cityArts March 11, 2010

MARCH 9, 2010 Volume 2, Issue 5

With a remarkable number of exhibitions, auctions and events, March has become the month of Asian art

BY VALERIE GLADSTONE orth light floods the Kaikodo gallery, illuminating a 17th-century Chinese scroll with its scene of a robed scholar contemplating a waterfall tumbling down jagged rocks. Perched high in an airy duplex above East 79th Street, the gallery specializes in Asian art, and the light is a perfect complement for the silvery green of a 10th-century celadon pitcher, or the group of small, dignified Buddhist, giltbronze votive figures.

Carol Conover, the gallery’s director, hopes this year’s Asia Week New York—taking place March 20 through 28—will awaken art lovers everywhere to the treasures in the field. “Of course, I’m a longtime convert,” she admits, casting a glance at a green-and-gold ceramic headrest decorated with a playful lion. “There’s been a big increase in interest in Asian art in recent years. Now everyone can see why.”

While many Asian galleries sell at least half of their objects to museums and universities— with the price of items soaring into the millions—they also find buyers for the other half among seasoned collectors and ordinary citizens who appreciate the art’s allure.

“It’s always enjoyed a niche audience,” says Amy Poster, curator emeritus of the Brooklyn Museum Asian Art Department.

“But people have become more attuned to Eastern philosophies and artistic milieus.

They are better read and travel more widely.

People who collected modern Western masters look to Asia. After all, Asia isn’t very far away anymore. It’s a well-priced field, with works that may be underappreciated, and thus, very affordable.”

Though Asian art fairs are not new to the city, at no other time has the Asian Art Dealers Association, a dealer-run organization composed of 30 international specialists, made such a concerted effort to arrange appealing events for the public. In fact, Asia Week is not a traditional fair and since it coincides with a number of other related exhibitions, auctions and events, March is the unofficial month of Asian art.

Unlike the Haughton International Asian Art Fair—which took place from 1996 until last year, and had booths in one central location—Asia Week begins with a special weekend of open houses March 20 and 21, when New York gallery owners

Photo © Trustees of The British Museum.

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Look East Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Sakata Kaidomaru Wrestles with a Giant Carp,” c. 1837, on view at Japan Society March 12 through June 13.

CONTINUED on page 9

InthisIssue 6 Classical Jay Nordlinger on young pianist Rafal Blechacz, as well as composer Christopher Rouse and the Met Opera’s current La Bohème.

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9 Museums

Go see Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves at the Morgan Library & Museum, says Lance Esplund.

10 At the Galleries

Reviews: Nozkowski’s Works on Paper 1991–2008; Lyle Ashton Harris’ Ghana; Laura Dodson: Between States; Ken Price at Matthew Marks Gallery; Milton Avery: Industrial Revelations; Accumulation at Allan Stone Gallery; Karl Fritsch + Richard Wathen at Salon 94 Freeman’s; Lesley Dills’ Passion Play; and Solace at Austrian Cultural Forum.

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13 Dance & Jazz

Simon Keenlyside tells Joel Lobenthal that he’s “strong as a horse” and plays Hamlet in the Met’s current production.

Howard Mandel takes in the breadth of female contributions to jazz in the city.

14 Arts Agenda

Gallery Openings, Jazz, Classical, Theater, Auctions, Art Events and more.

18 Paint the Town by Amanda Gordon

At the gala preview of the Art Show organized by the Art Dealers Association of America; the Museum of Modern Art’s Armory Show Party; the Jewish Museum’s Surreal Soirée at the Waldorf-Astoria; a book party for Edward Jay Epstein and more.

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InBrief OSS 117: Lost in Rio is part of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.

Meet Cute (in French) The Film Society at Lincoln Center’s annual surveys of contemporary international cinema (mostly) provide attendants with the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. The majority of the highlighted films in this year’s slate of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, taking place Mar. 11-21, recalls the domestic strife of home with only a moderate amount of the bite that’s typically excised from such nostalgia.

From the realm of populist escapism, there’s OSS 117: Lost in Rio, a sequel to the popular spoof of France’s own James Bond.

An effortlessly charming Jean Dujardin plays a caricature of that character’s already outdated and very un-PC sense of entitlement. From the arthouse cinema of gross sentiment comes Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart.

While Gondry is better known for such fantasy flicks as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he presents this inexplicable documentary that follows the director’s aunt’s life as a teacher in rural France. (Gondry will also be on hand

Mar. 15 for a “conversation,” so maybe you can ask him in person why the switch in material.)

It says a lot about this year’s slate that the most “daring” film is a revival of Jules Dassin’s The Law (1959), a hard-boiled melodrama set in sunny Italy that leaves none of its stars, from Yves Montand to Gina Lollobrigida, unsullied by a good amount of dirt (everybody’s more than a little crooked in the film, especially Lollobrigida’s femme fatale).

But there’s hope yet for Francophiles.

Though Riad Sattouf’s French Kissers walks and certainly talks like a Gallic version of Superbad, it stands apart from Gregg Mottola’s horndog valentine by overtly telling us that its wistful look back at high school stems from contemporary depression. So says the bipolar mother of Hervé (Vincent Lacoste), the more sexually active of the film’s zit-riddled undynamic duo, right before she walks in on him mid-stroke just to tease him about his selfpleasure (“A man can’t jerk-off in peace in this house!”). The comedy of the film isn’t really about our hormonal heroes’ sexual maturation

Improvisation on ICE

but rather what they do after Hervé starts to get some and realizes he still has no idea what he’s doing wrong. Ah, jeunesse!

Axelle Ropert’s The Wolberg Family is equally vinegary, following a small-town mayor and his family as they start to fall apart for the simple reason that they are all now beginning to really feel the weight of growing old. The Wolbergs’ despair is only immediately due to an infidelity and a fatal disease.

Ultimately, their existential crisis stems from a heady Gnostic fear: “The only thing certain is the existence of a secret violence that upsets everything.” Amongst films that don’t have the guts to make a decisive choice between the comforts of home and the perils of the unknown, the terror of the Wolbergs’ indecision looks a lot like progress. (Simon Abrams) Mar. 11-21, Walter Reade Theater, W. 65th St. (betw. Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.), 212721-6500; various times (opening night Mar. 11 at Alice Tully Hall; 7, $20-$25), general admission $9-$15.

In the world of avant-garde chamber music, there is a long—yet misguided—battle between musical improvisation and musical notation. The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is doing its part to quell this skirmish with its On & Off the Page concert series. The latest installment, titled “Cut/ Paste,” arrives at the new mecca for the new music scene, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Mar. 16.

ICE members will collaborate with four New York-based musical artists in an effort to blur the line between the written and spontaneous. Up-and-comers Peter Evans, Cory Smythe, Steve Lehman and Weasel Walter take the reins for their own miniature set, the combination of which will result in a show that promises to be diverse and unique.

According to Joshua Rubin, ICE’s program director, the abbreviated sets will highlight each artists’ individual style. Jazz, chamber, classical and electro-acoustic are just some of the genres audience members can expect to hear from these musicians/composers.

Because of the constricted time, the four will have to explore their use or disuse of notation quickly, offering brief auditory journeys. ICE was formed in 2001 and currently performs more than 50 concerts a year in the United States and abroad. They recently performed early works by John Adams at the Mostly Mozart Festival of Lincoln Center and have had multiple engagements at the Miller Theatre.

“Cut/Paste” will tear and glue, rip and bind different music, some of which will make it to the page and while some will only surface the night of the concert. The dichotomy between these divergent approaches is at the crux of On & Off the Page.

This musical butting of heads is something saxophonist Steve Lehman is trying to play against. “The view of spontaneity being the opposite of something that’s written down or prepared doesn’t overlap with what people believe from most improvisational communities, ” explains Lehman. “The terms are problematic.”

Whatever those terms may be, it will no doubt prove difficult to define this concert with any exact words. Not fully instrumental

March 9, 2010 | City Arts

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InBrief (do computers count as an instrument?) and not restricted to any one category, the music must speak for itself. (Bonnie Rosenberg) Mar. 16 at (Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St. (betw. Thompson & Sullivan Sts.), 212505-3474; 6:30, $10/$12.

tion with BAC Mar. 10, in which it will spend three to four months of the year performing as the center’s resident theater company—a residency that begins with the reprisal of the musical North Atlantic, which the group premiered in 1983. Wooster Group producer Cynthia Hedstrom said the company felt the show was most fitting for the times.

“Each time we revisit North Atlantic we find new elements, so it becomes a production relevant to our particular time and a company and our time as Americans,” Hedstrom said.

“We’re coming back to the piece with the ambi-

ance of 2010 and looking at this piece, which is about the American military. It’s very interesting to come back to this piece at this time.”

Makishi called The Wooster Group “the driving force behind the renovations”; a point Hedstrom happily seconded, saying the company is used to performing in smaller spaces and that The Wooster Group is especially excited about staging productions in the larger space Jerome Robbins Theater affords, which was renovated largely to the group’s specifications in terms of seating, stage size and acoustics.

“It’s wonderful when you collaborate with

another organization,” Hedstrom said. “You learn things. You share information. You share resources, and it’s been really a pleasure to collaborate with the staff at the Baryshnikov Center. The theater is a very different kind of place than we’ve performed in because it’s a very high space. North Atlantic fits in the space, but we’re looking at developing new productions that are specifically for the dimensions and acoustics of this theater. We will be showing new work there next season, but we haven’t made any decisions yet.” (Jordan Galloway)

ArtNews he Frick Collection has just announced the appointment of Dr. Stephen J. Bury to the post of Andrew J. Mellon Chief Librarian at the Frick Reference Library… Artlog is launching Artlog Live during The Armory Show Arts Week. These social media mavens will utilize Twitter, text messaging and the web to present live updates from fair organizers, galleries, press, artists and collectors.

INTAR will join New York University’s Department of English and its program in Dramatic Literature to celebrate the 80th birthday of playwright, director and teacher Maria Irene Fornés. NYU faculty members will present a festival of Fornés plays at a number of Off-Broadway theaters, including INTAR, New World Stages, Cherry Lane and Theater for the New City… The New York Choral Society just announced its Winter Gala, Mar. 11, which will honor Eve Queler, music director of the The Opera Orchestra of New York, composer Stephen Paulus and Haruko Smith, founder and chairman of September Concert Foundation… Discerning minds at the Mattress Factory (the contemporary arts center) and Deeplocal (a new media development and marketing company) in Pittsburgh have developed the ultimate on-the-go tool for the contemporary art aficionados: an iPhone app that tells you if what you’re looking at is truly art. A one-click answer to one of art’s greatest debates… To open its spring season, The National Chorale is presenting Mozart’s Requiem and Hayden’s Paukenmesse, both will be conducted by Martin Josman at Avery Fisher Hall Mar. 19… Alan Gilbert and The New York Philharmonic have just announced their 2010-11 season. Beginning with a gala opening night Sept. 22, this season will include the U.S. premiere of a new work by jazz trumpet legend and composer Wynton Marsalis… Following the departure of its founding artistic director, Christopher Wheeldon, Morphoses has announced a new curatorial model in which artists from various disciplines will assume the role of resident artist for one season… The City’s Department of Buildings just announced the winner of UrbanShed, its international design competition for subway shelters. University of Pennsylvania student Young-Hwan Choi won with his Urban Umbrella design… The Brooklyn Academy of Music has announced its 2010 Spring season, which will include a production of Strindberg’s Creditors, directed by Alan Rickman. An artist talk with Rickman is also sceduled during the show’s run… The Orchestra of St. Luke’s and The Jerome Robbins Foundation, in partnership with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Charles E. Culpepper Arts and Culture Grants, have commissioned a new work from choreographer Larry Keigwin. The first performances will be at Keigwin + Company’s Joyce Theater engagement Mar. 16 through 21, and at the OSL’s Spring 2010 Arts Education Concerts for New York City school students, which will take place at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center Mar. 24 through 26… Off-Broadway’s 11-time Obie Award-winning Soho Rep is the recipient of a $200,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help support the company’s work over the next several seasons… BAM has just announced plans to break ground for the BAM Hamm Archive Center, at 230 Ashland Place in Fort Greene, through a generous gift from board member Charles J. Hamm and his wife, Irene. The sum will enable BAM to purchase the ground floor of the Forte building and build a home for the institution’s archival holdings dating back to 1857… More than 70 fine art galleries will participate in the Association of International Photography Dealers’ Photography Show, kicking off Mar. 18 at The Park Avenue Armory.

El Museo del Barrio, the Latino museum in East Harlem, announced that its director and chief executive, Julian Zugazagoitia, is leaving this summer. Zugazagoitia will become director and chief executive of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

Got news? Email us at CityArts@ManhattanMedia.com.

Steven Gunther

T Frances McDormand and Kate Valk in North Atlantic.

Moving Uptown When the Baryshnikov Arts Center decided to open its new Jerome Robbins Theater in Hell’s Kitchen, conversations quickly turned to who would christen the space as the first resident theater company. From the very beginning, BAC executive director Stanford Makishi said The Wooster Group was at the top of the list.

“The ensemble represents the kind of creative thinking and exploration the BAC is interested in,” Makishi explained. “It’s always forward looking, and the level of artistry they put in to any of their productions is really at the highest level. Everything is so much at the top of their field.”

The Wooster Group, a multimedia theater company known for its pioneering performance aesthetic, starts a three-year collabora-

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Bringing Ballet to Fresh Soil

When à ngel Corella, American Ballet Theater superstar, first started talking about founding a ballet company in his native Spain, no one thought he could do it. Not only did hardcore economic realities seem against him, so did Spain’s historic inability to support a ballet company.

