the big show in favor of this superbly well-chosen, flowing and evocative collection of work. In this case, smaller is better.

Printin’ is co-curated by Sarah Suzuki, an associate curator at the museum, and the artist Ellen Gallagher. The exhibition pivots around Gallagher’s seminal suite of prints entitled DeLuxe, 60 prints that combine just

about every printing technique on earth along with collage, 3-D objects and handpainting. It is a massive and stunning work and a benchmark in Gallagher’s artistic development.

Given some amount of free rein to wander through MoMA’s collections and make the visual and conceptual connections that most interested her, Gallagher has created a startlingly beautiful and profound exhibition.

The heart of the curators’ magic is an ability to exhibit links between disparate works, either visual, thematic or temperamental.

The connections that the curators make are delightful, allowing the viewer the joy of seeing and understanding those visual connections.

For example, one wall of the show is hung with an unusually sensitive, large Keith Haring woodcut. Next to that is a painted Kachina made by an anonymous Hopi Indian, then the wall bounces up into a very unusual Paul Klee piece of pigmented paste on paper and cloth. Below that is a wonderful abstract print by Canadian artist Akesuk Tudlik.

The visual themes dance across this wall

Ellen Gallagher, DeLuxe, 2004–05. © 2012 Ellen Gallagher and Two Palms Press. in a giddy flash of discovery. You get it. You are able to see what Gallagher sees and presumably loves in these pieces.

A 1921 photograph of the black vaudevillian Bert Williams dressed incongruously in both tuxedo and chicken suit hangs above a print by Otto Dix entitled “American Riding Act,” which depicts horse-borne men in elaborate feathered headdresses shooting at something beyond the picture plane. The

connections are both funny and chilling.

As opposed to the conceptually dense and overly hip showcase exhibition Print/Out, Suzuki and Gallagher have mounted a show that is intellectually accessible, artistically illuminating and a sheer joy to visit.

Printin’ through may 14, the museum of modern Art, 11 W. 53rd st., 212-708-9400, www.moma.org.

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CityArts:Layout 1

Cops and Blotters looKing behinD the scene of the crime

When the cops go out to the streets they are confronted with a dirty, dangerous city.

Some of that dirt and danger comes across in the photographs. There are corpses By kATE PRENGEL lying in stairwells, men showing off their n 1972, the photographer Leonard scars and fields of rubble around abanFreed set out to document the daily doned buildings. But Freed ’s photos are lives of New York City police officers. primarily portraits of the police, with the He wanted to humanize the police force, city acting as background.

An officer with a fatherly smile points a arguing that “if we do not concern ourselves with who the police are—who they gun at two suspects whose faces are to the really are…we run the real risk of finding wall. Two young policemen chat while a that we no longer have public servants prostitute, again with her back to the camwho are required to protect the public.” era, lounges across two chairs. Another Freed’s work is on view at the Museum photo shows a young policeman in the staof the City of New York in an exhibition tion house, putting on a bulletproof vest. titled Police Work: Photographs by Leonard He looks alert and excited; an eager young hero. The capFreed, 1972-1979. tion reads, “We’re Unfortunately, going to pick up a Freed, in this murder suspect.” collection from But what about a period in New the suspect he’s York’s most dire apprehending? and corrupt era, What does he didn’t bother to look like and humanize the what does he New Yorkers who want to say? dealt with the Nobody can police every day. do it all, and I The result is a wouldn’t blame series of compelFreed for neglectling but oddly ing the city’s civilcartoonish phoians if it wasn’t for tos of the city in his desperate urge its crime-ridden to get cute. There heyday. are some goofy Freed is at photos here, for his best when example of a tall he shows us the woman kissing a police on their short cop on the own territory. I cheek (“Isn’t he lingered over a Leonard Freed, “New York City, From Inside a Police cute?” the capseries of off-duty Auto. Police Check Autos for Wanted Man,” 1978. tion reads) and cops: a policeLeonard Freed / Magnum photos. a policewoman woman sits on her motorcycle with her little boy and girl next playing Duck Duck Goose with children. to her; a policeman dressed in full Civil The Museum of the City of New York, which War regalia stands with his daughters and sometimes looks at New York City through their dolls. Freed doesn’t give us a location, Mickey Mouse glasses, shares some of the but both photos look like they were taken blame for choosing to include this kind of in the semi-rural suburbs, at a healthy schmaltz in such a small show. Still, the exhibit is well worth seeing. Look over the remove from the crumbling city.

Looking at them is like looking through policemen’s heads, past the images that the wrong end of a telescope into a neat, Freed wants to show you, and focus on the private little world. Even Freed’s group city itself. portrait at a station house has this selfcontained look. The officers stare calmly at Police Work: Photographs by Leonard the camera, giving nothing away. If there Freed, 1972-1979 is any anger in their hearts or any sorrow, through may 6, museum of the city of new york, Freed hasn’t captured it.

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CLASSICAL

A Sea of Sound tAllying neW yorK’s philhArmonic excess

By JOSEPH SMITH

I

s it just me or is it too loud in here? Often, when I attend symphonic concerts, I find myself disconcerted by the noisiness of the programming. It seems to me that concerts now tend to be too unrelievedly composed of works from periods that favor dense, complicated textures.

