cityArts April 20, 2010

APRIL 20, 2010 Volume 2, Issue 8

Acquavella’s monumental exhibition follows the whims of fortune Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald sing in a new Off-Broadway musical The Jazz Loft Project recalls boho days

PLUS: Food artist Jennifer Rubell created this 20-foot-tall Warhol piñata for The Brooklyn Museum’s Annual Brooklyn Ball, to take place April 22.

The perverse poet at BAMcinématek, Chanticleer takes it to the Temple; ‘Robocop’ director writes about Jesus.

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InthisIssue 6 CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERA JAY NORDLINGER ranks Bronfman No. 1; and Chanticleer performs in the Met Museum’s Temple of Dendur.

8 GALLERY EXPERTS IN DIAMONDS, ESTATE JEWELRY, GOLD AND WATCHES

Acquavella re-collects Robert & Ethel Scull’s artworks in a monumental show that Mario Naves says is about money rather than art.

9 DANCE The Metropolitan Opera should continue to let ballet take center stage in opera staging, says JOEL LOBENTHAL.

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Reviews: Matt Campbell’s Out Of The Black at gallery hanahou; Dorothea Rockburne: Astronomy Drawings at New York Studio School Gallery; Mirror, Mirror: A Show of Portraits at Postmasters Gallery; Talk Show at Edward Thorp Gallery; Becket Bowes: Failure Canon at Rachel Uffner Gallery; Unconscious Unbound: Surrealism in America at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery; Albert York: A Memorial Exhibition at Davis & Langdale Company.

14 THEATER Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald sing for MARK PEIKERT in the new Off-Broadway musical This Side of Paradise.

14 JAZZ HOWARD MANDEL visits The Jazz Loft Project and recalls the influence of composer-arranger Hall Overton.

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

19 PAINT THE TOWN BY AMANDA GORDON Sascha Bauer bids high at SculptureCenter’s Lucky Draw benefit; SOFA sellers seem happy preview night; a big night at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s “Downtown Dinner.”

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InBrief Choreography Collage

Lenox Legacy

The Perverse Poet

The SITI Company, which has been creating adventurously intelligent, often unpredictable theater pieces since 1992, is putting down roots. Touring has been the troupe’s primary focus, but—as Anne Bogart, the eminent director who co-founded SITI (with Tadashi Suzuki), explained, the company is hoping to sustain more of an ongoing New York City presence. So this season, it’s been turning up regularly at Dance Theater Workshop, offering Antigone last fall, a series of Monday evening discussions and settling in for three weeks of bobrauschenbergamerica, a 2001 work written

by Charles L. Mee and inspired by—but by no means tidily depicting in any way—the late artist, known for his freewheeling collages.

Over the years, it has become SITI’s signature piece and has been performed across the country and overseas.

First seen at the 2001 Humana Festival, bobrasuchenbergamerica “is based on the spirit of his work,” Bogart explained in a recent conversation. Vignettes of suburban iconography mix with the unexpected—a bathtub appears center stage, a woman roller-skates—and both music and dance erupt spontaneously. The initial impetus came from Mee, a SITI regular, who had seen a Rauschenberg retrospective. “As Chuck said, ‘What would this piece be if Bob Rauschenberg were the dramaturg?’ We work very collaboratively. Our process changes, depending on what we’re doing together. In this piece, he would throw material at me, we would play with it, then he would re-write it.”

Six months after the premiere, 9/11 took place, and as the group toured with the piece after that, Bogart noticed that “the meaning of the play changed tremendously. It became a completely different play—without our changing anything in it. The context of the time changed it.”

The work’s local premiere was presented as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2003 Next Wave Festival. Reviewing it there, New York Times critic Neil Genzlinger found it “brashly, unapologetically entertaining.”

The DTW performances will mark its first return to the city since then—and also offer

SITI a rare chance to perform it for such a substantial period of time.

As SITI makes its ongoing New York presence felt, Bogart noted, “We wanted to do something that really is an expression of who we are—which is tricky, because some people think we’re a company that just makes odd devised work. Others think we reinterpret classics, and others think we just do Chuck Mee plays. So it’s hard to find something ‘quintessential.’ But it seems like this piece, which is about who we are as Americans, is written by a company member and is really a collaboratively created work, would be a great one to start with.” (Susan Reiter)

Twelve years ago, Muriel Levy decided to put on a memorial concert, after the deaths of her husband and son, at Temple Israel of the City of New York, where she was a member.

Levy wanted the concert to include both flute and violin since her husband, a doctor, was an amateur violinist and her son played the flute. The group named themselves the Musicians of Lenox Hill, and the concert became a yearly event.

“After the first concert she liked it so much that she eventually endowed the concert,” explained Soo-Kyung Park, flutist and artistic director of the group.

On Apr. 22, the Musicians of Lenox Hill reconvenes for its 12th annual concert at the Temple Israel. The program will include “Three American Pieces for flute and piano”

by Lukas Foss, “Embraceable You” and “I’ve Got Rhythm” by George Gershwin, Piano Quartet No. 2 by Dvorak and “Luminaria for violin and harp” by Kenji Bunch.

The group has 12 core members and rotate in and out of concerts based on their schedules and whether or not they are in New York at the time. The current concert includes flute, violin, cello, viola, harp and piano. As part of the endowment, the ensemble always plays at least one piece by a Jewish composer.

The players met because they were all students at Juilliard together, according to Park. One of the composers for this particular concert, Kenji Bunch, had classes with some of the ensemble members. “Every time we had an assignment, our theory teacher was always really impressed with his work,” Park recalled of Bunch, who has now become a prominent composer. Bunch’s piece, “Luminaria,” uses violin and harp to mimic the flickering lights and lanterns involved with the Mexican pueblo tradition of luminaria.

While the ensemble members frequently play together in different groups, the Musicians of Lenox Hill performs only one yearly concert. Although Muriel Levy passed away in 2007, her concert series lives on.

(Corinne Ramey)

The key to appreciating Portuguese writer/ director João César Monteiro’s experimental provocations—collected by the fine programmers at BAMcinématek and Harvard Film Archive under the appropriate title “Perverse Poet”—is not to think of them as films. Monteiro’s body of work rebels against the medium as he understands it, making his treatises on sex as fetishistically ritualized as the actions he’s describing. For example, in God’s Comedy (screening Apr. 30)—one of his later, paradoxically self-reflexive works— he stars as João de Deus, a miserly ice-cream parlor owner, the creator of a coveted secret recipe of ice cream and a collector of lady’s pubic hair (he pores over them in an album lovingly called “Record of Thoughts”).

Throughout his career as a visual artist, Monteiro has been totally unfettered by the narrative or rhythmic conventions of cinema that require a movie to flow or to look a certain way. Lush earlier films such as 1978’s Trails (May 18) and 1982’s Silvestre (Apr. 28) are characterized by a fascinating, simultaneously crude and hyper-sensual aesthetic. Silvestre in particular—which combines elements of Charles Perrault’s Bluebeard fable with the titular 15th-century Portuguese fairy tale—is distinctive in the way it looks as if it were filmed by Peter Greenaway by way of Romper Room. Monteiro employs mostly static shots of tableaux vivant images filmed on crude indoor sets flush with the kind of garish lighting that would make Mario Bava blush.

Bobrauschenbergamerica, Apr. 23-May 15 at DTW, 219 W. 19th St., 212-924-0077; Tues.-Sat., 7:30; Sun., 1:30 & 5:30, $20-$25.

Musicians of Lenox Hill, April 22 at Temple Israel of the City of New York, 112 E. 75th St., 917-834-5399; 8, $10-$20.

SITI Company’s bobrauschenbergamerica.

A scene from Silvestre.

The height of Monteiro’s experimental zeal is probably Snow White (2000), one of his last films before his death in 2003 and a highly self-conscious post-modern adaptation

April 20, 2010 | City Arts

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InBrief of Robert Walser’s fairy tale. The bulk of Monteiro’s 75-minute film is devoid of visual imagery. Viewers are literally left in the dark as they stare at a black screen while listening to an almost stream-of-consciousness-style conversation between Snow White, the evil Queen, the brave Prince and the stalwart Hunter about pre-destination and the nature of love. For someone who can’t stop talking about sex, Monteiro certainly has a perverse way of showing it. (Simon Abrams) Perverse Poet: João César Monteiro, April 28May 19 at BAMcinématek, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, 718-636-4100; various times, $8-$12.

Better Than a Trophy A downtown film fest, Parisian fashion and contemporary art may seem like strange bedfellows, but all three are coming together in a cross-genre arts event next week to celebrate the Tribeca Film Festival, which takes place Apr. 21 through May 2. The House of Chanel and TFF host an art exhibit

Apr. 21 through 28 at the Chanel boutique in Soho that features the work of 11 contemporary artists, and all of the exhibited works will be donated to the 11 top-winning filmmakers.

“Trophies and glass balls are great, but there’s something about a work of art that just seeps into your pores,” said participating artist Stephen Hannock. “It really makes this experience something special.” Hannock joins some artworld stars such as Yoko Ono, Stephen Posen, Maira Kalman, Vik Muniz, Clifford Ross, Gada Amer and Reza Farkondeh, Maurizio Galimberti, Spencer Platt, Valerie Heggarty and Sheila Berger.

Going on its ninth year, the Tribeca Film Festival Artists Awards Program was created by TFF co-founder Jane Rosenthal to celebrate New York artists. According to Nancy Lefkowitz, the director of talent relations at the festival, the idea sprang from a series of discussions between Rosenthal and friends, director Julian Schnabel and photographer Laurie Simmons.

“People look at it as a way to not only

help the community and the festival, but also for the artists to get exposure and meet other artists,” said Lefkowitz.

For the exhibit, Hannock is submitting “Study: Northern City Renaissance,” a piece that was born from the mind of former Police frontman Sting. “It’s a celebration of his hometown [New Castle, Eng.], the everyman of post-industrial cities,” Hannock explained.

Hannock, who has participated all nine years, is a luminist painter who creates largescale landscapes and nocturnes. The pictorial marriage between Whistler’s art and that of the Hudson River School, this sweeping vista will appropriately be awarded to the winner of the best World Narrative Feature.

Each artwork is matched with whichever category best fits its aesthetic, according to Lefkowitz: “A black-and-white photograph from a village in Afghanistan is a wonderful portrait for a short documentary category.”

(Bonnie Rosenberg) Apr. 21-28 at Chanel, 134 Spring St., Mon.Sat. 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sun. noon-6 p.m.

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FREAKONOMICS: This film adaptation of Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt’s best-selling book on radical theories on economics is a gala premiere, so tickets will sell out quickly. The curious thing about this doc, however, is that it’s directed by a cabal of famous non-fiction filmmakers, including Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Seth Gordon (The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters) and Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side as well as this year’s TFF title Untitled Eliot Spitzer Film).

TETSUO THE BULLET MAN: Shinya Tsukamoto’s third installment in his experimental and highly confrontational steampunk series is yet another remake of his original Tetsuo the Iron Man, except this time he has even more money to throw around. Tsukamoto is a major filmmaker even if his films aren’t always great. His zeal for mixing avant-garde sequences with science fiction tropes has created some of the most distinctive and disturbing science fiction/horror hybrids of the last two decades. Though Tetsuo the Bullet Man has received mixed to bad reviews so far, it belongs on any adventurous filmgoer’s list of things to catch at this year’s fest.

DREAM HOME: Hong Kong filmmaker Pang Ho-Cheung is a young tyro to watch. His black comedy Exodus and his

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ZONAD: John Carney (The Commitments, Once), co-directs this odd comedy that looks like a cross between Fido and K-PAX: a spaceman arrives in the midst of suburban Ireland in the 1950s. Is he crazy or actually from outer space?

THE KILLER INSIDE ME: Michael Winterbottom adapting Jim Thompson, starring Casey Affleck. Enough said.

SOUL KITCHEN: The new drama by Fatih Akin (The Edge of Heaven, Head-On) follows Zinos, a restaurant owner still getting over his ex.

