cityArts May 4, 2010

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MAY 4, 2010 Volume 2, Issue 9

IN THIS ISSUE

© Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

LANCE ESPLUND on Picasso’s reign over Manhattan this season. JAY NORDLINGER says farewell to Flicka. JOEL LOBENTHAL on Calatrava at the ballet. HOWARD MANDEL isn’t exhausted by Miles.

Plus: Beyoncé’s saxophonist takes Definitive Steps Laura Kaminsky’s Wall marathon Stephen Pace outlives the critics Picasso’s “Dora Maar in a Wicker Chair,” 1938, on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

InthisIssue 6 CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERA Frederica von Stade gives her final recital; and JAY NORDLINGER checks in with the Phil’s Stravinsky Festival.

8 MUSEUMS & GALLERIES EXPERTS IN DIAMONDS, ESTATE JEWELRY, GOLD AND WATCHES

With blockbuster museum and gallery shows this season, LANCE ESPLUND explains why Picasso remains the art world’s bread and butter.

10 AT THE GALLERIES Reviews: Steve Currie at Elizabeth Harris Gallery; Douglas Florian at BravinLee Programs; Alan Feltus at Forum Gallery; Hector McDonnell at W.M. Brady & Co.; Brent Green at Andrew Edlin Gallery; Nathan Oliveira at DC Moore Gallery; Winifred Rembert at Adelson Galleries; Wilhelm Sasnal at Anton Kern Gallery.

13 DANCE For four Generations ouR family business has stood for integrity and fair dealing. WE OFFER EXCELLENT PRICES for diamonds and fine jewelry. .

JOEL LOBENTHAL on the New York City Ballet’s Architecture of Dance: New Choreography and Music Festival.

14 THEATER MARK PEIKERT at a revival of The Subject Was Roses.

15 JAZZ HOWARD MANDEL on Miles Davis’ legacy.

16 ARTS AGENDA Symphony, Chamber Music, Opera, Jazz, Auctions, Art Fairs, Dance, Theater, Galleries and Museums.

19 PAINT THE TOWN BY AMANDA GORDON Whitney Port talks to us at the AVENUE on Park show; Savannah College of Art and Design honored Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter at the James Cohan Gallery; and Michael Asher plans to keep the Whitney open for three days straight.

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InBrief

Raj Naik

Portrait of a Lady

Tia Fuller

No Baby Steps Being part of Beyoncé’s all-female band has not changed the way saxophonist Tia Fuller approaches her music. When asked about her new album Definitive Steps, she explains, “The album is a reflection of my life. Compositionally I’m still trying to be as honest as I can. One of the compositions in particular, ‘Kissed By The Sun,’ came to me as I woke up in the morning. Whatever I try to do, I try to start it with a clear mind.” Though she cites John Coltrane as an influence, Fuller says that her records’s title has nothing to do with the late saxophonist’s famous Giant Steps. “I never thought of that relation, again it’s really been about moving forward, looking at my life, it’s seeing that sometimes things can get a little comfortable and also a little stagnant,” she says. “That was

really the concept of the album: about moving forward and facing our fears.” For the record-release event, Fuller will be backed by her working quartet, which is rounded out by Miriam Sullivan (bass), Rudy Royston (drums), special guest Sean Jones (trumpet) and her sister and longtime collaborator, Shamie Royston (piano). As for being part of a pop band, she admits that it has been a challenge. “We’re used to being spontaneous and creative and pushing the limit, but it takes discipline to be on the opposite side of the spectrum,” she explains. “Playing the same thing every night, doing the same moves every night, and really focusing on being the best that I can be within the confines of that.” (Ernest Barteldes) May 10, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Broadway at W. 60th St., 4th Fl., 212-258-9595; 7:30 & 9:30; $20.

Though Jean-Phillipe Rameau didn’t start writing operas until he was 50, the rest of us shouldn’t wait so long to begin listening to them. Those curious to know why Rameau is considered the most important French opera composer prior to Gluck can get a chance to find out May 13, when Underworld Productions will present his opera Pygmalion at Symphony Space. The Greek myth of the sculptor Pygmalion and his statue of Galatea, who was brought to life as a beautiful woman, also served as the inspiration for George Bernard Shaw’s play of the same name and of the musical My Fair Lady adapted from it. But the Rameau version as presented by Underworld is a more ambivalent take on the tale than the Lerner and Loewe musical. Consequently, Underworld Productions has chosen to subtitle it “My Unfair Lady,” and the group’s leader Gina Crusco says that while it was “inspired by the idea that a man can fall in love with a statue, it will show that you should be careful what you wish for… The music suggests yearning and striving and the fleeting nature of satisfaction.” Crusco’s off-beat company, founded in 2004, has gained notice for a production of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte in which the audience picked between the opera’s two possible endings by text messaging its choices, and the group is currently planning for a production of a new opera to be staged next year based on the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill Congressional hearings. In this spirit, Pygmalion will include a “reverse striptease” in which the singer playing the statue puts her clothes on, and children under 13 will not be admitted. (The nudity will also be incomplete, as the singer will use some “nude netting.”) And there is a discussion to take place afterwards. Crusco, who has taught music at the New School, says that Rameau’s opera has “amazing music. But it’s hard for us to appreciate how revolutionary it was. He was moving away from an ornate, melismatic style.” That melismatic style, by the way, is the one you hear now on American Idol, with all those needless licks.

Performing the music will be an intriguing cast of singers and instrumentalists, including heralded young tenor Nils Neubert and the well-regarded baroque orchestra, Sinfonia New York. (Jonathan Leaf) May 13, The Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater, Peter Norton Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway (at W. 95th St.), 212-864-5400; 7:30, $25-$40.

Outlive the Critics Abstract Expressionism took New York by storm in the 1950s. Unfortunately, few members of the New York School are still around to enliven the current arts discussion. Few, that is, except for 92-year-old artist Stephen Pace. Currently on view at the Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, the exhibit, Stephen Pace: Selected Paintings, offers a cross-section of the nonagenarian’s work. Originally from the Midwest, Pace migrated to New York City in the 1950s and immediately became absorbed in the artistic world of Milton Avery, Franz Kline and Barnett Newman. Born in 1918, Pace has been painting for the better part of a century. After years of working as an action painter, he moved on to a more figurative style. The sheer breadth of Pace’s career does pose a problem for

Stephen Pace’s “Untitled (#52-14),” 1952

May 4, 2010 | City Arts

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InBrief contemporary art enthusiasts, though. “I don’t know what else there is to say about him because they’ve already said everything,â€? admitted gallery owner Katharina Perlow. Despite being written about often, all is not lost in revisiting Pace’s work. The art market has come to appreciate him in recent years, making the timing of this show particularly apt. Since the Perlow’s gallery has represented Pace for 27 years, a solo exhibit was long overdue. Still painting, Pace now conďŹ nes his canvases to more rural subjects. Drawing inspiration from his childhood days in Indiana, he largely paints watercolor farm scenes and portraits of his family. The exhibit is chiey divided between his abstract oil paintings from the ‘50s and ‘60s and his much later post-millenial works. His older pieces are the pictorial hybridization of Motherwell

and de Kooning’s work, while the newer ones resemble Matisse’s last wave of paintings and cut outs. (Bonnie Rosenberg) Through May 8, Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, 980 Madison Ave., 212-644-7171.

Visions of Sound “Music is nothing more than resonating light.â€? Robert Schumann (and sufferers of synesthesia) hold this to be very true. More than just an explanation toward the refractive quality of music, this quote serves as the inspiration behind the Rubin Museum of Art’s new Sunday evening classical music series, Resonating Light. In an effort to marry two artistic genres, the museum is launching what is a cultural bridge between classical music and visual art. Participating musicians and ensembles will perform pieces they believe best reect

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the museum’s extensive collection of Himalayan art. Artworks will be projected behind the performers as they play, lest their interpretation be too vague. “The musicians really engage with the art in a way you don’t often get,� said program producer Tim McHenry. “They have to curate their concert and come up with their own response to the art, delve into themselves.� May concerts will address exhibits currently on display: Visions of the Cosmos, Remember That You Will Die and Bardo: Tibetan Art of the Afterlife. Featuring programs by the Eroica Trio and

the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the new series begin May 9 with a concert by the Shanghai Quartet. The group’s choice to open with Beethoven’s Quartet for Strings No. 15 A minor, Op.132 “Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit� is “absolutely spot on in terms of its relation to the Art of the Afterlife exhibition,� according to McHenry. From the looks of its spring lineup, this interartistic union should be a harmonious one, if nothing else. (BR) 150 W. 17th St. (at 7th Ave.), 212-620-5000 x344; Sun., 6 p.m., $45.

No Wallower Symphony Space is known for presenting music marathons that are unforgettable for any culture vulture. May 15, the 12-hour event Wall to Wall Behind the Wall will include world and U.S. premieres along with rare works by world-renowned and emerging composers from the Soviet Union and Communist-era Eastern Europe. It’s the brainchild of Symphony Space’s Associate Artistic Director Laura Kaminsky, who will become the institutions’ director July 1, so we caught up with her to ďŹ nd out why Russia, why now. CA: You’re known for tackling big, scary political themes. Do you think the Symphony Space patrons are ready for that? I guess the way I think about this is that, we chose to do Wall to Wall Behind the Wall to celebrate a great body of music. It’s no so much a political analysis as a cultural journey, and I think people are totally ready. How would you describe the difference between the way Russian organizations program or deal with artists of this caliber as opposed to the way a New York cultural institution relates to seasoned and emerging artists? Having traveled across Eastern Europe as an artist myself—and having been on a cultural fellowship with the Likhachev Foundation last summer—I did research for Wall to Wall. I was struck by the respect that was afforded artists in society. I wanted to be sure when we presented Wall to Wall that the artists coming here were going to feel welcomed and honored, and that there was an openness on the part of the audience to embrace them. We honor, nurture and embrace our artists in our creative endeavors. I want to make sure all our foreign visitors feel that during their week here with us. Why a marathon? Do you think it’s trying to take arts to a “competitive levelâ€? or is it just less intimidating for people so they can come in and out and not feel strapped down? I guess the history of Symphony Space is that we were founded with a Wall to Wall marathon. We’ve been doing this for 32 years. It’s absolutely not competitive. It’s a warm embrace of our community. It’s absolutely about community and the joy of sharing good music. Yes, I hope it is less intimidating. There’s a U.S. premiere of Shostakovich war songs included in the program. Can you explain why these haven’t made it here before? One of my many ďŹ nds last summer, as I was doing research, was an original manuscript written by Shostakovich in his original hand, in lavender ink. It was 20 songs that he had arranged for the soldiers on the front line. They were for voice, violin and piano because they’re all portable. I asked for a copy and asked if it had been disseminated. I think this is the only score that exists in this county. Jennifer Higdon won the Pulitzer for composition. It seems like a big, important year for female composers. As one yourself, do you have any advice for people starting down that path? I was happy for Jennifer; we had a nice email exchange. [My advice:] Write regularly. Write honestly. Be open. Hone your craft. Engage with ideas and engage with other musicians. May 15, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway (at W. 95th St.), 212-864-1414, ext 250; 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Free.