While ballet enjoys a long tradition in most European counties, it has never put down roots in Spain. But eight years after establishing a foundation to explore the possibility, he presented his company’s first season in Madrid in 2008, impressing audiences with his troupe of 45 dancers, who shone in works

by Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp and Natalia Markova.

Now, after more than a year of performing in Spain, Corella Ballet Castilla y León makes its American debut at the City Center March 17 through 20. The repertory includes Corella’s first ballet, String Sextet, inspired by Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir of Florence, Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV and the world premiere of Solea, a pas de deux by the flamenco dancer and choreographer María PagÊs, featuring Corella and his sister Carmen.

Now 35, Corella promised himself when

he left Spain to join Ballet Theater in 1995 that he would return to give Spanish dancers advantages that he never had. “I think we have something special to contribute to dance as a people,� he told me. “It’s a kind of energy. We’re intensely passionate. We’ll try anything. It’s not that we don’t perform like that in non-Spanish companies; it’s only that there’s nothing like being nurtured at home. I felt awful when I had to leave.�

But Corella had no choice. Trained at the Victor Ullate ballet school in Madrid, he began winning international dance prizes in his teens. Russian ballerina and choreographer Natalie Markova saw him in a competition in Paris and, awed by his talent, recommended him to Ballet Theater. One year after joining, he made principal dancer.

Since then, he has performed as a guest with every major ballet company in the world.

The last few years, he toured Spain with his own company, Ă ngel Corella & Stars of the American Ballet, to test the waters. “I discovered that the Spanish were ready for ballet,â€? he says.

And now it’s time for New York to get ready for Corella. “It’s been tough getting here,� he said, “and I don’t expect it will get easier. But we will survive. I’m thrilled to be coming to New York, it’s my second home.�

(Valerie Gladstone)

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March 9, 2010 | City Arts

ClassicalMUSIC

Puppyish Glee and Other Musical Traits A young pianist, a seasoned composer and a performance of ‘La Bohème’

BY JAY NORDLINGER AFAL BLECHACZ IS a hotshot pianist, a young Pole. He is 24, though he looks about 16. When I first heard him, he had just turned 23 and looked about 12. He won the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2005, age 20. Naturally, his countrymen took pride.

There had last been a Polish win in 1975, when Krystian Zimerman was the victor.

On a recent Friday night, Blechacz came to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to give a recital. The program he played was a mixed one: some Baroque music, some music of the Classical period, some Romanticism, some French Impressionism. His composers were Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Debussy. This is the sort of program that musicians offer when they are first starting out. They want to show, or are asked to show, what they can do in a variety of genres. As they get older, they tend to narrow down: offering one-composer evenings and the like.

This is a shame, really, because a mixed program can give you a wonderful evening.

Think of a multi-course meal, interesting, well-balanced and satisfying.

Blechacz is a satisfying pianist. He has an obvious eagerness about music, a keen desire to play the piano. There is sometimes even a puppyish glee. The audience cannot help responding to this. Blechacz has a good technique and general musical intelligence.

He also has some fire, some youthful impetuosity—may he never lose this, as maturation sets in.

There are some problems: Blechacz sometimes falls into boxiness or a mechanical, clattering state. In a Mozart sonata, there were some harsh, out-of-place accents. The music could have used more grace and lilt, a surer sense of line. Also, sound is not a specialty for Blechacz: You would not go to this pianist for beauty of sound. And you need a broader palette of colors truly to convey Debussy.

Reservations aside, Blechacz is a bright, joyful addition to the musical scene. He grins, you grin.

Rafal Blechacz at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw.

R

A Private Love Letter from Christopher Rouse Christopher Rouse is a composer whose works get around. He is an American, born in 1949, and he has the badges of a successful career: many grants and commissions; a Guggenheim fellowship; a Pulitzer prize; a position teaching at the Juilliard School.

He’s a composer of clear competence, even if some of his works are more persuasive than others. Who of us hits a home run—or even a double—every time?

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The New York Philharmonic commissioned a piece from him and premiered it in February. It has a Russian title, Odna Zhizn, which means “A Life,” and it is “For Natasha.” Rouse explained in a program note that the piece was “composed in homage to a person of Russian ancestry who is very dear to me.” And “virtually all of the music is focused on the spelling of names and other phrases.”

He said he wouldn’t detail his “code,” as he called it, but “each letter of the alphabet is assigned a pitch and (occasionally) a duration,” and words are “spelled out musically” in this fashion. He hopes Odna Zhizn functions both as a “public portrayal of an extraordinary life” and as a “private love letter.”

We can be sure that this piece means a lot to him. What does it mean to us?

It bears many of the hallmarks of modern music—particularly modern American music—in general. There is lots of percussion, of varying types. I often say that today’s music has more pots and pans than Williams-Sonoma. There are spooky, startling sounds, as from a jungle at night.

There are sudden fortissimos and sudden pianissimos. There is a dose of minimalism, certainly repetition. There are traces of Bernstein (or at least I so perceived). There

are many neat effects—but do they add up to genuine drama and genuine emotion?

Often, hearing a new work, I have the depressing feeling that I have heard it before, many times. This is supposed to be an age of anything-goes, and yet a consensus asserts itself. Will Odna Zhizn have much of a life beyond its first performances? I have my doubts, but I have been wrong before, let me assure you.

Suffering with Puccini The Metropolitan Opera had a Bohème bursting with promise. Anna Netrebko, the Russian star, was in the title role; Piotr Beczala, the superb Polish tenor, was Rodolfo; Gerald Finley, the refined Canadian baritone, was Marcello. It was an evening to look forward to, but it was an evening that suffered.

Act I of this production, a Zeffirelli, has the singers at the back of the stage. And this made it tough for the listener, because there was not a lot of vocal heft in the cast.

Beczala was woefully underpowered. I thought, “He is practically a toy Rodolfo.”

He strained and strangled, perhaps in an effort to be louder. He flatted badly and slid around like a pop singer. This is most uncharacteristic of Beczala.

Finley sang well enough, but he sounded terribly distant in Act I. Not everyone is made for grand opera, and there is nothing wrong with shining in more lyric roles, as both Finley and Beczala do. As for Netrebko, she was fine, adequate. Her opening aria earned a solid B. But if she had sung this way at the beginning of her career, would she have rocketed to stardom?

(A stardom well deserved, by the way.)

Presiding in the pit was Marco Armiliato, a good and proven conductor who made a hash of Act I: He raced through it, employing breakneck tempos. This did not convey youthful high spirits; it conveyed mania and unmusicality. The score barely had time to breathe, charm or delight. Act II is a kind of scherzo and should contrast with Act I. This did not happen. On the plus side, Finley and other singers got to sing at the front of the stage and were more audible. Nicole Cabell, an American soprano, executed Musetta with decent flair.

Incidentally, the Met is ditching its Zeffirelli productions, one by one. Audiences love this Bohème, and they are right. I don’t envy the next producer of a Met Bohème. Let him or her do something quite different from the Zeffirelli while keeping faith with Puccini.

A tall but fulfillable order. <

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MUSEUMS

A Hell of a Show The intricate Catherine’s Hours is on display in all its lavish beauty

BY LANCE ESPLUND special gifts. Some cost as much as a house—or f you have never been to the Morgan vineyard. The wealthier you were, the more Library & Museum because you have ornate and individualized were your books of been put off by what you imagine to be Hours. Catherine spared no expense on Kitty. a stuffy collection of musty old books The Cleves Hours is house-pet scale written in long-dead languages, then by (though very thick, Kitty is a manageable all means finally set aside your misconceptions 7-and-a-half-inches tall by 5-inches wide). and see Demons and Devotion: The Hours Extraordinarily ambitious, Kitty is a lioness of Catherine of Cleves. During its original in scope and program. Lavishly illustrated 1964/66 incarnation at the Morgan, it was with meticulous precision, the Cleves Hours described in the New York Times as what comprises not only the customary Hours of “may prove to be the most dazzling art the Virgin and Office of the Dead but also exhibition of the season.” The book’s vivid prayers for the Hours of every day of the juxtaposition of joyful Paradise with frightful week, complemented with an appropriate Hell—and its threats of torture, fire, demons votive Mass and an unusually rich suite of and damnation—remains alive and well in this 57 Suffrages, or petitions to individual saints. absolutely stunning exhibition.

It also contains l57 fantastical miniatures Organized by the Morgan’s Roger Wieck, (originally 168). a curator of Medieval and Renaissance Entirely handwritten and handmade, Manuscripts, Demons and Devotion Catherine’s Hours came on the eve of centers on the masterfully illustrated the printing revolution that commenced Dutch illuminated manuscript, “The with Gutenberg around 1450. (Printing Hours of Catherine of Cleves,” which was made books of Hours more affordable and commissioned around 1440 by Catherine, illuminated manuscripts eventually obsolete.) duchess of Guelders and countess of Zutphen Kitty, looking forward and back, is a mixed (1417-76). “The Book of Hours of Catherine breed. The Cleves Hours was informed of Cleves,” affectionately referred to by

by Netherlandish and early Renaissance Morgan curators as “Kitty” (and, we are told, realism—that of Jan van Eyck, Rogier van whatever Kitty wants, Kitty gets), is one of der Weyden and Robert Campin—and it the most famous books of Hours—as well also anticipated 17th-century Dutch genre as the most frequently cited and reproduced painting. But there is something in the Cleves’ manuscript in the Morgan’s collection. And style, especially in its fantastical depictions of not without cause: Catherine’s Hours is one Hell—bizarre imagery that link that of earlier of the most beautiful and intricate books of Hours ever made.

The wealthier you were, the more The occasion for the ornate and individualized were show is that of a muchyour books of Hours. Catherine needed restoration. The Cleves Hours, created by spared no expense on Kitty. an anonymous Utrecht artist known as the Master of Catherine Romanesque “Last Judgment” tympanum of Cleves, was disbound in the 1850s by sculpture to that of the later grotesque an unscrupulous French bookseller. After creations of Hieronymus Bosch—that holds dividing its 738 pages into two shuffled piles, firm to the Middle Ages. he bound and sold Catherine’s Hours as two Renaissance man may have seen himself separate manuscripts. (We can assume that at the center of the universe, but in the Kitty was not pleased.) The Morgan acquired margins—and occasionally center stage—of both volumes in 1963 and 1970, respectively, the Cleves Hours lurk demons and flying and will soon bound their leaves (11 are monsters in wait: signs that the sun has presumed missing) in a single volume and in not yet completely risen on the Dark Ages. their original order. (Exact facsimiles, one of Catherine’s Hours still belongs to a world which you can thumb through in the exhibit, when most Europeans were illiterate—when will be available for $15,000 each.) images spoke louder than words.

During the Middle Ages and the And the images in the Cleves Hours speak Renaissance, illustrated books of Hours volumes. Nearly 100 of its masterpieces are were popular and practical status symbols on view in sequential order at the Morgan. with devotions that their owners could pray Set in domestic interiors and resplendent, throughout the day. Both the literate and illiterate naturalistic landscapes—alive with space, light owned books of Hours and gave them as and air—Catherine’s scenes are surrounded

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Detail of “Souls Released from Purgatory” from Hours of Catherine of Cleves.

by and integrated with brilliantly decorated, gold-studded borders.

Catherine’s pages twinkle with light.

Usually illuminated manuscript borders were copied, traced and repeated; here, no two are alike. Variations on a theme, Catherine’s marginalia (or frames) are ingeniously interrelated and symphonic. The borders are interlacing worlds within worlds that sometimes steal the show from the main illustration. Catherine’s marginalia, speckled with flowers and gold, and often held together by vines, are intricately woven with insects, jewelry, feathers, shellfish, coins, cages, pretzels, demons, angels, flora and fauna, as well as religious or domestic scenes, including those of roasting poultry, tapping beer, baking bread, hunting and fishing; the Sacrifice of Isaac; and, below the image of the “Man of Sorrows Standing on the Cross,” Christ squeezed in a wine press.

Despite its variegated themes and conflicting imagery, the Cleves Hours is kept in harmony through its light and atmosphere.

Its repeated colors, besides gold leaf, are chilly pinks, greens, reds, yellows, violets and blues—which give the book the freshness and promise of spring. This metaphoric coloration suggests that the Cleves Hours has a generally optimistic temperament. Though the book is at times frighteningly violent, its robust youthfulness gives Kitty a hopeful air that counters its most damning and mercurial

aspects; as if Paradise and Hell—Demons and Devotion—go hand-in-hand.

One of the most famous scenes in the Cleves Hours is “Three Mouths of Hell,” which gives new meaning to the nickname “Kitty.” Here, Hell is a gruesome castle that is also a multi-mouthed feline. Above, the damned are being torn asunder by winged-demons and dropped into the castle’s turrets—the black cat’s paws—whose finials are boiling cauldrons. Below, the gate of Hell is depicted as another lion’s mouth. Its yellow lips, suggesting fiery bat wings and a vagina dentata, are spread wide open to receive wheelbarrows of naked souls, who are speared like olives by flying demons and thrown into the fire. But that’s not all to this freakish nest of mouths: The third mouth of Hell, with licking flames in place of teeth, opens inside that of the gate. Its gullet is a boiling cauldron, overflowing with the reprobates. Surrounding this framed image is a border of colorful leaves and flowers.

