cityArts March 25, 2010

MARCH 23, 2010 Volume 2, Issue 6

New York City Opera’s L’étoile opens

Must We Applaud?

A manifesto for the future of classical music

Plus:

Carol Rosegg

Why women’s art matters, smooth versus hard jazz & Al Maysles is still filming

William Ferguson as Hérisson de Porc-Épic and Liza Forrester as Aloès in New York City Opera’s production of L’etoile.

Must We Applaud?

An Open Letter to Alan Gilbert, Music Director, New York Philharmonic

Dear Maestro, I write to you about an absurdity: that classical music audiences continue to shun new classical music.

Many applaud your obvious commitment to ongoing creation; however, the New York Philharmonic will play seven or more works by dead composers this season for every work by a living composer. Some months, such as last November, no living composers were heard.

The relationship between the audience and composers has gone cold. How they used to be in love! But they have broken up, and now whenever they’re in the same room it’s very awkward. (I didn’t know he was going to be here.) I don’t believe we need to hash out tired aesthetic arguments anymore. Like every struggling couple, what they really need are some basic relationship tools.

Consider this typical scene: A man takes his seat in Avery Fisher Hall. The distinguished conductor walks on, and the music begins. It’s a new composition.

For the next 20 minutes, the man in the audience is in pain. He squirms. He’s not merely bored, he’s miserable. Finally, it ends. Now what does he do? He does what everybody else is doing. He applauds. Reluctantly. Feebly. Briefly. Obediently.

Many will say it’s polite, but this politeness comes at a price. If we feel obliged to applaud what we have hated, then it is obvious we will avoid putting ourselves in the same position again.

What else are we to do? Loved it? Applaud loudly. Hated it? Applaud feebly and falsely.

It sounds absurd to say this: We need an alternative to applause. The culture isn’t functioning properly. We need the full repertoire of honest, engaged feedback. And so, Mr. Gilbert, would you not personally, verbally, clearly and consistently urge your patrons to boo or say no, no, no when a new composition has made them miserable?

Outrageous!

Booing is considered irredeemably rude. But this only demonstrates that the culture is upside down. Why is it not considered rude of the presenters to make patrons sit obediently through a piece they may hate?

Another absurd inversion: Though we are careful to call them “patrons,” in practice conductors and performers patronize the audience by continuing, decade after decade, to insist on a rejected conception of music. The message: If you only hear this music enough (100 years is apparently not enough), you will one day understand how good it is.

How is it that Beethoven’s music has been passed down to us? When it was first played, enough people said, “I want to hear it again.” And so it was played again.

And then other people said, “I want to hear it again.” And so on.

We have a word that embodies this delightful concept: encore. It now means play something else, but its plain meaning is repeat.

The determination of an audience to hear something played again provides a filter that is both powerful and subtle. Powerful, because it makes sure only great music gets through.

2

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(The proof of this is the repertoire. Who do we think chose it?) And subtle because it selects works—not composers. (We play about 5 percent of Stravinsky’s output.)

Encore and boo: positive and negative. And unlike applause and standing ovations, these are two feedback tools that actually mean something, for they cannot be false. They require action. Encore and boo mean pick up or put down your instruments. (It’s comical to imagine someone grudgingly moaning encore.)

Here now is a proposal: Invite New York to a Risky Venture—an attempt to set composition back on its feet. Create a 20-minute segment for each and every concert in which five or six short pieces by living composers will be played. Personally invite the audience to boo if they are miserable and to yell encore if they want to hear it again. And then play those pieces again right away. Repeat them on the next concert as well. When you have 45 minutes of encored pieces, record them. Keep doing this until something catches on in the composition community.

People would come for such an experiment. They would come because it is an invitation to re-engage. They would come because the New York classical music audience is passionate and eternally hopeful. And they would come because something innovative was finally being attempted.

There would be some disastrous evenings, of course, but what marvelous fun.

Our grandchildren will read about them in the history books. Would doing this solve the composition problem right away? No. That will take some time. But it would call forth the old spirit of composers: thick-skinned, energized and connected to the audience. (May it be so once again.)

We are in an entrenched absurdity. And it will remain entrenched until a cultural architect acts to restructure the culture’s values and practices. The Greeks wrote of Hercules, who looked upon stables that hadn’t been shoveled out in fifty years and instantly understood that the task was beyond any single shoveler. And so instead of Hercules the Hero, he became Hercules the Cultural Architect, laying his shovel to the ground and redirecting the unstoppable current of the river.

The river is waiting for a man with a shovel. We’re waiting for Alan Gilbert, the premier cultural architect in the classical music world by virtue of his position, the ensemble he helms, the city of his influence—and his dashing good looks.

You have said that the one thing people overwhelmingly ask you to do is not to play more Beethoven, but to speak to them. They are explicitly asking to hear from you. Lead us out of absurdity. We will follow.

Yours truly, ALF BASHAI Mr. Bishai teaches music theory at NYU. He is a classical and film composer, the music director of Trinity Grace Church and is currently working on a book about the future of classical music, which provides insight and action steps to solve the dysfunction of classical music culture.

InthisIssue 6 dance 7 jazz

With the HSBC Jazz Fest taking place the same time as the NEC Vocalist Showcase, HOWARD MANDEL considers which has more surprises: the hard jazz or smooth stuff.

8 Classical music

Never tired of Beethoven, JAY NORDLINGER checks in on the Artemis Quartet in Zankel Hall. Plus, the Met Opera’s revival of Hamlet.

Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair April 16-19 Park Avenue Armory Opening Night Preview, Thursday, April 15

10 at the galleries

Honda Syoryu Represented by TAI Gallery

JOEL LOBENTHAL looks forward to City Opera’s L’étoile and ponders Vladimir Vasiliev as he’s set to be honored on March 27 with a gala at City Center presented by the Youth America Grand Prix Competition.

Reviews of Joseph Beuys: Make the Secrets Productive at PaceWildenstein; Eva Hesse at Hauser & Wirth; Jon Schueler, David Slivka, Yang Yanping at David Findlay Jr. Fine Art; Entomologia at The Observatory; Donald Judd and 101 Spring Street at Nicholas Robinson Gallery; Amelie Chabannes: Vast at Stephan Stoyanov Gallery; Natalie Edgar: From Above at Woodward Gallery.

12 Arts Agenda

Symphony, Chamber Music, Opera, Jazz, Auctions, Art Fairs, Dance, Galleries and Museums.

14 Paint the Town by Amanda Gordon

Frances McDormand at the Wooster Group’s first benefit art auction; Audra McDonald and Will Swenson at the New York Philharmonic’s spring gala, a tribute to Stephen Sondheim for his 80th birthday; Albert Maysles on filming children and the Dalai Lama; plus news and notes.

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March 23, 2010 | City Arts

InBrief

All Blab, No Flab

The art anthology BLAB! is considered the sourcebook for post-modern art appreciation; consistently showcasing a wide variety of groundbreaking work from the pop-surrealist, outsider and lowbrow art movements.

Beginning March 26, the Museum of American Illustration will present BLAB!: A Retrospective at the Society of Illustrators.

BLAB! was founded and curated nearly 25 years ago by Chicago-based art director and graphic designer Monte Beauchamp. It began as a self-published, one-shot fanzine dedicated to comic illustrations.

“It brought in over 100 fan letters and several extremely favorable reviews, which I never anticipated,” said Beauchamp. “A follow-up issue wasn’t planned, but the gracious response to the first issue is what spurred me on to attempt another.”

Its evolution into an acclaimed venue for the contemporary visual arts is due to the careful selection of particular styles from a wide variety of sequential artists, illustrators, painters and printmakers. “I’m always on the lookout for artists mining artistic veins we haven’t already tapped into. One that doesn’t encroach on styles by BLAB! artists such as Sue Coe, Greg Clarke, Gary Baseman, Ryan Heshka and Nora Krug, for example. Two such recent talents I’m particularly proud of are C.J. Pyle and Kari Laine McCluskey, who have work in this current exhibit.”

The BLAB! retrospectives, which are treated the same as the anthologies, started back in 2005. “I don’t view it as either a book or a magazine, but as an orchestrated, organic process,” explained Beauchamp. The event was such a success that they’ve been having annual gallery shows at Bergamot Station in Los Angeles, “but I must confess, this exhibit at The Society of Illustrators is the one I’m particularly proud of. Back when I worked as an art director in advertising, I had an immense awe and respect for the institution and to have them offer BLAB! a retrospective is an unbelievable dream come true.” (C. Edwards) March 26-May 1, Museum of American Illustration, 128 E. 63rd St., 212-838-2560.

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Womyn’s Work

The battle of the sexes in art these days seems to be more of a scuffle than a real clash.

Women are dominating the work force and garnering more representation than ever before.

The predominance of women at the recent Whitney Biennial—more than half the 75 artists represented are women—has led some to call it the “women’s biennial” and could be used as proof that the gender disparity is lessening. But market factors, like total sales of men’s versus women’s art, confirm that true artistic equanimity has not yet been reached.

Is there really a need to dedicate an exhibit solely to the artistic output of women?

For the ICO Gallery and its curator, Robert Berry, the answer is unequivocally yes. To celebrate Women’s History Month, the gallery has dedicated its space to the forerunner of feminist art, Judy Chicago. Core imagery, emphasis on stereotypically feminine media and attention to women’s issues were all at the crux of the Feminist art movement, and Chicago was one of its key incendiary figures.

“From my early studies to finally having the opportunity to see ‘The Dinner Party’ when it went on permanent display at the Brooklyn Museum in 2004, I’ve learned that it takes astounding women to create social change, as well as change in the contemporary art world,” said Berry.

For the (male) curator, the onus is on women to perpetuate today’s art scene. The inclusion of Chicago’s “Birth Project”—a needlework series dedicated to birthing images—serves as a not-so-subtle allusion to women’s procreative powers, not only artistically, but also quite literally as mothers.

“I wanted to feature an established Feminist artist to help ‘give birth’ to the careers “Batta” cello of emerging feminist artists,” he explained.

