WEDNESDAY
NYC
* The Generational: "Ungovernables", curated by Eungie Joo @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave, 6 to Spring St). The New Museum's first Generational iteration, 2009's "Younger Than Jesus", had a cheeky theme and some dope work…but I didn't love it as ecstatically as I'd hoped. This year's, inspired by strategic civil disobedience and self-determination, feat. a strong international roster, as in most of 'em have NEVER exhibited in the U.S. Meaning: we New Yorkers (and many visitors, I suspect) will actually learn a lot.
* "Printin'" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St). The artist Ellen Gallagher co-organized this accompaniment to MoMA's tour-de-force "Print/Out" (opening SUN), using her mind-blowing 60-part mixed-media portfolio "DeLuxe" as the jump-off. "Printin'" includes a sweeping chronology of artists working in multiple disciplines, incl. Vija Celmins, David Hammons, George "Krazy Kat" Herriman, Robert Rauschenberg, Martha Rosler and loads more.
* "Michael" (dir. Markus Schleinzer, 2011) @ Film Forum / 209 W Houston St (1 to Houston). It may well be an odd selling point coming from any other director, but "chilling debut feature from the casting director of Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon"" got MY attention. And from what I've read, Schleinzer's tense observational thriller—on the titular loner and the boy he keeps locked in the basement—is creepier than hell. Missed this one at 2011 Fantastic Fest.
* "Secret Reunion" (dir. Jang Hun, 2010) screening @ Tribeca Cinemas / 54 Varick St (ACE/1 to Canal St), 7p/FREE. Pair up two of Korea's most talented actors, Song Kang-ho as an NIS agent and Kang Dong-won as a sleeper cell newcomer in this thriller on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, and you get the 2nd highest grossing film in Korea's 2010 box office AND a damn awesome film.
AUSTIN
* "Viewpoints" @ AMOA-Arthouse / 700 Congress, 6p. Andrea Mellard, Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs leads a discussion on "Evidence of Houdini's Return", the kickass contemporary abstraction group show.
* Cut Hands @ ND501 Studios / 501 N IH-35, 9p/$8. William "Whitehouse" Bennett blazes into the U.S. w/ shards of boiling sonics and ill-ass beats, as his "afro-noise" persona DJ Cut Hands. I am so stoked that I plan to see him twice, in two different noncontiguous states. w/ Eloe Omoe
TOKYO
* Cults @ Unit / 1-34-17 Ebisu-nishi, Shibuya-ku (Tokyu-Toyoko Line to Daikanyama Station, JR Yamanote/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station), 7p/5000 yen. Brooklyn cuties Cults are a bit like a garage-pop version of Boards of Canada. If that gets you jonesin', Tokyo's got your answer.
THURSDAY
* "The Virgins Show", curated by Marilyn Minter @ Family Business (part of Anna Kustera Gallery, run by Cattelan and Gioni) / 520 W 21st St. feat. "Virgins" (Andrew Brischler, Eric Mistretta, David Mramor, Rebecca Ward etc) & "Born Again Virgins" (Patty Chang, Kate Gilmore, Laurel Nakadate, Wangechi Mutu, Mika Rottenberg, Aïda Ruilova—all very first works on video monitor)… plus supposedly the great Hennessy Youngman (aka Pharaoh Hennessy, aka Mr. Museums, aka The Pedagogic Pimp) joins the lineup as "coming later", so stay tuned! This just got MAYJAH-er!
* Valeska Soares @ Eleven Rivington / 11 Rivington St. Concurrent w/ Soares' exhibition at Galeria Fortes Vilaça in Sao Paulo comes three large-scale works on linen, constructed from vintage dust-jackets and hardcover books, plus works from "Edits", where Soares reproduces pages from Roland Barthes' "A Lover's Discourse".
* Yinka Shonibare, MBE "Addio del Passato" @ James Cohan Gallery / 533 W 26th St. Shonibare continues his exploration of the British Empire figurehead Lord Nelson in his latest film (lit. "so closes my sad story"), plus new photoworks from the series "Fake Death Pictures"—reenacting famous painterly suicides swathed in Shonibare's signature Dutch patterned fabric. Oh, and some fetish object sculpture from bygone eras, that too.
* "First Look" @ Yossi Milo Gallery / 245 Tenth Ave. The photo gallery inaugurates its new 10th Ave space w/ a curated group show, feat. artists whose first solo exhibition was presented at Yossi Milo. Including Mohamed Bourouissa, Pieter Hugo, Yuki Onodera, Sze Tsung Leong, Alessandra Sanguinetti and the mighty Kohei Yoshiyuki—this is an all-star lineup even if it were held in the gallery's old location. Def check it out.
* Marlo Pascual @ Casey Kaplan Gallery / 525 W 21st St. Here's what I know about Pascual: 1) I am a huge fan off her 2010 solo at the gallery, her "situations" of warped fashion-y C-prints and objects are super. 2) her press release for this show describes lighting, vegetables, and menswear. Probably a hit.
* Will Ryman @ Paul Kasmin Gallery / 293 10th Ave + 515 W 27th St. Ryman's debut with the gallery goes off in a big way, w/ site-specific sculptural installations in BOTH gallery spaces, another first for Paul Kasmin. The 10th Ave space holds one of Ryman's outsized, sinewy "everyone", w/ a paintbrush labyrinth in the back gallery. The new 27th St space becomes a gallery-sized stand-in for Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, only made of fabricated nails.
* Lyne Lapointe @ Jack Shainman Gallery / 512 W 20th St. A pictorial installation of new paintings, executed on wood panel via either paint or phosphorescent-coated pins, form the central component of Lapointe's show, focusing on darkness, light and memory.
* Charles Garabedian "Mythologies" @ Betty Cuningham Gallery / 541 W 25th St. Garabedian draws from characters and settings from Homer's epics and other Greek classics in a set of new paintings and works on paper. This exhibition, his third at the gallery , follows his 2011 career retrospective at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
* '"Artist and Publisher: Printmaking and the Collaborative Process" w/ Ellen Gallagher and Two Palms Press @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St), 6p/$10. Gallagher (who co-organized MoMA's "Printin'" show) in conversation on creative practice and collaboration w/ Two Palms Press. Christophe Cherix, Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books and organizer of "Print/Out" (opens SUN) moderates the talk.
* "The Ungovernables" artists roundtable Q&A, moderated by Eungie Joo @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave, 6 to Spring St), 7p/$8. I seriously wish I were in town for this, as curator Eungie Joo joins like TWENTY participating artists in a roundtable informal conversation. I seriously hope the museum tapes this (or streams it live?).
FRIDAY
NYC
* Charles Atlas "The Illusion of Democracy" @ Luhring Augustine Bushwick / 25 Knickerbocker Ave, Bushwick (L to Morgan). Bushwick has a teeming, fertile art-scene, full of creatives and creative gallery spaces. Now W. Chelsea powerhouse Luhring Augustine states its claim in a new space w/ a brilliant exhibition, the American post-punk video artist Charles Atlas, who despite participating in the upcoming Whitney Biennial hasn't shown locally in a long while. The exhibition feat. two video installations never seen before in NYC, "Painting by Numbers" (2008) and "Plato's Alley" (2009), plus a new large-scale video work created specifically for this show and space.
