cityArts September 15, 2009

fallPREVIEW

Kandinsky’s ‘Black Lines,’ included in the upcoming Guggenheim exhibit, Kandinsky.

SEPTEMBER 15,SEPTEMBER 15, 2009 2009Volume 1, Issue 6Volume 1, Issue 6

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2 City Arts | www.cityarts.info

EDITOR Jerry [email protected]

MANAGING EDITOR Adam Rathearathe@ manhattanmedia.com

ART DIRECTOR Jessica BalaschakCONTRIBUTING ART DIRECTOR Wendy HuSENIOR ART CRITIC Lance EsplundSENIOR MUSIC CRITIC Jay Nordlinger SENIOR DANCE CRITIC Joel LobenthalCONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Brice Brown, Adam Kirsch, John Goodrich, Amanda Gordon, Howard Mandel, Marion Maneker, Mario Naves, Ryan Tracy

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LetterFromtheEDITOR

We returned last Tuesday from the Labor Day holiday to a shock: Summer had “ended” and it was time for the fall season. Invites for openings and events were piling up, people were beginning to won-der where they should be each evening. And it was time for us to fi nalize our Fall Preview of CityArts, the inaugural stand-alone issue of our review of culture.

We began CityArts in March of this year as a supplement to several of Manhattan Media’s weekly papers. It was something of an experiment: Although the economy was still fl ailing and arts organiza-tions were struggling—and simultaneously arts criticism was suffering due to newspaper and maga-zine cutbacks—we would dedicate our time and efforts once a month to covering gallery openings, concerts and opera, ballet and theater. The city deserves such a publication.

Over the summer, we decided to re-launch as an independent paper, available in newsboxes around the city twice a month, as well as for home delivery and to subscribers. We plan to print a total of 20 issues a year.

Culture continues to fl ourish. Last Thursday night—on the same evening Anna Wintour promoted her Fashion’s Night Out—over 70 galleries had openings and the streets of Chelsea were fi lled with excited chatter as people ducked in one gallery after another. Museums are gearing up for an incred-ible season of major works. As you’ll read in this issue, William Blake is inspiring once again, according to our senior art critic, Lance Esplund. And as Mario Naves explains in a piece about the upcoming Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim (our cover displays one of the Russian painter’s works included in the show), we’ll be especially lucky to be able to compare his creative output to those who partici-pated in the paradigm changing Bauhaus school, when the show opens at MoMA in November.

Although they go fast, you can try to get a ticket to Fall for Dance at City Center, which kicks off the dance season. Joel Lobenthal, our senior dance critic, recommends spending your time experi-encing Les Biches, a rare experience in the city, when Broadway West presents it at City Center as part of the festival.

Probably one of the most exciting changes—if you like change—is taking place this month when Alan Gilbert takes over the reigns as the Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. Our senior music critic, Jay Nordlinger, analyzes what Gilbert means to the venerable group. He also takes a crack at the New York City Opera, which begins a new season after a troubled year away, and what to expect at Carnegie Hall.

Although people say that jazz no longer excites the younger generation, Howard Mandel feels that not only are audiences fi lled with 20- and 30-somethings, the musicians that same age are in-creasingly making their marks in the jazz world. He recommends checking out the two-weeks pianist Connie Crothers’ curated at The Stone to hear it (and believe it) for yourself.

We’re also introducing two new features that we hope will educate and entertain. Brice Brown will cover the world of decorative arts (don’t call it antiques!) in a monthly column that will explain how to see and appreciate the misunderstood objects and oddities. And Amanda Gordon will begin to cover the galas and parties, openings and events for many of our beloved institutions. For this issue, she takes a look at what to expect in the coming weeks and months, and you may be surprised to learn that the parties must go on.

So, it’s shaping up to be an exciting fall season. And we want to be there guiding, learning and enjoying right along with you.

Thanks for all your support,JERRY PORTWOOD

Editor in Chief

250 Cities. 40 Countries.

September 15, 2009 | City Arts 3

ART Dennis Hopper: Signs of the Times

This is the culmination of an 18-year project by Hopper, who took over 10,000 photographs, and then selected over 400 images to survey his body of work. Coinciding with the exhibit is a book, Dennis Hopper Photographs 1961-1967, which includes photos of Tina Turner, Andy War-hol and more. Tony Shafrazi Gallery, opened Sept. 12

Monet’s Water LiliesYou may think you’ve seen it all before on

the semi-glossy pages of a calendar, but you’ve never really seen the Impressionist’s gaze until you’ve witnessed the brushstrokes for yourself. Museum of Modern Art, opened Sept. 13

Sally Mann: Proud Flesh

The photographer may have achieved renown (and infamy) over the controversy sur-rounding the photographs of her naked children, but these series of photographs were taken over six years and study her husband, Larry Mann, and how a mature male body is viewed. Gago-sian Gallery, opens Sept. 15

Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction

Rather than the iconic (and eroticized) fl ower series, the museum displays the abstract shapes and colors that still offer up plenty of bodily in-terpretations. Swirls of exuberant color will surely be a crowd pleaser. But also accompanying the show’s paintings, drawings and sculptures will be Alfred Stieglitz’s photographic portrait series of O’Keeffe herself. Whitney Museum, opens Sept. 17

Looking In: Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’Marking the 50th anniversary of the

photographer’s infl uential book of photographs that documented the way the country was during the really diffi cult years. All that babble about hardship and recession will make you think again about how tough you really have it. And remember what it was like before irony and self-exposure took hold of the hipsterati. Metropolitan Museum of Art, opens Sept. 22

With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America

Just when you thought the city had exhaust-ed its chances for another museum, we get a new one. This time celebrated architect Maya Lin (best known for the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.) transforms a space on Centre Street in Lower Manhattan. The core exhibit will feature contemporary artists of Chinese descent living in New York as well as a history of the Chinese experience in the city. The Museum of Chinese in America, opens Sept. 22

Allan Kaprow Yard

It’s 50 years later, and the inventor of Happenings is still infl uencing a generation of young artists. This show celebrates the opening of Hauser & Wirth’s fi rst American gallery by having interventionist William Pope.L reinterpreting Kaprow’s “Yard,” a mountain of black rubber auto tires through which visitors crawled in 1961. While other galleries may be playing it safe with pretty paintings, we know some people aren’t afraid of getting their hands a little dirty. Hauser & Wirth New York, opens Sept. 24

Read My Pins

Maybe it’s just us, but the former Secretary of State under President Clinton is like the grandma we always wished we had—even her fusty brooches were a way of wielding power. In-cluding over 200 pins from Madeleine Albright’s personal collection, the exhibit explores how the jewelry was employed as a “diplomatic, social and political tool.” That means that the tough old bird was giving a big middle fi nger to the terrorists by wearing a bit of sparkly on her chest. Museum of Arts and Design, opens Sept. 30

Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection

More than 60 works on paper are included in this exhibition that includes well-known mas-ters: Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, Delacrois, Ingres and Degas. Frick Collection, opens Oct. 6

Urs Fischer He jackhammered through the concrete fl oor

of a gallery back in 2007. We’ve been waiting for a show to remember at the New Museum since they opened on the Bowery. Now that they’re giving over three fl oors to the Swiss-born New Yorker, we may fi nally get it. New Museum, opens Oct. 28

Anish Kapoor: Memory

There’s always a “Wow!” factor when it comes to Kapoor’s work. This time he uses Cor-Ten steel to create a sculpture that looks wedged into a tight gallery space. You’ll have to see it to believe it. Guggenheim Museum, opens Oct. 21

Performa 09

RoseLee Goldberg returns with her brain-

child, a biennial of performance art. We’re always a bit perplexed by whatever takes place during this bizarre three-week event. But we also never want to miss the creative ways in which artists use duct tape, cardboard and video cameras. Various locations, Nov. 1-22

Eero Saarinen: Shaping the FutureYou know more about this infl uential

architect than you might think. The man who brought us the sensuous curves of the TWA Terminal (now home to Jet Blue) as well as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis gets some much-de-served love. Watch out for all those black-clad architects and devotees that will be swarming around to get a chance to view plans and de-tails from the master. Museum of the City of New York, opens Nov. 10

FallPREVIEW

Dancers from Wally Cardona’s Really Real at BAM.Ju

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Alias Man RayFew people know that the popular artist was

actually born Emmanuel Radnitzky to Russian Jewish immigrants. This reconsideration of the Dadaist, Parisian Surrealist, international portrait and fashion photographer’s career. Including 200 works—photographs, paintings, sculptures and objects, drawings, fi lms and a selection of his writ-ings—this is the fi rst major multimedia Man Ray show at a New York City museum since 1974. Jewish Museum, opens Nov. 15 Tim Burton

MoMA’s massive look into the baroque-styl-ized and darkly-funny world of Tim Burton will encompass not only his impressive fi lmography, but also showcases his wide array of work in such diverse visual media as painting, puppets and maquettes, and digital and moving-image formats. Burton fans will also delight in viewing the direc-tor’s little-seen nonprofessional fi lms and student artwork. Museum of Modern Art, opens Nov. 22

DANCE

In-I Think you’ve seen Juliette Binoche do every-

thing she’s capable of? Well think again. Here she pairs up with Akram Khan for an intense dance-theater event. And if that weren’t enough, they em-ployed sculptor Anish Kapoor to create a luminous backdrop. Harvey Theater (BAM), Sept. 15-26

Neal Medlyn/Dance GangWe were surprised too when we saw that

the oddball performer (best known for putting on bizarre recreations of the works of Lionel Richie and Prince) was going to be taking the usually stuffy contemporary dance stage with his fi fth pop-star opus, Her’s a Queen. That’s right, get ready for a two-parter celebrating the life and work of Britney Spears and Hannah Montana. Dance Theater Workshop, Oct. 22-24

Visible/invisible: Naked CityJawole Willa Jo Zollar and Nora Chipau-

mire join forces in a new commissioned work for the stage of the Gatehouse, the converted Romanesque Revival-style pumping station, located in Harlem. Harlem Stage, Oct. 29

Morphoses/the Wheeldon CompanyChristopher Wheeldon’s troupe make their

annual appearance, and the dance community swoons. City Center, Oct. 29

Tere O’Connor Dance

The edgy choreographer returns with a new work that will explore the “tension between fi xed states and constant change.” If that helps at all.Dance Theater Workshop, Nov. 10-14

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance CompanyBilly T. Jones has brought his distinctive

choreography/storytelling ability to various stages throughout the city, but he hasn’t been at the Joyce since 1996. He marks the occasion by pre-miering Serenade/The Proposition, one of a suite of works created in honor of the 2009 Abraham Lincoln bicentennial. Joyce Theater, Nov. 10-15

New York City BalletIt’s the beginning of the winter season, so

get ready for the Nutcracker. David H. Koch Theater (Lincoln Center), begins Nov. 27

THEATER

A Steady Rain Starring cinema heartthrobs Daniel Craig

and Hugh Jackman, the play is about two police offi cers recalling a few days that changed their lives. But that’s hardly the point. The show hasn’t already sold $3 million worth of tickets on the basis of playwright Keith Huff. Rather it’s all about the chance to see two buff action-movie stars in the fl esh (and in police uniforms). Opens Sept. 27

Superior DonutsTracy Letts’ followup to the phenomenally

successful (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) August: Osage County is about a Chicago doughnut-shop owner. Maybe it doesn’t have the same epic scale, but these Steppenwolf transfers are usually the best theater the city can hope to see. Opens Oct. 1

Hamlet Thought you could never watch another produc-tion with the brooding Danish prince? Well, now at least you have Jude Law to keep your attention during the hours and hours of stylish stagecraft. Opens Oct. 6Othello

The Public presents John Ortiz as Othello and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Iago at the NYU Skirball Center. This Shakespeare may be even more hotly anticipated than the Jude Law spectacle. Opens Oct. 4

Oleanna

A Mamet play seems increasingly de rigeur in order for a season to feel complete. The acid-penned script about a confrontation between a young female student and her pompous male pro-fessor stars Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman. It earned raves when it originated in L.A. Opens Oct. 11

Bye Bye Birdie BroadwayThe Roundabout has seen fi t to bring back a

musical about the hysteria surrounding an Elvis Presley-like singer (and the outrage of parents over this wild new rock ‘n’ roll music). The production boasts a cast comprised equally of theater pros (Bill Irwin, Dee Hoty) and names (John Stamos, Gina Gershon). Whether or not this production can supplant memories of the ever-popular fi lm version remains to be seen. If anything, just treat the show as an opportunity to investigate the newly rebuilt Henry Miller Theater. Opens Oct. 15

In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)After scoring progressively less and less com-

plimentary reviews for A Clean House, Eurydice and Dead Man’s Cell Phone, playwright Sarah Ruhl makes her Broadway debut. Billed as a comedy about “marriage, intimacy and electric-ity,” In the Next Room at least promises to be a welcome respite from the endless revivals of long-familiar works that clog this season.

QuartettRobert Wilson directs the inimitable

Isabelle Huppert in German playwright Heiner Müller’s condensed version of Dangerous Liaisons. Expect Wilson’s stylized choreogra-phy and everything in French (with English subtitles). Gotta hand it to BAM for staging something this daring. Opens Nov. 4

The UnderstudyWe loved Julie White in The Little Dog

Laughed. So we can only pray that she’ll also do wonders for Theresa Rebeck’s latest, a backstage comedy about an actor and his understudy (you guessed it) rehearsing a Kafka play. White plays a Nov. 5Fela!

The Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti has inspired generations of musicians, but the musical/dance version of his life wasn’t all that great when it started Off-Broadway. Much of the excitement can be credited to the energetic Sahr Ngaujah. No matter what you think of choreographer Bill T. Jones, it’s worth giving this revamped version a second chance to wow. Opens Nov. 23

A Streetcar Named DesireAs much as theater afi cionados love to grouse

on about the movie stars’ corruption of on-stage magic, we can’t help but look forward to a chance to witness Cate Blanchett as Blanche DuBois. Plus Liv Ullmann directs. Opens Nov. 27

FILMLatinbeat 2009

Celebrating its 12th year, this festival features 21 fi lms from throughout Latin America, includ-ing several New York premieres. Special events include panel discussions with rising stars of the New York-based Latino and Latin American

FallPREVIEW

A retrospective of Tim Burton’s artistic output will be exhibited at MoMA beginning Nov. 22.

The exhibition is made possible by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Daphne Recanati Kaplan and Thomas S. Kaplan, and Bernard and Louise Palitz.