It seems fairly obvious that women are a much more formidable force now than they were at the dawn of the feminist art movement in the 1970s. “I think that the art world has changed incredibly, and I think that part of the reason it has changed is because of people like Judy Chicago,” said Catherine Morris, curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center of Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where Chicago’s “The Dinner Party” is on permanent display.

The Judy Chicago exhibit is running in tandem at ICO with The Velvet Waltz, which offers a broader examination of women’s roles in art, politics and history. Artists included are social activist and artist Sue Coe, former art director of the New York Times Jerelle Kraus and other up-and-coming female artists from

around the world.

“Women are still writing the history of their own work,” explained Morris. Certainly the ICO Gallery’s retrospective is hoping to inspire future female artists with its gendered look back. Outside of the Venus of Willendorf, it’s hard to find an artist more quintessentially feminine than Judy Chicago.

(Bonnie Rosenberg) Shows run through March 27, ICO Gallery, 606 W. 26th St., 212-966-3897.

More than Music

The Metropolitan Museum’s André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments reopened earlier this month—with new track lighting, suede-lined display cases and repainted walls—after eight months of renovation. The two galleries exhibit 230 instruments, paintings and other artwork, featuring over 50 new pieces.

“We’ve made an effort to better explain how the instruments work,” said J. Kenneth Moore, curator in charge of the Met’s Department of Musical Instruments.

All told, the Met holds a collection of some 5,000 instruments. The objects, which date from 300 B.C. to the current time, have been assembled from the world’s six major continents and the Pacific Islands. Many of them are still playable and are used in contemporary concerts and recordings. The new exhibit provides rich historical contexts.

Among the notable instruments on display is the simple yet elegant pianoforte, the world’s oldest extant piano, built

by Italian harpsichord maker Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1720.

The gallery’s 17th-century section features two violins made in the 1690s by master violin luthier, Antonio Stradivari, as well as the famed “Batta-Piatigorsky” cello, on loan from a private collection.

Walking from the European gallery to the non-Western gallery, one leaves behind the finely honed, Baroque instruments and is surrounded by intriguingly primitive instruments of ancient Asia and Africa, many of them made of buckskin and horsehair.

Raven rattles and whistles carved in the shape of a bird’s head line the walls of the Native American section. The non-Western instruments collection includes ancient Chinese instruments, ranging from zithers and bamboo pipes to double-reed instruments and cast-iron bells.

The recent renovation is a warm-up for a much larger restoration of both galleries, which is estimated at $16 million. “It will be a state-of-the-art renovation,” said Moore.

“The old galleries will be retrofit to modern standards.” (Aline Reynolds)

march books Performing/Guzzling

By Kim Gordon

Sonic Youth ignited the alternative rock scene with their hybrid combination of art and music. Now, one of the band’s founding members, Kim Gordon, has released a cross-genre book showcasing her color-stained watercolor paintings, lyrics, poetry and photographs. Featuring amorphous pools of paint sitting atop newspaper, text that seems to melt on the page with a sinister drip, and original poetry, this book provides a private glance into this artist’s mind. The first printing of the book will be a limited edition of 3,000 copies, each containing a signed print

by Gordon.

Akira Kurosawa: Master of Cinema

By Peter Cowie

Celebrating iconic director Akira Kurosawa’s centennial is a new book by film historian Peter Cowie.

Master of Cinema is a pictorial panorama of Kurosawa’s most influential works, including Judo Saga, Seven Samurai and Ran. The book compiles candid film stills, script pages, sketches and storyboards, all unveiling the director’s extraordinary work process. The images exhibit the artistry behind Kurosawa’s films, which come together like carefully manipulated compositions—paying close attention to color, line and movement. A foreword by fellow director and Kurosawa devotee Martin Scorsese opens the book.

The Art of Jaime Hernandez

By Todd Hignite

Perhaps you’ll recognize the comicbooky drawings from the sequential art he serialized in the New York Times Magazine in 2006. Or maybe you’ve been a long fan of his seminal Love and Rockets comic books. If not, don’t fret: There’s enough excellent writing here from Todd Hignite to explain why you should be kneeling at the Hernandez altar so that you won’t feel like you came to the party late. Access to Hernandez’s archives also gives a thorough look into the development of the artist, who has been called by Alan Moore, “one of the 20th century’s most significant comic creators.”

ArtNews

L

ongtime fundraising professional Paul Johnson has been appointed Deputy Director for Development at the Brooklyn Museum following an exhaustive search. Johnson will assume his new position in mid-April… Thomas P. Campbell, director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced that Jennifer Russell will return to the museum as Associate Director for Exhibitions. She is currently Senior Deputy Director of Exhibitions, Collections, and Programs at MoMA. She had worked at the Met as Associate Director for Administration from 1993 to 1996, and will rejoin the Museum in her new role effective April 26…

The Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts has announced that the 68th annual First Run Film Festival will take place April 8-11.

The four days of screenings will end with the Wasserman Awards Ceremony on April 13 at Regal Union Square, featuring the Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation Awards and screening of the winning films… The New York City Ballet announced that Patti LuPone will make her NYCB debut in a new production of The Seven Deadly Sins as part of the company’s 2011 spring season. The ballet features a character portrayed by both a singer and dancer.

LuPone will play the singer… Todd McCarthy has officially joined the New York Film Festival selection committee. McCarthy was the longtime chief film critic for Variety and has been covering international film festivals for many years… Artexpo New York will be open to the public on March 27 and 28 and is partnering with Free Arts NYC, a local nonprofit that introduces art to under-privileged children; 10 percent of all ticket sales from March 27 will go to benefit the organization… The Municipal Art Society of New York announced its April 2010 event schedule, which includes lectures and tours that focus on the city’s everchanging landscape.

Ever wonder how commercial galleries decide who and what to exhibit? NY Studio Gallery (NYSG) is demystifying the selection process with “Reality Gallery: American SlideAll.” After an extensive selection process, NYSG’s judges’ panel will choose several finalists and then leave it to the gallery-going public to vote for their favorite work. The resulting winner will be awarded a “People’s Choice” solo exhibition at NYSG… Chef Patricia Williams was charged with the task of inventing a new menu for Smoke Jazz & Supper Club by its co-owners Paul Stache and Frank Christopher. The new menu will feature stylish food that is both affordable and approachable…

The line-up for the Lincoln Center Festival has been announced. Yukio Ninagawa’s Musashi, based on the legendary samurai story, will kick-start the festivities July 7. The fest continues through July 25 and includes 10 premieres and 45 performances over 18 days…

The Symphony Space Gala will hold its first Access to the Arts Awards April 5 at Gotham Hall, a tribute to those who share in its dedication to providing quality arts experiences to the greatest number of people. Legendary soprano Jessye Norman is to be awarded… NYCB has commissioned world-renowned architect Santiago Calatrava to design the sets for its new productions. Calatrava has created scenic designs for five of the 2010 spring season’s world premieres. The stage designs will be unveiled on April 29 during the Ballet’s Opening Gala, for which Calatrava and his wife

will serve as honorary chairs… The Kitchen is set to open the world premiere of Bellona, Destroyer of Cities. This piece is adapted and directed by Jay Scheib after Samuel R. Delany’s epic science fiction novel Dhalgren. The play will feature photography and video by Carrie Mae Weems and runs from April 1 through 10…

The Miller Theatre at Columbia University concludes its 10th year of the Composer Portrait series April 1 with Helmut Lachenmann: 75th Birthday Celebration… The Polish Cultural Institute in New York has announced the directorial debut of Polish director, Agnieszka

Wojtowicz-Vosloo. After.Life, a psychological thriller staring Liam Neeson, Christina Ricca and Justin Long, will be released on April 9… The Black Cinema Now Conference is set to run from March 26 through 28 at NYU. The conference will center on black cinema and the representation of blacks in films of the past two decades… The American Ballet Theatre’s 2010 Spring Season at the Met celebrates the company’s 70th Anniversary with a tribute to ballerina Alicia Alonso and the 30th anniversary of Natalia Makarova’s production of La Bayadere…

PLAYING WITH PICTURES THE ART OF VICTORIAN PHOTOCOLLAGE Through May 9

metmuseum.org Broadcast Sponsor of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The exhibition was organized by The Art Institute of Chicago.

The exhibition in New York is made possible by The Hite Foundation in memory of Sybil E. Hite.

Maria Harriet Elizabeth Cator, Untitled page (detail) from the Cator Album, late 1860s/70s, collage of watercolor and albumen silver prints. Hans P. Kraus, Jr., New York.

March 23, 2010 | City Arts

DANCE

Now is Not Enough

JACK VIERTEL, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

blame, since his attitude toward the preservation of his work was cavalier. He grew up in the Silver Age of Russian intellectual and artistic ferment immediately prior to the Revolution, a crucible of new thought. As a young man, he was chief choreographer for Sergie Diaghilev’s émigré Ballets Russes troupe. Paris was Diaghilev’s mecca, and it became Balanchine’s as well: a city invigorated by the ever-changing caprices of artistic and sartorial fashion. But now, nearly three decades after Balanchine’s death, it is past time to relinquish the belief that what is new is necessarily an advance. Today we are seeing great works go unperformed throughout the ballet world, while an inordinate amount of time, energy and money is expended on ephemeral new creations. Increased attention to curatorial conservation would be a constructive paradigm shift for the ballet world. The audience needs to see as much as can be presented and retrieved from the time-tested best.

Finding the right balance between healthy upward mobility in the ranks and proper respect for maturity is something that few ballet administrations can manage. Since Perestroika, Russian ballet has been increasingly susceptible

ARTHUR LAURENTS

to the lure of our own Western policies, among them a predilection for balletic baby babble. At St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Ballet, the newest and youngest performers have been, since the fall of Communism, increasingly and excessively prominent, with a concomitant attempt made to eject senior dancers out of the limelight prematurely. When the Mariinsky performed Sleeping Beauty at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., last month, however, an attempt was made to right the imbalance. And did it ever make a difference! The “seniors,” by whom I mean dancers over 30, came out looking, in some cases, in better shape than ever. Once again we saw that there is no substitute for experience.