* Breyer P-Orridge "I'm Mortality" @ Invisible-Exports / 14A Orchard St. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, the mighty voice of the avant-garde, conceives an "inter-dimensional" collaboration between the material and immaterial worlds, in her second solo at the gallery.
* Adel Abdessemed "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf" @ David Zwirner / 525-533 W 19th St. In Abdessemed's debut solo at the gallery in 2009, he shoved three airplane fuselages and tailfins, like a sleeping dragon, into the space. That inherent politicized and spectator violence recurs in his new two-space show, including razorwire sculptures of the crucified Jesus, an installation of an abandoned lifeboat (recreated from one found in the Florida Keys, ostensibly used to transport immigrants)…plus a wall of taxidermy animals. Viewer beware.
* Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev "Brooklyn Bridge" @ Winkleman Gallery / 621 W 27th St. The Kyrgyzstan-based duo presents a new 6-channel video installation, a series of interviews on illegal immigration within Brooklyn's Russian-speaking neighborhoods from Central Asia's former Soviet republics, plus experimental projections of Brooklyn Bridge and photos of Brighton Beach, the "bridge" between two societies, so to speak. Sounds awesome.
* Dan Flavin "Drawing" @ Morgan Library & Museum / 225 Madison Ave (6 to 33rd St). Perhaps it's not a total surprise that the modernist alchemist of fluorescent light installations was also an avid draftsman, but this "illuminating" survey constitutes the first retrospective devoted entirely to his drawings, from early watercolors to light installation studies and, uh, landscape sketches? Still, I'm intrigued.
* Film Comment Selects @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St). Rawer than NYFF, more international than the, uh, region-specific film festivals, and 1000% cooler than Tribeca. FCS returns w/ nearly three dozen new productions and classics, some w/o stateside distribution (translation: see 'em now or maybe never see 'em again). The festival lasts through MAR 1 so I'll update w/ my favorites, and read on for this week's picks (each bears a FCS slug).
* FCS: "Faust" (dir. Aleksandr Sokurov, 2011) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:15p. Faust's crazy craving for knowledge and power as the Enlightenment, and thus the source of 20th-century evil? That's the rub in this Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion winner, Sokurov's visual and sonic fiesta. Dig in. ALSO TUES 3:15p
* "Bullhead" (dir. Michael Roskam, 2011) @ Angelika NY / 18 W Houston ST (BDFM to Broadway/Lafayette). YES! Roskam's debut full-length—a seriously dark, bruising crime-thriller centered on Belgium's mafioso cattle industry—is Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. In my opinion, it's a winner, thanks in no small part to burly lead Matthias Schoenaerts, but see it for yourself. His steroidal performance masks a brutal secret too awesome to spoil here. Highly recommended!
* "L'Enfant" (dire. les frères Dardenne, 2005) screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St), 11a. This is a hard-ass, hard-knocks film, where a newborn's entrance to this world is complicated in that its parents are homeless minors, particularly the sleazy BF who sells the baby on the black market and realizes "hey, I'm an idiot! I need to get the baby back!" THRU SUN
* Saul Williams @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$20. Legendary charismatic lyricist and encyclopedic poet Saul Williams graces the Hall in a truly next-level night. Crown Heights agit-punk CX KiDTRONiK opens the event w/ a crackle of electro-rap.
AUSTIN
* "Bullhead" (dir. Michael Roskam, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. YES! Roskam's debut full-length—a seriously dark, bruising crime-thriller centered on Belgium's mafioso cattle industry—is Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. In my opinion, it's a winner, thanks in no small part to burly lead Matthias Schoenaerts, but see it for yourself. His steroidal performance masks a brutal secret too awesome to spoil here. Highly recommended!
* "Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow" (dir. Sophie Fiennes, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. To witness an Anselm Kiefer work, whether it's an entire installation of mixed-media paintings, dioramas and sculptures or "just" a single piece, is to be thrown into a palimpsest of architectonic history. Fiennes begins with the world-renowned artist's studio and leads us deep within Kiefer's methodology and expression as a postwar master.
TOKYO
* Toshiaki Hikosaka + Takuro Sugiyama "Dead Paintings" @ Radium / 2-5-17 Bakurocho, Chuo-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Bakurocho Station). The two young artists present their own unique styles of abstraction, Hikosaka's systemic grids and Sugiyama's intertwined colors and planes.
* the milky tangerine @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 7p/2000 yen. I fell in love w/ Tokyo indie-rockers the milky tangerine based on a sweetly dissonant single ("Your Beautiful Mind")…then I saw 'em at this very venue in December and fell in even deeper. They're absolutely awesome. w/ bet.
* The Pains of Being Pure at Heart @ Club Quattro / 5F 32-13 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station), 7p/5000 yen. Would I pay approx $65 USD to see hometown (Brooklyn) indie-pop cuties—and one of my favoritest bands in the world—The Pains play Tokyo. A: you bet.
* RECORIDE @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station), 7p/2500 yen. Think Miss Kitten crossed w/ Crystal Castles…but that only 1/2 quantifies the sweaty, electro-pop awesomeness of RECORIDE. Slam-dancing in effect. w/ Lily of the Valley
SATURDAY
NYC
* Zak Prekop @ Harris Lieberman / 508 W 26th St. Paper-collaged canvases and monochromes layered with stencils from other paintings factor into Prekop's tonal, textural triumph, his second solo at the gallery.
* Bruce Brosnan "See, hear remember" + Tyler Vlahovich @ Feature Inc / 131 Allen St. Brosnan's candy-pop paintings on cut and shaped MDF and Vlahovich's smoldering, murky palette of oils or gouache on canvas and wood panel may be at opposing ends of the color spectrum, but each artist unearths this cool sense of depth and perspective in their respective abstractions while maintaining a clear flatness.
* "The Ungovernables" artist talk: "Invisible Borders Trans-African Photography Project" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave, 6 to Spring St), 3p/$8. The artist-led initiative whose vision is to become a symbol of networking and trans-border association w/in the arts and photography in Africa, discuss their mission and current activities.
* FCS: "Mortem" (dir. Eric Atlan, 2010) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 5p. Think David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" but shot in b&w and French. That got your attention, right? Plus Atlan attends the screening!
* Zola Jesus @ Webster Hall / 125 E 11th St (NR/L/456 to Union Square), 6p/$15. Highly highly highly recommend enveloping within this super-cute songbird's gossamer soundscapes. I don't know how Zola's disarming croon and experimental roots play against speed-metal openers Liturgy, but I imagine the end result transcendent.