LEGACY: The Wire’s Idris Elba stars in this character study about a Black Ops operative who mulls over the consequences of a recently botched mission while holed-up in a Brooklyn motel. Elba is a performer to watch, and the project sounds like an excellent vehicle for him to flex his thesping muscles.

By Dan Nadel

As the companion piece to Art Out of Time, Art in Time compiles some of the best unknown comic book stories from the 20th century.

The book reintroduces lost and/or forgotten characters to the graphic novel world, including Sam Hill, a debonair ex-jock-cum-private eye—Dick Tracy, eat your heart out! The 14 artists included in the book represent some of the medium’s finest artists. Vivid, high-definition reproductions bring full-length stories back to the readers, enveloping them in a wave of kitschy nostalgia.

Vending Machines: Coined Consumerism

We are living in the age of the vending machine.

Be it water, hot pasta, used underwear, gold bars or hypodermic needles, nearly anything can be purchased with the right amount of change. Vending Machines: Coined Consumerism traces the history of vending machines, following them from their beginnings as mere snack receptacles to the present, where they offer high-end goods, gadgets and things that needn’t be automatically dispensed.

Salyers tells their history through pictures from all over the world, essays and interviews featuring people like on-the-go machine enthusiast-turned-artist Clark Whittington, creator of the Art-O-Mat.

portmanteau romcom Trivial Matters are both biting, complex, visually stunning and highly idiosyncratic works. Dream Home, his latest project, looks like a deceptively bouncy horror comedy.

LOLA: Filipino enfant terrible Brillante Mendoza garnered international attention with his stellar modernist gross-out drama Serbis but then lost nearly everybody with Kinatay—even if it did win the Director’s Fortnight Award at Cannes last year.

Wasting no time to prove that he’s worth the attention, Mendoza cranked out Lola, a movie about two older women suspected of murdering their grandsons. Here’s hoping it has some of the bristling humanity that made Mendoza worth watching in the first place.

Art in Time: Unknown Comic Book Adventures, 1940-1980

By Christopher D. Salyers

10 Films Not to Miss at Tribeca ow that the Tribeca Film Festival (Apr. 21-May 2) returns with its full slate of titles ranging from zany to erudite, we are once again faced with the difficult task of prioritizing what films are worth the money.

Here’s a list of 10 must-sees at this year’s fest. (Simon Abrams)

APRIL BOOKS

Idris Elba in Legacy.

METROPIA: In this animated Swedish/ Danish/Finnish co-production, Europe is connected by a complex series of tunnels populated and maintained by worker drones, one of whom is turned on to the sinister logic behind the tunnels by a shampoo model, of all people.

PLEASE GIVE: The latest film from writer/director Nicole Holofcener (Friends With Money, Lovely and Amazing) stars Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt as a couple of yuppies anxious to get their elderly neighbor’s apartment. The trouble is that they’ve just befriended the woman’s granddaughters, played by Amanda Peet and Rebecca Hall.

Jesus of Nazareth

By Paul Verhoeven

The director of Robocop and Basic Instinct, Verhoeven is trading the film industry for biblical history with Jesus of Nazareth. Debunking myths about Jesus’ divinity, Verhoeven takes the reader through a strictly historical account of Jesus’ life. Likening Jesus to figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Che Guevara, the author bills Christ as a galvanizing political leader rather than the Son of God. In the end, he concedes that Jesus’ ardent belief in the Kingdom of God led to the most substantial ethical boon this side of A.D.

ArtNews On May 6, 53 galleries on 57th Street, between Lexington and Eighth avenues, will remain open to the public until 8:30 p.m. for a special gallery night. Participating galleries will include PaceWildenstein, Marlborough Gallery, Alexandre Gallery and more… The Brooklyn Botanic Garden has announced that at least 50 varieties of native New York plants are extinct or nearing elimination.

Some plants native to the region, like Britton’s violet (Viola brittoniana), are now rare in their natural habitats but thrive when brought into cultivation in the metropolitan area. Findings are the result of research performed by the New York Metropolitan Flora Project… The Vineyard Theatre will present its 3rd annual Paula Vogel Playwriting Award to emerging playwright Kara Lee Corthron. The award will be presented to Corthron June 17 at a luncheon at the National Arts Club… Baryshnikov Arts Center is presenting Mikhail Baryshnikov, David Neumann and Steve Paxton in Unrelated Solos, as part of May Nights in the Jerome Robbins Theater—a month of dance, theater, music and film.

Performances are May 19 through 22…

Lincoln Center is hosting the 22nd season of Midsummer Night Swing, which will take place every Tuesday through Saturday, June 29 through July 17… The New York Photo Festival, the United States’ first internationallevel photo festival dedicated to contemporary photography, has just announced its NYPH ’10 Portfolio Review. The review will take place over the duration of the New York Photo Festival, May 13 through 15. The reviews are a platform for photographers to present their body of work for review and critique by leading experts in photography, art, media and advertising, and to receive guidance for their future careers… Art In Odd Places, New York’s annual public art and performance festival, announced that the theme of its October events is “Chance.” The festival will feature approximately 40 artists from New York and beyond, who will apply their practice to an unconventional structure—14th Street… Lincoln Center’s 44th Mostly Mozart Festival, July 27 through August 21, will offers more than 35 events, including concerts, dance, pre-concert recitals, latenight performances and lectures. From June 11 through October 3, FIGMENT will host three major programs as a part of its free interactive art exhibitions throughout the summer months on Governors Island. Programs include a sculpture garden, a mini-golf course, and an architectural pavilion… The Downtown Urban Theater Festival is returning for its eighth season, performing for the first

time at the historic Theater For The New City in the East Village. The DUTF will kick off April 21 and continue with 12 plays over two weeks, featuring new works by James Earl Hardy, Lawrence Dial, William Fowkes and Dina Laura among others… The Metropolitan Opera in association with Live Nation has announced that Sting, accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, will make his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on July 13 & 14… This year’s Brooklyn Museum Gala on April 22 will feature a giant 20-foot-tall piñata in the shape of Andy Warhol’s head. The piñata is part of

an interactive dining experience designed by Jennifer Rubell titled “Icons.” It is currently on view in the Museum’s Rubin Pavilion… Celebrating black artists in America and abroad, NYC & Company, the official marketing, tourism and partnership organization of the City of New York, has named The Studio Museum in Harlem its Culture Spot for May. As part of the Culture Spot designation, the museum will offer visitors 15 percent off purchases at its store throughout the month…

Ten emerging New York artists have been selected by Public Art Fund as finalists for an In The Public Realm commission. These

artists will each receive $1,000 to develop a public art proposal in consultation with Public Art Fund. Up to three will be selected to receive a $15,000 commission and an artist’s fee of $2,500 to realize their proposed work in one of New York City’s five boroughs…

This May, the Whitney will launch a series of large-scale, commissioned works for its future Downtown building in the Meatpacking District. The three participating artists are the collaborative team of Guyton\Walker, Tauba Auerbach and Barbara Kruger.

The projects will be on view throughout the summer and into October.

The Art of Illumination The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry

Through June 13

metmuseum.org The exhibition is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Michel David-Weill Fund.

Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg, Saint Nicholas Saves Travelers at Sea (detail) from the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry, ca. 1405–1408/9, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, 1954.

April 20, 2010 | City Arts

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ClassicalMUSIC

Bronfman, All-Conquering And Chanticleer, all-delighting even when it’s not Christmastime

BY JAY NORDLINGER arly last fall, I was writing something about Beethoven piano works, and I said, “You know, you never hear Beethoven variations in recitals anymore. You used to hear the Eroica Variations, the C-minor Variations… They used to be staples; but now they’ve simply disappeared.” Shortly after, Pierre-Laurent Aimard played the Eroica Variations at Alice Tully Hall. And, the other night, Yefim Bronfman played the C-minor Variations at Carnegie Hall. So shut my mouth.

The C-minor Variations led off Bronfman’s recital. Rachmaninoff made a famous recording of them, and, if you don’t know them, you will want to get acquainted: through Rachmaninoff’s recording or in some other way. The Variations are sterling, characteristic Beethoven. Bronfman did them justice. He played with definition, rhythm— and a sure grasp of pedaling. In fact, he’s one of the best pedalers in the game. And I recall something one of his teachers, Leon Fleisher, said about rhythm: “Good rhythm can mean entering at the last possible second—late, but

All programs, artists, dates, and prices subject to change. Photos: Valery Gergiev by Decca-Marco Borggreve, Igor Stravinsky courtesy Getty Images. © 2010 New York Philharmonic. All rights reserved.

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not too late.”

Next on Bronfman’s program were the 11 Humoresken by Jörg Widmann, a German composer born in 1973. Bronfman played these in Carnegie Hall two years ago as well.

Playing them once might be lip service—the discharge of a duty, or perceived duty, to modern composers. Playing them twice means that you really, really like them. They are good pieces, clever and quirky. In one of them, I could have sworn I heard echoes of La rondine, Puccini’s operetta. But, at almost a half-hour, the Humoresken took up a lot of Bronfman recital time—a lot of acreage on his program. Were they worth it? In my view, they soon grow tedious.

The pianist closed his first half with a beloved Schumann work, Faschingsschwank aus Wien. He did not play it badly—how could he? He is not one to play badly (although it happens once in a blue moon).

But he was not at his crispest or most riveting.

Some of the music was rushed, unsavored—a little perfunctory.

But there was nothing to object to in the second half of the recital. Bronfman played

GERGIEV/STRAVINSKY The Russian Stravinsky: A Philharmonic Festival April 21–May 8 3 Weeks Only!

The New York Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev, one of the most electrifying maestros of our time, reveal the Russian pulse inside the many masterpieces of Stravinsky. nyphil.org/stravinsky

For tickets call 212 875 5656 or visit nyphil.org or Avery Fisher Hall Box Office The Russian Stravinsky is generously sponsored by Yoko Nagae Ceschina and the Kaplen Foundation. Supported, in part, by The Trust for Mutual Understanding. Programs of the New York Philharmonic are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

City Arts | www.cityarts.info

Tchaikovsky’s rarely heard Grand Sonata in G major, Op. 37, a grand thing indeed: huge, titanic, almost symphonic. This “sonata” is also unwieldy, nearly impossible to manage. In Bronfman’s hands, however, it was practically a Clementi slow movement.

Bronfman played this work with an aweinspiring combination of majesty, diabolism and ease.

He offered three encores, beginning with Chopin’s Nocturne in D flat. You heard a pure tone and a limpid line, among other virtues.

Then came a Liszt etude—the one in E flat from the Grandes études de Paganini. It is possible to attend concerts for years and years and not hear more virtuosity or stylishness.

Finally, Bronfman played a spiky Prokofiev scherzo, spikily.

Pianists aren’t ranked like tennis players, but if they were, it would be hard to keep Yefim Bronfman out of the No. 1 spot. By the way, Dorothea Röschmann, the German soprano, was singing a recital in Zankel Hall, downstairs from the main Carnegie auditorium, at the same time. There is scarcely a better singer in the world today. So,

Carnegie Hall practically levitated with talent on this evening. It was also an incredibly cruel twist of scheduling.

Light in the Temple Every December, Chanticleer, the 12-man a cappella group from San Francisco, gives a Christmas concert at the Metropolitan Museum. The group sings in the Medieval Sculpture Hall, in front of a spectacular 20-foot Christmas tree and a Neapolitan Baroque crèche. As a rule, this is one of the best concerts of the season—and I don’t mean the Christmas season, but the New York music season.