I certainly don’t mean to say that a ballet dancer cannot reach the highest level before age 30. There have been dancers of genius—think of Vaslav Nijinsky or Tanaquil Le Clercq—whose

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

ROB BERMAN, MUSIC DIRECTOR

ANYONE CAN WHISTLE BOOK BY

New York City Opera’s L’étoile currently running.

Illustration by Scott McKowen

By Joel Lobenthal I’m looking forward to the New York City Opera’s revival of Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’étoile, which opened Mar. 18 and features choreography by Sean Curran. Chabrier’s operas of the late 19th century feature some of the most delightful dance music ever composed. George Balanchine later tapped these pieces for his ballets: Cotillon, which he choreographed in 1932 for René Blum’s Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, and Bourrée Fantasque, made for New York City Ballet in 1949.

L’étoile’s return makes me wonder anew why NYCB, resident ballet company at the same David H. Koch theater that is home to the City Opera, has not performed Bourrée Fantasque in many years. It’s a sure-fire audience pleaser and program closer. Cotillon, too, is missing.

Considered a lost work for decades, the Joffrey Ballet reconstructed it in the late 1980s, but it has never entered NYCB repertory. It’s one of those weird, haunting ballroom whirls-turnedmaelstroms that Balanchine made from time to time, endlessly evocative and far from redundant even amid this Balanchine sub-genre.

Balanchine himself must take some of the

By Carol Rosegg

Novelty is well and good, but we deserve the best experience

MUSIC AND LYRICS BY

STEPHEN SONDHEIM

careers were even over before they were 30. And during the Mariinsky’s Kennedy Center season, there was some superior work by dancers in their twenties. But the Mariinsky “seniors” both lifted the performances and gave ballast to them.

Vladimir Vasiliev, the great former star of Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet, gave some of his best performances after age 40. Turning 70 next month, he will be honored Mar. 27 with a gala at City Center presented by the Youth America Grand Prix Competition. He’ll be there, and performers from around the world will dance.

Vasiliev was the kind of unique artist who could be convincing even when cast against type.

He embodied the complexity and contradictions of the great performer. A technical powerhouse who found his finest hours in the heroic Soviet genre exemplified by Yuri Grigorovich’s Spartacus, Vasiliev also had a length and sleekness that located subtlety within bombast.

The Vasiliev gala represents something of a rarity in America. Unlike in Europe or Russia, when American ballet stars retire it’s more of a don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out kind of thing, in keeping with our ahistorical focus on “now.” Traditionally, however, living legends of Russian ballet never really stop performing in varied capacities. Vasiliev certainly won’t be dancing Spartacus on the 27th, but true to form, he will be appearing in some type of theatrical outing created especially for the occasion. <

By Frank D. Gilroy Directed by Amy Wright

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Limited Engagement Begins April 9

APRIL 8 – 11 Anyone Can Whistle Is Generously Supported by Perry and Martin Granoff Mary Jo and Ted Shen 2009-2010 Encores! Season Sponsors

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AT NEW YORK CITY CENTER STAGE II www.pearltheatre.org

JAZZ

Hard Jazz to Smooth Stuff

NEC Vocalist Showcase vs. HSBC Jazz Festival

By Howard Mandel As spring starts, unusual presenters are offering stark musical choices to New Yorkers, demonstrating just how far apart the poles of jazz stand.

Spyro Gyra, the jazz-fusion pride of Buffalo, headline a “smooth jazz festival,” along with vocalists Al Jarreau and Patti Austin, plus the married guitarist-singer duo Tuck Andress and Patti Cathcart. It’s three nights of nice sounds (March 25 through 28) by pleasant people at the Nokia Theatre Times Square. Next to the namerecognition and sales power of that lineup, the musicians who’ve performed throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn since March 20 and continue through March 27 in celebration Dominique Eade at Joe’s Pub March 26. of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the jazz program at Boston’s New England Conservatory (NEC) are to represent—they’re both jazz, right?— quite esoteric. perhaps we’ll get closer to understanding the In fact, the late NEC educator and music’s essence, functions and how to help composer George Russell, whose legacy it thrive. was the topic of an afternoon symposium The musical proficiency of pop-jazz last Sunday at Jazz at Lincoln Center, was a instrumentalists is not in doubt, but their visionary. NEC’s curriculum, as divined by material tends to soothing earnestness rather Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and jazz than edgy challenge. Spyro Gyra, which historian Gunther Schuller, promulgates jazz debuted on record in 1979, invented the “adult and classical music as equals coming together contemporary” format: tight ensembles with in a Third Stream. The school has revitalized an out-front voice, horn, guitar or keyboard klezmer, certified other “world music” genres cleanly and repeatedly stating a mellow, for re-creation and supported explorations of wistful or chipper but generally unmemorable microtonality. It’s hugely influential. But when NEC’s curriculum, as divined its vocalists’ showcase at Joe’s Pub March 26

by Pulitzer Prize-winning is headlined by singer’s composer and jazz historian singer Dominque Eade, Gunther Schuller, promulgates its featured combo that jazz and classical music as same night at Cornelia Street Café is the intensely equals coming together in a cool John McNeil-Bill Third Stream. The school has McHenry Quartet and revitalized klezmer, certified the biggest name in its culminating “Jazz Summit” other “world music” genres for at B.B. King’s Blues Club re-creation and supported and Grill on Saturday explorations of microtonality.

March 27 is highbrow jam-band keyboardist John Medeski, it’s clear which festival is pitched to melody; bubbly backgrounds and chugging casual listeners and which to hard-core fans. rhythms splashed with Caribbean percussion, The jazz ethos purports (though it may given a glossy mix. South African guitaristbe honored more in the breach than the singer Jonathan Butler, who opens for SG observance) that music is a big umbrella, March 25, croons rhythm ‘n’ blues love under which it’s déclassé to sneer at one style songs and gospel messages, typically with an or another. If we can respect what both sounobtrusive, cushioning backup band. called smooth and arguably cerebral jazz have CONTINUED on page 9

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March 23, 2010 | City Arts

ClassicalMUSIC

Immortal Beloveds

On Beethoven string quartets and the Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Hamlet’ AT AUCTION Apr 8

The Otto Penzler Collection of British Espionage and Thriller Fiction Illustrated Catalogue: $35 Specialist: Christine von der Linn, ext 20 cvonderlinn@swanngalleries.com

Apr 12

Early Printed Books including

Baskerville Imprints and Travel Literature Illustrated Catalogue: $35 Specialist: Tobias Abeloff, ext 18 tabeloff@swanngalleries.com

First edition, first issue, London, 1953.

Estimate $20,000 to $30,000.

From the Penzler Collection. At auction Apr 8.

Apr 22

Autographs Illustrated Catalogue: $35 Specialist: Marco Tomaschett, ext 12 mtomaschett@swanngalleries.com

Apr 27

Old Master through Modern Prints Illustrated Catalogue: $40 U.S./$50 Elsewhere Specialist: Todd Weyman, ext 32 tweyman@swanngalleries.com

James A.M. Whistler, The Traghetto, Number 2, etching, fifth state, 1880.

Estimate $10,000 to $15,000. At auction Apr 27.

Catalogue Orders and General Inquiries: 212 254 4710, ext 0.

104 East 25th Street • New York, NY 10010 View catalogues and bid online at www.swanngalleries.com

City Arts | www.cityarts.info

The Artemis Quartet.

T

By Jay Nordlinger he world is mad for Beethoven, and the world is right (for once).

While he was music director of the New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel staged a Beethoven festival— symphonies, concertos and a sprinkling of overtures. You couldn’t get a seat. Earlier this season, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presented the Beethoven string quartets: all 16 of them. You could hardly get into one of those concerts, either. There is a perpetual hunger for Beethoven, and it is a hunger that Beethoven perpetually satisfies.

Maazel once made a wise observation: Beethoven is one of the best friends you’ll ever have. He will be with you through thick and thin.

Those who had not had their fill of Beethoven string quartets could have attended a concert by the Artemis Quartet in Zankel Hall, the downstairs venue in the building we know as Carnegie Hall. The Artemis is a Berlin-based ensemble and fairly young: founded in 1989. Their name refers to the goddess whom the Romans called Diana.

When you do a concert of Beethoven string quartets, the formula is pretty obvious: You begin with an early work, continue with a middle-period work and end with one of the strange, awe-inspiring late quartets.

Yet there is nothing formulaic about this particular formula: It does the job pretty much every time. The Artemis Quartet played the String Quartet in G, Op. 18, No. 2; the String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95, dubbed the “Serioso”; and the String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132. That last is the one with the

extraordinary, long slow movement that gives thanks for recovery from illness.

Borrowing a page from the renowned Emerson String Quartet, the Artemis Quartet plays standing up—that is, the two violinists and the violist are on their feet; the cellist sits on a chair placed on a podium, so that he is not too far south of his partners.

Mainly, the Artemis Quartet plays very well and very satisfyingly.

On this evening, the group was consistently unified and accurate. Technique was not a problem; you could concentrate on the music alone. And the players were reliably musical. In all three quartets, they were sensible, measured, balanced. That sounds like faint praise, but I don’t mean it to be so: They did nothing too obvious. They always conveyed the requisite feeling without losing their heads. That is a mark of musicianship.

Where Beethoven wants high-spirited bubbling, they bubbled high-spiritedly.

Where he wants angelic singing, they sang like angels (or angelically enough).

Where he wants rawness and agony, they provided that as well. You could forget the performance and listen to Beethoven, in an almost unfiltered way.

The program notes supplied by Carnegie Hall were excellent, but there was one unfortunate passage in them. We read that the Artemis program “charts the composer’s evolution from the callow virtuoso who took Vienna by storm in the 1790s to the mature artist whose revolutionary conception of music ushered in the Romantic era.” There was nothing immature or callow about the young Beethoven—he was ready out of the

Return of the Dane Now playing at the Metropolitan Opera is a rarity that was once a staple: Hamlet by the French composer Ambroise Thomas (1811-96).

This work had not been seen at the Met since 1897. Musical fashion is an interesting thing.