I decided to examine the 2011–2012 subscription repertoire of the New York Philharmonic in this respect, ignoring special concerts, chamber music, etc. I soon recognized, however, the impossibility of a meaningful comprehensive tabulation of works by period or style.

Some works are short, others long. One great composer might appear less often than another simply because he composed fewer symphonic works. And then there’s the problem of categorizing per se: the most obvious examples, Beethoven and Schubert, are they “classical” or “romantic”? Nevertheless, I do think a few numerical observations may indicate some trends.

This season, the entire baroque period is represented by only four works from two composers: Bach and Handel, of course. But notice that Handel’s contribution is, guess what, The Messiah—guess when, in Decem-

ber! In other words, it serves as a holiday tradition rather than as a piece of music per se. Bach’s double violin concerto features the presence of music director Alan Gilbert as one of the soloists, presumably a factor in its selection.

What about the classical era? Mozart appears nine times, Haydn twice. This disparity seems extreme. I suspect that the reason, at least in part, is as follows: Mozart’s concertos are among his greatest works, whereas Haydn’s concertos are a minor part of his oeuvre. Therefore, the crowd-pleasing glamour of name soloists acts in Mozart’s favor.

Haydn’s 104 symphonies certainly offer enough to choose from; however, paradoxically, the sheer number may make the choice too difficult and actually discourage performance. In any case, this great composer, whose works would offer relief from the “big” works, seems woefully neglected.

Ten works by Beethoven are programmed, but six of these are segregated to David Zinman’s festival, “The Modern Beethoven.” This means that such symphonies as Numbers 1 and 4— comparatively light in texture and mood—cannot be programmed elsewhere in this Philharmonic season. The subscription season includes Schubert’s two most famous symphonies, as well as a few orchestrated songs.

Now for the earlier romantics; for instance, Mendelssohn and Schumann. But where

Orchestral Rankings philADelphiA AnD berlin philhArmonics compete

By JAy NORDLINGER

C

arnegie Hall has hosted several orchestras lately, including one from a short train ride away and one from a longish plane ride away. The first was the Philadelphia Orchestra, the second the Berlin Philharmonic.

The Philadelphians have gone through hard times in recent years, including bankruptcy. But they sounded their top-notch selves in Carnegie Hall. They were conducted

by Charles Dutoit, the septuagenarian Swiss.

His hair may be even blacker than that of his fellow septuagenarian, Riccardo Muti.

12 CityArts | March 7, 2012

Dutoit opened the concert with a work by his fellow Swiss, Frank Martin, who lived from 1890 to 1974. This was Martin’s Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments. The fabled “Philadelphia Sound” was built on strings, but the orchestra has always had superb wind players, including William Kincaid, one of the great flutists of the 20th century.

At Carnegie Hall, the seven players required

by Martin’s concerto were assembled at the foot of the stage. It was good to see them front and center—usually such players lurk at the back. Years ago, the Philadelphia Orchestra put out a series of LPs called First Chair, featuring its principals in concertos and such.

It’s nice when members of an orchestra itself, rather than guest soloists, can strut their stuff.

Everyone played the Martin neatly and

are they? One overture by Schumann, nothing by Mendelssohn? I wondered if perhaps Schumann had been overrepresented in 2010–2011, since 2010 was his anniversary year. In fact, however, only the Fourth Symphony was given last season. Brahms likewise makes only a single appearance and Berlioz, Wagner and Liszt total five.

Let’s move on to the late romantics and see how their presence compares with the earlier composers cited. I use “late romantic” in its most limited sense, that is, German and Austrian composers who took Wagner’s bigness and grandeur as a starting point. This season, works by Richard Strauss, Mahler, Bruckner, and Korngold total 12! Were I were to broaden the definition to include non-Germanic composers such as Tchaikovsky, obviously, this number would be higher still.

Numerically, Strauss beats Mahler by one, but all of Mahler’s works are exceptionally long symphonies. Am I deploring Mahler’s popularity? Hardly! I rejoice that such a challenging, boldly original voice has won a large, enthusiastic public. Within living memory, it was once common wisdom that Mahler was too complicated and idiosyncratic for American audiences. Now, regional orchestras, conservatory orchestras and even youth orchestras play Mahler to appreciative audiences.

As we see, in orchestral music, the taste for late romantic music is indeed marked. Interestingly, though, the lieder of Wolf and the masses of Bruckner are seldom performed in the United States, despite their undisputed importance. Thus, one wonders how much of the public’s attraction to late romanticism is

due to the musical thought of this school, with its challenge to the tonal system, expanded forms and rich counterpoint, and how much due to the sheer opulence of its floods of orchestral sound. In any case, on current orchestral programs, late romantic rules!

The relative dearth of 18-century music is easily explained, of course. Symphony orchestras, it seems, have largely surrendered baroque and classical music to chamber orchestras and original instrument groups. I am not singling the Philharmonic out in this respect, but offering it as an example of a trend.

Arguably, this division of the repertoire may serve earlier music well. New York offers an enviable cornucopia of musical venues and series, and one can certainly enjoy such music apart from the Philharmonic. But a problem remains. When symphony orchestras relinquish this period, markedly favoring the later romantics over the earlier ones, and offer a generous amount of composers from the 20th and 21st centuries, it inevitably skews repertoire toward dense, plethoric and saturated textures.