TOKYO
* Shunsuke Taira + Akito Nakai + Shinnosuke Yoshida @ Gallery MOMO Roppongi / 2F 6-2-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). In my experience, MOMO does a great job showcasing young artists. That's the case here w/ this three-artist show, ahead of their respective graduations from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts. They're all painters of a roughly figurative angle, plus Yoshida and Nakai have both had solos (Yoshida at MOMO's Ryogoku branch).
* "Melancholia" (dir. Lars von Trier, 2011) @ Toho Cinema Shibuya / 2-6-17 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). The denouement of "Melancholia", which rightfully earned a best actress award at Cannes for Kirsten Dunst's role, had me contacting friends in NYC and Tokyo with promises of visiting them as soon as possible. It's the end of the world, beginning with a wedding reception for Dunst and teasing out her…complicated relationship w/ her sister, played pitch-perfectly by Charlotte Gainsbourg, ending w/ among the most emotionally devastating conclusions in my filmic history. Deserves to be seen on the big screen.
* 「大人の喧嘩」/"Carnage" (dir. Roman Polanski, 2011) @ TOHO Cinemas Chanter / 1-2-2 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku (Chiyoda/Hibiya Lines to Hibiya Station, Yurakucho Line to Yurakucho Station). Polanski's taut, tittering adaptation of the stage play "God of Carnage"—translated here as "Adults Fight"—works thanks to the electrifying cast of sparring parents Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz vs Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly.
* BiS + current of air @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 7p/2500 yen. See my comments on the milky tangerine under FRI, and relay that into current of air, the pitch-perfect popstars who headlined that show at Fever last December. I'm throwing my bets behind BiS, too, aka "Brand-new Idol Society", three (or four?) PYTs who know how to rock out.
SUNDAY
NYC
* "Print/Out'" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St). Part two of MoMA's tour-de-force on the printed medium (in conjunction w/ "Printin'") is this 200-work treasure trove on classic printmaking techniques, self-published artists' books, and digital technologies—mostly drawn from MoMA's own collection. Feat. Ai Weiwei, Ellen Gallagher, Martin Kippenberger, Lucy McKenzie, SUPERFLEX, Rirkrit Tiravanija and loads more.
* FCS: "I Wish/Kiseki" (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda, 2011) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6:15p. Two boys' cross-country plan to reunite their estranged parents', via the clandestine rendezvous of two bullet trains. Plus Jo "Johnny Depp" Odagiri plays the dad, so I'm game. ALSO MON 8:45p
* FCS: "My Own Private River" (dirs. James Franco & Gus Van Sant) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 9p. Let's take this from the top: one screening. With James "River Phoenix" Franco leading a Q&A. Yeah, this is place to be.
* DJ Krush @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$15. I can proudly state w/o boasting that I've been down w/ this original Japanese hip-hop DJ's smoky, jazzy breaks since '97 and "MiLight". Dude's almost 50 and he STILL brings it, like his monthly single series begun in 2011. Totally a mesmeric "evening with Krush".
TUESDAY
NYC
* Frankie Rose "Interstellar" LP release party @ Knitting Factory / 361 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, G to Lorimer), 8p/$12. Miss Frankie Ross, a magnetic presence in Brooklyn's indie scene and one tough drummer, sheds her doo-wop garage-rock sound from debut S/T LP and emerges, butterfly-like, as a starry-toned pop star. She retains that voice, oh that awesome awesome melodious voice. w/ DIVE (extra-psychedelic!)
* The Suzan @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$7. This "second home" homecoming show for Japanese tropic-pop darlings The Suzan (straight in from touring good ol' Nippon) will be undoubtedly MAYJAH. w/ The Can't Tells
AUSTIN
* "Pumpkinhead" (dir. Stan Winston, 1988) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Schlock 'n roll typifies this cult classic supernatural stunner, the directorial debut of SFX whiz Winston. Feat. the titular bayou boogeyman attacking campers, how can you go wrong??
CURRENT SHOWS
AUSTIN
* Tom Molloy "New World" + Noriko Ambe "White Scape" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. Molloy strips away the noise and distractions in his historically leaning or contemporarily relevant bodies of work—oftentimes by incredibly meticulous practices—leaving a sort-of podium for us to contemplate, discuss, argue. While he's not explicitly putting his own politics behind the dozens of thrift-store framed Internet-culled b&w images of male world leaders pressing the flesh in "Shake", the works circuitous nature and site-specific installation—where "Hussein/Mubarak" slides into "Mubarak/Bush" and "Bush/Putin", until we're back at "Hussein" again—, plus the fact these nonchronological shots span from 9-11 to the Arab Spring, naturally presents some theories. How these men are friends one minute, wheeling and dealing the next, and sworn enemies separated by several frames of their "friends" after that. Molloy's nine-part titular work features nine different LP sleeves of Dvorák's "New World Symphony", the texts painted over (Molloy's analogue to Photoshop, he said) to show only benign, sunny images of the Western frontier. That "incredibly meticulous practices" bit I alluded to earlier is most clear in "Somewhere", Molloy's hand-painted sheet music to the "Wizard of Oz"'s sweetly optimistic anthem, a work that began with a black sheet of paper and lots and lots of carefully applied white gouache. Noriko Ambe's suite of all-white cut-paper and cut-YUPO (a waterproof synthetic "paper" made from recycled polypropylene) are just sublime, "Tracking II" like footprints in fresh-fallen snow, "Spring 1" the imprint of a tree or a floodplain, "A Piece of Flat Globe Vol. 22" a calmly ancient canyon.
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based sculptural alchemist dropped some heady topics in her talk preceding this exhibition, not only naming a certain Gothic painting of the Visitation from a Spanish museum as her point of departure in this stunning new work "Suspended After Image", but also labyrinths (and Jorge Luis Borges), Peter Bruegel (and Babel), and the Large Hadron Collider. All this clued me into Al-Hadid's remarkable sense of harnessing space and presence in her installations, morphing bulk into something oddly ethereal and organic, though still visually commanding. "Suspended After Image" is Al-Hadid's first instance of using a 3D modeling program and CNC router in her work, and the final flowing, terraced form acts more like a 3D painting than a proper sculpture, with the figure seemingly emerging from the frontal staircase while a flow of media colored like wet Frosted Mini Wheats echoes her opulent robes. Though there is an almost total spectrum of color infused in this work, mostly as frozen drips on the sides and back, the overall is a pristine grayish-white, which is absolutely stunning in the VAC's Vaulted Gallery.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience. This plays well with Diana Al-Hadid's installation in the Vaulted Gallery. I was most quickly taken by Baum's series "Dog Ear", utilizing folded pages from paperbacks and photographing them into unique fragmented dialogue. Ga's C-prints of an illuminated fissure within the Arctic ice, shot during her residency at the scientific research vessel Tara, feel otherworldly.
* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Take a plunge into Heidkamp's latest suite of radiant, textural scenes. He shows these interiors and exteriors completely independent from his ongoing portraiture, a strong move in my opinion. For the Brooklyn-based artist isn't just this accomplished figurative painter who also happens to paint rooms and landscapes en plein air. Rather, he is a strong force in capturing natural environments as he sees them, imbuing them with a resonating life-force and character that draws us into their layers of oil paint and dollops of impasto, confronting us with a disarming nostalgia. I may never have visited that Massachusetts backyard ("Here Glows Nothing") or Florida dockside ("Alligator Alley"), but it's like I can smell the air, feel the lawn beneath my trainers and the sun on my face. There's a physicality to Heidkamp's scenes beyond the presence of actual people, who he deftly folds into scenarios (the fireside "Feel It All Around", the portraitures' meta-effect in "The Night of 1000 Paintings") as accenting players. A very strong exhibition and a bold start to Austin's 2012 gallery season.
CLOSING SOON
* Damien Hirst "The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011" @ Gagosian / 555 W 24th St + 522 W 21st St + 980 Madison Ave. Ha, I totally forgot to write about this when the exhibitions went up. Now they close a full day before I arrive in NYC to judge them for myself.
* Thomas Scheibitz + Mat Collishaw @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery / 521 W 21st St. Big awesome two: Scheibitz inaugurates his SEVENTH solo at the gallery, "A Panoramic VIEW of Basic Events", w/ a powerful array of paintings, works on paper and sculpture that highlight his knack for classical architecture, urban imagery and pop culture. Collishaw fills the upstairs w/ an installation and photography from his "Insecticide" and "Last Meal on Death Row - Texas" series.
* Jeff Keen @ Elizabeth Dee / 545 W 20th St. The U.S. debut of the UK artist's post-Surrealist paintings and video, focused mainly on his influential body of work from the '60s and '70s.
* Bill Jensen @ Cheim & Read / 547 W 25th St. I like Jensen's drizzly, corroded surfaces in his very colorful abstract paintings. He introduces some triptychs here, and some worked-over etchings, in this exhibition of new works. (ENDS SAT)
NYC
* Michael Zelehoski "Secondary Structures" + Daniel Phillips "River Street" @ DODGEgallery / 15 Rivington St. The gallery pairs an alchemist of found objects and wood (Zelehoski) with Phillips' architecture/landscape-attuned video work.
* "FaceTime" @ On Stellar Rays / 133 Orchard St. A group exhibition focused on the face itself and the pernicious rarity of face-to-face encounters in a ubiquitously digital society. Feat. an international cast, including Maria Petschnig, Debo Eilers, Aleksandra Domanovic and Michel Journiac. Follows the original iteration of the show at IMO Projects, Copenhagen, curated by Toke Lykkeberg & Julia Rodrigues.
* Malcolm Morley "Another Way to Make an Image, Monotypes" @ Sue Scott Gallery / 1 Rivington St. The seasoned printmaker's first foray into monotype, demonstrating his knack for experimentation and color.
AUSTIN
* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. Three artists — Austinites Paul Beck and Pat Snow, plus Minnesotan Allen Brewer — play with, and off, perception and representation, reminding us as viewers that things aren't always as clear-cut as they first seem. Brewer takes a direct approach by purposefully painting (or drawing) his subjects blind, focusing on who or what he's rendering instead of the resultant object itself. So while some works carry ghostly remnants or shifts of his mark-making, others like the old man "Poopy" are startlingly realized, fully fleshed out like a Lucien Freud painting. Snow's watercolors and drawings mine his personal space, culling from memories, songs in the background and dialogue. Perhaps reflecting his background working alongside Robert Colescott and Howard Finster, many of Snow's works feature enveloping stories, like "Record Shop Girl" (the charming awkwardness hits close to home) and "I Think My Dog Is a Racist". His ecstatically rendered 99 watercolors "Girl Crazy/Crazy Girl" mostly features women artist friends from his former hometown, Birmingham AL, interspersed with silent movie-style title cards like "TOO Bad" and "Sweet Sad True", prompting an imagined (real?) conversation. The figures' range of renderings from classical to cartoonish reminded me a bit of Richard Linklater's classic Austin rotoscoped animation "Waking Life", which is where Beck comes in. He animated for that film and Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly", and his two suites of mixed media works made for this show tread the line b/w realism and almost nightmarish fantasy, soft-contoured figures floating against stark political undertones and lettering, all with a muted reddish palette. What's the message? That our own consciousness is a jumble of memories, daily interventions and environmental/societal irregularities, as mutable as the moments captured in these works.
TOKYO
* "The Scene" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1F 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (Chiyoda/Hanzomon/Ginza Lines to Omotesando Station). The show's theme is the power held within a single photograph, featuring the talents of Joy Kawakubo, Takeshi Shimamoto, Michael Stanley, Rich and TARA.
* Kiyomichi Shibuya "Which do you choose?" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Point: I dig this guy's name. Point: I dig his visual device, the spirograph, incorporating cast light into tracked out floral patterns that somehow encapsulates both childhood, traditional Japanese imagery, and classic literature. (ENDS SUN)
TOKYO
* Maya Maxx @ Kido Press, Inc / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Maya Maxx is a trip, like a Comme des Garçons outfit come to painterly life. The Pop artist does rainbows here, mixing her calligraphy background w/ bold printmaking techniques. (ENDS TUES)
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
fee's LIST / through 2/14
WEDNESDAY
NYC
* "Werkmeister Harmonies" (dir. Béla Tarr, 2000) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6p. A languid, meditative film by even Tarr's standards, combining a provincial Hungarian village with a sinister traveling circus.
* "The Man From London" (dir. Béla Tarr) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 9p. Among Tarr's most gorgeously shot films is this recent exploration of anonymous breakdowns of social order in personal life—replete w/ covert briefcases stuffed with foreign cash and twilit, misty quaysides. Appeared at 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
* JEFF the Brotherhood (TN) @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$12. This is Brooklyn live music 101: sweaty JEFF swamp-rock show at checkerboard tiled DbA, $2 PBR in hand. No brainer. w/ Uncle Bad Touch (Montreal)
* Burning Star Core @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 10p/$5. Dominick Fernow's Stone curation continues! Dive into C. Spencer Yeh's electronic-enhanced, transporting violin drones and thank me later.
AUSTIN
* "Catherine & Company" (dir. Michel Boisrond, 1975) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:30p. Young Jane Birkin in a mid-'70s French softcore film is enough to spark my total attention, but couple that w/ Catherine Breillat's ("Sleeping Beauty", "Bluebeard") screenwriting and Richard Suzuki's ("Emmanuelle") cinematography, and you got a whole 'nother thing, son. Plus the filmic debut of Alexandra Delli Colli ("Zombie Holocaust", "New York Ripper")!
THURSDAY
NYC
* "Happenings New York, 1958-1963" @ The Pace Gallery / 510 W 25th St. The first exhibition to document the origins and historical development of the transient, yet pivotal, "Happenings" movement—so says the Pace press release. Hey, I'm game! As "Happenings" and the group's participants, including Jim Dine, Allan Kaprow, Carolee Schneemann and Simone Forti, emphasized the organic connection b/w art and its environment (incl. viewers), documentation had to go beyond the nature of these unique performances and events. The exhibition includes rare archival footage and original ephemera from Happenings' production, plus artworks created during performances and extensive photography by five Happenings documentarians. A special illustrated book (authored by Milly Glimcher, published by The Monacelli Press) accompanies the show and should provide further insight. Probability of an opening-night "happening": 35%.