Complete fall schedule at metmuseum.org

Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid (detail), ca. 1658, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Broadcast Sponsor of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vermeer’s Masterpiece The MilkmaidThis once-in-a-lifetime loan from Amsterdam joins the Met’s Vermeers

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Only through November 29


fi lmmaking scene and Latin American female fi lmmakers, and a tribute to renowned Latin American writer Julio Cortázar. Walter Reade Theater, through Sept. 24

ContemporAsian SeriesMonthly screenings of new works from

emerging Asian fi lmmakers. This year’s series begins with Blind Pig Who Want to Fly, which follows a series of disparate Chinese-Indonesians whose loosely-connected stories fi nd an unlikely common link in Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You.” MoMA, continues on various dates throughout the fall

Russian Documentary Film FestivalNow in its second year, this festival of

16 fi lms by Russian documentarians seeks to promote cross-cultural dialogue between Rus-sia and the U.S. through fi lm screenings and roundtable discussions. Notable works include a portrait of Michael Chekhov, the famed Russian actor/director whose acting techniques have been utilized by performers as disparate as Clint East-wood and Marilyn Monroe. Tribeca Cinemas, Sept 18-20

ParadiseMichael Almereyda’s latest is a kaleidoscopic

collection of fl eeting images and off-hand mo-ments recorded by the director while traveling through roughly two dozen cities in nine differ-ent countries. Almereyda, who made the fi lm over the course of 10 years, will introduce the fi rst screening. MoMA, Sept. 24-Sept. 30

Stranger than Fiction: Fall 2009The 11th season of the documentary series,

which screens a combination of newer works, clas-sics, and little-known gems. The role and relevancy of the documented image will play a particularly central role on Nov. 17, when Iranian fi lmmaker Hamid Rahmanian and others will screen and discuss footage of Iran in light of the recent post-election turmoil. The IFC Center, Sept. 29-Dec. 1

HungaryA look at the substantial contributions of

Hungarian fi lmmakers, producers, writers, actors and others to the “Golden Age of Hollywood Film-making,” this festival will include fi lms by Michael Curtiz and George Cukor and featuring such actors as Bela Lugosi and Johnny Weissmuller. Flash-ing-forward in history, the festival will also feature a 25th anniversary screening of Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise, featuring Hungarian actress Eszter Balint. BAMcinématek, Oct. 7-15

Spike Jonze: The First 80 YearsCoinciding with his much buzzed-about

adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, this cheekily titled retrospective encompasses both Jonze’s head-spinning features (Being John Malkovich and Adaptation) and his wealth of innovative music videos and short fi lms. Plus,

Jonze will personally present (Oct. 8) three short fi lms about Wild Things author Maurice Sendak made during the fi lm’s production, as well as clips from the movie itself. MoMA, Oct. 8-18

Elia Kazan FestivalAs revered for his emotionally-intense, bril-

liantly-acted fi lms as he was controversial for his decision to name names before Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee, Elia Kazan would have turned 100 this year. Film Forum, Oct. 9-22

To Save and Project: The Seventh MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation

The annual showcase of restored and redis-covered fi lms will open with a week-long run of John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Infl u-ence, with star Gena Rowlands introducing the October 24 screening. Among the other restora-tions—many of them making their New York debuts—include two 1950s Italian melodramas from Luchino Visconti (Senso) and Michelan-gelo Antonioni (Le Amiche) and MoMA’s own restored print of Nanook of the North. MoMA, Oct. 24-Nov. 15

Roger Corman RetrospectiveKnown for his energetic style, super-slim

budgets, and cheeky takes on B-level genre material, the prolifi c Roger Corman will receive the full retrospective treatment from Anthology. Week one will be devoted to his eerie Edgar Al-lan Poe adaptations, while the second week will focus on such little-screened works as The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and The Wild Angels. Anthology Film Archives, October 28-Nov. 8

The Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival

Moviegoers and studio heads alike may watching this celebration of new works by Indo-American fi lmmakers a little closer this year: among the fi lms making their New York premiere at last years MIAAC festival was a little movie called Slumdog Millionaire. Tribeca Cinemas, Nov. 11-15

African Diaspora Film FestivalThis festival gathers and spotlights the work

of black fi lmmakers from around the world. Highlights include Gospel Hill and the New York premiere of The Black List, a collection of fi lmed interviews with prominent black artists, politicians and others conducted by former New York Times fi lm critic Elvis Mitchell. Anthology Film Archives, Nov. 27-Dec. 9

Romanian Film Festival in NYCAt a time when directors like Cristi Puiu and

Corneliu Porumboui have inspired some critics to proclaim a “Romanian New Wave,” check out this festival to see what exciting voices will next emerge from this most-intriguing of burgeoning cinematic movements. Tribeca Cinemas, Dec. 4-6

FallPREVIEW

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SAT, OCT 24, 8 PMTokyo String QuartetInon Barnatan, pianoBEETHOVEN

SUN, OCT 25, 12 PMChristian Tetzlaff, violinBach’s complete Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin

SUN, NOV 8, 3 PMKeller QuartetBEETHOVEN / LIGETI / BARTÓK

WED, NOV 11, 8 PMLos Angeles Guitar QuartetPhil Proctor, actorDramatic retelling of Don Quixote with Renaissance & Baroque music of Spain

SUN, NOV 15, 3 PMZukerman ChamberPlayersMichelle DeYoung,

mezzo-soprano& FriendsBRAHMS / DVORÁK

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THU, DEC 31, 8 PMA CHAMPAGNENEW YEAR’S EVELos Romero, guitar quartet

SUN, JAN 31, 2 & 7 PMGUITAR MARATHON: BACHPaul O’Dette, co-curator & luteDavid Spelman, co-curatorJohn Schaefer, hostArtists include:Brazilian Guitar Quartet, Eliot Fisk, Paul Galbraith, Ana Vidovic, Jason Vieaux

WED, FEB 10, 8 PMRichard Goode, pianoJonathan Biss, pianoSCHUBERT / SCHUMANN BEETHOVEN / STRAVINSKY DEBUSSY

TUE, FEB 23, 8 PMMiklós Perényi, celloBenjamin Hochman, pianoBACH / KODÁLY / LIGETI BRAHMS

THU, FEB 25, 8 PMAndrás Schiff, pianoHAYDN

MON, MAR 1, 8 PMPéter Esterházy, authorAndrás Schiff, pianoReadings from Celestial

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TUE, MAR 2, 2 PMWED, MAR 3, 8 PMLeon Fleisher, pianoJaime Laredo, violin& FriendsBRAHMS

SUN, APR 18, 3 PMPeter Serkin, pianoOrion String QuartetBACH / KIRCHNER BEETHOVEN / BRAHMS

THU, APR 29, 8 PMHagen QuartetBEETHOVEN / WEBERN GRIEG


Falling For ItKicking off the dance season

BY JOEL LOBENTHALI love the one-from-Column A tack taken

by City Center’s Fall for Dance festival, which has kicked off the New York dance season since 2004. The programmers aim to please: Virtually no genre of dance is excluded, and companies from all over the world are invited. And I love the ticket prices—every seat is $10—which is about as much bang for the buck possible to fi nd in New York entertainment. This year, Fall for Dance runs Sept. 22-Oct. 3, and its fi ve dif-ferent programs include more ballet than usual.

As inclusive as the programming has been, ballet has been a tad less prominent in this fest than popular, modern or indigenous dance. But it’s diffi cult for any performing arts institution to ignore the fact that 2009 marked the 100th anniversary of the debut season in Paris of Di-aghilev’s Ballets Russes, which set the clock for Western ballet during its two-decade existence. Here’s a chance see some of the handful of bal-lets that survive from the long list of Diaghilev-commissioned creations. And that’s in addition to appearances by heavyweight modern dance outfi ts like Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, Martha Gra-ham and Mark Morris as well as visits by ballet superstar Diana Vishneva, tap dance’s free-spirit Savion Glover and many other must-sees.

In its Diaghilev programming, Fall for Dance looks at two sides of the coin: the work, and the response to the work’s enduring pres-ence in the canon. We’re going to see Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1912 Afternoon of a Faun—Nijinsky was Diaghilev’s lover, star dancer and then ren-egade choreographer—performed by the Boston Ballet. Faun was a radical exercise in aestheti-cism: three-dimensional movement now fl at-tened to recall profi le fi gures on a Greek frieze. And also going to see Mark Dendy’s Afternoon of the Faunes, which ruminates on the ballet and on Nijinsky’s own descent into insanity. We don’t get Mikhail Fokine’s great Petruchka, in which it dancers impersonate moving puppets who enact a parody of human destinies, but we do get Basil Twist’s Petrushka Suite, where actual puppets enact the same story.

Of all the opportunities Fall for Dance will give to review the Diaghilev repertory, most exciting because most rare is the chance to see 1924’s Les Biches, choreographed by Nijinsky’s sister Bronislava Nijinska, and performed at the festival by Ballet West of Salt Lake City. As was Nijinsky, Nijinska was quite unlike the careerist choreographers who dominate the landscape today: both wanted to probe and to expose mystic, psychological, emotional truths. “Had she understood more of theatrical politics, her work to-day would be more universally known,” British critic Arnold Haskell wrote in 1938, when she was still very active on the scene. And yet it’s interpersonal politicking, jockeying, the kinks

and quirks of emotional and sexual transaction that is Nijinska’s subject in Les Biches.

One of Diaghilev’s greatest achievements was his introduction of new possibilities for male expression. In Mikhail Fokine’s Le Spectre de la Rose, danced at its premiere in 1911 by Nijinsky, he was the spirit of the rose brought home from a ball by a debutante. The Australian Ballet will dance Spectre at the Festival. Les Biches gives us the other end of the telescope; here men are largely objectifi ed as muscle-bound playthings. Trained in the old Imperial ballet traditions in St. Petersburg, Nijinska perpetuated in her modernist ballets the thematically related but episodic nature of court entertainments in her modernist ballets. Here in Les Biches she tethers them to an ostensibly contemporary and recognizably real landscape—a chic drawing room. That however, became in her enacting its own new fantasy realm. The mood and the texture are caustic but frolicsome, in tune with Francis Poulenc’s music box/music hall score.

The two leading women’s roles in Les Biches conform to, without being totally contained within, the contrasting schools of women’s ballet technique. The Girl in Blue, designed in 1924 to show off Vera Nemtchinova’s startling legs in a brief tunic, poses and bourrées and has a rather tender encounter with one of the male visitors to this salon sisterhood. While the Hostess, originally danced by Nijinska—anything but the fainting violet onstage—lets it rip in cascades of beats so stinging you almost feel your calves ache. She’s indefatigable and expects her men to pass their own endurance tests. Speaking of ten-derness amid the cynical and commodifi ed, what is actually one of the most affectionate encounters in the ballet is its duet for two sweet jeune fi lles.

Amazingly, given the amount of mediocre choreography that our ballet companies make us sit through, Les Biches hasn’t been seen in New York since 1983, when Dance Theatre of Harlem performed it here at City Center. Thank you Ballet West and Fall for Dance for alleviating some provincialism and lethargy in the New York ballet world.

DANCE

Rya

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albr

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Ballet West’s production of Les Biches is part of the Fall for Dance Festival.

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Artist as OracleThe Morgan’s exhibition of the work of William Blake reminds us of the artist’s many gifts

BY LANCE ESPLUND

The term “visionary” is bandied about so loosely these days that you might not know what to do when one actually shows up. Perhaps it was always that

way. Saints and prophets and oracles disrupt the status quo. They punch holes in our reality; remove the fl oor from beneath our feet; open windows in the sky. They bring gods and demons into our midst, which is another way to say that they bring us closer to ourselves and set our lives on fi re. But despite everything we tell ourselves to the contrary, who is ever really ready for that? What do you do then with a visionary, especially one whose visions are coming at you with a vengeance? You may rec-ognize the truth of his wares, but you shut the door in his face and you dismiss him as mad.

This seems to have been the reception awarded the British poet, painter and print-maker William Blake (1757-1827), who is again at our door full-force, in William Blake’s World: “A New Heaven Is Begun,” a compact yet stellar exhibition of more than 100 works at the Morgan Library & Museum.

Blake claimed to have seen the face of God in a window, as well as angels in a tree, the prophet Ezekiel in a fi eld and his dead brother, Robert, whose joyful soul visited him in a dream and rose through the ceiling. It was during a conversation with his dead brother Robert in 1787, that William discovered how to invent a form of illuminated relief etching that would allow the artist to print his illus-trated poems without the use of typography. This got rid of the middlemen (the then-traditional printers, illustrators and typogra-phers who had dominated the fi eld of print-making for more than 300 years), and led to Blake’s masterpieces such as “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” “Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” “Visions of the Daughters of Albion,” “America,” “The Book of Job” and the illustrations of Dante.

This innovation allowed Blake to be the sole conduit between his works and his muse. In Blake’s rapturous hands, this invention produced weird, ecstatic books that married word and image, poetry and painting. Blake’s illuminated printed books harked back to Medieval manuscripts. They set the stage in the West for the acceptance of Japanese prints, and they were harbingers of the swirling forms of the Arts & Crafts Movement and Art Nou-veau; the expressive mysticism of Romanti-cism, Symbolism and Expressionism; as well

as the fl at, woven space of abstraction.Blake is a perfect subject for the

Morgan, which houses drawings, prints, illuminated books, letters and autograph manuscripts, the collective fruit of Blake’s labor. And the Morgan’s exhibit, organized by former director Charles Ryskamp and curators Anna Lou Ashby and Cara Denison, is a well-rounded, well-paced gem of a show that reminds us of the artist’s far-reaching gifts. Culled entirely from the Morgan’s holdings, it touches upon all aspects of the art-ist without feeling heavy-handed or piecemeal.

At the heart of the exhibition is a series of 21 watercolors for “The Book of Job” (1805-10; 1821) and 12 designs illustrating Milton’s “L’ Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.” The illustrations for “The Book of Job” exude an admonishing air toward Job’s long-suffering piety, his lack of individualism and his literal take on God’s word. But Blake is never irrever-ent. The watercolors are silvery, milky and lithe—almost moonlit—with a classical stateliness. Their bodies feel carved out of liquid ivory. Sporting big hands and feet, the fi gures are as monumental as Egyptian statuary, yet they move like fl ame and cloud. As with most of Blake’s works, the illustrations are theatrical, blunt and beauti-ful, as direct as children’s drawings. Blake treats the rectangle as a proscenium stage; the characters as actors who face the viewer and make clear their actions and intentions. Blake was inspired by prints made after Michelange-

lo and Raphael, and although he stirs together Mannerism and Classicism into a churning tumult, he manages never to loose the truth and directness, the purpose and center, of his narrative.

Blake can be erotic, lyrical and dark; Romantic and Neoclassical, but I was unaware until this show of his ability to be French. Also included at the Morgan, along with poetry in the artist’s hand and molten, hand-colored images that resemble mono-prints—as well as worthwhile works by

Blake’s contemporaries John Linnell, Edward Calvert, Samuel Palmer and Henry Fuseli—are two early prints after Watteau, surprising works that retain the Frenchman’s lightness.