Though initially decorative, in time they tend to move like lapping tongues, or like a cat toying with the borders of Hell. It seems there is no denying her: What Kitty wants, Kitty most definitely gets. <

Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves through May 2.

The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Ave. , 212-685-0008.

ASIAN ART from page 1 and private dealers, along with others in the United States, France, England, Italy and Japan, will offer visitors a wide variety of outstanding works of art. Along with the full scope of ancient through contemporary arts represented—from China, India, Nepal, Tibet, Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea—collectors are also invited to attend lectures and receptions. Special activities are planned at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, China Institute, Korea Society and Rubin Museum of Art. It also coincides with two impressive exhibits: Arts of Ancient Viet Nam at Asia Society and the Japan Society’s Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection.

The week also coincides with sales of Asian art at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Doyle New York. If that’s not enough to satisfy you, the New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show, an important fair for Chinese and Japanese antique ceramics and textiles, takes place March 24 through 28, and I.M. Chait will present the Important Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art Auction March 17 as well.

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t’s an understatement, but no Asian art market is hotter than the Chinese. In the New York auctions last September, Christie’s dominated with $36.5 million in Asian art sales, outdoing Sotheby’s total of $19.2 million, with the largest percentage of sales being Chinese objects and paintings.

Though long collected by Europeans, Americans and Japanese, who started in the 8th century, their art now draws far more Chinese, the big favorites including Imperial period jade, paintings and porcelain. “They have a lot of buying power,” Conover says.

“It used to be just Hong Kong and Taiwan, now Chinese from the mainland are buying.

Consequently, prices have gone through the roof. They want to buy back their culture.”

Chinese national institutions have also gotten into the swing of things. “With the vast fortunes recently made there, [the Chinese] are creating private museums, which are funded by companies,” explains Conor Mahony, president of the Chinese Porcelain Company. “The trend started in Hong Kong and now it’s spread to Beijing.” Mahony’s gallery will present Natural Forms in Chinese Ink Painting, eight new works from three of the most celebrated contemporary Chinese artists, Liu Dan, Zeng Xiaojun and Chun-yi Lee, giving some idea of the current vibrancy in the field.

With Japan in a recession, the Japanese have not been very active in the market but European and American collectors remain just as enchanted with their works. Hiroshi Yanagi Oriental Art from Kyoto, which will be shown at Berry-Hill Galleries, is bringing 30 significant pieces—from the 12th to the

early 20th centuries—including Buddhist sculptures, ceramics, lacquer objects, folding screens and hanging scrolls by leading masters. To get some idea of the quality on view, one has only to see the dramatic, almost 6-foot-tall, 14th-century wooden sculpture of Myoken Bosatsu, the deity of the Polar Star and of the Big Dipper, who was invoked for relief in disasters or to prevent calamities.

Japanese art dealer Joan Mirviss enjoys introducing artists to American audiences, so for Asia Week she decided on Nagae Shigekazu, one of the world’s leading sculptors in porcelain and well known to the cognoscenti. He adapts the traditional method for mass-producing porcelain wares in order to create sensuous white sculptures. The two works in Forms in Succession look like liquid sheets of origami. “Even though the market goes up and down, I still have many of the same collectors I started with in the 1970s,” Mirviss explains. “They may have begun with one small piece but now some of them are on museum boards, and art has become a major force in their lives. On the other side, I don’t think there’s anything more exciting than being able to call an artist and say, ‘I just sold one of your works to the Metropolitan Museum,’ or even, ‘They’re going to feature something of yours on a postcard?”

To give some idea of the breadth of Asia Week’s offerings, one only need wander from Mirviss’ space to Carlton Rochell’s gallery, which features works from India, the Himalayas and Tibet. Worlds and centuries separate Shigekazu’s pristine and fluid sculpture and the robust, rotund and sexually eager 10th-century Ganesha sandstone figure in his space. Delightful pieces like this partly account for the upsurge in interest in Indian art, but Rochell suggests another. “The main reason it’s so popular right now is very simply that generally it’s more affordable” Rochell says. “Indians have not collected classical Indian art. You can buy an Indian masterpiece for far less than one from either China or Japan. But you need to do some homework. India has a very long history and three religions. You should immerse yourself to understand the complexity.”

His dictum applies to the art of every Asian region. Keum Ja Kang, president and founder of the Kang Collection of Korean Art, has been educating novices in the art of her country for decades. Sitting in her tranquil gallery, an earthenware pot of Korean tea steaming in front of her, she explains how few connoisseurs there were in the United States when she arrived 40 years ago to study at Columbia University. History played a big part in the dearth of Korean art scholarship, since the Japanese occupied Korea from 1910-1945, and not long afterwards, it lost three million people in the Korean War. Kang would not be stopped, however, and as a young wife and mother in New York, she frequently went on buying trips to Seoul,

eventually establishing the first important Korean gallery in the United States in 1981.

“Everything has changed now,” she says.

“We have more and more Korean curators at the museums. People who really know and love our art. It’s scarce because of our history, but there’s more than enough to fill major collections.” As worthy of any museum, she calls attention to the eight-panel, 19th-century folding screen populated with the sun, clouds, rocks, water, the long-lived pine and tortoise, the evergreen bamboo, the bright vermillion immortal fungus, and the crane and deer— messengers of the Daoist immortals who may live over 1,000 years. Titled “Ten Symbols of Longevity,” it is part of the exhibition Harmony and Nature: Auspicious Symbols in Korean Art. Today, Korea boosts its art. Just last week, the country inaugurated the first Korean Art Fair in New York. Demand isn’t new, however: Because of the scarcity of works, prices in the late 1990s went through the roof, recalls dealer Jiyoung Koo, former Head of the Korean Art Department at Sotheby’s New York. “They would just add a zero to any estimate on Korean art,” she explains.

“But things have quieted down. Today, anything over 50 years old can’t be taken out of the country and that, of course, only adds to the scarcity. Still, enough is around and a lot has been misidentified as Chinese or Japanese.” At Koo New York, she will exhibit Commemoration & Compassion: Korean Court and Buddhist Treasures.

Max Rutherston, director of Londonbased Sydney L. Moss, offers the same advice to potential buyers of Asian art: “Start by looking around as much as possible until you’re familiar with the art and have determined what interests you most. Visit museums, galleries and auctions. Whenever possible, handle the art, particularly threedimensional objects, don’t just look at them in cabinets. Talk to anyone interested in the field.

Read. Only then should you dip your toe in the water. Even then, always seek good advice and don’t act on your own counsel alone.”

Hearing dealers and collectors talk about Asian art is like eavesdropping on a love fest.

James Lally, owner of JJ Lally & Co.—which is presenting Chinese Ceramics in Black and White, a supremely elegant group of ritual vessels created by Chinese potters from the Neolithic period through the 18th century—serves as a good example. “What I love most about Asian art,” he says, “is the constant learning process. There are thousands of years to discover, and so much fascinating information. When I visit another dealer or collector, we have so much to share. The dialogue never stops.”

But Katherine Martin, director of Scholten Japanese Art, may have the best advice for new or seasoned collectors when she offers: “No matter what, only buy what you love.

Never buy anything just because you think it’s a deal.” <

ASIAN ART WEEK GALLERIES Thirty galleries are participating in the Asian Art Week www.asianartdealersny.com AFP Galleries 41 E. 57th St. (at Madison Ave.), 212-230-1003 Andrew Kahane, Ltd. 42 E. 76th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-861-5001 Arnold H. Lieberman 311 E. 72nd St. (betw. 1st & 2nd Aves.), 212-861-4985 Art of the Past 1242 Madison Ave. (betw. 89th & 90th Sts.), 212-860-7070 Berry-Hill Galleries 11 E. 70th St. (betw. Madison & 5th Aves.), 212-744-2300 Carlton Rochell Asian Art 44 E. 74th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-759-7600 China 2000 Fine Art 434A E. 75th St. (betw. York & 1st Aves.) 212-472-9800 Doris Wiener 1001 5th Ave. (at 82nd St.), 212-772-8631 Galerie Friedman-Vallois 27 E. 67th St. (at Madison Ave.), 212-517-3820 JJ Lally & Co. 41 E. 57th St. (at Madison Ave.), 212-371-3380 Joan B. Mirviss Ltd. 39 E. 78th St. (at Madison Ave.), 212-799-4021 Kaikodo 74 E. 79th St. (at Park Ave.), 212-585-0121 Kang Collection Korean Art 9 E. 82nd St. (betw. Madison & 5th Aves.), 212-734-1490 Kapoor Galleries Inc. 40 E. 78th St. (at Madison Ave.), 212-794-2300 KooNew York 55 E. 80th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-317-0105 Leiko Coyle Asian Art 311 E. 72nd St. (betw. 1st & 2nd Aves.), 212-600-1475 MD Flacks 32 E. 57th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-838-4575 Michael C. Hughes LLC Asian Art 23 E. 67th St. (at Madison Ave.), 212-772-9425 M. Sutherland Fine Arts Ltd. 55 E. 88th St. (at Madison Ave.), 212-249-0428 Nancy Wiener Gallery 2109 Broadway (at 73rd St.), 212-360-7028 Oliver Forge & Brendan Lynch 9 E. 82nd St., Suite 1A (betw. Madison & 5th Aves.), 212-327-2479 PaceWildenstein 32 E. 57th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-421-0835 Ralph M. Chait Galleries 724 5th Ave. (betw. 56th & 57th Sts.), 212-397-2818 Scholten Japanese Art 145 E. 58th St. (betw. 3rd & Lexington Aves.), 212-585-0474 The Chinese Porcelain Company 475 Park Ave. (at 58th St.), 212-838-7744 Theresa McCullough 311 E. 72nd St. (betw. 1st & 2nd Aves.), 646-368-1717 Ukrainian Institute of America 2 E. 79th St. (at 5th Ave.), 212-288-8660 Williams Moretti Irving Gallery 24 E. 80th St. (at Madison Ave.), 212-249-4987 Zabriskie Gallery 41 E. 57th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-752-1223 Zetterquist Galleries 3 E. 66th St. (betw. Madison & 5th Aves.), 212-751-0650 March 9, 2010 | City Arts

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AttheGALLERIES the excitement, passion and terror of a creative existence. The exhibition is simply thrilling.

George Adams Gallery has mounted the works in a way that allows for careful contemplation. The main gallery space is mostly given over to two large bronze figures. “Rapture” is a huge woman in a billowing dress. The perforations of her dress and body seem benign, and the words “rapture” and “germination” marching boldly up her arms suggest an organic rather than violent state of change. She is accompanied by a dark bronze man hanging on the wall, posed as if jumping rather than falling into space. Entitled “Faith,” the figure wears the words of Kafka on his chest: “Was he an animal that music had such an affect on him.” A fascinating pairing of sentiments.

Installed along one wall of the main gallery and in a small room, the small bronze and paper figures illustrate the words and sentiments of Kafka, Dickens, Espiru and Dickinson. Interestingly, all but two of the figures in the exhibition are men.

The two lone women portray radically different emotional states. The aforementioned “Rapture” is staid and static. Her “sister” piece, titled “Spit/ Bite,” portrays an upside-down woman thrown, jumping or falling through the air, her mouth expelling lethal-looking bronze sputum. The flip side of ecstasy, perhaps.

It is not a show for every taste. For those who do not relate to words in their art, the show will fall flat.

And there are a few pieces in which I felt the words distracted from the image. However, for anyone who loves literature and language, it is a thoughtful and powerful exploration of the visual and verbal language of transcendence. (Melissa Stern) Through Mar. 27, George Adams Gallery, 525 W. 26th St., 212-564-8480.

Ghana

“Yes Is No,” by Laura Dodson.

Laura Dodson: Between States Laura Dodson, whose photographs are the subject of an exhibition at Kouros Gallery, seamlessly melds immaculate artifice and unapologetic romanticism, crystalline execution and unruly states of feeling.

Trained as a traditional photographer, Dodson turned away from “the world in all its unpredictability” to pursue a more internalized vision contrived in the studio. Selectively employing a variety of discarded objects—a toy airplane, locks of hair, a glittery slipper or an apricot that has been bitten into—she immerses and isolates them within shadowy, aqueous environments. In doing so, Dodson invests the ephemeral with symbolic portent it barely seems capable of shouldering. That’s the point: Brooding monumentality intensifies a pressing sense of psychological vulnerability.

Dodson’s meditations on memory, loss and transience are rendered with exquisite attention to detail, bringing sweeping concentration to her silky elisions of space and incident. Textures are given uncanny clarity—the weave of the synthetic rose featured in “Dusting Still” is particularly arresting— and the palette, while keyed to black, is punctuated

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by saturated and, at times, livid tones. The smoldering oranges at the center of “Between Ripe” immediately snag the eye, but it’s the painterly slur of green, yellow, blue and magenta in “Yes Is No” that defines Dodson’s gift as a colorist.

The work’s overriding theatricality is PostModern in its calculation, but don’t go mistaking Dodson for Cindy Sherman or Laurie Simmons: The photographs are absent the glib affectation that is the hallmark of the Pictures Generation.

Instead, Dodson adopts clinical means—the artist likens her process to working in a laboratory—to intimate, even tender ends. Within these luminous dreamscapes is a distinctive and deeply humane vision. (Mario Naves) Through Mar. 27, Kouros Gallery, 23 E. 73rd St., 212-288-5888.

Passion Play Lesley Dills’ new work, in paper and bronze, is literally full of the language and imagery of transcendence. Drawing on the words of several writers, but most notably Emily Dickinson, she has created a world in the process of “becoming.”