ArtNews On April 14, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Neil Harris and John Styles were honored at the 14th Annual Iris Foundation Awards Luncheon for their outstanding contributions to the decorative arts. Congratulations!‌ Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater announced that its next artistic director will be 36-year-old choreographer Robert Battle. Battle will succeed Judith Jamison as artistic director after her retirement in 2011‌ In celebration of New York Gallery Week, taking place May 7 through 10, all participating Chelsea and uptown galleries will host receptions for solo exhibitions with special extended hours from 6 to 8 p.m., May 8. All Bowery, Lower East Side, Soho and West Village galleries will do the same on May 9‌

its ďŹ fth anniversary season at The Joyce Soho June 4 through 6‌ Henry T. Segerstrom, the developer of South Coast Plaza and Founding Chairman of the Orange County Performing Arts Center/The Segerstrom Center for the Arts, will receive the Carnegie Hall Medal of Excellence at a gala beneďŹ t on June 7 at The WaldorfAstoria’s Starlight Roof. The Brooklyn Academy of Music will celebrate the groundbreaking of its new facility—the BAM Richard B. Fisher Building—with a neighborhood block party on May 8 on

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collaborators such as Danny Devito, Tobey Maguire, Steven Soderbergh, Barbara Walters, his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones and his father Kirk Douglas. The evening will include a performance by Jimmy Buffett and ďŹ lm clips commemorating Douglas’ career‌ The 13th annual Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair at the Park Avenue Armory enjoyed high sales and steady crowds during its run April 15 through 19. An estimated 2,500 people attended the preview throughout the course of the evening, up from 2,200 last year.

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AAADT's Artistic Director Judith Jamison & Robert Battle, Artistic Director Designate

The New Museum has announced its May line-up, which will feature events including Tarek Atoui’s Un-drum performances, a series of interactions between music, movement, performance and computer and electronic engineering May 6‌. Greater New York, the third installment of the quintennial exhibition organized by PS1 and The Museum of Modern Art, will showcase 68 artists and collectives living and working in the metropolitan New York area. The show will open May 23 at PS1‌ Lincoln Center Out of Doors will present three weeks of free music and dance on the plazas of Lincoln Center from July 28 to August 15. Musical premieres will include Ethel Fair: The Songwriters and Compositions for Asphalt Orchestra by Yoko Ono‌ Tappan Wilder, nephew of Thornton Wilder, and cast members of David Cromer’s production of Our Town will present the Thornton Wilder Prize to Robert MacNeil May 22 at The Barrow Street Theatre‌ The Francesca Harper Project, a contemporary dance company led by dancer/choreographer/ vocalist Francesca Harper, will celebrate

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Ashland Place between Lafayette Ave. and Hanson Place‌ The New York Historical Society and El Museo del Barrio announced their upcoming collaborative exhibit, Nueva York—a show exploring New York’s involvement with Spain and Latin America. Nueva York will open in September at El Museo del Barrio‌ The 37th Chaplin Award Gala will honor two-time Academy Award winner Michael Douglas. Taking place at Alice Tully Hall May 24, the event will include many of Douglas’ friends and

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ClassicalMUSIC

THE COOPER UNION

CONTINUING EDUCATION SUMMER 2010

Farewell, Flicka Plus a peek at the New York Philharmonic’s Stravinsky festival

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Frederica von Stade recently sang her farewell recital at Carnegie Hall. BY JAY NORDLINGER A farewell recital is a hard gig—mainly for the emotions involved. It is especially hard for a singer, because a singer has to use his voice: that sometimes ungovernable conveyor of emotion. Different singers handle their retirements in different ways. Some make a big splash, announced months or years in advance. Beverly Sills had a balloon drop. Other singers simply fade away, without a word. Leontyne Price sang a recital at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1998—and that was that. Two seasons ago, Kiri Te Kanawa sang a farewell recital in Carnegie Hall. She kept things relatively light, even jokey, as though warding off melancholy. At one point, she brought out a friend to sing with her: Frederica von Stade, the beloved American mezzosoprano. And, near the end of April, it was von Stade’s turn: She sang her own farewell recital in Carnegie Hall. “Flicka,” as she is known to friends and fans, will be 65 in June. To many of us, she will always be a babe in her prime. She shaped her program to outline the events of her life. For example, she went to Paris as a young woman and fell in love with it. Talking with her audience, she quoted Kiri, complete with Kiwi accent: “You’d be silly not to.” In honor of the fizzy French capital, she sang Poulenc’s “Voyage à Paris,” among other songs. She also sang songs about her own life that, in the 1990s, she asked Jake Heggie to write. (Von Stade herself penned the lyrics.) To mark different stages in her operatic career, she sang particular arias. And so on. Like Kiri, von Stade had a special guest—several, actually. One was her baritone friend Richard Stillwell, and another was her bass friend Samuel Ramey. Fairly early in the program, Lee Hoiby came out to accompany

von Stade in his famous song “The Serpent.” He wrote it for Leontyne Price, in B flat; for Flicka, he transposed it down to A flat. An octogenarian, Hoiby was making his Carnegie Hall debut. This composer is no slouch of a pianist, having studied with Egon Petri, one of the great pianists and pedagogues of the 20th century. Otherwise, von Stade’s accompanist was Martin Katz, as he had been for 36 years. That was a wise career choice for von Stade. Katz is so consistently excellent, plus ubiquitous on the voice-recital scene, it is possible to take him for granted. We shouldn’t. His playing, in Flicka’s farewell recital, was tasteful, adaptive, elegant—wellnigh perfect. The singer herself was well-nigh perfect too. I will ask the same question I asked about Te Kanawa two seasons ago: Is she sure she has to retire? Over the years, I heard several von Stade recitals that were not as good as the farewell one. Her sound was its singular self: rich, sultry, sensual, opulent, dripping. Her technique was secure. She did hardly any flatting, which was a career-long problem—or call it an idiosyncrasy—for Flicka. Musically, she was virtually unerring. And is there anything quite like the von Stade charm? If you can resist it, you are a hard case indeed. At encore time, one of von Stade’s daughters came out to sing a duet with her. Then maman sang an aria with which she is closely associated: “Voi che sapete” from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. As Katz introduced it, she comically crossed herself, as though worried about how it would go. It went very well. Can she be gone now? Only two seconds ago, she was the “young” mezzo-soprano, following the great triumvirate of Marilyn Horne, Christa Ludwig and Janet Baker. She was the “new” one. And now there are other

Someone had a nifty idea—a Stravinsky festival at the New York Philharmonic, led by Valery Gergiev, the mercurial Russian maestro. Seven different programs were drawn up. Gergiev knows Stravinsky, but, of course, he knows many other composers as well—including ones who are not his countrymen. Speaking of his countrymen, Gergiev, perhaps not trusting of local ensembles, imported his own chorus to perform with the Philharmonic, the Mariinsky Theatre Chorus. This bunch unquestionably knows what it’s doing. A Friday afternoon program opened with Svadebka, called here in the West Les Noces, or The Wedding. This is a quirky “dance cantata” completed by Stravinsky in 1923. With his head buried in the score, and his left hand rarely ungripped from the music stand, Gergiev conducted rather mechanically. It should be said, however, that the score has a mechanical quality built in. Next up was Symphony of Psalms, “composed to the glory of GOD,” Stravinsky wrote in the dedication. The work was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for its 50th anniversary, in 1931. On this afternoon, the music grew spellbinding and transcendent—thanks to the performers and thanks, too, to the composer. It is a beautiful, inspired work. After intermission came that beloved, bankable Firebird, composed way back in 1910,

Over the years, I heard several von Stade recitals that were not as good as the farewell one. Her sound was its singular self: rich, sultry, sensual, opulent, dripping. Her technique was secure. She did hardly any flatting, which was a careerlong problem—or call it an idiosyncrasy—for Flicka. Musically, she was virtually unerring.

Stephanie Berger

pulsation and bang—Gergiev is not always the mad Russian, you know. And some of his rubato misfired. The music at times lost momentum. Still, this was indeed a fine, certainly a satisfactory, account. Incidentally, you can hear The Firebird and think that Wagner ought to collect royalties. Some of it comes straight out of The Ring, particularly Siegfried. And yet it is all Stravinsky, a genius who died not so long ago, in 1971. <

SPRING SEASON 2010

May 2 – June 27 New Choreography and Music Festival

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Drawing in pencil and wine by Santiago Calatrava

A Salute to Prince Igor

when Stravinsky was in his late 20s. From Gergiev and the Philharmonic, we heard the whole enchilada—the complete ballet—not just a suite. Gergiev should be made for this score: It is full of wizardry, and so is he. It is kaleidoscopic, electric and imaginative, and so is he. He did fine by it—though one could register complaints. Some slow sections suffered from longueurs, and could have used more warmth, lyricism and enchantment. Some fierier sections could have used more crackle,

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new ones. Flicka gave a great recital, and a great career, and her fans ached a little that night at Carnegie Hall. Maybe a lot.

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MUSEUMS

A Hunger for Picasso Four New York exhibitions reveal our, and Picasso’s, endless appetites for the master’s portraits, nudes—and blockbuster shows BY LANCE ESPLUND ast spring, Gagosian’s blockbuster show Picasso: Mosqueteros—the museum-quality gathering of the artist’s exhilarating and erotic late work depicting musketeers, matadors, prostitutes and circus performers—was the gallery hit of the season. A year later, while many of us are still giddy and reeling from Mosqueteros, Picasso is back—and with a vengeance. The big show Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris just closed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And now, with concurrent one-person exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Marlborough and Jan Krugier, Picasso is the modern master who is reigning over Manhattan this season. Unavoidable overlaps and redundancies exist in the prints exhibited in these Picasso shows. But, oddly enough, this is a virtue. MoMA’s Picasso: Themes and Variations, organized by Deborah Wye, comprises works from the museum’s permanent collection. Both it and Marlborough’s Celebrating the Muse: Women in Picasso’s Prints, 1905-1968, organized by Marilyn McCully, are made up entirely of prints. And a number of images, including selections from Picasso’s tourde-force series “Suite 347” (1968) and the miraculous linocut “Portrait of a Young Lady, After Cranach the Younger” (1958), among other prints, appear at the Met, MoMA and Marlborough, respectively. But each venue’s impression, arrangement and installation (differing widely through juxtaposition) offer something new. At MoMA, I was enthralled yet again by groupings of various states of Picasso’s lithographic series “Bull” (1945) and that of his “Two Nude Women” (1946), as well as groupings of animals, lovers and bullfighters. Marlborough’s show, devoted entirely to the theme of women, is a hothouse of erotic creativity and a whirlwind immersion in the relationship between artist and model. Including prints from the spectacular 100work masterpiece “Vollard Suite” (1930-37), it makes the strongest single impact in terms of Picasso’s imaginative variations on a theme. Jan Krugier’s show, A Century of Picasso: Paintings, Sculptures and Works on Paper from 1902 to 1971, though quirkier and smaller, offers an array of gorgeous drawings, oils and ceramics— should and by no means be discounted. The Met’s beautiful and generally chronologically installed show, Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, curated by Gary Tinterow, comprises only works from

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© Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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“At the Lapin Agile,” 1905. Part of Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. their permanent collection. You may already be familiar with many of the Met’s iconic Picassos, including the rock-solid portrait “Gertrude Stein” (1905-06), the first Picasso to enter the Met; the wiry and nimble “The Actor” (1904-05), the Rose-period painting which was accidentally damaged by a viewer in January and has now been restored; and the early figure-group “At the Lapin Agile” (1905), as well as the Met’s many pictures of Picasso’s saltimbanques, his proto-Cubist and Cubist works, the Neo-Classical period portraits and bathers and the portraits of women weeping.

