cityArts September 29, 2010

SEPT. 29-OCT. 12, 2010 Volume 2, Issue 15

IN THIS ISSUE Women have it rough in two new productions, according to MARK PEIKERT. Nueva York at Museo del Barrio.

Joey Arias sings jazz.

Plus: An inside look at AVENUE Shows

Tina Benko and Elizabeth Marvel in The Little Foxes at New York Theatre Workshop.

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violin

Arabella Steinbacher,

APR 29, 2011

piano

Rudolf Buchbinder,

MAR 19, 2011

violin

Vadim Gluzman,

soprano

JAN 29, 2011

W W W. O R P H E U S N Y C . O R G

Kate Royal,

at Carnegie Hall

Photo by Jan Versweyveld

DEC 4, 2010

2010-2011 Season

piano

O R C H E S T R A

Garrick Ohlsson,

C H A M B E R

OCT 14, 2010

Antiques & Art at the Armory, Sept. 30-Oct. 3

9/2/10 10:51 AM

Will Barnet

and The Art Students League October 5– 31, 2010

Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery The Art Students League of New York 215 West 57th Street New York, NY 212 247-4510

InthisIssue 4 Film

We speak to artist Eric Drooker about his collaboration with Allen Ginsberg and illustrations in Howl.

6 Jazz HOWARD MANDEL on Roulette’s impending move to Brooklyn.

8 Theater Productions of The Little Foxes and Orlando delve into the perils of womanhood, according to MARK PEIKERT.

10 Classical Music JAY NORDLINGER wonders why the New York Philharmonic opened its season with a new Wynton Marsalis work.

13 Spotlight on Antiques & Arts at the Armory Presenters explain what’s in store for collectors at the AVENUE Shows event.

19 Museums PATRICIO DEL REAL dissects a significant exhibition about the city’s Will Barnet, Singular Image, 1964, color woodcut on Japanese paper, 35 5/8 x 22 in. Collection of Will and Elena Barnet. © Will Barnet/Licensed by VAGA, New York NY; Alexandre Gallery, New York, NY

Spanish-speaking communities presented at El Museo del Barrio, in collaboration with the New-York Historical Society.

20 At the Galleries Reviews: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects; Rhyme, Not Reason at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery; Tetsumi Kudo at Andrea Rosen Gallery; Santiago Sierra at Team Gallery; Mark Hogancamp at Esopus Space; Suzan Frecon at David Zwirner; Knox Martin at Woodward Gallery.

22 Arts Agenda Galleries, Art Events, Museums, Classical Music, Opera, Theater, Out of Town.

27 Paint the Town by Amanda Gordon EDITOR Jerry Portwood jportwood@manhattanmedia.com MANAGING EDITOR Adam Rathe arathe@ manhattanmedia.com ASSISTANT EDITOR

Christine Werthman ART DIRECTOR Jessica Balaschak CONTRIBUTING ART DIRECTOR

Wendy Hu

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InBrief his head when he’s shooting on the frontlines. Having captured such shocking photographs as that of a young Iraqi girl splattered in her parents’ blood, it’s hard to imagine concertos, but the Pulitzer Prizewinning photographer must maintain his composure somehow.

“Every war photographer has those experiences of comforting the wounded and helping the injured,” Hondros says. “[But as a photojournalist] your role is documenting it so that everyone else around the world can understand what’s going on.”

Sound + Vision: At War is an exhibit of Hondros’ work on view at John Jay College that documents the invasion of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 to 2010 and immerses us in a harrowing portrait of the war against terrorism. The exhibit opens Sept. 29 with a concert of Bach selections performed live by Fusion Bande under the direction of Kenneth Hamrick.

With technical skill and unflinching determination, Hondros’ photographs connect us to the precarious relationship with the men, women and children of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the soldiers employed there. [Pauline Tran] Sept. 29. Exhibit Sept. 29-Oct. 12, Gerald W. Lynch Theater, John Jay College, 899 10th Ave., 212-279-4200.

Seasonal Movement It hasn’t gotten quite as crazy as the

lines for Shakespeare in the Park, but dance enthusiasts did start lining up at 11:30 the night before the box office opened for City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival.

Once again, the 10-day festival—with five wildly diverse programs including familiar big names, adventurous downtown artists, foreign companies not seen here before, and everything from tap to Indian to hip-hop and more—is the hottest ticket in town, and rightly so.

Fall for Dance has been such a success from the start that there hasn’t been much need to tinker with a winning formula. But Arlene Shuler, City Center’s president and CEO, points out several ways it has evolved since its 2004 launch. “In the beginning we had more companies, a lot of shorter works, so we could have five companies a night.

We realized that was sometimes too much; it made the evening long, and sometimes

Courtesy of Getty Images

The Sound of War Chris Hondros hears Bach in

Chris Hondros’ photo of two girls in Iraq.

so rich that it was almost overwhelming.

Last year, when we did Ballets Russes programming, we had more full-length pieces, so we reduced it to four companies on each program, and I think that works very well.”

This year’s international visitors include Finland’s Tero Saarinen Company, which offered intriguing programs at the Joyce Theater and BAM on earlier visits.

Unusually, this work is a solo, a U.S. premiere performed by Saarinen himself but choreographed by Carolyn Carlson, an influential expatriate American, and is inspired by the life of Mark Rothko.

Two international offerings come by way of London’s Sadler’s Wells Theater. One is Russell Maliphant’s AfterLight (Part 1), a solo based on drawings of Nijinsky and set to Satie music, created for the theater’s “In the Spirit of Diaghilev” program last year.

Shu-Yi & (Dancers) Company, a Taiwanese troupe making its U.S. debut, won the

Sadler’s Wells 2009 Global Dance Contest.

Also making its U.S. debut is Companhia Urbana de Dança, a Brazilian hip-hop troupe whose choreographer, Sonia Destri, creates movement in collaboration with her company members, drawing on the dancers’ identities and life stories as inspiration. Festival first-timers include Emanuel Gat Dance, with a meditative solo to John Coltrane; Company Rafaela Carrasco from Spain, performing a threepart work to live music; and Dresden Semperoper Ballet, taking on the virtuoso challenges of William Forsythe’s Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon, directed by American Ballet Theatre star Angel Corella, is back after its local debut at City Center earlier this year, with Solea, performed by Corella and his sister Carmen.

Add Paul Taylor’s Company B—and tap master Jason Samuels Smith joining forces with hip-hop innovator Mr. Wiggles—to

the mix, and you see just how varied the programming is. There will be plenty for dance fans to discuss and debate in the always-lively Lounge FFD in the neighboring atrium, where food, drink and music are available before and after the performances. [Susan Reiter]

Sept. 28–Oct. 9, City Center, 131 W. 55th St., 212-581-1212; $10. Pre-performance DanceTalks, Oct. 1 & 7; 6:30, Free.

Jazz and Joey Crime and bedbugs are reawakening,

rents are drifting back toward the merely obscene and homeless chic once again percolates around Penn Station. In another sign our recession-tinged city is getting back to brand basics, Joey Arias is back in New York—to stay.

The most statuesque dude ever to don a dress or channel Billie Holiday has returned from Las Vegas for his first…straight New

AVENUE Shows Antiques & Art at the Armory SEPT. 30–OCT 3, 2010 • Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue (at 67th Street) Complimentary General Admission for Two with this coupon see www.avenueshows.com for full show details September 29, 2010 | City Arts

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InBrief

Heath McBride

bringing “Joey’s brand of comedic, creative, slightly twisted performance art into a more formal setting.”

But a more formal setting is just one more homecoming: Arias signed his first record contract long before he first applied his makeup, and audiences will be listening as much as looking this time around.

“People come to be lost, to be inspired. Your job is to make them dream,” he insists. His signature Bettie Page couture wasn’t even part of the Arias arsenal until 1990.

That was also, as it happens, the high water mark for homicides in the city. After 20 years, have we New Yorkers lost our edge?

“Anybody who says New York is over needs to get the fuck out,” he fires back, as if from a lipstickcovered 9mm.

And the connection to Jackie O? “She was completely gracious to me,” Arias says. “In those eyes n. iso All n Be of hers, you could read history.” ian sic mu z jaz Joey Arias performs with A fair bit of Gotham lore flashes under those fat lashes of yours, too, Joey.

York Concert in nearly a decade. Though Welcome home. [Jonathan Funke] 2008’s Arias with a Twist—his eponymous Oct. 1, 2, 8 & 9, Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St., 212-352-3101; 8, $25. collaboration with grand puppeteer Basil Twist—was a critical and audience success at the HERE Arts Center, the methadone of red-eye weekends wasn’t enough for this prime mover of East Village performance art.

Throughout the weekend of Oct. 9, Creative Time will mount its second two-day “I’m this New York avant-garde artist, seminar that attempts to address the gigantic and I’m living in Vegas… I needed to be back in New York so bad, to feel that vibe,” issue of the relationship between Art and Society. Over 40 artists, curators, critics, says Arias, the SNL veteran and To Wong scholars, anarchists and activists will travel Foo… institution, who now counts as many from around the world to show their projects.

IMDB credits for just being himself as for Presenters will attempt to cover global issues portraying others. of politics, gender, and food production in a The consummate entertainer who once flood of words and ideas. “We will talk and toured with Bowie and held court with provoke,” says Creative Time Chief Curator Jackie O will now move from what he Nato Thompson. “Although many believe calls “a $100-million, over-the-top Vegas that politically engaged art speaks to the production” to the decidedly more intimate choir and operates in a naive consensus, we Abrons Arts Center. Arias With a Twist’s are aware that there are numerous forms and Ayumu Saegusa will reprise on the lighting numerous politics.” design, but this time the focus will be on It is sometimes hard to merge politically pop, rock and jazz standards, along with conscious art with one that is also aesthetically original compositions of the traditionally noteworthy, but Creative Time has never grounded arranger-bassist Ben Allison. been afraid of tackling hard subjects. The The production revives a collaboration emphasis will be on art and art forms that between Arias and Allison that started relate to immediate social concerns, as well as years ago, when the Village neighbors tackle the aesthetic implications of this type of teamed up weekends at haunts like artwork. The marathon of presentations will the Supper Club, Indochine and drag be back-to-back for two days, culminating in paradise Bar d’O. “Jazz suffers when it the presentation of the second annual Leonore gets too disconnected from its history as a Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change, functional music, as a backdrop for other honoring an artist who has committed her/ things,” says Allison. “Joey is intuitive, his life’s work to social change. This year the and I love that. We jazz musicians award will be given to Rick Lowe. It is bound sometimes take ourselves too seriously.”

That won’t be a problem this time: Arias to be a heady and provocative weekend.

[Melissa Stern] hasn’t even written the lyrics yet for Ben’s new compositions. “Oh, I can improvise on Oct. 9 & 10, The Cooper Union School of Art, 7 E. 7th St. For a complete schedule, a dime, a penny, whatever,” he promises. visit www.creativetime.org/summit.

For his part, Allison is looking forward to

Culture Writ Large

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An animated still from the film Howl, which is also available as Howl: A Graphic Novel.

Howling Hipster

You probably know artist Eric Drooker’s work even though you may not recognize his name. He’s produced artwork for over a dozen covers of The New Yorker, several depicting books stacked to resemble skyscrapers. Now his art has been adapted as animated sequences in Howl, the film about the landmark 1957 obscenity trial on the publication of Allen Ginsberg’s epic poem Howl, starring James Franco. As Drooker explained, documentary filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman were going to make a doc, but they ended up going in a completely different direction. “They visited and looked at some of my other work. That’s when light bulbs went off over their heads, when they saw these illustrations I did with Allen’s poems.”

Now the 90-minute film contains approximately 20 minutes of animation woven throughout. An illustrated book of the poem, titled Howl: A Graphic Novel, is also available and contains Drooker’s artwork.

The 51-year-old artist was born on the Lower East Side, attended Cooper Union and spent most of his life in the East Village, where he first met Ginsberg, who started collecting his agitprop posters around Tompkins Square Park.

As he explains, the massive construction projects that he experienced during his youth that greatly influenced him show up in many scenes in Howl. [Jerry Portwood] I know that you had a working relationship with Ginsberg, but how did your involvement in the film get started?

Eric Drooker: When they began the project, the first thing they did was interview the oldest members of that scene: Ferlinghetti, Peter Orlovsky, Tuli Kupferberg, the founder of The Fugs.

When they were interviewing [Tuli], they came across a copy of Illuminated Poems.

I’m not sure if Tuli showed them the book or they saw it when they were there.

[But] they decided to contact me to use some imagery in their documentary.

How was that process for you?

Did you create the art and then farm it out to other artists and animators?

That was very unusual to see the work translated by other artists. Usually, I write the thing, draw it and ink it all myself. So I was operating in the auteur approach of doing it all, doing the whole thing, so it would be the work of one artist’s hand. It’s so tedious and labor intensive; it would have taken 10 or 15 years to make a film like that. You need to have a team working with you. So, I designed the whole cast of characters: the skinny 29-year-old-with-glasses Ginsberg character; a Kerouac character; Moloch, a Minotaur. I would draw the Minotaur, from the front, the side, from all different angles. I did the anonymous nude, copulating figures.

Was there any pushback to your visual interpretation of the poem?

It conjures up images in the mind of the reader, of the listener. You don’t want someone interpreting it for you. That’s what is great about poetry: You hear words and come up with your own dream image.

On the other hand, there is a tradition of coming up with illustrated poems, books, rock videos. We attempted it, and I would have had even more outrageous, not just sexual but political. They were staying more personal to a young man coming out of the closet and coming to terms with his sexuality. I think it could have had a larger dose of political reality of the ’50s, the cold war, McCarthyism, the Howl obscenity trial, the Hollywood witch hunt, the execution of Rosenbergs.

Younger viewers may not grasp some of those connections.

Were you basing your image of Ginsberg on James Franco?

When I was doing drawings of young Allen, I make him very tall and skinny. He’s very elongated, almost like

ArtsNews at Long Island University’s Downtown Brooklyn campus and Performance Lab 115’s production of Wagner’s The Ring Cycle Oct. 14 through 31 at The Bushwick Starr… Oct. 12, Zieher Smith Gallery will host NUTUREart’s 2010 benefit and juried exhibition, which will feature a raffle and and an art auction… Fashion, art and design will intersect Oct. 16 and 17 at f.a.d. weekend, a two-day pop-up festival on the Lower East Side showcasing the wares of established and emerging designers and artists.