* James Busby "White and Black" @ STUX Gallery / 530 W 25th St. BIG Busby fan here and his process-driven meditations on form and texture within stark white or graphite-covered media. He continues to blur that painting/sculpture line w/ shaped MDF and powdered graphite rubbed into formed-gesso surfaces, creating a brilliant dialogue w/ their respective display lighting.
* Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz "Night Falls" @ PPOW / 535 W 22nd St, 3rd Fl. The collaborative duo use the night sky as backdrop, adding firelight and the moon's illumination in dynamic interplay within their dreamlike archival C-prints. They are also participating in the group exhibition "Fairytales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination" at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville.
* Veronica Falls (UK) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$12. Fell in love with these London indie-pop darlings during 2010's CMJ Fest. They'll provide the sunshine on this February NYC day. w/ local rockers Grooms
AUSTIN
* "Two Ships Passing: w/ Andy Campbell" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity, 6:30p. An inspired, reactive dialogue b/w an invited speaker and their guest—a peer, mentor or new acquaintance—about some creative topic. Tonight begins the recurring series, co-presented by VAC and Pastelegram, and features Andy Campbell, lecturer in art history at Texas State University, on navigating today's abundance of images and ephemera vs. a single artwork.
* The Calm Blue Sea + The Sour Notes @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 7p/$8. Solid Austin indie-rock right here. Consider aptly named The Calm Blue Sea, blending their graceful melodies with absolutely stormy post-rock sonics. They're hard at work on a 2nd LP that could drop sometime after SXSW (stay tuned). Plus The Sour Notes, charismatic pop stalwarts of the highest calibre. w/ Follow That Bird
FRIDAY
NYC
* Juergen Teller @ Lehmann Maupin / 201 Chrystie St. A three-part exhibition of the lensman's Pop photography, including a mix of seductive portraits of Kristen McMenamy and Vivienne Westwood, deserted landscapes around Teller's Suffolk home, and shots of Teller's son—all juxtaposed w/ family photos.
* Elaine Reichek "Ariadne's Thread" @ Nicole Klagsbrun PROJECT / 534 W 24th St. Reichek literally weaves the titular Greek myth into her latest serious of embroideries, some hand-sewn, others like a large-scale tapestry woven with computerized technology. Reichek has a similar tapestry on view at the 2012 Whitney Biennial.
* "The Turin Horse" (dir. Béla Tarr, 2011) @ Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center / Lincoln Center & 65th St (1 to 66th St). Will this sombre "remodernist" film, thick with the heaviness of human existence, be Tarr's final feature? It echoes Nietzsche's own witnessing of an overworked horse's death and could well reflect a quiet emergence of the apocalypse. This Jury Grand Prix winner at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival enjoys its NYC theatrical premiere. THRU FEB 16
* George Kuchar Program 1 + 2 @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 7/9:15p. The first two parts of a six-part, three-night extravaganza on the late, great underground filmmaker. Program 1 is "A Package of Stars From George and the VDB Gang" and includes seven shorts from '89's "Point 'n Shoot" through last year's "Hotspell". Program 2 is a tribute from the Film-Maker's Coop and features six classic 16mm shorts from the '60s and '70s, including "I, An Actress" (1977).
* "Eraserhead" (dir. David Lynch, 1977) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). Lynch's debut feature is a true surrealist classic, feat. usual suspect Jack Nance as the titular character in a nightmarish industrial landscape that works best when immersed on the big-screen. ALSO SAT
AUSTIN
* "Pina" (dir. Wim Wenders, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. I was cued into the late, great German choreographer Pina Bausch's electrifying performances years ago by my mentor, and they forever changed how I view movement (e.g. by one person, by person to person, in groups) and "modern dance". Plus Bausch was a kind of muse to Yohji Yamamoto. Now Wenders, an old friend, conjures a 3D experience with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch that gives us even a glimpse of what it must be like to be a Bausch dancer, part of her kinetic, romantic world. It sounds like a triumph.
* "A Separation" (dir. Asghar Farhadi, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. The film to beat for the Oscar for "Best Foreign Feature" is Farhadi's eye-widening take on contemporary Iran, on the dissolution of a marriage and the earth-rending traumas affecting the whole family.
* "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" (dir. Edgar Wright, 2010) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 11:30p. Like cocaine for the eyes, this vintage-certified video game come to life delivers 16+ bits of full-color, side-scrolling mayhem. w/ Michael Cera as the mumbly titular character and scream-queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his Manic Panic-hued love interest, you totally can't go wrong. ALSO SAT
* Whiskey Shivers & Hello Wheels @ Scoot Inn / 1308 E 4th St, 9p/$8. "A freewheeling', trashgrassin', folk tornado" reads Whiskey Shivers' Facebook page. This is Austin, "y'all". Think upright bass, fiddle, and washboard in addition to that guitar, hard-drinking music of a nontraditional tip. Kindred locals Hello Wheels play "stomp-folk, or what they call "a new sound with an old soul". Get captivated on the bands' split 7" "Friends Do Things Together" release party tonight. w/ Wild Child
TOKYO
* Miila and the Geeks + The Suzan @ Super Deluxe / B1F 3-1-25 Nishi-azabu, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station), 7:30p/2500 yen. The G/R/L/Z showcase features singer/songwriter Moe Wadaka's incredible, indie-pop trio Miila and the Geeks (she's Miila, saxophonist Komori and drummer Ajima the geeks), whose slightly sinister, garage-rock debut "New Age" is a triumph for the indie scene. Plus Moe's behind the band's fractured lovely music videos. That praise extends to tropic-pop quartet The Suzan, who split their time b/w Tokyo and NYC (a dream, right?). w/ Limited Express (has gone?) and The Twee Grrrls Club DJs!
* DODDODO Band @ UFO Club / 1-11-6 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Marunouchi Line to Higashi-Koenji Station), 8p/2500. What's iller than Kansai noise-sprite Namin Haku, aka DODDODO? Have her on vox fronting a full band (feat. usual-suspect bassist Makoto Inada, drummer Keiko Matsunaga, uh clarinet player Masako Nakao and violinist Tetsuya Umeda), that's what! w/ ECD+ILLICIT TSUBOI
SATURDAY
NYC
* Tom Friedman @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. BOOM! This is the first NYC solo exhibition from the conceptual sculptor since 2005, and I for one am totally stoked. Friedman includes new sculpture—some incorporating ideas of technology, like a a life-sized video camera handcrafted from wood and paint—and works on paper and collages. Think of the mass-produced yet entirely, intricately handmade, the deadpan presentation looming into vertiginous infinity. This exhibit precedes a Friedman monograph, published by the gallery, which I am necessarily stoked about as well.