But many of the Met’s Picasso holdings include works on paper (which can only rarely be exhibited); and a number of the paintings, because of donors’ ironclad wills, cannot generally be moved from their permanent locations in the museum. This show, giving us a portrait of Picasso at the Met, finally brings all of the artist’s works in the museum’s permanent collection together. And some pieces, simply because of how they converse with one another, made me feel like I was seeing them for the very first time. Make sure to pace yourself and to save energy for

the last three galleries, the first of which is a variegated bouquet of color linocuts, including a stellar wall of women. The last gallery—breathtaking—comprises nearly half of the 347 works in “Suite 347.” Picasso is big, vociferous—difficult, if not impossible to ignore. Obviously, not every work of Picasso’s is a masterpiece. There were some dogs in Mosqueteros (and not every one of the artist’s artworks in these shows will make you weak in the knees); but I think that in part what excites us about Picasso— perhaps even more than the individual

masterpieces—is the artist’s astonishing hunger and range; his inventiveness, force and reach; his ability to reinvent the world. These are all creative traits that tip the scales from artist to god. Picasso had a ferocious appetite. He fed off and regurgitated Greco-Roman art no less than that of the Old Masters or that of his own earlier periods, as he continually remade himself and his art. These exhibitions make that point abundantly clear. And Picasso keeps on giving. Every show of Picasso, no matter how many you’ve already taken in, is among the list of must-sees: few other artists give us such a clear and varied window into the modern world— our world. Seemingly limitless, Picasso continues to feed artists as well as viewers. As far as representational painting goes (and I, for one, believe that it is here to stay), Picasso will remain both bridge and touchstone for our and future generations. No matter how strongly the Postmodernists try to dismiss Picasso as an overrated misogynist, try to push him aside as a mere stepping stone to Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and its Duchampian descendants, or try to ignore him and his achievements as “has-been”—as “so lastcentury”—Picasso, like it or not, remains the art world’s bread and butter. I don’t think that it is a coincidence that some of the casually worked up contemporary figure paintings we’ve seen in galleries and museums recently feel influenced by the bravura and deceptive insouciance of late Picasso. And when so many of Picasso’s stellar works are on view and within reach at one time, his impact becomes exponential. Combined, these four New York exhibitions amount to almost 650 works. And any one venue offers enough variety to stagger the imagination. I don’t think it is a stretch to suggest that, because of these shows, next season we will be seeing even more Picasso-inspired, dreadful figure painting in the galleries and museums. But that doesn’t matter. If Picasso is out there to be seen again and again—just like Mondrian, Titian and Velázquez—he will eventually get through to serious artists. Even when much of the contemporary art world embraces insipid painting, Picasso remains a standard to remind us what painting actually is and can be. Both Picasso in The Metropolitan and

MoMA’s Themes and Variations are entirely in-house shows. MoMA and the Met, like every other major museum whose funding has been cut since 2008, are doing fewer exhibits, as well as more exhibits that cost less. And both shows are win-win solutions. So are those at Marlborough and Jan Krugier—exhibits that can rehash and actually sell works, as they piggyback on the shoulders of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, MoMA and the Met. But I believe that the ubiquity of Picasso right now is not just a safe and

No matter how strongly the Postmodernists try to dismiss Picasso as an overrated misogynist, try to push him aside as a mere stepping stone to Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and its Duchampian descendants, or try to ignore him and his achievements as “has-been”— as “so last-century”—Picasso, like it or not, remains the art world’s bread and butter.

inexpensive bet for the art market and the art world, but that it signals a return to basics; a return to our Modernist roots—not so that we can copy Picasso but so that we can embrace his genius; and remake ourselves just as he remade himself. These shows, very different from the usual Postmodernist art du jour, give us something aesthetically meaty to chew on. They represent not just major works by a major artist but a chance to relook and relearn from a master who gave us our chops in the first place. <

Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, through Aug. 1. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave. (at 82nd St.), 212-535-7710; Picasso: Themes and Variations, through Aug. 30, Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-708-9400; Celebrating the Muse: Women in Picasso’s Prints, 1905-1968, through May 8, Marlborough Gallery, 40 W. 57th St. (betw. 5th & Madison Aves.), 212-541-4900; A Century of Picasso: Paintings, Sculptures and Works on Paper from 1902-1971, May 7 through July 6, Jan Krugier Gallery, 980 Madison Ave. (at 76th St.), 212-755-7288.

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May 4, 2010 | City Arts

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“No Words Could Explain,” by Alan Feltus.

Alan Feltus I have known Alan Feltus’ painting for so many years that I feel almost wed to it. An autumnal quality enters these works through the male figure who appears from one composition to another. Feltus claims not to use live models, relying instead on imagined constructions. Yet his own profile is very much apparent in “No Words Could Explain,” and the male figure who threads his way from one dreamscape to another is looking older these days. Feltus is a compelling painter, though probably not for reasons he would assent to. Despite the somnolent strangeness of his figurative compositions—or perhaps because of it—Feltus remains a consummate picture maker. There is no denying his trademark refinement, a quality for which gratitude is owed. Yet the quality that has grown over time and continues to fascinate lies elsewhere. Beneath the serene surfaces, compositional calm and exquisite tonalities, lurks something insalubrious, selfenclosed and unwholesome. This elusive je ne sais quoi creates an uneasy tension between what is seen and what is suggested. It is here that his work’s modernity resides. Sensual color—that delicious range of ochres, pinks, pistachios and siennas so evocative of Florentine painting—veils a furtive narrative at odds with the vitality of its early Renaissance models. Feltus’ pallid couples inhabit airless rooms in a walled idyll that, in significant

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ways, is the mirror image of Georgio Bassani’s masterwork “The Garden of the Finzi-Contini” (adapted to film by Vittorio De Sica in 1971). Bassani’s doom-laden locale was the northern Italian town of Ferrara during the rise of Mussolini. Feltus, born in Washington, D.C., has lived and worked in Assisi for some 20 years. Bassani’s isolated characters lived in the shadow of creeping fascism, oblivious to it and incapable of outrunning events. Feltus’ enervated dramatis personae dwell in a similarly sequestered remove from the outside world. Captives in time, his actors are as remote from events as Bassani’s. (That newspaper in “Il Giornale” is a surprising detail.) Like the two women in “Puppeteer,” Feltus’ figures mime their way through impersonations of lived experience. Feltus’ single abiding reference to an outside world is the device—a design element both practical and symbolic—of letters strewn on the floor, on table tops, tacked to a wall or in a character’s hand. There is the occasional glimpse through a window onto an unpeopled outdoors. But in the main, Feltus’ cast performs against unbroken, unadorned walls impenetrable by the times. Feltus’ pictorial means rely on earlier Florentine models but his achievement resides in conveying the spirit of contemporary Italy, an emblem of modern Europe itself. Today’s Assisi is a museum piece, an artifact of a civilization that has said a definitive goodbye to the

animating spirit of the age that built it. Slithering into the vacuum are forces as dark as those spawned in the 1930s. I doubt Feltus intends any such reading of his work. Nevertheless, art that transcends the limits of an artist’s intentions is the most worthwhile. (Maureen Mullarkey) Through June 18, Forum Gallery, 745 5th Ave., 212-355-4545.

Hector McDonnell: Interior Journeys and Treks Abroad Hector McDonnell is a noted painter, etcher and illustrator born and raised in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Since 1988, he has been dividing his time between Antrim and Cold Spring, N.Y. McDonnell began exhibiting in London in 1973. It was the start of a long public career. Over the last three decades, McDonnell has enjoyed an impressive number of one-man shows in London, Munich, Vienna, Paris, Stuttgart, Belfast, Stockholm and Madrid, as well as others in London and Ireland. This, his first exhibition at W.M. Brady, is a handsome event. Twenty-eight oils are on view, a lively, richly colored medley of interiors, street scenes and a selection of travel pieces. Of these, it is the interiors—including street scenes glimpsed from indoors—that convey the greatest conviction. More precisely, these move beyond accomplished picture making to become

expressions of a felt response. “Rose in a Cold Spring Café” is particularly fine. A young girl faces the viewer down the length of a cloth-covered table. Luncheon debris separates the girl, sandwich in hand, from the viewer. The tabletop, from the checkered cloth to a plate of half-eaten burgers, is beautifully rendered. An upside-down ketchup bottle lends a certain whimsy to the incident. (That is what we do with ketchup, isn’t it?) A carefully constructed design, the image transcends anecdote in the balance of compositional elements. McDonnell locks the centrally placed figure into the picture plane by the window segments behind her. Strategically placed color notes—dark red tones on a paper cup or a yellow-green lettuce leaf—punctuate the dominant spread of blues. “Dancing Monks, Tibet” typifies the “treks abroad” half of the exhibition title. A freezeframe view of moving figures in an exotic setting, it has the appeal of accomplished travel photography. The camera has long supplanted the tradition of the artist as a visual diarist. Nowadays, tout le monde posts vacation shots on the web. Painters can depict Tibet or Capri from the comfort of their studios. McDonnell’s translations of his own travel shots, adept as they are, lack the immediacy of his homelier settings. Nevertheless, “Lily Pond, Stuttgart” is a small panel so deliciously colored that its origin is irrelevant. All that counts is the loveliness and deft depiction of the motif. Fiery cadmiums enliven the static horizontals of “Staircase, Drogheda.” “Celbridge Staircase, County Kildare” offers a seductive view from the landing of an angular staircase. The viewpoint divides between the landing above and the room below. This fine, light-filled performance conveys that sense of personal intimacy at the heart of McDonnell’s work. (MM) Through May 14, W.M. Brady & Co., 22 E. 80th St., 212-249-7212.