Discover China Through Marco Polo’s Eyes The World of Khubilai Khan Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty

Insertion date: SEPT 29, 2010

Through January 2

7.341 X 8.5, 4C

an El Greco. I wasn’t going for realistic proportions; he’s very stretched out and very graceful, so when they animated them they would look more abstract and graceful.

This was before I knew about James Franco. I had been working on it for over a year before he landed the part of Allen, so I wasn’t thinking of Franco at all; I was looking at pictures of Allen when he was in his twenties. That’s most of the poem, when he was in his late teens and twenties. Allen was only 16, 17 when he met Kerouac at Columbia University.

With so much art and animation to get done, how long were you working on the project?

Almost four years. The last two years of the project were high-drive. At first, when they talked about animating, I thought it would be little vignettes. I thought a minute there or two minutes there, to break up the monotony.

When I realized what they were proposing, I thought they were crazy—way over-ambitious. Why don’t we animate Dante’s Inferno while we’re at it? Of course, it didn’t even hit me, The Inferno would have been ambitious, but not as dangerous or as ambitious as Howl.

star, will convert the physicality of the lead character in the movie into choreographic moments, and actor and director Melvin Van Peebles will simultaneously read Cocteau poems. Prior to each performance, there will be screenings of The Blood of a Poet… The Brooklyn Arts Council has announced its 2010-11 season, which will include Intergenerations: Dance Kings of Black Brooklyn, an evening of performances plus a panel highlighting how a generation of black male dancers and choreographers, Oct. 9

Publication: City Arts

HOWL from previous page

and-coming artists will be on sale Sept. 30Oct. 3 at 7W New York… Oct. 9 and 10, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will present Coup de Foudre, a multi-media performance inspired by Jean Cocteau’s avant-garde 1930 film, The Blood of a Poet. In a theatrical re-interpretation of Cocteau’s film, Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) will DJ his own original music score (performed by The Telos Ensemble) mixing live instruments and studio recordings. Corey Baker, artistic co-director of Ballet Noir and current Fela!

LaPlacaCohen 212-675-4106

New York City Opera announced that Charles R. Wall will succeed Susan L. Baker as its chairman of the board, starting Dec. 16. Wall is no newcomer, as he served on City Opera’s board from 2001-2008…

The Hip-Hop Theater Festival returns for its 10th year of celebrating hip-hop culture through theater, dance, public art and more. The festival kicks off Sept. 27 with a special gala showcasing the HHTF’s accomplishments over the years… Dia Art Foundation unveils Franz Erhard Walther: Work As Action Oct. 2. The exhibition at Dia: Beacon marks the German artist’s first solo museum presentation in the United States since 1990… John Canemaker explores the work of influential Disney animator Joe Grant and Pixar creative cofounder Joe Ranft in his new book, Two Guys Named Joe. Canemaker celebrates the release with an illustrated lecture and screenings of the Joes’ animated films, Oct. 1 and 2 at the Museum of Modern Art… The Rubin Museum of Art plans to honor Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday and to commemorate International Day of Non-Violence by transforming itself into a “peace lab” for a day. On Oct. 2, the museum will feature art, crafts, tours, live music and more, all aimed at helping people to interact with peace… The fall edition of the Affordable Art Fair brings with it even more purchasable pieces that don’t tug too hard on the purse strings. Works from up-

metmuseum.org The exhibition is made possible by

The exhibition is also made possible by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Dillon Fund, The Henry Luce Foundation, Wilson and Eliot Nolen, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation, the Oceanic Heritage Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Florence and Herbert Irving, and Jane Carroll.

MET-0042-KhubilaiKhan_CityArts_7.341x8.5(1.16)_Sept29_v1.indd 1

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

Khubilai Khan (1215–1294) as the First Yuan Emperor, Shizu, National Palace Museum, Taipei.

9/24/10 4:08:59 PM

September 29, 2010 | City Arts

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JAZZ

Taking a Gamble Music venue Roulette stakes it all on Atlantic Avenue

R

By Howard Mandel

oulette, the long-running Manhattan venue for fearless new music and multi-media works, has made a daring bet. During tough economic times and the millennial transition in aesthetics and technologies, this community-oriented non-profit organization has signed a 20-year lease on a 600-seat Art Deco theater in the up-and-coming arts neighborhood near the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues in Brooklyn.

It’s a big move for an organization that started in 1978 and ran for many years in the roomy West Broadway second floor residential loft of Jim Staley (originally codirecting with electronic musician David Weinstein). The first Roulette and Roulette at its present address have accommodated audiences of about 70 people for programs featuring the genre-defying coterie of innovators and experimentalists who’ve become internationally influential for the “New York Downtown” sound. Some of them, including reeds-and-games player John Zorn and “deep listening” composerconceptualist Pauline Oliveros, are contributing “simple scores” for an “Easy Not Easy” benefit festival Oct. 7 through Oct. 9, during which almost two dozen emerging young artists, curated by younger Roulette staffers Doron Sadja and Matt Mehlan, will perform.

This all represents a sea change that, according to Staley, has been 30 years coming. During those three decades, Roulette has gradually and almost quietly become the city’s number one survivor of the Golden Age of Arts Lofts and an invaluable presenter of innovative, unusual and challenging interdisciplinary projects.

Since 2006, these works have been staged at the gallery Location One, on Greene Street above Canal.

“That’s been a great space, but we’ve been pushing against the walls, especially in terms what’s often required by intermedia projects involving installations or dance,” explains Staley, an improvising trombonist who’s kept up his chops while devoting ever-more time to administrative responsibilities. Besides its full concert schedule—throughout the fall Roulette will feature such institutional favorites as Henry Threadgill’s Zooid (with the Flux Quartet and Talujon Percussion Quartet), Adam Rudolph’s Go Organic Orchestra, experimental kotoist Miya Masaoka and pianist-composer Muhal Richard Abrams’ 80th birthday celebration—Roulette maintains a website (www.roulette.org) with archived recordings dating back to its start, a store for its self-produced CDs and videos, and Roulette TV, which is broadcast

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An artist’s rendering of what the new Roulette space in Brooklyn may one day resemble.

every Thursday night on Manhattan Neighborhood Network (also viewable at Vimeo and UBUWeb).

What has always distinguished Roulette from other performance lofts of the 1970s through ’80s (The Kitchen, Jazz Forum, Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia, to name a few) has been its breadth of programming. Though de- and re-constructionists such as hard-edged multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp, singerof-a-hundred accents Shelley Hirsch and creative-art-song baritone Tom Buckner have been stalwarts, Roulette has also presented tradition-stretching jazz, alt-folk rock, performance art—you name it. And that’s the plan after the move across the East River. Entering the area anchored

by Brooklyn Academy of Music, and not so far from the recently endowed Issue Project Room, Roulette will be challenged to build a new, much bigger audience than

it has previously tried to attract. Expect the new wave of avant-gardists represented by the “Easy Not Easy” bookings to be worked into a busy schedule, often in events such as the “Easy Not Easy” concept, pairing lesser-knowns and the better established.

As Doron Sadja explains: “For the benefit, we’ve asked a lot of people to contribute notated, or graphic or conceptual scores. And have built three different ensembles that mix younger personnel— most of whom work in bands or in improv but don’t all write for ensembles. Thursday night is trending to electronics, with experimental noise and acoustic instruments digitally modified. On Friday, the program will be mostly acoustic, with strings and classical ensemble instruments. Saturday, it’s winds and guitars. Each night there will be six to 10 performers, forming different groups for different pieces.”

Sadja, publicist and website coordinator for Roulette, is 28, as is his “Easy Not Easy” partner Matt Mehlan, who’s responsible for most of the recent Roulette TV productions. They’ve known each other for 10 years, went to school together and have run an artists’ collective label, Shinkoyo, which is “a blending of experimental music and other pop influences, with a lot of video.” Their stated interest is bringing to Roulette performers who are “big in one world but need to step into other establishments. Dan Deacon is really big among young people,” Sadja explains. “But [he’s] not known to older ones”—like those who’ve frequented Roulette in the past.

But things change. Moving borough-toborough is not as daunting as it once was, and Jim Staley is exceptionally sanguine about the new venture, which he expects to be open for business in March or April 2011. Roulette’s real estate risk is somewhat cushioned by support of the Mary Flagler Cary Trust and the office of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, among several other sponsors. The new Roulette is at the confluence of almost all subway lines. Staley believes that few artists can afford to live and work in Manhattan anymore, that their likely audiences are living in Brooklyn, too. So, good luck Roulette. Give it a spin. <

Theater

Female Trouble

New productions of ‘The Little Foxes’ and ‘Orlando’ delve into the perils of womanhood

By Mark Peikert

Joan Marcus

“I’m sure they could fight their way in like I did,” Peggy Olson stated in the recent Mad Men episode “The Beautiful Girls,” in response to a complaint that her advertising company has no black copywriters on staff.

“Believe me, nobody wanted me there.”

Peggy, still stuck deep in the era of Civil Rights unrest, was expressing a fairly hard sentiment regarding the segregation of African Americans, but she also made an important point about how she sees herself: She’s a fighter who slipped in while the men weren’t looking and landed a high-powered job in advertising.

Ivo van Hove’s new, merciless staging of The Little Foxes at New York Theatre Workshop was still fresh in my mind when Peggy dismissed segregation as something she lives with every day. In van Hove’s hands, the plight of the women in Lillian Hellman’s drama—a show that was invariably described as a “well-upholstered melodrama” until van Hove and production designer Jan Versweyveld got their hands on it—is newly bared. Traditionally a melodrama about greed, van Hove and his frequent collaborator, actress Elizabeth Marvel, have transformed The Little Foxes into a terrifying study of women trapped in a male-dominated world.

Interestingly, just a few blocks away, Classic Stage Company is presenting Classic Stage Company presents an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, written by Sarah Ruhl.

Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando, an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel about the immortal titular character, who finds happiness after Previously performed as a study in Marvel plays Regina Giddens (long a feast transforming from a man into a woman at selfishness, van Hove’s first major step for theatrical divas from Tallulah Bankhead the age of 30. Like the novel, Ruhl’s play away from a classic staging is tossing out to Stockard Channing) with a heightened explores notions of gender and femininity the Southern accents. Now, a show that naturalism, shying away from fireworks. Her in similar ways to The Little Foxes, but in a previously felt married to its setting becomes Regina is both subtler and more obviously vastly more optimistic manner. universal, even with dialogue about the calculating. Without the veneer of Southern Transforming the Hubbard’s expensive grace of Southern women and recollections good manners, Regina is a woman scratching drawing room ( “Everything is of the best,” of the Civil War. Outfitted in sleek black at everything in her path, seeking a crack that Hellman wrote in the script, she can worm her way through to wealth “and that is all”) into an and happiness. She finds it by being as Traditionally a melodrama about expanse of purple velvet ruthless as her brothers, but at a cost. that, like a fungus, has crept When Marvel says, “I think you should greed, van Hove and his frequent from the carpet to the walls either be a nigger or a millionaire. In collaborator, actress Elizabeth and ceilings, Versweyveld between, like us, what for?” the jokey has made the set into a wellline resonates in a way it never has Marvel, have transformed appointed insane asylum— before. This Regina is desperate for which is entirely appropriate money not out of some deep-seated The Little Foxes into a terrifying given the near sociopathic sense of entitlement, but as a buffer study of women trapped in a actions of the Hubbards. between herself and her husband Desperate to become “big Horace, the man who holds the male-dominated world. rich,” Regina (Marvel) purse strings. drags her dying husband Horace home from and gray dresses, suits and skirts (save Tina Van Hove’s vision of Regina isn’t wildly Johns Hopkins to invest in a business deal Benko as Oscar’s much-abused wife, Birdie, altered from the original intentions of that her brothers Ben (Marton Csokas) and who wears scarlet), the Hubbards wouldn’t Hellman; the emphases just come in new Oscar (Thomas Jay Ryan) have initiated. But look out of place in a boardroom. areas. Where his direction differs most from Horace (Christopher Evan Welch) refuses The major difference, despite the lack of the usual reading of the play is in Birdie. to indulge Regina, out of a complicated Southern drawls—which may be why this Previously a gentle, genteel dipsomaniac, mixture of disdain for the avaricious three-act play clocks in at a swift two hours— Benko’s Birdie is now a wild animal, Hubbards and punishment of Regina. is found in the women’s performances. stuck in a trap and gnawing at her limbs.

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City Arts | www.cityartsnyc.com

There’s a chilling moment in the first act when Oscar overhears Birdie discouraging Regina’s daughter from marrying their son.

In Hellman’s script, Oscar slaps Birdie across the face. In van Hove’s staging, Oscar punches Birdie in the stomach. But as Thibaud Delpeut’s horror-movie score swells, Birdie stands back up and walks to Oscar. Again, he punches her, and again, she staggers to her feet to stand in front of him. Never before has any director or actress managed to convey Birdie’s “thinsteel, spun-silk courage” that Gone With the Wind’s Scarlett O’Hara grudgingly admires in Melanie Wilkes. Regina may fight and claw for even footing, but she could never show such grace under pressure.

Much later in the play, Birdie unburdens herself to the sympathetic Alexandra, Horace and Regina’s daughter, after drinking too much elderberry wine.

Benko becomes a madwoman in the scene, pounding on the wall and screaming out her confession of the half-life she has lived for decades as Oscar’s wife. When she warns the ingenuous Alexandra (a miscast Cristin Milioti) that in 20 years she’ll be just like her, Benko turns the words into a wildeyed threat, one that makes Alexandra’s

Jan Versweyveld

willingness to leave behind her family and the only life she’s ever known at the play’s end suddenly seem much more reasonable.

Nothing else about this Alexandra is reasonable, though. Alternately a spitfire (she yanks her cousin Leo’s hair and pulls his head down for whipping the horses) and a dutiful, bossy daughter, Milioti’s performance has a self-satisfied sheen to it.