Pieces titled “Rapture,” “Ecstasy” and “Joy” convey

Lyle Ashton Harris’ current exhibit at CRG Gallery, appropriately titled Ghana, is a continuation of the artist’s chronicling of time spent in the West African republic. Harris is a professor at New York University’s campus in Accra, the capital.

The works presented here consist of collages, oil paintings, multimedia and c-prints, most of which seem to touch upon traditions that are shared between the United States and Ghana. These include everything from consumer culture and a focus on masculinity to a shared history of slavery.

Ghana was a major portal through which slaves destined for America or the Caribbean passed, and slave castles and their remnants still dot the coast.

“Untitled (Black Power)” is a three-channel video work in which Harris has filmed the hypermasculine image of bodybuilders in an open-air Accra gym. Some images caught by Harris’ camera are only reflections in a mirror the camera is trained on. Male homosexual activity is illegal in Ghana, and the work evokes the safety distance can provide.

In “Untitled (Prince),” Harris has installed mirrors, photographs, printed matter and wood in a corner. The mirrors, of varying sizes, reflect both the collage itself and the image of the viewer. The viewer therefore becomes participant, drawn into the work itself.

This is the second time Harris, a native of the Bronx, has shown his work at CRG Gallery. The exhibit fits with his history of exploring race and identity—a history that will no doubt continue this spring with the release of his latest book, Excessive Exposure: The Complete Chocolate Portraits.

(Carl Gaines)

comes an exhibition as engaging as this and the labels drop away. Visual wit is rare. Better to welcome it where we find it than grouse about the form it takes.

Accumulation showcases, well, accumulations of nondescript things piled together until they take on visual weight by dint of sheer volume. Everything is predominantly assembled, unmodulated by painting or other means. Their constituent parts run the gamut from natural materials (egg shells, feathers) to manufactured items and oddments never meant as art materials. The pleasure of this kind of work was summed up nicely by David-Henry Kahnweiler in his 1929 monograph on the collages of Juan Gris: “By its very subject matter, it has made us ‘see’ and love so many simple, unassuming objects which hitherto escaped our eyes.”

Arman and French sculptor César are the best-known names here. What they produced in the 1960s became the impetus for later production

by American artists. César’s rectangle of compacted car parts is the starting point for John Chamberlain’s heapings-up. Virtually everything on show finds its antecedent in Arman’s welded tower of revolvers or vitrines of aspirin or epoxy tubes.

This art of the overlooked takes on a more lyrical dimension in the work of the Americans on view. While the Europeans incline toward massproduced items, the Americans gravitate toward evocative natural objects. Immediate and tangible, Krista Van Ness’ 8-inch square vitrine of tiny, sloughed-off cicada shells provides a close-up of a delicate life form that renews itself in a species of hemiptera resurrection. Barry Cohen’s old metal egg crate construction, filled with eggshells, straw and wooden chicks, is thoroughly modern in conception but suggestive of a Depression-era chicken coop.

Kathryn Spence is the single artist on view who reshapes her found materials into something wholly different. With bits of street trash, string and wire, she creates a meandering line of plausible little birds that, at quick glance, could take wing in a moment.

The piece maintains the charm of folk art while it plays self-consciously with the divide between nature and artifice.

The lone disenchantments in this lively group show are several wire-wrapped junk sculptures by a deceased outsider artist known as Philadelphia Wireman. Sometimes junk really is just that.

(Maureen Mullarkey) Through Apr. 3, Allan Stone Gallery, 113 E. 90th St., 212-987-4997.

Karl Fritsch + Richard Wathen It’s hard to know where to begin when attempting to describe this exhibition, which opened at Salon 94 Freemans on the Lower East Side. It’s even harder to make sense of why these two artists are paired together.

Karl Fritsch is a very interesting German

Through Apr. 3, CRG Gallery, 535 W. 22nd St., 2nd Fl., 212-229-2766.

Accumulation We can trace the genealogy of everything we call assemblage past Duchamp’s readymades, Dada’s anti-art and Schwitter’s trash paintings back to Cubist collage. You can push it even further back to folk art.

Call it aesthetic anarchy if you want to. But along

“Ecstasy,” by Lesley Dill.

background. Two of the girls have the same wideeyed expression. It’s hard to tell if this is a riff on campy portraits of children or just plain old banal painting. The third painting is more intriguing and seems unconnected to the other two. A woman in a sheer garment toys with a beautiful necklace (ah, the jewelry connection!) and stares knowingly at the public. It’s an interesting portrait. The painting has an oddly decadent aura, a portrait of an aristocratic before the advent of fascism.

Three artists and three visions unfortunately add up to an exhibition that never coalesces. (MS) Through Apr. 10, Salon 94 Freemans, 1 Freeman Alley, 212-529-7400.

Nozkowski’s Works on Paper 1991–2008

“20 Eggs,” by Krista Van Ness.

jeweler whose work I have followed for a long time. Known for pairing unconventional materials— gems with junk, gold with plastic—he actively explores the concepts of “precious” and what jewelry is. Like miniature sculptures, his work has always challenged the notions of convention in jewelry. In this exhibit, dozens of rings are displayed in a mishmash of ways. They are jammed into specially designed and fabricated cases that unfortunately are too low to the floor to be able to adequately see the jewelry inside. Truly a shame, as some of these sculptures are marvelous.

The gallery press release gives equal billing to the case designer, Takeshi Miyakawa, as to the other artists. In some cases Takeshi has vacuumformed in PVC random objects, including cups, bricks and blocks, to form molded platforms for the rings. In others, he has used Plexiglas and what looks like Play-Doh. Some cases are wood. Each case is different, adding to the disjointed nature of the exhibit. There are way too many rings in each case, and it is way too difficult to see any of them, let alone imagine how they might look if worn.

The rings in their cases are accompanied by three small paintings by Richard Wathen. They are painted with flat, fashionably tonal colors in a “naïve” style. Each contains one girl against a

Senior & Shopmaker Gallery, a recent transplant to the Chelsea gallery scene from the east side, is kicking off its move with an exhibit of drawings and hand-colored prints by the artist Thomas Nozkowski.

Much of Nozkowski’s work contained here is graphic in nature, and the exhibit, titled Works on Paper 1991-2008, features both unique works on paper and a series of signed and numbered prints.

The permanent prints are derived from evolved and manipulated versions that begin as oil on paper.

Nozkowski’s creative process forms the cornerstone of the exhibit with works that are clearly related, yet slightly different.

Laurence Shopmaker, who co-owns the gallery with Betsy Senior, explained that the signed and numbered prints in the exhibit are displayed in dark frames, while unique works on paper are displayed in white frames in order to avoid any confusion. Works on Paper 1991–2008 is an abridged version of an exhibit that was recently shown upstate, but includes “all the essential groupings,” according to Senior.

Nozkowski’s creative process for the particular work on view at Senior & Shopmaker warrants some explanation. The print editions start with oil on paper, from which a plate is prepared that contains “an elemental background and figure,” according to gallery materials. The proofs created from this plate are drawn upon and colored by the artist and then translated into new lithography, screen print, woodcut or aquatint. Additional plates are added and sections of the image on the plate are sometimes scraped away. Series of familial images arise from this process.

Most of the work is small—roughly 11-by-14inches—which gives the viewer the opportunity to contemplate the nuances of each.

A native of Teaneck, N.J., Nozkowski currently lives in High Falls, N.Y., and maintains a studio in New York City. His works have been included in artist and critic Robert Storr’s exhibition at the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and are also part of several public exhibitions. (CG) Through Apr. 17, Senior & Shopmaker Gallery, 210 11th Ave., 8th Fl., 212-213-6767.

Ken Price Animism has never been Ken Price’s strength.

The ability to endow inert material with the stuff of life has eluded the veteran ceramicist to the frustration of those of us admiring of his streamlined variations on biomorphic abstraction.

The sculptures are, admittedly, fetching: Who could resist those precisely calibrated gestures, fluid contours and breathtakingly abraded surfaces?

Would that these virtues encouraged adoration, but Price’s unremitting elegance tamps down our enthusiasm and any vitality the work itself might embody. You get the feeling that life is altogether too base and vulgar to suit Price’s artistic program.

Well, maybe vulgarity suits him. That Price has embraced turds and orifices as inspiration isn’t revelatory or revolutionary—Surrealist scatology has a long and relatively noble tradition. Severity of formal purpose, probably gleaned from Minimalism, imbues Price’s work with no-nonsense principle.

Add a distillation of shape that takes off from Hans

Arp and stops just short of being cute, and you have an artist who skirts overt ickiness.

Which doesn’t mean that Price doesn’t have it in him: “Eeezo” is genuinely repulsive. A fleshy swaddling of upright tubers punctuated by a gaping maw, “Eeezo” generates clammy élan through its pearlescent veneer, pimply surface and milky pallor.

The work is something between ghastly, garish and tacky, which, for this artist, is some kind of achievement.

“Eeezo” has wisely been segregated from the rest of the work; its brute presence would only distract from Price’s usual run of stylish blips and blobs. Unfortunately, three sizable sculptures— “Lying Around,” “Simple-istic” and “Percival”—are displayed front-and-center. There’s no compelling aesthetic reason for their bigness unless price tag counts; this tabletop intimist has yet to get a handle on a larger scale. It’s enough to make you love Price’s more masterful shortcomings. (MN) Through Apr. 17, Matthew Marks Gallery, 523 W. 24th St., 212-243-0200.

Milton Avery: Industrial Revelations It is a rare exhibition that can call itself a revelation, but this is certainly one of them. Milton Avery’s long career is one of the crowns of 20thcentury American art. No gallerygoer is a stranger to the grace, calm and clarity of his mature style, those luminous landscapes and large figure compositions.

“Eezo,” by Ken Price.

The Tallis Scholars at

St. Bartholomew’s Church

FRIDAY, MARCH 26 – 7:30 PM 325 Park Avenue at 51st Street in the City of New York

Tickets: $100, $40, $30, $20 (students/seniors) Information and tickets: (212) 378-0248 • www.stbarts.org/music.asp This concert inspired and funded by The Reed Foundation

March 9, 2010 | City Arts

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AttheGALLERIES

“Smokestacks,” by Milton Avery.

Most of us think we know every kind of painting he created. So most of us will be surprised and exhilarated by these little-known scenes of the impact of industrialization on the urban setting.

Painted from the mid-1920s through the next decade, many have never been exhibited before.

Knoedler has assembled a suite of oils, watercolors and gouaches from the Avery family’s collection. It is a startling window into an early, broody aspect of the painter’s sensibility that showed itself briefly before giving way to pastoral lyricism and sunnier coloration. While his themes and creative temper changed, Avery’s core commitment ended where it began: in attentive observation and love for the visual world. A red box car, the looming bulk of the Dietz Coal Company plant, or the lights of a chop suey joint viewed from his studio window were as compelling to him as tangerine moons, sea grass and dunes.

In 1970 Hilton Kramer anticipated that we would “be a long time coming to terms with Avery’s achievement.” It has taken 40 years but now this exhibition yields sharper insight into the creative road Avery traveled. The route had its beginning in the machine age aesthetic of the years between the two world wars. Though several of these pieces were exhibited in 1933 and 1935, they have remained, for the most part, out of sight since.

Neglect of these works is the result of critical and scholarly disinterest in work that stands apart from what might be called the Avery brand. It is a matter of product management trumping aesthetic interest. Too long overlooked as anomalous, this deeply engaging work roots Avery in his times.

In light of his initial interests, the trajectory of his development appears all the more remarkable.

Few figures appear in these deserted cityscapes.

Emphasis is on warehouses, smokestacks, railroads, gas tanks, East River tugboats, the now-demolished Third Avenue “El” and the Queensborough bridge. Subdued tonalities and a suggestion of abandonment lend a Social Realist cast to the industrial sites. Still, the freedom of his drawing—a calculated whimsy that hints at his later signature style—relieves the scenes of any Depression-era cloud. The watercolors, in particular, approach the characteristic buoyancy that made his later work so magical. In the fey quality of its depiction, “The Blue Bridge,” a darkling gouache, is a particularly lovely intimation of things to follow.

Gail Levin’s concise, informative monograph on this body of work belongs in the library of every serious student of Avery. (MM)

Through May 1, Knoedler & Company, 19 E. 70th St., 212-794-0550.

12

City Arts | www.cityarts.info

Solace

The idea of finding consolation in art is by no means revelatory, and nothing about the Austrian Cultural Forum’s latest exhibit, Solace, could be described that way either. This quad-level exhibit aims to show how different artists can represent the idea of the show’s title in their work.

Artists can find solace in nature, nudity, alcohol or, as self-congratulating as it may be, their own work. Without any visual unification tying the show together, this theme was heavily, though unsuccessfully, relied upon.

On the top floor, Peter Coffin’s “Untitled (Balloon Equilibrium)” features balloons floating at various levels of inflation. Never touching the ceiling nor grazing the ground, the balloons are supposed to explore “equilibrium as a metaphor.”

This installation is an anemic version of Warhol’s silver clouds, with pretension injected where humor used to be.

Another level features two rival video installations. “I was down,” by Koudlam, exploits buxom, bikini-clad women, the footage of whom was excerpted from R&B music videos. In slow motion, they writhe, run, splash and dance. Divorced from any context, they are merely scantily-clad bimbos queued in a montage of poor quality clips. There is little art in their nudity and little solace to speak of.