Wilhelm Sasnal Acclaimed Polish filmmaker and artist Wilhelm Sasnal’s startling paintings depict family and friends, sea and sky in completely unexpected and thrilling ways. Nothing is as it seems. Nor is the life represented harmonious or comforting. A man lies flat on the grass under a heavy-limbed tree in an untitled work. It is difficult to tell whether he sleeps or simply rests. The blue green of the grass clashes with the yellow green of the tree, as if to say, even in nature, all is not right. Time stands still. The same ominous feeling pervades this scene as that of Henri Rousseau’s “The Sleeping Gypsy,” where a lion stands near the unconscious figure. Death also haunts “Skeleton of Water,” where a scattering of bones floats in a flat blue sea, random leftovers of life. But in another untitled work, life pulses in the naked body of a relaxed young man, lying face down on a blanket, the rounded curves of his shoulder, legs and buttocks almost devoid of color but fully alive. Moving from subject to subject, Sasnal demonstrates his wide-ranging interests and points of view. In “Untitled (Anka),” a thin, young woman sits on the sand in a blueand-black bikini, her legs so wide open that

she exposes her crotch. It shocks with its directness, a curious painting to juxtapose with his “A Gynecologist,” of a faceless man in white standing over an examination table. One wonders if these paintings were meant to be paired. My favorites, however, were two that convey a sense of awe, if not fear, of nature’s dominance over human beings. In an untitled work, a man distinguished only by his white bathing suit stands on the edge of a big sweep of blue sea. For now, the blue does not overrun the land but the painter invests it with such energy that we know it will. The same holds even truer in “Untitled (Kacper),” in which a mammoth Arp-like cloud hovers over the tiny figure. Sasnal does what good artists always do—makes you see in entirely new ways. (Valerie Gladstone) Through May 15, Anton Kern Gallery, 532 W. 20th St., 212-367-9663.

Nathan Oliveira: Drawings 1960-2010 Too often, the life of an Expressionist resembles a rocket’s flare: brilliant ascent followed by early flameout. (Pollock and Basquiat come to mind.) Other artists, such as de Kooning, find ways of retrenching and rethinking over the course of a long, productive lifetime. Fitting this second, happier model is Nathan Oliveira, whose luminous drawings and watercolors are currently on view at DC Moore. One of the youngest of the Bay Area figurative painters, Oliveira catapulted to fame in the late 1950s on the strength of his mystically-tinged, expressionistic figure paintings. The ascent may have been too high and too fast; the artist quit painting for several years in the early ’60s—a move that slowed his meteoric career but allowed him to focus on his drawing and printmaking, mediums especially conducive to his supple line and evocative textures. Along with painting and sculpture, they form a significant part of his work today.

“After Munch,” by Nathan Oliveira.

Oliveira seems to have lost barely a step over the years. Spanning a full half-century, his nearly two dozen works in DC Moore’s smaller exhibition space show his touch becoming lighter with time, but radiating just as much pleasure in the sheer manipulation of pencil or brush. Indeed, few artists so seamlessly combine rawness and elegance. Works from the ’60s and ’70s—mostly graphite drawings with dense, rapid hatchings—record posing models with a kind of obsessed exhilaration. Shunning detail, he captures an angling leg or folded arm in restless nests of marks. One dark ink drawing from 1965 summarizes a pale model half-wrapped in black fabrics; we can feel her shadowed, featureless countenance staring at us through a deliciously smoky atmosphere. Penciled outlines in a 1973 watercolor muscularly capture the volumes of a reclining torso. But Oliveira disguises his virtuosic modeling with a dose of indulgent technique: He drops onto the figure wet pools of scarlet pigment, which pool and bloom in bands that lusciously contradict the volumes. As with Schiele, the medium seems capable of its own autonomous growth, though the effect here is far closer to celebration than abjection. Mostly dispensing with backgrounds and graphite lines, the later works rely on bare washes of burnt sienna to turn figures into shimmering, vulnerable presences. Occasionally Oliveira’s propensity for the mystical mark leaves them underdefined: We already know that a wisp of a stroke can suggest a gale-wind of possibilities. But others rivet the eye with their completeness. One watercolor from 2003 magically catches a standing figure’s complex forms, the slightest gatherings of tones conveying everything: the turn of a head, the stretch of arms, even the tension in the graceful arc of the torso. In such works, articulation and evocation are wondrously simultaneous. (John Goodrich) Through May 28, DC Moore Gallery, 724 5th Ave., 212-247-2111.

Steve Currie: Long Highway

“Tangle 2,” by Steve Currie.

Winifred Rembert: Memories Of My Youth The Upper East Side’s Adelson Galleries features the works of artist Winfred Rembert in its current exhibit, Memories of My Youth. Rembert’s work is inspired by his youth, growing up as a fieldworker prior to the Civil Rights Movement. The topic could be a morose one, but Rembert’s work is joyous and colorful, while acknowledging the more negative aspects of the South during this period. Family and community are strong themes—with depictions of religious life, music, work and home. Rembert works with sheets of leather, which he carves and manipulates before painting with dyes. The results are colorful and tactile works with raised surfaces. People in his work tend to form rows and patterns and individuals become part of a larger, dynamic whole. For example, in “Chain Gang—The Ditch,” 18 prisoners are clumped together, shovels flying out to the side. Dressed in striped prison garb, they disappear into one another and form one clump of stripes and shovels. The same is true for “Chain Gang Picking Cotton.” There seems to be strength in numbers, even amid the harshest of circumstances. It’s clear, though, that Rembert’s memories include a great deal of joy. Much of this seems to have come from the many rich cultural aspects of life at the time. Men and women in bright zoot suits and dresses dance, sing and play checkers and pool. And Rembert’s memories of his mother are depicted, too, as in “Flour Bread,” in which children stand and watch their mother making bread in a wood-paneled kitchen. Rembert grew up in Cuthbert, Ga., in the 1950s and was raised by a great-aunt. He worked the cotton fields in Cuthbert before being arrested and serving seven years in jail following a Civil Rights march. He learned to work with leather while serving time in jail. Like his other work, his depictions of chain-gang life—picking cotton or digging ditches in the blistering sun—are based upon personal experience and memories. (Carl Gaines) Through May 28, Adelson Galleries, 19 E. 82nd St., 212-439-6800.

You’d be hard-pressed to name two schools of art more disparate than Surrealism and Minimalism. Surrealism seeks to tap into the deepest recesses of the human psyche, rendering in concrete form its irrational impulses and unpalatable desires. Minimalism’s goal is the eradication of metaphor in favor of the coercive certainty of literalism. The former embraces allusiveness; the latter negates it. The two aesthetics are philosophically incompatible. But then there’s Steve Currie, whose sculptures at Elizabeth Harris Gallery make a hash of these distinctions with weird and compelling dexterity. Certainly, there’s something icky afoot in Currie’s amalgamations of the systematic and the organic—of machine-made surfaces and fleshy tactility, of architectural structures and bodily processes. Utilizing corrugated plastic, archival cardboard and hydrocal (a mixture of Plaster of Paris and cement), Currie builds geometric modules that are then stacked and packed. Running through these brick-like, industrial armatures are looping networks of wire and, within them, bulbous strands of silicone rubber. The latter recall blood vessels, the nervous system or electrical circuitry, and provide snaking accents of acidic color to an otherwise milky palette. Imagine Donald Judd stripped for parts and interrupted by an IV-tube provided by Louise Bourgeois, and you’ll get some idea of Currie’s contradictory accomplishment. Currie’s juxtapositions of mass and line are hard to resist, particularly given their deceiving offhandedness. His chockablock constructions are marvels of throwaway mastery; an artist who can afford to be blasé about immaculate craftsmanship knows what he’s doing. Then there’s the nimble hand with wire, especially in wall pieces like “Tangle” and “Tangle 2.” In them, Currie exhibits a Calder-like sensitivity in shaping the stuff, thereby bringing an almost surreptitious elegance to an unlikely, quirky and deeply original art. (Mario Naves) Through June 5, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, 529 W. 20th St., 6th Fl., 212-463-9666.

Brent Green: Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then is a study of devotion and despair. Attempting to capture the fleeting sense of awe that accompanies the unthinkable, animator Brent Green channels his interests in obsession and death into an installation at Andrew Edlin Gallery. The exhibition acts as a preview for a feature film of the same name, opening at IFC May 7. The story centers on Leonard Wood, an unknown hardware store clerk in Louisville, Ky., who, in a desperate attempt to save his wife from terminal cancer, began renovating their house with bizarre and feverish additions. His wife died, and Wood continued construction on the healing house until, ironically, he fell off the roof and was incapacitated. He spent the rest of his life in a nursing home. The gallery features three trailers for the film, as well as Green’s May 4, 2010 | City Arts

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“and bye and bye,” by Douglas Florian.

reconstruction of the house, which was used as the film’s set. Windows flow like an acid trip, a Tim Burton-esque piano melts into the living room wall, and a spiraling tower built from two-by-fours rises from the midst of the house. The film shifts between frame-by-frame stop-motion animation using live actors and Green’s animations, which are akin to unfinished works by the Quay Brothers. Lacking final polish, they reflect the handmade quality of the house and are self-consciously created: faltering motion in flickering interiors. An eerie beauty comes through in the film’s use of dialogue. The actors were filmed pronouncing one syllable (or part of a syllable) in each frame, and the audio was redubbed in the studio. The effect is disconcerting and becomes the most engaging part of the exhibition. The tone of the narration, as well as the monumental task of reconstructing the house from plans drawn on cardboard, make clear that Gravity is ultimately homage to Wood’s life. But the exhibition is almost insincere in its rush to locate wonder and satori in the desperate actions of a grieving widower. (Nicholas Wells) Through June 5, Andrew Edlin Gallery, 134 10th Ave., 212-206-9723.

Douglas Florian: Letting In The Light You don’t need to know about Douglas Florian’s accomplishments as a poet and children’s book author to intuit the playful lyricism informing his works-on-paper, subject of an exhibition at BravinLee Programs in Chelsea. In fact, a buoyant-bordering-on-goofy élan positively radiates from each page or, rather, from each paper bag. Recycling isn’t necessarily the

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reason Florian prefers working on this mundane material; rather, it’s the humbleness it confers upon, and elicits from, his painterly process. You can’t for a moment imagine Florian doing his thing on a virginal sheet of Arches paper. A classy support is contradictory to his looselimbed and unassuming improvisations. A self-proclaimed “abstract regressionist”— the work is, the artist tells us, “bottle-fed and battle-torn”—Florian creates heraldic images that simultaneously bring to mind the natural world, the Hebrew alphabet, Indian miniatures, graffiti and astronomical diagrams. Made with gouache and spare oddments of collage, the works are swiftly realized, but not always fast in final effect. For every “and bye and bye,” with its sweeping rush of gritty gray pigment, there are hypnotic pieces like “QQ,” wherein Florian channels both the cosmic and the microcellular with breathtaking economy. Elsewhere, the alphabet is cut-and-cobbled, calligraphic forms are transformed into lumbering giants and errant lines spin spidery traceries of incident. Florian’s single-mindedness of purpose and wide-eyed sophistication is reminiscent of Paul Klee. The palette tends toward earthy, but is given to flashes of exotic reds, pinks and purples, crystalline blues and encompassing yellows. The forms are lumpish in definition, monumental in scale and endearing in character. Would that the installation emphasized, rather than streamlined, each picture’s idiosyncrasies. But Florian’s wit and whimsy thrive all the same. This is a lovely and lilting exhibition. (MN) Through June 5, BravinLee Programs, 526 W. 26th St., Ste. 211, 212-462-4404. <