It has been said of Blake, and rightly so, that he is much greater than the sum of his works; and that any attempt to isolate aspects of his art or thought is futile. Blake was a bundle of contradictions, misfi res and overzealousness, all of which he believed make us human. Sometimes it is as if he is stirring a cauldron and howling at the moon. Blake did not take himself or his visions lightly (the show’s subtitle “A New Heaven Is Begun” is a quote from

Blake referring to the signifi cance of his date of birth). Both a devout Christian and a reso-lute individualist, Blake fought against dogma and oppression, religious or otherwise. He believed that each man had to fi nd his own way; and what better path toward self-aware-ness than that of the artist. For Blake, imagina-tion and reason, sexual passion and religious fervor, intellectual curiosity and spiritual unrest—the visual and the verbal—all fueled the same fi re.

Still, Blake’s work suffers seemingly from

being innovative on too many fronts. Each of his extraordi-nary gifts appears not to have outshone but, rather, to have competitively eclipsed all the others. Like equally ascendant forces racing up separate faces of a pyramid, Blake’s respective accomplishments seem to have collided at the pinnacle—scat-tering the artist into so many rays of light.

And a peculiar muddling continues to occur. It’s as if Blake’s fi re was too much to bear and, therefore, had to be doled out among numerous furnaces: Poets appreci-ate Blake for his poetry; historians see him for his Romantic, though uniquely enlightened, anti-Enlighten-ment attitudes; painters and illustrators appreciate his gifts as a storyteller, colorist and draftsman; and print-makers understand his ad-vancement of the medium. As recently as the 1960s Blake was embraced for his views on feminism,

racial and sexual equality and free love.Ironically, Blake’s great gift as a Modern

artist and poet was his ability to unify—not only image and word but art and man—god and man. He fl irted back and forth between reality and myth. He was able to give back to ornamentation and to the searching line—as in Asian art—a front-and-center purpose-fulness and sense of discovery. In life as well as art he brought traditional marginalia inward and allowed the main event to seep into the margins. He treated line and geom-etry—whether letterform or limb—as living forces: text and image read interchangeably as intestine, root, fi gure, fi sh, air, stream, wing and vine. Blake did not just tell stories he gave movement and life to the page.

More important, he gave back to the artist the ancient role of oracle. His works illustrated a world somewhere between heaven and earth—a world that audiences then, and per-haps even now, was not quite ready for. Ready or not, at the Morgan Blake’s fi re is rekindled and his visions are brought into full light.

William Blake’s World: “A New Heaven Is Begun” through Jan. 3, The Morgan Library & Museum; 225 Madison Ave. (betw. 36th & 37th Sts.), 212-685-0008.

MUSEUMS

Blake’s work suffers seemingly from being innovative on too many

fronts. Each of his extraordinary gifts appears not to have outshone

but, rather, to have competitively eclipsed all the others.


Chaos, Control Time to ponder Kandinsky and the Bauhaus with two historic museum shows in the coming months

BY MARIO NAVES

Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) is an inescapable fi gure in the history of 20th-century art. The Russian painter’s career encompasses Modern-

ist hotspots like Moscow, Munich and Paris and turbulent events like both World Wars and the Russian Revolution. As an artist, Kan-dinsky synthesized a seemingly incompatible range of styles: Art Nouveau, Post-Impres-sionism, Symbolism, Cubism, Surrealism and Suprematism. To get an idea of how provoca-tive Kandinsky’s art was at the time, however, consider its detractors.

Though he achieved positions of distinc-tion in the cultural bureaucracies of Com-munist Russia, Kandinsky was no fan of the October Revolution: The Bolsheviks expropri-ated his family’s considerable landholdings and assets, leaving him virtually penniless. Kandinsky nevertheless bent over backward to accommodate the state, to be ultimately pegged as “bourgeois” and expelled from his job on the charge of being “an emigrant.”

This fall, New Yorkers will have ample opportunity to consider for themselves

Kandinsky’s achievements as painter, theorist and academic. The Guggenheim Museum is presenting Kandinsky, the most comprehen-sive U.S. overview of the artist’s oeuvre in close to three decades. Later in November, the Museum of Modern Art will mount Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity, a major exhibition focusing on the school’s hugely infl uential cross-disciplinary curriculum. Kandinsky—along with fellow faculty like Josef Albers, Marcel Breur, Laszlo Moholy Nagy and Oskar Schlemmer—is likely to play a prominent role.

Comprising close to 100 paintings and more than 60 works-on-paper, many of which haven’t been exhibited in America, the Guggenheim show promises to be the defi nitive sampler of Kandinsky’s art for at least a generation or two. Past generations will recognize the apt venue: Originally known as The Museum of Non-Objective Painting, the Guggenheim was founded on Kandinsky’s otherworldly approach to abstraction. (Solo-mon R. Guggenheim would eventually acquire over 150 Kandinsky paintings.) Already seen in Paris and Munich, Kandinsky proved a

crowd-pleaser. Get ready to elbow through the crowds on Frank Lloyd Wright’s ramp.

Most famously, Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract painting. Maybe he didn’t invent the stuff (as is often claimed), but he did pursue it with

almost evangelical single-mindedness and, lat-er in life, with surprising whimsy. Kandinsky’s signature abstractions—with their scrabbled lines, roaming compositions and jewel-like tonalities—are keystones of High Modern-ism. If their pictorial innovations have been blunted by the passage of time, Kandinsky’s fervor is no less felt because of it.

Among his colleagues and confi dantes were composer Arnold Schoenburg, architect Walter Gropius, poet Andre Breton and paint-ers Paul Klee, Joan Miro and Kazimir Malev-ich. Kandinsky helped found Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), an artist’s collective that had a decisive impact on German Expressionism, and he taught at the Bauhaus, the school of art, architecture and design. Kandinsky also embraced the woozy mysticism of the much-in-vogue Madame Blavatsky and wrote On the Spiritual in Art, a seminal treatise exploring the connections between visual art and music.

Kandinsky came late to art. After studying law, economics and statistics at the University of Moscow, he was of-fered a professorship in Roman Law at the University of Dorpat, Russia (now Tartu, Estonia). But that was the same year he saw Claude Monet’s “Haystack” paintings and attended a performance of Wagner’s Lohengrin—transform-ing experiences, both. And then there was that revelatory sunset: “The sun dissolves the whole of Moscow into a single spot, which, like a wild tuba, sets all one’s soul vibrating.” Equating painting with ecstasy, Kandinsky left for Germany to study art. He was 30 years old.

The Guggenheim show isn’t a full-scale retrospective: It skips over Kandinsky’s formative years and moves directly to Paris 1907, where we see, within arcane dioramas of peasantry, princes and decorative excess, the initial steps toward abstraction. The fi gura-tive components and overripe nostalgia would soon be submerged within fl urries of brush-strokes, galumphing rhythms and hieroglyphic abbreviations of form. (Anthropology was one of Kandinsky’s fascinations.) What remained were Byzantine compositions and a saturated palette gleaned from Matisse, Derain and Ba-

varian Hinterglasbilder, a form of folk painting done on glass collected by Kandinsky.

Kandinsky returned to Germany in 1929, only to have the Nazis eventually lump his iconographic abstractions under the “degenerate” rubric and to close down the Bauhaus because of its incompatibility with the regime’s cultural program. Kandinsky considered moving to California, of all places, but fi nancial considerations led him to settle in a Parisian suburb, where he would live and work the rest of his days.

If the Guggenheim is Kandinsky’s spiritual homebase, the Bauhaus serves a similar function for MoMA. Founding director Alfred H. Barr wrote that the “three days

which I spent at the Bauhaus in 1928 [was] one of the most important incidents in my own education.” Workshops for Modernity is the fi rst comprehensive overview of the Bauhaus the museum has mounted since 1938. That show was an insiders’ project, having been organized and overseen by Bauhaus founders and acolytes. This time around, Barry Berg-doll, the museum’s chief architecture curator, will concentrate on the Bauhaus, not as an artistic movement per se, but as an institution in a specifi c political context: “the tumultuous tenure of the Weimar Republic.”

Art is never completely divorced from history, of course, but will MoMA’s empha-sis on the school as a “cultural think tank for trying times” illuminate or cloud its rigorous aesthetic? Still, Workshops for Modernity is bound to contain riches, not least designer

Marcel Breur’s and weaver Gunta Stolzl’s “African” chair (1921), a work presumed lost until its re-discovery fi ve years ago. How well Kandinsky’s and the Bauhaus’ deeply romantic optimism will translate to our young, been-there-done-that century will be only one thing to mull over in the coming months.

Kandinsky, Sept. 18 through Jan. 13, Guggen-heim Museum

Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity, Nov. 8 through Jan. 25, Museum of Modern Art.

Already seen in Paris and Munich, Kandinsky proved a crowd-pleaser. Get ready to

elbow through the crowds on Frank Lloyd Wright’s ramp.

‘Moscow I’ is part of the Guggenheim’s Kandinsky exhibit.


A Season for Getting Close to Art

BY AMANDA GORDONLike an exclamation point to the more

than 70 gallery openings last Thursday, the new American Eagle billboard on Houston Street conveys the spirit of cultural entertain-ing this fall season: “LOVE the artist.”

This has always been true, of course, but in recent years there was a distracting scene of glitz, spectacle and power. The economic meltdown of the past year has brought us back to basics.

“After all, without the artists, the museum wouldn’t have a reason to exist,” David Rock-efeller, chairman emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art, said in an interview at the mu-seum’s Party in the Garden in May, the event that marked the recalibration by honoring more than a few dozen artists instead of busi-nessmen and celebrities. “It’s because they’re so good and people enjoy their work and we’re able to show it, that people are happy to come here,” Mr. Rockefeller added.

Arts organizations of all types and sizes are preparing events that help New Yorkers feel close to artists and the creative endeavor. At New York City Opera’s opening night gala on November 5, guests will encounter several art forms: An “American Voices” concert featur-ing, among others, Amy Burton, Lauren Fla-nigan and Samuel Ramey; a performance by the New York City Ballet and a dinner taking place underneath a large-scale installation by artist E.V. Day (on view for both City Opera’s fall and spring seasons).

At the Metropolitan Opera gala on Sep-tember 21, after the debut of “Tosca,” guests will head to a tent decorated to transport them into the Italian setting of the opera. “We’re

using materials that reference the stage set,” event designer David Stark said. This version of an Italian countryside will include cement blocks and rosemary and juniper plants.

And how’s this for getting intimate with artists: Creative Time is planning a slumber-themed party at a downtown hotel to launch a limited edition nightshirt designed with artist Will Cotton. “Think Hugh Hefner meets Federico Fellini,” Creative Time spokesman Nicholas Weist said. The event will take place in early November.

Guests will get to make art at the Friends of Materials for the Arts Halloween Harvest Festival on October 27. At workstations in the warehouses where the organization collects and distributes donated materials, guests will fashion hats and headdresses using buttons, sequins, feathers, fabrics, rib-bons, buckles—“whatever we have around,” said the executive director of Materials for the Arts, Harriet Taub. More than 2,000 people attended last year.

Immersing oneself in the cultural offer-ings of New York — from Broadway to the Knitting Factory to the Apollo — can get overwhelming. When those times hit, an ideal place to refresh oneself is The New York Botanical Garden. The displays of chrysanthe-mums in the Kiku show (October 17 through November 15) usually provoke simultane-ous gasps from viewers, so astonishing is the artistry of the horticulturists, who have spent almost a year training the fl owers. As much as a round of applause, that gasp is the sound of New Yorkers loving artists.

Look for Amanda Gordon’s party coverage in CityArts beginning Oct. 6.

PARTIES

The New York Botanical Garden’s Kiku show.

Kon

rad

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Pablo Picasso, Le Repas Frugal, drypoint, 1904.Estimate $80,000 to $120,000.

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Albrecht Dürer, The Apocalypse,complete set of woodcuts, 1498.Estimate $50,000 to $80,000.

At auction Nov 5.


The Shape of Jazz to ComeLook for the next generation of jazz greats to appear this season

BY HOWARD MANDEL Ornette Coleman’s fi rst gig ever at Jazz at

Lincoln Center on Sept. 26 is a hard-won tri-umph for the revolution he wrought on Ameri-can music, launched in New York City 40 years ago. What Coleman, then an unknown from the West, now 79 and a Pulitzer Prize winner, has proved to be is just what he called it: The shape of jazz to come. Best evidence of the truth of his premise that music should be free of individuality-constraining conventions is heard in the works of the dozens of musicians rip-roaring here as fall begins. Incidentally, they demonstrate that the local jazz-and-beyond scene has arrived at an unanticipated peak.

Extraordinary opportunities to encounter what you never have before are never-end-ingly plentiful in this city, of course, but “the season” can be pretended to offi cially begin Sept. 17, with simultaneous openings of pia-nist Connie Crothers’ two-weeks curation at The Stone, the two-weekend New Languages Festival at McCarren Hall and three debuts by percussionist Adam Rudolph at Roulette, one a concerto with chamber orchestra by Yusef Lateef. These events are quickly followed by Joe Lovano’s Coltrane birthday salute (Sept. 23-26 at Birdland), the fi rst of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians autumn concerts (drummer Thurman Barker’s Strike Force, solo saxophonist Matana Rob-erts, Sept. 25 at Community Church of New York), and as rich an October.

Andy Fite, a guitarist and vocalist who’s lived in Sweden since 1994 and cites as his main concern “to do just whatever he wants and…spark a little joy” is incongruously fi rst at The Stone—East Village genius John Zorn’s establishment on a corner of Avenue C—since it’s a rather severe recital room. Crowded by 50 attendees, dimly lit, with nil ventilation or crea-ture comforts besides folding chairs, the place is nonetheless perfect for close listening. It might well serve the coterie of musicians, little known even to fervent devotees of the avant-garde, who Crothers has convened for a unique string of performances through Sept. 30.

Crothers is an acolyte of the late pianist Lennie Tristano, whose heady, disciplined, ultra-cool aesthetic might be described as obliquely parallel to Ornette Coleman’s earthy iconoclasm—the road less taken, though it reaches similar conclusions. Tristano em-phasized harmonic extensions of classic jazz chord progressions when Coleman intuitively disregarded them; Tristano muted the role of drums, while Coleman delights in bouncing off hyperactive percussion. Both their paths encourage personal statement, acknowledge abstraction and penetrate the unexplored. Crothers, by evidence of her recordings, is not

beholden to doctrine. Her music is formally complex, yet often bursts with surprises.

See The Stone’s website for the complete schedule, but my curiosities include: alto saxophonist Richard Tabnik’s debut of his “Symphony for Jazz Trio: A Prayer for Peace”; Bud Tristano (Lennie’s son), an “improvis-ing rock guitarist” who performs with Russian concert pianist Valentina Nazarenko; solo shows by pianist Kazzrie Jaxen (AKA, Liz Gorrill), vibist Kevin Norton and Italian violinist Stefano Pastor. Crothers herself appears in various com-bos—unfortunately leading her own quartet and quintet Sept. 26, the very date Coleman plays Lincoln Center and Barbra Streisand (!) does her one-nighter at the Village Vanguard.