Chanticleer is not just for Christmas, however, and they recently gave another concert in the Met Museum—not in the Medieval Sculpture Hall but in the Temple of Dendur, which is surely the coolest music venue in New York. It gives off an Indiana Jones vibe. It was especially enjoyable on this evening, because the concert began at 7 p.m., when there was still light outside. We could watch the sun set over Central Park and the East Side out the vast wall of window. The

Juilliard Joseph W. Polisi, President

S TA RT S T O M O R R O W Wed & Fri, Apr 21 & 23 at 8; Sun, Apr 25 at 2 Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Dialogues des Carmélites POULENC Fabrizio Melano Directs Anne Manson Conducts Singers from Juilliard Opera and the Juilliard Orchestra Tickets $20; CenterCharge (212) 721-6500 1/2-price senior/student tickets, TDF only at Juilliard Box Office

Thurs, Apr 29 at 8 • Peter Jay Sharp Theater

New Juilliard Ensemble

Sat, May 1 at 8:30 Rosemary and Meredith Willson Theater

Master Class with Jordi Savall and Musicians from Juilliard Historical Performance FREE, standby line forms at 7

Wed, May 5 at 8 • Paul Hall

7 Juilliard Organists in Concert works by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Tournemire, Dupré, Duruflé, Persichetti, Wammes rescheduled from February FREE, February tickets honored and Standby line forms at 7

APRIL 30

Wed, May 5 at 8 • Alice Tully Hall

FRIDAY AT 8 PM

Afiara String Quartet

HARM YA L E P H I L

ON

Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima Capriccio for Violin & Orchestra with syoko aki New York premiere Horn Concerto, “Winterreise” with william purvis Symphony No. 4, “Adagio”

tickets $15-25 · students $10-20 www.carnegiehall.org | CarnegieCharge: 212 247-7800

music.yale.edu

Thurs, May 6 at 8 • Alice Tully Hall

Gregory DeTurck

Piano

Winner, 2010 Juilliard William Petschek Piano Debut Recital Award SCARLATTI Sonatas in G Major, K. 454; D Minor, K. 213; E Major, K. 162 DEBUSSY Three Études from Book II SCHUMANN Humoreske, Op. 20 COPLAND Piano Sonata FALLA Fantásia Báetica Tickets $20, $15, Alice Tully Hall Box Office or CenterCharge (212) 721-6500 1/2-price students and seniors, TDF, ONLY at the box office

Peter Schaaf

i pe nd e r e c k c on d u c t s i k c e r e d n pe IA

with special guest Michael Tree, viola Valerie Li and Yuri Cho, violin; David Samuel, viola; Adrian Fung, cello BEETHOVEN String Quartet in F, Op. 59, No. 1 SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Minor, Op. 138 BRAHMS String Quintet No.2 in G, Op. 111 Juilliard’s new graduate resident quartet in the 17th annual Lisa Arnhold Memorial Recital.

FREE tickets, Juilliard Box Office

Thurs, May 20 at 8 • Alice Tully Hall

Juilliard Orchestra

Nan Melville

stern auditorium at carnegie hall

Michael DiVito

Hiroyuki Ito

Joel Sachs, Conductor Elena Klionsky, Piano David Fulmer, Violin Juilliard Singers Lilla Heinrich, Drew Seigla, John Brancy, Tobias Greenhalgh World Premieres by Jakhongir Shukurov, Martin Matalon, David Fulmer, Chris Kapica Western Hemisphere Premiere by Paul Chihara FREE tickets, Juilliard Box Office

Nan Melville

trade-off is that the acoustics in the Temple are music—classical music, that is.(And no, John lousy—but Chanticleer can overcome that.

Ireland wasn’t Irish—he was English. On They sang a very wide-ranging program, the other hand, John Field, the “father of the and the program had a theme: “In Time nocturne,” was Irish, and a credit.) of…” Forgive me if I don’t bother with an Chanticleer sang, as usual, with precision, explanation. There are administrators, musicians and critics who love a Audiences couldn’t care less about theme. It makes them programming themes, and they’re feel all musicological quite right. They want to hear and rigorous. Audiences couldn’t care less about good and worthwhile music, and themes, and they’re quite fortunately that’s what Chanticleer right. They want to hear good and worthwhile provided, theme aside. music, and fortunately that’s what Chanticleer provided, theme aside. unity, taste and feeling. There were blemishes They started with the 16th century, here and there—a tenor experienced some moved to contemporary composers and tightness, which resulted in strangling and ended with “Shenandoah,” “Summertime” cracking—but the group on the whole was and spirituals. One of the contemporary beyond reproach. In a piece by Palestrina, composers was Mason Bates, a San they emitted a pure light. The radiance that Franciscan born in 1978. He is both a comes from this group in early holy music is composer and a DJ—and his talent is plain. astounding. They can sing clearly without Another composer was Michael McGlynn, being thin. They know not to let their sound an Irishman born in 1964. I was interested go pale—unless that’s the effect they desire. and pleased to note him. Not long ago, I The soloist in “Summertime” was Cortez proposed an oxymoron: “Dutch composer.”

Mitchell, who has simply one of the most I’m afraid “Irish composer” is another one. beautiful voices around. I’m sorry that For historical reasons we could explore, Leontyne Price didn’t come up from the Ireland has been a land almost without Village to hear him. <

COMMENCEMENT CONCERT James DePreist, Conductor FREE, Standby line forms at 7

Juilliard

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

April 20, 2010 | City Arts

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GALLERIES

Passing the Buck The monumental show that re-collects Robert & Ethel Scull’s artworks isn’t as much about art as it is about the whims of fortune

BY MARIO NAVES “Show me the money!” a matronly woman exclaimed upon entering Robert & Ethel Scull: Portrait of a Collection, the current Acquavella Galleries exhibition.

The other members of her group shushed her, albeit with knowing smiles. A gallery attendant warned the tour guide that if his well-heeled charges damaged any of the objects on display, they would be “ruining it for everyone.” And it did seem that “everyone” was there.

On the first day of the show, 15 minutes after the gallery opened to the public, Acquavella was pretty well packed. Not bad for a Tuesday morning on a sunny April day.

Clearly, Portrait of a Collection is an event.

Acquavella has scored a coup, that’s for sure. Organized by Judith Goldman, a former curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Portrait of a Collection gathers together 44 artworks originally acquired by the taxi magnate and his socialite wife. (Robert died of a heart attack at the age of 70 in 1986; Ethel died, at 79, in 2001.)

The trajectory of the New York art scene is unimaginable without the Sculls. Bob “Ethel Scull 36 Times” by Andy Warhol, 1963. and Ethel—or “Spike” as she was known among friends—began collecting in the Sculls acquired Rosenquist’s epochal “Fmid-1950s. They initially focused on Abstract III” (1964-65), thereby guaranteeing that Expressionism but were soon diverted the monumental, multi-canvas painting

by Pop Art—though it bears mentioning would not be broken up and sold piecemeal. the movement was, at that point in time, Bob and Spike took particular interest in without a name. Buying art “with their gut” Earthworks and funded ambitious projects (as Goldman puts it), the Sculls embraced, such as Michael Heizer’s “Nine Nevada promoted and were patrons to what was Depressions” (1968). essentially a bunch of unknowns. Given that In 1973, the Sculls put a major portion of these nobodies became fixtures of the international art scene, the Sculls’ Buying art “with their gut” (as collective eye proved Goldman puts it), the Sculls prescient and, in the end, embraced, promoted and were hugely influential. patrons to what was essentially a The artists whose work bunch of unknowns.

Given that these was purchased by the nobodies became fixtures of the Sculls reads like a blueinternational art scene, the Sculls’ chip wet dream: Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, collective eye proved prescient and, Clyfford Still, Philip in the end, hugely influential.

Guston, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, James the collection up for auction. Though the $2.2 Rosenquist, Lee Bontecou, Claes Oldenburg, million reaped by the couple may be chicken Frank Stella, Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselman feed by the standards of today’s art economy, and George Segal. Johns was a favorite; at one it was nonetheless a significant chunk of point, the Sculls owned 22 pieces, including change—scandalous, too. The huge return signature works like “Map” (1961), “The on the Sculls’ investments earned the enmity Critic Sees” (1964) and “Painted Bronze (Ale of the art world elite, as if the profit-motive Cans)” (1960). were somehow beyond its moral compass.

“Ethel Scull 36 Times” (1963) was Snobbery undoubtedly fueled the accusations; Warhol’s first commissioned portrait. The the “banal, nouveau riche” Robert was, after

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all, the son of Russian immigrants from the Lower East Side.

Artists were angry, too. Paintings, sculptures and what-have-you bought directly from the studio for a few hundred bucks were auctioned off at significantly higher prices. Rauschenberg famously started a shoving match with Robert Scull when he heard about the sale. But almost every artist included in the collection benefited from it being scattered. History shows us that the Scull auction led to bigger prices, bigger names and, in fairly linear fashion, our own over-heated and over-hyped art market.

Anyone inured to the standard historical iterations of post-war American art will find Portrait of a Collection prophetic, splashy and predictable.

Borrowing works from major museums and important private collections, curator Goldman makes a token stopover at the New York School—de Kooning’s “Police Gazette” (1955) being the highlight—and then quickly turns to the warmed-over Dadaism ultimately favored by the Sculls.

The shift is Johns’ “By The Sea” (1961), a stenciled play on the words “red,” “yellow” and “blue” keyed to a soft, sludgy gray. After that, the hits keep on coming.

Quizzical figures like Myron Stout, Peter Young and William Crozier are dwarfed,

by reputation if not quality, by the usual Pop-wise suspects. The Sculls seem not to have had much truck with Minimalism or Conceptualism, but otherwise their tastes form the mainstream version of 1960s art.

Of course, Portrait of a Collection isn’t really about art: It’s about enthusiasm, the luck of the draw and being in the right place at the right time. And money, of course.

Talking to The New York Times, gallery founder William Acquavella noted that none of the works are for sale. Which doesn’t mean the bottom line won’t figure into it at some point in time or that the exhibition isn’t keying into a moment when art—or, rather, the prestige surrounding it—is valued beyond the point of parody.

There’s nothing wrong with dealers, artists and, yes, collectors wanting to make a buck, but that doesn’t mean viewers have to capitulate to the flashy venality that is the hallmark of the contemporary scene. The Acquavella show pinpoints the moment when art became an adjunct—sometimes willing, sometimes not—to arrant capital. In that regard, Portrait of a Collection gives more pause than pleasure. <

Robert & Ethel Scull: Portrait of a Collection, through May 27.

Acquavella Galleries, Inc., 18 E. 79th St., 212-734-6300.

DANCE

Poetic License

Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

The Met lets ballet take center stage in opera staging— where it belongs

A scene from the ballet in Act II of Rossini’s “Armida.”

BY JOEL LOBENTHAL Dance and opera have gone hand in hand for centuries, but dance rarely gets the attention it deserves from opera companies.

This season at the Metropolitan Opera, however, a concerted effort was made to vest dance as a full performance partner. It’s easier to do great opera ballet in Europe than the United States because there the same state-supported opera houses subsidize both disciplines on a major scale.

In Paris there’s the Opera and the Opera Ballet, in St. Petersburg both the Mariinsky ballet and opera companies. American Ballet Theatre, on the other hand, may perform at the Met, but it is not at the opera’s disposal since the Met has its own ballet company— which isn’t of the same caliber or scale. One also has the sense, although not here, not this year, that choreographers look at opera with some degree of condescension, which I would say is completely unwarranted: The greatest choreographers of the last 100 years all made opera ballets, sometimes wonderful ones that are still performed today.

The Met’s employment of Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky this season proved good for the choreographers and for the Met. In fact, on the evidence of their work, it might be said that composing dances for opera should be required for any choreographer’s training and experience. In the Met’s cast-ofthousands, mile-high-scenic Aida, Ratmansky created new dances in Amneris’ boudoir, and in the Triumphal scene that follows. He selected motifs from ballet, as well as from the lexicon of folk and ethnic dance that might logically have a common root with whatever it was they were doing millennia ago in Egypt. Sometimes Ratmansky’s powers of observation outweigh his powers of integration and synthesis, but

that wasn’t true here. We saw a fully digested statement from him.

Wheeldon is actually a Met repeater, having first contributed to the Met’s La Gioconda in 2006. Now, in Carmen, directed by Richard Eyre, Wheeldon made dance more assertive than ever, interjected into passages that Bizet intended for orchestra alone. Call me a kinesis-partisan, or an opera-impurist, but I didn’t think dance overstepped its bounds. As he did for Gioconda, Wheeldon brought in star dancers from outside the Met’s ranks. Here it was New York City Ballet’s Maria Kowroski, and Martin Harvey, formerly of the Royal Ballet in London. And they sparked the proceedings, as had the Gioconda leads. This was another sexed-up production, and Wheeldon went with the concept. His duets for Kowroski and Harvey were designed to show off Kowroski’s length and looseness, in supported adagios that were meant to generate a degree of erotic heat appropriate to this steamy tale. And they did, and weren’t sloppy about it.