DANCE

Show Offs BY JOEL LOBENTHAL A shortfall of new work is not a problem that ballet faces today. Sponsors prefer to support creations that will come to life as a result of their patronage, rather than to subsidize the maintenance of existing repertory. That would explain the fact that this season, New York City Ballet is giving us fewer than seven premieres under an Architecture of Dance: New Choreography and Music Festival rubric that refers to the collaboration of architect Santiago Calatrava. Unfortunately, last week’s Festival opening made clear that the worst thing about the plethora of new ballets we now see is that they’re usually not worth the huge expenditure of time and money lavished on them. Benjamin Millepied’s Why am I not where you are and Alexei Ratmansky’s Namouna, A Grand Divertissement were both misfires. Among the several works I’ve seen by Millepied, this was definitely the worst. That’s a shame because the conception of the ballet showed that he was trying to do something a little different and impart some sort of parable. Talismanic garments were put on by Sean Suozzi and Kathryn Morgan, who were led astray by Amar Ramasar and Sara Mearns. At the end, the hapless couple was unmasked, their glad rags torn away. Calatrava’s set was a glacial, stagedominating ellipse. Millepied wrapped his stage action around it dutifully, but Calatrava’s construction could hardly be deemed essential. Nor was Thierry Escaich’s music, despite being commissioned by the choreographer,

helpful to what he was trying to achieve. It seemed too short—around 20 minutes—to give Millepied the time to develop the story and theme he seemed to have in mind. Furthermore, there were many moments when music and movement simply turned into muddles, and as a result the ballet was frequently at a standstill. I give Millepied credit for trying to expand himself, but this was workshop experimentation, something that was not ready for the big stage. Ratmansky’s opus used 19th-century ballet music written by Édouard Lalo that provides an array of kinetic-friendly rhythms and textures. Back in the 1940s, Serge Lifar choreographed his Suite en Blanc to this same music, and it became a staple of the Paris Opera Ballet. Some of the best parts of Ratmansky’s ballet were homages to Lifar’s idiosyncratic ornamentation. Much of it was redolent as well of Leonide Massine’s symphonic ballets of the 1930s, and the way their ideas were refracted by Paul Taylor in the 1980s. But Ratmansky turned it all into silly symphony fodder, pronounced with a sibilant emphasis on the silly. He kept the plot, a typical farrago of romanticism and exotica, but turned it on its head via campy and clunky humor. One of the rationales made for the incessant unveiling of new ballets is that dancers crave things made especially for them. There’s no denying that, but apart from the excitement of creating a role, what the dancer wants is to be shown off by the new work. Whether that happened here is certainly open

Paul Kolnik

Brand new—but structurally unsound—this urge for original works is not helping the dancers

Benjamin Millepied’s Why am I not where you are to question. For example, Mearns danced leads in both ballets—more of the winnertake-all casting that is doing great harm to the art form. Usually she is advantageously cast in roles with big adagio content. But in both premieres, the material made for her was primarily caroming that made her look highpitched. She seemed to be fielding each role, as if it was being thrown at her. I do believe in type casting up to a point, but surely Daniel Ulbricht as a rustic roustabout in Ratmansky’s ballet did not need to be assigned so many fast and furious short-dancer steps that manifested the impactedness he avoids at his best. Ratmansky gave Robert Fairchild a role madeto-measure for his stage persona, but it sorely taxed his classical technique at times. Wendy Whelan, on the other hand, seemed to take it all in stride. She was

Namouna, the consort for whom Fairchild was searching. Her role was partly built on the classical ballet deities who mysteriously appear to take the hero somewhere else. Whelan had a solo of low arabesques that brought us enticingly back to the 1940s. Indeed, the best thing about Ratmansky’s premiere was his referencing of the older, less aerobic ballet vocabulary. Had the whole thing been higher styled, this hour-long ballet might have been genuinely evocative. Instead, Ratmansky fell victim to his need to be cute. Yet to come during City Ballet’s spring season, and hopefully more satisfactory, will be new works by Melissa Barak, Wayne McGregor, Christopher Wheeldon, Mauro Bigonzetti and NYCB Artistic Director Peter Martins. <

May 4, 2010 | City Arts

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THEATER

Out of the Frying Pan

Photo by Sam Hough

A revival of ‘The Subject Was Roses’ shows that the most terrifying battles can be on the homefront

Carol Schultz (Nettie) and Matthew Amendt (Timmy) in The Subject was Roses. BY MARK PEIKERT An uncomfortably close look at the fraying bonds of a family, Frank Gilroy’s 1964 Pulitzer Prize-winner The Subject Was Roses manages to be both timely and oddly musty in The Pearl Theatre’s revival. A play about the return of son Timmy to the middle-class Bronx apartment of his parents, Roses, despite its

1940s setting and 1960s birth, is still a painful, harrowing experience. Stuck in a marriage that has never been a good fit, Nettie (Carol Schultz) and John (Dan Dailey) Cleary can’t quite contain their mutual disillusionment from their son (Matthew Amendt). Both of them have their own ideas for what he should do with his

life after serving in the military, and both of them are completely out of touch with the realities of post-WWII life. Timmy, fresh out of the Army where his outfit liberated a concentration camp, wants to be a writer; his father, as 1940s fathers seem wont to do in plays and films, sees this occupation as less than masculine, preferring that Timmy go into law. Nettie jumps at the chance to side with Timmy over her adulterous husband, and so Timmy finds himself once again caught in a war, this time between his parents. The shocking thing about Gilroy’s play is how bitter the Cleary family is. Neither Nettie nor John have had the life they wanted, and both of them blame the other. Trapped in their modestly appointed but threadbare apartment (the fabulous set is from Harry Feiner, who eschews Period Furniture for more lived-in, bland furnishings), both parents seem intent on making the other suffer, even as Timmy seems to crumble before their eyes. Director Amy Wright doesn’t shy away from forcing the audience to bear witness to the family’s pain, either. The first act curtain scene is a disturbing study in marital discord, as John reveals that the red roses

he brought to Nettie weren’t his idea but Timmy’s, and Nettie temporarily loses all pretense of friendliness. Dailey and Schultz bring a raw emotional intensity to that scene that puts to shame all of those home-fromthe-war films that were so popular in the years after WWII. Of course, that scene requires fireworks; more impressively, Dailey and Schultz manage to turn even a complaint about the strength of a cup of coffee into subtext-heavy battle in their unending battle with each other. Bitter and furious, their conversations seethe with unspoken contempt and disappointment, both in themselves and in their lives. And Amendt, as collateral damage, never overdoes the impotent rage at the life they insist he return to. His heartbreak at finding things exactly as he left them is sincere; his determination to escape is unshakable. The real problem with The Subject Was Roses turns out to be the casual happy ending that arrives in the final scene, a token of the times more than anything else. Things work out easily for the family in a way that’s unimaginable in a play about the same subject today. But the beauty of Wright’s production is that the truce between the Clearys feels temporary, at best. < The Subject Was Roses Through May 9, City Center, 131 W. 55th St., 212-581-1212; $30–$50.

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A BEHANDING IN SPOK ANE

CHR IS T OP HE R WA L K E N S A M ROCK W E L L A N T HON Y M A CK IE Z OE K A Z A N A N E W P L AY BY M A R T IN M C DON A GH DIR E C T E D BY JOHN CROW L E Y

BEHANDINGINSPOKANE.COM

GERALD SCHOENFELD THEATRE, 236 W. 45TH ST.

JAZZ

Miles of Manhattan, in Montreal A major exhibition centered on Miles Davis affirms his overall cultural influence BY HOWARD MANDEL Trumpeter Miles Davis is an iconic New Yorker. Though he died at age 65 in 1991, one still expects to see him standing next to his red Ferrari on Central Park West arguing with the cop who pulled him over, with Mailer at the bar at Elaine’s or walking across the plaza at Lincoln Center explaining things to Leonard Bernstein. But Montreal is now staking its own claim to Miles. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has just opened the exhaustive We Want Miles exhibit for a four-month stand. The show comprises performance videos, art photography, oil paintings, scores, letters, instruments and, oh, yes, Miles’ inimitable sound, filling nine capacious rooms of the Jean-Noél Desmarais Pavilion. In conjunction with the exhibit and recognition of an international audience’s continued fascination with all things Davis, the Montreal Jazz Festival promises bookings this summer (June 26 to July 6) focused on his multi-faceted legacy. Judging from the hip version of Tutu, Miles’ 1980s studio masterpiece—which electric bassist Marcus Miller (MD’s main man back then) led to cheers at Montreal’s splendidly-appointed L’Astral club

the night before the exhibit’s unveiling—that could be well worth traveling for. Subtitled Miles Davis vs. Jazz, the museum’s installation is an expanded edition of an eight-stage show-and-tell that originated last fall at Paris’ Cité de la Musique. It comprises more than 350 personal items on loan from Miles’ survivors, Miles Davis Properties, LLC and such of his musical protegés as Miller, trumpeter Wallace Roney, drummer Cindy Blackman and John Coltrane, whose tenor sax is on display. Starting with snapshots of Miles as a privileged child in Depression-era East St. Louis and ending with a row of the star-spangled toreador jackets in which he performed during his last decade, the exhibit covers half a century of personal change—Miles was a great one for that—and cultural transformation. At his best, Davis was the purveyor of sophisticated intensity, in-the-moment modernism, music with purposeful flow. What his best was, though, remains a matter of cross-generational debate. Did he fully realize his early promise as Charlie Parker’s sideman and progenitor of “the Cool”? Do his orchestral works with Gil Evans and modal milestone Kind of

Blue live up to the kudos? Did his Second Quintet with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams take bebop to its final conclusions? Was Miles blowing smoke to obscure that he was past his prime with his jazz-rock fusion and ’70s electric funk? Well, there is none: just hundreds of thousands of words by dozens of writers (including me in my book Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz) still entranced by his siren songs. A fine arts museum’s presentation of any jazzman in such depth, however, is firm avowal of his broad, lasting significance. Walking through this show is like being inside the deluxe boxed sets of Miles’ CDs issued by Sony Music Entertainment (which is presenting the exhibit in collaboration with Sun Life Financial, an international insurance firm). For those already in the know, much of what’s here is familiar but wonderful to see up close and all together. Here’s a loop from Louis Malle’s movie Elevator to the Gallows of Jeanne Moreau scouring Paris for her lover, with Miles’ aching solo on the soundtrack, and also homemade footage of Miles demonstrating his boxing skills. Mati Klarwein’s weird images

for Bitches Brew and Live Evil pop with more resonance than the paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat that Miles collected and emulated, or the plump, bejeweled Miles sculpted by Niki de Saint Phalle. Miles’ relentless productivity is emphasized; music is all too bounteous, as the museum’s excellent speaker system delivers different Miles recordings in each room, and different excerpts, too, in a series of smaller chambers devoted to his especially notable albums. The result is unfortunate; you can’t really listen to any one thing without hearing bits of Miles bleed in from elsewhere. To experience a vivid revival of Miles at his boldest, though, is a huge treat. In 1986 Marcus Miller synthesized Tutu’s gothic processionals and grandiose confections virtually by himself for Miles to play in, over and through; now he fronts trumpeter Christian Scott, saxophonist Alex Han, multi-keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Pena and spark-plug drummer Louis Cato in making Tutu live like it was written yesterday. Tutu Revisited comes to New York’s Highline Ballroom June 22, but no stateside museum has scheduled We Want Miles. So you must fly to Montreal. <