Audiences love the big pieces, and conductors love the audience’s response to them. Of course, being engulfed in a sea of sound is one of the great pleasures of orchestral music. But it would be sad if audiences become conditioned to hold this value paramount. Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto and Mahler’s First Symphony (April 12-17)? Three noisy blockbusters by Richard Strauss—Alpine Symphony, Horn Concerto No. 1, Till Eulenspiegel—one after another (Oct. 20-22)? By all means, let us have excess, but…in moderation!

stylishly. Then, after intermission, Dutoit led his forces in a supreme test for any band: Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. The Philadelphians passed with flying colors. They were unified, virtuosic and smart. Dutoit was faithful to Bartók’s score, giving a selfless reading. This band may be broke, but they’re still good.

About a week later, the Berliners came in, under the baton of their music director, Sir Simon Rattle. The first thing they played was Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

And here’s where their personnel made a serious difference.

In my opinion—a contestable opinion—the top orchestras are basically interchangeable, composed of perfectly capable players. What matters is the conductor standing in front of them. But there are a couple of exceptions, including the Berlin Philharmonic—an orchestra that is a wondrous animal all by itself.

One of its principal flutes is Emmanuel

Pahud, arguably the best flutist in the world.

Its principal horn is Stefan Dohr, arguably the best hornist in the world. When you can begin Debussy’s prelude with Pahud, followed by Dohr—you’re doing pretty well.

What a luxury.

Sir Simon ended this concert with a work by his fellow Englishman and brother knight, Sir Edward Elgar—the Enigma Variations. Sir Simon was not especially English in this work: The music lacked some of its stateliness and nobility. Too often, it was flaccid, overmilked and dull. It was without its proper flow, wallowing in episode after episode (or variation after variation). To me, I’m afraid, the piece felt as long as Les Troyens.

But, oh, those players, and the sounds they made! You could hardly blame Sir Simon for luxuriating. Orchestras aren’t ranked like tennis players, but if they were, it would be hard to keep the Berlin Phil. out of the No. 1 spot.

JAzz

Nonstop Herbie chArting hAncocK’s musicAl voyAges

By HOWARD MANDEL

W

ho is this particular Herbie Hancock appearing at Jazz at Lincoln Center March 9 and 10?

Not the keyboardist who enlisted Dave Matthews, The Chieftains, India.Arie, Los Lobos et al. as guest stars on his latest album, The Imagine Project, or who won by surprise the Grammy for Record of the Year in 2008 with River: The Joni Letters, featuring singers Leonard Cohen, Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae et al.

Not the electronics engineering student who back in the day wed synthesizers with Afro-referent themes in his Mwandishi band nor the fusion pioneer who launched

Herbie Hancock in 2009. Photo by Larry Johnson. a zillion ’70s garage band jams with tunes like “Chameleon” and a generation later linked turntablism and jazz with “Rockit.”

Not the dude who offered lessons in Rockschool on PBS in the ’80s or the prodigy who wrote tunes like “Watermelon Man” for Mongo Santamaria in the ’60s, then became Miles Davis’ solidifier in a historic quintet that stretched sophisticated melodic interactivity just short of breaking into complete improvisational freedom.

Although collaborating with titans of the ’60s new thing documented by Blue Note Records, Hancock had his brush with free jazz and was fine at it. He just preferred to create rich, warm, open-ended compositions with a pulse, as on Maiden Voyage from 1965—his first masterpiece.

Maiden Voyage presented the Hancock we’ll hear this weekend: an unfussy, even modest pianist of impeccable taste

and touch. A devotee of Nichiren Buddhism who turned his frequent partner, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, on to chanting decades ago, Hancock looks 55 though he’s 72. He wears his status as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador promoting “intercultural dialog” lightly and doesn’t crow about playing “Happy Birthday” for Barack Obama’s 50th, behind Jennifer Hudson.

His demeanor is unlike that of his peers Keith Jarrett, who takes himself quite seriously, or Chick Corea, rather casually ebullient onstage. At the piano he is physically undemonstrative. Listeners may be swept into private ruminations during his virtuosic deployment of harmonies that encompass Debussy, Ravel and Gershwin’s concerti, and rhythms range from balladic time suspension to boogaloo, bossa nova, understated swing and oddly pretty funk.

Indeed, Hancock sometimes errs on the side of being too nuanced. At a Carnegie Hall concert in the mid ’90s, when his latest recording was The New Standard, adapting rock anthems, his pastel performance bored some attendees to the point of streaming out down the center aisle. Hancock walked to the stage’s lip, as I recall, and asked, genuinely puzzled, “Is it that bad?” Maybe not, but maybe too pastel for the crowd drawn by “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia),” the 1993 acid jazz hit that sampled one of his ’60s themes to the max. Expectations regarding a Hancock performance have become complicated.

To Rose Hall at JALC he comes in trio format, adding his protégé, guitarist Lionel Loueke, on Saturday night. Loueke, originally from Benin, is soft-spoken and plays gently, adding piquant accents rather than flash or fire. I predict Hancock will be Mr. Cool, spinning out muted romantic fantasies, adding now and then a dash of strong beat. But I could be wrong. Hancock is, perhaps most of all, a chameleon. He’s certainly covered a lot of ground in the nearly half-century since his maiden voyage.