Many people know Thomas’s Hamlet only for Ophelia’s, or Ophélie’s, mad scene: irresistible to sopranos in any era.

No matter how important the singers are, probably the key factor in any operatic performance is the conductor: The Met has a good one in Louis Langrée. He is the Frenchman who has led Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival for the past many years. And he has now conducted three operas at the Met. On the opening night of Hamlet, he was as he usually is: intelligent, prepared, tasteful, confident, confidence-inspiring and generally unimpeachable. He made a superb case for Thomas’ score. I dare say that Monsieur Langrée has become one of the MVPs of New York music.

The Met has hired a fine cast of singers, too—they are all good, right down to the gravediggers. Hamlet is Simon Keenlyside, the British baritone with the seriously beautiful voice. He knows what to do with that voice too, and he can act more or less like an actor—not like an opera singer, but like the real McCoy. Natalie Dessay, the French star, was supposed to sing Ophélie, but she fell ill, replaced by Marlis Petersen, the German soprano. I first reviewed her last summer in Salzburg: She was Susanna in Mozart’s

Marriage of Figaro, and she was both restrained and winsome. Ophélie is a much, much different role, of course—but Petersen was restrained and winsome here, too. This made for true, wrenching tragedy. There are singers who simply touch your heart, and Petersen, in my (limited) experience, is one of them.

Claudius and Gertrude were portrayed

by James Morris, the veteran American bass, and Jennifer Larmore, the veteran American mezzo. (Can she really be a veteran already?

Yes.) Morris exuded villainy, villainy being one of his specialties (he’s a bass). But he was also noble in his character’s remorse. Larmore was in top shape, with not a note out of place.

She also looked splendid: They had her gotten up like a wicked Disney stepmother.

“They”? The production is the work of Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser, and a commendable production it is. It is neither “traditional” nor “modern,” I would say: It is natural and fitting. Neither plump nor spare, it simply gives you the necessary. Particularly effective is the use of light and shadow. And white flowers in the mad scene turn out to be excellent tools.

From my point of view, Thomas’ Hamlet is nothing less than a rediscovery. And the Met’s presentation of it is a total success.

Happy is an operatic night with no weak element! Furthermore, the story of Hamlet is quite engrossing. I will have to look into the literary source. I understand it’s an English play.

And, yes, in case you’re wondering, the “To be or not to be” speech is in the opera (“Etre ou ne pas être”). It is very well rendered

by Thomas, and by Keenlyside, too. <

ed by Curat

m Willia tie Chris

CENTERPIECE:

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BY HENRY PURCELL LES ARTS FLORISSANTS PRODUCED BY GLYNDEBOURNE FESTIVAL OPERA, OPÉRA COMIQUE, THÉÂTRE DE CAEN, AND BAM DIRECTED BY JONATHAN KENT CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM CHRISTIE (MAR 23, 25 & 26) CONDUCTED BY JONATHAN COHEN (MAR 27) MAR 23—27 ONLY! TICKETS START AT $35

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out for NEC’s events will surely claim to get greater pleasure from music that’s more complicated than average easy listening, that demands immediate interaction from its players and rewards an audience’s informed, undivided attentions.

Half of NEC’s NYC weeklong activities are over by the time this will be published, but March 25, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring leads The New Mellow Edwards, a band that fits no category other than “quirky,” at the Douglas Street Music Collective, an artist-run space in out-of-the-way Gowanus.

In contrast, Joe’s Pub is an elegant room for NEC’s singers to storm on Friday; Ms. Eade, a composer-improviser with the most crystalclear voice in jazz, performs along with several of her distinguished former students.

What will happen at B.B.’s on Saturday is anyone’s guess: besides Medeski, pianists Cecil Taylor Ran and Blake and multikeyboardist Bernie Worrell of ParliamentFunkadelic are scheduled. Point of comparison, hard jazz to smooth stuff: Hard has many more surprises. <

Presenting sponsor of BAM Opera Festival

MARCH 25–28

JAZZ CONTINUED from page 7 Similarly, Al Jarreau (at Nokia March 26), graced with an unusually flexible voice, delivers bedroom ballads like “Teach Me Tonight” and disco standards such as “Boogie Down” with ingratiating fervor.

Christian Scott, the New Orleans-based trumpeter opening for Jarreau, casts himself as a serious mid-tempo romantic. Patti Austin, the star on Saturday, is Oprahworthy: She’s a hit-making singer since the ’80s who won her first Grammy in 2008 for the album Avant Gershwin, and since losing 140 pounds via gastric bypass surgery has led an effort to combat domestic violence besides singing on “We Are The World: 25 for Haiti” to raise money for earthquake victims. Tuck and the other Patti, launched in the ’80s by the New Age record label Windham Hill, are the most daring of this bunch, working fully exposed, just his guitar and her voice—clear and simple, utterly inoffensive.

But some like it feisty, and dogged New York jazzers tend to find this kind of fare a little bland. Faculty, graduates and enthusiasts

Photo: Andrew Davies by Pierre Grosbois

gates. That early G-major quartet is a bona fide, 100 percent masterpiece.

THUR – SAT 11am-7:30pm SUN 11am-5pm

ADMISSION $20 Includes catalogue

310.455.2886 www.caskeylees.com www.newyorkartsofpacificasiashow.com March 23, 2010 | City Arts

AttheGALLERIES contemplative, allowing the sheer beauty of the creatures to stealthily sneak up on you.

The Observatory is wedged in-between several other eccentric and equally delightful exhibition spaces: The Morbid Anatomy Laboratory, The Reanimation Library and the Hall of the Gowanus.

It all adds up to a delightful and uncompromisingly odd afternoon on the canal. (Melissa Stern) Through Apr. 4, The Observatory, 543 Union St., Brooklyn, observatoryroom.org.

Jon Schueler, David Slivka, Yang Yanping

“Untitled,” by Donald Judd.

Donald Judd and 101 Spring Street

Eva Hesse

One of the first artists to buy loft space in Soho, Donald Judd bought the entire five-story, 1870s cast iron, industrial building at 101 Spring St. for $70,000 in 1968 and moved in with his family. He turned it into his studio and a permanent platform for his colleagues. After his death in 1994, the space became an infrequently open museum. Because it will close for a threeyear, major restoration this summer, the gallery and distinguished art historian Maurice Tuchman organized this exhibition so that the public would have an opportunity to see Judd’s marvelous collection in his permanent installation.

Judd believed that a work’s placement is as critical to its understanding as the work itself, carrying out his thesis for the first time at 101 Spring. How right he was. Every work here from Claes Oldenburg’s amusing “Typewriter Eraser,” its round pink base balanced on a pedestal so that the blue hair-like tendrils that sprout from the end look like they’ve been caught in the wind, to David Nouros’ earthy “Untitled (Judd Fresco Study),” consisting of rectangle and right angle forms moving in both directions, gain in power from their juxtaposition with other works in the gallery.

The voluptuous shape of Arp’s pearly white plaster sculpture, “Owner of the Heidelberg Cask (Proprietaire du tonneau de Heidelberg)” seems all the more sensual with Frank Stella’s geometric, rainbow-hued, wall-size “Khurasan Gate Variation III” visible in a nearby room.

Equally provocative is the placement of John Chamberlain’s tangled, painted and chromed steel assemblage “Fun” on the wall above Carl Andre’s serene, pale blue-and-silver “3rd Steel Square” on the floor. As should be, lording over all is Judd’s “Untitled,” a classical wooden box, made of golden Douglas fir plywood, in just the right spot so that light brings out the grain of the wood, and finds its way into the Spartan, cleanlined interior. (Valerie Gladstone)

No one expects a snowman to survive past December, and no one expects a cheesecloth sculpture to endure more than a few exhibitions.

Eva Hesse made art that wouldn’t last. Latex, fiberglass and paper works can only hold a precarious position in the art historical canon.

That’s why art aficionados everywhere take note when never-before-seen works by Hesse surface in the gallery circuit. At times, the expectation of something new is all the excitement an exhibit can afford, and this exhibit unfortunately fell victim to this promissory bait and switch.

Hauser & Wirth’s newest show offers 11 materially fragile, post-minimalist sculptures by the German-born artist. The two-room exhibit contrasts the permanence of three small concrete pieces with paper “studioworks.” The introductory items are geometrical studies in form and media, as well as being utilitarian concrete objects. Like jolt-less Jack-in-the-Boxes, “Inside I” and “Inside

Through Apr. 17, Nicholas Robinson Gallery, 535 W. 20th St., 212-560-9075.

10

City Arts | www.cityarts.info

“Inside II,” by Eva Hesse.

II” are open cubes that harbor jail-cell gray prizes: one with a bird’s nest made of petrified string, the other containing two amorphous clumps painted flat gray. On a pristine table in the adjacent room lie her innocuous sculptural studies. Concocted from paper, tape, glue and cheesecloth, these papier-mâché wisps seem to sleep on the slab, like fallen maple seeds or peeled onion skins, more at home in a compost heap than a gallery. Hesse’s art does explore the transience of life, but this show is devoid of any existential provocation. Her works sit lethargically in the gallery, begging for a spark of curatorial direction. (Bonnie Rosenberg) Through Apr. 24, Hauser & Wirth, 32 E. 69th St., 212-794-4970.

Entomologia In the spirit of full disclosure, I admit that I love insects. Give me a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, a dung beetle or a giant furry bumblebee, and I’m a happy camper. So it was with some bias that I journeyed to the edge of the Gowanus Canal last week to see Entomologia, an exhibition of artists who work with bugs and bug imagery. The exhibit is housed in a yearold exhibition space called The Observatory.

Founded by a group of seven artists, The Observatory seeks to investigate “topics residing at the interstices of art and science, history and curiosity, magic and nature.” This exhibition fulfills their mission to perfection.