In the play’s final moments, when the video screen hanging on the wall (a cumbersome device that isn’t utilized consistently enough to be necessary) reveals Alexandra walking purposefully through an airport, van Hove’s revelatory look at the restraints that women must fight against suddenly falls slack.

Alexandra, with no money and no job, is hardly qualified for a happy ending, even if, like Regina, she can find the unlikely crack in the wall to make her way to the other side.

There are no cracks to be found in Orlando, neither Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel nor Sarah Ruhl’s stage adaptation.

Instead, the title character sweeps through his picaresque on the wings of a fortune and good luck, until he becomes a she and must believably act like a woman in order to thrive.

A court favorite of Queen Elizabeth, Orlando (played by the witty and touching Francesca Faridany) moves with ease from the 16th to the early 20th century, despite broken hearts, some pained attempts at epic poetry and a sudden change in sex. While still a man, Orlando falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful Russian Sasha (Annika Boras), who abruptly leaves him and sails back to Russia. Not until he wakes one morning as a she (in a gorgeous tableau that ends the first act) does Orlando begin to comprehend why Sasha left. By then, of course, Orlando is struggling with the vanity of being a woman—doing one’s hair will eat up an entire hour each morning, she muses—and the delicious feeling of acquiescing before pulling away.

Director Rebecca Taichman has also emphasized the fluidity of gender by casting three men as a Greek chorus. Ruhl’s adaptation can scarcely be called such; the entire two-hour play is presentational, with the ensemble serving as narrators for the action and brief interactions between characters. And though she must eventually resort to trickery to be left alone, Orlando meets her match in the sexually ambiguous Archduchess Harriet, who reveals herself to be an Archduke after Orlando’s return to England as a woman.

Played by David Greenspan as a bizarre mixture of feminine guile and masculine determination, the character (prone to punctuating every thought with “haha” or “tee-hee”) is the only one aside from Orlando to successfully straddle the line between genders. Orlando may eventually marry the charming and copacetic Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine (played by Tom Nelis), but it’s Greenspan’s Archduke and Archduchess who is Orlando’s spiritual twin.

The Archduchess finds freedom in taking

Cristin Milioti, Christopher Evan Welch and Lynda Gravatt in The Little Foxes.

on typically masculine traits; Orlando finds more fulfillment as a woman than she did as a dashing man.

Of course, unlike Hellman’s play, Woolf and Ruhl’s story is at best a fantasia. No woman, not even Orlando, could possibly find happiness in the harshly gendersegregated world of the Hubbards. And that’s the tragedy that van Hove coaxes to the surface of The Little Foxes: Regina Hubbard can allow her husband to die in front of her in pursuit of a room of her own, but she’ll never be entirely free. Not as long as the world recoils from her masculine,

naked ambition. Unable to slip through the cracks of the gender divide as unnoticeably as Mad Men’s Peggy Olson, Regina is destined to perpetually create a mess in her battle for happiness. < The Little Foxes Through Oct. 31, New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4th St., 212-279-4200; $20–$70.

Orlando Through Oct. 17, Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th St., 212-352-3101; $60–$65.

September 29, 2010 | City Arts

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Juilliard

ClassicalMUSIC

More Swing than Symphony

Joseph W. Polisi, President

WED, OCT 6 AT 8 • Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Cecelia Hall John Brancy

The New York Philharmonic opens its season with a new Wynton Marsalis work

Mezzo-soprano sings Debussy, Mahler, Alan Smith Baritone sings Ives, Blitzstein, Bolcom, Chanler, Ravel, Korngold

Juilliard Vocal Honors Recital Erika Switzer and Renate Rohlfing, Pianos FREE tickets at box office

THURS, OCT 7 AT 8 • Peter Jay Sharp Theater SEASON DEBUT BY

Juilliard415

MONICA HUGGETT, Conductor ALL-BACH Orchestral Suites No.1 in C, BWV 1066; No. 4 in D, BWV 1069 Cantatas Ich habe genug & Süsser Trost mein Jesus kömmt FREE tickets at box office

MON, OCT 11 AT 8 • Peter Jay Sharp Theater

AXIOM

examines Lindberg’s Musical Context JEFFREY MILARSKY, Conductor STRAVINSKY Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920/1947) XENAKIS Okho (1989) LINDBERG Joy (1990) FREE tickets at box office

TUES, OCT 12 AT 8 • Paul Hall at Juilliard

William Schuman’s Choral Music

WED, OCT 13 AT 8 • Paul Hall Bonnie Hampton and Faculty Friends:

Chamber Music Reunion

Bonnie Hampton, Cello Robert Mann & Earl Carlyss, Violins Nicholas Mann, Viola Seymour Lipkin, Piano SCHUMANN, BEETHOVEN, DVORˇ ÁK Extraordinary music-making by Juilliard colleagues and friends FREE tickets at box office

FRI, OCT 15 AT 8 • Alice Tully Hall

American Brass Quintet

50TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT Raymond Mase and Kevin Cobb, Trumpets David Wakefield, Horn Michael Powell, Trombone John D. Rojak, Bass Trombone Works by TOWER, MARENZIO, MAZZI, GABRIELI, CANGIASI, GASTOLDI, STOLTZER, and NY Premieres by TREVOR GURECKIS and DAVID SAMPSON Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series FREE tickets at box office

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

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City Arts | www.cityartsnyc.com

Chris Lee

NEW YORK VIRTUOSO SINGERS HAROLD ROSENBAUM, Director Juilliard Singers & Instrumentalists Five Rounds on Famous Words; The Lord has a Child; Carols of Death Choruses from The Mighty Casey; Mail Order Madrigals William Schuman’s centennial year marked his cultural innovation and revealed his symphonies anew. This re-examination of rarely-heard a cappella and vocal-chamber works closes the centennial celebration.

FREE tickets at box office

Wynton Marsalis’ Swing Symphony was performed by the New York Philharmonic and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

By Jay Nordlinger Wynton Marsalis is a big national figure, our number-one jazzman, practically synonymous with jazz, for many Americans. A trumpeter, he combines Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and nearly everyone else. He was a big influence on Ken Burns’ influential television series on jazz. He is artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and music director of its orchestra.

He has always had a foot, or a toe, in the classical-music world. Early on, he made acclaimed and excellent recordings of the Haydn, Hummel and other trumpet concertos. And he has written music performed by his neighbor, the New York Philharmonic. One work had the alluring title “All Rise.” And he wrote something

performed by the Philharmonic on the opening night of its 2010-11 season. The concert was a gala affair, as most opening nights are: Flowers bedecked the stage, and television cameras lurked and glided.

The new Marsalis piece is called Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3). The piece had a bevy of commissioners, in the modern fashion—either commissions have gotten higher, or institutions have gotten poorer. The commissioners were the Berlin Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Barbican in London and our own Philharmonic. The work had its premiere in Berlin a few months ago. Here in New York, the work was performed not quite in its entirety: According to the program, one movement was omitted. But, at about 45 minutes, the symphony was none too short.

Before the downbeat was given, it was up playing jazz, as did my father before clear, on the stage, that there were some me. I am steeped in this music. It is like ringers in the orchestra. In fact, there was bread and water—and hamburgers and a “whole ’nother” orchestra: Marsalis’ Jazz hot-fudge sundaes. But I do not believe that at Lincoln Center Orchestra. This second Swing Symphony should have opened the ensemble was plunked in the middle of the Philharmonic’s season.

Philharmonic. Swing Symphony is for jazz The thought occurred to me, “How orchestra and symphony orchestra, together. many classical composers were denied the And it is, quite simply, a jazz piece. There opportunity to write something for this is nothing much classical about it. It is august occasion? Why did we have to bow far more “swing” than “symphony.” The to Wynton Marsalis’ celebrity?” But then, jazzmen have pride of place all through, who’s to say that the classical composer standing for their solo flights, in the would have written something as good? At traditional manner. The symphony orchestra least, however, it would have been a piece provides accompaniment, or window dressing.

It was sort of amusing In my view, Swing Symphony to see Carter Brey, the was not an appropriate work distinguished principal cello, sawing away, not for the opening of the New entirely relevantly.

York Philharmonic season—the Who has blended classical music and jazz, Philharmonic is for classical successfully? Gershwin, of course. And Bernstein, to music, after all. a degree—a considerable degree. (Think of the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.) of classical music. Still, we can all recognize It is no easy trick. In this latest piece, at the usefulness of celebrity to an institution’s least, Marsalis does not so much blend as bottom line. flavor—flavor his jazz with the classical.

By the way, Itzhak Perlman has now His piece has an aim, or an agenda. been added to the New York Philharmonic’s Or maybe it would be better to say that board of directors—as has another starry it seeks to tell a story. James M. Keller, violinist, from a later generation: Joshua in his program notes, called the work “a Bell. Perlman played on the second symphonic meditation on the evolution concert of the Philharmonic season: the of swing.” One movement is titled “St. Mendelssohn Concerto. Bell will play the Louis to New Orleans”; another is called Sibelius in coming days.

“Manhattan to L.A.” The music, from The Philharmonic’s music director, first to last, is pleasant: kind of a pleasant Alan Gilbert, conducted Swing Symphony jazz wash. There is lots of noodling, with care and affinity. And the composer lots of meandering. There is a general himself was in the orchestra—in the jazz feeling of, “We have all the time in the orchestra, with the Philharmonic around world here. Just sit back and relax.” Jazz him. He blew magnificently, as usual. I pieces of the past are quoted, their styles don’t say that he is not a national treasure amplified and celebrated. (a term sometimes used with irony or Again, everything is pleasant—and sarcasm, though not here). I say other harmless, and not very memorable. This things. is not music to stick to your ribs, or linger Finally, have a note about the opening in your brain. There is at least one nicely piece on the program: not the Marsalis hypnotic spell. But too much of the score symphony, but the national anthem. It is has the air of background music. And customary, at the Philharmonic, to open some of the slower sections have a whiff the season with the anthem, as it is at of the elevator. Someone said afterward— the Metropolitan Opera. For some years, probably referring to the peppier the two main conductors in town were sections—“I wanted to get up and dance!”

Lorin Maazel, at the Philharmonic, and A significant remark. As you know, jazz James Levine, at the Met. (Levine is still took a great turning when people ceased to with us, provided his back is working.) dance to it and sat there and listened, as to Some of us used to say that the two men’s Brahms quartets. anthem-conducting sort of epitomized In my view, Swing Symphony was not them, as conductors. Levine was always an appropriate work for the opening of straightforward, no-nonsense, brisk and the New York Philharmonic season—the compact. He gave the piece a little verve, Philharmonic is for classical music, after all. and some bounce. Maazel was prone to Isn’t classical music supposed to be on hard drawing the piece out, and fussing with it a times? Isn’t jazz prominent enough in our little. But the anthem could be superb in his lives? Swing Symphony is more appropriate hands: with proud swellings, and a shiverfor a pops concert. But, sadly, there are making climax. fewer and fewer of those in America. Let Alan Gilbert? Slow, matter-of-fact, a me hasten to say how much I love jazz. little indifferent—not much there. The And let me plead some credentials: I grew maestro did better by Marsalis.

THE COLLEGIATE CHORALE JAMES BAGWELL, MUSIC DIRECTOR PRESENTS

An Evening of Brahms

Alto Rhapsody A German Requiem

Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano Erin Morley, soprano Eric Owens, baritone American Symphony Orchestra The Collegiate Chorale James Bagwell, conductor

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7pm Carnegie Hall Tickets $25 – $135

Special Offer to the City Arts community for 15% off tickets at all levels!

Visit www.collegiatechorale.org and type in the discount code CCCA1, or call 646.202.9623 and mention the code to receive your discount.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs

September 29, 2010 | City Arts

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Dance

Woman or Icon?

Unraveling the heroine of Frederick Ashton’s ‘Thäis Pas de Deux’

163 97 Street th

(between Columbus & Amsterdam Aves)

11am–5pm | Benefiting PS 163

OCTOBER 2010 Calendar of Events Oct. 2: Craft MARTE Oct. 9: Sports MARTE Oct. 16: MARTE Fall Festival Oct. 23: Volunteer MARTE Oct. 30: Halloween MARTE artisan vendors • green market raffle prizes • fun giveaways face painting • interactive demonstrations and more!

RI

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MILY

F

FA

twitter.com/theMARTEnyc | facebook.com/theMARTE info@theMARTE.com | 212.268.0501 12

City Arts | www.cityartsnyc.com

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By Joel Lobenthal n his 1971 Thäis Pas de Deux, the choreographer Frederick Ashton gives us entertainingly mixed messages about his heroine that can be decoded anew Oct. 8 and 9, when it’s danced by American Ballet Theatre’s Hee Seo and Jared Matthews, as part of the Fall for Dance program at City Center.

Thäis is performed to the “Meditation” for orchestra and solo violin from Massenet’s 1894 opera, which was named for and based on Anatole France’s 1890 novel. It charts the heroine’s spiritual arc from courtesan/dancer in pagan Egypt to Christian penitent and virtual martyr, as she succumbs to some mysterious malady following physical renunciation. Her evolution is the result of the prompting (bordering on hectoring insistence) of a zealous monk. Along the way, he confesses to a yen for her that has not cooled since his youth, prior to taking his vows. Now it is she who is sanctified, while he is compromised and defiled.

Ashton’s pas de deux is a free response to the music that gathers together a web of precedents and connotations. The ballerina floats into the man’s zone of visionpossessed yearning, wending around him in a series of serpentine lifts that pose serious partnering challenges. She is sinuous and supple, but aloof and iconic at the same time. And then he kisses her. With that interjection of reality-based consummation, her mythic elusiveness is threatened if not deflated. He wants to make her attainable rather than impalpable. She has seemed to indicate a willingness to cooperate by entering veiled but discarding her veil when they began to dance. But after the kiss, she leaves, and the pas de deux is over between them.

ABT took Thäis into its repertory last spring during its Metropolitan Opera season. It’s not the best thing Ashton did by any stretch: It’s pretty and it’s skillfully concocted, but a bit shameless. Massenet’s music, too, is syrupy indeed (although ABT’s orchestral rendering opted for sensuality over sentiment). Yet, Ashton drinks deeply from a wellspring of cultural inheritance and enduring archetypal underpinnings. Low-grade sublimity flirts with something approaching the real article.