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POP

A New Day Dawns Why Doris DAy mAtters

By DENNIS DELROGH

L

ong before Beyoncé covered “At Last” in homage to Etta James, Doris Day in 1964 did the same and disclosed that she had always wished she could sing with James’ abandon.

Day has become the surviving member of her big band generation of superstar singers, who include Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland and Sarah Vaughan. Odd man out, while regularly recording pop and jazz standards throughout her active career, she alone didn’t bolster her musical credentials with the rewarding grunt work of live performance, perhaps one of the reasons she is inaccurately known primarily as a movie star. She happens to be one of the most distinct and memorable American vocalists of the 20th century.

Famed for her bubbly nature, Day is in truth a child of the Great Depression whose sanguine front scarcely shields an uneasiness and potential sorrow. She is most in her element with leisurely ballads that she loves to slow down even further with the most passive vengeance this side of Peggy Lee, though without Lee’s disorienting abstraction. Both singers are masters of phrasing, and while Day tends to be spontaneous, she can come across as deliberate and studied, just like Lee. One big distinction between the two would be Lee’s self-awareness and Day’s selfabsorption. In her autobiography, Day tells the story of how she spoke briefly to a fan who recognized her on the street and didn’t realize until she got home that it had been one of her husbands. Her gift as a singer is that she can transform her remoteness into warmth and intimacy.

Day recently released a new CD, My Heart (as in, “Never Thought My Heart Could Be So Yearny”), in England. A U.S. edition is now available. The recordings themselves aren’t new; six cuts were produced by her son, Terry Melcher, in the mid-’80s, intended for her infomercial-like cable TV show Doris Day’s Best Friends, broadcast as a platform for her longstanding passion for animal rights.

Largely spiritless, these covers of Joe Cocker, The Beach Boys, The Lovin’ Spoon-

14 CityArts | March 7, 2012

ful and such feel even more disposable than her singles of the early ’60s. In the past, Day leveled her melodies toward lovers, though in her later career they could be read as spiritual paeans as well; here, the unengaged songs are sung for dogs and cats. The remaining five cuts on the CD are recycled material that Day put in as an offertory to her son, who died in 2004.

The earliest of the old stuff is her melancholy rendition of “My Buddy” from 1951.

While the buddy in question is, of course, Melcher, her cable show once presented a still-unreleased version of the song for her posthumous guest Rock Hudson. My own favorite use of the number is in the 1939 Gene Autry movie In Old Monterey, where Autry sings it to his army buddies to shame them for dropping out of the army.

By 1952/1953, Day’s voice was at its most lyrical with such tunes as “The Black Hills of Dakota” and a group of nononsense radio transcriptions she did backed by the Page Cavanaugh trio. But for my money, her most affecting song of the period was “Your Mother and Mine” from the Disney movie Peter Pan, which would have been ideal for this CD if Melcher had been her mother instead of her son.

As Day grew out of the sometimes belting voice she had acquired by the late ’50s (her most successful album, Hooray For Hollywood, nearly slaughters a few of the famous movie songs she shouts from the highest hills under arranger Frank De Vol’s encouragement), the ’60s marked her most inspired period, where the vulnerability of her aging provided a backdrop for her to draw on a greater maturity and sensitivity toward her material.

The new CD’s nostalgia piece, where Day harmonizes with herself à la Patti Page, is “Ohio.” Day grew up there, and the lyrics echo those of her first big hit, the unwittingly macabre “Sentimental Journey.” Her prayerful rendition of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to His Face,” which comes from the same Broadway show tune album as “Ohio,” provides the template for any subsequent jazz

renditions of the song, just as future covers of “My Baby Just Cares for Me” come out charted like Nina Simone.

From her soft-core jazz album with André Previn, Day picks “My One and Only Love” (Melcher? a terrier?) for My Heart. The song also found its way onto Louis Armstrong’s memory-laden final record. By 1962, her voice has thinned into a kind of luminous androgyny. But only two years and a prominent vibrato later, that voice (at last showing some stress on particular notes) would forever acquire a spellbound, plangent womanliness.

Love Him, Day’s only album produced by her son and a rare contemporary venture, reveled in her exposed womanhood, and it’s surprising that My Heart doesn’t carry a cut from it.

There is a pronounced wee small hours of the morning flavor to the album, redolent of film noir.

Lacking the ethereal strains of Cole’s instrument, Day, on the face of it, wouldn’t appear to be a natural for the genre, yet the inaccessibility of her bruised wholesomeness does point in that direction (think the illusive jukebox play of “I Can‘t Believe That You‘re in Love With Me” from Edgar Ulmer’s Detour). Alfred Hitchcock understood her noir compatibility when he used her super-

natural “We’ll Love Again” for The Man Who Knew Too Much, a song she re-recorded a few years later in a dreamier fashion.

In virtual retirement from making records after 1965, Day came out that year with a fitting final album of her favorite big band numbers that was more functional than fertile, similar to Sinatra’s reunion with Axel Stordahl for his final Capitol album—Stordahl had been Sinatra’s arranger from their Dorsey days through the happier portion of Sinatra’s Columbia period.