The small space contains works by 14 artists, ranging from the formal, scientific rendering of butterflies (Steve Thurston) to a giant contemporary photograph of a preying mantis that has just consumed its mate (Catherine Chalmers). A magnificent graphite drawing—nearly 8-feet-long, of the ventral view of a jewel bug—is by Joianne Bittle, who has rendered the insect in meticulous detail. The magnification of tiny details into huge, almost abstract shapes allows the drawing to leap back and forth between abstraction and hyperrealism. Though some of the artists employ digital methods and materials, a pleasing air of nostalgia pervades. The show is fairly formal, serious, even

Though differing in temperament, the three artists currently on view at David Findlay Jr. share a gift for the lyrically and elegantly abstracted. The lively conversation between their paintings and works on paper makes for a thoroughly handsome installation.

Jon Schueler and David Slivka were both Midwesterners who moved to NYC to join in the post-war ferment of Abstract-Expressionism.

They pursued it, however, in divergent directions.

Deeply influenced by his teacher Clyfford Still, Schueler (1916-1992) was the quintessential romantic, spending many of his later years on a remote Scottish coast, where the skies—as he eloquently wrote—filled him by turns with ecstasy, fear and rage. Unlike the work of his better-known Ab-Ex contemporaries, his brushy swaths of color pay homage equally to the dramas of nature and the painting process; his approach is far closer to Turner’s than Rothko’s. The earliest canvas at Findlay, “Ballachulish Mist” (1957), seethes with the turgid, buttery textures of his early work, but six later canvases show a more delicate and nimble touch. In “The Cloud” (1958), a great arc of blue, flecked with purple and blue-green, rises before a simmering cadmium red sky; below, one plunges to a distant massing of pale scarlet-purple: an ocean wave, or bank of fog?

Over his long career, sculptor David Slivka (b.

1914) has employed all manner of materials: wax, clay, granite, bronze, wood. But his five works at Findlay are drawings from the 1960s executed in broad, spare sweeps of black ink. Fluid armatures of climbing, curving gestures, they suggest a Franz Kline of the East. “Untitled VI” (1962), in particular, evokes a Chinese character, with crisp, stacked marks countering larger vertical strokes.

The drawings resonate as mysterious, private signs—an effect enhanced by the slightly glistening egg medium mixed into the ink.

In generational and ethnic terms, Yang Yanping (b. 1934) comes from an entirely different world.

“Caterpillar Doing Research,” by Lisa Wood.

“Red in Landscape,” by Jon Schueler.

Leaving behind the cultural restrictions of her native China, the artist emigrated to New York in 1986. Her five works here—all ink on rice paper—enliven a traditional lotus-flower theme with floods of vividly colored washes. Their textures have a delicious depth and raw elegance achieved by applying colors with crumpled paper and by staining the paper’s reverse surface. Against the flowing hues, intricate delineations of flower tendrils and stubbly stems become especially poignant.

Yanping brings a modern exuberance to a traditional genre. Like Schueler and Slivka, she’s an artist deserving far greater attention. (John Goodrich) Through Mar. 25, David Findlay Jr. Fine Art, 41 E. 57th St., 212-486-7660.

Amelie Chabannes / Vast Who are you? Artist Amelie Chabannes asks that question as she explores the concept of identity in her solo show titled Vast. Given the constant media bombardment, knowing who we are has never been more challenging. Though her subject and style are not fashionably new, Chabannes’ thoughtfully crafted objects offer memorable clues to help us better understand our vast, yet intimate identities.

A rocky abstract composition mounted on the wall near the entrance suggests all the basic categories of life: plant, animal and mineral.

Additionally, the elements that litter its surfaces and pierce “the body” have blurred the object’s boundaries, raising questions about whether acquired characteristics are factors in self-definition.

Chabannes uses the story of Oscar Kokoschka and the doll he had made of his lost love Alma Mahler, to question whether identity is a tangible thing, or is it located in the memories attached by

“Oskar, Alma and I #2” by Amelie Chabannes

“Feldbett” and “3 Wurfkreuze mit 2 Spielstoppuhren,” by Joseph Beuys.

others to inanimate objects, times and places? In a series of self-portrait masks encased in plastic boxes, Chabannes exposes the competition between external and internal forces for control of one’s identity. The faces—papier-mâché masks divided into multi-color areas outlined in black and assigned numbers—have been carefully mapped out. Yet around the faces, un-cataloged influences, in the form of causations, are reshaping the image, suggesting that our identities are merely scaffolding.

Two stacked topographies, standing waist high in the middle of the gallery, use multi-colored striations and evolving surfaces to describe the glacial and layering processes that renew and erode our identities over time. On the gallery floor, Chabannes has spread a patch of sand that visitors are welcome to walk on in order to illustrate that, while identity may appear consistent, random forces make it as vulnerable to change as shifting sand.

(Julia Morton) Through Mar. 31, Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, 29 Orchard St., 212-343-4240.

Joseph Beuys: Make the Secrets Productive Joseph Beuys did not aim to please. Considered one of the major artists of the 20th century, he wanted to shake things up, to provoke people with his live performances and his complex, often enigmatic, pieces. This display gives a good idea of his breadth, depth and eccentricity. With 12 rare sculptures and over 90 black-and-white photographs taken by Ute Klophaus—documenting 11 of the his “Aktion” works (performances)—as well as films of four happenings, the gallery is also showing rare filmed interviews with him to give a complete picture.

But even without the complementary background information, his sculptures speak for themselves. Powerful, solemn and made of primitive materials, they resemble a mini-assemblage of small sculptures that look like those found in natural history museums. Instead of connecting with viewers in any of the usual, ingratiating ways, these pieces stand aloof, intriguing us.

Take the beautiful “Scala Libera.” A wooden ladder stands upright, supported by the tension created by wires attached to stones on the floor. At first glance, it appears to be standing on its own, defying gravity. There’s something thrilling about its freedom, and then, amazing about the simplicity of the feat. “Tisch mit Aggegat” consists of a box on a table, which has wires spreading out to the floor, where they are attached to two round balls. Made of bronze and electrical cable, it has an ominous, war-

like aspect. That unknown and ominous intention extends to “Feldbett,” felt blankets rolled up and suspended from a wall. Could it be soldiers’ gear?

What’s finally so satisfying about this show is how, though obscure, Beuys actually does give a lot. (VG) Through Apr. 10, PaceWildenstein, 534 W. 25th St., 212-929-7000.

Natalie Edgar: From Above Natalie Edgar studied at Brooklyn College Design Department in the early 1950s and found herself in the middle of an intense debate between the Bauhaus and the Abstract Expressionists. Brooklyn College was known at the time for its Bauhaus style, but newer teachers brought in Abstraction, and not without controversy. She studied under Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko and married noted Abstract Expressionist sculptor Philip Pavia.

According to the artist, however, a turning point in her artistic development occurred in the 1980s when she started to take annual trips to Italy—investigating the mountains where Michelangelo crafted his white Carrara marble sculptures in the 16th century.

These new paintings draw from those expeditions. Edgar first painted plein-air renderings of the scenes in watercolor. Subsequently, she worked on these sketches in her studio by adapting and morphing them into large, oil-based abstractions. What was once a landscape becomes a free-flowing, almost improvisational presentation.

Edgar is careful to point out that she does not consider these to be landscapes but works of multiple entry points for the eye. Edgar’s intent is to present painting “as though it’s glancing past you.”

When you add her masterful use of color to the equation, the result is nothing less than stunning.

Some paintings seem to refer to historical figures—a Picasso head, a Pisano apostle—but are so subtle that one cannot be sure if these items are actually there or are instead, a sort of Rorschach test. Edgar’s utilization of white is particularly striking: Some of the whites are bare canvas, delineating an entry point. Her layering of hues (particularly the blues in “Vivaldi #1”) draw the eye into the painting, causing the feeling of losing oneself in color and form. There is the impression of history being alive and having a conversation with itself, yet these works can in no way be considered retro. In a way, it’s a magnification and amplification of her original plein-air studies. “I don’t want the paintings to get smaller,” Edgar said.

“I want them to get bigger.” (Joe Bendik) Through Apr. 24, Woodward Gallery, 133 Eldridge St., 212-966-3411.

Ryuji Miyamoto In the early hours of the morning on the southern part of Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture there was a light rumble just before dawn. That tremor erupted into a devastating 6.8 earthquake that killed over 6,000 people. The ruins of the 1995 Kobe earthquake are at the center of Amador Gallery’s latest exhibit of Ryuji Miyamoto’s photography.

Razed buildings, disjointed city blocks and streets overrun with debris and rubble typify this natural disaster news event turned gallery exhibition. Blackand-white photographs capture Kobe post-quake.

Unintentionally pegged to follow the recent seismic catastrophes that occurred in Haiti and Chile, this show hits a collective nerve, as photos of the 15-yearold episode are reminiscent of images still circulating on the nightly news. Despite its timing, the show is meant to be more illustrative than exploitative.

On one level, the viewer sees modern buildings made “post-modern” by an earthquake. They are compositional studies free from human interruption.

But the scenes also come to resemble abstracted landscapes. The visual associations with Haiti and Chile could pose a problem for gallery-goers, prompting them to think: “Too soon.” Fortunately, the success of this show does not rely on how well it communicates the reality of a news story as photojournalism does. (BR) Through May 8., the Amador Gallery, 41 E. 57th St., 212-759-6740.

“San-no-miya, Chou-ku” 1995 by Ryuji Miyamoto.

March 23, 2010 | City Arts

11

ArtsAGENDA Gallery openings

Gallery listings courtesy of

303 Gallery: Karel Funk. Opens Apr. 3, 547 W. 21st

St., 212-255-1121.

AC Institute: Tobby Millman with Tirtza Even.

Linda Post: “Apple.” Opens Mar. 25, 547 W. 27th St., 5th Fl., no phone.

Aicon Gallery: Baiju Parthan: “Milljunction.”

Opens Mar. 23, 35 Great Jones St., 212-7256092.

Atlantic Gallery: Ragnar Naess: “Plant and Space Forms.” Opens Mar. 30. Richard Lincoln: “Artists and Models.” Opens Mar. 30, 135 W. 29th St., suite 601, 212-861-8781.

Blue Mountain Gallery: Rose Weinstock: “Cloudscapes.” Opens Mar. 30, 530 W. 25th St., 646-486-4730.