As it does in so much of Ashton’s work, Thäis reflects his immersion in the popular entertainment of his early years. Born in 1904, Ashton grew up in an era when ballet was integral to spectacular pantomimes and music-hall mixed bills.

These attracted audiences drawn from every social and economic strata, but the theatrical product they glimpsed invariably conformed to the dictates of

John Grigiatis

Family Friendly Outdoor Artisan Market Supporting Local Schools

Hee Seo will perform Thäis Pas de Deux during Fall for Dance.

accessibility. During Ashton’s youth, high, low and interim culture all feasted on a voluminous sourcebook of Eastern ideas and images, both imaginary and authentic. Veils and their mysterious potency played a crucial role.

Inevitably, Ashton’s Thäis also reflects the time and place in which it was created.

He choreographed it for Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell, acknowledging and perpetuating their status as superstar couple at London’s Royal Ballet in the 1960s and ’70s. This was a time in London and other Western capitals that witnessed a revival of interest in Eastern culture, of which Thäis is itself a pastiche.

Ashton also demonstrated here some gimlet-eyed observation of the wares of fellow choreographers. Thäis is easily reminiscent of a number of Russian pas de deux from the Soviet years, including one created by Kasyan Goleizovsky, danced to the same music at the International Ballet Competition held in Moscow in 1969.

One could say that Thäis also follows the emotional trajectory of Jerome Robbins’s Afternoon of a Faun, which was created for New York City Ballet in 1953. But Ashton’s pas de deux demonstrates once again that the artistic stamp of the individualist is not diminished by its incorporation of derivation. Perhaps it is most accurate to simply say that all these works have plumbed, each in its own fashion, a particular inspiration of ideas and imagery.

Ashton’s Thäis gives us impressions of ballet at its most decorative as well as rarified. Above all, it is meant to be enjoyed—and it certainly has been and will be.

AVENUE SHOWS

Show Schedule & Events Wednesday, September 29

VIP Opening Night Preview 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Thursday, September 30

Show Hours:11:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Friday, October 1

Show Hours: 11:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Event: Designer Breakfast Panel Discussion 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

“Decorating with Antiques in the Modern World,” moderated by Susanna Salk and featuring Milly De Cabrol, Nikki Field, Philip Gorrivan, Richard Mishaan, Nina Morton, Jennifer Post RSVP to designerbreakfast@manhattanmedia.com

Event: Fidelity Investments Presents The Royal Oak Foundation Lecture 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

“Jewels of Scandal and Desire: British Jewelry Collections and Country Houses,” presented by Curt DiCamillo, Executive Director, National Trust for Scotland Foundation, USA RSVP to royaloaklecture@manhattanmedia.com

Saturday, October 2

Show Hours: 11:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Event: Fidelity Investments Presents The Royal Oak Foundation Lecture 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

“Treasures at Hampton Court: Tudor Magnificence to Modern Palace,” presented by Dr. Lucy Worsley,Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces.

RSVP to royaloaklecture@manhattanmedia.com

Sunday, October 3

Show Hours: 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The Park Avenue Armory

643 Park Avenue at 67th Street September 30 to October 3, 2010 September 29, 2010 | City Arts

13

September 30-October 3, 2010 EXHIBITOR LIST WITH BOOTH LOCATIONS: Exhibitor Booth # Locale Specialty

American Antique Wicker Arthur Guy Kaplan Camilla Dietz Bergeron Dai Ichi Arts Dallas W. Boesendahl David Brooker Fine Art Dawn Hill Antiques Dinan & Chighine Domont Jewelry Eastwood Fine Art Eleanor Abraham Asian Art The Englishman Fine Art & Antiques Fleur FraMonT Franya Waide Antiques & Interiors French Country Living Gallery Afrodit Gary Rubinstein Antiques Gladwell Company Hamshere Gallery Haynes Fine Art Hollis Reh & Shariff The Hunt Gallery Il Segno Del Tempo Imperial Fine Books J Gallagher Jeff Bridgman Antiques John Atzbach Antiques Joyce Groussman Larry Dalton Lynda Willauer Antiques M.S. Rau Antiques Mantiques Modern Marion Harris Michael S. Haber Michael Pashby Antiques Midori Gallery Milord Antiques Moira of Bond Street Moylan-Smelkinson/The Spare Room N. & I. Franklin Ophir Gallery Orley & Shabahang Papillon Gallery Pat Saling New York Percy’s Silver Perrisue Silver Piranesi Robert Lloyd Robin Katz Vintage Jewels Sabbadini Sallea Antiques Santos – London The Silver Fund Stephen Kalms Steven Neckman

Sue Brown Susan Teller Gallery Unix Fine Art Valentin Magro William Cook Antiques Yew Tree House Antiques

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City Arts | www.cityartsnyc.com

64 28 24 5 45 80 68 23 14 30 13 56 17 78 55B 15 76 32 71 58 41 44 18 39 8 47 36 59 48 10 9 53 6 66 48 31 3 63 52 43 2 29 81 52A 67 54 77 55A 42 20 1 69 65 72 35 20 75 70 22 40 19 62

Nashua, NH Antique wicker Baltimore, MD Georgian and Victorian jewelry New York, NY Period and estate jewelry New York, NY Contemporary Chinese and Japanese ceramics New York, NY Fine decorative works of art & antiquity Surrey, England 17th-19th century English and European paintings New Preston, CT 18th & 19th century Swedish and French furniture Surrey, England 17th-20th century European, Asian engravings West Hollywood, CA Vintage and couture jewelry San Ouen, France 19th & 20th century decorative painters New York, NY Ancient Asian Art Naples, FL/Aspen 19th & early 20th century European paintings Mt. Kisko, NY Garden antiques & decorative accessories Greenwich, CT 19th & early 20th century Impressionist and modern Atlanta, GA 18th & 19th century furnishings French, English, Dutch France and London 18th & 19th century furniture Sweden, Italy Ankara, Turkey Antique textiles, oriental rugs, tribal weavings Miami, FL European mid-century antiques London, England 19th & 20th century oils, water colors and etchings London, England Canine paintings and jewelry Surrey, England 16th-21st century paintings Southampton, NY 20th century fine jewelry Kent, England Original interior paintings by Michael John Hunt Milan, Italy Globes, scientific instruments, objets New York, NY Rare and antique books North Norwich, NY Antique andirons York, PA Early American flags, painted furniture, folk art Stuart, WA Imperial Russian antiques Merion, PA Antique, vintage and estate jewelry Scarsdale, NY Rare antique clocks Nantucket, MA Chinese export porcelain, Majolica, Staffordshire New Orleans, LA Fine Art, jewelry, 18th-19th century antiques New York, NY Unique design from 19th & 20th century New York, NY Curious, beautiful and unusual objects Wynnewood, PA Extraordinary estate jewelry New York, NY 17th-19th century English furniture, decorations Coconut Grove, FL Far East painting, screens, textiles, porcelain Quebec, Canada 17th-20th century furniture and art London, England Rare antique jewelry Baltimore, MD Georgian and Victorian jewelry and ceramics London, England 15th to 19th century English Domestic silver Englewood, NJ 20th century decorative arts, Tiffany lighting New York, NY Antique and contemporary Persian carpets Los Angeles Fine Paintings and Sculpture 1890-1950 New York, NY Period antique, estate and fine jewelry London, England Decorative silver and rare Claret jugs Princeton, NJ Fine estate jewelry New York, NY Fine Jewelry New York, NY Fine antique silver New York, NY Vintage and antique jewelry New York, NY Fine jewelry New Canaan, CT 17th-19th century boxes London, England 17th-18th century Rare Chinese export porcelain San Francisco, CA Georg Jensen and 20th century silver London, England Antique English and Continental silverware Miami, FL Diamond and estate jewelry London, England Quirky jewelry from the past New York, NY American paintings, works on paper 1920s-‘50s Key Biscayne, FL Contemporary Art New York, NY Elegant handcrafted jewelry designs Sussex, England 18th and 19th century English and European furniture New York, NY Antique furniture, American Folk Art, ceramics

Spotlight on a few of the items at the AVENUE Shows Antiques & Art at the Armory

ELEANOR ABRAHAM ASIAN ART Amitayus, The Buddha of Endless Life, gilt bronze from 15th-century Tibet, 10 inches in height

“Amitayus is the Buddha of Eternal Life. He is sitting on a double-lotus base in a meditative posture cradling his attribute, a vase that contains the elixir of immortality.”

—Eleanor Abraham of Eleanor Abraham Asian Art

Mar!on Harr!s

CAMILLA DIETZ BERGERON

David Webb gold and diamond Pine Cone Earrings from Camilla Dietz Bergeron of New York City “David Webb is a must-have for every jewelry wardrobe.”

—Gus Davis of Camilla Dietz Bergeron

JEFF BRIDGMAN ANTIQUES

35 Stars in a “great star” pattern, a homemade, civil war flag with its canton resting on the war stripe, West Virginia statehood, 1863-65 “This is an extremely beautiful and graphic, homemade Civil War example. The arrangement of the stars is the most coveted geometric form, and the blue canton is resting on a red stripe, referred to by some flag experts as the ‘blood stripe,’ and is thought to be a wartime trait.”

—Jeff Bridgman of Jeff Bridgman Antiques

ExcEptional pair of 16th cEntury fully articulatEd artist’s figurEs

info@marion-harris.com www.marion-harris.com Please visit us at The AVENUE Show, booth #66 September 29, 2010 | City Arts

15

Future

Old and new comingle at Antiques & Art at the Armory show

Collectors of Today’s Past B

Li Lihong’s “McDonald’s: Blue Dragon in Clouds, Yellow” will be on view from Dai Ichi Arts Gallery.

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City Arts | www.cityartsnyc.com

By Simona Taver

oth seasoned and novice collectors will have a wealth of items to choose from at the upcoming AVENUE Shows’ Antiques & Art at the Armory. Taking place at the Park Avenue Armory Sept. 30 through Oct. 3, the show includes presenters with everything from 15th-century silver to contemporary artwork, and promises to be an opportunity for decorative arts aficionados to explore and prowl for distinctive items.

Along with some of the expected fare—wood furniture, silver services and Oriental rugs—items on view this year also include Georgian and Victorian jewelry, tribal weavings, Tiffany lighting and early American flags.

Dealers for the upcoming show have pledged themselves to stifle the idea that antique and art shows are all about mothballs and money, without anything different or exciting to offer.

“What we make is functional art,” Geoffrey Orley, co-owner Orley & Shabahang, explains. His company will be selling contemporary handmade carpets, and Orley feels his booth will stand out from the rest because they are the only dealers at the show who are selling their own handmade pieces: “We make what we show.” Though the Persian carpets for sale are all contemporary, according to Orley, they will be coveted throughout the ages. “These will be the great antiques of the future because there is nothing made like it today.”

Beatrice Chang, a ceramics dealer and director of Dai Ichi Arts gallery, also feels her booth’s collection of contemporary Chinese and Japanese ceramics will bring some invigorating newness to the show. “Our stuff will be fresh, and it will be eye-opening for people to see items like this,” Chang says. Dai Ichi Arts’ items for sale include artist Li Lihong’s “McDonald’s: Blue

american, english,

&

continental

Furniture, Silver Fine & Decorative Art Objects

Saturday, October 23, 2010 10am 36-01 Queens Boulevard Long Island City, New York

previews Wednesday, Oct. 20, 9-5 | Thursday, Oct. 21, 9-7 Friday, Oct. 22, 9-2 Contact (718) 433-3710 Catalogue www.CapoAuction.com Bid Live! LiveAuctioneers.com Download absentee bids on website. Email to info@capoauction.com or fax to (718) 433-3716.

Phone bids welcome with pre-registration prior to Friday, Oct. 22, at 2pm.

John Atzbach Antiques specializes in artworks from Imperial Russia, like this Fabergé case.

Dragon in Clouds, Yellow,” a porcelain piece depicting the fast food franchise’s famed golden arches with traditional Chinese iconography. According to Chang, the piece is an expression of how Western capitalism is overwhelming contemporary China.

The price points at the various presenters’ booths are just as diverse as the merchandise. For instance, John Atzbach Antiques—which specializes in enamels, porcelain, silver and other artworks from Imperial Russia—will feature items that range from $150 to $650,000. Dai Ichi Arts’ pieces will cost between $2,000 and $16,000, according to Chang.

The dealers also have some advice for collectors who are unsure about how to pick items. “In my opinion, collectors should take the time to learn as much as they can about things that interest them,” says dealer and collector John Atzbach of John Atzbach Antiques. “They should also work to build relationships with well-

known dealers who can be very helpful in finding elusive items for their collections.”

“Just buy something pleasing for yourself,” Chang says by way of advice. Instead of focusing purely on price, she advises that collectors become familiar with and purchase whatever they feel will make them happy. According to Chang, the right item “will make your heart sing.”

The four-day event is the show’s second partnered effort with the non-profit Royal Oak Foundation, and will include two lectures courtesy of the ROF: “Jewels of Scandal and Desire: British Jewelry Collections and Country Houses” by Curt DiCamillo and “Treasures At Hampton Court: Tudor Magnificence to Modern Palace” by Dr. Lucy Worsley. The event will also include a panel on decorating with antiques in contemporary times.

For more information about the show and the presenters, visit www.avenueshows.com.

History in the Making Join The Royal Oak Foundation for two exclusive lectures at AVENUE Antiques & Art at the Armory After the success of last year’s partnership,

AVENUE Antiques & Art at the Armory will once again join forces with The Royal Oak Foundation. An independent nonprofit organization, Royal Oak is the American partner to one of the world’s most prominent conservation organizations: the National Trust of England, Wales & Northern Ireland. From small cottages to grand country estates— including the incredible homes of Winston Churchill and Beatrix Potter—Royal Oak grants members free and exclusive access to more than 300 historic houses, gardens and castles.

In support of AVENUE’s Antiques & Art at the Armory, The Royal Oak Foundation is presenting an exclusive lecture series by Curt DiCamillo, executive director of National Trust for Scotland Foundation, and Dr. Lucy Worsley, chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces. Along with their longstanding relationship with Royal Oak, these lecturers and noted scholars have been sponsored in the United States to great acclaim.