ARA MALIKIAN AND COMPANY

May 7 – 23

Art : Tom Slaughter, Photo: Julio Moya

Best for ages 6 to adult

“A hilarious piece of musical satire.” –The Herald (UK)

THE NEW VICTORY ® THEATER ®

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ArtsAGENDA GALLERY OPENINGS

Gallery listings courtesy of

ALEXANDRE GALLERY: Will Barnet: “Recent Abstract

Paintings.” Opens May 6, 41 E. 57th St., 212755-2828. A.M. RICHARD FINE ART: Jaqueline Cedar: “New Paintings.” Opens May 7. Kyoung Eun Kang: “Happy Birthday.” Opens May 7, 328 Berry St., 3rd Fl., 917-570-1476. ANDREA ROSEN GALLERY: “She Awoke With a Jerk.” Opens May 8. Karla Black & Nate Lowman. Opens May 8, 525 W. 24th St., 212-627-6000. AXELLE FINE ARTS GALERIE: Laurent Dauptain. Opens May 6, 535 W. 25th St., 212-226-2262. BLANK SPACE GALLERY: Elyce Abrams & Bernard Dunaux. Opens May 6, 511 W. 25th St., Ste. 204, 212-924-2025. CYNTHIA-REEVES: John Grade. Opens May 13, 535 W. 24th St., 2nd Fl., 212-714-0044. DENISE BIBRO FINE ART: David Barnett: “Sacred Creatures.” Opens May 6, 529 W. 20th St., 4W, 212-647-7030. FRANKLIN 54 GALLERY + PROJECTS: Elaine Defibaugh. “Nite Lite, City Brite.” Opens May 5, 526 W. 26th St., Rm. 403, 917-821-0753. HOLLIS TAGGART GALLERIES: Theodoros Stamos: “A Communion With Nature.” Opens May 13, 958 Madison Ave., 212-628-4000. ICO GALLERY: “Strange Design.” Opens May 11, 606 W. 26th St., 212-966-3897. INVISIBLE-EXPORTS: Group Show: “A Vernacular of Violence.” Opens May 14, 14A Orchard St., 212-226-5447. ISCP: “Open Studios.” Opens May 7, 1040 Metropolitan Ave., Brooklyn, 718-387-2900. JAMES COHAN GALLERY: Alison Elizabeth Taylor: “Foreclosed.” Opens May 7, 533 W. 26th St., 212-714-9500. JAMES GRAHAM & SONS: Reeve Schley: “Outdoor Light.” Opens May 5, 32 E. 67th St., 212-535-5767. JAN KRUGIER GALLERY: “A Century of Picasso.” Opens May 7, 980 Madison Ave., 212-755-7288. LESLIE FEELY FINE ART: “A Moment in Time: Richard Diebenkorn in Context: 1949-1952.” Opens May 6, 33 E. 68th St., 212-988-0040. LOFT 676: “Future Development: Graffiti Art.” Opens May 7, 676 Broadway, no phone. MITCHELL-INNES & NASH: William Pope.L: “landscape + object + animal.” Opens May 8, 534 W. 26th St., 212-744-7400. NEW YORK STUDIO SCHOOL OF DRAWING, PAINTING & SCULPTURE: 2010 MFA Thesis Exhibit. Opens May 12,

8 W. 8th St., 212-673-6466. OPEN SOURCE: Patricia Watwood: “Portraits 20/10.”

Opens May 7, 255 17th St., Brooklyn, 646-279-3969.

SALLY BRODY NEW PAINTINGS and PRINTS

APRIL 27- MAY 22

ATLANTIC GALLERY 135 WEST 29TH STREET NEW YORK NY 10001 212.219.3183

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PARK AVENUE ARMORY: Christian Boltanski: “No

INVEN.TORY: “INVEN.TORY Exhibition: The Point

Man’s Land.” Opens May 12, Wade Thompson Drill Hall, 643 Park Ave., 212-616-3930. PAUL KASMIN GALLERY: Kent Henricksen: “A Venomous Bloom.” Opens May 6, 511 W. 27th St., 212-563-4474. PERRY RUBENSTEIN GALLERY: Amir Zaki: “Relics.” Opens May 6, 527 W. 23rd St., 212-627-8000. SOHO PHOTO: Rebecca Lepkoff: “Urban Life.” Opens May 4, 15 White St., 212-226-8571. SPAZIO 522: Paolo Staccioli. Opens May 13, 526 W. 26th St., 914-844-6296. SWISS INSTITUTE/CONTEMPORARY ART: Richard Phillips & Adolf Dietrich: “Painting and Misappropriation.” Opens May 5, 495 Broadway, 3rd Fl., 212-925-2035. TRACY WILLIAMS, LTD.: Barbara Bloom: “Present.” Opens May 6, 521 W. 23rd St., 212-229-2757. WALLY FINDLAY GALLERIES NEW YORK: Charles Neal: “Parks & Gardens.” Opens May 5, 124 E. 57th St., 212-421-5390. WESTBETH GALLERY: Alison Armstrong: “Wood, Water, Stone: Paintings, Drawings & Installations.” Opens May 8, 57 Bethune St., 212-989-4650.

Suite Pop Up Show.” Ends May 14, 237 Lafayette St., no phone. INVISIBLE-EXPORTS: Walt Cassidy: “The Protective Motif.” Ends May 9, 14A Orchard St., 212-2265447. J. CACCIOLA GALLERY: Linda Christensen & Jane Lafrage Hamill. Ends May 15, 617 W. 27th St., 212-462-4646. JEFF BAILEY GALLERY: Jackie Gendel: “Rose Madder & the Ultramarines.” Ends May 8, 511 W. 25th St., No. 207, 212-989-0156. JEN BEKMAN: Carrie Marill: “Works On Paper.” Ends May 8, 6 Spring St., 212-219-0166. JONATHAN LEVINE GALLERY: Date Farmers: “Smother Your Mother.” Ends May 8. Eric White, Nicola Verlato & Fulvio Di Piazza: “Three-Handed.” Ends May 8, 529 W. 20th St., 212-243-3822. KATHARINA RICH PERLOW GALLERY: Stephen Pace: “Selected Paintings.” Ends May 8, 980 Madison Ave., 3rd Fl., 212-644-7171. LMAKPROJECTS: Lieven De Boeck: “autoportrait contre nature.” Ends May 9, 139 Eldridge St., 212-255-9707. MICHAEL MUT GALLERY: “Birthright.” Ends May 9, 97 Ave. C, 212-677-7868. MIKE WEISS GALLERY: Elisa Johns: “Huntress.” Ends May 8, 520 W. 24th St., 212-691-6899. NY STUDIO GALLERY: de la Haba: “Dawn of a New Era.” Ends May 8, 154 Stanton St., 212-6273276. OPEN SOURCE: Rachel Youens: “Cornucopias.” Ends May 5, 255 17th St., Brooklyn, 646-279-3969. PACE GALLERY: Joel Shapiro: “New Work.” Ends May 15, 534 W. 25th St., 212-929-7000. ROBERT MANN GALLERY: Joe Deal: “West & West.” Ends May 8, 210 11th Ave., 212-989-7600. RONALD FELDMAN FINE ARTS: Jason Salavon: “Old Codes.” Ends May 8, 31 Mercer St., 212-2263232. SKYLIGHT GALLERY: Andy Sovia, Lucinda Luvaas & Randolph SanMillan. Ends May 16, 538 W. 29th St., 2nd Fl., 646-772-2407. STEVEN KASHER GALLERY: “Between the Bricks & the Blood: Transgressive Typologies.” Ends May 8, 521 W. 23rd St., 212-966-3978. TALWAR GALLERY: Risham Syed: “and the rest is history.” Ends May 15, 108 E. 16th St., 212-6733096. TATTOO CULTURE GALLERY: Frank Russo: “Monsterfaces.” Ends May 6, 129 Roebling St., Brooklyn, no phone. VISUAL ARTS GALLERY: “Unleashed.” Ends May 15, 601 W. 26th St., 15th Fl., 212-592-2145. THE WILD PROJECT: Sarah Palmer: “As A Real House.” Ends May 15, 195 E. 3rd St., 212-228-1195. W.M. BRADY & CO.: Hector McDonnell: “Interior

GALLERY CLOSINGS 440 GALLERY: Karen Gibbons: “Sweet Home.” Ends

May 16, 440 6th Ave., Brooklyn, 718-499-3844. AMADOR GALLERY: Ryuji Miyamoto: “Kobe.” Ends May 8, 41 E. 57th St., 6th Fl., 212-759-6740. ANIMAZING GALLERY: Ralph Bakshi: “The Streets.” Ends May 15, 54 Greene St., 212-226-7374. BONNI BENRUBI GALLERY: Cédric Delsaux: “Nous resterons sur Terre.” Ends May 8, 41 E. 57th St., 212-888-6007. BRUCE SILVERSTEIN GALLERY: “Silverstein Photography Annual 2010.” Ends May 8, 535 W. 24th St., 212-627-3930. DANIEL REICH GALLERY: Endre Aalrust: “Free Lunch.” Ends May 15, 537 A West 23rd St., 212-9244949. EASY STREET GALLERY: Slinger: “Repeater.” Ends May 12, 155 Grand St., Brooklyn, 718-388-8257. ENNAGON GALLERY: Martine Malle: “The Lost Virgins of Gabriel.” Ends May 7, 50 Greene St., 5th Fl., 212-343-0055. FREDERIEKE TAYLOR GALLERY: “10th Anniversary Invitational Part II.” Ends May 8. Christy Rupp: “Wake Up and Smell the Benzene.” Ends May 8. Forth Estate: “Recent Works.” Ends May 8, 535 W. 22nd St., 6th Fl., 646-230-0992. GALLERY HENOCH: Eric Zener. Ends May 8, 555 W. 25th St., 917-305-0003. HENRY GREGG GALLERY: Fernand D’Onofrio: “Eros.” Ends May 6, 111 Front St., Ste. 226, Brooklyn, 718-408-1090.

Cottonwood Trees, High Plains,” by Joe Deal. At Robert Mann through May 8. Journeys and Treks Abroad.” Ends May 14, 22 E. 80th St., 212-249-7212. ZÜRCHER STUDIO: “Devotion.” Ends May 16, 33 Bleecker St., 212-777-0790.

MUSEUMS ABRONS ART CENTER: 2010 Student Art Exhibition.

Ends May 15, 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: “Pilgrimage and Buddhist Art.” Ends June 20, 725 Park Ave., 212-2886400. AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM: “Solace.” Ends May 15, 11 E. 52nd St., 212-319-5300. BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC: “Archive Exhibition.” Ends June 30, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Ave., 3rd Fl., Brooklyn, 718-636-4100. BROOKLYN HISTORICAL SOCIETY: “Tivoli: A Place We Call Home.” Ends Aug. 29. “It Happened in Brooklyn.” Ongoing, 128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, 718-222-4111. BROOKLYN MUSEUM: “American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection.” May 7-Aug. 1. “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: “Irish Need Not Apply.” Ends May 15, 556 W. 22nd St., 212-255-0719.