Several musicians Crothers has booked are in the “blank generation” that’s been accused of abandoning jazz by the National Endow-ment for the Arts’ recently released data, though observers cite many 20- and 30-year-olds in jazz audiences, and musicians that age are increas-ingly making their marks. Hear two of the most prominent: Darcy James Argue (34), a Van-couver-born, Brooklyn-based composer whose Secret Society big band is stocked with young players, will be at the fi fth New Languages

Festival on Sept. 17; cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum (34) with his SpiderMonkey Strings octet of brass, voice, violin, viola, cello, guitar, tuba and drums at Man-hattan’s Jazz Gallery on Sept. 19. Bynum co-leads the 10-piece Positive Catastrophe ensemble with Peruvian percussionist Abraham Gomez-Delgado (31) at New Languages Sept. 25.

New Language’s intent is to “provide a panoramic view of 21st-century jazz in NYC” and among its other signifi cant participants are New York-associated trumpeters Amir ElSaffi r (32) and Nate Wooley (35); drummer Tyshawn Sorey (29), percussionist John Hollenbeck (OK, he’s 41), vocalist Theo Bleckmann (a mature 44) and alto saxophonist Tim Berne, guitarists Brandon Ross and Joe Morris, by now veterans of the avant-garde who have lost not a whit of edge.

Staying sharp is, after all, fundamental to jazz, and so the Festival of New Trumpet Music at the Jazz Standard; Oct. 1-4 rightly dedicates itself to trumpeter Bobby Bradford, 75, an associate of Ornette Coleman’s who carries the free fl ag in Los Angeles and seldom

comes east. Other brassmen prime the fi rst nights—Bradford plays with tenor saxophonist David Murray, currently of Paris, Oct. 3 & 4. And starting Oct. 1 at The Stone, incompara-ble Brit saxophonist Evan Parker (64) begins two weeks of intense collaborations.

All of the above uphold Ornette Coleman’s conviction that originality, expressivity, imme-diacy and virtuosity make jazz worth hearing. Those attributes make this season’s music new.

JAZZ

Ornette Coleman

Wycliffe Gordon

Vince Giordano

JAZZ LEGENDS Yale in new york

david shifrinArtistic Director

SEP26

zankel hall at carnegie hallsaturday, 7:30 pm

Copland: Clarinet Concerto and Chamber works byBartók, Poulenc, Shulman, and Gould commissioned or premiered by the legendary clarinetist

Tickets $15-25 · Students $10-20CarnegieCharge · 212 247-7800 · www.carnegiehall.orgmusic.yale.edu


Why New York Needs Its FestivalThe glamour of the fest can add to a fi lm’s potency

BY ERIC KOHN

The New York Film Festival has always inspired debate about the state of world cinema. On the eve of the fi rst Lincoln Center gathering in 1963, the New York Times confronted this matter with

a fl eeting item under the headline, “The Film As Art.” Good movies, the paper argued, often get buried by insipid Hollywood product.

With Transformers 2 outweighing all rivals at the 2009 summer box offi ce, can anyone argue that the situation has changed? According to that Times piece, the festival “serves to point up the difference in quality between fi lm as product and fi lm as art, moviegoers will be well served.”And so it continues, nearly 50 years later and more valuable than ever before.

Unlike the bloated fi lm festival proceed-ings at Sundance, Cannes or Toronto, New York’s annual gathering has little need for a dense program guided by star power or poten-tial for media attention. Instead, NYFF simply showcases movies on the basis of whether or not they’re any good. With 29 features from 17 countries, the festival mainly refl ects the inter-ests of a small selection committee comprised of local critics familiar with the strongest works at the year’s earlier festivals and subject to their own personal whims.

“I’ve always understood it as a very curated festival,” says new committee member Dennis Lim, the editorial director for the Museum of the Moving Image as well as a frequent Times contributor. “It’s a festival with a fi nite number of fi lms, and that’s the point. It’s a statement about what the committee members fi nd most important and exciting about world cinema at the present moment.”

For audiences, much of that excitement is justifi ed by the accompanying buzz. French New Wave legends Jacques Rivette and Alain Resnais carry the sort of brand names that have made New York moviegoers hearts fl utter since before NYFF existed. This year, Rivette comes to the festival with 36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak, while Resnais’ cosmi-cally hilarious romance Wild Grass opens the festival Sept. 25. For audiences with contem-porary preferences, there’s Lars Von Trier’s wickedly strange and playfully explicit Antichrist and Michael Haneke’s dreary period mystery, The White Ribbon. Spanish favorite Pedro Almodóvar closes out the festival with Broken Embraces, and Lee Daniels’ frenetic Harlem coming-of-age portrait, Precious:

Based on the Novel by Sapphire, takes the centerpiece slot.

That those last four movies were unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival in May leads to a common movie snob complaint: Unwilling to bother with the underdogs, NYFF goes for obvious choices. Those rants, however, ignore the essential publicity boost that major art house titles receive from a Lincoln Center screening.

“Not many avid cinephiles have the

chance to go to Cannes,” explains Melissa Anderson, the former fi lm editor of Time Out

New York and another addition to the selection committee this year. “One of the really important functions of the festival is exposure.”

With infl uential indie distributors such as New Yorker Films closing up shop in the past year, fewer companies are around to bring foreign movies to the U.S. (most of the movies with distribution in this year’s lineup are owned by IFC Films or

Sony Pictures Classics). This turns NYFF’s so-called “obvious” choices into essential ones for audiences interested in getting a bigger piece of the pie than the usual big-screen of-ferings available throughout the city.

“Often, the very same people who criticize [NYFF] for having too much of the Cannes lineup will be annoyed that a certain Cannes fi lm isn’t there,” explains Lim. He’s also quick

to point out, however, that “the festival has always been faithful to auteur cinema,” which includes both veterans of the craft and emerg-ing voices. He expresses particular excite-ment over the inclusion of Filipino director Raya Martin’s Independencia and Jao Pedro Rodrigues’ Portuguese feature, To Die Like a Man, since both fi lmmakers have been gaining steady reputations despite virtual anonymity in the United States.

Rather than crafting a single thesis about contemporary world cinema, NYFF cham-pions experience over ideology. Anderson fondly recalls her memorable encounter with Von Trier’s viscerally intense drama Dancer in the Dark when it opened the festival in 2000. “Seeing the fi lm as part of this storied and im-portant festival added to its luster,” she admits. “I saw it again a few times during its theatrical run. I still loved it, but it didn’t match the awe of seeing it the fi rst time at Alice Tully Hall.”

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Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces closes out this year’s New York Film Festival.

The Festival’s so-called ‘obvious’ choices are essential ones for

audiences interested in getting a bigger piece of the pie than

the usual big-screen offerings available throughout the city.


Celtic KittyConal Creedon’s lyrical, comic, phrase-repeating plays resound no matter what the Irish experience

BY GWEN ORELConal Creedon’s characters interact, then

give monologues. Phrases are often repeated. At times it feels Beckett-like, but the situations take place in a fi rmly grounded Cork City, Creedon’s home—nobody’s stuck in a moun-tain of sand or pops out of a trashcan. In his plays After Luke and When I Was God (which run through Sept. 27 at the Irish Repertory Theatre as part of 1st Irish 2009), you might think the places and people are too unusual to exist, but they actually do.

Cork is “a funny little town,” Creedon explains over a cup of tea near Irish Rep. He speaks fast, self-deprecatingly, swallowing words, with the broad vowels that typify a Cork accent. Cork, he explains, is a regional capital that was the mooring for the British fl eet, and an export center. “It has its own feel about it. Locally we know it as the People’s Republic of Cork.” It’s a Republic Creedon knows well.

“I’m here forever,” says the writer. “I’m on the same street my grandfather was from, my father was from, my mother married in the hotel across the road… That’s what roots me to it.” The playwright’s essay in the program describes his local barbershop. It’s not a non sequitur—for Creedon, history and place inform character. They are the story.

Still, Creedon says he is not nostalgic at all—he notices change, at times embracing it, understanding the hardship people went through in older days. That said, he doesn’t have a cell phone, rarely picks up the tele-phone and does not much like email. Asked how people get hold of him, he says, “They have to shout.”

Creedon’s rootedness in Cork qualifi es him to chronicle the transformations that not just Cork City, but all of Ireland, caused by the economic boom of the 1990s—called the Celtic Tiger—and the aftermath some call the

Celtic Garfi eld. After Luke is a period piece (though it was written in 2004). A writer probably wouldn’t write a story about a son returning from London to push through a sale of the family house now.

“The play was produced in Cork in the height of the boom, before it came crashing down, in 2007—when the rug was pulled out from under. In 2005, there was no sense that it was going to end. But the change has been profound, really,” explains Creedon. “If you hadn’t been home in maybe 10 years, and you happened to arrive in, you’d be a bit bowled over because suddenly sites that hadn’t been used were totally built on; and café society was more prevalent.”

Looked at another way, After Luke is timeless: It’s less about “will they sell the house” than it is “which son does Dad love best?” The title alludes to the parable of the prodigal son. In After Luke, Maneen, the returning son, is the antagonist, but, according to Creedon, “There’s a huge injustice on him too right, cause he had to leave… the oldest one gets the farm and the youngest one goes.”

When I Was God is also about fathers and sons. In that play, an adult son is so dominated by his father’s desires for his athletic prowess that he’s literally haunted by his father’s voice all his life, even when he plays “god,” aka a soccer referee. But, according to Creedon, the plays are “not a big therapy session for me; my own father was an incredibly sweet guy, a really good storyteller. He’d sing at the drop of a hat.” He intends to write about mothers and daugh-ters next. “I’ve observed eight sisters with my mother,” he laughs, one of 12 children. “There’s going to be some fun there!”

Extended through Sept. 27. After Luke & When I Was God at Irish Rep, 132 W. 22nd St. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.), 212-727-2737, $55-$65.

THEATER

Gary Gregg and Michael Mellamphy in When I Was God at Irish Rep.

PRESENTS

Two unique programsTwo U.S. premieres

Live music

Tickets start at $15

Oct 29–Nov 1Thu-Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm

AT NEW YORK CITY CENTER STAGE IIwww.pearltheatre.org

MisallianceBy Bernard ShawDecember 4, 2009 – January 24, 2010

Hard TimesBy Charles DickensAdapted By Stephen JeffreysFebruary 5 – March 28, 2010

The Subject Was RosesBy Frank D. GilroyApril 9 – May 9, 2010


BY JAY NORDLINGER

The new season is upon us, and the big news in classical music, I suppose, is the New York Philharmonic: They are changing conductors. Gone is Lorin

Maazel and arrived is Alan Gilbert. Who? A fair question.

He is the former conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also, as they say, “a good Philharmonic story.” His father was a violinist in the orchestra, and his mother still is. Plus, he’s a native New Yorker—that somehow counts too. And he is young, or youngish, at 42—which also counts, for some. Age and experience used to be prized on the podium; now people—at least critics and administrators—are mad for youth. Strange.

Finally, Gilbert is said to be an enthusi-astic advocate for new music, an enthusiasm that pleases critics a lot. No fair asking about the quality of the new music being advocated. That’s impolite.

When Gilbert was named music direc-tor, some people said, “Has the Philharmonic decided not to be a serious orchestra? Is this fellow—‘Philharmonic story’ or not—fi t to assume the post of Mahler, Toscanini and Bar-birolli, or even of the three M’s: Mehta, Masur and Maazel?” Others were delighted, mainly for the reasons cited above.

In any case, Gilbert will have a chance to prove himself, and a big test will come early: during concerts starting Sept. 17, when Gilbert conducts a monumental and great work, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. Those who care about music in New York can only wish him,

and us, the best.Other news is City Opera: After a season

off and a brush with bankruptcy, they are back, not with many shows, but with some. They begin Nov. 5, when they put on a gala of American music and American singers. Among them will be Lauren Flanigan, pretty much the house diva, and Joyce DiDonato, that sparkler of a mezzo-soprano. On Nov. 7, the company will begin a run of Esther, the last opera (1993) by the late American composer Hugo Weisgall. Flanigan will appear in the title role.

Many say that City Opera must fi nd or stay nestled in a “niche” here in New York: young singers, offbeat operas, offbeat produc-tions, an emphasis on Americanness. I say, hire good singers, conductors, players, directors, etc.—and they will come. Build quality, and audiences will come. New Yorkers love their opera, and not just at the Met.

Carnegie Hall does not take a season off. This year, they begin on Oct. 1, when James Levine conducts his Boston Symphony Orches-tra, with pianist Evgeny Kissin as guest. You may wish to hear a recital on Oct. 14. It is by Christine Brewer, the soprano, who is top-notch and really underrated. On Oct. 27, Lang Lang, the piano sensation, will appear in a chamber concert with some friends of his, all from China. Many have commented on the “Sinofi cation” of the music world. Such a development is welcome, particularly if others are tired.

The Berlin Philharmonic is not tired—not yet—and they will be in Carnegie from Nov. 11 through 13, performing Brahms and Schoenberg under their English music direc-

ClassicalMUSIC

Maestro Gilbert, Et Al.Thoughts on a new classical music season in the city

New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert during this year’s Mostly Mozart festival.

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For complete concert listings and information:

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SEP 25 / FRI

MSM PHILHARMONIAMei-Ann Chen, ConductorJin Woo Lee, ViolinOFFENBACH Overture to Orpheus in the UnderworldBARTÓK Violin Concerto No. 2DVORÁK Symphony No. 8 in G Major, op. 88

7:30 PM Borden Auditorium$10 adults; $5 seniors and students

SEP 27 / SUN

AMERICAN STRING QUARTETPeter Winograd, Laurie Carney, ViolinsDaniel Avshalomov, Viola Wolfram Koessel, Cello

BEETHOVEN String Quartet in G Major, op. 18, no. 2PROKOFIEV String Quartet No. 2 in F Major,

op. 92 (On Kabardinian Themes)SCHUBERT Quartet in D Minor, D. 810

(“Death and the Maiden”)3:00 PM Borden Auditorium$15 adults; $10 seniors and students

OCT 2 / FRI

MSM CHAMBER SINFONIA Kenneth Kiesler, ConductorPeter Fancovic, PianoMOZART Symphony No. 31 in D Major, K. 297 (“Paris”)MENDELSSOHN Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, op. 25STRAVINSKY Pulcinella


OCT 9 / FRI

MSM JAZZ PHILHARMONICORCHESTRA WITH JOE LOVANO Justin DiCioccio, ConductorJoe Lovano, SaxophoneABENE Odyssey for BrassFISCHER PensativeGRAETTINGER (for Stan Kenton) City of GlassSAUTER Focus


NOV 13 / FRI

MSM SYMPHONIC AND CHAMBER CHORUSES WITHMSM CHAMBER SINFONIAKent Tritle, Music DirectorMOZART Requiem, K. 626SCHUBERT Mass in G, D. 167


JAN 18 / MON

BEAUTIFUL GIRLSSTEPHEN SONDHEIM’S SONGS FOR WOMEN WITH LEADING LADIES OF BROADWAY

MSM Chamber SinfoniaPaul Gemignani, ConductorLonny Price, DirectorWith Zoe Caldwell, Jenn Colella,Marin Mazzie, and Donna McKechnie

7:30 PM Borden Auditorium$20 adults; $12 seniors and students$1,000 tickets for Manhattan Nights include VIP Performance seating and private reception with artists.