“Choosing speakers and lecture topics is somewhat of a creative process,” explains

John Oddy, executive director of The Royal Oak Foundation. “We try to match what we know are the general interests of the audience to the lecturers’ expertise.” Accordingly, DiCamillo will present “Jewels of Scandal and Desire: British Jewelry Collections and Country Houses” at the show. Since many antique shows feature jewelry, Oddy believes DiCamillo’s lecture will not only be a great story, but a fitting one for this year’s Antiques & Art at the Armory.

Meanwhile, Dr. Worsley will present “Treasures at Hampton Court: Tudor Magnificence to Modern Palace.” The lecture will connect important paintings and furniture, like those for sale at the show, to the historic estates and palaces where they were once displayed.

For nearly two decades, The Foundation has educated its members on various history, design, art and conservation topics through their national lecture series. “It’s a pleasure to work with AVENUE magazine,” says Oddy.

“Our members enjoy coming to the show, and we enjoy adding extra value and interest to augment the dealers and their collections.”

Capo_CityArts_1-8page.indd 4

Millbrook

9/27/10 11:56:30 AM

Antique Center

5,300 square feet full of antiques and collectibles.

• • • Dealer space available.

• • • Open 7 days a week.

845-677-3921 3283 Franklin Street (Route 44) Millbrook, NY 12545

millbrookantiquecenter.com

Auction

October 7th at 11 am

Auction featuring an Edouard-Leon Cortes Oil from a Fine Estate

Previews

Tuesday Oct. 5th and Wed Oct 6th 10 am to 7 pm both days •••

Auction

October 28th at 11 am

Previews

Tuesday Oct. 26th and Wed Oct 27th 10 am to 7 pm both days

Tiffany Studios New York Table Lamp

Fully illustrated catalogue on our website September 29, 2010 | City Arts

17

Celebrating local ingredients, our food is perfectly seasoned.

greatperformances.com | 212.727.2424

Museum

A Place at the Table

A significant exhibition reveals the deep connections between New York and its Spanish-speaking communities

BY PATRICIO DEL REAL

M

After seeing Nueva York, visitors will want ost New Yorkers are familiar to return to the city’s streets with different with the city’s Latin American eyes; the exhibition causes us to crave communities because of their further analysis. Like a superb feast with no ethnic and cultural parades with sobre mesa, that Latin custom of solving the flags waving, horns honking and world’s problem in hours of conversation lively music blaring. Nueva York (1613after dinner, the story of Nueva York ends 1945) attempts to take the visitors off of too abruptly. There are several reasons the streets and on an historical journey that for this, the first being that the exhibition reveals that there is much more out there space—even after El Museo del Barrio’s than gaudy parades and the clacking of magnificent renovation—feels too small sidewalk domino games. for the scope of the exhibit. But more The exhibit is a collaboration between importantly is the curatorial decision to the New-York Historical Society, which focus on the 19th century, which comprises is currently undergoing renovation, and three out of five sections.

El Museo del Barrio. Like its previous Although it is clearly justifiable due exhibit Nexus New York: Latin/American to the city’s extended reach into Latin Artists in the Modern Metropolis, El Museo America during this period, it does take its manages to present a complex and dynamic toll. The independence of Latin American relationship between New York City and states, for example, is treated so briefly Latin America, a purpose that should be that, if it were not for the inclusion of a commended, celebrated and continued. frowning bust of Simón Bolívar, one would Curated by Marci Reaven of City Lore, almost miss it completely. The overwith CUNY professor Mike Wallace as the attention paid to what was a commercially chief historian, the overriding theme of the closed, yet porous, Spanish Empire brings entire exhibition is one of trade, and it is to light one of the difficulties taken on dutifully unfurled from the start. by the exhibition: the many cultures that In this narrative, New York City acts as Nueva York attempts to capture under the centripetal force that captures the flows the banner of the Spanish language. The of ideas, communities and commodities. For almost seamless treatment between the example, we learn that as early as the 1860s, Spanish-speaking world in the Americas Brooklyn was the destination for South and Europe—not to mention Asia or American sugar to be refined. Displays of Africa—remains a stumbling block. An silver ingots, tobacco and other goods (even attempt could have been made to resolve bird shit from Peru!) become objects of some of these difficulties in the beautifully exchange. If New York is the center illustrated companion book containing essays by established scholars of attraction for Spanish in the field and edited by speakers, however, one Edward J. Sullivan. begins to wonder about other Latin American The decision to sustain a didactic, communities that fall in its orbit linear narrative in the during this period. exhibit, in what is While a single ostensibly an episodic exhibition cannot history, is problematic cover everything, on several counts and at least the causes the curators exhibition takes to shy away from the dynamic urban a clear position to landscape that is New present a complicated York City. panorama.

The naturalization and Beginning with the first celebration of trade—which section, titled “Empires Baseball from the National and Revolutions 1613grows organically throughout 1825,” Nueva York claims Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. the exhibition—may a unified history along raise a few eyebrows. It the now well-established concept of the begins by circumnavigating the Spanish Atlantic World as it welcomes its visitors to colonial impediments, followed by its shores. One then progresses—for indeed “labor hindrances” such as slavery or it is about progress—through the rich politics, and finally ends with today’s collection of images, subplots, anecdotes controversial question of migrations. The and “history” deployed in the five sections, temporal frame doesn’t allow much for ending with “An Hispano Landscape, the spatial influence of Spanish-speaking 1900-1945.” But one is left wanting more. communities upon New York. This is

“Cuban Ladies Group,” a wood engraving, published in Harper’s Weekly, Apr. 17, 1869, from the New-York Historical Society’s Nueva York (1613-1945).

partly accomplished in the final section with the “Sites/Places that Mattered” map that relates familiar locales such as Little Spain on West 14th Street or the location of clubs and periodicals that claimed an urban presence. A missed opportunity is in how Guastavino’s Catalan vaults— which can still be viewed across the city in places like the Grand Central Oyster Bar or City Hall—reduced to mere anecdotal photography. But it just takes some sugar to find ourselves back in the city. The Domino Sugar factory, with its industrial odors and its iconic sign, is a reminder of how Caribbean sugar and slavery physically transformed the city.

The images are present, and they celebrate some form of urbanity, but their impact—actual and symbolic—is minimized. It is precisely the celebration of these images that allows us to suppress other voices and tensions that have existed on the city’s streets. Pivotal moments in New York history, like the 1935 Harlem riots that began with the suspected shoplifting by a teenage Puerto Rican boy on 125th Street, are nowhere to be found.

As those in Latino culture know, however, everything can be resolved over coffee—black with sugar, please!

The problem to be solved here is the dichotomy between the private and public 19th-century urban space. The city’s Spanish-speaking realm is portrayed as the interiors of salons, art exhibitions and

books. We get a clear example of the way in which Latin American landscape is tamed and reinterpreted for the New York public in a model of how Frederic Edwin Church’s celebrated “Heart of the Andes” was displayed in 1859 and became the city’s first “blockbuster” art exhibition.

There are glimmers of a public, open-air spatiality, but because the core of Nueva York focuses on intellectual and elite expressions, it moves away from a more dynamic understanding of 19th-century New York’s urban spaces. This retreat from the streets remains even in the final, 20th-century section, with the choice to capture the idea of migration with Antonio Martorell’s “From Here to There,” meant to replicate the interior of an airplane and which dominates the room. It would have been more elegant (and enticing) to place the object, with its documentary film, in the museum’s entry courtyard and event space where passersby would be confronted with it.

Nueva York (1613-1945) reveals the complex North-South geography that claims New York as part of a Hispanic cultural and social milieu. While the exhibition uncovers many of these lesser-known facts and relationships, it is the city’s noisy streets that fulfill the promise that multiple cultures can play out in our shared urban space. < Through Jan. 9, 2011, El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Ave., 212-831-7272.

September 29, 2010 | City Arts

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AttheGALLERIES weight to diverging hillsides. Hank Pitcher’s canvas of a California hill, with its strange, ziggurat outline, seems simplicity itself, but it convincingly sizes up the distantly receding ground plane, lofting, milky clouds and a lone house hulking under the hill’s contours. Best of all may be a small painting by Seymour Remenick. His tiny “The Tower” captures with a few agile strokes the resolute rise of a tower beyond a ranging, paler façade. Though almost casual in technique, its rhythms bespeak not simply intrigue but conviction: each element counts uniquely. [John Goodrich] Through Oct. 2, Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, 24 E. 73rd St., 917-861-7312.

Tetsumi Kudo: Cubes and Gardens

“Answer The Call, I76, PA,” by Karla Wozniak.

Rhyme, Not Reason; Curated by John Yau Leave it to a poet to curate an exhibition that abjures literalism as nimbly as it embraces metaphor and meaning. Leave it to a poet who doubles as an art critic to write a press release that provides a rationale for his choices without foisting an agenda on them.

Staking a claim for aesthetic experience that isn’t “fixed and easily translatable,” for art that isn’t “pickled, preserved, canned, frozen, spoiled, rotten or stale,” John Yau has organized Rhyme, Not Reason, an exhibition of five painters whose collective eccentricity argues that the most compelling or, at least, genuine art thrives outside of mass media—as if, the poet and critic notes, “we all live in... virtual reality.”

Not that pop culture doesn’t filter into the work—given its ubiquity, how could it not? But notwithstanding certain color and form choices, or the graphic nature of the best pictures, the featured artists—Marilyn Lerner, Laura Newman, David Rhodes, Sherman Sam and Karla Wozniak—create art that evolves from both its own internal (dare one say, philosophical?) logic and the history of a stridently un-mass media: painting.

Certainly, one of Yau’s thematic “rhymes” is the individuality of touch, the more unkempt the better (though he’s not averse to meticulously worked surfaces): Lerner’s iconographic abstractions make a virtue of clean and meticulous craft. But informality reigns, from scruffy (Sam) to washy (Rhodes), from faux clunky (Wozniak) to

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the alarmingly blasé (Newman).

Wozniak’s comic panoramas of roadside America are the lone foray into representational imagery, but their structure—folk art Cubist, kind of—is in sync with the stripped-down vocabularies of the other painters on display.

Besides, the cumulative “affinities are very subtle,” like “a slant rhyme in a poem.” It’s a measure of this exhibition’s success and charm that we aren’t left in doubt about its organizing conceit, even if it eludes explication. That is, after all, the point. [Mario Naves] Through Oct. 10, Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, 205 Norman Ave., Brooklyn, 718-383-9380.

In the Light of Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), often considered the bridge between Claude Lorrain’s classicism and Monet’s sparkling empiricism, was practically a god to the Impressionists. (Degas: “He is always the greatest. He has anticipated everything.”)

Matisse greatly admired Corot, while Picasso collected his paintings. Corot’s star has fallen somewhat in our postmodernist times, when tastes tend toward self-parody and the politically or sexually provocative. But, as a small but elegant exhibition organized by Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects reminds us, his work continues to cast a spell over many landscape enthusiasts today.

Corot’s early Italian landscapes, with their warm atmosphere and careful geometries, are

the touchstone for this selection of work by 10 contemporary artists. Sunlight palpably splashes a procession of row houses under a dense cerulean sky in Stuart Shil’s “Buildings in Germantown.” Lennart Anderson’s “The Terrace” vividly captures the light about a seaside balustrade in Massachusetts.

Among several works actually produced in Italy, Israel Hershberg’s two small canvases of tree-dotted hillsides stand out for their crispness and deftness of touch. With its pulsing colorfacets, Sangram Majumdar’s 2008 painting of an Umbrian house among trees recalls the purposeful probing of certain works by Fairfield Porter. Across the gallery hangs an actual Porter: his 1959 canvas of a Cape Cod highway, which locates houses and vehicles with evenhanded intensity. Kurt Knobelsdorf’s and E. M. Saniga’s small, sunlit scenes appealingly round out the exhibition.

As a master of classicizing, vivifying composition, Corot was indeed a giant—and a difficult act to follow, especially on his own terms. (The efforts of his many contemporary imitators, from Harpignies to d’Aligny, makes the point; to my eye, Matisse’s 1904 “Chapel of Saint Joseph, Saint-Tropez” at the Met comes closer to Corot’s momentous orchestrations of color and line pressures.) But some paintings here hint at the particular genius of the French master. Paul Resika’s large “Landscape Near Volterra,” with its sweeps of deep earthy umbers against buoyant ochres, imparts a visceral

Cubes and Gardens captures a transitional moment in the artistic development of one of the 20th century’s most important Japanese artists. Tetsumi Kudo (1935–1990), relatively unknown in the U.S. prior to a major 2008 retrospective at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, acted as a post-war voyeur and critic to Western culture.

Moving from Tokyo to Paris in 1962, Kudo brought a critical eye to Europe’s obsession with consumer goods. With an almost ritualistic approach to creation and his “happenings,” Kudo brought a performative element to sculpture and pedagogy. He built foundobject assemblages, sculptural critiques out of expendable items such as egg cartons, alarm clocks and plastic dolls—Archimedean points of intrigue encased in dice that seem to say, “All this could be jumbled in one throw of the die.”

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Kudo began producing what some would call protest art, concentrating on environmental issues through a recalibration of humanism in lieu of pollution. This stage of development culminated in the 1972 publication of Pollution – Cultivation – New Ecology, in which he predicted a necessary confluence of “polluted nature” and “decomposing humanity.” “Human Bonsai – Freedom of Deformity – Deformity of Freedom” features overgrown flowers and flaccid penises, chained and contorted with wires, growing limply from the primordial goo.

Never quite fitting into contemporary schools or movements, Kudo’s work is best viewed in the continuous stream of his career.

Cubes and Gardens, at Andrea Rosen Gallery, offers works produced during this transition, including “Garden of the Metamorphosis in the Space Capsule,” a room-sized die fitted with giant flowers and molted skin in the radiating glow of black light. [Nicholas Wells] Through Oct. 16, Andrea Rosen Gallery, 525 W. 24th St., 212-627-6000.

Suzan Frecon: Recent Painting Suzan Frecon’s paintings, handsomely crafted accretions of stark, if not quite Minimalist, forms, are every bit as august as they want to be. Diptychs of a sort—the canvases are stacked on top of, rather than next to, each other—Frecon’s pictures take inspiration from the more spiritually inclined offshoots

of Modernist abstraction. The burnished, earthy palette recalls Rothko’s sonorous veils of oil paint, as do her compositional strategies.