* George Kuchar Program 3 + 4 @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 6:45/9p. Program 3 on the underground filmmaking legend comes from the shelves of Electronic Arts Intermix, feat. "Cult of the Cubicles", "Rainy Season" and "The Creeping Crimson" (all 1987). San Francisco's Canyon Cinema culls from their archives in Program 4 with three 16mm shorts, including "Ascension of the Demonoids" (1985).
* Heliotropes + Iron Tides @ The Acheron / 57 Waterbury St, Bushwick (L to Montrose), 8p/$7. Heliotropes combine guitar dissonance and a rumbling rhythm section w/ melodious vox. If I had a soul, they'd be melting it right now. Whiskey-drinking metal dudes Iron Tides are loud enough to hang w/ the Heliotropes women. w/ Descender
AUSTIN
* Tom Molloy "New World" + Noriko Ambe "White Scape" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. Pretty stoked about this. The Irish artist Molloy returns in his third solo at the gallery, presenting painted LP sleeves from Dvorak's "New World Symphony" w/ the text blended into the background, plus his b&w photographic "Shake" series, of newsy world leaders doing just that. He leads a discussion on his work at 7p. Meanwhile Ambe commands the gallery's Project Room w/ a group of all-white layered cut-paper works, which should be a disarming visual palate cleanser against Molloy's exhibition.
* Martin Sztyk "Narratives" @ Big Medium / 5305 Bolm Rd. The practicing architectural designer and researcher draws from his ongoing, narrative-based inhabitation series—including "Urban Forest", "Empty City" and "New London Stock Exchange"—in what looks to be a mind-blowing set of intricate photo-collages.
TOKYO
* "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" (dir. David Fincher, 2011) @ Toho Cinema Hiho / 2-5-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku (Yurakucho Line to Yurakucho Station). Fincher's pulse-throbbing English language adaptation of Stieg Larsson's wildly popular novel(s), like a chunk of charred twilight doused in mercury, totally worked for me. The mix of "Se7en"'s legendary punk director w/ composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and leads Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig is just too irresistible. Tokyo, get ready.
* 「すべては『裸になる』から始まって」/"Always Start Out Naked" (dir. Saku Nakamachi, 2012) @ Ikebukuro Cinema Rosa / 1-37-12 Nishi-ikebukuro, Toshima-ku (JR Yamanote Line etc to Ikebukuro Station). AKB48's Risa Narita plays 10-year-reigning AV queen Kurumi Morishita in this biopic from Morishita's humble beginnings in Akita and tentative forays into, uh, taking off her clothes in front of a camera at Soft on Domand studio, to her self-reliant prowess at Dogma under director TOHJIRO.
SUNDAY
NYC
* George Kuchar Program 5 + 6 @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 6:30/8:30p. The final night of Anthology's Kuchar tribute, featuring 16mm shorts from Harvard Film Archive like "The Carnal Bipeds" (1973) and from Anthology's own collection, including "Anita Needs Me" (1983), plus Kuchar's feature-length film "The Devil's Cleavage" (1973), presented by Pacific Film Archive in Program 6.
AUSTIN
* Boy Friend + Love Inks @ Spiderhouse Ballroom / 2906 Fruth St, 10p. Ethereal guitar-pop duo Christa Palazzolo and Sarah Brown are Boy Friend, and they just debuted an extra-fuzzy LP called "Egyptian Wrinkle". Celebrate at their release party w/ kindred pop spirits Love Inks. w/ Missions
TOKYO
* Erebos Party @ Minami-Aoyama Trigram / B1F 4-18-10 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku (Tokyo Metro Chiyoda/Ginza/Hanzomon Lines to Omotesando Station), 4p/4000 yen. Part fetish party, part underground dance party, w/ lots of ace performances. Tokyo hosts stuff like this all the time (you just need to know where to look). Feat. pole-dancing by Aloe & Kikurage (tokyoDOLORES), the phenomenal Alk on aerial ring, plus DJs Rinko (Torture Garden Japan), Groove Patrol (eggworm/Phonika Tokyo) and assuredly other naughtiness.
* "Popbreak" @ Shibuya Glad / 2+3F 2-21-7 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 3p/3500 yen. Celebrate the venue's second anniversary with a mind-melting array of electro-clash pop cuties. Feat. live sets by personal faves RECORIDE (think Miss Kitten crossed w/ Crystal Castles), DJ/singer-songwriter Saori@destiny, "techno-pop idols" Cutie Pai, Aira Mitsuki and Mai Kotone…I'm sweating just typing this.
TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "The Burning Moon" (dir. Olaf Ittenbach, 1999) @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Uncut. Uncensored. Unconscionable. The horror anthology film as a truly vile barrage of nonstop splatter and German nihilism, shot on video in full misanthropic color. Just in time for Valentine's Day.
TOKYO
* TADZIO + DJ Sumire (Twee Grrrls Club) @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 7p/2500 yen. A double-shot of grrrl noise-punk TADZIO? Sign me up! w/ DJ Sumire of the irresistible Twee Grrrls Club
* The Suzan @ THREE / B1F 5-18-1 Daizawa, Setagaya-ku (Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station), 7p/3300 yen. The final night of tropic-pop cuties The Suzan's whirlwind return to Japan. Yes, after playing like a million shows here over a span of…two weeks, they're headed back to NYC. Celebrate w/ 'em. w/ QUATTRO, Pink Politics
* Tokyo Pinsalocks + Merpeoples @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2800 yen. All-girl techno-tinged groove-pop to my left (Tokyo Pinsalocks), all-girl breathy indie-rock to my right (Merpeoples). Sounds good to me! w/ (M)otocompo
CURRENT SHOWS
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based sculptural alchemist dropped some heady topics in her talk preceding this exhibition, not only naming a certain Gothic painting of the Visitation from a Spanish museum as her point of departure in this stunning new work "Suspended After Image", but also labyrinths (and Jorge Luis Borges), Peter Bruegel (and Babel), and the Large Hadron Collider. All this clued me into Al-Hadid's remarkable sense of harnessing space and presence in her installations, morphing bulk into something oddly ethereal and organic, though still visually commanding. "Suspended After Image" is Al-Hadid's first instance of using a 3D modeling program and CNC router in her work, and the final flowing, terraced form acts more like a 3D painting than a proper sculpture, with the figure seemingly emerging from the frontal staircase while a flow of media colored like wet Frosted Mini Wheats echoes her opulent robes. Though there is an almost total spectrum of color infused in this work, mostly as frozen drips on the sides and back, the overall is a pristine grayish-white, which is absolutely stunning in the VAC's Vaulted Gallery.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience. This plays well with Diana Al-Hadid's installation in the Vaulted Gallery. I was most quickly taken by Baum's series "Dog Ear", utilizing folded pages from paperbacks and photographing them into unique fragmented dialogue. Ga's C-prints of an illuminated fissure within the Arctic ice, shot during her residency at the scientific research vessel Tara, feel otherworldly.
* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Take a plunge into Heidkamp's latest suite of radiant, textural scenes. He shows these interiors and exteriors completely independent from his ongoing portraiture, a strong move in my opinion. For the Brooklyn-based artist isn't just this accomplished figurative painter who also happens to paint rooms and landscapes en plein air. Rather, he is a strong force in capturing natural environments as he sees them, imbuing them with a resonating life-force and character that draws us into their layers of oil paint and dollops of impasto, confronting us with a disarming nostalgia. I may never have visited that Massachusetts backyard ("Here Glows Nothing") or Florida dockside ("Alligator Alley"), but it's like I can smell the air, feel the lawn beneath my trainers and the sun on my face. There's a physicality to Heidkamp's scenes beyond the presence of actual people, who he deftly folds into scenarios (the fireside "Feel It All Around", the portraitures' meta-effect in "The Night of 1000 Paintings") as accenting players. A very strong exhibition and a bold start to Austin's 2012 gallery season.
* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ AMOA-Arthouse / 700 Congress. So check this: on 1/21/10, a young man named Fausto fired six bullets into the air outside the Texas State Capitol. Jill Magid — whose oeuvre navigates bureaucracy and security/intelligence w/ Mission Impossible deftness — was like steps away, pursuing her own future work, and witnessed it. Now six blocks from the scene and two years later, Magid stages an intriguing Conceptual show that ties Fausto's mysterious actions — and his silence throughout his trial — with that of Goethe's "Faust". The ground-floor gallery is her stage, replete with wall-decal directions ("Enter Fausto", "shots fired skyward", "enter Magid" etc), Magid's own play "Fausto: A Tragedy" (mirroring "Faust"'s original intention as a closet drama, meant to be read and not performed), and contemplative works. Deep encodings here, from six translations of "Faust" silkscreened on top of one another, to six bullet casings and a six-slide projection of the sky over the Capitol. Magid wrote a letter to Fausto, requesting his voice (absent in his trial) to read passages from "Faust" (whose Spanish translation is "Fausto") — his answer is still forthcoming, but it would add an intriguing layer to all this. Finally, there is Magid's family's '93 Mercedes, armored to B4 level and parked in Fausto's spot outside the Capitol, and her writing appearing in the February issue of the "Texas Observer", drawing this dialogue beyond the art-scene realm as it should be.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". A really brilliant group show of fractured and re-envisioned realities, curated by Arthouse's Rachel Adams. I tweeted that it made me miss NYC, because it's precisely that sort of thoughtful exhibition that makes me look twice, thrice, at what I think I already know. Ex: Strauss Borque LaFrance's "BABE", a silvery lacquered wood plank pitched diagonally on the wall like classic John McCracken,…only just around the corner is that same plank, used as a shelf amid LaFrance's complex, mixed-media display. Another: Katja Mater's "Time Passing Objects", chromogenic prints that blur the line b/w photography and geometric drawings. Justin Swinburne's "Echo" works, multiple inkjet scans onto alu-dibond that echo (no pun) Gerhard Richter's signature abstracts while maintaining that sense of disarray like Wade Guyton's inkjet silkscreens. Bravo!
CLOSING SOON
TOKYO
* "巧術 2.51" @ Radium / 2-5-17 Bakurocho, Chuo-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Bakurocho Station. AKA "skillful technique", the eponymous serial exhibition held at Spiral yearly since 2010. The third iteration, subtitled "Kowaku/fascination", gets a gallery preview, feat. artists Takuro Sugiyama, Haruo Mitsuda and others. (ENDS FRI)
NYC
* "Corporations Are People Too" @ Winkleman Gallery / 621 W 27th St. This evil-sounding group show culls some awesome talent, feat. Berenice Abbott, Ian Davis, CHris Dorland, Kota Ezawa, Louis Faurer, Yevgeniy Fiks, Jacqueline Hassink, Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange and Phillip Toledano in respective pointed takes on corporate culture, from the Great Depression and WWII to contemporary society.
* On Kawara "Date Painting(s) in New York & 136 Other Cities" @ David Zwirner / 525-533 W 19th St. Conceptualist Kawara made his first date painting in NYC, "JAN. 4, 1966" — that's over four decades ago, if you're counting, and he's still doing it. Thus, the gallery stages a seminal exhibition of over 150 date paintings, selected by Kawara, accompanied by binders of facsimile newspaper clippings, plus two one-hundred-year calendars for the 20th and 21st centuries. AND! A major catalogue published by Ludion and essayed by Japanese writer Lei Yamabe.
* Michael Snow "In the Way" @ Jack Shainman Gallery / 512 W 20th St. Snow, the visual pioneer behind '67's "Wavelength", precedes a solo show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art AND a sculpture retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario (both occurring this year) w/ new projection works and older photo-based installations, all emphasizing the art of looking and viewing through objects.
* "End of Days" @ Mixed Greens / 531 W 26th St. A dozen artists inaugurate Mixed Greens' new year, working off the notion of apocalyptic and transcendent revelations. Main draw for me is Patrick Jacobs' totally mesmerizing mixed-media dioramas (he was in my Top Ten LIST-worthy Cultural Events of 2011), though Valerie Hegarty's installation sounds dope too.
* Alfred Jensen/Sol LeWitt "Systems and Transformation" @ The Pace Gallery / 32 E 57th St. An intriguing pairing of Jensen's orderly abstract paintings based off grids and color theories vs. LeWitt's basic geometrical open structures. Beyond inclusions in group exhibitions, this is the first show to examine and contrast the artists' oeuvres in depth.
* Shirin Neshat @ Gladstone Gallery / 515 W 24th St. Really stoked for this: Neshat unveils her new photographic series "The Book of Kings", composed of b&w portraits of Iranian and Arab youth covered in calligraphic text, plus a new three-channel video installation.
* "Rotary Connection", organized by Loring Randolph @ Casey Kaplan Gallery / 525 W 21st St. Pay attention to Julia Dault, an electrifying abstract-ish painter and sculptor featured in both the upcoming New Museum triennial "The Ungovernables" AND this group show, organized by the gallery's director. Also featured: Etienne Chambaud, Isabelle Cornaro, Jose Dávila, Jason Dodge (big fan), Ryan Gander (notch), Liam Gillick (ditto), Andrew Kuo, Mateo López, Benoît Maire, Arthur Ou, Marlo Pascual (HUGE fan) and Pietro Roccasalva.
TOKYO
* Ayano Kaeba "mourning flowers" @ Gallery MOMO Roppongi / 2F 6-2-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). One of my favorite Tokyo galleries, feat. young Kanagawa-born painter Kaeba in her second solo show, incorporating detailed floral patterns into her figurative silhouettes. (ENDS SAT)
NYC
* "The Displaced Person" @ Invisible-Exports / 14A Orchard St. Ron Athey, Walt Cassidy, Jesse Aron Green, Geof Oppenheimer and Sue Williams contribute to this exhibition focused on the delineation b/w public and personal space.