JAN 28 / THU

LA MUSIQUEWITH PHILIPPE ENTREMONT MSM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND CHAMBER CHORUS

Philippe Entremont, ConductorHeather Johnson, Mezzo-SopranoBERLIOZ Overture to Le Corsaire and Les Nuits d’étéRAVEL Suites No. 1 and No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé


ALSO FEATURING PHILIPPE ENTREMONT: JAN 21 Philippe Entremont Piano Master ClassJAN 24 & 29 Readings of Mozart Piano Concerti

MSM OPERA THEATERDona D. Vaughn, Artistic Director

DEC 9, 11, 12 / WED, FRI & SAT

GABRIEL FAURÉ’SPÉNÉLOPELibretto by René FauchoisLaurent Pillot, ConductorLawrence Edelson, Director

DEC 9 / WED OPERA PREVIEW6:00 PM Greenfield HallGordon Ostrowski, Coordinator

DEC 9 & 11 / WED & FRI 7:30 PMDEC 12 / SAT 2:30 PM Borden Auditorium

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APR 28, 30 & MAY 2 / WED, FRI & SUN

MOZART’S LE NOZZE DI FIGAROLibretto by Lorenzo Da PonteGiovanni Reggioli, ConductorDona D. Vaughn, Director

APR 28 / WED OPERA PREVIEW6:00 PM Greenfield HallGordon Ostrowski, Coordinator

APR 28 & 30 / WED & FRI 7:30 PMMAY 2 / SUN 2:30 PM Borden Auditorium

$20 adults; $12 seniors & students


tor, Simon Rattle.The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln

Center likes thematic programs, and here is an example: On Oct. 18, they will present a concert called “Magyar Madness,” giving us, of course, Hungarian music. But not all the music is by Hungarians. We will hear a new work by David Del Tredici called, in fact, Magyar Madness.

Great Performers at Lincoln Center will host a skilled and elegant orchestra from London, the LSO, under the baton of Bernard Haitink, the veteran Dutchman. They will give three concerts, between Oct. 21 and Oct. 25. The composers will be Schubert and Mahler (only). On Nov. 13 and 14, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes performs, with images. Movies or something. This is a trend in music now, with the visual all the rage. Ap-parently, mere music is not enough anymore. The MTV generation and others have to have pictures, preferably moving pictures.

At the Salzburg Festival this summer, there was actually a staged song recital (by the French soprano Patricia Petibon). This is a trend that ought to give true music-lovers a little pause, if not outright heebie-jeebies.

On Oct. 25, the 92nd Street Y will pres-ent Christian Tetzlaff, the German violinist, who will play Bach sonatas and partitas. No word yet on whether there will be visual ac-companiment. On Nov. 15, the Y will give us Michelle DeYoung, that warm and outstanding mezzo-soprano, who will be surrounded by some instrumentalists. One of them will be the pianist Kevin Murphy.

Want to talk Met? The mighty opera house will open on Sept. 21, with a new production of Tosca. Karita Mattila will be in the title role,

and she is an extraordinary singing actress. Very intense. Let’s hope she avoids the tempta-tion to overact: Puccini has included it all in the score. Aida will begin on Oct. 2, with a promising cast: Violeta Urmana, Dolora Zajick and Johan Botha, among others. Lot of power on that stage; lot of power in that score, too.

The aforementioned Joyce DiDonato will sing in The Barber of Seville, starting Oct. 3. If

she’s not a joy, I’ll eat my hat—and yours. She will be in the company of a superb and strangely underrated tenor, Barry Banks. On Oct. 13, Der Rosenkavalier will begin, with the Marschallin of our time onstage: Renée Fleming. It will not hurt to have James Levine in the pit, either.

The Damnation of Faust—which begins on Nov. 5—will feature Olga Borodina, the great (yes, great) Russian mezzo. It will also feature Ildar Abdrazakov, who does devil very well. And Nov. 12 will see the Met premiere of a 1930 opera: From the House of the Dead, by Janacek (his last opera).

Finally, mark your calendar for Nov. 17, because on that evening Aprile Millo is sched-uled to sing a recital in Rose Hall. In fact, this is to be her New York recital debut, amazingly. But mark your calendar lightly—maybe in pencil—because this near-legendary diva is a pretty good canceler. Let’s hope she shows, and let’s hope she’s good.

Gilbert is said to be an enthusiastic advocate for new

music, an enthusiasm that pleases critics a lot. No fair

asking about the quality of the new music being advocated.

That’s impolite.

Weisgall’s Esther will have its fi rst revival since the 1993 world premiere at New York City Opera.

Carol R

osegg

JuilliardJoseph W. Polisi, President

THE SEASON BEGINSNearly 700 dance, drama, and music performances –Almost all are FREE

Tues, Sept 15 at 8 • Paul Hall at Juilliard

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New Juilliard Ensemble

Starting its 17th season of very new and commissioned worksJoel Sachs, Founding Director and ConductorDu Yun, SpeakerNathan Miller, NarratorELLIOT SHARP (US) Points and Fields (2009) J**CHRIS GENDALL (New Zealand) Rudiments (2009) J*DU YUN (China/US) Vicissitudes No. 3 (2003)ERROLYN WALLEN (Belize/UK) Horseplay (1998) **DMITRI YANOV-YANOVSKY (Uzbekistan)

Paths of Parables II (2008-09) C*Text by WOODY ALLEN: from Hassidic Tales, with a Guide toTheir Interpretation by the Noted Scholar

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9 out of 10 Juilliard students need financial aid to attend.If you can help provide scholarship support for the young artists who make thesefree concerts possible, please contact Juilliard at (212) 799-5000 ext. 278 or seewww.juilliard.edu/giving

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Milton AveryLike Monet and many other individualists,

Milton Avery (1885-1965) began his career in the vanguard, and fi nished closer to the rearguard—not so much because his own work changed, but because the world around him did. While his Matissean color startled his colleagues in the 1930s, today’s gallery-goer may respond more to his stead-fastness and gentle humor. And yet, as DC Moore’s overview of his last four decades demonstrates, his lifework is sparked by continuous vigor and variety.

The earliest of these nearly two dozen paint-ings, drawings and watercolors show the artist in rigorous pursuit of a range of styles. A painting of a mother and child (ca. 1935) refl ects, in more restful form, the colors and motifs of Picasso’s Rose Period. An expressionistic portrait of Abraham Walkowitz (1941) carves a likeness out of splashes of off-whites, pinks and blues. But it’s a landscape from ca. 1935—reminiscent of Matisse in its undu-lating textures and simplifi ed colors—that points to the future.

The artist had largely settled into his mature phase by the time he produced “Orange Nude” (1944), a striking canvas in which acid skin tones, enormous thighs and tiny, blank face banish every conventional notion of the beautiful. Looping con-tours, however, locate all these elements with utter conviction. The image is genuinely affectionate, if unfl attering.

For me, the stylizations of Avery’s later work sometimes seem mannered: a quirk that gradually became a habit. But even the latest works at DC Moore show some wondrously deft observations. In the pencil drawing “Sally on the Jetty” (1957), for instance, tones shift tellingly from the fi gure’s broad, deeply shadowed back to the sunlit rock be-neath—a rock rendered as bare paper, yet somehow maintaining its massive weight. In a moment the viewer discovers a bare foot (improbably close to an elbow), a distant, angling boat and a buoy on the horizon—each a precise note beneath a sky cap-tured with a few mere wisps of clouds. One senses an extraordinary wholeness and the artist meander-ing, happily but incisively, towards it.Milton Avery, at DC Moore Gallery, through Oct. 3. 724 5th Ave. (betw. W. 56th & W. 57th Sts.), 212-247-2111.

Elmer Bischoff: Figurative Drawings from the 1960s

Though one of the leading Bay Area Figurative Painters, Elmer Bischoff (1916-1991) has sometimes

been overshadowed by his colleagues David Park and Richard Diebenkorn. Currently hanging in George Adams’ drawing gallery, a small but choice selection of his works on paper reminds us he was second to none as a draftsman.

Four drawings executed in charcoal (sometimes in combination with ink) all date from 1960-65, a period during which Bischoff, Park and Diebenkorn regularly met to draw from the fi gure. Bischoff’s technique isn’t particularly facile—his utilitarian attack is less graceful than Diebenkorn’s—but what he builds from ink and charcoal is often remarkable. Ranging from dense contrasts to delicate shadings, his tones impart weight to the illumination of the events before him: to a model settling into a chair, or propped on her elbows or standing, pillar-like, next to a mirror. In one drawing from 1964, the model palpably absorbs light as she sinks against the opposing diagonal of a couch. A harsh shadow empathetically fi xes the attitude of the head, while close by her hand emerges into the light, a knot of brightness among shadows. Not often is such acumen brought to the unadorned. The process is all the more poignant for its lack of decorum—for Bischoff’s business-like technique, and the model’s squinting boredom amidst so many studio props.

The installation also includes a work in watercolor and gouache (ca. 1960) that brings the warmth of color to the rendering of light. Here, the pale pinks and yellows of skin tones contrast seductively with background blues. I found myself returning, however, to the drawings, which, confi ned to leaner means, felt more urgent in their descriptions. Sometimes limita-tions can be liberating. (JG)Elmer Bischoff, at George Adams Gallery, through Oct. 31. 525 W. 26th St (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-564-8480.

Gabriel Phipps: TectonicsPainters as varied as Mondrian, Klee and Sean

Scully have probed the possibilities of a particular idiom: grids of colored rectangles. In his fi rst, prom-ising exhibition at Howard Scott, the 39-year-old Gabriel Phipps proves that it still has much to offer.

At a glance, his 11 canvases emit an amiable funkiness, their slightly rounded rectangles sug-gesting irregularly stacked blocks. Their somewhat scruffy pinks, blues and grays recall the faux-clum-siness of late Guston, though Phipp’s surfaces are more self-conscious, with strategic streakings and scrapings of paint. Indeed, the funky style belies a certain savviness, because the rectangles hum with implications of volume, depth and fi gure/ground relationships. Their rhythms can be quite compel-ling, with sequences persuasively fi lling the larger, six-foot-wide canvases, and imparting density to smaller ones.

The artist’s curiosity manifests itself in constant, subtle aberrations. In “Landscape Blue III” (2009), hints of perspective lines and a ground plane stir up physical sensations of depth. The circulation in “Red, White, Black and Blue” (2007) pauses at one point for a strange,

Milton Avery, ‘Three Figures on a Rock,’ 1944. Oil on canvas board. 23 x 18 inches

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Realism and Almost Realism PART 2

Thru September 29th, 2009

American Abstractions PART 2

1950’s - PresentOctober 1 - 29, 2009

KATHARINA RICH PERLOW GALLERYThe Fuller Bldg., 41 E 57th St, 13th Fl, New York, NY 10022

Ph 212/644-7171 / Fx 212/644-2519 / [email protected]

James BidermanLaurie Fendrich

Julie GrossBen La RoccoGary Petersen

Kazimira RachfalJennifer Riley

Yvonne ThomasKim Uchiyama

Stephen WestfallThornton Willis

Kevin Wixted

COLOR - TIME - SPACECURATED BY: JOANNE FREEMAN & KIM UCHIYAMA

Lohin Geduld in conjunction with Janet Kurnatowski present:

LOHIN • GEDULD • GALLERY531 West 25th St • New York, NY 10001

212.675.2656 • LohinGeduld.comHours: Tue - Sat 10:30 am - 6 pmthrough October 10th, 2009

JANET KURNATOWSKI205 Norman Ave • Brooklyn, NY 11222

718.383.9380 • JanetKurnatowskiGallery.comHours: Fri - Sat 1 - 7 pm & Sun 12 - 6 pm

through October 11th, 2009

NABI GALLERY137 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001

212 929 6063 | www.nabigallery.comAnne Seelbach, Horseshoe Crabs, 2007

WATER AND SKYRalph Carpentier,

Anne Seelbach, and Susan Sugar

Through October 17

GalleryBEAT


H-shaped congealing of rectangles. In the blue depths of “Gun Slinger” (2009), the rectangles become a kind of cheery shrapnel, enclosing the viewer like a giant snow globe. The blending mauve-gray planes of “Atlas” (2005), on the other hand, present an impenetrably thick space.

Particularly effective are a pair of paintings suggesting frontal views of C-clamps. Cartoonish in aspect, they nevertheless unfold with the grav-ity of portraits; “Cutback II” (2009) resolves in the final, single block of red that could be either a head or a cap. Phipp’s goofy subject matter brings nothing new to Chelsea, but his inten-tions refresh. To a gratifying extent, he manipu-lates formal elements instead of the audience. It turns out that when his paintings speak, we’re intrigued to listen.Gabriel Phipps: Tectonics at Howard Scott Gallery, through Oct. 3. 529 W. 20th St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 646-486-7004.

Yigal Ozeri: Desire for AnimaSomething about redheads is uncomfortably

vulgar. They seem somehow exposed even before getting naked. Yigal Ozeri takes his fascination with young, nubile women with red locks to the

extreme in his photo-realistic oil paintings that harken back to Pre-Raphaelite eroticism. His tiny brushstrokes are all but invisible, but the extreme dedication and attention paid by Ozeri to their most intimate areas as the young, ostensibly inno-cent women frolic and prance, childlike through weeds and meadows mutates into a disturbing message about male desire.

The fact that he has turned his own gaze back at the viewer—many of the women seem to challenge or mock while otherwise unhindered by worldly wants—seems to be a sort of apology for such obvious lust for these ladies. Ozeri’s process is so painstaking (he says he uses a photo crew to record his subjects before using that documentation while painting) that it verges on the exploitative. Why redheads—skin translucent, hair ablaze—have such a power on the Israeli artist, why he sees them as the essential woman, is probably more complicated than even his shrink could suss out. The fact that a middle-aged man would steeped in a photo-realistic style should lavish such attention on young women, however, may be a lesson in male eroticism that almost seems redundant in our hi-def TV times. (Jackie Benjamin)Yigal Ozeri, Despire for Anima at Mike Weiss Gal-lery, through Oct. 24. 520 W. 24th St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-691-6899.