The adjacent “Sands Masturbation,” by Sands Murray-Wassink, displays a slipper-wearing man kneeling nude on the floor. With his head largely out of frame, the video becomes the sum of its parts, chief among them the subject’s genitalia and a nearby beer—both positioned front and center. Having no discernable narrative or accompanying notes, this video rivals the other in its abject sexuality and distance from the show’s greater theme.

Alcohol is a common vehicle for emotional assuagement; it is also the inspiration for the exhibit’s most successful piece. In his long-running installation, Tom Marioni, in tandem with frat guys everywhere, declares “The Act of Drinking Beer With Friends is the Highest Form or Art.” Rows of empty Pilsner bottles and a table poised for volunteer drinkers and gallerygoers punctuate this whimsical installation.

Solace is too specific a noun for so scattered a show. As it is, it could be called Drunk, Sober, Bored or Stagnant. Imprecision was the kiss of death for this exhibit—that and mediocre art.

(Bonnie Rosenberg) Through May 15, Austrian Cultural Forum, 11 E. 52nd St., 212-319-5300.

DANCE

Hamlet with Haunches

BY JOEL LOBENTHAL Movement and sound are both vital components in the world of British baritone Simon Keenlyside, and they will signify a singular theatrical experience when he stars at the Metropolitan Opera this month in a revival of Ambroise Thomas’ 1868 Hamlet.

To Keenlyside, movement in the biosphere means as much as on a darkened stage. He studied zoology at Cambridge University, then went to Manchester both to study voice at the Royal Northern College of Music, and to train in short-distance running at Sale Harriers, a champion-producing athletic club. In 2002, he starred in a kinetic staging of Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle, choreographed by Trisha Brown. Four years ago, he married Zenaida Yanowsky, a ballerina of London’s Royal Ballet.

His range encompasses the pratfalls of Mozart’s everyman Papageno in The Magic Flute, to the tortured introversion of alienated outsiders, like Berg’s Wozzeck or Hamlet himself. “I love physical comedy,” Keenlyside explained when I spoke with him recently.

But experience has brought an understanding that less action can sometimes mean more.

“Often the British in my lifetime have had sort of a reputation of being so-called ‘good actors’ on the opera stage,” he says. “Well, sometimes that’s true, but let’s not mistake mugging and dumbing for an audience that doesn’t speak the language for being good acting.”

Keenlyside speaks with reverence for his wife’s profession. “I’m strong as a horse, and I’ve always managed to do things physically, but I can’t do one thing that a dancer does.” He watches her performances from the wings or out front. “And I watch them dispassionately, too.” But with passionate admiration nevertheless. “The interesting artists are the ones that transcend the art form, as it were, and touch you, affect you. My wife happens to be one of those. She’s a great communicator.”

Sharing a roof with a ballerina is “like living with a race horse,” he says. “When she’s working, she’s got to be in London. She can’t even get out for one day ’cause they have one day off a week, and they have to rest their legs.”

Keenlyside and Yanowsky have a 16month-old son, and he was awaiting the birth of their daughter the day that we spoke six months ago, soon after Yanowsky announced her second pregnancy.

Brent Ness

Simon Keenlyside shares his life with a ballerina—and it shows

Simon Keenlyside stars in Hamlet at the Met this month.

When Keenlyside made his Met debut in 1996, “I was too reticent as a person and I allowed that to touch me on the stage as well a bit.” But it was just around that time, he says, that full authority began to coalesce. After a six-year absence, he returned to the Met in 2007 for one of his best roles, the libidinous Count in The Marriage of Figaro. Keenlyside is appreciative of the fact that Peter Gelb “sat down with me—which is very rare for an intendant, a boss, to do—to discuss which roles might be appropriate, and might suit the house.”

Keenlyside has conducted his career with prudence and, at 50, remains in his prime, as was demonstrated at an impeccably sung lieder concert at Alice Tully Hall late last month. The intimacy of art song and the surge of grand opera demand starkly different vocal productions, however. “If I had to do Hamlet

at the end of the week I wouldn’t have done the recital. You need to take as much metal out of your voice in the song repertoire.” Opera demands the capacity for full bore when required. Vocally, “I’ll need these two weeks to push the walls out.”

Once a staple of the French lyric repertory, Hamlet hasn’t been performed by the Met since 1897. But throughout the last decade, it’s been a hit in Europe for Keenlyside. The Met’s Hamlet reproduces the Covent Garden production directed by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser. The role demands the full vocal as well as physical embodiment that he is keen to achieve. But “I want to think about it again,” he said. His Hamlet won’t be the same as what he did in London or in Barcelona.

“The older you get, the more interested, hopefully the more in control you are of what is required, which physicality for which role.”

Next year he returns to New York for another recital at Alice Tully Hall, and to sing the Marquis de Posa—like Hamlet, a rich and ambivalent character—in Verdi’s Don Carlo. “I would like to be here every year,” he professed.

New York audiences, after not having seen enough of him in recent years, may well get the chance to make up for lost time.

Opens Mar. 16, Metropolitan Opera House, 212-362-6000.

JAZZ

She Plays Like a Girl Women make jazz history all over New York City

BY HOWARD MANDEL A friend of mine attended the Mingus High School band competition a couple weeks ago at the Manhattan School of Music with her husband just for fun. But she was quickly disenchanted.

“I looked at all the kids’ names and was very unpleasantly surprised to see hardly any girls,” she emailed me. “Maybe six out of 60 kids total... The first big band came on with no girls at all. It got me so angry and depressed that I had to leave.

“If it were all adults segregating themselves I’d only think it was weird, given that adult women are doing jazz these days.

But this was children in public school, being segregated by their teachers and school systems. I think if the Mingus organization made a rule that no band could compete unless it was 50 percent girls, there’d be some really noisy bitching for about a year or two.

Then, in five years, all the bands would be integrated.”

An immodest proposal? Perhaps, but one that wouldn’t have been even mentionable a few years ago. Parity of genders of students playing the brawling music of Charles

Mingus can now be expected because, in general, musicians and audiences have come to believe women can be bandleaders, horn-playing soloists, guitarists, bassists and drummers—which wasn’t much the case for decades following World War II. It’s basically irrelevant this is Women’s History Month, since most of the women fronting exciting gigs in the city now are at it all year long.

Not only divas, such as Cassandra Wilson, who just ends five nights at the Blue Note this week, or Roberta Gambarini, who follows her there March 12 through 14. There’s also Tessa Souter, whose quartet is at The Kitano March 12 and 13, and Melba Joyce— who launched her own nine-man/nine-woman big band last summer—at the Lenox Lounge in Harlem March 19. That same evening, Michelle Walker is at the Metropolitan Room (she’s in The Kitano March 24); Vanessa Rubin is at Sistah’s Place March 20; Freda Payne is at Iridium singing songs associated with Ella Fitzgerald (and what songs aren’t?)

March 26 and 27; and Ernestine Anderson (with Houston Person’s quartet) is at Dizzy’s Club from March 30 to April 4.

It’s not only pianists, though there are

some fine ones in town: Amina Figarova and her sextet just left the Jazz Standard, but Bertha Hope is at Jazz 966 March 12; Angelica Sanchez has a trio with tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby (her husband) and drummer Tom Rainey at the Jazz Gallery March 13; Joann Brackeen celebrates Art Blakey with ex-Messenger all-stars at the Prezfest at St. Peter’s Church on March 14 and does a solo recital there March 16—the night Barbara Carroll starts a six-night engagement with trio at Dizzy’s. Plus, Renee Rosnes plays with drummer Lewis Nash’s Quintet at Birdland, March 17 to 20; and March 27 finds both Anat Fort (plus two) at Cornelia Street and Valerie Capers (plus three) at Lenox Lounge. Roberta Picket’s trio lands at Smalls March 30.

No! I’m mad to have missed drummer Cindy Blackman’s Another Lifetime Quartet paying homage to her mentor Tony Williams at the Highline Ballroom last week (fortunately their new record captures the power), as well as flubbing a chance to catch focused flutist Jamie Baum’s original music for septet at Cornelia Street. But I’m looking forward to drummer Allison Miller doing a release party for her album Boom Tic Boom with pianist Myra Melford (one of my personal favorites; hear her band Be Bread’s sweepingly orchestral The Whole Tree Gone), along with violinist Jenny Scheinman and bassist Todd Sickafoose at Cornelia Street March 25. I’m

thinking of cellist Nioka Workman with multi-instrumentalist/world music improviser Kali Z. Fasteau at Theater Lab March 14, and quicksilver trumpeter Ingrid Jensen’s Quartet at Rosy O’Grady’s March 15.

Mary Halvorson slings some of the edgiest and least predictable guitar currently in town, with a very promising quintet at Roulette, March 18. Regina Carter returns the violin to its African roots with her kora-and-accordion ensemble, Reverse Thread, March 23 through March 28 at Dizzy’s.

If you wanna hear some tough tenor, check out Virginia Mayhew’s quartet at The Garage March 27, though you might wait ’til the 29th to catch her double-billed with soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome’s trio at Rosie O’Grady’s. Also, bassist Kim Clarke is at Jazz 966 March 12 and 26, at Zinc Bar March 13 and 31.

This list of women-led acts does not come close to equaling male jazzers in the clubs. But “she plays like a girl” is no longer a putdown, because women are clearly competitive. A promo video for the Mingus competition (at www.MingusMingusMingus. com) shows several girls in the high school bands—not soloing, but playing important supportive roles on bass, drums, piano, lead trumpet, first sax chair. She plays like a girl?

And how do girls play? They’re usually the ones taking care of business.

March 9, 2010 | City Arts

13

ArtsAGENDA GALLERY OPENINGS

Gallery listings courtesy of

15, 253 10th Ave., 212-242-6055.

SUSAN INGLETT GALLERY: Shaun O’Dell. Opens Mar.

19, 522 W. 24th St., 212-647-9111.

A.M. RICHARD FINE ART: Andrew Garn: “Lost Amazon:

Nature’s Discontents.” Opens Mar. 12. Christy Rupp: “Toxic Molecules.” Opens Mar. 12, 328 Berry St., 3rd Fl., Brooklyn, 917-570-1476.

ALEXANDER AND BONIN: Willie Cole. Opens Mar. 13, 132 10th Ave., 212-367-7474.

AMERINGER|MCENERY|YOHE: Hans Hoffman. Opens Mar. 11, 525 W. 22nd St., 212-445-0051.

ANDREA ROSEN GALLERY: Elliott Hundley: “Agave of the Bacchae.” Opens Mar. 19, 525 W. 24th St., 212-627-6000.

ANIMAZING GALLERY: Ralph Bakshi: “The Streets.”

Opens Mar. 20, 54 Greene St., 212-226-7374.

AXELLE FINE ARTS: Patrick Pietropoli. Opens Mar. 18, 535 W. 25th St., 212-226-2262.

BLUE BOX GALLERY: Gabriel Barcia-Colombo: “Nobody Leaves, Everybody Goes.” Opens Mar. 11, The Roger Smith Hotel, 501 Lexington Ave., 347-948-3962.

BOWERY GALLERY: John Goodrich: “Drawings/Paintings.” Ends Mar. 27, 530 W. 25th St., 646-2306655.

CREON GALLERY: Chris Twomey: “Astral Fluff: Carnal Bodies in Celestial Orbit.” Opens Mar. 17, 238 E. 24th St., 646-265-5508.

DAVID ZWIRNER: Marlene Dumas: “Against The Wall.”

Opens Mar. 18, 519 W. 19th St., 212-517-8677.

DC MOORE GALLERY: Mark Greenwold: “Secret Storm: Paintings 1967-1975.” Opens Mar. 17, 724 5th Ave., 8th Fl., 212-247-2111.

GAGOSIAN GALLERY: Curated by Jeff Koons: “Ed Paschke.” Opens Mar. 18. Alberto Di Fabio.

Opens Mar. 18, 980 Madison Ave., 212-744-2313.

GEORGE BILLIS GALLERY: Roland Kulla, Stanley Goldstein & Maddy Le Mel. Opens Mar. 9, 555 W. 25th St., 2nd Fl., 212-645-2621.

HEIST GALLERY: Dustin Wayne Harris: “Cake Mixx.”

Opens Mar. 11, 27 Essex St., 212-253-0451.

ICO GALLERY: “Velvet Waltz.” Opens Mar. 12, 606 W. 26th St., 212-966-3897.

IPCNY: “Wallworks: Contemporary Pictorial Wallpapers.” Opens Mar. 11, 526 W. 26th St., Rm. 824, 212-989-5090.

LESLEY HELLER WORKSPACE: Lisa Corinne Davis: “Bona Fide Disorder.” Opens Mar. 10. “Ocketopia.”

Opens Mar. 10, 54 Orchard St., 212-410-6120.

MIYAKO YOSHINAGA ART PROSPECTS: Erika deVries: “An Enlarged Heart.” Opens Mar. 18, 547 W. 27th St., 2nd Fl., 212-268-7132.

OPEN SOURCE GALLERY: Ondrej Brody & Kristofer Paetau: “Painting China Now.” Opens Mar. 13, 255 17th St., Brooklyn, 646-279-3969.

PAULA COOPER GALLERY: Sam Durant: “Dead Labor Day.” Opens Mar. 13, 534 W. 21st St., 212-255-1105.

PEPE GIALLO: Sabra Booth: “Sporadic.” Opens Mar.

SVA GALLERY: “Post No Bull.” Opens Mar. 13, 209

E. 23rd St., 212-592-2145.

TEAM GALLERY: Ryan McGinley: “Everybody Knows

This Is Nowhere.” Opens Mar. 18, 83 Grand St., 212-279-9219.