Both Day and her fellow Columbia recording artist, the rhythmic trickster Ruth Etting (Day had portrayed her unsympathetically in Love Me or Leave Me), withdrew from the industry at just about the same age. This album, Doris Day’s Sentimental Journey, is where Day covered James’ “At Last,” which first became popular as a Glenn Miller/Ray Eberle tune.

One more Day recording session transpired in 1967, and out came The Love Album, with no release until 1994. In its retrograde way (it concluded with “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”), the record was quite good.

The problem is that all of Sid Feller’s eventual arrangements sounded too similar and unfinished. The songs, with no reprises, all seem to end in midstream. Most begin with long verses, which Day handled with feeling. And The Love Album title was a misnomer—Songs of Loneliness and Regret would have been more like it. In fact, it borrowed three cuts from Sinatra’s concept disc All Alone.

“Are You Lonesome Tonight?” in which Day turns the lonesomeness back on herself, is the album’s most poignant number. But “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” which she puts on My Heart, claiming it was Melcher’s favorite of her songs, is pretty chilling, too.

Written in 1931, it returns Day to her Great Depression roots, and you can hear in this languorous, rueful cover exactly what a bowl of cherries she finds life to be.

Day was just about as ominous in project-

Continued on page 15

Something from Nowhere the ting tings’ pet ‘sounDs’

By BEN kESSLER From the name on down, The Ting Tings’ second album, Sounds from Nowheresville, shows that remarkably little has changed for the pop duo since their platinum-selling debut, We Started Nothing (2008).

It took four years for Katie White and Jules de Martino to shake off their success and return to the margins, where their creativity apparently thrives.

Those Nothing and Nowhere titles showcase White and de Martino’s proud refusal to fulfill music industry and media expectations. On the new album, they plant their flag wherever they like within the pop universe, without regard for consistency.

The Ting Tings say their overarching inspiration on Nowheresville was the albums of Malcolm McLaren, which radically extended punk’s aesthetic to encompass the full range of ’80s-’90s street sounds and styles.

Nowheresville’s chaos of influences coheres over the course of its blessedly tight 33 minutes, even though the track-by-track contrasts can be head-spinning. The caffeinated punk-pop of the first few songs gives way to a suite of softhearted dance tracks, which leads into a closing pair of yearning ballads. Pop signifiers are celebrated, decon-

structed and thrown together in joyous fashion, as in “Give It Back”’s refrain—“Give me back my hi-fi, give me back my boots/Give me back my life, give me back my roots.”

A sonic detail from Nowheresville’s sweet center spooked one U.K. critic, who wrote: “‘Soul Killing’ [is] a bouncy bit of pop-reggae rendered unlistenable by the teeth-gritting squeak of de Martino’s drum stool.” But that uncanny creak brilliantly symbolizes the leisure time mentality that underpins white reggae, evoking a variety of downtime pursuits, from rocking chairs to rocking horses to telltale bedsprings.

Critics who don’t read pop music as White and de Martino do will likely miss out on the pleasure of Nowheresville’s path from anger to sweetness to sadness. They may interpret the four-year break between albums and the new release’s brevity as diminishing returns.

White addresses that issue on the lead single, “Hang It Up,” singing, “Live like a hermit if you want to be king.”

At a time when most overhyped indie acts (think Sleigh Bells) bid for “originality” by slamming together the same old influences into superficially new configurations, The Ting Tings are humble enough to refuse modesty. Their new album presents a fully rounded pop experience from outta nowhere and nothing.

POP SIGNIfIERS ARE CELEBRATED, DECONSTRUCTED AND THROWN TOGETHER IN JOyOUS fASHION

Continued from page 14 ing rosy cheer as that other breathy, bouncing blonde Marilyn Monroe was in projecting feel-good sex. When Monroe got fired from the movie Something’s Got to Give and died, Day took over the part and fit right in.

In a way, the two iconic singer/actresses represent converse sides of the fetishized all-American girl. Not the least of Day’s allAmerican musical accomplishments was as the definitive, most expressive interpreter of Rodgers and Hammerstein. On her most heartfelt, overlooked 1960 album, What Every Girl Should Know (functioning as a status report on her uncertain relationship with Melcher’s adopted stepfather), she takes on the faux-operatic “What’s the Use of Wond’rin?” with a rare brisk tempo that

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Manhattan School of Music

Doris Day

brings out the introspection of the lyrics along with the tristesse. Her hushed, reconciled “Something Wonderful” from the same album is piercing—it may be her finest moment. And a few years later, she delivers “You’ll Never Walk Alone” as a placid plea, with none of the bombast associated with the song.

Day’s 1971 TV special features fervent versions of “Both Sides Now” and “Feelin’ Groovy,” which show an aptitude for contemporary pop not in evidence on My Heart’s newer recordings. She does pick the best song from that special to open the CD: “Hurry, It’s Lovely Up Here” from On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, the Broadway show about eternity. But how might that relate to her beloved, departed son? Perhaps we’ve come back full circle to Sentimental Journey (“I’ll Be Waiting Up in Heaven”), for a calland-response between Day and Melcher as idealized by Day.