Elliott Green: Personifi ed Abstraction The colorful blobs and shapes in New York

artist Elliott Green’s current crop of paintings are re-assuring in the almost retro feel: biomorphic shapes in bright, happy greens, pinks and blues make us think of lava lamps and a bath of innocuous alien fl uids. Imagine if Francis Bacon’s nightmarish fi gures never occurred, instead they got really trippy and decided to chill out and let go of all metaphoric possibilities. Perhaps, it’s the natural progression; Green grew tired of viewers telling him what his paintings reminded them of, so he took out the pos-sibility of any sort of facial resemblances or potential references. With titles like “When Flesh Meets Mist” and “Lemmonny Soap, ” it may be a sur-realistic jab at the psyche meant to leave us a little unbalanced. The tacit implication that he is trying to squirm away from responsibility in playful bursts of creativity is too bad: Green remains a talented painter, he simply needs to fi nd a subject that truly inspires. (JB)Elliott Green: Personifi ed Abstraction at D’Amelio Terras, through Oct. 31. 525 W. 22nd St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-352-9460.

Gabriel Phipps, ‘Landscape Blue II’

Courtesy H

oward Scott G

allery

Yigal Ozeri’s ‘Untitled; Jessica in the park’

DutchNew YorkBetweenEast andWest:TheWorld of MargrietavanVarick

Euphrosynias Ulpias.Terrestrial globe, 1542. Copper, wood.New-York Historical Society.Gift of John David Wolfe.

Gallery Information212 501 3023

18 West 86th StreetNew York, NY 10024W bgc.bard.edu


Below the SurfaceChallenging you to understand and appreciate the decorative arts

BY BRICE BROWNHave you ever swooned over the delicate

handle on a French 18th-century teacup? Been stupefi ed by the colorful, highly precise detail of Qing Dynasty enamels? Found yourself more focused on the ornately carved poly-chrome cherubs of a 17th-century Spanish frame than on the picture inside it? Or, does the very mention of decorative arts or antiques cause you to squirm, recalling fusty memories of grandparent’s off-limits china cabinet? Do objects like the ones mentioned above even ap-pear anywhere in your mental art-rolodex? You might just regard these pieces as trapped in history’s amber and irrelevant to any contem-porary art dialogue (you’d be wrong, though).

My guess is most readers will fall somewhere in the middle: While not outright dismissive—of course, appreciating a certain quality of craftsmanship—they are nonetheless not convinced these objects have the visual power and historical importance of, say, a de Kooning painting.

Some semantic clarifi cation is in order here. The term decora-tive art, though curious-ly pejorative sounding, is a more accurate descriptor for objects—both new and old—that are not paintings or sculptures but contain a high level of design. The word “antiques,” though more commonly used, is actually too generic and refers primarily to an object’s age, not artistic quality. A Mason jar can be an antique.

I’ll admit my fi rst introduction to the decorative arts was met with a wary eye, as I considered most of these objects as pretty things, but bearing no infl uence on my ideas about the visual arts. It took a lot of time and convincing for me to broaden my aesthetic parameters, which, though not suffering from a lack of curiosity, were fi rmly and exclusively grounded in all things modern and contempo-rary. But once I gave myself over to the deep, unexpected visual surprises of these works, I quickly realized two things.

First, decorative arts objects are not ossifi ed relics, but fl uid historical markers steeped in the time and place of their making. When you look at Josef Hoffmann’s stark yet graceful reduction of all form to the square, you are witnessing a society’s attempt to shed it’s past –– barnacled with decorative fl ourish –– and move into abstraction’s promise of a modern utopian soci-ety. Appreciating Hoffmann’s furniture, tabletop

items and architecture also helps fl esh out the larger art historical timeline, making it very clear Mondrian’s march toward the grid did not arrive out of a vacuum.

I also realized that, although I looked at a lot of art, very little seeing was taking place––and this is a subtle, yet crucial, distinction. You can look at something for surface decoration or formal qualities, or simply because it pleases your eye. If you are looking at something, pre-sumably you want to know more about it, but at what point does looking become seeing? Seeing is active, investigative, engaging with an object and not simply gathering visual data. Looking at an object is easy; seeing it is work.

So, all this to say, I am throwing down the gauntlet with this new monthly

column, challeng-ing you to look with fresh eyes at the

decora-tive arts. It’s

my hope that two things will

happen: any stigma of these works as dead,

old, stale or irrelevant will be removed and these works’ important relation-ship to modern and contemporary art will be ferreted out. A cursory glance at the fall season’s upcoming exhibitions promises a varied and exciting range, and shows to look for on the near horizon include Il Mobile Italiano, which opened Sept. 10 at Sebastian + Barquet; Exu-berant Grotesques: Renaissance Maiolica from the Fontana Workshop, opening Sept. 15 at The Frick; Imperial Privilege: Vienna Porcelain of Du Paquier, 1718-44, opening Sept. 22 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Serizawa: Master of Japanese Textile Design, opening Oct. 9 at the Japan Society.

And lots of non-musuem events are also gearing up––such as The Modern Show, AVENUE Antiques & Art at the Armory, The International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show and The Winter Antique Show, as well as the city-wide Asia Art Week––providing even more venues for viewing high-quality decorative arts, often showcasing pieces shuffl ing off into pri-vate collections never be shown publicly again. So saddle up, we’re going for the long ride.

DecorativeARTS

A piece of Maiolica from the Frick

Collection exhibit.

AVENUE ShowsAntiques & Art at the Armory

THE PARK AVENUE ARMORY643 PARK AVENUE,NYC

December 3-6, 2009

For show information please visit:

www.avenueshows.com or call 646.442.1627

An English George III Perfume Neccessaire, Circa 1765The Antique Enamel Company

Defi ned by Quality & Design

LIMITED EXHIBITOR SPACE AVAILABLE:please call 212.284.9728 for details.


GALLERIES106 GREEN: Whitey On The Moon. Through Oct.

11, 106 Green St., Brooklyn, www.106green.blogspot.com.

ACA GALLERIES: New York: Then and Now. Through Oct. 10. Susan Malloy: Visions of New York. Through Oct. 10, 529 W. 20th St., 212-206-8080.

A.M. RICHARD FINE ART: Derek Stroup, Station Pieces. Through Oct. 11, 328 Berry St., 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, 917-570-1476.

AMADOR GALLERY: Keizo Kitajima, The Joy of Por-traits. Through Nov. 7, 41 E. 57 St., 6th Floor, 212-759-6740.

ANNAKUSTERA: Orit Ben-Shitrit, Aleksandar Du-ravcevic, Dejan Kaludjerovic. Through Oct. 17, 520 W. 21st St., 212-989-0082.

ARARIO GALLERY: Osang Gwon, Deodorant Type. Through Oct. 24, 521 W. 25th St., 212-206-2760.

ATLANTIC GALLERY: Peggy Fox Retrospective. Through Oct. 3. Pamela Talese: Rust Never Sleeps. Opens Oct 6, 135 W. 29th St., 212-219-3183.

BERNARD GOLDBERG FINE ARTS: Gallery Selections. Through Sept. 31, 667 Madison Ave., 212- 813-9797.

BLUE MOUNTAIN GALLERY: Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh, Arctic Ice Melt: Moulins Of My Mind. Through Oct. 3, 530 W. 25th St., 646-486-4730.

BOWERY GALLERY: Anne Delaney. Through Oct. 3, 530 W. 25th St., 646-230-6655.

CANADA GALLERY: Spaced Out / On Time. Through Oct. 11, 55 Chrystie St., 212-925-4631.

CAVIN-MORRIS GALLERY: Essentially Us. Through Oct. 17, 210 11th Ave., 212-226-6768.

CLAIRE OLIVER GALLERY: Nezaket Ekici: Kopfsonate. Through Oct. 10, 513 W. 26th St., 212-929-5949.

CUBAN ART SPACE: Montebravo, Carnaval!. Through Oct. 24, 231 W. 29th St. , #401, 212-242-0559.

CULTURAL SERVICES OF THE FRENCH EMBASSY: In-Eyes, Works by Juliette Binoche. Through Oct. 9, 972 Fifth Ave., 212-439-1469.

CUNY GRADUATE CENTER: Silent Pictures. Through Oct. 11, 365 5th Ave., 212-817-8157.

DCKT CONTEMPORARY: Josh Azzarella, Untitled #100 (Fantasia). Through Oct. 11, 195 Bowery, 212-741-9955.

DEITCH PROJECTS (18 WOOSTER ST): Tara Auerbach, Here and Now / And Nowhere. Through Oct. 17, 18 Wooster St., 212-343-7300.

DORFMAN PROJECTS: Ray Smith, Exquisite Corpse 2009. Through Oct. 17, 529 W. 20th St., 7th Floor, 212-352 -2272.

E-FLUX: If You Lived Here Still…. Through Oct. 31, 41 Essex St., 212-619-3356.

ENGLISH KILLS ART GALLERY: The Gnastic Pursuit. Through Oct. 11, 114 Forrest St., ground fl oor, Brooklyn, 718-366-7323.

FIGUREWORKS: Cult of Michael Jackson. Through Oct. 31, 168 N. 6th St., Brooklyn, 718-486-7021.

FIVEMYLES: Fortune Tellers. Through Oct. 18, 558 St. Johns Pl., Brooklyn, 718-783-4438.

FOXY PRODUCTION: Abstract Abstract. Through Oct. 10, 623 W. 27th St., ground fl oor, 212-239-2758.

FRANKLIN 54 GALLERY & PROJECTS: Laura Duggan: Faces & Figures. Through Sept. 26, 526 W. 26th St. 917-821-0753.

FREDERIEKE TAYLOR GALLERY: Federico Diaz, Adhesion. Through Oct. 17, 535 W. 22nd St., 6th Floor, 646-230-0992.

FRONT ROOM GALLERY: Stephen Mallon, Brace For Im-

pact: the aftermath of fl ight 1549. Through Oct. 11, 147 Roebling St., Brooklyn, 718-782-2556.

GALLERY CANTELMO: Kiyoshi Niiyama, The Pearlette Age. Through Oct. 9, 55 W. 39th St., Suite 204, 212-244-4600.

GALLERY HANAHOU: Tina Berning, The Passengers. Through Oct. 9, 611 Broadway, Suite 730, 646-486-6586.

GEORGE BILLIS GALLERY: Alejandro Mazon. Through Oct. 31, 531 W. 25th St., 212-645-2621.

GOFF + ROSENTHAL: Type A, Ruled. Through Oct. 17, 537 W. 23rd St., 212-675-0461.

HARRIS LIEBERMAN GALLERY: Lisa Oppenheim. Through Oct. 10, 89 Vandam St., 212-206-1290.

HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT, ABRONS ARTS CENTER: Jayson Keeling, Behind the Green Door. Through Oct. 24, 466 Grand St., 212-598-0400, ext. 202.

INVISIBLE-EXPORTS: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, 30 Years of Being Cut Up. Through Oct. 18, 14A Orchard St., 212-226-5447.

JACK THE PELICAN PRESENTS: Andrew Erdos & Carol Kane. Through Oct. 11, 487 Driggs Ave., Brook-lyn, 718-782-0183.

KATHARINA RICH PERLOW GALLERY: Realism and Almost Realism Part 2. Through Sept. 29. American Abstractions Part 2. Opens Oct. 1, 41 E. 57th St., 212-644-7171.

KATE WERBLE GALLERY: Seven in One! Seven in One-Third!! Through Oct. 10, 83 Vandam St., 212-352-9700.

KATHRYN MARKEL FINE ARTS: Trine Bumiller: New Work—Half Light. Through Oct. 10, 529 W. 20th St., 212-366-5368.

KENTLER INTERNATIONAL DRAWING CENTER: Re-inventing Silverpoint: An Ancient Technique for the 21st Century. Through Oct. 18, 353 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn, 718-875-2098.

KLAUS VON NICHTSSAGEND GALLERY: David Gilbert, Ian Pedigo, Jessica Stockholder. Through Oct. 11, 438 Union Ave., Brooklyn, 718-383-7309.

KLOMPCHING GALLERY: Simon Roberts’, We Eng-lish. Through Oct. 23, 111 Front St., Suite 206, Brooklyn, 212-796-2070.

LAST RITES GALLERY: Scott G. Brooks & Jeff McMil-lan. Through Oct. 11, 511 W. 33rd St., 3rd fl oor, 212-529-0666.

ArtsAGENDAGallery listings courtesy of

www.bargemusic.org • 718.624.2083 • Fulton Ferry Landing

BARGEMUSIC“the perfect chamber music hall” –Allan Kozinn,

The New York Times

PRESENTSSome Highlightsof This Fall SeasonPlease see our calendar online for details

[With] a small stage and stunning views of the lower Manhattan skyline, a nightat this venue is quite unlike listening

to chamber music in any other setting.”

- Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor Mayoral Proclamation

April 2, 2009

“One of our city’s greatest cultural institutions.

don’

t miss

:

JAZZthursdays 8pm

Beethoven String Quartets 1-6, Op. 18 & All 32 Sonatas for Piano Solo.Trios by Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn,Schubert, Shostakovich and more.Bach French & English Suites, ChopinPiano Concerto No. 1, Brahms ClarinetQuintet, Dvo ák Dumky Trio & Quintetsby Mendelssohn & Shostakovich.Plus presentations of groundbreaking newworks as part of our critically acclaimed“Here and Now” Series.

A.I.R. GALLERYAMOS ENO GALLERYASWOON GALLERYBOSE PACIABROOKLYN ART PROJECTBROOKLYN ARTS COUNCILCAPTION GALLERYCENTRAL BOOKINGDUMBO ARTS CENTERFARMANI GALLERY

GALAPAGOS ART SPACEGIACOBETTI-PAUL GALLERYHENRY GREGG GALLERY KLOMPCHING GALLERYKRIS GRAVES PROJECTSMAGASIN TOTALEMELVILLE HOUSEPOSSIBLE PROJECTSPOWERHOUSE ARENARABBITHOLE STUDIO

RANDALL SCOTT GALLERYREBARSMACK MELLON SPEAK LOWVII PHOTOSPRINGUMBRAGE GALLERYUNDERWATER LOUNGEWATERMILL BROOKLYN GALLERY

PARTICIPANTS CHECK INDIVIDUAL WEBSITES FOR UP-TO-DATE INFO

Sponsored by

TWOTREES

THIS SEASON’S FREE GALLERY WALKS INCLUDE:

SEPT. 10 OCT. 1 NOV. 5 DEC. 3 JAN. 7 FEB. 4 MAR. 4 APR. 1 MAY 6 JUNE 3

Subway Directions: F to York St.A C to High St.2 3 to Clark St.