VISUAL ARTS GALLERY: “Mentors.” Opens Mar. 19, 601 W. 26th St., 15th Fl. WESTBETH GALLERY: Emil Mare: “Paintings.” Opens Mar. 13, 55 Bethune St., 212-989-4650.

GALLERY CLOSINGS 532 GALLERY THOMAS JAECKEL: Per Adolfsen: “The

World Is Floating.” Ends Mar. 13, 532 W. 25th St., 917-701-3338.

AC INSTITUTE: Jonathon Keats: “Strange Skies.”

Ardan ÖzmenoÐlu: “1Bird2Birds3Birds.” Elise Rasmussen: “Salzburg Bough.” Ends Mar. 13, 547 W. 27th St., 5th Fl., no phone.

APF LAB: Dustin Wayne Harris: “A New Career in a New Town.” Ends Mar. 21, 15 Wooster St., 917-445-2131.

CATHEDRAL GALLERY ON 2ND: Cindy Vojnovic. Ends Mar. 21, 59 E. 2nd St., 212-677-4664.

CAUSEY CONTEMPORARY: Magnolia Laurie: “All After All Before.” Ends Mar. 15, 293 Grand St., Brooklyn, 718-218-8939.

CHAMBERS FINE ART: Yin Xiuzhen: “Works: 1994-2008.”

Ends Mar. 20, 522 W. 19th St., 212-414-1169.

CHASHAMA WINDOWS SPACE: Lea Bertucci & Liz Ensz: “The Quilted Parallax.” Ends Mar. 22, 266 W. 37th St., Ground Floor Window.

CUE ART FOUNDATION: Raul Guerrero. Ends Mar. 13.

Carrie Olson. Ends Mar. 13, 511 W. 25th St., Ground Floor, 212-206-3583.

DANIEL REICH GALLERY: Christian Holstad. Ends Mar. 13, 537A W. 23rd St, 212-924-4949.

DAVID FINDLAY JR. FINE ART: Jon Schueler, David Slivka & Yang Yanping. Ends Mar. 25, 41 E. 57th St., 212-486-7660.

DAVID NOLAN GALLERY: “The Visible Vagina.” Ends Mar. 20, 527 W. 29th St., 212-925-6190.

DAVID ZWIRNER: Thomas Ruff. Ends Mar. 13. Diana Thater: “Between Science and Magic.” Ends Mar. 13, 519 W. 19th St., 212-517-8677.

DCKT CONTEMPORARY: Josh Azzarella. Ends Mar. 21, 195 Bowery, 212-741-9955.

DENISE BIBRO FINE ART: “Reunited.” Ends Mar. 13, 529 W. 20th St., 4th Fl., 212-647-7030.

EFA PROJECT SPACE: “Companion.” Ends Mar. 13, 323 W. 39th St., 2nd Fl., 212-563-5855.

FIRST STREET GALLERY: Wendy Glitter: “Unmoorings: Displacements in Time and Space.” Ends Mar. 27, 526 W. 26th St., Suite 915, 646-336-8053.

FISCHBACH GALLERY: Brad Marshall: “Outlook.” Ends

American Society of Contemporary Artists

“Shadakshari Avalokitesvara” at the Kapoor Galleries Inc. for Asia Art Week. See cover story.

N O Through C TMarch UR NES 20, 2010

present

Giglio Dante

WOMAN

Albert Fayngold

An art exhibit in celebration of International Women’s History Month

Simon Gaon David Geiser

15-26 March 2010, Mon-Fri, 9 to 5 daily

Dae Woong Nam

Artists’ Reception – 6pm, Friday, March 19

Philippine Center 556 Fifth Ave. (bet. 45th and 46th) New York, NY 10003 14

City Arts | www.cityarts.info

Han Hong Park Dae Woong Nam, Sorok, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches

NABI GALLERY 137 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001212 929 6063 | www.nabigallery.com

Alexander Purves Watercolors

the

Mar. 13, 210 11th Ave., 212-759-2345.

FORUM GALLERY: Bernardo Siciliano. Ends Mar. 13,

745 5th Ave., 212-355-4545.

K&K: KK02 Small Prints Show. Ends Mar. 22, 109

Broadway, Brooklyn, 240-461-6122.

KIM FOSTER GALLERY: “Drawings Continued.” Ends

Mar. 20, 529 W. 20th St., 212-229-0044.

MCKENZIE FINE ART INC.: Jean Lowe: “Yes, Yes, Yes!”

Ends Mar. 20, 511 W. 25th St., 212-989-5467.

MIGHTY TANAKA: Alexandra Pacula: “Turbulent

Utopia.” Ends Mar. 12, 68 Jay St., Brooklyn, 718-596-8781.

MIXED GREENS: Christina Mazzalupo: “Stomachache.”

Ends Mar. 13, 531 W. 26th St., 212-331-8888.

MIYAKO YOSHINAGA ART PROSPECTS: Anders Ruhwald: “Temperance!” Ends Mar. 13, 547 W. 27th St., 2nd Fl., 212-268-7132.

MORGAN LEHMAN: Ryan Wallace: “Glean.” Ends Mar. 20, 317 10th Ave., 212-268-6699.

NABI GALLERY: “Nocturnes.” Ends Mar. 20, 137 W. 25th St., 212-929-6063.

NANCY MARGOLIS GALLERY: “Works on Paper.” Ends Mar. 20, 523 W. 25th St., 212-242-3013.

PACEWILDENSTEIN: Sterling Ruby: “2Traps.” Ends Mar. 20, 545 W. 22nd St., 212-989-4258.

SPANIERMAN MODERN: “Journeys: The Art of Betty Parsons.” Ends Mar. 10, 53 E. 58th St., 212-832-1400.

SUSAN BERKO-CONDE GALLERY: Carlos Ginzburg: “Fractalizations and Other Works.” Ends Mar. 13, 521 W. 23rd St., 2nd Fl., 212-367-9799.

VISUAL ARTS GALLERY: “Thanks...but it’s actually on purpose.” Ends Mar. 13, 601 W. 26th St., 15th Fl. WESTSIDE GALLERY: “Counterbalance.” Ends Mar. 20, 133/141 W. 21st St. ZIEHERSMITH: “Band of Bikers.” Ends Mar. 20, 516 W. 20th St., 212-229-1088.

MUSEUMS ABRONS ART CENTER: Hunter Cross: “Transparency

Now.” Ends Mar. 13. “Where They At: A MultiMedia Archive of New Orleans Bounce.” Ends Mar. 27, 466 Grand St., 212-598-0400.

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: “Traveling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World.” Ends Aug. 2010. The Butterfly Conservatory. Ends May 2010, Central Park West at West 79th Street, 212-769-5100.

ASIA SOCIETY AND MUSEUM: “Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea.” Ends May 2, 725 Park Ave., 212-288-6400.

BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC: “Archive Exhibition.”

Ends spring 2010, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Ave., 3rd Fl., Brooklyn, 718-636-4100.

BROOKLYN HISTORICAL SOCIETY: “It Happened in Brooklyn.” Ongoing, 128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, 718-222-4111.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM: “Healing the Wounds of War: The Brooklyn Sanity Fair of 1864.” Ends Oct. 17, 200 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn, 718-638-5000.

CHELSEA ART MUSEUM: Jenny Marketou: “Lighter Than Fiction.” Ends Apr. 3. Kotaro Fukui: “Silent Flowers & Ostriches.” Ends Apr. 17. Yibin Tian: “Our New York.” Ends Apr. 17, 556 W. 22nd St., 212-255-0719.

COOPER-HEWITT NATIONAL DESIGN MUSEUM: “Quicktake: Rodarte.” Ends Mar. 14. “Design USA: Contemporary Innovation.” Ends Apr. 4, 2 E. 91st St., 212-849-8400.

THE DRAWING CENTER: Iannis Xenakis: “Composer, Architect, Visionary.” Ends Apr. 8, 35 Wooster St., 212-219-2166.

THE FRICK COLLECTION: “Masterpieces of European Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery.” Ends May 30, 1 E. 70th St., 212-288-0700.

JAPAN SOCIETY: “Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection.” Opens Mar. 12,

333 E. 47th St., 212-832-1155.

JEWISH MUSEUM: “Alias Man Ray: The Art of Rein-

vention.” Ends Mar. 14. “Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H.A. Rey.” Opens Mar. 14. “Modern Art, Sacred Space: Motherwell, Ferber and Gottlieb.” Opens Mar. 14, 1109 5th Ave., 212-423-3200.

THE KITCHEN: Amy Granat “The Sheltering Sky.” Ends Mar. 20, 512 W. 19th St., 212-255-5793.

MERCHANT’S HOUSE MUSEUM: “St. Patrick’s Day Celebration, ca. 1855.” Mar. 17, 29 E. 4th St., 212-777-1089.

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: “Tutankhamun’s Funeral.” Mar. 16-Sept. 6. “Imperial Privilege: Vienna Porcelain of Du Paquier, 1718-44.” Ends Mar. 21. “Peaceful Conquerors: Jain Manuscript Painting.” Ends Mar. 28. “The Drawings of Bronzino.” Ends Apr. 18. “Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage.” Ends May 9, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710.

THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM: “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy.” Ends Mar. 14. “Letters by J.D. Salinger.” Opens Mar. 16.

“Rome After Raphael.” Ends May 9, 225 Madison Ave., 212-685-0008.

EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO: “Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement.” Opens Mar. 24, 1230 5th Ave., 212-831-7272.

MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FINANCE: “Women of Wall Street.”

Ends Mar. 2010, 48 Wall St., 212-908-4110.

MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN: “Slash: Paper Under the Knife.” Ends Apr. 4, 2 Columbus Cir., 212-299-7777.

MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE: “Traces of Memory.”

Opens Mar. 16, 36 Battery Pl., 646-437-4200.

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present.” Mar. 14-May 31. “William Kentridge: Five Themes.” Ends May 17. “Tim Burton.” Ends Apr. 26, 11 W. 53rd St., 212-708-9400.

NATIONAL ACADEMY MUSEUM: “The 185th Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art.” Ends June 8, 5 E. 89th St., 212-996-1908.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN: “Beauty Surrounds Us.” Ends Mar. 31, 1 Bowling Green, 212-514-3700.

NEW MUSEUM: Curated by Jeff Koons: “Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection.”

Ends June 6, 235 Bowery, 212-219-1222.

NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY: “Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School at the New-York Historical Society.” Ends Mar. 25.

“Lincoln and New York.” Ends Mar. 25. “The Grateful Dead: Now Playing at the New-York Historical Society.” Ends July 4, 170 Central Park West, 212-873-3400.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY: “Candide at 250: Scandal and Success.” Ends Apr. 2010. “The Jazz Loft Project.” Ends May 22. “Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609-2009.” Ends June 26, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, West 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, 917-275-6975.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: “Revolutionary Voices: Performing Arts in Central & Eastern Europe in the 1980s.” Ends Mar. 20, 40 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-870-1630.

NOGUCHI MUSEUM: “Noguchi ReINstalled.” Ends Oct. 24, 33rd Road at Vernon Boulevard, Queens, 718-721-2308.

PHILIPPINE CENTER: Society of Philippine American Artists and ASCA present “Woman,” an art exhibit in celebration of International Women’s History Month. Mar. 15-26, 556 5th Ave., 212764-1330.

RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART: “Remember That You Will Die: Death Across Cultures.” Mar. 19-Aug. 9.

“Visions of the Cosmos.” Ends May 10. “What Is It?” Ends June 14. “In the Shadow of Everest: Photographs by Tom Wool.” Ends July 26, 150

Through March 27, 2010 Tuesday – Saturday 11 to 6

Blue Mountain Gallery 530 West 25th Street, 4th Fl. New York, NY 10001

Blue Mountain Gallery

530 West 25th Street, fourth floor New York, New York 10001

Tel: 646 486 4730 www.bluemountaingallery.org

646 486 4730

www.bluemountaingallery.org

SHEILA HECHT PRIMARY SPIRIT, NO SHORT-CUTS PAINTINGS THAT EXPLORE THE PRIMARY SPIRIT OF AN ABSTRACT TRANSFORMATION MARCH 2 – 27, 2010

NoHo Gallery Stacked, 48 x 36 inches, acrylic on canvas

530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl. (betw 10 & 11th Aves.)

212-367-7063 www.nohogallery.com

Kate Emlen Red Point Paintings March 2 – 27, 2010

PRINCE STREET GALLERY

530 West 25th Street, 4th Floor New York, NY 10001 Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11am-6pm 646 230-0246 www.princestreetgallery.org

SalmagundiClub

SPRING ART AUCTIONS 2010 M ARCH 12TH FRIDAY AT 8PM MARCH 14TH SUNDAY AT 2PM MARCH 18TH THURSDAY AT 8PM

47 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10003 212-255-7740 WWW.SALMAGUNDI.ORG March 9, 2010 | City Arts

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ArtsAGENDA W. 17th St., 212-620-5000.

SKYSCRAPER MUSEUM: “China Prophecy: Shanghai.”

Ends Apr. 11, 39 Battery Pl., 212-968-1961.

SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM: “Anish Kapoor:

Memory.” Ends Mar. 28, 1071 5th Ave., 212423-3500.

STUDIO MUSEUM OF HARLEM: “Wardell Milan: Drawings of Harlem.” Ends Mar. 14. “30 Seconds off an Inch.” Ends Mar. 14, 144 W. 125th St., 212-864-4500.