Frecon’s distilled shapes also bring to mind the mystical geometries of Hilma Af Klimt, Charmion Van Wiegand and Kazimir Malevich at his most severe.

Surface counts for a lot in Frecon’s art.

Within the two or three shapes per image—an encompassing oval is the recurring pictorial anchor—there are shifts in patina and emphasis, from discreet blurs of pigment to areas that are more declarative in sheen.

Frecon makes her own paints and varies their consistency and gloss with grave and fairly obvious pictorial purpose. When she pits an intensely matte area of blue against an enamellike field of rust-red, you admire the artist’s painterly acumen even as you wonder if she isn’t making too much of the distinction.

Self-effacement is a must for any artist attempting to tap into otherworldly states of being—just ask Rothko or, better yet, Fra Angelico. Advertising spiritual aspirations isn’t the same thing as achieving them. When a painter-friend complained that Frecon’s surfaces reminded him a little too much of refrigerator doors, you realize how readily physicality can thwart engagement.

In that regard, Frecon is more an heir of Minimalism than we might want to admit: the paintings are brusque, blunt and almost willfully resistible. Their insistent lack of irony is welcome, but viewers seeking satori should look elsewhere in order to fulfill their metaphysical needs. [MN] Through Oct. 30, David Zwirner, 525 W. 19th St., 212-727-2070.

Knox Martin: Black and White Paintings Knox Martin’s career spans over 60 years, a period of time in which he incorporated and mastered elements from Abstract Expressionism and Pop without becoming an imitator or follower, and always remaining daring, unclassifiable and brilliant. A regular exhibiter here and in Europe, and active today at 87, he continues to surprise and delight in this splendid exhibition of more than 30 paintings.

“Woman With Red Shoes,” by Knox Martin.

Rambunctious, vivid and sexy, they celebrate color, movement, the body and strange juxtapositions of irregular lines and shapes. You can discern the expressiveness of Abstract Expressionism and wit of Pop. But his works are too explosive to be contained by any one style. Underlying everything is a sense of his sheer pleasure in the physicality of paint, which he applies layer upon layer until his paintings look like collages, carefully constructed and then thrown into the wind to see what character they will develop.

Though the show’s title is Black and White Paintings, the works here, whether large or small format, include brilliant color. “Woman with Flowers 1” comes closest to being all black and white, an eerie, almost menacing combination of vein-like black lines threading their way across a white landscape. A stabilizing and quiet bit of orange peeks out of a gap in a broken circle, a marvelous way to emphasize the surrounding chaos. “Woman with Flowers 2” owes something to Chagall, with its figure of a woman floating in space, her body stretched out on a couch, decorated with a Matisse-like red-and-yellow pattern, her oversized face, with its big red lips and black hair, partly obscured by black-and-white breasts. The breasts almost look like eyes peering over the very active scene.

In the geometric “Woman with Red Shoes,” legs could be the strings of a guitar, breasts once again could be eyes and the pointed red shoes are too phallic to be wearable. White drops fall across a black window like stars, while tiny black spots against white convey the jolly feeling of polka dots. What’s fascinating is the amount of energy and movement Martin generates, with lines that swoop and stretch through the tumult with tremendous energy. That vibrancy and the depth he achieves through his painterly sophistication make looking at his works an invigorating and illuminating experience. Moreover, he even helps you find your way: If you ever wonder what direction everything is moving in his works, look for the triangles. [Valerie Gladstone] Through Nov. 13, Woodward Gallery. 133 Eldridge St., 212-966-3411.

Santiago Sierra: Los Penatrados Santiago Sierra is no stranger to provocation.

His projects, which usually involve paying participants to perform degrading tasks, have been a touchstone for some on the art of bad taste and “going too far.” In the past, he has tattooed a line across the backs of Spanish prostitutes who received money for heroin in payment; he built a working gas chamber in a synagogue in Pulheim, Germany; in 2008, a project had pairs of participants, every possible permutation of black and white, male and female, engaging in anal penetration.

Los Penetrados—The Penetrated—now at Team Gallery, consists of a 45-minute film and two sets of photographs documenting the project, which took place on Día de la Raza 2008, the Spanish holiday commemorating Columbus’ discovery of the Americas. In the silent, black-and-white film, 10 blankets lay horizontally before a diptych mirror, doubling

“Acto 8,” by Santiago Sierra.

the space and multiplying the participants.

In eight “Acts,” white man/black woman, white man/white man, etc., the bodies of the participants, faces digitized out, create a mechanical rhythm of submission and domination.

Filming on Día de la Raza, Sierra created an allegory tied to European colonial expansion and the subsequent exploitation of racial minorities. This allegory, coupled with the persisting taboo of anal sex, attempts to probe established norms of gender, labor and race relations. Sierra’s work has been criticized as dehumanizing and demeaning to its participants, or “workers,” though they are compensated for their participation.

But Sierra’s critique is of the system that allows him to pay people to do such menial tasks. “The problem is the existence of social conditions that allow me to make this work,” he said in 2003. Operating as a critic within the system has its advantages, but in Los Penetrados, the physical manifestation of this subservient/ dominant interplay overshadows the conceptual nature of the artwork. [NW] Through Oct. 23, Team Gallery, 83 Grand St., 212-279-9219.

Mark Hogancamp: Picturing Marwencol In my years of reviewing art, I have seen an extraordinary range of exhibitions from the utterly pretentious to the drop-dead gorgeous.

I’ve heard more absurd justifications for shallow art than I care to count. Every so often, I find a jewel, a show in which not only is the work fascinatingly original, but the back-story adds a level of rich meaning.

Mark Hogancamp, a self-taught artist, began his creative journey after a gang outside of a bar in Kingston, N.Y., attacked him.

Beaten senseless, he emerged from a coma with severe memory loss and cognitive impairment.

After relearning the rudiments of reading and writing, he undertook the process of rebuilding his imagination itself.

Scrounging scrap wood, he began to build a one-sixth-scale model of a fictional World War II-era town in Belgium. He populated the town with an army of Barbie, Ken and G.I. Joe dolls exhaustively customized to look like his friends, family and even his attackers. They populate his ever-evolving tale of his capture, imprisonment

and torture by the Nazis, culminating in a triumphant rescue by a bevy of saucy Barbies with guns. The work is neither camp nor a joke.

It is a view into one man’s painstaking attempt to reclaim his brain and his life. In Hogancamp’s words, “They broke the connection—they broke the camera in my mind’s eye.”

Hogancamp began documenting his war stories in 2002 with a digital camera, and it is these 13-inch by 17-inch digital prints that are on exhibit at the Esopus Foundation art space in the West Village.

The back-story is amazing and heartrending; however, these photographs stand on their own as terrific, emotional and deeply affecting contemporary art. Hogancamp has captured the fleeting moments of intimacy, cruelty and humor in his narratives in his images. Some cause a double take when one realizes that they are altered dolls. The effect in the faces and postures is arresting. In others, the overt “doll” qualities themselves can make you look twice. The images work on several levels at once, as does the mind of their creator.

In one photo, a Nazi cuddles a teddy bear while contemplatively smoking a cigarette. In another, a disembodied Nazi hand holds a gun to a woman’s head. Framed like movie stills, but more artful in their composition, these photographs are simply gorgeous. The role of women as rescuers and as the ultimate heroes of Hogancamp’s stories is particularly surreal, as Barbie dolls play the brave partisans. “Captain Hogancamp” himself is the central character in all of his narratives. Rugged, scarred and steely jawed, he photographs the narratives of which he is a part. Art within the art. It’s an astounding world, documented in mesmerizing photographs. Add the wrenching story of the work’s origins and one comes away shaken by the power of the artist’s newfound imagination.

In conjunction with this exhibit, a documentary film about the art and the artist will open at the IFC Center Oct. 8. Shot over the course of four years, the film documents Mark Hogancamp’s life inside his imaginary world as well as his tentative steps to reenter the “real” world, one that had battered his body but did not defeat his mind. [Melissa Stern] Through Oct. 28, Esopus Space, 64 W. 3rd St. #210, 212-473-0919.

September 29, 2010 | City Arts

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ArtsAGENDA

Alex Prager’s “Despair,” part of MoMA’s New Photography 2010 exhibit.

Gallery Openings

Gallery listings courtesy of

A.I.R. Gallery: Barbara Roux, Louise McCagg &

Crit Streed. Opens Oct. 6, 111 Front St. #228, Brooklyn, 212-255-6651.

Abrons Art Center: Rick Cary: “Credo.” Opens Sept. 30, 466 Grand St., 212-598-0400.

Adelson Galleries: Andrew Stevovich: “Alternate Universe.” Opens Sept. 29, 19 E. 82nd St., 212439-6800.

Atlantic Gallery: Geri Gventer. Opens Oct. 5. William Oberst. Opens Oct. 5, 135 W. 29th St., Ste. 601, 212-219-3183.

Bowery Gallery: Iris Osterman: “Paintings.” Opens Oct. 5, 530 W. 25th St., 646-230-6655.

David Findlay Jr. Fine Art: Jon Schueler: “The Castelli Years.” Opens Oct. 7, 41 E. 57th St., 11th Fl., 212-486-7660.

DC Moore Gallery: Joyce Kozloff: “Navigational Triangle.” Opens Oct. 2, 724 5th Ave., 212-2472111.

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City Arts | www.cityartsnyc.com

Friedman & Vallois Gallery: Daniel Buren: “Hun-

dred Vases.” Opens Oct. 7, 27 E. 67th St., 212-517-3820.

Hollis Taggart Galleries: Luciano Ventrone: “Beyond the Veil.” Opens Oct. 7, 958 Madison Ave., 212-628-4000.

Japan Society Gallery: “The Sound of One Hand: Paintings & Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin.” Opens Oct. 1, 33 E. 47th St., 212-8321155.

Katharina Rich Perlow: “Abstract Expressionism in New York.” Opens Sept. 28, 980 Madison Ave., 3rd Fl., 212-644-7171.

Kentler International Drawing Space: Dean Haspiel: “Cuba, My Revolution: The Making of the Graphic Novel & Related Drawings.” Opens Oct. 2, 353 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn, 718-8752098.

Luxembourg & Dayan: Jeff Koons: “Made in Heaven.” Opens Oct. 6, 64 E. 77th St., 212452-4646.

Noho Gallery in Chelsea: Anne Kolin: “Wall Side

Story.” Opens Oct. 5, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 212-367-7063.

NY Studio Gallery: aricoco: “nest-un-settled.” Opens Oct. 7, 154 Stanton St., 212-627-3276.

Open Source: ORFI NYC: “Live Gig 2010.” Opens Oct. 2, 255 17th St., Brooklyn, 646-279-3969.

The Painting Center: Douglas Wirls: “Terrains.”

Opens Oct. 5, 52 Greene St., 2nd Fl., 212-3431060.

Phoenix Gallery: Steven Miller: “Splendor in the Grass.” Opens Oct. 6, 210 11th Ave., 212-2268711.

Pleiades Gallery: Ellen Bradshaw: “Snow Day, Lower Manhattan.” Opens Oct. 5, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646-230-0056.

Prince Street Gallery: “The Common Object.”

Opens Oct. 5, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646230-0246.

Rubelle & Norman Schafler Gallery: “Schafler@25.”

Opens Oct. 7, Pratt Institute, 200 Willoughby Ave., Brooklyn, 718-636-3517.

The Sacred Gallery: Nick Kushner: “Blood, Sweat

& Fears.” Opens Oct. 2, 424 Broadway, 2nd Fl., 212-226-4286.

Salmagundi Club: “Strokes of Genius.” Opens Oct. 4. Bill Creevy: “Paintings & Pastels.” Opens Oct. 9, 47 5th Ave., 212-255-7740.

Salon 94 Bowery: Liz Cohen: “Trabantimino.”

Opens Oct. 7, 243 Bowery, 212-529-7400.

Soho Photo Gallery: “Asian Traces.” Opens Oct. 5, 15 White St., 212-226-8571.

Soho20 Gallery Chelsea: Jane Voorhees: “The Abstraction of Memory.” Opens Oct. 5, 547 W. 27th St., Ste. 301, 212-367-8994.

Westbeth Gallery: Joyce Rezendes: “50 Years.”

Opens Oct. 10, 57 Bethune St., 212-989-4650.

Gallery Closings +aRt: Jason Covert: “Carnivora.” Ends Oct. 8, 540

W. 28th St., no phone.

A Jain Marunouchi Gallery: Manoj Vyas. Ends Oct.

2, 24 W. 57th St., 212-969-0660.

A.I.R. Gallery: Annette Rusin: “Road Work.” Ends

Oct. 3, 111 Front St. #228, Brooklyn, 212-2556651.

ACA Galleries: Faith Ringgold. Ends Oct. 9, 529 W. 20th St., 212-206-8080.

Babcock Galleries: Bruno Andrade: “The Nature I Paint.” Ends Oct. 1, 724 5th Ave., 212-767-1852.

Bold Hype Gallery: “Things to Come...” Ends Oct. 8, 547 W. 27th St., 5th Fl., 212-868-2322.

Bowery Gallery: Evelyn Twichell: “Drawn From Nature.” Ends Oct. 2, 530 W. 25th St., 646230-6655.

Causey Contemporary: Ran Ortner: “Deep Water.”

Ends Oct. 11, 92 Wythe Ave., Brooklyn, 718218-8939.

Ceres Gallery: Hollis Hildebrand-Mills: “Bread in the Sky.” Ends Oct. 2, 547 W. 27th St., Ste. 201, 212-947-6100.

Claire Oliver: Lori Field: “The Sky Is Falling.”

Ends Oct. 7, 513 W. 26th St., 212-929-5949.

First Street Gallery: “Anamnesis.” Ends Sept. 30, 526 W. 26th St., 9th Fl., 646-336-8053.

Fischbach Gallery: Ryan Cobourn: “Brooklyn Botanical.” Ends Oct. 9, 210 11th Ave., 212-7592345.

Gallery 307: Abe Nover: “Found Out.” Ends Oct. 7, 307 7th Ave., Ste. 1401, 646-400-5254.

Gallery Henoch: Mel Leipzig: “Artists, Architects & Others.” Ends Oct. 9, 555 W. 28th St., 917305-0003.