BRIC Rotunda Gallery: “A Wild Gander: Artists from the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective.” Opens Mar. 24. “Apologies and Further Concessions.” Opens Mar. 24, 33 Clinton St., Brooklyn, 718-875-4047.

Bruce Silverstein Gallery: “Silverstein Photography Annual 2010.” Opens Mar. 27, 535 W. 24th St., 212-627-3930.

Ceres Gallery: Cynthia Eardley: “Sculpture.” Opens Mar. 30. Ethelyn Honig: “The Eastern Garbage Patch.” Opens Mar. 30, 547 W. 27th St., suite 201, 212-947-6100.

Dash Gallery: Kyle Goen: “The Voice That Arms Itself To Be Heard.” Opens Mar. 25, 172 Duane St., no phone.

David Nolan Gallery: Neil Gall: “The Great Constructor.” Opens Mar. 25, 527 W. 29th St., 212-925-6190.

DCKT Contemporary: Lia Halloran: “The Only Way Out Is Through.” Opens Mar. 26, 195 Bowery, 212-741-9955.

First Street Gallery: Penny Kronengold. Opens Mar. 30, 526 W. 26th St., suite 915, 646-3368053.

Gagosian Gallery: Tatiana Trouvé. Opens Mar. 25, 980 Madison Ave., 212-744-2313.

Heskin Contemporary: Tim Linn: “Recent Sculpture and Works on Paper.” Opens Apr. 1, 443 W. 37th, Ground Floor, 212-967-4972.

Hirschl & Adler Modern: “Alexander Creswell: Aqua Terra.” Opens Mar. 25, 21 E. 70th St., 212-5358810.

Nabi Gallery: Kathy Buist: “Light Upon the Deep.”

Opens Mar. 25, 137 W. 25th St., 212-929-6063.

Noho Gallery in Chelsea: Zarvin Swerbilov. Opens Mar. 30, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 212-367-7063.

Prince Street Gallery: Mary Salstrom: “Landscape Paintings and Sketches From Life.” Opens Mar. 30, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646-230-0246.

Sidney Mishkin Gallery: “The Beautiful Time in

Lubumbashi: Photography by Sammy Baloji.”

Opens Mar. 26, Baruch College, 135 E. 22nd St., 646-660-6652.

Sloan Fine Art: Diane Barcelowsky: “So the Story Goes.” Opens Mar. 24. Edwin Ushiro: “At Night, Lights Fell and Loved Ones Returned Home.” Opens Mar. 24, 128 Rivington St., 212477-1140.

Spanierman Modern: “Teo González.” Opens Mar. 23, 53 E. 58th St., 212-832-1400.

Studio-X New York: Greta Hansen & Cheryl WingZi Wong’s Warm Engine: “Trans Siberia.” Opens Mar. 26, 180 Varick St., Suite 1610, 212-9892398.

ZieherSmith: Wes Lang. Opens Mar. 25, 516 W. 20th St., 212-229-1088.

Gallery Closings 303 Gallery: Mike Nelson. Ends Mar. 27, 547 W.

21st St., 212-255-1121.

440 Gallery: Amy Williams: “Within You Without You.” Ends Apr. 4, 440 6th Ave., Brooklyn, 718-499-3844.

Allan Stone Gallery: “Accumulation.” Ends Apr. 3, 113 E. 90th St., 212-987-4997.

Babcock Galleries: “African Americans: Seeing and Seen, 1766-1916.” Ends Apr. 2, 724 5th Ave., 212-767-1852.

Ceres Gallery: Kathlene Tracy: “You Are Here.”

Ends Mar. 27. Micaela de Vivero: “Nodes.”

Ends Mar. 27, 547 W. 27th St., suite 201, 212947-6100.

Cynthia Reeves: Jaehyo Lee. Ends Mar. 27, 535 W. 24th St., 2nd Fl., 212-714-0044.

Farmani Gallery: Elene Usdin: “Femmes D’Interieur.” Ends Mar. 27, 111 Front St., suite 212, Brooklyn, 718-578-4478.

First Street Gallery: Wendy Gittler. Ends Mar. 27, 526 W. 26th St., suite 915, 646-336-8053.

Frederieke Taylor Gallery: Marion Wilson: “Artificially Free of Nature.” Ends Apr. 3, Project Room. “Anniversary Invitational I.” Ends Apr. 3, 535 W. 22nd St., 6th Fl., 646-230-0992.

Gallery 221: Michael Brod: “Whoever Emerges II.” Ends Apr. 1, 221 E. 88th St., 212-426-5646.

Gallery Hanahou: Lisa Grue: “Owls Have More Fun.” Ends Mar. 26, 611 Broadway, suite 730, 646-486-6586.

Gallery Schlesinger: Gideon Bok: “Re: Stacks.”

Ends Mar. 27, 24 E. 73rd St., 2nd Fl., 212-7343600.

Grey Art Gallery: “Downtown Pix: Mining the Fales Archives.” Ends Apr. 3, 100 Washington Square E., 212-998-6780.

SalmagundiClub

SPECIAL RESERVE ART AUCTION FRIDAY APRIL 16TH 2010 AT 8PM

Heskin Contemporary: Nikki Lindt: “Recent Paint-

ings and Works on Paper.” Ends Mar. 27, 443 W. 37th, Ground Floor, 212-967-4972.

Hogar Gallery of Art: Michelle Forsyth. Ends Apr. 5, 362 Grand St., Brooklyn, 718-388-5022.

ICO Gallery: “Velvet Waltz.” Ends Mar. 27, 606 W. 26th St., 212-966-3897.

James Cohan Gallery New York: Yun-Fei Ji. Ends Mar. 27, 533 W. 26th St., 212-714-9500.

Jeff Bailey Gallery: Louise Belcourt: “Paintings.”

Ends Mar. 27, 511 W. 25th St., suite 207, 212989-0156.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery: “Group Exhibition.” Ends Mar. 27, 529 W. 20th St., 212-243-3822.

The LAB: Kaz Maslanka: “A Spectrum of Jewels.”

Ends Mar. 26, The Roger Smith Hotel NY, 501 Lexington Ave., 212-755-1400.

Lehmann Maupin: Nari Ward. Ends Apr. 3, 201 Chrystie St., 212-255-2923.

Lennon, Weinberg, Inc.: Jill Moser: “New Paintings and Prints.” Ends Mar. 27, 514 W. 25th St., 212-941-0012.

LMAKprojects: Katie Holten: “The Golden Bough II.” Ends Mar. 28, 139 Eldridge St., 212-2559707.

Lower Eastside Girls Club: Wahala Temi: “Body Work.” Ends Mar. 26, 56 E. 1st St., 212-9821633.

Mike’s Museum: David Levine. Ends Mar. 26, 112 Greene St., no phone.

Mike Weiss Gallery: Sofi Zezmer: “Remote Control.”

Ends Apr. 3, 520 W. 24th St., 212-691-6899.

Mitchell-Innes & Nash (Chelsea): Joe Bradley & Chris Martin. Ends Mar. 27, 534 W. 26th St., 212-744-7400.

Noho Gallery in Chelsea: Sheila Hecht. Ends Mar. 27, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 212-367-7063.

PaceWildenstein: Robert Ryman: “Large-Small, Thick-Thin, Light Reflecting, Light Absorbing.”

Ends Mar. 27, 32 E. 57th St., 212-421-3292.

Phoenix Gallery: Gretl Bauer, Laufey Bustany, Pamela Flynn, Ming-Jen Hsu & Laura Westby: “Quintet.” Ends Mar. 27, 210 11th Ave., 212226-8711.

Phyllis Stigliano Gallery: Frances Hynes: “All Kids of Weather.” Ends Mar. 27, 62 8th Ave., Brooklyn, 718-638-0659.

Prince Street Gallery: Kate Emlen: “Red Point Paintings.” Ends Mar. 27, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646-230-0246.

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art: Jenna Gribbon: “re: The Mirrored Veil.” Ends Mar. 27, 547 W. 27th St., 2nd Fl., 212-244-4320.

Skoto Gallery: George Afedzi Hughes: “Layers.”

Ends Mar. 27, 529 W. 20th St., 5th Fl., 212352-8058.

“Drawing 237,” by Teo Gonzalez at Spanierman Modern.

Skylight Gallery: Mark Weiss. Ends Apr. 2, 538

W. 29th St., 212-629-3131, ext. 248.

Soho20 Gallery Chelsea: Eve Ingalls: “Drawing

Earth.” Ends Mar. 27, 547 W. 27th St., suite 301, 212-367-8994.

Tibor de Nagy Gallery: Sarah McEneaney: “Recent Paintings.” Ends Apr. 5. Rudy Burckhardt: “Early Photographs.” Ends Apr. 5, 724 5th Ave., 212-262-5050.

Visual Arts Gallery: “Mentors.” Ends Apr. 3, 601 W. 26th St., 15th Fl., 212-592-2145.

Westbeth Gallery: Emil Mare: “Paintings.” Ends Apr. 4, 55 Bethune St., 212-989-4650.

Works Gallery: Edwin E. Bobrow: “How I See It: Photography of Central Park.” Ends Apr. 4, 1250 Madison Ave., 212-996-0300.

Zürcher Studio: Brian Belott: “The Joy of File.”

Ends Apr. 1, 33 Bleecker St., 212-777-0790.

Museums Abrons Art Center: “Where They At: A Multi-

Media Archive of New Orleans Bounce.” Ends Apr. 3, 466 Grand St., 212-598-0400.

American Museum of Natural History: The Butterfly Conservatory. Ends May 31. “Traveling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World.”

Ends Aug. 15. “Lizards & Snakes: Alive!” Ends Sept. 2, 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 June 30, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Ave., 3rd Fl., Brooklyn, 718-636-4100.