Manhattan School of Music

March 7, 2012 | CityArts 15

fILM

Projections the return of terence DAvies

By ARMOND WHITE

T

erence Davies is certainly an art filmmaker—England’s best since David Lean and Mike Leigh—but that doesn’t mean his movies are esoteric. They certainly are meticulous, though; painstaking recordings of social and emotional details of dailiness and desire that evoke Thornton Wilder’s uncanny line about observing existential life: “I can’t look at it hard enough,” from Our Town. For Davies, the soul is everyone’s town. And he’s not afraid to stare down at our common suffering.

This month, Davies’ career of six remarkable features is being revived at BAM and Film Forum in time to prepare audiences for the U.S. premiere of his newest movie, The Deep Blue Sea. Will The Deep Blue Sea be his breakthrough? Only if the public has had its fill of chick-flick pabulum. Minimalist Davies deserves to be a popularly regarded film artist, even if not quite on the level of maximalist Lean, whose Dr. Zhivago may be the toniest love story ever filmed.

In The Deep Blue Sea, Davies recreates playwright Terence Rattigan’s post-World War II stage drama about a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

(Rachel Weisz takes a lover, war vet Tom Hiddleston, rejecting her jurist husband Simon Russell Beale’s devotion.) Davies uses the same template of guilt, temptation and class conflict as in Lean’s extraordinary 1945 breakthrough Brief Encounter.

For decades, Brief Encounter had been cinema’s landmark illicit-romance melodrama, both hightoned and deeply emotional. Davies honors it by remaking/remodeling it. Although the world has changed since Brief Encounter (today it might be titled Booty Call), Davies epitomizes the change.

Davies’ gay sensibility (ranking among great gay artists like Luchino Visconti and Tennessee Williams, whose projections of male desire were rich enough to empathize with the female experience) looks deeply into hope and despair. 1992’s The Long Day Closes remains the greatest film with a gay

GAMING

Playing on the Edge ‘the DArKness’ WAges liberty AnD DeAth

By STEvE HASkE

T

he Darkness is often thought of as a game defined by a single moment.

As mob hitman Jackie Estacado, the business of killing comes easily, and as the protagonist of a first-person shooter, this is hardly out of the ordinary. It isn’t surprising when Jackie is possessed early on by the eponymous Darkness, a centuries-old symbiotic sentience whose black tendrils thirst for violence; in fact, this is why at least 50 percent of us are playing it in the first place.

But the scene that defines The Darkness has nothing to do with violence. Its

16 CityArts | March 7, 2012

marquee is quieter and more personal—a marked differed between the Call of Duty mimicry of contemporary shooter design and when The Darkness was first released in 2007.

After a routine job for Jackie’s mob boss uncle goes south, he arrives at his girlfriend Jenny’s new apartment determined to reveal the truth about his work. She doesn’t believe you (or you lie to her, if you’d prefer); she isn’t concerned.

“Come watch TV with me for a while,” Jenny, tired from unpacking, says. The television softly plays To Kill A Mockingbird.

In spite of the endless death that plagues Jackie’s existence, your time with Jenny is unhurried and she quickly falls asleep with Jackie’s arm still around her. No mat-

A scene from Terrence Davies’ Distant Voices, Still Lives. child protagonist ever made.

But Davies’ films don’t wallow in masochism or flaunt queer identity politics; his art is distinguished by sensitivity to what’s personal yet universal. Every Davies film projects a political dimension to its protagonists’ suffering. Not a dull Marxist analysis of inequality, but a more exacting examination of how cultural experience effects one’s social being.

Each Davies movie contains a postmodern film or musical reference that pinpoints his story in time—the plangent refrain of “Tammy” in The Long Day Closes, “The People Who

ter—you can watch the entire film on Jenny’s tiny television if you want. It’s a rare, oppositional experience that nearly compensates for the cavalier attitude The Darkness generally takes toward frequent, brutal bloodletting.

I’m going to argue that this scene, long determined by game critics to be what gives The Darkness its overall value, is only half the story because of the choices presented to both Jackie and the player. For its part, the Darkness’ desire for death is absolute.

It eats the hearts of your enemies; it wants you to kill. This is its raison d’être.

Insensitivity to murder in shooters lets you easily paint in stark black-or-white tones where you should be aiming your reticule. Jackie isn’t obliged to any moral crises when pumping his uncle’s goons full of slugs, and it’s the player’s choice to pull the trigger (or indeed, to play at all). But when (spoiler) Jenny is kidnapped, we can fear the worst and indeed it comes.

Jackie finds Jenny, but the Darkness then takes control. “You are my puppet,” it hisses,

Live on the Hill” in Of Time and the City or the pub sing chorus of “You Belong to Me” in The Deep Blue Sea. These are the political-cultural connections Gus Van Sant omits from his depressive films—that’s why they’re stuck in the pathological gay hipster ghetto.

Davies’ masterpieces transcend the ghetto by exploring the pain, pleasure and days of all our soulful yearnings. No contemporary filmmaker is more profound. The Long Day Closes is a must-see and when The Deep Blue Sea opens, it, too, will provide insight into the various difficulties of loving.

pinning you against a window to a room where Jenny is being held at gunpoint. Jackie’s uncle has taken your actions as betrayal and as retaliation he pushes Jenny’s head against the glass.