In its current Faust, the Met omits Gounod’s “Walpurgisnacht,” perhaps the most famous of all opera ballets. Surprisingly, then, it decided to retain the long ballet in Rossini’s Armida, despite the fact that Armida had never before been given by the Met. It was for Renée Fleming that the Met now commissioned a production by director Mary Zimmerman.

The Met was right to keep the ballet; it is essential to the poetics and narrative of the opera. In the opera, the sorceress Armida wants Rinaldo, her current lover, to choose life with her over military glory. To get her point across, she musters her forces to perform a ballet that mimics the process of spellbinding by which she has ensnared him. Although Zimmerman was on steadier footing here than in La Sonnambula last season, I would have preferred a more traditional production. Nevertheless, the ballet—choreographed by Graciela Daniele and Daniel Pelzig—brought into post-modern play as many antecedents as did the production itself, including a drag platoon reminiscent of ballet’s transvestite Trocaderos. The ballet dominates the second act of Rossini’s opera; here dance was giving no quarter. The Met’s ensemble carried it all off with panache. Soprano Fleming, much as she does like to dance on stage (and elsewhere in the opera she did get to do some magicwand-waving) had to content herself with being a spectator, sitting facing upstage to watch the action just as we did in our seats. < Armida, through May 15; Carmen, through May 1, at The Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, 212-362-6000.

A.M. Cassandre, Grand-Sport, color lithograph poster, Paris, 1931.

Estimate $15,000 to $20,000.

At auction May 3.

Alexey Brodovitch, Ballet, NY, 1945, signed and inscribed by Brodovitch.

Estimate $8,000 to $12,000.

At auction May 20.

Arshile Gorky,Still Life with Table and Pitcher, black crayon on paper, circa 1931, inscribed to Hans Burkhardt. Estimate $4,000 to $6,000.

At auction June 8.

AT AUCTION May 3

Modernist Posters Illustrated Catalogue: $35 • Specialist: Nicholas Lowry, ext 53 • nlowry@swanngalleries.com

May 11

Early Printed Books & Manuscripts from the Inventory of the Late Lawrence Feinberg Illustrated Catalogue: $35 • Specialist: Tobias Abeloff, ext 18 • tabeloff@swanngalleries.com

May 20

Photographic Literature & Important Photographs Illustrated Catalogue: $35 • Specialist: Daile Kaplan, ext 21 • dkaplan@swanngalleries.com

June 8

American Art / Contemporary Art Illustrated Catalogue: $35 • Specialist: Todd Weyman, ext 32 • tweyman@swanngalleries.com

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

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

Two Early American Silver Tankards made by Simeon Soumaine, New York City circa 1720-1730

ROBERT LLOYD Fine Antique Silver Robert Lloyd 1050 Second Avenue Gallery 63 New York, N.Y. 10022 P 212-750-8752 E rlloydinc@aol.com www.robertlloydinc.com

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AVENUE on Park Show 583 Park Avenue | April 22-25 April 20, 2010 | City Arts

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April 23-25, 2010

General Admission: $15

FRIDAY, APRIL 23 & SATURDAY, APRIL 24

583 Park Avenue

Park Avenue at 63rd Street, New York City Photo by Sarah Merians Photography and Video Company

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

SUNDAY, APRIL 25

1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

AttheGALLERIES disciplines that nourish her imagery. She is a painter who seeks pictorial possibilities in fields that can be mined for forms. Some are schematic imaginings, some indebted to NASA’s telescopic photography and other aerial imagery. Think of Abstract Expressionism doing the Hayden Planetarium.

The most trenchant comment on Rockburne comes from David Cohen, critic and curator of the Studio School’s gallery: “It is not that she embodies, evokes or depicts extraterrestrial events, say, or numerical sequences or sets so much as she seeks visual equivalences for the systems used to describe and analyze them.” In short, it is the aura of science, not science itself, that is so gratifyingly summoned by these astronomical confections. (Maureen Mullarkey) Through May 1. New York Studio School Gallery, 8 W. 8th St., 212-673-6466.

Mirror, Mirror: A Show of Portraits

“Portrait of Gabe Falsetta,” by Yevgeniy Fiks.

Out Of The Black

Dorothea Rockburne: Astronomy Drawings

If you like your art dark—well, cuddly and dark—then Out of the Black, an odd yet beautiful show at gallery hanahou, will satisfy nicely. The exhibition, by New Zealand artist Matt Campbell, hits a nerve with its combination of elegance and creepiness.

Campbell has collected a group of bedraggled stuffed animals and soaked them in some unspecified jet-black substance. According to the gallery, Campbell refuses to say what it is. The resulting toys look as if they have been dipped in tar. The creatures are shiny and oily looking, though not to the touch. Their cute “furriness” is now stiffened permanently into awkward clumps and tufts. They remind me of pictures of birds caught in an oil slick; they don’t look dead, so much as frozen in time— although those cute little button eyes still twinkle back at you. And yet, there is an arresting beauty to these critters. Campbell has mounted them tastefully on posts, on shiny lacquered wood. They are presented like elegant specimens in a museum.

Mounted with tiny magnets, they are designed to be removed from their posts, as if to be played with by the complicit viewer. When returned, they snap back onto their mounts in a crisp and satisfying way. The presentation is exquisite. Black animals mounted on white wall plaques line the gallery. Two perfectly placed creatures are mounted on black-onblack, just because it looks so good.

Campbell has written a statement about the work that links his vision to rampant consumerism, mankind’s disregard for the environment and “throwaway” culture. To me, the statement is an unfortunate detraction from the work. Shoehorning these fascinating and compelling sculptures into a political statement feels a little forced. My advice would be to skip the statement and enjoy this show in all of its elegant, creepy beauty. (Melissa Stern)

A distinguished abstract painter, Dorothea Rockburne’s public profile is surprisingly modest in relation to her achievement. The names of her painting instructors at Black Mountain College in the 1950s—Franz Kline, Philip Guston and Jack Tworkov—are more widely recognized among the general public than her own. Nevertheless, her worldwide exhibition record is as enviable as her many prestigious fresco commissions. Astronomy Drawings, now on the final leg of a national tour that began one year ago at Wheaton College, is a testament to a long and laudable career.

Rockburne is that rare thing: a painter who has seized upon a germinal idea that, in itself, is inexhaustible. Her imagery derives from themes that roam through physics, astronomy and the applied mathematics that underwrote Quattrocento Florentine design (e. g. the golden section). The expansiveness of her tapestry of themes has freed her from falling into the common trap of becoming an imitator of one’s own art.

The dynamism of her imagery and surface loveliness—in short, the art—is what matters, not their claim on more rigorous intellectual disciplines.

Among the most seductive pieces here are two modestly scaled watercolors, “Summer’s Nighttime Sky” and “Piero’s Sky.” Both take advantage of the subtle, granular transparencies that occur when pastel is run deftly over an under layer of watercolor.

The first is particularly elegant. A luminous ellipse, like the ring of a sunspot, floats away from traces of a darkened sphere suggesting the occultation of a star. A hint of red breaks through the eclipse, offering a glimpse of something molten in space.

Dominating the gallery are two 60-inch watercolors worked on Duralar, a substitute for acetate that permits water media to flow without feathering.

Color does not sink in as it would on paper. Rather, it skims the surface, creating an illusion of suspended radiance. “Three Point Manifold,” with its

Through April 30. gallery hanahou, 611 Broadway, Ste. 730, 646-486-6586.

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City Arts | www.cityarts.info

melting spheres of violet and red spilling over each other, conjures an impressive image of celestial momentum. Rockburne’s means are perfectly adapted to eliciting a sense of speed and evanescence.

Rockburne’s work is often greeted for the wrong reasons. Overmuch is made of references to science and math. Rockburne is not a mathematician, an astronomer, or adept at any of the hard

“Two Reclining Women in Landscape,” by Albert York.

Is there anything more ubiquitous in art than portraits? Nonetheless, they continue to fascinate us in the same way as biographies. When successful, they give us insight into the psyches of strangers, adding to our knowledge of our fellow human beings and ourselves. In this group show of nine artists, we meet enough characters to populate several books, each of them intriguing in a different way.

Jason Robert Bell’s tortured and hypnotic “Metaphysical Portraits,” named Captain Lumaria, Chrislegula, Jatzostien and Rax, could be characters out of Dostoevsky or Kafka, with their contorted features and agonized expressions, while Jenny Morgan’s women share a refreshing innocence, each of them using their gloved or painted hands to alter, disguise or reassure themselves. Most touchingly, the woman in “From the Valley to the Stars” holds her fingers in front of her bare breasts, a quizzical look on her face. She disarms with her directness.

On the other hand, Alexa Mead, in a series of dramatic, richly colored self-portraits, offers us moods, her face a powerfully wrought landscape of emotion. But she does just as well with others, her “Timmy on the Metro” particularly captivating because of her sensitive way of conveying the nuances of city life. Yevgeniy Fiks took as his subject members of the American Communist Party, people that influenced his life. Having grown up in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, he attempts to make

sense of the propaganda and the reality through his art. All unsmiling, his portraits could be depicting members of any party and appear to have nothing in common but their politics. “Portrait of Gabe Falsetta” shows a rather gaunt middle-aged man, with a touch of sadness in his gaze, an expression he shares with Esther Morose. Ursula Endlicher makes fun of Facebook in a video installation that reenacts scenes from its pages. Not a bad idea but it is without the resonance of so many of the other works in the show, like Chris Verene’s beautifully composed chromogenic print “Amber’s First Two Kids, Mercedes and Jayden-Lexus,” where two young girls sprawl on a living room floor all innocence and unselfconsciousness. There are faces here that will be impossible to forget. (Valerie Gladstone) Through May 8. Postmasters Gallery, 459 W. 19th St., 212-727-3323.

Talk Show An exhibition title offers a putative rationale for the art organized under its rubric; it can bring order—or, at least, a sense of connectedness—to what may otherwise be a disparate array of objects. Such is the case, almost, with Talk Show, an exhibition of six painters at Edward Thorp Gallery.

Good luck identifying a thematic commonality.

Sure, each artist works with recognizable imagery and trades in oblique mise-en-scenes. The gallery’s insistence that they “interpret and explore multiple narratives” is encompassing enough to count not at all. That the artists are all women seems a moot point in our post-feminist age, at least as it applies to outright political impetus.

The Talk Show conceit sticks all the same.

Perhaps it’s something as corny and true as the notion that every artist has her own individual voice, but there’s something else afoot as well: A nagging sense of the limitations (or fallibility) of representation. A rueful air surrounds the work of Katherine Bradford, Maureen Cavanaugh, Clare Grill, Judith Linhares, Bettina Sellman and Judy Simonian. It’s as if each painter is commenting upon a lack of unified cultural purpose in a niche-heavy 21st century.

OK—so it’s a stretch, but there’s no denying the intense and sometimes forbiddingly narrow scope of the art. Linhares’ oddball fantasies, with their taffy-like forms and honeyed palette, offer the faux naiveté of a seasoned artist attempting to embody adolescence. Sellman does something similar, albeit with a looser wrist, a warmer palette and an over-reliance on pictorial tropes gleaned from Marlene Dumas. Cavanaugh treads an unsure line between blasé sophistication and honest amateurishness, though her image of a woman diving off a pier has its own skewed pull.

Simonian’s fractured takes on architecture and domesticity are too contrived by half, but the resulting paintings are nonetheless diverting and smart.

Bradford elicits a wobbly nostalgia through casual, almost ham-handed means and forms derived, in equal parts, from storybook illustrations and late Philip Guston.

Grill is the most evocative of the bunch, preferring, as she does, suggestion over exposition.