WORKSPACEHARLEM: “Winter Show 2010.” Ends Mar. 20, 2340 5th Ave., 646-274-1144.

AUCTIONS CHRISTIE’S: Impressionist Modern. Mar. 10, 10 a.m.

First Open Post-War and Contemporary Art. Mar. 11, 10 a.m. 20th Century Decorative Art & Design. Mar. 16, 10 a.m., 20 Rockefeller Plz., 212-636-2000.

DOYLE NEW YORK: Doyle at Home. Mar. 10, 10 a.m.

Asian Works of Art. Mar. 22, 10 a.m., 175 E. 87th St., 212-427-2730.

ROGALLERY.COM: Fine art buyers and sellers in online live art auctions. 800-888-1063, www.rogallery.com.

SALMAGUNDI CLUB: Spring Auctions. Mar. 12, 8. Mar. 14, 2. Mar. 18, 8, 47 5th Ave., 212-255-7740.

SWANN AUCTION GALLERIES: 19th and 20th Century Prints and Drawings. Mar. 9, 10:30 a.m. Printed and Manuscript Americana. Mar. 18, 1:30. The Stephen L. White Photographs Collection. Mar. 23, 1:30, 104 E. 25th St., 212-254-4710.

ART EVENTS THE AIPAD PHOTOGRAPHY SHOW NEW YORK: The show,

presented by The Association of International Photography Art Dealers, brings together more than 70 of the world’s fine art and photography galleries in an exhibition of museum-quality work. Opening benefit Mar. 17, show Mar. 1821, Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Ave., www. aipad.com.

ASIA WEEK NEW YORK: Asia Society leads the first-ever coordinated effort among New York museums, galleries, specialty dealers and auction houses to present Asia Week New York. Mar. 20-28, Asia Society, 725 Park Ave., 212-288-6400.

CHELSEA ART GALLERY TOUR: Guided tour of the week’s top 7 gallery exhibits in the world’s center for contemporary art. Mar. 13, 526 W. 26th St., 212946-1548; 1, $20.

NEW YORK ARTS OF PACIFIC ASIA: 7W New York hosts the 19th presentation of the New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show, featuring textiles, paintings, ceramics and more from 75 galleries. A preview party precedes the show. Preview party Mar. 24, show Mar. 25-28, 7W New York, 7 W. 34th St., 310-455-2886.

MUSIC & OPERA 92ND STREET Y TRIBECA: Jolie Holland, founding mem-

ber of The Be Good Tanyas, performs. With Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio and Rain Machine.

Mar. 19, 200 Hudson St., 212-601-1000; 8, $20.

ADVENT LUTHERAN/BROADWAY UNITED CHURCH: The Daedalus Quartet performs. Mar. 22, 2504 Broadway, 212-665-2504; 7:30, free.

AVERY FISHER HALL: David Hyde Pierce hosts the New York Philharmonic’s presentation of Sondheim: The Birthday Concert. Mar. 15 & 16, 132 W. 65th St., 212-875-5656; 7:30, $75+.

BAM: BAM hosts its inaugural Opera Festival, curated by William Christie. Mar. 18-Apr. 2, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, 718-636-4129; times vary, $10+.

BAMCAFÉ LIVE: The Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet.

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City Arts | www.cityarts.info

Mar. 12. Nation Beat. Mar. 19, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, 718-636-4100; 9, free.

BROOKLYN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: The Center hosts a concert by the Odessa Philharmonic.

Mar. 13, Walt Whitman Theatre at Brooklyn College, 2900 Campus Rd., Brooklyn, 718-9514500; 8, $25+.

CARNEGIE HALL: The Collegiate Chorale, led by music director James Bagwell, presents the world premiere two-act concert version of Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie’s musical version of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Mar. 22.

Acclaimed pianist Lang Lang performs to benefit Haiti. Mar. 21, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; times vary, $25+.

CONNELLY THEATRE: The Amore Opera Company performs The Merry Widow, Lehar’s romantic operetta. Mar. 12-28, 220 E. 4th St., 888-8114111; times vary, $30+.

FREDERICK P. ROSE HALL: Maurice Hines and the New York Pops headline a gala benefit for the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. Mar. 15, W. 60th St. and Broadway, 212-289-7779, ext. 31; 7, $50+.

JUILLIARD: Juilliard Music Technology Center presents Beyond the Machine 10.0, a festival of electro-acoustic and multimedia art. Mar. 17-20 & 25-28, Willson Theater, 155 W. 65th St., 212769-7406; times vary, free.

LINCOLN CENTER: New York City Opera begins its 2010 spring season with a gala performance of L’Etoile.

Mar. 18-Apr. 3, David H. Koch Theater, 20 Lincoln Center, 212-496-0600; times vary, $6+.

MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC: The school’s brass orchestra performs with trumpeter Matthew Muckey. Mar. 17, John C. Borden Auditorium, 120 Claremont Ave., 917-493-4429; 7:30, free.

MERKIN CONCERT HALL: Kaufman Center and New York Festival of Song present The Sweetest Path, a concert celebrating the first great flowering of French art song. Mar. 16, Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th St., 212-501-3330; 8, $15+.

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: The museum presents Early Music Exposed, a daylong exploration of early music coordinated and hosted by Frederick Renz. Mar. 13, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710; times vary, $20+.

METROPOLITAN OPERA: The Nose: William Kentridge makes his Met debut directing the company premiere of Shostakovich’s production, conducted by Valery Gergiev. Ends Mar. 25. Attila: Riccardo Muti conducts and Pierre Audi directs Miuccia Prada in Verdi’s ninth opera. Ends Mar. 27, West 62nd Street (betw. Columbus & Amsterdam Aves.), 212-362-6000; times vary, $20+.

MILLER THEATRE: Miller Theatre continues its third year of Lunchtime Concerts with Jennifer Koh on violin performing Bach’s Partita No. 1 in B minor. Mar. 22, Philosophy Hall at Columbia University, 212-854-7799; 12:30, free.

THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM: The Ying Quartet performs. Mar. 9, 225 Madison Ave., 212-6850008, ext. 560; 7:30, $25+.

THE NATIONAL ARTS CLUB: The New York Choral Society celebrates its 51st anniversary with a Winter Gala. Mar. 11, 15 Gramercy Park South, 212-247-3878; 6, $75+.

PARK AVENUE CHRISTIAN CHURCH: Virtuoso Voices with soprano Beverly Myers and mezzo-soprano Georga Osborne in a program of works by Offernback, Caplet, Delibes, Ravel, Mahler and Broadway. Part of Arts at the Park. Mar. 21, Park Avenue Christian Church, 1010 Park Ave., 212868-4444; 3, $10.

SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM: As part of Works & Process, artist Matthew Ritchie, Spanish composer Hector Parra and Harvard physicist Lisa Randall continue to renovate opera with an experimental performance titled Hypermusic-

“Separation Anxiety,” by Gabriel Baria-Columbo at Blue Box Gallery.

Ascension. Mar. 11, 1071 5th Ave., 212-423-3587; times vary, $10+.

ST. ANDREW’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH: The 14-member Antara Ensemble, led by music director/conductor/flutist Harold Jones, continues its 16th season with a program celebrating Johann Sebastian Bach’s 325th birthday. Mar. 21, 2065 5th Ave., 212-866-2545; 3, $20+.

UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT: The Performance Project presents the Joseph Webb Quartet in an evening of music, spoken word and dance. Mar. 19, 184 Eldridge St., 212-453-4532; 8, $15.

WEILL RECITAL HALL: The Stevens Viola Duo performs as part of the Distinguished Concerts International New York’s Artist Series. Mar. 16, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 8, $50+.

ZANKEL HALL: Award-winning Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq returns to New York to perform the new work “Tundra Songs” with the Kronos Quartet. Mar. 13, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 10, $28+.

JAZZ

rova performs. Mar. 10. Charles McPherson Quartet plays with Tom Harrell on trumpet. Mar. 11-14, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232; times vary, $20+.

METROPOLITAN ROOM: Host, singer and trumpeter Joe Bachana and company bring a night of music from the 1940s American Songbook. Mar. 17 & 24, 34 W. 22nd St., 212-206-0440; 7:30, $20+.

NEC JAZZ: The New England Conservatory celebrates the 40th anniversary of its landmark jazz studies program with Hot and Cool: 40 Years of Jazz at NEC. The celebration includes week-long events in New York. Mar. 20-27, various locations, www.necmusic.edu/jazz40.

THE STONE: Aurora Josephson’s Numbers perform.

Mar. 16. San Francisco-based Cylinder performs.

Mar. 18, Ave. C at E. 2nd St.; 10, $10.

SYMPHONY SPACE: Seeing Jazz with George Wein features the jazz impresario and guest Randy Weston. Mar. 11, 2537 Broadway, 212-8645400; 7:30, $25+.

DANCE 92ND STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL: For the fourth

BROOKLYN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: The

Center continues its World Stages series with the internationally acclaimed Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band. Mar. 20, Walt Whitman Theatre at Brooklyn College, 2900 Campus Rd., Brooklyn, 718-951-4500; 8, $25+.

DOUGLASS STREET MUSIC COLLECTIVE: Cylinder and Michael Bates’ Outside Sources perform. Mar. 19, 295 Douglass St., Brooklyn; 8:30, $10.

JAZZ STANDARD: Jazz composer and pianist Amina Figa-

weekend of the festival, Yoshiko Chuma returns to the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival with the world premiere of “Hold the Clock,” the latest installment of her 10-year project, A Page Out of Order. Mar. 19-21, Buttenwieser Hall, 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., 212-4155500; times vary, $12+.

DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP: DTW presents Yasuko Yokoshi in the world premiere of Tyler Tyler. Mar. 17-20, 219 W. 19th St., 212-924-0077; 7:30, $15+.

DIXON PLACE: Dixon Place presents the world

premiere of Annette, a multimedia dance piece focusing on two fragmented characters’ struggle for survival and understanding. Choreographed

by Regina Nejman. Mar. 12-27, Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St., 212-219-0736; 7:30, $15+.

KEIGWIN + COMPANY: The contemporary dance company celebrates its first solo week at The Joyce with a program that features the world premiere of “Bird Watching,” as well as “Mattress Suite,” “Caffeinated” and “Runaway.” Mar. 16-21, The Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave., 212-242-0800; times vary, $10+.

LIZ GERRING DANCE COMPANY: The company announces the world premiere of Lichtung/Clearing, an evening-length dance set within a layered visual and sound environment. Mar. 11-14, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Howard Gilman Performance Space, 450 W. 37th St., 212-868-4444; times vary, $20.

ST. PETERSBURG STATE BALLET THEATRE: The company makes its New York City debut at Tribeca PAC with five short ballets. Mar. 19-21, Tribeca PAC, 199 Chambers St., 212-220-1459; times vary, $35+.

THEATER ALICE IN WONDERLAND THRU THE LOOKING GLASS: In Fire-

cat Production’s provocative musical comedy adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classics, audiences join Alice on her psychedelic quest to kill the Queen of Hearts. Ends Mar. 21, Actors Temple Theatre, 339 W. 47th St., 212-239-6200.

AS YOU LIKE IT: The Bridge Project presents Shakespeare, as Mendes and company explore outcasts, power and magical lands. Ends Mar. 13, BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., 718636-4100.

BILLY ELLIOT: This Tony-winning adaptation of the 2000 film chronicles a young British boy’s desire to dance ballet in a poverty-choked coal-mining town. Open run, Imperial Theatre, 249 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200.

BRACK’S LAST BACHELOR PARTY: Three men from Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler battle it out at a bachelor party. Ends Mar. 14, 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St., 212-279-4200.

CHICAGO: The long-running revival of Kander and Ebb’s musical about sex, murder and celebrity continues to razzle-dazzle. Open run, Ambassador Theatre, 219 W. 49 St., 212-239-6200.

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED): The Reduced Shakespeare Company

presents an updated, 21st century-version of the ‘90s cult classic. Ends Mar. 14, The New Victory Theater, 209 W. 42nd St., 646-223-3010.

CONVICTION: In Franco’s 1960s Spain, an Israeli scholar is detained for stealing a confidential Inquisition file. An interrogation follows, reviving the story of Spanish priest Andrés González.

Ends Mar. 21, 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St., 212-279-4200.

THE DOCTOR’S DILEMMA: Gingold Theatrical Group continues its fifth year of Project Shaw with Shaw’s comedy about the medical profession.

Mar. 22, The Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park South, 212-352-3101.

FUERZA BRUTA: LOOK UP: A visual dance-rave, technoride, Latino walking-on-the-ceiling fiesta from Buenos Aires. Open run, Daryl Roth Theatre, 101 E. 15th St., 212-239-2600.

HAIR: THE AMERICAN TRIBAL LOVE-ROCK MUSICAL: Diane Paulus’ celebrated revival of the 1967 hippiecentered musical continues its rocking Broadway run. Open run, Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45 St., 212-239-6200.

HAPPY IN THE POORHOUSE: The Amoralists present the world premiere of Derek Ahonen’s unsanitized

story of love and sex. Mar. 11-Apr. 5, Theatre 80, 80 St. Marks Place, 212-388-0388.

IN THE HEIGHTS: This heartfelt and high-spirited love letter to Washington Heights features a salsa and hip-hop flavored score by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Open run, Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46 St., 212-221-1211.