Utterly powerless, the demonic power you’ve embraced as a player until now makes you bear witness as your girlfriend’s blood splatters across the pane. It almost feels like undue punishment for doing what’s expected in a FPS: killing. The fact that Jenny dies is less important than how it happens: with you, a merciless assassin, helplessly forced to watch.

Suddenly, you’re unsure how to feel about this cruel symbiosis. The vengeance that follows is characteristically gamey, but lingering doubts over the alleged effortlessness of bloodshed are impossible to ignore.

The Darkness is available now on PS3 and Xbox 360, though you may have to dig to find it.

Steve Haske is a Portland, Ore.-based journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @afraidtomerge.

AUCTIONS

Going, Going Auctions

By CAROLINE BIRENBAUM

T

he third week in March is Asian Week in the New York auction world, and this season there are many exceptional works on view, including selections from a number of outstanding private collections. If your interests lie elsewhere, there are mid-March sales of European art, American photographs, historical ephemera and, in Chicago, mid-20th-century design to preview.

Sotheby’s March 12 sale of Impressionist & Modern Art, including Russian Art, offers a modest selection of attractive drawings, paintings and sculpture including works by Pissarro, Vuillard, Valtat, Raoul and Jean Dufy, Henry Moore, Tchelitchew and Burliuk.

They begin their Asian Week sales with Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art March 19, followed March 20 by two sessions of Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art from private collections, including a group of carved rhinoceros horn cups and a pair of rare Qianlong period famille rose “heaven and earth” revolving brush pots.

The sale of Indian & Southeast Asian Works of Art March 21 is highlighted by a 13th-century South Indian bronze of Shiva and Uma, Hindu and Buddhist art from Nepal and a selection of 35 fine Indian miniatures from several American private collections.

Fine Classical Chinese Paintings make their first appearance of New York Asian Week with Sotheby’s two-session auction on March 22.

Sotheby’s, March 12, 10 a.m. Previews March 10–14. March 19, 10 a.m. Previews March 16–18. March 20, 10 a.m. & 2 p.m. Previews March 16–19. March 21, 10 a.m. Previews March 16–20. March 22, 10 a.m. & 2 p.m. Previews March 16–21. www.sothebys.com.

On March 12, Christie’s will sell three dozen Photographic Masterworks by William Eggleston to benefit the Eggleston Artistic Trust. In these color prints, the effects of light transform quotidian subjects like autos and kitchen sinks into something magical.

The best-known image is a low-angle shot of a seemingly monumental blue-green tricycle that dwarfs the tract houses in the background.

The Asian Week festivities at Christie’s begin March 20 with a two-session sale of the Doris Wiener Collection. This influential New York gallerist, who pioneered American

collecting of Indian and Southeast Asian art (and, incidentally, was married to wellknown modern jewelry designer Ed Wiener), amassed an amazing array of sculpture and painting from India, Tibet, Nepal, Thailand and Indonesia.

The week continues at Christie’s with two auctions March 21. The morning session offers Modern & Contemporary Indian and South Asian Art, while the afternoon session comprises Indian & Southeast Asian Art, Japanese & Korean bronzes, screens, ceramics, lacquers and armor. Two very focused private collections are featured the morning of March 22: Auspicious Treasures for Scholars from the Robert H. Blumenfield Collection and Fine Chinese Mirrors with elaborate cast bronze backs from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection.

The week concludes with an auction of 650plus Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. Part 1 begins March 22 and continues the next morning; Part 2 takes place the afternoon of March 23.

Christie’s: March 12, 5 p.m. Previews March 8–11. March 20, 10 a.m. & 2 p.m.; March 21, 10 a.m. & 2 p.m.; March 22, 10 a.m., 2 & 3 p.m; March 23, 10 & 11 a.m., 2 p.m. Previews March 16–21. www.christies.com.

Swann does not deal in Asian art. Their March 15 auction presents Part 2 of the Eric C. Caren Collection: How History Unfolds on Paper. Caren’s first collection, newspapers covering every major event in modern history, forms the core of the Newseum in Washington, D.C. For his second collection, Caren sought at least one item representing every event in modern history. Now that he has reached the point of multiple coverage, he’s parting with highlights from this second collection in a series of auctions. Much of the material is American and items date from the mid-16th to the late 20th century and range from rare books, manuscripts, newspapers and periodicals to autographs, photographs and posters.

Swann, March 15, 1:30 p.m. Previews March 10, 12–15. www.swanngalleries.com.

Wright’s semiannual Modern Design sale March 29 includes examples by George Nelson, Charles and Ray Eames, Greta Magnusson Grossman, Isamu Noguchi, Pierre Jeanneret, George Nakashima, Guido Gambone and Jordan Mozer.

Wright, Chicago, Ill., March 29, 1 p.m. Previews March 22–24, 26–28. www.wright20.com.

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Shop online at www.jasonoffice.com 212-279-7455 • 800-875-7455 Monday-Friday 7am-6pm 140 West 31st Street between 6th & 7th Aves March 7, 2012 | CityArts 17

THE CITyARTS INTERvIEW

flash Rosenberg Every dawn, as sunlight glinting off the top spire of the Empire State Building streams through the skylight positioned just over Flash Rosenberg’s bed, she springs up, eager for the fun of doing Flash work.