Her fragmentary images—a house in the woods, a birthday cake set ablaze, a ruffled shirt stained with blood—are, alternately, mundane and haunting, fleeting and fraught with symbolism. Their ragged surfaces and austere mood betoken otherworldly portent worthy of Shirley Jackson.

Talk Show is a lumpish affair, but it does stick in the memory longer than you’d initially think— which is, in the end, some kind of feat. (Mario Naves) Through May 8. Edward Thorp Gallery, 210 11th Ave., 212-691-6565.

Becket Bowes: Failure Canon At Rachel Uffner Gallery, site of his first solo show, Becket Bowes concerns himself with systematic interpretation and the breakdown of

“Chewy,” by Maureen Cavanaugh.

communication. Opening fresh regions of thought, his works explore the fissure between art’s intention and its reception.

Eight Dibond panels, each silk-screened with two pages from an essay, “The Failure of Interpolation in Modal Logics,” hang at neck-craning angles in the small gallery. Bowes Photoshops the images, picking bits out of vinyl before silk-screening them onto the panels. This labor-intensive process leaves smudges and mistakes in the works, contrasting with their orderly subject matter.

Bowes uses the essay to enter the space between intention and reception: the inevitable failure of art’s ability to communicate. The trouble with using “Failure…” is that a paper like this is meant for a specialized group of readers: those with the knowledge to comprehend it. Perhaps Bowes is laying bare the disconnect between the obscure inspirations behind much contemporary art and its viewers.

In another piece, “Der tatsächliche Lauf der Dinge” (“The Way Things Really Go”), monochrome dominos line the gallery’s wall in reference to a 1987 video by Fischli and Weiss. Bowes’ dominos—in stark contrast to Fischli and Weiss’ dynamic inanimate objects that crash, burn and roll in a distopian routine—stand stagnant, too distant to affect one another.

Bowes owes as much to Kurt Gödel as to early Expressionists. The thrust of the show is deceptively simple: If art inevitably fails to communicate, does Bowes’ work accomplish any purpose? This “a-ha!” moment is sobering and reveals a logical paradox: “This sentence cannot be understood,” a cousin of The Liar’s Paradox. Such a line of interpretation leads to the gaping hole of interactive reality and a high-speed game of Pong in which thoughts ricochet between visual reality and the ultimate failure of Bowes’ art—and thus success.

(Nicholas Wells)

on the human animal.

Unconscious Unbound includes a fair share of groaners, works whose earnest sophistication and meticulous execution can’t obscure outmoded pretensions. This is particularly true of paintings that tend toward Surrealism’s illustrative wing, as epitomized by Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte.

Weird and sometimes psychedelic dreamscapes

by Dorothea Tanning, Pavel Tchelitchew, Alfonso Ossorio, Helen Lundeberg and Eugene Berman are rarely more than derivative and often less than that.

It’s hard to believe that the brittle theatricality of Federico Castellon’s “Veronica’s Veil” would jolt anyone’s sense of propriety, save that of a precocious adolescent or a heavy metal band in need of cover art. Exceptions can be made for John Wilde’s “Wildehouse,” an erotic reverie that has something of the fever pitch typical of folk art, and Willem de Kooning’s “Self-Portrait With Gull and Nautical Theme,” a rarely seen mural study that evinces an American master still in formation.

The de Kooning reminds us that Surrealism’s impact on Abstract Expressionism was decisive.

If there are no New York School masterpieces on display, there are stirring examples by signature figures struggling with precedent. Jackson Pollock, Norman Lewis, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky and Seymour Lipton are seen in transition, but their efforts are propulsive and gritty; the pieces are significant for the aesthetic and historical shifts they portend.

Through May 16. Rachel Uffner Gallery, 47 Orchard St., 212-274-0064.

Unconscious Unbound: Surrealism in America The influence of Surrealism on American art is seen to sweeping effect in Unconscious Unbound: Surrealism in America, an ambitious if spotty exhibition at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. It’s ambitious because Rosenfeld is striving to expand the parameters of American modernism, long this gallery’s mission. It’s spotty because few schools of art have lent themselves as readily to hokum as Surrealism.

Plumbing icky psychological depths has proven to be more a conduit to kitsch than a clarifying light

“Black Teddy Iconic,” by Matt Campbell.

The exhibition’s finest moments fly under the radar, chief among them Charles Howard’s cartoony riff on Miró, Gerome Kamrowski’s puzzle-box meditation on root vegetables and William Baziotes’

“Star Figure,” a galumphing biomorph that comes on like a cross between an accusatory Cyclops and an attention-deprived puppy. It is within the quieter and quirkier precincts of Surrealism that Unconscious Unbound finds its most gratifying reasons for being. (MN) Through May 28. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 24 W. 57th St., 212-247-0082.

Albert York: A Memorial Exhibition Albert York died this past October. Born in 1928, he came of age with Abstract Expressionism and lived through the parade of movements that followed. Yet his painting went untouched by the seductions of his era and its defining imperatives.

York cared as much for fashions in artistic dogma as for celebrity. Which is to say, he gave barely a fig for any of it. Out of such regal detachment came a body of painting—haunting in its humility and loveliness of touch—that refused to make an idol of the present.

Davis & Langdale’s memorial loan exhibition includes some 35 paintings, many from private collections. The show is obligatory for anyone who recognizes splendor in modest intentions and values the grace of a gifted hand. York’s body of work is counter-cultural in its trust that nothing is simpler, more innately intelligible or deserving of attention than beauty. Here, it is art that counts.

Cultural pressure to make noise—pump up dimensions, abandon representation—was quietly resisted. Working on panels under a square foot, York held to small-scale landscapes and the commonplaces of the visual world: a pot of flowers, the occasional cow, a wheelbarrow, a dog or two. His subject matter is so unassuming as to be almost inadmissible. But it is ordinary in extraordinary ways.

“The Meadow, East Hampton” withstands both the grandeur of its antecedents in 19th-century French landscape and the pull of its own time. While modernity asserts itself in the austerity of a deceptively simple composition, the tonal refinement of an older palette marks the scene’s emotional tenor. Delectable greens and the drama of definitive forms against a light backdrop occur like an incremental refrain throughout York’s work. Variations on the approach serve beautifully in the botanically fanciful “Landscape with Two Tropical Trees” and the glorious “Geranium.” In each, tonal contrasts, sensuously laid in, lead your eye through the complete unfolding of deeply felt natural forms.

“Two Reclining Women in a Landscape” and “Spring,” a glimpse of a female figure in a blossoming copse, are casual memoranda of passing moments. They require no more for completion than what is there. Any further development would bring with it a loss of substance.

Enough has been said about York’s reclusiveness. What matters is the quality of his execution. Art lives less on inspiration than on the calculated control of it. Art resides in know-how.

Even York’s most playful arrangements—a gentle memento mori, riffs on Manet or an ethnographic photo—carry the conviction of a commanding hand. Everything he touched rewards the solitary act of looking.

Entries for Albert York are still sparse in the annals of modern art, though that is changing.

Every serious painter in New York knows his work.

So do serious collectors. And for good reason.

Fairfield Porter, writing in 1974, claimed that it was York’s empathy that attracts. That, and reticence.

Legions of artists pound us with the gravity of their ideas. Albert York preferred two trees against the sky. (MM) Through June 11. Davis & Langdale Company, 231 E. 60th St., 212-838-0333.

April 20, 2010 | City Arts

13

THEATER

Paradise Found

BY MARK PEIKERT Over 80 years after they were voted the It Couple, F. Scott and Zelda Fitgerald are as popular as ever. They’ve been represented on Broadway (Tennessee Williams’ Clothes for a Summer Hotel), TV (Natasha Richardson in Zelda; Blythe Danner in The Last of the Belles), a cottage industry of memoirs, biographies and cultural studies—and there’s even a big-screen biopic in the works, starring Keira Knightley.

Now, seven years after the release of Nancy Harrow’s CD Winter Dreams: The Life and Passions of F. Scott Fitzgerald, her jazz songs detailing the world of the Fitzgeralds are receiving new life in This Side of Paradise, the new Off-Broadway musical co-written and directed by Will Pomerantz.

“Originally, the book was going to look at Scott’s life and his work,” Pomerantz says at Harrow’s Upper East Side apartment. “An early version of the book tried to encompass all of his life, his first love all the way to his death. And the general consensus was that people were mostly interested in Scott and Zelda. And we had this idea where Zelda is later in her life, trying to figure out what happened, and we could have a younger version of herself. So it could become about the relationship between Scott and Zelda, and also the relationship between Zelda and her younger self.”

Harrow, who has previously released CDs based on literary figures like Willa Cather and Nathaniel Hawthorne, agrees that the new direction the show has taken has been beneficial to telling the story. “When I sat

down to write,” she says, “it was his story.

The thing that attracted me to his story was this quality he had of never giving up. I know people don’t see him that way. They see him as a drunk and he deserved what he got. But he really was faithful to [Zelda] and writing constantly in order to keep her in the hospital.

And he killed himself doing that. Even at the end, after he had a heart attack, he was writing what could have been his greatest book.”

Neither Harrow nor Pomerantz ever felt any qualms about having infamous literary figures like the Fitzgeralds and Ernest Hemingway breaking out into song. “The way we’ve done it,” Harrow explains, “it never stops for the song. The songs are woven into the story.” Pomerantz agrees, adding that though the macho Hemingway does indeed sing in This Side of Paradise, the song propels the story and illuminates the effect Hemingway’s corrosive friendship had on Fitzgerald. “There’s a very specific point of view in the piece about him,” Pomerantz says with a laugh. “And there are Hemingway partisans, but they probably will not like it.

But it’s fairly well documented that he was not a good guy!”

Harrow interrupts, “He was a total ingrate!”

But just as there are those who take Hemingway’s side against Fitzgerald, telling the Fitzgeralds’ story without taking sides against one or the other is almost impossible.

Harrow and Pomerantz, however, claim that their version is more objective than most.

“I think it really is equal,” Pomerantz says.

“But also, they don’t judge each other. Scott

Dixie Sheridan

Jazz-era icons Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald sing in a new Off-Broadway musical

Rachel Moulton (Young Zelda) and Michael Shawn Lewis (F. Scott) in This Side of Paradise. said, ‘I never thought we hurt each other.’”

Of course, Scott was also the husband who tried to convince an institutionalized Zelda not to write her book Save Me the Waltz, because it dealt with the same time in their life as his own work in progress, Tender is the Night. “You can certainly see his point of view,” Pomerantz argues, “which is, ‘I’ve been working on this novel for five or seven years, and suddenly you want to write a novel that’s basically the same subject?’ And as a family, they were depending on the income from his writing. But on the other hand, why shouldn’t she write what she wants to write?”

But whether one counts oneself as a member of Team Scott or Team Zelda, Harrow’s jazz score is the perfect way for these two Jazz Babies to express themselves.

Still resonant 80 years later, their over-the-

top antics and personal demons (Zelda was eventually killed in a fire at the mental institution where she spent the last several years of her life) have never faded into sepia the way so many of their contemporaries have. Harrow unwittingly sums up their co-dependent relationship—and glamour— when she says, “On the Riviera, Zelda was a daredevil diver. These huge cliffs that she would dive off of! And [Scott] felt like he had to keep up, but he was terrified.” Now it’s Harrow and Pomerantz diving off the cliff and into the world of musical theater, where their retelling of the Fitzgeralds’ lives will either sink or swim.

This Side of Paradise, April 21-May 9.

Theatre at St. Clements, 423 W. 46th St., 212352-3101, $65.

JAZZ

Lofts Ain’t What They Used to Be Revisiting the Jazz Loft, where anti-establishment ideas thrived

BY HOWARD MANDEL Time was a Manhattan jazz loft, a downbeat, drafty, dingy, semi-dangerous place where you might hear anything, meet anyone and afterward end up anywhere. That’s why you dropped by. Today the Manhattan jazz loft—any Manhattan loft—is different: renovated, formalized, upscale.