@[email protected]

Brooklyn’s artsy, waterfront neighborhood keeps its doors open late for evenings of gallery exhibits, performances, screenings, curatorial discussions, artist talks & drink specials starting at 5:30pm.


LESLEY HELLER GALLERY: Lothar Osterburg. Through Oct. 17. Sara Sosnowy. Through Oct. 17, 16 E. 77th St., 212-410-6120.

LESLIE TONKONOW ARTWORKS + PROJECTS: Tracey Ba-ran, Pictures of Tracey. Through Oct. 17, 535 W. 22nd St., 6th fl oor, 212-255-8450.

LESLIE/LOHMAN GALLERY: San Francisco: The Making of a Queer Mecca. Through Oct. 23, 26 Wooster St., 212-431-2609.

LIKE THE SPICE: Eric LoPresti, Fade. Through Oct. 11, 224 Roebling St., Brooklyn, 718-388-5388.

LOCATION ONE: Virtual Residency Project 2.0: Levels of Undo. Through Oct. 31, 26 Greene St., 212-334-3347.

LOHIN GEDULD GALLERY: Color Time Space, a group exhibition. Through Oct. 10, 531 W. 25th St., 212-675-2656.

LUHRING AUGUSTINE GALLERY: Janine Antoni, Up Against. Through Oct. 24, 531 W. 24th St., 212-206-9100.

MACCARONE GALLERY: Wood. Through Oct. 24, 630 Greenwich St., 212-431-4977.

MARIAN SPORE: Untitled (fault). Through Dec. 31, 55 33rd St., Brooklyn, 646-620-7758.

MARIANNE BOESKY GALLERY: Anthony Pearson. Through Oct. 10, 509 W. 24th St., 212-680-9889.

MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY: Vincent Fecteau. Through Oct. 24, 523 W. 24th St., 212-243-0200.

MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY: Rebecca Warren, Feelings.

Through Oct. 24, 522 W. 22nd St., 212-243-0200.

MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY: Peter Hujar, Photographs 1956-1958. Through Oct. 24, 526 W. 22nd St., 212-243-0200.

MIKE WEISS GALLERY: Yigal Ozeri, “Desire for Anima.” Through Oct. 24, 520 W. 24th St., 212-691-6899.

MITCHELL-INNES & NASH: Enoc Perez, New Paintings of Architectural Landmarks. Through Oct. 10, 534 W. 26th St., Chelsea, 212-744-7400.

MORGAN LEHMAN GALLERY: Alix Smith, States of Union. Through Oct. 10, 317 10th Ave., 212-268-6699.

NABI GALLERY: Water and Sky: Paintings by Ralph Carpentier, Anne Seelbach, and Susan Sugar. Through Oct. 17, 137 W. 25th St., 212-929-6063.

NICOLE KLAGSBRUN GALLERY: Brendan Fowler, James Hyde, and Jacob Kassay. Through Oct. 31, 526 W. 26th St., 212-243-3335.

NOHO GALLERY: Tina Rohrer: Colored Squared III. Through Oct. 3, 530 W. 25th St., 212-367-7063.

NURTUREART: PLAN B. Through Oct. 24, 910 Grand St., Brooklyn, 718-782-7755.

PARTICIPANT INC.: My Barbarian, The Night Epi$ode. Through Oct. 18, 253 E. Houston St., 212-254-4334.

PIEROGI 2000: Jane Fine, Glad All Over. Through Oct. 11, 177 N. 9th St., Brooklyn, 718-599-2144.

POSTMASTERS GALLERY: Anthony Goicolea. Through Oct. 17, 459 W. 19th St., 212-727-3323.

PRAXIS: Open Secrets, Recent Photographs by Luis Mallo. Through Oct. 10, 25 E. 73rd St., 212-772-9478.

PRINCE STREET GALLERY: David K. Gordon: Recent Paintings, Pastels, Prints. Through Oct. 3, 530 W. 25th St., 646-230-0246.

PRISKA C. JUSCHKA FINE ART: Jade Townsend: Sick, Sick Wind. Through Oct. 17, 547 W. 27th St., 212-244-4320.

RAANDESK GALLERY OF ART: Unsettled Beauty: New Paintings by Jeff Huntington. Through Oct. 30, 16 W. 23rd St., 212.696.7432.

RANDALL SCOTT GALLERY : David DiMichele, Pseudod-ocumentation; Chris Anthony, Stages; Lara Jo Regan, Project Room. Through Oct. 17, 111 Front St., Brooklyn, 202.332.0806.

RENWICK GALLERY: Talia Chetrit, Reading. Through Oct. 17, 45 Renwick St., 212-609-3535.

RONALD FELDMAN FINE ARTS: Allan Wexler, Overlook. Through Oct. 24, 31 Mercer St., 212-226-3232.

SALON 94 FREEMANS: Carter – And Within Area Although. Through Oct. 24, 1 Freeman Alley, 646-672-9212.

SCARAMOUCHE: Jonathan VanDyke, The Hole in the Palm of Your Hand. Through Nov. 1, 53 Stanton St., 212-228-2229.

SCHROEDER ROMERO: Play It Forward. Through Oct. 24, 637 W. 27th St., 212-630-0722.

Daniel Gordon’s “Nude Portrait,” in MoMA’s New Photography 2009, opening Sept. 30.

ArtsAGENDA

Image courtesy of the artist

Zaha Hadid Complete Works by Zaha Hadid

Taking a break from current commissions—including an aquatics center for the 2012 London Olympics—Iraqi-born Hadid

uses this book, with over 500 illustrations, to catalogue her architectural designs, including the Vitra Fire Station in Weil am Rhein, Germany, as well as furniture, interiors, sculptures and objects including bowls and jewelry. Hadid, so far the only female winner of the Pritzker Archi-tecture Prize, selected the work for the book. The introduction to the 256-page survey was written by Aaron Betsky, director of the Cincinnati Art Museum—not the Contemporary Art Center, for which Hadid designed a building in 1998.

Governors Island, the Jewel of New York Harborby Ann J. ButtenweiserThis may be the year of Nutten Island, as Gover-nors Island was once known, with all the atten-tion and love that has been showered on the little land mass located just beyond Wall Street. You won’t know the full story, however, without this compendium of maps, plans, photographs and anecdotes. The beautiful, full-color book weaves together the history of the island with items, such as quirky postcards and obscure blueprints. As the city continues to decide what to do with its strange parcel of land, this book will be an essential guide to its continued evolution in the minds of New Yorkers.

John Cage: Zen Ox-Herding Pictures by Stephen Addiss and Ray KassFifty watercolor images by artist and composer Cage will be published for the fi rst time in this attractive book. Paired with lines of Cage’s poetry and examining the infl uence of Zen Bud-dhism in his life, these works were created in 1988 and archived by Kass, who ran the workshop in which they were made. Ox-herding is a traditional focus of Buddhist art, and while Cage’s work is nothing if not abstract—no oxen to be seen here, folks—the way Addiss and Kass pair it with his words makes for a calming and rewarding experience.

Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outwardby Richard ClearyThe Guggenheim museum celebrated the 50th anniversary of its iconic New York building this year by mounting an impressive exhibition of its architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. This book collects the drawings, plans, photographs and models of more than 200 projects by America’s most well-known pioneer in form and function. While it may not be a defi nitive edition (don’t expect to fi nd the beloved Falling Water or other well-traveled accomplishments), it does include many less-known works that were never realized, such as the plans for the redevelopment of Baghdad, Iraq. It also includes writings by Wright scholars and serves as a re-evaluation of his contributions to architecture and the built world.

SEPTEMBER BOOKS


SIMON PRESTON GALLERY: Caragh Thuring, Assembly. Through Nov. 1, 301 Broome St., 212-431-1105.

SLOAN FINE ART: Eric White, LP. Through Oct. 10, 128 Rivington St., 212-477-1140.

SPUTNIK GALLERY: Alexey Salmanov, Dance | Trash | Glamour. Through Oct. 10, 547 W. 27th, 212-695-5747.

SUE SCOTT GALLERY: Franklin Evans: 2008/2009 < 2009/2010. Through Oct. 24, 1 Rivington St., 212-358-8767.

THE ERNEST RUBINSTEIN GALLERY AT THE EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE: The Better Half. Through Oct. 29, 197 E. Broadway, 212-780-2300.

THE JOURNAL GALLERY: Ida Ekblad. Through Oct. 25, 168 N. 1st St., Brooklyn, 718-218-7148.

THE KITCHEN: One Minute More: Kate Gilmore, Jamie Isenstein, Oliver Lutz, Clifford Owens, Georgia Sagri, Aki Sasamoto and Josh Tonsfeldt. Through Oct. 31, 512 W. 19th St., 212-255-5793.

TRACY WILLIAMS, LTD.: Jennifer Nocon, Bloodsucker. Through Oct. 31, 313 W. 4th St., 212-229-2757.

UBS ART GALLERY: Jack Tworkov, Against Extremes – Five Decades of Painting. Through Oct. 27, 1285 6th Ave., 212-713-2885.

VON LINTEL GALLERY: Joseph Stashkevetch, Hudson Sketches. Trough Oct. 10, 520 W. 23rd St., 212-242-0599.

WHITE COLUMNS: Registered – Elena Bajo, Margarida Correia, Gregg Evans, Claudia Weber. Through Oct. 24, 320 W. 13th St., 212-924-4212.

WINKLEMAN GALLERY: Andy Yoder Man Cave. Through Oct. 24, 637 W. 27th St., 212-643-3152.

AUCTION HOUSESCHRISTIE’S: Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art.

Sept. 14 & 15, 4. American Paintings. Sept. 29, 10 a.m. 20 Rockefeller Plz., 212-636-2000.

DOYLE NEW YORK: Doyle at Home. Sept. 16, 10 a.m. 19th and 20th Century Decorative Arts. Sept. 23, 10 a.m. The Estate of Beverly Sills. Oct. 7, 10 a.m. 175 E. 87th St., 212-427-2730.

SOTHEBY’S: South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art. Sept. 17, 10 a.m. Contemporary Art. Sept. 24, 10 a.m. American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture. Sept. 30, 10 a.m. 1334 York Ave., 212-606-7414.

SWANN AUCTION GALLERIES: Printed & Manuscript Americana. Sept. 17, 1:30. 19th & 20th Century Prints and Drawings. Sept. 24, 10:30 a.m. and 2:30. African-American Fine Art. Oct. 1, 6. 104 E. 25th St., 212-254-4710.

ART EVENTSAVENUE ANTIQUES & ART AT THE ARMORY: Antiques and

art for sale from dozens of well known deal-ers and galleries. Opening night is a benefi t for American Cancer Society. Dec. 3 through 6, Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Ave., 646-442-1626; times vary, $20, benefi t tickets are $150 and up.

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: The cutting edge festival enters its 27th season with a line-up of con-temporary performance, artist talks, literature, fi lm and visual art, including contributions from Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Juliette Binoche and more. Sept. 15 through Dec. 18, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, 718-636-4100.

THE KITCHEN BLOCK PARTY: A family-friendly street fes-tival featuring dozens of artist-led activity booths, workshops, and live performances. Sept. 26, West 19th Street between 10th & 11th Avenues; noon to 5, FREE.

MUSEUMSABC NO RIO: Hanging Out at ABC No Rio. Opens

Sept. 25, 156 Rivington St., 212-254-3697. BARD GRADUATE CENTER: Dutch New York Between

East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick. Opens Sept. 18, 18 W. 86th St., 212-501-3023.

BROOKLYN HISTORICAL SOCIETY: Living and Learning: Pages of the Past: The Breukelen Adventures of Jasper Danckaerts. Through Jan. 2010, Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, 718-222-4111.

BRONX MUSEUM: Intersections: The Grand Concourse Commissions. Through Jan. 2010, 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, 718-681-6000.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM: Yinka Shonibare MBE. Through Sept. 20, 200 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn, 718-638-5000.

CHELSEA ART MUSEUM: Carlo Zanni: Flying False Colors. Opens Oct. 1, 556 W. 22nd St., 212-255-0719.

COOPER-HEWITT NATIONAL DESIGN MUSEUM: Design for a Living World. Ten designers found eco-friendly materials to explore design and the environment. Through Jan. 2010, 2 E. 91st St., 212-849-8400.

THE FRICK COLLECTION: Exuberant Grotesques: Re-naissance Maiolica from the Fontana Workshop. Opens Sept. 15, 1 E. 70th St., 212-288-0700.

JEWISH MUSEUM: Reinventing Ritual: Contempo-rary Art and Design for Jewish Life, explores the many new Jewish rituals since the mid-1990s. Rite Now: Sacred and Secular in Video. Through Feb. 7, 1109 5th Ave., 212-423-3200.

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: Roxy Paine on the Roof: A 130-foot long, 45-foot wide metal sculp-ture displayed on the Met’s rooftop. Through Oct. 25. Surface Tension: Contemporary Photo-graphs from the Collection. Opens Sept.15, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710.

THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM: New at the Morgan: Acquisitions Since 2004. Over 100 works includ-ing drawings, texts, manuscripts and rare printed books and bindings. Through Oct. 18, 225 Madison Ave., 212-685-0008.

MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FINANCE: Woman of Wall Street. Through Jan. 2010, 48 Wall St., 212-908-4110.

MUSEUM OF ART AND DESIGN: Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection. Opens Sept. 30. Slash: Paper Under the Knife. Opens Oct. 7, 2 Columbus Cir., 212-299-7777.

MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE: Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges. Through Jan 4, 36 Battery Pl., 646-437-4200.

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: New Photography 2009: Walead Beshty, Daniel Gordon, Leslie Hewitt, Carter Mull, Sterling Ruby, Sara VanDerBeek. Opens Sept. 30, 11 W. 53rd St., 212-708-9400.

MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK: The Edge of New York: Waterfront Photographs. Through Nov. 29, 1220 5th Ave., 212-534-1672.

NATIONAL ACADEMY MUSEUM: Reconfi guring the Body in American Art, 1820-2009. Through Nov. 15, 5 E. 89th St., 212-996-1908.

NEUE GALERIE: Focus: Oskar Kokoschka: Through oil portraits, drawings and graphic works that were created for the Wiener Werkstätte show Kokoschka’s movement from Jugendstil to Expressionism. Through Oct. 5, 1048 5th Ave., 212-628-6200.