Brooklyn Museum: “To Live Forever: Art and the

Rose theWeinstock Cloudscapes

March 30th thru April 24th Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

CURATOR AND AUCTIONEER FOR THIS EVENT WILL BE

ALASDAIR NICHOL

47 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10003 212-255-7740 WWW.SALMAGUNDI.ORG 12

City Arts | www.cityarts.info

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

Blue Mountain Gallery

530 West 25th Street, fourth floorYellow NewSunset, York, oil New York 24”x40” 10001 on linen,

Tel: 646 486 4730 www.bluemountaingallery.org

646 486 4730

www.bluemountaingallery.org

Afterlife in Ancient Egypt.” Ends May 2. “Kiki Smith: Sojourn.” Ends Sept. 12. “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: “Design USA: Contemporary Innovation.” Ends Apr. 4. “Quicktake: Tata Nano - The People’s Car.” Ends Apr. 25, 2 E. 91st St., 212-849-8400.

The Drawing Center: Iannis Xenakis: “Composer, Architect, Visionary.” Ends Apr. 8, 35 Wooster St., 212-219-2166.

Fisher Landau Center for Art: “Five Decades of Passion.” Ends Mar. 29. “We Are the World: Figures & Portraits.” Ends Mar. 29, 38-27 30th St., Long Island City, 718-937-0727.

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.” Ends June 13, 333 E. 47th St., 212-832-1155.

The Kitchen: Leslie Hewitt: “On Beauty, Objects and Dissonance.” Mar. 27-May 10, 512 W. 19th St., 212-255-5793.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “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. “Tutankhamun’s Funeral.” Ends Sept. 6, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710.

The Morgan Library & Museum: “Letters by J.D. Salinger.” Ends Apr. 11. “Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves.” Ends May 2. “Rome After Raphael.” Ends May 9, 225 Madison Ave., 212-685-0008.

El Museo del Barrio: “Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement.” Ends May 9, 1230 5th Ave., 212-831-7272.

Museum of American Finance: “Women of Wall Street.” Ends Mar. 2010, 48 Wall St., 212-9084110.

Museum of American Illustration: “BLAB!: A Retrospective.” Opens Mar. 26, Society of Illustrators, 128 E. 63rd St., 212-838-2560.

Museum of Arts and Design: “Slash: Paper Under the Knife.” Ends Apr. 4. “Bigger, Better, More: The Art of Viola Frey.” Ends May 2. “Portable Treasuries: Silver Jewelry From the Nadler Collection.” Ends Aug. 8, 2 Columbus Cir., 212-299-7777.

Museum of Modern Art: “Picasso: Themes & Variations.” Mar. 28-Sept. 6. “Tim Burton.” Ends Apr. 26. “William Kentridge: Five´ Themes.”

Ends May 17. “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present.” Ends May 31, 11 W. 53rd St., 212708-9400.

National Museum of the American Indian: “Beauty Surrounds Us.” Ends Mar. 31. “Ramp It Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America.” Ends June 27. “HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor (Part I).” Ends Aug. 1, 1 Bowling Green, 212514-3700.

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: “John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legacy.” Ends Mar. 25.

“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. 25. “In Passing: Evelyn Hofer, Helen Levitt, Lilo Raymond.” Ends May 23. “Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 16092009.” Ends June 26, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, West 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, 917-275-6975.

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: “The Jazz Loft Project.” Ends May 22, 40 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-870-1630.

Philippine Center: Society of Philippine American Artists and ASCA present “Woman,” an art exhibit in celebration of International Women’s History Month. Ends Mar. 26, 556 5th Ave., 212-764-1330.

Rubin Museum of Art: “Remember That You Will Die: Death Across Cultures.” Ends 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.

“Bardo: The Tibetan Art of the Afterlife.” Ends Sept. 6, 150 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. “Paris and the AvantGarde: Modern Masters From the Guggenheim Collection.” Ends May 12. “Malevich in Focus: 1912-1922.” Ends June 13. “Hilla Rebay: Art Educator.” Ends Aug. 22, 1071 5th Ave., 212423-3500.

Auctions

Tickets $10 - $35 212.721.6500 or lincolncenter.org Alice Tully Hall Box Office, Broadway at 65th Street

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

Christie’s: South Asian Modern & Contemporary

Art. Mar. 23, 10 a.m. Indian & Southeast Asian Art. Mar. 23, 2. Japanese & Korean Art. Mar. 24, 10 a.m. For the Enjoyment of Scholars: Selections from the Robert H. Blumenfield Collection.

Mar. 25, 10 a.m. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art Including Property from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections. Mar. 25, 2:30, Mar. 26, 10 a.m. & 2, 20 Rockefeller Plz., 212-636-2000.

Doyle New York: Jewelry, Watches, Silverware & Coins. Mar. 24, 10 a.m., 175 E. 87th St., 212427-2730.

I.M. Chait Gallery: I.M. Chait holds its fourth annual New York City Asia Week auction, featuring an elite collection of important Chinese ceramics and Asian works of art. Mar. 27, Fuller Building, 595 Madison Ave., 5th Fl., 800-775-5020.

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

Swann Auction Galleries: The Stephen L. White Photographs Collection. Mar. 23, 1:30, 104 E. 25th St., 212-254-4710.

Art Events

KATHY BUIST

Light Upon the Deep

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. Ends Mar. 28, Asia Society, 725 Park Ave., 212-288-6400.

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. Preview party Mar. 24, show Mar. 25-28, 7W New York, 7 W. 34th St., 310-455-2886.

Soho/L.E.S. Art Gallery Tour: Guided tour of the week’s top 7 gallery exhibits in the downtown center for contemporary art. Mar. 27, 39 Wooster St., 212-946-1548; 1, $20.

March 25-April 24 Opening Reception March 25, 6-8

Colinas Rojas, oil on canvas, 48x84, 2010

NABI GALLERY 137 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001, 212 929 6063, www.nabigallery.com

CONTINUED on page 15

March 23, 2010 | City Arts

13

PainttheTOWN

By Amanda Gordon

Now That’s Entertainment

Etienne Frossard

photos: Etienne Frossard

Against the back wall at Sean Kelly Gallery, below a mesmerizing image of Marina Abramovic´ that would later be auctioned for $22,000, Frances McDormand told of her reasons for chairing the Wooster Group’s first benefit art auction. “I am here because of their vision and will, their mayhem and magical mischief, and because they’re too chicken shit to get up here,” the actress said, referring specifically to the avant garde theater group’s director, Elizabeth LeCompte, and founding member, Kate Valk.

McDormand is currently appearing in the Wooster Group’s production of North Atlantic at the newly renovated Jerome Robbins Theater at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. But McDormand also threw herself into the role of art handler and auctioneer, holding the works and encouraging bidders. “Don’t be shy,” she said as she walked around the room with a Robert Mikhail Baryshnikov Mapplethorpe photograph.

The formal conductors of the auction were Sara Friedlander of Christie’s and musician Casey Spooner.

As Jeff Koons’ “Monkey Train (Orange)” went up Kate Valk, Frances McDormand for bid, Spooner hyped the work with a reference to the artist’s role as curator of Skin Fruit at the New Museum (a much-scrutinized show of work featuring a museum trustee’s collection). “Nepostism is hot this season,” Spooner said.

Laurie Anderson “This is a hot piece of scandal right here.”

The silent auction and live auction yielded approximately $350,000. Agnes Gund bought a Kalup Linzy for $1,000. Writer Siri Hustvedt admired Louise Bourgeois’ “Les Fleurs, 2009,” but her husband, writer Paul Auster, told CityArts: “We’re on the benefit committee; we can’t afford to buy the art.”

Hustvedt recalled her first Wooster Group performance, of Gertrude Stein’s Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights. “I turned to my husband and I said, “I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s entertainment’.”

Elizabeth Hirsch, Joshua Smith Andrew Andrew

Albert Maysles

documentary dreamer

Notes and Nexts

“Hitchock said, ‘In fiction, the director is God. In documentary, God is the director.’” So recounted documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles during a conversation at the Wooster Group benefit. He illustrated Alfred Hitchock’s point with an example from his own work: “I’ve been filming children talking to one another,” he says.

The children are, of course, unprompted, and they say the most amazing things. Maysles said a 2-and-a-half-year-old asked her 2-month-old sister, “What’s it like in heaven?” In a conversation between two girls who were talking about kissing, one said, she thought she’d been kissed, but it turned out to only be a boy spitting in her ear. “One child talked about her solving her dream,” Maysles added.

“My idea is to give them access to the rest of the world.”

Back to hanging with adults, Maysles has been hosting screenings and Q&As with filmmakers at his Maysles Cinema. The theater on Lenox Avenue is, according to its website, “the only movie theater in northern Manhattan dedicated to documentary film.” The evenings of Mar. 29 through 31 will be a series of “Jock Docs” screenings. As for making documentaries, Maysles has several ideas brewing. He’d like to explore coincidences—“God’s way of remaining anonymous,” according to him (quoting Einstein)—and he’d also like to find a way to use some lovely footage of the Dalai Lama that he filmed at 5 a.m. in the Dalai Lama’s New York hotel room a few years ago.

Mike Daisey is working with WNYC to develop a pilot for a show on public radio. Judging from his first experiment, in front of a live audience at the Greene Space, he’s going for a sci-fi, tales of the absurd vibe—or rather, a mix of fiction and reality. He began the show by teaching the audience how to gasp, boo and hiss on cue, clearly enjoying the interactivity. Then it was back to his desk, his traditional perch for his monologues.

Here he interviewed a scientist about her doubling machine, a man who had spent six months living in an abandoned subway station and a performer who clarified the difference between a ménage a trois and an orgy.

He’s doing two more shows (already sold out) to test his ideas... Who wears Marc Jacobs to apply for Medicaid? Hogan Gorman, a former model who tells the story of her recovery from a major car accident in her one-woman show Hot Cripple. After a great run last month, produced by Colleen DeVeer at the American Theater of Actors, Gorman is thinking about turning it into a book and reprising the show in a larger venue...

A vacant retail space in downtown Brooklyn has been turned into an art space, dubbed simply 177 Livingston, with programming by temporary tenants Lighting Industries, Triple Canopy and The Public School New York. ... Artist Mel Kendrick is working on new sculpture for Madison Square Park. One of the works that was at the park last fall will be installed this summer at Longhouse Reserve on the East End... Elana Rubinfeld and Sarah Murkett have curated a show of works that use humor to explore deeper issues at Fred Torres Collaborations and Armand Bartos Fine Art. “Knock Knock” artists include R. Crumb, Kristofer Porter, and Justin Cooper... Elizabeth Bard, a friend, has published her first book, a memoir about how food helped her fall in love and feel at home in Paris.