But drift back to the Jazz Loft, a bohemian hangout in the flower district from the mid1950s to the mid-’60s. It could be the setting of a great, as-yet-unwritten jazz novel of America at a turning point, when post-WWII/ pre-Vietnam culture bloomed in full glory;

14

City Arts | www.cityarts.info

when eccentric geniuses, slumming celebrities, the contentiously brilliant and attractive hangers-on rubbed shoulders, crossed genres and created sparks; when urban living was almost affordable and spontaneously exciting; when creativity was fiercely expressionistic and non-conformity the lay of the land.

This Jazz Loft is the topic of a traveling exhibition at the NYC Public Library for the Performing Arts through May 22, curated by researcher Sam Stephenson under the auspices of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Stephenson, who directs the multidimensional The Jazz Loft Project, was drawn

to its story through the photography of W. Eugene Smith, the Loft’s initially discontented, eventually speed-fueled host. He has edited an award-nominated book combining Smith’s gritty black-and-white images with transcriptions from his voluminous archive of audiotapes capturing jams and rap sessions.

The exhibit has spun off a fascinating panel discussion, the premiere screening of a film tangentially connected to the Loft and a 10-part radio series by producer Sara Fishko.

All this media does a fine job of depicting the Loft’s decade-long underground party.

The illegal live-work space—off any beaten

path and completely non-commercial—drew artists, actors, choreographers, writers and philanthropists such as Diane Arbus, Stan Brakhage, Willem de Kooning, Doris Duke, Lincoln Kirstein, Franz Kline and Anais Nin to mingle, argue, lay back, flirt, drink and get high. Musicians were its mainstay: jazzniks such as Thelonious Monk, Zoot Sims, Charles Mingus and Bill Evans, as well as figures of contemporary classicism like David Amram, Dennis Russell Davies, Ben Johnston, Joel Krosnick and Alvin Singleton.

One of the reasons they all showed up was that besides Smith—a Life magazine star

Courtesy of New York Public Library

who quit in a huff over a photo-essay layout, left his wife and four children in Crotonon-Hudson and moved to the city—also residing in the five-story walkup were painter David X. Young, musician Dick Cary and composer-arranger Hall Overton. Today, Overton is remembered mostly for his smart, spare arrangements of pianist Monk’s eternally individualistic songs for a 10-piece ensemble that he led in a single 1959 concert at Town Hall. But Steve Reich, Carman Moore and Joel Sachs, who spoke April 14, described Overton as their indefatigable, independent “hands-on, realistic” composition instructor.

As they put it, Overton didn’t pledge

A scene from In My Mind. allegiance to the 12-tone serial style demanded by the day’s elite conservatories. Instead, he believed in composing “intuitively, what one heard in one’s head,” and furthered the era’s budding cross-pollenization of genres.

“We were all jazz listeners then,” Reich explained. “It was a form of rebellion.” The obverse was true, too, according to Moore: “Jazz musicians were fascinated by the new classical music.” Overton positioned himself in both realms, composing an opera based on Huckleberry Finn and gigging on piano at Bradley’s, the Village musicians’ nightclub, weeks prior to his death in 1972.

At the end of the ’50s there were several

efforts to mix jazz energies and contemporary compositional thought. Gunther Schuller’s “Third Stream,” advanced at the Lenox School of Jazz in the Berkshires, is most famous; George Russell and Gil Evans were active in the initiative, too. Aficionados today take the results for granted. But the loving repertory treatment pianist Jason Moran gave Monk’s Overton-arranged 1959 concert by revisiting it on its 50th anniversary—beautifully captured in the film In My Mind, shown at the Library on April 19—couldn’t have happened otherwise.

The Jazz Loft was the anti-establishment venue where such ideas could germinate and blossom.

The Jazz Gallery, best of 2010’s Manhattan

jazz lofts, springs strong new works on the cognoscenti, though its ambiance is nowhere as casually unconventional as the flower district Jazz Loft’s was. Manhattan has become too gentrified to afford much of such low rent, rough and tumble mashing up, though some survives, for instance at the Rise Up Creative Music & Arts presentations at Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center and The Local 269 bar.

Most artist-operated music lofts now are in Brooklyn. But that’s a topic for another time.

The Jazz Loft Project, through May 22. NYPL for the Performing Arts, at Amsterdam Ave. & West 55th St., 212-870-1630.

Kent Tritle, Music Director

MOZART

“Great” Mass in C Minor Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major Friday, April 23 at 8:00 pm Carnegie Hall

www.carnegiehall.org or 212 247-7800

www.MusicaSacraNY.com April 20, 2010 | City Arts

15

GALLERY OPENINGS

Gallery listings courtesy of

BLUE MOUNTAIN GALLERY: Helene K. Manzo: “Platte

Clove: Paintings & Monotypes.” Opens Apr. 27, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646-486-4730.

BROOKLYNITE GALLERY: Dolk & M-City: “Eurotrash.”

Opens Apr. 30, 334 Malcolm X Blvd., Brooklyn, 347-405-5976.

CERES GALLERY: Marian Osher: “Fearless Flying!”

Opens Apr. 27. Judith Greenwald: “Poem.”

Opens Apr. 27, 547 W. 27th St., Ste. 201, 212947-6100.

ENNAGON GALLERY: Martine Malle: “The Lost Virgins of Gabriel.” Opens Apr. 27, 50 Greene St., 5th Fl., 212-343-0055.

FIRST STREET GALLERY: Rallou Malliarakis: “Illuminations.” Opens Apr. 27, 526 W. 26th St., Ste. 915, 646-336-8053.

LESLEY HELLER WORKSPACE: Ming Fay: “Cognitive Unconscious.” Opens Apr. 28, 54 Orchard St., 212-410-6120.

LYONS WIER GALLERY: James Rieck: “Mead Hall.”

Opens Apr. 23. David Lyle: “At the Ends of the Day.” Opens Apr. 23, 175 7th Ave., 212-2426220.

MICHAEL MUT GALLERY: “Birthright.” Opens Apr. 22, 97 Ave. C, 212-677-7868.

MIYAKO YOSHINAGA ART PROSPECTS: Jonathan Hammer: “KOVNO - KOBE.” Opens Apr. 22, 547 W. 27th St., 2nd Fl., 212-268-7132.

NEW CENTURY ARTISTS GALLERY: “East Meets West.”

Opens Apr. 20, 530 W. 25th St., Ste. 406, 212367-7072.

NICOLE KLAGSBRUN GALLERY: John Giorno: “Black Paintings and Drawings.” Opens Apr. 30, 526 W. 26th St., No. 213, 212-243-3335.

NOHO GALLERY IN CHELSEA: Irving Barrett: “Wild Life.” Opens Apr. 27, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 212-367-7063.

SHEPHERD & DEROM GALLERIES: “Hungarian Modernism.” Opens Apr. 29, 58 E. 79th St., 212-8614050.

SUSAN-BERKO CONDE GALLERY: Michelle Jaffé: “New Work.” Opens Apr. 29, 521 W. 23rd St., 2nd Fl., 212-367-9799.

SUSAN ELEY FINE ART: Robert Hite: “Imagined Histories.” Opens Apr. 21, 46 W. 90th St., 917-952-7641.

SUSAN INGLETT GALLERY: Greg Smith: “Bearded.”

Opens Apr. 30, 522 W. 24th St., 212-647-9111.

TEAM GALLERY: Gardar Eide Einarsson: “Another Modern Moment Completed.” Opens. Apr. 22, 83 Grand St., 212-279-9219.

TIBOR DE NAGY GALLERY: Kathy Butterly: “Pantyhose & Morandi.” Opens Apr. 30. Tara Geer, Colter Jacobsen & Jon Shelton: “Current Drawing.”

Opens Apr. 30, 724 5th Ave., 212-262-5050.

TRIA GALLERY: Lauren Bergman & Karen Dow: “American Fragment.” Opens Apr. 22, 531 W. 25th St., 212-695-0021.

VISUAL ARTS GALLERY: “Unleashed.” Opens Apr. 30, 601 W. 26th St., 15th Fl., 212-592-2145.

VON LINTEL GALLERY: Stephen Ellis: “Insects and Flowers.” Opens Apr. 22, 520 W. 23rd St., 212242-0599.

GALLERY CLOSINGS AICON GALLERY: Baiju Parthan: “Milljunction.” Ends

Apr. 24, 35 Great Jones St., 212-725-6092.

A.I.R. GALLERY: JoAnne McFarland: “Acid Rain.”

Ends Apr. 25. Francie Shaw: “Weights and Measures.” Ends Apr. 25. Elke Solomon: “A TAVOLA!” Ends Apr. 25, 111 Front St., #228, Brooklyn, 212-255-6651.

ATLANTIC GALLERY: Ragnar Naess: “Plant and Space Forms.” Ends Apr. 24. Richard Lincoln: “Artists

16

City Arts | www.cityarts.info

and Models.” Ends Apr. 24, 135 W. 29th St., Ste. 601, 212-861-8781.

BLUE MOUNTAIN GALLERY: Rose Weinstock: “Cloudscapes.” Ends Apr. 24, 530 W. 25th St., 646486-4730.

BRIC ROTUNDA GALLERY: “A Wild Gander: Artists from the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective.”

Ends May 1. “Apologies and Further Concessions.” Ends May 1, 33 Clinton St., Brooklyn, 718-875-4047.

BROOME STREET GALLERY: Arthur Szyk: “Methods of a Master Illuminator.” Apr. 25, 498 Broome St., 212-941-0130.

CERES GALLERY: Cynthia Eardley: “Sculpture.” Ends Apr. 24. Ethelyn Honig: “The Eastern Garbage Patch.” Ends Apr. 24, 547 W. 27th St., Ste. 201, 212-947-6100.

DASH GALLERY: Kyle Goen: “The Voice That Arms Itself To Be Heard.” Ends Apr. 22, 172 Duane St., no phone.

DAVID NOLAN GALLERY: Neil Gall: “The Great Constructor.” Ends May 1, 527 W. 29th St., 212-925-6190.

DAVID ZWIRNER: R. Crumb: “The Bible Illuminated.”

Ends Apr. 24, 519 W. 19th St., 212-727-2070.

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

Ends Apr. 24, 533 W. 19th St., 212-727-2070.

DAVID ZWIRNER: James Welling: “Glass House.”

Ends Apr. 24, 525 W. 19th St., 212-727-2070.

DCKT CONTEMPORARY: Lia Halloran: “The Only Way Out Is Through.” Ends May 2, 195 Bowery, 212-741-9955.

DEITCH PROJECTS: Jules de Balincourt: “Premonitions.”

Ends Apr. 24, 18 Wooster St., 212-343-7300.

DUMBO ARTS CENTER: Nebojša Šeric-Shoba: “Battlefields.” Ends Apr. 25, 30 Washington St., Brooklyn, 718-694-0831.

EDWYNN HOUK GALLERY: “Pioneers of Color.” Ends Apr. 24, 745 5th Ave., 212-750-7070.

FIRST STREET GALLERY: Penny Kronengold. Ends Apr. 24, 526 W. 26th St., Ste. 915, 646-336-8053.

GAGOSIAN GALLERY: Curated by Jeff Koons: “Ed Paschke.” Ends Apr. 24. Alberto Di Fabio. Ends Apr. 24, 980 Madison Ave., 212-744-2313.

GALLERY R PURE: John Pomp: “Design of the Table.”

Ends Apr. 23, 3 E. 19th St., 646-572-3869.

GASSER GRUNERT: Rebecca Morgan: “Where I Have Lived and What I Live For.” Ends May 1, 524 W. 19th St., 646-944-6197.

HIRSCHL & ADLER MODERN: “Alexander Creswell: Aqua Terra.” Ends Apr. 24, 21 E. 70th St., 212-535-8810.

ICO GALLERY: “Eyes of the World,” Ends Apr. 28, 606 W. 26th St., 212-966-3897.

IPCNY: “Wallworks: Contemporary Pictorial Wallpapers.” Ends Apr. 24, 526 W. 26th St., Rm. 824, 212-989-5090.

KIM FOSTER GALLERY: John Kirchner: “A Brief History of American and Its Peoples.” Ends Apr. 24, 529 W. 20th St., 212-229-0044.