Gasser Grunert: Tim Roda: “Games of Antiquities.”

Ends Oct. 9, 524 W. 19th St., 646-944-6197.

George Billis Gallery: Ephraim Rubenstein: “Temples & Cathedrals.” Ends Oct. 2, 521 W. 26th St., 212-645-2621.

Henry Gregg Gallery: André Martinez Reed: “Orisha: Capturing the Spirit.” Ends Oct. 3, 111 Front St., Ste. 226, Brooklyn, 718-408-1090.

Icosahedron Gallery: “From the Dust.” Ends Oct. 2, 606 W. 26th St., 212-966-3897.

James Cohan Gallery: Ingrid Calame: “New York.”

Ends Oct. 9, 533 W. 26th St., 212-714-9500.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery: Alex Gross: “Discrepancies.” Ends Oct. 9. Esao Andrews: “Solid Void.”

Ends Oct. 9, 529 W. 20th St., 212-243-3822.

June Kelly Gallery: Sana Musasama: “The Unknown/The Unnamed.” Ends Oct. 5, 166 Mercer St., 212-226-1660.

Kouros Gallery: Marianne Weil: “Ad Fundum: New Bronze Work.” Ends Oct. 2, 23 E. 73rd, 212-288-5888.

Lohin Geduld Gallery: Kim Uchiyama: “Archaeo.”

Ends Oct. 9, 531 W. 25th St., 212-675-2656.

Luise Ross Gallery: “Walter Anderson & His Legacy.” Oct. 9, 511 W. 25th St., #307, 212343-2161.

McKenzie Fine Art Inc.: Tom Leaver. Ends Oct. 9, 511 W. 25th St., 212-989-5467.

Miyako Yoshinaga Art Prospects: “Counterpoint: Outsider Art From Japan.” Ends Oct. 9, 547 W. 27th St., 2nd Fl., 212-268-7132.

Morgan Lehman: “Opening Ceremony.” Ends Oct. 9, 535 W. 22nd St., 212-268-6699.

Noho Gallery in Chelsea: Chuck von Schmidt: “Branded.” Ends Oct. 2, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 212-367-7063.

NY Studio Gallery: Rachel Stokoe: “This Ain’t No Shangri-La.” Ends Oct. 2, 154 Stanton St., 212627-3276.

Open Source: Peter Feigenbaum: “Trainset Ghetto:

Streetsmart.” Ends Sept. 30, 255 17th St., Brooklyn, 646-279-3969.

The Painting Center: Caren Canier: “Paintings.”

Ends Oct. 2. Patrick Webb: “Punchinello As Other.” Ends Oct. 2, 52 Greene St., 2nd Fl., 212-343-1060.

Phoenix Gallery: Jung Rhee Shim: “Wind & Clouds.” Ends Oct. 2, 210 11th Ave., 212-2268711.

Prince Street Gallery: “Ten by Ten.” Ends Oct. 2, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646-230-0246.

Reaves Gallery: Kenneth Browne: “Interior Situations.” Ends Oct. 9, 526 W. 26th St., Ste. 706, 415-250-3201.

Soho Photo Gallery: William George Wadman: “Drabble.” Ends Oct. 2, 15 White St., 212-2268571.

Soho20 Gallery Chelsea: “Between the Lines.” Ends Oct. 2, 547 W. 27th St., Ste. 301, 212-367-8994.

Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects: “In the Light of Corot.” Ends Oct. 2, 24 E. 73rd St., #2F, 917861-7312.

Steven Kasher Gallery: “Max’s Kansas City.” Ends Oct. 9, 521 W. 23rd St., 212-966-3978.

Thomas Erben Gallery: Elaine Stocki, Whitney Claflin & Ian Campbell: “Handshakes.” Ends Oct. 9, 526 W. 26th St., 4th Fl., 212-645-8701.

Viridian Artists: Don Zurlo: “The Inconstant Illusion.” Ends Oct. 2, 530 W. 25th St., 212-4144040.

Von Lintel Gallery: Izima Kaoru: “One Sun.” Ends Oct. 9, 520 W. 23rd St., 212-242-0599.

James Britton (1878-1936)

Museums American Folk Art Museum: “Quilts: Masterworks

from the American Folk Art Museum.” Oct. 5-Apr. 24. “Perspectives: Forming the Figure.”

Ends Aug. 2011, 45 W. 53rd St., 212-265-1040.

American Museum of Natural History: “Race to the End of the Earth.” Ends Jan. 2, Central Park West at West 79th Street, 212-769-5100.

Brooklyn Historical Society: “It Happened in Brooklyn.” Ongoing, 128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, 718-222-4111.

Brooklyn Museum: “Work of Art: The Winner.”

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

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum: “National Design Triennial: Why Design Now?.” Ends 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: Gerhard Richter: “Lines Which Do Not Exist.” Ends Nov. 18. Claudia Wieser: “Poems of the Right Angle.” Ends Nov. 18, 35 Wooster St., 212-219-2166.

Frick Collection: “The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya.” Oct. 5-Jan. 9. “The King at War: Velazquez’s Portrait of Philip IV.” Oct. 26-Jan. 23, 1 E. 70th St., 212-288-0700.

International Center of Photography: “The Mexican Suitcase: Cuba in Revolution.” Ends Jan. 9, 1133 6th Ave., 212-857-0000.

Lane to Oak Grove Farm, North Manchester, oil on board, 12x17, 1934

NABI GALLERY 137 W 25, NYC 10001 212-929-6063 WWW.NABIGALLERY.COM

Sallie Benton SHadoWS october 5 - 30 Reception october 7th 6 -8 PM Highline open Studios october 14 - 17

FiRSt StReet GalleRy 526 West 26th Street Studio 915

A customized car by Liz Cohen at Salon 94 Bowery.

646.336.8053 firststreetgallery.net September 29, 2010 | City Arts

23

ArtsAGENDA New York Musical Theatre Festival: Catch 27 musi-

cal productions, a developmental reading series and special events at the seventh annual festival.

Ends Oct. 17, various locations, www.nymf.org.

Upper East Side Gallery Tour: Take in a guided tour of that week’s top seven art exhibits in the upscale Upper East Side galleries. Oct. 2, 1018 Madison Ave., 212-946-1548; 1, $20.

Auctions Christie’s: Fine American Paintings, Drawings &

Sculpture. Sept. 28, 10 a.m. Important American Furniture, Folk Art & Prints. Sept. 29, 10 a.m.

Christie’s Interiors. Sept. 30 & Oct. 1, 10 a.m. & 2. Photographs. Oct. 6, 5, & 7, 10 a.m. & 2.

Fine Musical Instruments. Oct. 8, 10 a.m., 20 Rockefeller Plz., 212-636-2000.

Doyle New York: Important Estate Jewelry. Sept. 29, 10 a.m., 175 E. 87th St., 212-427-2730.

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

Swann Auction Galleries: Printed & Manuscript Americana. Sept. 30, 1:30. African-American Fine Art. Oct. 7, 2:30, 104 E. 25th St., 212-254-4710.

Music & Opera

Gadi Dagon

Connelly Theatre: The Amore Opera presents Puc-

Project 5 by Ohad Naharin at the Joyce.

Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum: “27 Seconds.”

Ends Nov. 21, Pier 86, West 46th Street & 12th Avenue, 212-245-0072.

Jewish Museum: “Fish Forms: Lamps by Frank Gehry.” Ends Oct. 31. “Shifting the Gaze: Painting & Feminism.” Ends Jan. 30, 1109 5th Ave., 212-423-3200.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty.” Sept. 28-Jan. 2. “The Roman Mosaic from Lod, Israel.” Sept. 28-Apr. 3. Joan Miró: “Miró: The Dutch Interiors.” Oct. 5-Jan. 17.

“Hipsters, Hustlers & Handball Players: Leon Levinstein’s New York Photographs, 1950-1980.”

Ends Oct. 17. Doug & Mike Starn on the Roof: “Big Bambu.” Ends Oct. 31. “Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Silver Service Rediscovered.”

Ends Nov. 7, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710.

MoMA PS1: “Greater New York.” Ends Oct. 18, 22-25 Jackson Ave., Queens, 718-784-2084.

The Morgan Library & Museum: “Anne Morgan’s War: Rebuilding Devastated France, 1917-1924.” Ends Nov. 21. “Mark Twain: A Skeptic’s Progress.”

Ends Jan. 2. “Roy Lichtenstein: The Blackand-White Drawings.” Ends Jan. 2. “Degas: Drawings & Sketchbooks.” Ends Jan. 23, 225 Madison Ave., 212-685-0008.

El Museo del Barrio: “Voces y Visiones.” Ends Dec. 12. “Nueva York (1613-1945).” Ends Jan. 9, 1230 5th Ave., 212-831-7272.

Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology: “Eco-Fashion: Going Green.” Ends Nov. 13, Seventh Avenue at West 27th Street, 212-2174558.

Museum of Arts & Design: “Dead or Alive.” Ends Oct. 24, 2 Columbus Cir., 212-299-7777.

Museum of Jewish Heritage: “The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service.” Ends Dec. 2010, 36 Battery Pl., 646-437-4200.

Museum of Modern Art: “New Photography 2010.”

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City Arts | www.cityartsnyc.com

Sept. 29-Jan. 10. “Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement.” Oct. 3-Jan. 3. “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917.” Ends Oct. 11. “Underground Gallery: London Transport Posters, 1920s-1940s.” Ends Feb. 28, 11 W. 53rd St., 212-708-9400.

New Museum: Brion Gysin: “Dream Machine.” Ends Oct. 3. “The Last Newspaper.” Oct. 6-Jan. 9, 235 Bowery, 212-219-1222.

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: “Talking Pictures.” Ends Nov. 27, 40 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-870-1630.

Noguchi Museum: “California Scenario: The Courage of Imagination.” Ends Oct. 24. “Noguchi ReINstalled.” Ends Oct. 24, 33rd Road at Vernon Boulevard, Queens, 718-721-2308.

Rubin Museum of Art: “Embodying the Holy: Icons in Eastern Orthodox Christianity & Tibetan Buddhism.” Oct. 5-Mar. 7. “Tibetan Shrine Room.” Oct. 6-2012. “The Nepalese Legacy in Tibetan Painting.” Ends May 23, 150 W. 17th St., 212-620-5000.

Skyscraper Museum: “The Rise of Wall Street.”

Ends Oct. 2010, 39 Battery Pl., 212-968-1961.

Society of Illustrators: “Blow Up.” Ends Oct. 16, 128 E. 63rd St., 212-838-2560.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: “Julie Mehretu: Grey Area.” Ends Oct. 6, 1071 5th Ave., 212423-3500.

South Street Seaport: “Tigers the Exhibition.” Ends Jan. 15, Pier 17 at South Street Seaport, 800-7453000.

Studio Museum: Zwelethu Mthethwa: “Inner Views.” Ends Oct. 24. “Usable Pasts.” Ends Oct. 24. “Inside the Collection: Interiors from the Studio Museum.” Ends Oct. 24. “Hi-Res: Expanding the Walls 2010.” Ends Oct. 24. “Harlem Postcards.” Ends Oct. 24. “StudioSound: Dj/ rupture’s Radio GooGoo.” Ends Oct. 24, 144 W. 125th St., 212-864-4500.

Whitney Museum of American Art: “Off the Wall Part

2: Seven Works by Trisha Brown.” Sept. 30-Oct. 3. “Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield.” Ends Oct. 17. “Lee Friedlander: America by Car.” Ends Nov. 28. “Sara VanDerBeek.” Ends Dec. 5, 945 Madison Ave., 212-570-3600.

Art Events American Craft Show NYC & Contemporary Art Fair NYC: These simultaneous events bring 200

juried American Craft Artists to show & sell ceramic, fiber, glass, furniture, wearable art & jewelry works, as well as presentations by 100 independent contemporary artists specializing in painting, photography, sculpture & mixed media.

Nov. 19-21, Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York, 655 W. 34th St., 212-216-2000, www.javitscenter.com.

BAM 2010 Next Wave Festival: The Brooklyn Academy of Music hosts its annual festival. Now in its 28th year, Next Wave comprises 16 music, dance, theater & opera performances, in addition to artist talks, art exhibitions & more. Ends Dec. 19, BAM, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, 718-6364129, www.bam.org.

Chelsea Art Gallery Tour: Come to a guided tour of the week’s top seven gallery exhibits in the world’s center for contemporary art. Oct. 9, 526 W. 26th St., 212-946-1548; 1, $20.

First Irish Theatre Festival: Now in its third year, New York’s annual festival celebrates the best of Irish theater. Ends Oct. 4, various locations, 212-727-2737, www.1stirish.org; times vary, $55+.

Hip-Hop Theater Festival: The 10th annual HHTF celebrates hip-hop culture with theater, dance, public art & more. Sept. 29-Oct. 16, 718-4974282, www.hhtf.org.

cini’s Tosca, sung in Italian with English titles.

Oct. 15-31, 220 E. 4th St., 866-811-4111; times vary, $30+.

Avery Fisher Hall: Alan Gilbert conducts Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with Joshua Bell, & works by Debussy, R. Strauss & Hindemith. Oct. 6, 10 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-875-5656; 7:30, $44+.

Carnegie Hall: Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt & the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra launch Carnegie Hall’s season the with Opening Night Gala, an all-Beethoven program featuring Piano Concerto No. 1 with pianist Lang Lang & Symphony No. 7. Sept. 29, 881 7th Ave., 212-2477800; 7, $62+.

Gerald W. Lynch Theater: Photojournalist Chris Hondros’s Gulf War images are illuminated by the transcendental music of Johann Sebastian Bach, performed live by Fusion Bande, in Sound + Vision: At War. Sept. 29, John Jay College, 899 10th Ave., 212-279-4200; 7:30, $20.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The New York Chamber Soloists combine narration with music

by Turina, Villa-Lobos, De Falla, Domenico Scarlatti & Bizet in this retelling of Ferdinand the Bull. Oct. 2, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710; 3, $30.