Bard reads from the book, Lunch in Paris, April 7 at the Tribeca Barnes & Noble. She tells us she’ll be passing out her own home-baked financiers to the crowd.... Historian John Styles, who recently received a grant to research spinning in the era of the spinning wheel, 1400-1800, will be honored by the Bard Graduate Center at a benefit luncheon Apr. 14.

The New York Philharmonic Richard Termine

Audra McDonald, shown here with her beau Will Swenson, performed March 15 at the New York Philharmonic’s spring gala, a tribute to Stephen Sondheim for his 80th birthday. The event raised $1.135 million.

14

City Arts | www.cityarts.info

For more party coverage, visit www.cityarts.info. To contact the author or purchase photos, email Amanda.Gordon@ rocketmail.com; bit.ly/agphotos

Jazz Clover’s Fine Art Gallery: The eighth annual Lady

Got Chops Women’s Month Jazz Festival features 13 female jazz performers. Proceeds go to Doctor’s Without Borders. Mar. 27, 338 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, 718-625-2121; 7, $25.

Jazz Standard: Jazz Standard celebrates the New

Dance 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival: For the final

weekend of the festival, dancer Molissa Fenley performs. Mar. 26-28, Buttenwieser Hall, 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., 212-415-5500; times vary, $12+.

Amy Marshall Dance Company: The company celebrates its 10th anniversary with the world premieres of Going for the Gold and A Gift, Riding the Purple Twilight. Mar. 25-28, Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater, 405 W. 55th St., 212-8684444; times vary, $20+.

Configuration Dance Theatre and LehrerDance: Joseph Cipolla’s and Jon Lehrer’s dance companies present a program of contemporary ballets.

Mar. 23, Ailey Citigroup Theatre, 405 W. 55th St., 212-868-4444; 8, $15.

DanceBrazil: Under the direction of founder and artistic director Jelon Vieira, DanceBrazil presents works that highlight the company’s fusion of Capoeira, Afro-Brazilian and contemporary dance. Mar. 23-Apr. 4, The Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave., 212-691-9741; times vary, $10+.

Dance Theater Workshop: Darian Dauchan concludes his 100-hour creative residency with two work-in-progress showings of “Death Boogie,” a multimedia hip-hop poetry musical. Mar. 25 & 26. Faye Driscoll stars in the world premiere of “There is so much mad in me.” Mar. 31-Apr. 3, 219 W. 19th St., 212-924-0077; 7:30, $5+.

Juilliard Dance: The company, under the direction of Lawrence Rhodes, presents Juilliard Dances Repertory. Mar. 24-28, Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Juilliard, 155 W. 65th St., 212-769-7406; times vary, $10+.

Second Avenue Dance Company: The company presents its spring concert series featuring the work of four guest choreographers. Mar. 31-Apr. 5, Fifth Floor Theatre, 111 2nd Ave., 212-998-1982; 8, $5+.

World Dance Theater: Queens Theatre in the Park presents Cinderella. Mar. 27, Claire Shulman Playhouse Main Stage Theatre, Queens Theatre in the Park, Flushing, 718-760-0064; times vary, $12.

Juilliard Joseph W. Polisi, President

5 Performances • Begins this Wednesday Mar 24 – 27 at 8, Sun, Mar 28 at 3 Peter Jay Sharp Theater

MERCE CUNNINGHAM Summerspace / Morton Feldman’s Ixion PAUL TAYLOR Last Look / Donald York JEROME ROBBINS N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz /Robert Prince JUILLIARD ORCHESTRA and members of JUILLIARD JAZZ George Stelluto Conducts Tickets $20, CenterCharge (212) 721-6500 TDF accepted, 1/2-price student and senior tickets only at Box Office

Nan Melville

Juilliard Dances Repertory

Wed, Mar 31 at 8 • Peter Jay Sharp Theater R U B Y A N N I V E R S A RY C O N C E RT guests include the Juilliard String Quartet, friends, and students from Juilliard and Stony Brook University World Premieres by TOWER Rising; CHEN ...becoming... plus works by VIVALDI, UEBAYASHI, and THOMAS FREE tickets 3/17, Juilliard Box Office

Christian Steiner

Flutist Carol Wincenc

Thurs, Apr 1 at 8 • Avery Fisher Hall

Leonard Slatkin Conducts the Juilliard Orchestra

Francisco Ladron de Guevara Finck, Violin ALL-SCHUMAN Circus Overture Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (rev. 1959) Andantino from original 1950 version, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra Symphony No. 3 Tickets: $20, $10, call CenterCharge (212) 721-6500 FREE senior/student tickets only at Avery Fisher Hall Box Office

Donald Dietz

Juilliard’s new early music student ensemble, performs with conductor William Christie. Apr. 2, Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway, 212-6714050; 8, free.

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

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts: The Center ends its Arts in the Afternoon series with “In the Mood,” a 1940s musical revue, featuring the String of Pearls Big Band Orchestra and a cast of six singer/dancers. Mar. 28, Walt Whitman Theatre at Brooklyn College, 2900 Campus Rd., Brooklyn, 718-951-4500; 2, $25.

Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine: The Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Chorus performs Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, “Resurrection.”

Mar. 25, 1047 Amsterdam Ave., 212-316-7490; 7:30, free.

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

Juilliard: Juilliard Music Technology Center presents Beyond the Machine 10.0, a festival of electro-acoustic and multimedia art. Mar. 25-28, Willson Theater, 155 W. 65th St., 212-7697406; times vary, free.

Lincoln Center: New York City Opera begins its 2010 spring season with a gala performance of L’Etoile. Ends Apr. 3, David H. Koch Theater, 20 Lincoln Center, 212-496-0600; times vary, $6+.

Manhattan School of Music: Vocalist Jane Monheit performs with the Manhattan School of Music Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Justin DiCioccio. Mar. 24, John C. Borden Auditorium, 120 Claremont Ave., 917-493-4428; 7:30, $12+.

Merkin Concert Hall: The Eastman Virtuosi chamber ensemble, composed of Eastman School of Music faculty and students, performs. Mar. 27, Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th St., 212-501-3330; 8, $10+.

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, W. 62nd St., 212-362-6000; times vary, $20+.

Park Avenue Christian Church: Classical and Klezmer Chamber Music with the Jewish Arts Ensemble of New York. Part of Arts at the Park. Mar. 28, Park Avenue Christian Church, 1010 Park Ave., 212-868-4444; 7, $18+.

WMP Concert Hall: WMP hosts a recital of “The Diva and the Fiddler” with soprano Diana Jacklin and violinist Hartmut Ometzberger. Mar. 26, 31 E. 28th St., 212-582-7536; 7:30, $10+.

Zankel Hall: The string trio Time for Three performs a mix of classical, jazz, pop, hip-hop, country and more. Mar. 27, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 1, $9+.

Fri, Apr 2 at 8 • Alice Tully Hall

William Christie Conducts Juilliard415 Works by LOCKE, HANDEL, PURCELL, ARNE, AVISON, HANDEL Jerome L. Greene Concert FREE tickets, Juilliard Box Office

R E M I N D E R 2 more free concerts by

Juilliard Historical Performance Wed, Mar 31 at 4 • Paul Hall

Master Class with William Christie

Richard Termine

Alice Tully Hall: The Juilliard415 Ensemble,

England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies program.

Mar. 23 & 24. The Marty Ehrlich Quartet performs. Mar. 24. The Kurt Rosenwinkel Standards Trio performs. Mar. 25 & 26. The Charlie Hunter Trio performs. Mar. 27 & 28. Todd Sickafoose’s Tiny Resistors perform. Mar. 31, 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. 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. Ends Mar. 27, various locations, www.necmusic.edu/jazz40.

Rose Theater: Bassist, composer and bandleader Pablo Aslan performs with a group of Argentine musicians for the first time in the United States.

Mar. 26 & 27, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway at W. 60th St., 212721-6500; 8, $10+.

Sycamore: Bassist and composer Lisa Mezzacappa leads a quartet of New York collaborators in a set of original garage jazz. Mar. 23, 1118 Cortelyou Rd., Brooklyn; 9, $10.

Symphony Space: New York Youth Symphony’s Jazz Band Classic presents big band arrangements from the Great American Songbook with guest Ingrid Jensen on trumpet. Mar. 26 & 27, 2537 Broadway, 212-864-5400; 7:30, $15+.

Standby line forms at 3

Wed, Apr 14 at 8 • Paul Hall

Monica Huggett Conducts Juilliard415 Works by RAMEAU, FERRANDINI, DELALANDE Standby line forms at 7

Richard Termine

Music & Opera

Mon, Apr 5 at 8 • Alice Tully Hall MADE IN NEW YORK

Juilliard Percussion Ensemble C E L E B R AT I N G N Y C ’ S M U S I C A L D I V E R S I T Y Daniel Druckman, Director and Conductor David Fulmer, Violin Samuel Budish, Marimba World Premiere, CHESKY Street Beats Works by REICH, LUNSQUI, MACKEY, LIGETI, CARTER FREE tickets, Juilliard Box Office

Juilliard

Hiroyuki Ito

ArtsAGENDA CONTINUED from page 13

155 W. 65th St. • Box Office open M-F, 11AM-6PM • (212) 769-7406 www.juilliard.edu

March 23, 2010 | City Arts

15

AVENUE SHOWS invite you to attend

AVENUE on Park Spring Show

Jewelry â&#x20AC;˘ Style â&#x20AC;˘ Design

April 23-25, 2010 A show of high style and design, featuring an extraordinary selection of antique, estate and contemporary jewelry, as well as fine porcelain and ceramics, vintage couture and more!

583 Park Avenue

Park Avenue at 63rd Street, New York City For show information and tickets, please visit onpark.avenueshows.com or call 646.442.1627 Photo by Sarah Merians Photography and Video Company