MARLBOROUGH GALLERY: “Celebrating the Muse: Women in Picasso’s Prints, 1905-1968.” Ends May 1, 40 W. 57th St., 212-541-4900.

MAX LANG GALLERY: Arye Carmon: “Connecting Disparate Worlds.” Ends Apr. 24, 229 10th Ave., 212-980-2400.

MCKENZIE FINE ART INC.: Maureen McQuillan: “Necessary Detours.” Ends May 1, 511 W. 25th St., 212-989-5467.

MITCHELL ALGUS GALLERY: Dan Asher: “Drawings & Sculpture.” Ends Apr. 30, 511 W. 25th St., 212242-6242.

NABI GALLERY: Kathy Buist: “Light Upon the Deep.”

Ends Apr. 24, 137 W. 25th St., 212-929-6063.

NOHO GALLERY IN CHELSEA: Zarvin Swerbilov. Ends Apr. 24, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 212-367-7063.

PHOENIX GALLERY: Moklesa D. Shah. Ends Apr. 24.

Anuraj Shah: “Untitled.” Ends Apr. 24, 210 11th Ave., Ste. 902, 212-226-7303.

Courtesy Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC.

ArtsAGENDA

“Beard and Parrot,” by Greg Smith.

PRINCE STREET GALLERY: Mary Salstrom: “Landscape

Paintings and Sketches From Life.” Ends Apr. 24, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646-230-0246.

RICK WESTER FINE ART: “One Month, Weather Permitting, Photographs by Sharon Harper.” Ends Apr. 24, 511 W. 25th St., Ste. 205, 212-255-5560.

SIDNEY MISHKIN GALLERY: “The Beautiful Time in Lubumbashi: Photography by Sammy Baloji.”

Ends Apr. 28, Baruch College, 135 E. 22nd St., 646-660-6652.

SOUS LES ETOILES GALLERY: Wendy Paton: “Visages de Nuit.” Ends Apr. 30, 560 Broadway, 212-966-0796.

SPANIERMAN MODERN: “Teo González.” Ends Apr. 24, 53 E. 58th St., 212-832-1400.

SUSAN INGLETT GALLERY: Shaun O’Dell. Ends Apr. 24, 522 W. 24th St., 212-647-9111.

SUSAN TELLER GALLERY: Sue Fuller: “String Theory, Constructions and Works on Paper.” Ends Apr. 24, 568 Broadway, Rm. 502A, 212-941-7335.

TIBOR DE NAGY GALLERY: Shirley Jaffe: “Selected Paintings, 1969-2009.” Ends Apr. 24, 724 5th Ave., 212-262-5050.

VISUAL ARTS GALLERY: “Classical Myths Transformed.” Ends Apr. 24, 601 W. 26th St., 15th Fl., 212-592-2145.

WOODWARD GALLERY: Natalie Edgar: “From Above.”

Ends Apr. 24, 133 Eldridge St., 212-966-3411.

WORKSPACEHARLEM: “Recycling the Studio.” Ends Apr. 24, 2340 5th Ave., no phone.

MUSEUMS ABRONS ART CENTER: Kim Badawi: “The Taqwacores:

Muslim Punk in the USA.” Ends Apr. 30, 466 Grand St., 212-598-0400.

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: The Butterfly Conservatory. Ends May 31. “Traveling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World.”

Ends Aug. 15. “Lizards & Snakes: Alive!” Ends Sept. 2, Central Park West at West 79th Street, 212-769-5100.

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

BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC: “Archive Exhibition.”

Ends June 30, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30

Lafayette Ave., 3rd Fl., Brooklyn, 718-636-4100.

BROOKLYN HISTORICAL SOCIETY: “Tivoli: A Place We

Call Home.” Ends Aug. 29. “It Happened in Brooklyn.” Ongoing, 128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, 718-222-4111.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM: “To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt.” Ends May 2. “Kiki Smith: Sojourn.” Ends Sept. 12. “Healing the Wounds of War: The Brooklyn Sanity Fair of 1864.” Ends Oct. 17, 200 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn, 718-638-5000.

CHELSEA ART MUSEUM: “Irish Need Not Apply.” Ends May 15, 556 W. 22nd St., 212-255-0719.

COOPER-HEWITT NATIONAL DESIGN MUSEUM: “Quicktake: Tata Nano - The People’s Car.” Ends Apr. 25, 2 E. 91st St., 212-849-8400.

THE DRAWING CENTER: Dorothea Tanning: “Early Designs for the Stage.” Opens Apr. 23. Leon Golub: “Live & Die Like a Lion?” Apr. 23-July 23, 35 Wooster St., 212-219-2166.

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

GABARRON FOUNDATION: “Spain in the City: Young Spanish Artists in New York.” Ends Apr. 30, 149 E. 38th St., 212-573-6968.

ITALIAN AMERICAN MUSEUM: Arturo DiModica: “Resurrection.” Ends Apr. 30, 155 Mulberry St., 212-965-9000.

JAPAN SOCIETY: “Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection.” Ends June 13, 333 E. 47th St., 212-832-1155.

JEWISH MUSEUM: “Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H.A. Rey.” Ends Aug. 1.

“Modern Art, Sacred Space: Motherwell, Ferber and Gottlieb.” Ends Aug. 1. “The Monayer Family: Three Videos by Dor Guez.” Ends Sept. 7, 1109 5th Ave., 212-423-3200.

THE KITCHEN: Leslie Hewitt: “On Beauty, Objects and Dissonance.” Ends May 10, 512 W. 19th St., 212-255-5793.

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: “Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Apr. 27-Aug. 1. “Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú.” Opens Apr. 27. “Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage.” Ends May 9. “Tutankhamun’s

Funeral.â&#x20AC;? Ends Sept. 6. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Silver Service Rediscovered.â&#x20AC;? Ends Nov. 7, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710.

THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 2. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rome After Raphael.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 9, 225 Madison Ave., 212-685-0008.

EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 9, 1230 5th Ave., 212-831-7272.

MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION: â&#x20AC;&#x153;BLAB!: A Retrospective.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 1, Society of Illustrators, 128 E. 63rd St., 212-838-2560.

MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dead or Alive.â&#x20AC;? Apr. 27-Oct. 24. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bigger, Better, More: The Art of Viola Frey.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 2. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Portable Treasuries: Silver Jewelry From the Nadler Collection.â&#x20AC;? Ends Aug. 8, 2 Columbus Cir., 212-299-7777.

MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Traces of Memory.â&#x20AC;?

Ends Aug. 15. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service.â&#x20AC;? Ends Dec. 2010, 36 Battery Pl., 646437-4200.

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tim Burton.â&#x20AC;? Ends Apr. 26. â&#x20AC;&#x153;William Kentridge: Five Themes.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 17. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 31. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century.â&#x20AC;? Ends June 28. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Picasso: Themes & Variations.â&#x20AC;? Ends Sept. 6, 11 W. 53rd St., 212-708-9400.

NATIONAL ACADEMY MUSEUM: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The 185th Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art.â&#x20AC;? Ends June 8, 5 E. 89th St., 212996-1908.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ramp It Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America.â&#x20AC;?

Ends June 27. â&#x20AC;&#x153;HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor (Part I).â&#x20AC;? Ends Aug. 1, 1 Bowling Green, 212-514-3700.

NEW MUSEUM: Curated by Jeff Koons: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection.â&#x20AC;?

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

NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Grateful Dead: Now Playing at the New-York Historical Society.â&#x20AC;? Ends July 4, 170 Central Park West, 212-873-3400.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Candide at 250: Scandal and Success.â&#x20AC;? Ends Apr. 25. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In Passing: Evelyn Hofer, Helen Levitt, Lilo Raymond.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 23. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mapping New Yorkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Shoreline, 16092009.â&#x20AC;? Ends June 26, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, West 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, 917-275-6975.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Jazz Loft Project.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 22, 40 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-870-1630.

NOGUCHI MUSEUM: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Noguchi ReINstalled.â&#x20AC;? Ends Oct. 24, 33rd Road at Vernon Boulevard, Queens, 718-721-2308.

RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Visions of the Cosmos.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 10. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What Is It?â&#x20AC;? Ends June 14. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the Shadow of Everest: Photographs by Tom Wool.â&#x20AC;?

Ends July 26. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Remember That You Will Die: Death Across Cultures.â&#x20AC;? Ends Aug. 9. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bardo: The Tibetan Art of the Afterlife.â&#x20AC;? Ends Sept. 6, 150 W. 17th St., 212-620-5000.

SKYSCRAPER MUSEUM: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Rise of Wall Street.â&#x20AC;? Apr. 21-Oct. 2010, 39 Battery Pl., 212-968-1961.

SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Paris and the Avant-Garde: Modern Masters From the Guggenheim Collection.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 12. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Malevich in Focus: 1912-1922.â&#x20AC;? Ends June 13. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hilla Rebay: Art Educator.â&#x20AC;? Ends Aug. 22, 1071 5th Ave., 212-423-3500.

STUDIO MUSEUM: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Collected. ReďŹ&#x201A;ections on the Permanent Collection.â&#x20AC;? Ends June 27. â&#x20AC;&#x153;VidĂŠoStudio: New Works from France.â&#x20AC;? Ends June 27. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Harlem Postcards.â&#x20AC;? Ends June 27, 144 W. 125th St., 212-864-4500.

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: The Whitney

hosts 55 artists in its Biennial, â&#x20AC;&#x153;2010.â&#x20AC;? Ends May 30, 945 Madison Ave., 212-570-3600.

AUCTIONS CHRISTIEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S: 500 Years Decorative Arts Europe

Including Oriental Carpets. Apr. 20, 10 a.m. & 2. A Marriage of Collections: The Property of Dr. Julius and Dena K. Tarshis. Apr. 21, 10 a.m. Christieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Green Auction: A Bid to Save the Earth. Apr. 22, 7:30. Jewels: The New York Sale, with The Catherine the Great Emerald Brooch and The Emperor Maximilian Diamond.

Apr. 22, 10:30 a.m. & 2. Russian Art. Apr. 23, 10 a.m. & 2. Prints & Multiples. Apr. 26 & 27, 10 a.m. & 2. Fine Musical Instruments. Apr. 28, 10 a.m., Rockefeller Plz., 212-636-2000.

DOYLE NEW YORK: Rare Books, Autographs & Maps.

Apr. 28, 10 a.m., 175 E. 87th St., 212-427-2730.

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

SWANN AUCTION GALLERIES: Autographs. Apr. 22, 1:30, 104 E. 25th St., 212-254-4710.

Stephen Pace Selected Paintings 1950â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s - 1980â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Through May 8th, 2010

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ART EVENTS MIDTOWN GALLERY TOUR: Guided tour of the weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top

7 gallery exhibits in the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business district.

Apr. 24, 41 E. 57th St., 212-946-1548; 1, $20.

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ALICE TULLY HALL: In the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Music Takes Flight:

Airborne Symphoniesâ&#x20AC;? concert, music director Dino Anagnost and The Little Orchestra Society perform with actress Sigourney Weaver, actor Robert Cuccioli and multimedia designer Elliott Forrest. Apr. 26, 1941 Broadway, 212-671-4050; 7:30, $25+.

LITTLE CHURCH AROUND THE CORNER: Mezzo soprano Linn Maxwell presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hildegard of Bingen and the Living Light,â&#x20AC;? a new one-woman musical play about the 12th-century German Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, the ďŹ rst known woman composer in history. Apr. 23 & 24, 1 E. 29th St., 212-868-4444; 8, $15.

(LE) POISSON ROUGE: Ensemble ACJW continues its â&#x20AC;&#x153;ACJW Gets Extremeâ&#x20AC;? series. Apr. 26, 158 Bleecker St., 212-505-3473; 6:30, $15.

MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC: The schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Opera Theater presents Mozartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Le nozze de Figaro.â&#x20AC;? Apr. 28, 30 & May 2, John C. Borden Auditorium, 120 Claremont Ave., 917-493-4429; times vary, $10+.

METROPOLITAN OPERA: Armida: Soprano RenĂŠe Fleming stars as the vengeful sorceress who reigns over an enchanted island prison. Apr. 12-May 15.