Nabi Gallery: The New York Chamber Virtuosi presents the second season of its chamber music series. The Autumn Leaves chamber concert features the music of Debussy, Haydn, Mozart & Ravel, performed by Ann Sunhung Kim, Sarah Franklin, Elise Frawley, Jeanette Stenson, Kristi Shade, Jesse Schiffman & Jessica Sibelman. Oct. 7, 137 W. 25th St., 212-929-6063; 7:30.

Rockefeller University: Cellist Alisa Weilerstein performs with pianist Inon Barnatan. Oct. 5, 1230 York Ave., 212-327-8000; 8. $30.

Skirball Center: Bassist, vocalist & composer Esperanza Spalding’s newest project, the Esperanza Spalding Chamber Music Society, combines classical music & jazz. Sept. 30, 566 LaGuardia Place, 212-352-3101; 8, $45+.

Tenri Cultural Center: Guggenheim-winning violinist & composer Mari Kimura performs in a concert of her latest works. Oct. 10, 43A W. 13th St., 212-868-4444; 7, $15+.

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from 84th to 88th Street Saturday, October 2nd Sunday, October 3rd 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM Rain or Shine Free Admission Proceeds fund the restoration and maintenance of Carl Schurz Park

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The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya on view at The Frick, Oct. 6-Jan. 10.

Jazz Blue Note: Bassist Stanley Clarke performs with his

long-time collaborators Ruslan Sirota & Ronals Bruner Jr., as well as pianist Hiromi. Sept. 28Oct. 3, 131 W. 3rd St., 212-475-8592; times vary, $25+.

Cornelia Street Cafe: Mike Baggetta Quartet. Oct. 1. Michael Adkins Quintet. Oct. 2. Bill Ware’s Vibe Quartet. Oct. 3. Jesse Stacken Trio. Oct. 7, 29 Cornelia St., 212-989-9319; times vary, $10.

Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola: Dizzy’s presents performers this month as part of the Coca-Cola Generations in Jazz Festival. Sadao Watanabe with Danny Grissett, Ben Williams & Jonathan Blake. Sept.

28. Bobby Watson featuring Terell Stafford. Sept.

29-Oct. 3. Marian McPartland & Friends. Oct. 4. Kenny Barron Quintet. Oct. 5-10, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9595; times vary, $10+.

Jazz Standard: The Jazz Passengers perform with special guest Debbie Harry on vocals. Sept. 29, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232; times vary, $30.

Miller Theatre: Pianists Vijay Iyer & Craig Taborn play side-by-side Steinways on Miller’s stage.

Oct. 9, 2960 Broadway, 212-854-7799; 8, $25.

Rose Theater: Trumpeter Terence Blanchard & saxo-

phonist Branford Marsalis, both New Orleans natives, perform works of contemporary jazz.

Oct. 1 & 2, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at West 60th Street, 212-721-6500; 8, $10+.

Dance Batsheva Dance Company: Israel’s national dance

company brings Ohad Naharin’s Project 5 to New York audiences for the first time. Sept. 28Oct.3, The Joyce, 175 8th Ave., 212-242-0800; times vary, $10+.

Carrie Ahern Dance: The company presents SeNSATE, adapted for the underground, multi-level vault space. Oct. 2 & 3, The Vaults, 14 Wall St., 800-838-3006; times vary, $15+.

Dance New Amsterdam: RAW Material, a juried performance series, encourages up-and-coming artists to present new works to live audiences.

Oct. 7 & 8, 280 Broadway, 2nd Fl., 212-6258369; 8, $12+.

Katie Workum: DNA presents the world premiere of Workum’s Herkimer Diamonds, featuring Workum & three fellow dancers. Sept. 30-Oct.

Next issue: October 13 cityartsnyc.com September 29, 2010 | City Arts

25

ArtsAGENDA 3, Dance New Amsterdam, 280 Broadway, 2nd Fl., 212-625-8369; times vary, $12+.

New York City Ballet: The company performs The Magic Flute, the comedic tale for all ages, set to a score by Riccardo Drigo. Sept. 30, Oct. 2, 3, 6 & Feb. 2, 4, 6 & 8, David H. Koch Theater, 20 Lincoln Center, 212-721-6500; times vary, $20+. olive Dance Theatre: Presented in partnership with the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, the company performs Swift Solos, based on the choreographic legacy of Ken Swift. Sept. 29-Oct. 2, Dance Theater Workshop, 219 W. 19th St., 212-9240077; 7:30, $20.

Sankai Juku: Ushio Amagatsu directs the troop in his most recent work, Tobari - As if in an Inexhaustible Flux. Oct. 5-17, The Joyce, 175 8th Ave., 212-242-0800; times vary, $10+.

Theater Brief Encounter: Roundabout Theatre Company

presents Noel Coward’s screenplay, adapted and directed by Emma Rice. Sept. 28-Dec. 5, Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St., 212-719-1300.

Dietrich & Chevalier: Marlene Dietrich & Maurice Chevalier were the top film stars at Paramount Pictures in the 1930s. Marries to others, they fell in love & remained friends for life. Jerry Mayer’s musical stars Robert Cuccioli, Jodi Stevens & Donald Corren. Open run, St. Luke’s Theatre, 308 W. 46th St., 212-2396200.

Fuerza Bruta - Look Up: A visual dance-rave, technoride, Latino walking-on-the-ceiling fiesta from Buenos Aires. Open run, Daryl Roth Theatre, 101 E. 15th St., 212-239-2600.

Out of TOWN:

New Jersey Newark Museum: Gustav Stickley & the

American Arts & Crafts Movement is the first nationally touring exhibition to offer a comprehensive examination of the work of one of the leading figures of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, Gustav Stickley. Through Jan. 2. Newark Museum, 49 Washington St., Newark, NJ, 973-596-6550, www.newark museum.org.

Montclair Art Museum: Living for Art: The

Dorothy & Herbert Vogel Collection exhibition

features works produced by 27 American artists from 1967 to 2000. Through Jan. 2. Montclair Art Museum, 3 South Mountain Ave., Montclair, NJ, 973-746-5555, www.montclair-art.com.

grounds, 6550 Spring Brook Ave., Rhinebeck, NY, 845-876-4001, www.craftsatrhinebeck.com.

Rhinebeck Antiques Fair: Held entirely indoors, the

event has free parking, a food court & on-site delivery. The fair features furniture, quilts, Americana, & vintage clothing & jewelry. Oct. 9 & 10. Dutchess County Fairgrounds, 6550 Spring Brook Ave., Rhinebeck, NY, 845-8761989, www.rhinebeckantiquesfair.com.

NYS Sheep & Wool Festival: The Dutchess County

sheep & wool growers association. livestock exhibitors, childrens activities, cooking demonstrations, book signing & lectures, fleece sale & much more. Oct. 16 & 17. Dutchess County Fairgrounds, 6550 Spring Brook Ave., Rhinebeck, NY, www.sheepandwool.com.

Columbia County

Sullivan County

ArtsWalk: Showcases the work of Columbia

Bethel Woods: Come To The Table: This spectacular

Dutchess County

Ulster County

Fall Crafts at Rhinebeck: Works from creative

Eleventh Annual Oktoberfest: The German-

County’s visual artists, through art exhibits & demonstrations, in addition to hosting concerts, dance performances, poetry readings, lectures & related happenings throughout Hudson & Chatham. Oct. 8-11. Columbia County Council on the Arts, 209 Warren St., Hudson, NY, 518671-6213, www.artscolumbia.org.

artisans, along with a family festival of children’s activities. Oct. 2 & 3. Dutchess County Fair-

event is the Dispute Resolution Center’s major annual fundraiser, showcasing the talent of local decorators & designers as they create original table settings to be auctioned off through silent bid. Oct. 2. Bethel Woods Center For The Arts, 200 Hurd Rd., Bethel, NY, 845-794-3377, www.drcservices.org.

American Club of the Northern Catskills in conjunction with Belleayre Mountain Ski

Center hosts its 11th annual Oktoberfest. The spread includes bratwurst, leberkas, frankfurter platters, homemade soups & salads, imported Spaten beer & German wines, plus special desserts at reasonable prices. Enjoy music by the Schwarzenegger Connection, Bavarian dance demonstrations, European linens & gifts, amber jewelry, portraits, wood carvings, raffle prizes & much more. Oct. 16. Belleayre Mountain Ski Center, 181 Galli Curci Rd., Highmount, NY, 800-342-5826, www.belleayre.com.

Woodstock Woodstock School of Art: Originally intended

to put troubled youth of the Great Depression back on track, the Woodstock School of Art (WSA) has blossomed into so much more.

This school that once taught practical skills, such as wood & metal working, to youth as part of FDR’s New Deal, now offers classes & workshops in more artistic areas such as oil & watercolor painting. All instructors are professional artists & utilize their fully equipped studios to teach their eager students. Through Oct. 2, be sure to check out the WSA’s outdoor sculpture exhibit featuring Czech sculpture Alex Kveton, a unique exhibit by late painter Louise Kamp, as well as works of students, instructors & historic artists in the on-site gallery. WSA, Rte. 212, Woodstock, NY, 845-679-2388, www.woodstockschoolofart.org.

Visit www.cityartsnyc.com

Thank you to all of you who participated in our recent survey.

We learned a great deal about you! galleries on a regular basis (close to 80%) YOU: visit visit museums on a regular basis (more than 90%)

collect art and antiques (more than 69%) attend art fairs (more than 56%) use information from CityArts to select the events you attend (more than 70%) attend classical music and opera performances (close to 90%) attend ballet and modern dance (more than 52%) attend the theater and film (more than 85%) dine out at least three times a week (more than 77%) plan to travel domestically in the next year (close to 75%) attend arts events outside of New York City (more than 70%)

CityArts is an essential voice on the best to see, hear and experience

in New York’s cultural landscape and the only New York City publication exclusively devoted to the visual and performing arts.

CityArts is an affordable and flexible advertising medium to reach an audience that is highly educated and affluent.

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For information about advertising contact: Kate Walsh Publisher

646.442.1629 kwalsh@manhattanmedia.com

www.cityartsnyc.com

PainttheTOWN

Josh Groban.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg.

Amber Patton, Desiree Rogers and Charles Patton.

Agnes, Gerald and Alyssa Hassell.

Photos: Amanda Gordon

Gary W. Parr, chairman of the New York Philharmonic, talking with Jamee Gregory.

Randolph Frazier and Emilie Miller.

By Amanda Gordon

Diana DiMenna.

The Gala’s Got Rhythm

W

hen you’re the most famous guest arriving at the opening night of the New York Philharmonic, where a gaggle of photographers awaits you, the first person you check in with is... the designer of your tuxedo. So it was for Alec Baldwin, who got the thumbs up on his look from Event co-chairs Carol Sutton Lewis, William Lewis, Judith Carson and Russell Carson.

Ermenegildo Zegna and his wife Elena. Mrs. Zegna especially liked Baldwin’s pick lapel, as opposed to the shawl lapel her husband was wearing.

“It’s younger. The shawl lapel,” she added, looking at her husband, “it’s good for an old man, but not now. Maybe 10 years from now.” Mr. Zegna said the most important quality of his tuxedos is the high-performance mohair-wool fabric. Mr. Baldwin’s one requirement for the garment: “That it fit,” he said.

Men were outfitted properly at the gala, which drew 860 guests and raised $2,630,000. At the post-concert supper, the luxury watchmaker Breguet presented the maestro of the orchestra, Alan Gilbert, with his very own timepiece, a Classique 5157 wristwatch. A very nice gift, except one doubts Gilbert checks his watch when he’s conducting. On this evening the music-making started with Wynton Marsalis’ Swing Symphony, which made heads bob throughout Avery Fisher Hall, not to mention Gilbert’s hips sway—there was definitely a groove in his moves as he conducted the orchestra, which included Marsalis on trumpet. Was it hard to switch to Strauss and Hindemith? “No, it’s all the same,” Mr. Gilbert said.

The Phil’s executive director, Zarin Mehta, with Donna and Yet the venture into jazz had infused the evening with a fun rhythm. “New Orleans Benjamin Rosen. is definitely in the house tonight,” former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers said of her hometown.

Musician, singer and two-time Glee guest star Josh Groban NOTES & NEXTS was excited to hear all of it, particularly since he just moved to New James and Ellen Marcus were treated to a concert by Juilliard students York from his native Los Angeles. “Being able to go out and listen Sept. 20 in honor of their $10 million gift for vocal training at the school. to music like this every night—that’s really where I get ideas for “To have such music performed for us—it was the night of the century, the my work,” he said. His next album of orchestrations, Illuminations, most exciting night we ever had,” Mr. Marcus said… Also Sept. 20, Ron which he worked on with Rick Rubin, comes out next month.

Chernow unveiled his new biography of George Washington, Washington: A Life, at a President’s Council dinner at the New York Public Library, telling folks about Washington’s interfering mother and his love letter to a wealthy lady, Sarah Fairfax, written on the eve of his wedding to Martha. Two days later, Suzie and Bruce Kovner hosted a book party for Chernow… The Art of Farming live auction at Sotheby’s Sept. 23 raised $80,000 with the help of bidders such as the CEO of Sotheby’s William Ruprecht, art collectors Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman and Heartland Brewery’s Jon Bloostein, who bought live geese; a “vegetable proclamation” from the Mayor’s office was read at the dinner that followed… Randolph Frazier, an actor turned lawyer, tells us the junior board for Unicef is planning a masquerade ball Oct. 21 at the Angel Orensanz Foundation… From New York City Opera’s general manager, George Steel, we hear that Kehinde Wiley paintings will be on view at the David H. Koch Theater for the company’s fall season, and an opera in the spring, Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung, will feature a video installation by Jennifer Steinkamp.

Alec Baldwin speaking with Ermenegildo and Elena Zegna.

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

September 29, 2010 | City Arts

27

‘Those in search of a theatrical treat need look no further.’

FRO DIRE M L CT OND O

Daily Telegraph (UK)

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‘Sparkling… the Globe at its best.’

‘an absolute joy… impeccable.’

Sunday Times (UK)

Time Out (London)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28 – SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2010 MICHAEL SCHIMMEL CENTER FOR THE ARTS 3 Spruce Street, Manhattan Book Now

866.811.4111 www.pace.edu/culture

Inside the Actors Studio

Fall Season Onstage At Pace Begins Soon!

Details at www.Pace.edu/culture