NEW MUSEUM: Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt. Through Oct. 11. Emory Douglas: Black Panther. Dorothy Ion-none: Lioness. Through Oct. 18, 235 Bowery, 212-219-1222.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY: Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609-2009. A celebration of the

“The Easels”Meet the Art/Meet the Artist

Featuring works by AJ Nadel, Curated by Elisa PritzkerGuest Moderator: Dominique Nahas, Independent Curator and Critic

September 24th, 6-8P

FRANKLIN 54 GALLERY + PROJECTS526 West 26th St. #403 | 917-821-0753 | [email protected]

Laura Duggan: Faces & FiguresThrough September 26th

Reception: September 17th, 6-9P

FRANKLIN 54 GALLERY + PROJECTS526 West 26th St. #403 | 917-821-0753 | [email protected]

ERIC SLOANE (1905-1985)

Winter Sun, oil on masonite, 18 x 30 in

GREEN RIVER GALLERYSINCE 1975

SPECIALIZING IN WORKS BY ERIC SLOANE AND AMERICAN ART OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES

1578 Boston Corners Road Millerton, NY 12546

518-789-3311

Open Saturday 10-5, Sunday 12-5, or by appointment

KATHRYN MARKEL FINE ARTS212 366 5368 | markelfinearts.com529 W. 20th St. | Tues-Fri 10-6, Sat 11-6

Trine BumillerNew Work-Half Light

Through October 10

Mnemonic, 2009, Oil on canvas, 5 parts, 54 x 72 inches

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

212-367-7063 www.nohogallery.com

Tina RohrerColor Squared IIIThrough October 3

Colorful, abstract, geometric acrylic paintings and works on paper.

529 W 20th St. 212 206 8080 acagalleries.com

Susan Malloy: Visions of New YorkNew York: Then and NowThrough October 10

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400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival in New York Harbor, featuring maps, atlases, books, journals, broadsides, manuscripts, prints and photographs. Opens Sept. 25, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, 917-275-6975.

NOGUCHI MUSEUM: Noguice ReINstalled. Through Oct. 24, 33rd Road at Vernon Boulevard, Queens, 718-721-2308.

RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART: Mandala: The Perfect Circle. An exploration of Himalayan Buddhism’s ever-present symbols. Through Jan 11. A Collector’s Passion. Work from Dr. David Nalin’s col-lection. Through Nov. 9, 150 W. 17th St., 212-620-5000.

SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK: EAF09: 2009 Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition. Through March 7, 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, Queens, 718-956-1819.

SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM: Intervals: Kandin-sky. The fi rst major American retrospective of the artist’s work since the 1980s. Through Jan. 13, 1071 5th Ave., 212-423-3500.

STUDIO MUSEUM OF HARLEM: Collected. Hurvin Anderson: explores the places that Caribbean im-migrants inhabited in London in the 1950s and ‘60s through rich paintings. Through Oct. 25, 144 W. 125th St., 212-864-4500.

SOUTH STREET SEAPORT MUSEUM: New Amsterdam: The Island at the Center of the World. Through Jan. 2010, 12 Fulton St., 212-748-8651.

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction. Opens Sept. 17. Steve Wolfe on Paper. Opens Sept. 30, 945 Madison Ave., 212-570-3600.

CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERABARGEMUSIC: There and Then: Road from Valencia:

Music and words from the Sephardic journey through Renaissance Europe, featuring The New York Consort of Viols. Sept. 25, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, 718-624-2083; 8, $40.

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC: The New York Philhar-monic’s opening night gala features the world premiere of Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg’s “Expo” conducted by Alan Gilbert, world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming singing Messiaen and Berlioz’s spectacular orchestra showpiece. Sept. 16, Avery Fischer Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-721-6500; 7:30, $71 and up.

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC: Alan Gilbert conducts Mahler’s Third Symphony with mezzo-soprano Petra Lang, the Women of the Westminster Symphonic Choir and The American Boychoir. Sept. 17 through 19, Avery Fischer Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-721-6500; times vary, $34 and up.

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: Opens its 2009-2010 sea-son with Puccini’s Tosca featuring Karita Mattila singing the title role for the fi rst time outside her

native Finland, James Levine conducting and Luc Bondy making his directorial Met debut. Sept. 21, Metropolitan Opera, 212-362-6000, 6:30, $75 and up.

FRANK PETER ZIMMERMANN: Joins the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for an evening featuring Brahms’s Violin Concerto and Schoenberg’s Pel-leas and Melisande. Sept. 24 through 26, Avery Fischer Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-721-6500; times vary, $29 and up.

EMANUEL AX: Performing Beethoven’s Fourth Con-certo with the New York Philharmonic Orches-tra. The night also features Alan Gilbert conduct-ing works by Lindberg and Ives. Sept. 30, Oct. 1 & 3, Avery Fischer Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-721-6500; times vary, $31 and up.

BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: Performing under the direction of James Levine and featuring pianist Evgeny Kissin at the opening night gala of Carn-egie Hall’s 119th season. The program includes the New York premiere of John Williams’ On Willows and Birches with BSO principal harpist Ann Hobson Pilot as featured soloist. Oct. 1, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800, 7, $59 and up, gala tickets $800 and up.

THE NEW YORK POPS: Performing Wayne Brady’s Sammy and Sam: A Tribute to Sammy Davis, Jr. and Sam Cooke featuring guest artist Wayne Brady. Oct. 9, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 8, $33 and up.

PACIFICA QUARTET: Performing works by Mozart, Janacek and Brahms. Oct. 24, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave., 212-570-3949; 7, $45.

JULLIARD BAROQUE: Debuting the Julliard School’s new period-instrument faculty ensemble with an all-Bach concert. Oct. 27, Paul Hall, 155 W. 65th St., 212-769-7406; 8, FREE

TILL FELLNER: Performing Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas. Oct. 30, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave., 212-570-3949; 7, $45.

YALE SCHOOL OF MUSIC: King of Swing: A Festival Celebrating Benny Goodman’s 100th Birthday. Sept. 26, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 7:30, $10 and up.

JAZZERIC ALEXANDER QUARTET: with Mike LeDonne, Nat

Reeves and Kenny Washington playing the music of Johnny Griffi n. Sept. 5, Smoke Jazz & Supper Club-Lounge, 2751 Broadway, 212-864-6662, times vary, $30.

WOMEN IN JAZZ FESTIVAL: The fi fth installment of this festival features the Amina Figarova Quin-tet, Renee Rosnes Quartet, Elana James & The Hot Club of Cowtown, Marian McPartland, Marlena Shaw with Sherrie Maricle & The Diva Jazz Orchestra and more. Sept. 7 through Oct. 5, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, Jazz at Lin-coln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway at W. 60th St., 212-721-6500; times vary, $31 and up.

RENEE ROSNES QUARTET: With Lewis Nash, Peter Washington and Steve Nelson. Sept. 8 through 13, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broad-way at W. 60th St., 212-721-6500; times vary, $30 and up.

MINGUS MONDAYS: The Mingus Big Band carries on the explosive jazz tradition of its namesake, Charles Mingus the great bassist and composer, Sept. 14, Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232; 7:30, $25.

TROMBONE SHORTY & ORLEANS AVENUE: Performing their blend of iconic jazz and high-energy funk rock dur-ing a two-night engagement, Sept. 17 & 18, Sullivan Hall, 214 Sullivan St., 212-505-1703; 8:30, $25.

THE MATT WILSON QUARTET: Featuring Andrew D’Angelo, Jeff Lederer and Chris Lightcap, Sept. 22 & 23, Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232; times vary, $20.

ORNETTE COLEMAN: A night of category-defying music with a man whose explosion on the music scene in 1960 changed the course of jazz. Sept. 26, Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway at W. 60th St., 212-721-6500; 8, $30 and up.

ArtsAGENDA

Lizbeth Mitty’s “El Summertime #1,” part of New York: Then and Now at ACA Galleries.

Courtesy of A

CA

Galleries

ANNE DELANEY Fleeing, Escape 1oil on canvas 36x 30 2009

What Bleeds into the Imagination

Through October 3

BOWERY GALLERY530 West 25 Street 4th Floor

New York, New York 10001(Tel.) 646-230-6655

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11-6

Windy Day Oil On Panel 8x10 inches

JUDITH LAMBERTSONLandscapes en Plein Aire

October 6-October 31, 2009

Opening ReceptionSaturday, October 10, 3-6pm

PRINCE STREET GALLERY530 West 25th Street 4th Floor646-230-0246

www.princestreetgallery.org

Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11-6


THE CECIL MCBEE BAND: The venerable bassist plays his fi rst engagement as a leader in New York City in 30 years featuring Noah Preminger, George Cables and Victor Lewis. Sept. 29 & 30, Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232; times vary, $25.

SMOKIN’ JAZZ SESSIONS: Monty Alexander blends the rhythms of Jamaica with the classic sound of jazz as he takes audiences on a journey from Harlem to Kingston, Oct. 2 & 3, The Allen Room, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broad-way at W. 60th St., 212-721-6500; times vary, $55 and up.

CYRUS CHESTNUT TRIO: Blending styles from folk and pop to Gospel and hip-hop, pianist Cyrus Chestnut returns to Miller Theatre with bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Neal Smith. Oct. 9, Miller Theatre, 2960 Broadway, 212-854-7799; 8, $7 and up.

MARTY EHRLICH RITES QUARTET: Renowned saxo-phonist and clarinetist Ehrlich brings his Rites Quartet to Miller Theatre in celebration of their newest album. Oct. 24, Miller Theatre, 2960 Broadway, 212-854-7799, 8, $7 and up.

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH WYNTON MARSA-LIS: The orchestra will join Marsalis’ quintet with tenor saxophonist Walter Blanding for a special evening featuring tap dancer Jared Grimes. Oct. 29 through 31, Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway at W. 60th St., 212-721-6500; 8, $30 and up.

SINGERS OVER MANHATTAN: Famed jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves featuring guitarist Romero Lubambo. Oct. 30 & 31, The Allen Room, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway at W. 60th St., 212-721-6500; times vary, $55 and up.

THEATERAFTERMATH: Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, cre-

ators of The Exonerated, present a play based on interviews with Iraqis. Through Oct. 4, New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4th St., 212-239-6200.

AFTER MISS JULIE: A modern interpretation of August Strindberg’s classic. Instead of 1888 Sweden, this version is set in 1945 England, on the night Win-ston Churchill lost the general election. Through Dec. 6, American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., 212-719-1300.

BLIND LEMON BLUES: Set during Leadbelly’s last re-cording session, this play features blues, gospel, soul and rap. Through Oct. 4, Theatre at Saint Peters, 619 Lexington Ave., 212-935-5820.

HAIR: The American Tribal Love Rock Musi-cal: Those who danced along with the cast at Summerstage can relive the experience with Gavin Creel as the new face of Claude, and Will Swenson reprising his role as Berger. Open run, Al Hirschfeld Theater, 302 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200.

KEEP YOUR PANTHEON / SCHOOL: A double bill of David Mamet. In Pantheon, an ancient Roman acting troupe grabs at the chance to make it big, but fi nds itself getting deeper into trouble. In School, we learn how to recycle, David Mamet style. Through Nov. 1, The Atlantic Theatre Company, 336 W. 20th St., 212-279-4200.

LET ME DOWN EASY: From legendary performer Anna Deavere Smith, this play addresses health care and the human body, featuring text from inter-views with Lance Armstrong, Anderson Cooper and Ann Richards. Through Nov. 8, Second Stage Theatre, 307 W. 43rd St., 212-246-4422.

LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE: Nora Ephron and her sister Delia adapt Ilene Beckerman’s popular book of the same title. Through Dec. 13, West-side Theatre, 407 W. 43rd St., 212-239-6200.

NEW VICTORY SCOTTISH FESTIVAL: A seven-week theater festival featuring work from four of Scotland’s leading theater companies. Through Nov. 1, New Victory Theater, 209 W. 42nd St., 646-223-3010.

OLEANNA: The David Mamet classic about the rela-tionship between a male professor and his female student. Opens Oct. 11, John Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200.

OOHRAH!: The Off-Broadway debut from Ars Nova resident playwright Bekah Brunstetter offers a fresh look at what happens when soldiers return from war. Through Sept. 27, The Atlantic Theater Company, 336 W. 20th St., 212-279-4200.

OTHELLO: Peter Sellars directs this Shakespeare tragedy about jealousy. Starring John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Through Oct. 4, NYU Skirball Center, 566 LaGuardia Pl., 212-539-8900.

THE ORPHANS’ HOME CYCLE, PART 1: The plays in this cycle by legendary playwright Horton Foote are “Roots in a Parched Ground,” “Convicts” and “Lily Dale.” Through Mar. 6, The Peter Norton Space, 555 W. 42nd St., 212-244-7529.

OUR TOWN: Director David Cromer takes on Thorn-ton Wilder’s famed show. Through Sept. 27, Barrow Street Theatre, 27 Barrow St., 212-868-4444.

THE PRIDE OF PARNELL STREET: This new play by Sebas-tian Barry probes the disintegration of one couple’s relationship, told around the 1990 defeat of Ireland in the World Cup. Through Oct. 4, 59E59’s

Theater C, 59 E. 59th St., 212-279-4200.THE RETRIBUTIONISTS: Daniel Goldfarb’s new play

tells the story of a dysfunctional group of Jewish freedom fi ghters in 1946 Germany. Through Sept. 27, Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd St., 212-279-4200.

SPINNING THE TIMES: An evening of fi ve short works by female Irish playwrights, based on stories ripped from New York City headlines. Through Sept. 20, 59E59’s Theater C, 59 E. 59th St., 212-279-4200.

SUPERIOR DONUTS: The new play from Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts, who penned last year’s Au-gust: Osage County. Opens Sept. 16, Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200.

TANGUERA: A musical that tells the story of a young French girl lost in Buenos Aires. Through Oct. 18, NY City Center Main Stage, 130 W. 55 St., 212-581-1212.

THE UNDERSTUDY: The new comedy from Theresa Re-beck takes a look at the insanity of what goes on backstage. Through Jan. 3, Laura Pels Theatre, 1530 Broadway, 212-719-1300.

LITERARY EVENTSJOSH NEUFELD: The American Splendor illustrator

will discuss his new graphic novel, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. Sept. 16, McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St., 212-274-1160; 7, FREE.

LORRIE MOORE: Everyone’s fall literary crush will read from and sign copies of A Gate at the Stairs. Sept. 21, Barnes & Noble, 33 E. 17th St., 212-253-0810; 7, FREE.

STEVEN MILLHAUSER AND ANNIE PROULX: The two great authors share a stage for the fi rst time. Sept. 24, 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., 212-415-5562; 8, $10 and up.

Cornelia Kubler KavanaghARCTIC ICE MELT: Moulins of My MindThrough abraded surfaces and turgid swirls, Kavanagh’s sculpture conveys the ominous message that global warming portends.

Tuesday-Saturday, 11-6pmThrough October 03, 2009

Blue Mountain Gallery530 West 25th Street, fourth floorNew York, New York 10001 646 486 4730

www.bluemountaingallery.org

Beginning with the issue of October 6, CityArts will publish twice a month.

The following are the publication dates and deadlines through December 1.

October 20 deadline October 14November 3 deadline October 28November 17 deadline November 11December 1 deadline November 19

cityArts September 15, 2009

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Transcript of cityArts September 15, 2009