La Traviata: Angela Gheorghiu reprises her acclaimed interpretation of Violetta. Ends Apr. 24, West 62nd Street (betw. Columbus & Amsterdam Aves.), 212-362-6000; times vary, $20+.

PHILOSOPHY HALL: Miller Theatre at Columbia University concludes the third year of its lunchtime concerts. Apr. 21, Columbia University, 535 W. 116th St., 212-854-7799; 12:30, free.

SKIRBALL CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: The New York City Opera presents its annual new music festival, renamed VOX Contemporary American Opera Lab. Apr. 30 & May 1, 566 LaGuardia Place; times vary, free.

STERN AUDITORIUM: Musica Sacra, in its ďŹ nal performance of the season, presents Mozartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Greatâ&#x20AC;? Mass in C Minor under the direction of Kent Tritle.

Apr. 23, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-2477800; 8, $25+.

THE STONE: Christopher DeLaurenti, maker of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Favorite Intermissionsâ&#x20AC;? album, presents ďŹ eld

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recordings that capture unusual confluences of sound, speech, music and more. Apr. 30, Avenue C at East 2nd Street, no phone; 8, $5+.

THE TRIAD: Sing! Sing! Sing! presents “It Might As Well Be Spring,” a communal sing-along in tribute to Oscar Hammerstein II. Apr. 30, 158 W. 72nd St., 212-786-9064; 7, $10+.

TURTLE BAY MUSIC SCHOOL: Faculty member Grace Browning performs her harp recital. Apr. 29, 244 E. 52nd St., 212-753-8811; 7, free.

WEILL RECITAL HALL: Sixteen-year-old piano virtuoso Kit Armstrong performs in a recital with a program featuring his own composition, along with works by Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Debussy and Liszt. Apr. 23, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 7:30, $34+.

ZANKEL HALL: Ray Chew directs “A Night of Inspiration,” a gospel concert featuring appearances

by Sheila E., Patty Griffin, Hezekiah Walker, Phylicia Rashad and others. Apr. 28, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 8, $13.50+.

JAZZ DAVID RUBENSTEIN ATRIUM: As part of the Target Free

Thursdays, the Essentially Ellington Alumni All Stars perform. Apr. 29, Lincoln Center, Broadway between West 62nd and 63rd Streets; 8:30, free.

DIZZY’S CLUB COCA-COLA: Dizzy’s hosts performances as part of the Sing Into Spring Festival. George Coleman Quintet with Harold Mabern and Eric Alexander. Apr. 20-25. Samba Jazz and the music of Jobim featuring Duduka DaFonseca, Helio Alves, Claudio Roditi, Marc Johnson, Maucha Adnet and Toninho Horta. Apr. 27-May 2, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9595; times vary, $15+.

FEINSTEIN’S: The Nancy Marano Quartet performs.

Apr. 25, Loews Regency, 540 Park Ave., 212339-4095; 8:30, $25+.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN IN JAZZ: The organization hosts its annual Women in Jazz Festival, which showcases and honors women in jazz with homage to the centennial celebration of Mary Lou Williams.

Apr. 23 & 24, Various Locations, 212-560-7553; times vary, $25+.

ROSE THEATER: The Music of Hancock & Roberts.

Apr. 22-24. Yellowjackets featuring Mike Stern.

Apr. 29-May 1, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 33 W. 60th St., 11th Fl., 212-258-9800.

ZANKEL HALL: Just Jazz: The Joyce Wein Series concludes with the return to Carnegie Hall of renowned trumpet virtuoso Jon Faddis, who will explore the musical legacy of great jazz trumpeters like Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. Apr. 27, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 8:30, $36+.

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sional dancers under the artistic direction of Sylvia Waters performs as part of the 1.2.3. Festival.

Ends Apr. 22, The Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave., 212-242-0800; times vary, $25+.

BETH SOLL & COMPANY: The company premieres “Restless Geometry,” “Disclosure” and “Knowing/Not Knowing.” Apr. 30 & May 1, Speyer Hall, University Settlement, 184 Eldridge St., 212-4534532; 7:30, $12+.

CHRIS FERRIS & DANCERS: Chris Ferris & Dancers premiere the full-evening dance work “Proximity of Clouds.” Apr. 30, May 1 & 2, Joyce Soho, 155 Mercer St. 212-242-0800; 8, $15+.

JUILLIARD DANCE: The Juilliard School presents its students’ senior production concert. Apr. 22-25, Rosemary and Meredith Wilson Theater, 155 W. 65th St., 3rd Fl., 212-769-7406; times vary, free.

RIRIE-WOODBURY DANCE COMPANY: In celebration of the centenary of Alwin Nikolais’s birth, the reposi-

tory of the Nikolais Dance Theatre repertory performs his choreography. Apr. 30, May 1 & 2, Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St., 212-5980400; times vary, $10+.

SOKOLOW DANCE THEATRE ENSEMBLE: The ensemble continues to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Anna Sokolow. Performances include the newly rediscovered “Murals.” Apr. 22-25, Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer St., 212-242-0800; times vary, $20.

NEW YORK THEATRE BALLET: New York Theatre Ballet recreates classic ballets by Antony Tudor, Frederick Ashton and Jose Limon at “Signatures 10: Honoring the Masters.” Apr. 23 & 24, Florence Gould Hall, 55 E. 59th St., 212-355-6160; 7, $15+.

THEATER 666: The Yllana comedy theater troupe makes

its Off-Broadway debut in a tale of death row debauchery. Open run, Minetta Lane Theater, 18 Minetta Ln., 212-307-4100.

ASYLUM: Dixon Place presents the world premiere of the darkly comic autobiographical story of a teenage pot head seeking enlightenment who checks himself into a psychiatric hospital before dropping out of high school. Written and performed

by James Braly. Ends May 22, Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St., 212-219-0736.

BARRIER ISLAND: In David Stallings’ play, fearless community members choose to stake their lives on the strength of the historic Galveston seawall as they await the arrival of Hurricane Ike. Apr. 30-May 22, Center Stage NY, 48 W. 21st St., 4th Fl., 212-352-3101.

BASS FOR PICASSO: Francesca Danieli, an amputee and food writer for The New York Times, throws a dinner party for her quirky group of friends.

Ends May 23, The Kirk Theater, 410 W. 42nd St., 212-279-4200.

CREDITORS: Director Alan Rickman reunites his London cast for the U.S. premiere of playwright David Greig’s black comedy adaptation of August Strindberg’s original story centering on a bitter marital experience. Ends May 16, BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., 718-636-4129.

ENGAGING SHAW: Abingdon Theatre Company continues its 17th season with the New York premiere of John Morogiello’s new Off-Broadway play following the real-life courtship and battle of wits between socialite Charlotte Payne-Townshend and playwright George Bernard Shaw. Ends May 2, Dorothy Strelsin Theatre, 312 W. 36th St., 212-868-2055.

THE GONDOLIERS: Blue Hill Troupe Ltd, the only musical theater group in the city to donate its net proceeds to charity, continues its travelthemed 86th season with Gilbert & Sullivan’s Venetian romance. The production follows on the heels of the group’s well-received Brigadoon last fall. April 21-24 Teatro Heckscher of El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Ave., 866-8114111; $25-$65.

JOHN BALL’S IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT: Joe Tantalo directs Matt Pelfrey’s adaptation of the award-winning book. Ends Apr. 25, 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St., 212-279-4200.

LAUGHING IN THE WIND - A CAUTIONARY TALE IN MARTIAL ARTS: The Yangtze Repertory Theatre of

America presents the American premiere of the play, based on a novel by Jin Yong. Apr. 30May 23, Theater for the New City, 155 1st Ave., 347-574-4369.

THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES: The Pearl Theatre Company presents Frank D. Gilroy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play that explores a family’s struggle to reconcile the disappointments of the past in post-war America. Ends May 9, New York City Center Stage II, 131 W. 55th St., 212-581-1212.

PainttheTOWN

By Amanda Gordon

WHERE ALL THE LIGHTS ARE BRIGHT The “Downtown” in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s “Downtown Dinner” just got a lot bigger—172 acres bigger, now that Governor’s Island has come under the control of New York City. And that made the fund-raising event recently held at Pier 60 a big night out; it raised $700,000 (a third of the council’s annual operating budget) and included an after-party for all the LMCC artists in residence.

Those who graced the podium included actor Michael Imperioli, Whitney curator Gary CarrionMurayari, artist Kate Gilmore, representatives of the National Theater of the United States of America, members of the New York Opera Society (who performed), WNYC’s John Schaefer, Debra Simon (who runs the arts programs at Brookfield properties including the World Financial Center), actors Stanley Tucci and Aidan Quinn (who performed), director Martin Scorsese, musician Elvis Costello (via video) and actor Steve Buscemi.

Buscemi, who stars in the new HBO series Boardwalk Empire, which is set in Atlantic City and directed by Scorsese, spoke about Downtown, of course, with an emphasis on the East Village: it’s where he got his start, performing at ABC No Rio, Limo Lounge and King Tuts Wah Wah Hut. Why didn’t he move to Los Angeles to pursue acting? “My dad is the reason I stayed in New York. He said, ‘You know, there are acting schools in the city.’ And then he forced me to take the civil service exam.” That’s how he wound up serving as a New York firefighter for four years.

Asked when he knew his son had a future in acting, John Buscemi, who worked for the city’s Sanitation Department, remembered taking Steve with him to his union’s offices. “At one point, I can’t find Steven. Someone tells me, ‘He’s in there.’ He was with the head of the union, John DeLauria, who was on television a lot, this was the ‘70s. He was reading the paper, Clockwise from top: Artists Amanda Duarte and Carrie Ahern ; Michael, Steve, John and Steve walked right in on him and said, ‘I know you.’” and Kenneth Buscemi; Erin Roeder, who’s improving the Hudson Square neighborhood Brooke Geahan and Nicholas Jarecki. for Trinity Real Estate; Ute Wartenberg, Sherry Mills and Anne Goldrach.

Leslie Ferrin with Chris Antemann’s work.

SOFA SELLS!

From left: Artist Navin Norling and Socrates Sculpture Park’s Ellen Staller; artist Wojtek Gilewicz; artist Carla Herrera Prats and SculptureCenter curator Fionn Meade.

A ‘LUCKY’ NIGHT “It’s all about lust,” said artist Carla Herrera Prats at SculptureCenter’s Lucky Draw benefit in Long Island City. Guests paid $450 a ticket knowing they’d get to take home a work of art, but which one depended on when their name was drawn. Participants made detailed lists of favorites, to prepare for their one shot at a work they loved. But not everyone left it to chance. SculptureCenter trustee Sascha Bauer, a commercial real estate executive, bid more than $25,000 just so he could choose first. His pick: a Wade Guyton inkjet print.

As for the artists, flashbacks of gym class aside, they stood on the sidelines calmly. Wojtek Gilewicz had a good pitch for his photograph of a house in his native Poland. “The house is in a town called Sanok. It has an extremely yellow roof, so I painted the photo a bright yellow to match,” Gilewicz said. “In this poor, small city, this was how to make life cheerful and beautiful in a crazy way.”

At the preview for the Sculpture Objects and Functional Art Fair (dubbed SOFA), collectors performed their function well. “It was an amazing night, like the old days actually, the cast of regulars... purchasing major works and purchasing work by the younger artists for the first time,” said dealer Leslie Ferrin, an exhibitor whose namesake gallery is located in Pittsfield, Mass. Business at her booth was brisk: Chris Antemann, a porcelain artist whose figurines are traditionally pretty but posed saucily, sold six of six pieces. She has just won a fellowship to produce a fictional video about her figures as a performance. There were also deposits on Gordon Chandler’s kimonos and deer heads sculpted out of metal. And potter Christa Assad’s part archaic, part Star Wars kitchen appliances—teapots and stoves—sold out. All in all, a good night for Ferrin, and for other galleries, among them Allan Stone, Aaron Faber and Heller.

For more party coverage, visit www.cityarts.info. To contact the author or purchase photos, email Amanda.Gordon@rocketmail.com; bit.ly/agphotos April 20, 2010 | City Arts

19