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COOPER-HEWITT NATIONAL DESIGN MUSEUM: “National

Design Triennial: “Why Design Now?.” May 14-Jan. 9, 2 E. 91st St., 212-849-8400. DISCOVERY TIMES SQUARE EXPOSITION: “King Tut NYC: Return of the King.” Ends Jan. 2, 226 W. 44th St., no phone. THE DRAWING CENTER: Dorothea Tanning: “Early Designs for the Stage.” Ends July 23. Leon Golub: “Live & Die Like a Lion?” Ends July 23, 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. INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY: “Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography & Paris.” Ends May 9. “Miroslav Tichý.” Ends May 9. “Alan B. Stone & the Senses of Place.” Ends May 9. “Atget, Archivist of Paris.” Ends May 9, 1133 6th Ave., 212-857-0000. 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. JEWISH MUSEUM: “Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H.A. Rey.” Ends Aug. 1. “Modern Art, Sacred Space: Motherwell, Ferber and Gottlieb.” Ends Aug. 1. “The Monayer Family: Three Videos by Dor Guez.” Ends Sept. 7. “South African Photographs: David Goldblatt.” Ends Sept. 19, 1109 5th Ave., 212-423-3200. THE KITCHEN: Leslie Hewitt: “On Beauty, Objects and Dissonance.” Ends May 10, 512 W. 19th St., 212-255-5793. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: “American Woman: Fashioning A National Identity.” May 5-Aug. 15. “Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage.” Ends May 9. “The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy.” Ends May 23. “Five Thousand Years of Japanese Art: Treasures from the Packard Collection.” Ends June 6. “Contemporary Aboriginal Painting from Australia.” Ends June 13. “The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry.” Ends June 13. “Surface Tension: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection.” Ends June 13. “Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Ends Aug. 1. “Side by Side: Oberlin’s Masterworks at the Met.” Ends Aug. 29. “Tutankhamun’s Funeral.” Ends Sept. 6. “Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Silver Service Rediscovered.” Ends Nov. 7, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710. MOCADA: “Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Series.” Ends May 16, 80 Hanson Place, Brooklyn, 718-230-0492. THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM: “Rome After Raphael.” Ends May 9, 225 Madison Ave., 212685-0008. EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO: “Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement.” Ends May 9, 1230 5th Ave., 212-831-7272. MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION: “Microvisions.” Ends May 22. “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My...” Ends May 28, Society of Illustrators, 128 E. 63rd St., 212-838-2560. MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN: “California Dreamers: Ceramic Artists from the MAD Collection.” Ends May 30. “Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle.” May 11-Aug. 2010. “Portable Treasuries: Silver Jewelry From the Nadler Collection.” Ends Aug. 8. “Dead or Alive.” Ends Oct. 24, 2 Columbus Cir., 212-299-7777. MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE: “Traces of Memory.” Ends Aug. 15. “The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service.” Ends Dec. 2010, 36 Battery Pl., 646437-4200. MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: “Pictures by Women: A

History of Modern Photography.” May 7-Aug. 30. “William Kentridge: Five Themes.” Ends May 17. “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present.” Ends May 31. “Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century.” Ends June 28. “Lee Bontecou: All Freedom in Every Sense.” Ends Aug. 30. “Picasso: Themes & Variations.” Ends Sept. 6. “The Modern Myth: Drawing Mythologies in Modern Times.” Ends Sept. 6, 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., 212996-1908. NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN: “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, 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: “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: “In Passing: Evelyn Hofer, Helen Levitt, Lilo Raymond.” Ends May 23. “Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609-2009.” Ends June 26, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, West 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, 917-2756975. NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: “The Jazz Loft Project.” Ends May 22, 40 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-870-1630. NOGUCHI MUSEUM: “Noguchi ReINstalled.” Ends Oct. 24, 33rd Road at Vernon Boulevard, Queens, 718-721-2308. RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART: “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. “Remember That You Will Die: Death Across Cultures.” Ends Aug. 9. “Bardo: The Tibetan Art of the Afterlife.” Ends Sept. 6, 150 W. 17th St., 212-620-5000. SKYSCRAPER MUSEUM: “The Rise of Wall Street.” Ends Oct. 2010, 39 Battery Pl., 212-968-1961. SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM: “Paris and the Avant-Garde: Modern Masters From the Guggenheim Collection.” Ends May 12. “Julie Mehretu: Grey Area.” May 14-Oct. 6. “A Year with Children 2010.” May 14-June 20. “Malevich in Focus: 1912-1922.” Ends June 13. “Hilla Rebay: Art Educator.” Ends Aug. 22, 1071 5th Ave., 212-423-3500. SOUTH STREET SEAPORT: “Tigers the Exhibition.” Ends Jan. 15, Pier 17 at South Street Seaport, 800-7453000. STUDIO MUSEUM: “Collected. Reflections on the Permanent Collection.” Ends June 27. “VidéoStudio: New Works from France.” Ends June 27. “Harlem Postcards.” Ends June 27, 144 W. 125th St., 212-864-4500. WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: The Whitney hosts 55 artists in its Biennial, “2010.” Ends May 30, 945 Madison Ave., 212-570-3600.

AUCTIONS

Ming Fay on Orchard Street Through June 6, 2010

Ming Fay Square Fruits (detail), 2010 Mixed media, Dimensions variable

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

Julio Valdez In the Same Path as the Sun New Paintings

14 May–15 June 2010

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

Ann Marie Heal and Ingeborg ten Haeff Through June 5th Ann Marie Heal, Everything You Have Ever Thought, hand-cut etchings and lithographs, acrylic, 84x84 inches

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

ELAINE DEFIBAUGH “Nite Lite, City Brite” The Black Light Paintings May 5 - June 19, 2010 Reception: May 6, 6-8pm

CHRISTIE’S: Impressionist/Modern Evening Sale.

May 4, 7. Property from the Collection of Mrs. Sidney F. Brody. May 4, 7. Impressionist/Modern Day Sale. May 5, 2. Fine and Rare Wines Featuring an Evening Session of the World’s Finest. May 7, 6, May 8, 10 a.m. Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale. May 11, 6:30. Works from the Collection of Michael Crichton. May 11, 6:30, Rockefeller Plz., 212-636-2000.

FRANKLIN 54 GALLERY+ PROJECTS 526 West 26th St. #403 917-821-0753 franklin54@rcn.com

Nite Lite, City Brite mixed on canvas 72x105”

May 4, 2010 | City Arts

17

ArtsAGENDA DOYLE NEW YORK: European, American, Modern &

Contemporary Art. May 5, 11 a.m., 175 E. 87th St., 212-427-2730. PAULA COOPER GALLERY: The gallery, with the New York Dermatology Group, hosts an art auction to benefit Haiti. May 6, The Greenhouse, Scholastic Inc., 557 Broadway, 212-533-8888. ROGALLERY.COM: Fine art buyers and sellers in online live art auctions. 800-888-1063, www.rogallery. com. SWANN AUCTION GALLERIES: Early Printed Books & Manuscripts from the Inventory of the Late Lawrence Feinberg. May 11, 1:30, 104 E. 25th St., 212-254-4710. WHITE COLUMNS: White Columns hosts a cocktail party and live art auction, featuring works donated by more than 75 artists. May 15, 7-10, 320 W. 13th St., 212-924-4212.

ART EVENTS CHELSEA ART GALLERY TOUR: Guided tour of this week’s

top seven gallery exhibits in the world’s center for contemporary art. May 8, 526 W. 26th St., 212-946-1548; 1, $20. MADISON AVENUE GALLERY WALK: Art and antique galleries host the third annual Madison Avenue Art Gallery Walk. The walk benefits the fund for New York City public schools. Reservations are required for gallery tours. May 15, Madison Avenue between East 57th & 86th Streets, 212861-2055; 11 a.m., free. NEW YORK GALLERY WEEK: New York Gallery week hosts a series of art events, celebrating the most vital gallery community in the world. May 7-10, various locations, www.newyorkgalleryweek.com. NEW YORK PHOTO FESTIVAL: Vince Aletti, Erik Kessels,

Fred Ritchin and Lou Reed curate the country’s first international-level photography festival, now in its third year. May 12-16, Various Locations, www.nyphotofestival.com; 12-8, free. NYC TRIBAL ART WEEK: The leading tribal art galleries in New York City present NYC Tribal Art Week: Madison Promenade. May 10-16, Various Locations, www.madisonpromenade.com. STREET ART, LOWER EAST SIDE: Discover how the chaos of the Lower East Side streets has shaped the destiny of the art world. See the latest in graffiti and street art, and explore earlier art on the streets. May 8, Educational Alliance, 197 E. Broadway, www.gothamsidewalks.com; 3, $15+.

MUSIC & OPERA ALICE TULLY HALL: The Afiara String Quartet Makes

its New York recital debut. May 5, 1941 Broadway, 212-671-4050; 8, free+. AVERY FISHER HALL: The National Chorale concludes its season with a performance of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” May 8, Lincoln Center, 132 W. 65th St., 212-333-5333; 8, $54+. AVERY FISHER HALL: Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra present “Apollo & Dionysus,” a concert exploring the dichotomy of order and the erotic. May 9, Lincoln Center, 132 W. 65th St., 212-868-9276; 3, $25. BAMCAFÉ: BAM hosts free music every Friday night as part of BAMcafé Live. Gaida & Levantine Indulgence. May 7. Burr Johnson Band. May 14. Magos Herrera. May 21, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, 718-636-4129; 8, free. CAFÉ CARLYLE: Judy Collins performs. May 4-June 12, The Carlyle Hotel, 35 E. 76th St., 212-744-

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DCA License # 1089294

1600; 8:45, $125+. CHURCH OF ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA: Sacred Music in a Sa-

cred Space closes with a concert featuring music by Monteverdi, Stravinsky and Pärt. May 5, 980 Park Ave., 212-288-2520; 8, $30+. DIXON PLACE: Vocalist Rebecca Hart performs. May 5, Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St., 212-219-0736; 9, $5. MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC: The school presents “1924 Now!,” a program offering works by Roussel, Ravel, Satie, Stravinsky, Gershwin and more. May 12, Greenfield Hall, 120 Claremont Ave., 917-493-4429; 7:30, free. METROPOLITAN OPERA: Armida: Soprano Renée Fleming stars as the vengeful sorceress who reigns over an enchanted island prison. Ends May 12. Der Fliegende Hollander: Wagner’s production returns to the Met for the first time since 2000, starring famed soprano Deborah Voigt as Senta. Ends May 14, West 62nd Street (betw. Columbus & Amsterdam Aves.), 212-362-6000; times vary, $20+. STERN AUDITORIUM: Pianist Maurizio Pollini concludes his three-recital celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederic Chopin with an all-Chopin program. May 9, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 3, $39+. STERN AUDITORIUM: Conductor Pierre Boulez leads The MET Orchestra in its final Carnegie Hall performance this season with a program featuring Bartok’s “The Wooden Prince” and Schoenberg’s “Erwartung” with soprano Deborah Polaski. May 16, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-2477800; 3, $53+. ST. MARK’S CHURCH: The International Street Cannibals and guest artists present the concert “Desperately Seeking Igor,” featuring new compositions and works of Stravinsky. May 5, 131 E. 10th St., 866-811-4111; 8:30, $10. WMP CONCERT HALL: Violinist Burcu Goker and pianist Eric Jenkins perform works by Stravinsky, Mendelssohn, Ravel and Schoenfield. May 7, 31 E. 28th St., 212-582-7536; 7:30, $10+. ZANKEL HALL: Carnegie Hall’s “Around the Globe” series concludes with the Grammy Award-nominated Mexican folk music ensemble Sones de Mexico, a Chicago group that specializes in the various regional styles of son and traditional fandango. May 7, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 10, $38+. ZANKEL HALL: Piano virtuoso Nicolas Hodges performs a recital featuring works by Beethoven, Rzewski, Dutilleux and Schumann. May 11, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 7:30, $38+.