She’s an award-winning filmmaker, a 2011 Guggenheim fellow in film and video, a performer in storytelling venues like Monologues and Madness and The Moth and a poet with Brevitas, and her audio snapshots—“Flash Moments”—were a daily public radio feature.

Her cartoons, drawings and essays appear in the New York Times and elsewhere. She advises scientists on “translating complicated information into images” and, as artist-in-residence for the LIVE from the NYPL talks, draws real-time “Conversation Portraits” that animate the discussions between authors.

In all that she does— and is there anything she can’t do?—her agile spirit teases out fresh ways of viewing the world and nudges us toward the great cosmic joke at the center of it all. Over an artfully arranged spread, including home-baked bread, in her loft packed with art past, present and future and shared with three turtles rescued from a Chinatown soup pot, this woman of more questions than assertions sat down to discuss her work with CityArts.

[Elena Oumano]

Now I’m using a pen [instead of a camera] to make snapshots of what I think, not just what I see. It’s a sensual pleasure to be in the midst of what is happening with an official duty to make a concise summary of it. Drawing challenges me to be even more concise.

To flatten the whole intrigue into a gesture using a mere line!

I have always found it exciting to translate the essence of a thought, experience or moment into a visual memory. The trick is to make big ideas small enough to be easily understandable without diminishing them. I’m trying to mingle what is said with how I react, with what my mind sees—to tickle a fluency in the languages of awareness.

My work as a cartoonist, photographer, writer and performer are synthesized into one unified splurge for the Conversation Portraits I create for the New York Public Library. Obviously, these animations involve drawing. While requiring skill and photographic apparatus to capture the drawing, I want to put the “ing” back in drawing. The action of the pen making an idea visible is more exciting to me than the final illustration. I videotape my live drawings using a device called a document camera. This gizmo lets me be in charge of zooming in and out, so you get to see the drawing with me. This helps the work feel intimate, like you are sharing the discussion from inside my head.

My work as a performer taught me how to write and how to hear writing. Seeing words land on people made me strive to say the most in the least amount of words. This experience guides the way I edit a 90-minute discussion into a four- to six-minute anima-

MOST PEOPLE SPEND THEIR AWARENESS COMPLAINING. THEy USE UP THEIR ATTENTION

By TELLING yOU EvERyTHING THAT’S WRONG. I LIkE TO SPEND My AWARENESS NOTICING WHAT’S fUNNy OR IRONIC.

Most of us need time to consider the meaning of what we are experiencing, but you seem to get it instantly in your Conversation Portraits.

I capture words and ideas using the mindset and physical reflexes learned from years of work as a photographer and performer.

18 CityArts | March 7, 2012

tion. I’m making a snapshot of what I hear.

On my business card, I call myself an “Attention Span for Hire,” because I am very interested in how we pay attention. One of my questions is: How come, no matter how hard I try to draw better, it still always looks like I did it? I’m not trying to have a style. My theory is that each person only has a specific amount of patience for reality. We look at something for a while then at a certain point, in your own nanosecond, go, “That’s enough,” and make up the rest.

Part of it is that you see things in such an open way, without the usual limits.

Most people spend their awareness complaining. They use up their attention by telling you everything that’s wrong. I like to spend my awareness noticing what’s funny or ironic. I like to imagine an alternate way of interpreting what’s happening, to juggle the way it should be with what could be.

Then, instead of being pissed off, you can laugh. It’s like seeing things through a photographer’s lens. Zoom in. Then, if you’re annoyed by some detail, zoom back out to view it from a wider angle.

Changing perspective, changing the context, changes your attitude. If it seems like everything’s terrible, zoom in to a specific detail to see what’s good. If some petty issue is nagging your soul, zoom out to get the bigger picture. Keep changing your focal length to adjust how you frame your experience in a way that helps you be present for others and not be stuck with only your own dilemma.

Flash Rosenberg’s Conversation Portraits will appear in the Lower East Side Film Festival March 10 (George Prochnik) and 11 (Keith Richards). Check lesfilmfestival. com for locations. These and others can also be viewed at vimeo.com/ flashrosenberg/videos.

NOHRA HAIME GALLERY 730 FIFTH AVENUE

VALERIE HIRD through March 10th

FRANCISCA SUTIL March - April

EVE SONNEMAN March 14 - April 28th

NEW YORK, NY.10019

212-888-3550 FAX:212-888-7869 gallery@nohrahaimegallery.com

March 7, 2012 | CityArts 19

Erik Thomsen Asian Art

Scenes from the Tale of Genji Edo Period (1615 – 1868), 17th century, Japan · ink, mineral colors, gofun, gold and gold leaf on paper Detail from a two-panel folding screen · size: H 19 ½" × W 57 ½" (50 × 146 cm)

Japanese screens · paintings · makie gold lacquer · bamboo baskets · tea ceramics

Exhibiting during Asia Week: JADA 2012: An Exhibition by the Japanese Art Dealers Association Ukrainian Institute, 1 East 79th Street at Fifth Avenue, NYC March 17 – 21, 2012 Japanese Paintings: Screens and Scrolls from the 17th through the 20th Centuries Gallery exhibition at 23 East 67th Street, NYC March 14 – April 27, 2012

20 CityArts | March 7, 2012

Japanese Art Dealers Association of New York www.jada-ny.org