LADIES IN RETIREMENT: Pulse Ensemble Theatre presents Edward Percy and Reginald Denham’s Gothic mystery. Ends Apr. 3, Theatre 3, 311 W. 43rd St., 3rd Fl., 212-279-4200.

LIVING IN A MUSICAL: Follow the story of a young man who is a song-and-dance talent in the tradition of Fred Astaire, as he tries to find his place in the contemporary world. Ends Mar. 21, Theater for the New City, 155 1st Ave., 212-254-1109.

THE MARIA PROJECT: Using text, percussion and documentary footage, this solo theater piece chronicles a family secret. Mar. 12, 19 & 26, Bleecker Street Theatre, 45 Bleecker St., 212-260-8250.

MEMPHIS: A NEW MUSICAL: Set in the titular city during the segregated 1950s, this musical charts the romance between a white DJ and a black singer as rock-and-roll begins to emerge. Open run, Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44 St., 212-239-6200.

NEXT TO NORMAL: A woman and her family struggle to cope with her bipolar disorder in this emotional, Tony-winning musical. Open run, Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45 St., 212-239-6200.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA: Prep yourself for the forthcoming sequel by seeing (or re-seeing) Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Gothic musical romance.

Open run, Majestic Theatre, 245 W. 44 St., 212-239-6200.

SAINT HOLLYWOOD: Minetta Street Productions presents comedian Willard Morgan in his one-man multimedia musical. Ends Mar. 20, Ideal Glass Gallery, 22 E. 2nd St., 212-598-3030.

SOUP SHOW: Featuring three naked women in a giant pot of soup, the show observes the female as consumer and consumed, asking how far the women’s movement has moved us. End Mar. 28, HERE Arts Center, 145 6th Ave., 212-352-3101.

SOUTH PACIFIC: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical in its first Broadway revival. Ends Aug. 2010, Lincoln Center Theater, 150 W. 65th St., 212239-6210.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW: James Jennings directs Shakespeare’s comedic battle of the sexes. Ends Mar. 14, The American Theatre of Actors, 314 W. 54th St., 212-898-4444.

THE TEMPERAMENTALS: The new American play tells the story of two men as they fall in love while building the first gay rights organization in the United States. Ends May 9, New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St., 212-239-6200.

THE TEMPEST: The Bridge Project presents what is considered to be Shakespeare’s last play. Ends Mar. 13, BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., 718-636-4100.

THE WONDER: The Queen’s Company, NYC’s all-female classical theater company, presents a revival of Susanna Centlivre’s comedy of intrigue.

Ends Mar. 14, The Kirk Theater, 410 W. 42nd St., 212-279-4200.

ZOMBIE: Bill Connington’s play, adapted from the novella of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, looks into the mind of a serial killer. Mar. 10-13, Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, 899 10th Ave., 212-279-4200. <

To submit a gallery listing, please visit www.artcat.com/submission. For any other type of submission, please email all relevant information to cityarts@manhattanmedia.com at least three weeks prior to the event. Listings run on a space-available basis and cannot be guaranteed to appear.

Posoon Park Sung Being and Soul Recent Paintings

11 March–6 April 2010

JUNE KELLY GALLERY 166 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012/212-226-1660

March 10-April 18 Gallery 1: Lisa Corinne Davis Gallery 2: “Ocketopia” curated by Austin Thomas Artists: Deborah Brown, Elisabeth Condon, Rico Gatson, Libby Hartle, Brece Honeycutt, Jane Kent, Grace Knowlton, Molly Larkey, Jim Osman, Judith Page, Kevin Regan, Adam Simon, David Storey, Kay Thomas.

54 Orchard Street NY, NY 10002 212 410 6120 lesleyheller.com

Pandemic Logistics, 2009 Oil on panel 16” x 15 ½”

by Lisa Corinne Davis

ART FOR HAITI A SILENT AUCTION MARCH 25 TO 27 Participating artists Flavia Bacarella Rita Baragona Laura Battle Temma Bell Megan Bisbee-Durlam Charles Cajori Nicolas Carone William Carroll Susanna Coffey Lois Dodd John Dubrow Jason Eisner Margaret Farmer James Farrelly Joanne Freeman Marianne Gagnier Celia Gerard Carl Gliko Xico Greenwald Barbara Grossman Ursula Snow Hargens Mark Heyer Molly Holland Diana Horowitz Peter Hristoff Cecily Kahn Mark Klemer Judy Koon Albert Kresch Stanley Lewis Ying Li Ro Lohin Sarah Lutz Lee Marshall Jay Milder Ruth Miller Kayla Mohammadi Anne Neely Graham Nickson Janice Nowinski Elizabeth O’Reilly Frank Olt Victor Pesce Karlis Rekevics Joseph Santore Mayumi Sarai Jean Seestadt Susan Shatter Kim Sloane Richard Snyder Kyle Staver Deirdre Swords Sahand Tabatabai Kamilla Talbot Evelyn Twitchell Kim Uchiyama John Walker Erika Wastrom Heidi Whitman Kevin Wixted Alice Zinnes list in progress

ALL PROFITS will be donated to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund CLOSING RECEPTION Saturday March 27 from 5 to 7 pm FINAL BID at 7 pm sharp LOHIN• GEDULD• GALLERY 531 West 25 St. New York City 212-675-2656 HAITI.LOHINGEDULD.COM March 9, 2010 | City Arts

17

PainttheTOWN

By Amanda Gordon

WHAT A SHOW!

From top left: Robert Mnuchin and Ellsworth Kelly, with a de Kooning at L&M Arts’ booth; Collector Danielle Ganek, whose next book, The Summer We Read Gatsby, out in June, weaves in the art world; Jessica Betts and Krystian Von Speidel; Vita Zaman and Fred Wilson, whose work was shown at Pace Wildenstein’s booth; At P•P•O•W’s booth, Jamie Sterns with “Tree of Heaven” by Timothy Horne; Alec Soth in front his work, at the booth of his hometown gallery, Weinstein (in Minneapolis).

“I’ve been through once, and I’m about to go again,” collector Lawrence Benenson told the Museum of Modern Art’s chief curator of painting and sculpture, Ann Temkin, at the gala preview of the Art Show. The annual fair organized by the Art Dealers Association of America brought together 70 galleries exhibiting in booths at the Park Avenue Armory. Opening night was, as usual, a benefit for the Henry Street Settlement.

At L&M Arts, Ellsworth Kelly decided to stand next to, but not in front of, a de Kooning, to have his photograph taken. L&M Arts director Robert Mnuchin had another stipulation: “Our agents only allow three snaps at a time.” Kelly was making the rounds with the president of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, Jack Shear. Other artists stuck close to their own work: Fred Wilson stood in front of his shiny black drops, as well as shiny black glass sculptures, at the Pace Wildenstein booth, and Alec Soth was in residence at the Weinstein Gallery’s booth, which showcased his photographs of a 2007 Chanel fashion show at the Grand Palais in Paris.

At P•P•O•W, gallerina Jamie Sterns said she dressed to complement the works on view. Indeed, her outfit went well with Timothy Horne’s 100-pound wall sculpture, “Tree of Heaven.”

Horne explained that the giant pearl-drops are made of hand-blown glass, and the intricate silver work mimics lichen.

Todd Von Ammon was all hospitality at Vivian Horan Fine Art’s booth, located in a cozy back corner, not too far from the sushi and the cupcakes. But it was the booth’s display that drew people in.

Rob Wynne’s word sculptures, hanging on the wall, popped, with words such as “destiny” and phrases such as “over the rainbow” composed in large letters made of poured glass: a high-end graffiti. “I like the one-word pieces,” said Von Ammon, who, in addition to working for Vivian Horan, is an installation and sculpture artist. “It focuses the eye on the action of the glass pouring.” Von Ammon’s perch to greet visitors was by a chair by Yayoi Kusama, covered in a material that looked a bit like cotton candy.

Kristine Bell, “We had to wrap it like a mummy to get it over a director at here,” he said. As for taking a break: “I’ve got a David Zwirner Gallery mattress of bubble wrap in the back, for naps.”

EYE SPY: The couch with the eyes—enjoyed by Nelly and John Bendek—was only one of many surreal things at the Jewish Museum’s Surreal Soirée at the Waldorf-Astoria. Zora Essman, mother of comedian Susie Essman, said it was the first time her daughter had invited her to a performance. And that performance was officially a Purim shpiel. Then there was the 65-year-old—make that 70-yearold—who tried to ask out 20-something Lisa Shainberg. “That is not only surreal, it’s creepy,” said Shainberg’s friend, Sarah Warren.

As for the museum itself, though, trustee Frances Klagsbrun described it realistically: “What I love is that it combines Jewish culture and art,” she said.

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City Arts | www.cityarts.info

Loud music, absinthe, a few moments pondering the sometimes violent animations of William Kentridge and a bar snack consisting of plates of chocolate wafers with cream filling: Shock and comfort prevailed at the Museum of Modern Art’s Armory Show Party, which capped the first day of the Armory Show at Piers 92 and 94.

Given the vast amount of information everyone was trying to digest during New York’s big fair week, this party gave guests the chance to tune out. When Chuck Close arrived on the second-floor atrium, he made a beeline for the trumpet-and-song performance of the band Human Rights.

The artist Dinorah Delfin danced around him. Later, headlining band The Walkmen attracted serious attention, playing with the sculpture garden as a backdrop and impressing the ample crowd, which included singer Hamilton Leithauser’s date for the evening, his mom.

Scott Rudd

MUSEUM OF MODERN ROCK

The Walkmen perform at the 2010 Armory Show opening at MoMA.

John Calabrese

Alexandra Lebenthal and Jay Diamond at The Frick’s Deco Diamond Ball.

Notes & Nexts The other night, preservationists in brooches, architectural historians in tweed and a group of architects dressed in flannel shirts and jeans were gathered in the library of The New-York Historical Society, examining delicate sheets of paper filled with lines and cursive. Unrolled, with leather weights placed at their edges, the drawings revealed the innermost secrets of some of New York’s grandest buildings: the stranger’s reception room at the University Club, the ornate chandeliers of the New York Municipal Building, the narrow servant’s bedrooms at 998 5th Avenue. The occasion celebrated a grant that will enable the society to conserve and properly store its more than 1,000 tubes and 175 boxes of McKim Mead & White architectural drawings dated from 1879 to 1930. Aside from their historical relevance—those young arc hitects in flannel had recently referred to the drawings to renovate one of the firm’s buildings— they are beautiful to look at. And an exhibition is likely once the project is completed.

Meanwhile, the society has just opened a show exploring the Grateful Dead Archive, which is attracting more tie dye than tweed.

Genetics researcher and biotech entrepreneur William Haseltine opened his home near the United Nations to host a book party for Edward Jay Epstein, who has just published The Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality Behind the Movies. The book is what happens when a dogged journalist throws himself at the numbers in the movie industry, from how much people get paid, to how much multiplexes need to gross, to how valuable the silver is in old film prints. Epstein is also current. He recently wrote for Gawker about the future of independent films, Netflix and MGM. The eclectic crowd included journalists Eric Alterman and Richard Bernstein; Downtown performer Jessica Delfino, who plays ukelele and autoharp; writer Sloane Crosley; artist Adriana Young, who lived in a secret apartment in a mall for four years; and artist Mara Haseltine, who is working on underwater sculptures that become habitats for coral and oysters.

Jay Diamond had the right surname to attend the Frick Collection’s Deco Diamond Ball.

But his wife, Alexandra Lebenthal, had to come up with her own nod to the theme: a cocktail dress of mirrored glass pieces by Naeem Khan. The financial executive promises even more imaginative bling adventures in her fiction debut, The Recessionistas, to be published in August by Grand Central. One of the book’s characters wears some customized jewelry that leads to trouble, she told us. As for trouble at The Frick: it remained outside, in a heavy blanket of snow. Inside real-life recessionistas marked the museum’s 75th anniversary sipping Pol Roger champagne and nibbling on American sturgeon caviar; pigs in blankets, Swedish meatballs and mini Beef Wellingtons. Meanwhile, curator Colin Bailey was counting the days until the Dulwich pictures arrived. More than 630 people attended the event, raising $235,000 for education programs, such as an Art Club for middle school students.

For more party coverage, visit www.cityarts.info.

To contact the author or purchase photos, email Amanda.Gordon@rocketmail.com; bit.ly/agphotos March 9, 2010 | City Arts

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MARCH 25–28 19TH

NEW YORK

ARTS OF PACIFIC ASIA SHOW 7 W N e w Y o r k® 7 WEST 34TH STREET AT 5TH AVENUE 75 INTERNATIONAL ANTIQUES & ASIAN ART DEALERS EXHIBITING FOR SALE FURNITURE, ANTIQUES & CONTEMPORARY ART IN A MUSEUM-LIKE SETTING

PREVIEW OPENING WEDNESDAY MARCH 24, 6 –10PM TICKETS $100 PER PERSON includes wine and hors d'oeuvres, an illustrated catalogue and repeat admission.

SPECIAL EXHIBIT “BACK TO THE VILLAGES” A special exhibition of Indonesian Batak textiles based on Sandra Niessen’s definitive book “Legacy in cloth: Batak textiles of Indonesia.” Ms. Niessen will be on-hand to sign her book

SHOW HOURS THUR – SAT 11AM – 7:30PM SUN 11AM – 5PM ADMISSION $20 Includes catalogue

PHOTO COURTESY: FLYING CRANES ANTIQUES

INFORMATION 310.455.2886

CASKEY LEES, INC. www.caskeylees.com

www.newyorkartsofpacificasiashow.com