JAZZ THE ALLEN ROOM: Vocalist Kurt Elling collaborates

with jazz accordion master Richard Galliano. May 14-15, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway at W. 60th St., 212-721-6500; times vary, $55+. AVERY FISHER HALL: The top three high school jazz bands in the country join Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in the final concert of the “Essentially Ellington” series. May 10, Lincoln Center, 132 W. 65th St., 212-3335333; 7:30, $20+. BB KING BLUES CLUB & GRILL: Marquee concerts presents vocalist Patti Austin. May 12, 237 W. 42nd St., 212-997-4144; 8, $45. BMCC TRIBECA PAC: As part of the “Lost Jazz Shrines” series, BMCC Tribeca PAC honors the Ali’s Alley jazz club with three performances. Azar Lawrence Sextet. May 7. Sam Rivers & His Band. May 14. Barry Harris & His Band. May 21, 199 Chambers St., 212-220-1460; 7, $15+.

CAFÉ CARLYLE: The Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz

Bands performs with Woody Allen. Ends May 31, The Carlyle Hotel, 35 E. 76th St., 212-7441600; 8:45, $110+. DIZZY’S CLUB COCA-COLA: Dizzy’s hosts an exclusive performance by 16-year-old vocal powerhouse Nikki Yanofsky. May 4, 33 W. 60th St., 212258-9595; 6:30, $15+. IRIDIUM JAZZ CLUB: The Joan Stiles Sextet performs with Jeremy Pelt, Steve Wilson, Joel Frahm, Ben Williams & Lewis Nash in honor of the 100th birthday of Mary Lou Williams. May 12, 1650 Broadway, 212-582-2121; times vary, $20. JAZZ STANDARD: The Mingus Orchestra performs. May 10, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232; times vary, $25. ROSE THEATER: Intuition: The Music of Bill Evans. May 14-15, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 33 W. 60th St., 11th Fl., 212-258-9800; 8, $30+. SMALLS: The Dred Scott Trio performs. May 4, 183 W. 10th St., no phone; 7:30 & 9, $20.

DANCE AMERICAN BALLET THEATER: Works & Process at the

Guggenheim presents “American Ballet Theatre at 70,” in honor of ABT’s 70th anniversary spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House. May 9 & 10, Peter B. Lewis Theater, 1071 5th Ave., 212-423-3587; 7:30, $10+. DANCE NEW AMSTERDAM: Bill Shannon and Dance New Amsterdam present three months of programming by Shannon Public Works. Ends June 18, 280 Broadway, 2nd Fl., 212-625-8369; times vary, $12+. DANCES PATRELLE & CHERYLYN LAVAGNINO DANCE: The companies present “Ballet: Uptown Downtown/ Today and Tomorrow.” May 6-8, Peter Norton Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, 212-8645400; 8, $16+. DANSPACE PROJECT: DSP returns to the “City/Dans” series with singular performance events by artists known for their risk-taking habits. May 13-29, Danspace Project, St. Mark’s Church, 131 E. 10th St., 866-811-4111; 8, $12+. DOORKNOB COMPANY: The NYC-based company presents “TBD,” exploring time lapses, dinner parties, Christmas and death. May 13-15, The Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave., 212-242-0800; 8, $15+. MOMIX: Moses Pendleton’s company presents “MOMIX reMIX” and “Botanica.” May 11-June 6, The Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave., 212-242-0800; times vary, $10+. NEW YORK THEATRE BALLET: The company recreates ballets by legendary choreographers Antony Tudor, Frederick Ashton & Jose Limon at “Signatures 10.” May 14 & 15, Florence Gould Hall, 55 E. 59th St., 212-307-4100; 7, $15+. PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET: Works & Process at the Guggenheim hosts the company’s lecture-demonstration presentation of “Balanchine’s Petipa.” May 14 & 15, Peter B. Lewis Theater, 1071 5th Ave., 212-423-3587; 7:30, $10+. SIDRA BELL DANCE NEW YORK: The company performs its new full-length work, “Beautiful Beast: The Other Faces.” May 12-15, DUO Theatre, 62 E. 4th St., 212-868-4444; 8, $10. SITI COMPANY: The company, directed by Anne Bogart, presents the revival of “bobrauschenbergamerica.” Ends May 16, Dance Theater Workshop, 219 W. 19th St., 212-924-0077; times vary, $20+. ZIMMERMANN & DE PERROT: The Swiss duo makes its United States debut with the American premiere of “Gaff Aff.” May 4-8, Jerome Robbins Theater at Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 W. 37th St., Ste. 501, 646-731-3200; 8, $25. <

PainttheTOWN

By Amanda Gordon

HAUTE SHOPPING “I’ve been looking at the jewelry,” said Whitney Port, of MTV’s reality show The City, as she walked through the “AVENUE on Park” spring show at 583 Park. But the budding designer (who launches a fashion line in the second season of her TV show, which began Apr. 27) was soon distracted by the racks of vintage clothing. Another pretty woman was Emily Willauer, stationed at the stall of her mom’s Nantucket shop, Lynda Willauer Antiques. She gushed about a 1765 Chinese export porcelain plate made for the English market. “I have five pieces myself. I love this particular arms,” Willauer said of the design, featuring a coat of arms for the Hynam family. And for the woman who already has ample collections of jewelry, clothing and China, there was Marion Harris’ booth. It displayed resin mushrooms made in the early 1950s for a Hermes window display and sets of eyeballs made in wartime for soldiers. “There’s a method to my madness,” Harris said. “I like objects that bear closer inspection, that tell a story.”

Clockwise from left: Erin Holifield of Madison Avenue Couture in Halston; Marion Alexander of M.A.D. Vintage Couture; Natasha and Emily Willauer of Lynda Willauer Antiques; Marisa Marcantonio, Amanda Essex, Alexandra Lind Rose and Louis Rose; mother/daughter Elaine and Charlotte Textor.

SCADS OF FUN

PARTY ASHER

Some alumni swell with school pride over beer and a football game. Savannah College of Art and Design gave its New York alumni something different: an awards ceremony at James Cohan Gallery, honoring Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, branding and advertising guru Peter Arnell, interior designers Bunny Williams and John Rosselli, actress Catherine Deneuve and Shanghai Tang founder Sir David Tang. Also on hand were acclaimed young designers (Claude Morais and Brian Wolk of Ruffian, Chris Benz); celebrities (Michael Douglas and Sarah Ferguson) and one legendary New Yorker and Savannahian, Bobby Zarem, who, having recently given up his New York apartment, flew up from Savannah and stayed for the first time in 50 years in a hotel (the hotel is Downtown, but yes, he’s still getting up to Elaine’s). Jennifer Jenkins, a SCAD faculty member, installed a work of red and orange yarns and fabrics just for the occasion. And in lieu of beer and pizza, there were cocktails and peanut butter, jelly and chocolate sandwiches. “I’m so proud,” said SCAD grad Peter Hale Cooney III, who works with designer Betsey Johnson. Cooney wore a “Little Red Riding Hood” cape he “whipped up” for the event, made from silk chiffon, a patent camellia flower and five black mink tails.

It was fun to watch Michael Asher pick up the $100,000 Bucksbaum Award from The Whitney Museum of American Art, delivered with affection by its funder, Melva Bucksbaum, and artist Fred Wilson. But it was more fun to talk about Asher’s plan to keep the museum open for three days straight, from 12:01 p.m. May 26 to 11:59 p.m. May 28. “It’s experimental. I don’t know what it’s going to be about. I just want to learn,” said Asher. It’s part of work that goes back to the 1960s, in which he alters museum spaces, moving walls and objects. “It’s never been done the same way,” Asher noted. Meanwhile, The Whitney is preparing for its own big change: opening a space in the Meatpacking District. Brooke Garber Neidich, co-chairman of the museum, expressed confidence in the plan. “We’ll put that shovel in the ground,” she said. The board has been acclimating, meeting over dinner at The Standard Hotel, a few blocks from the new site.

Clockwise from left: Lexi Graham and Peter Hale Cooney III; Claude Morais, Glenn Wallace, Savannah College of Art and Design President Paula Wallace and Brian Wolk; Hilary Fuchs (an interior designer at the Design Studio) and Hattie Saltonstall (a designer at Badgley Mischka); Gene Migliaro, Ashley Melisse Abess and fashion designer Chris Benz, who will all be speaking at SCAD in May.

From top: Melva Bucksbaum and Michael Asher; Jordan Wolfson and Brooke Garber Neidich.

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

May 4, 2010 | City Arts

19

gala

IN ASSOCIATION WITH MICHAEL DORF & CITY WINERY

25th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION A

IN CENTRAL PARK

The Music of Simon & Garfunkel WITH 30 GREAT ARTISTS PERFORMING 15 UNIQUE DUETS OF SIMON & GARFUNKEL TIMELESS CLASSICS INCLUDING:

AIMEE MANN t DAR WILLIAMS t RICKY SKAGGS t LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III LUCY WAINWRIGHT ROCHE t SHAWN COLVIN t PAULA COLE t JOAN OSBORNE STEPHEN KELLOGG t DEAN & BRITTA t CORY CHISEL t THE HOLMES BROTHERS JOHN FORTE t VALERIE JUNE WILLIE NILE t ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO JOHN RODERICK t OLLABELLE (HOUSE BAND) AND MANY MORE!

TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 2010 6PM RECEPTION t 7PM DINNER t 8PM CONCERT RAINDATE: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 2010 THE SUMMERSTAGE 25TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION raises funds to support City Parks Foundation’s free performing arts programming. The largest festival of its kind, CityParks SummerStage presents free, professionally produced, music, dance and theater in 41 parks across all five boroughs of New York City. Each year we produce over 200 programs featuring emerging and established artists, reaching more than 260,000 New Yorkers.

Go to www.SummerStage.org for complete, up-to-date artist listing For more information contact Jill Rothstein at 212-360-8170 or JRothstein@CityParksFoundation.org.

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