TOKYO
* "Walk up / and down / form / being formed" @ NADiff a/p/a/r/t 1F 1-18-4 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station). Feat. Yoichi Sano, Taku Hisamura, Mitsuhiro Yamagiwa, who explore distance, scale and movement in pinhole photography, installation and mixed-media works. (ENDS SUN)
NYC
* "Werkmeister Harmonies" (dir. Béla Tarr, 2000) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6p. A languid, meditative film by even Tarr's standards, combining a provincial Hungarian village with a sinister traveling circus.
* "The Man From London" (dir. Béla Tarr) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 9p. Among Tarr's most gorgeously shot films is this recent exploration of anonymous breakdowns of social order in personal life—replete w/ covert briefcases stuffed with foreign cash and twilit, misty quaysides. Appeared at 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
* JEFF the Brotherhood (TN) @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$12. This is Brooklyn live music 101: sweaty JEFF swamp-rock show at checkerboard tiled DbA, $2 PBR in hand. No brainer. w/ Uncle Bad Touch (Montreal)
* Burning Star Core @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 10p/$5. Dominick Fernow's Stone curation continues! Dive into C. Spencer Yeh's electronic-enhanced, transporting violin drones and thank me later.
AUSTIN
* "Catherine & Company" (dir. Michel Boisrond, 1975) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:30p. Young Jane Birkin in a mid-'70s French softcore film is enough to spark my total attention, but couple that w/ Catherine Breillat's ("Sleeping Beauty", "Bluebeard") screenwriting and Richard Suzuki's ("Emmanuelle") cinematography, and you got a whole 'nother thing, son. Plus the filmic debut of Alexandra Delli Colli ("Zombie Holocaust", "New York Ripper")!
THURSDAY
NYC
* "Happenings New York, 1958-1963" @ The Pace Gallery / 510 W 25th St. The first exhibition to document the origins and historical development of the transient, yet pivotal, "Happenings" movement—so says the Pace press release. Hey, I'm game! As "Happenings" and the group's participants, including Jim Dine, Allan Kaprow, Carolee Schneemann and Simone Forti, emphasized the organic connection b/w art and its environment (incl. viewers), documentation had to go beyond the nature of these unique performances and events. The exhibition includes rare archival footage and original ephemera from Happenings' production, plus artworks created during performances and extensive photography by five Happenings documentarians. A special illustrated book (authored by Milly Glimcher, published by The Monacelli Press) accompanies the show and should provide further insight. Probability of an opening-night "happening": 35%.
* James Busby "White and Black" @ STUX Gallery / 530 W 25th St. BIG Busby fan here and his process-driven meditations on form and texture within stark white or graphite-covered media. He continues to blur that painting/sculpture line w/ shaped MDF and powdered graphite rubbed into formed-gesso surfaces, creating a brilliant dialogue w/ their respective display lighting.
* Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz "Night Falls" @ PPOW / 535 W 22nd St, 3rd Fl. The collaborative duo use the night sky as backdrop, adding firelight and the moon's illumination in dynamic interplay within their dreamlike archival C-prints. They are also participating in the group exhibition "Fairytales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination" at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville.
* Veronica Falls (UK) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$12. Fell in love with these London indie-pop darlings during 2010's CMJ Fest. They'll provide the sunshine on this February NYC day. w/ local rockers Grooms
AUSTIN
* "Two Ships Passing: w/ Andy Campbell" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity, 6:30p. An inspired, reactive dialogue b/w an invited speaker and their guest—a peer, mentor or new acquaintance—about some creative topic. Tonight begins the recurring series, co-presented by VAC and Pastelegram, and features Andy Campbell, lecturer in art history at Texas State University, on navigating today's abundance of images and ephemera vs. a single artwork.
* The Calm Blue Sea + The Sour Notes @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 7p/$8. Solid Austin indie-rock right here. Consider aptly named The Calm Blue Sea, blending their graceful melodies with absolutely stormy post-rock sonics. They're hard at work on a 2nd LP that could drop sometime after SXSW (stay tuned). Plus The Sour Notes, charismatic pop stalwarts of the highest calibre. w/ Follow That Bird
FRIDAY
NYC
* Juergen Teller @ Lehmann Maupin / 201 Chrystie St. A three-part exhibition of the lensman's Pop photography, including a mix of seductive portraits of Kristen McMenamy and Vivienne Westwood, deserted landscapes around Teller's Suffolk home, and shots of Teller's son—all juxtaposed w/ family photos.
* Elaine Reichek "Ariadne's Thread" @ Nicole Klagsbrun PROJECT / 534 W 24th St. Reichek literally weaves the titular Greek myth into her latest serious of embroideries, some hand-sewn, others like a large-scale tapestry woven with computerized technology. Reichek has a similar tapestry on view at the 2012 Whitney Biennial.
* "The Turin Horse" (dir. Béla Tarr, 2011) @ Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center / Lincoln Center & 65th St (1 to 66th St). Will this sombre "remodernist" film, thick with the heaviness of human existence, be Tarr's final feature? It echoes Nietzsche's own witnessing of an overworked horse's death and could well reflect a quiet emergence of the apocalypse. This Jury Grand Prix winner at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival enjoys its NYC theatrical premiere. THRU FEB 16
* George Kuchar Program 1 + 2 @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 7/9:15p. The first two parts of a six-part, three-night extravaganza on the late, great underground filmmaker. Program 1 is "A Package of Stars From George and the VDB Gang" and includes seven shorts from '89's "Point 'n Shoot" through last year's "Hotspell". Program 2 is a tribute from the Film-Maker's Coop and features six classic 16mm shorts from the '60s and '70s, including "I, An Actress" (1977).
* "Eraserhead" (dir. David Lynch, 1977) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). Lynch's debut feature is a true surrealist classic, feat. usual suspect Jack Nance as the titular character in a nightmarish industrial landscape that works best when immersed on the big-screen. ALSO SAT
AUSTIN
* "Pina" (dir. Wim Wenders, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. I was cued into the late, great German choreographer Pina Bausch's electrifying performances years ago by my mentor, and they forever changed how I view movement (e.g. by one person, by person to person, in groups) and "modern dance". Plus Bausch was a kind of muse to Yohji Yamamoto. Now Wenders, an old friend, conjures a 3D experience with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch that gives us even a glimpse of what it must be like to be a Bausch dancer, part of her kinetic, romantic world. It sounds like a triumph.
* "A Separation" (dir. Asghar Farhadi, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. The film to beat for the Oscar for "Best Foreign Feature" is Farhadi's eye-widening take on contemporary Iran, on the dissolution of a marriage and the earth-rending traumas affecting the whole family.
* "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" (dir. Edgar Wright, 2010) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 11:30p. Like cocaine for the eyes, this vintage-certified video game come to life delivers 16+ bits of full-color, side-scrolling mayhem. w/ Michael Cera as the mumbly titular character and scream-queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his Manic Panic-hued love interest, you totally can't go wrong. ALSO SAT
* Whiskey Shivers & Hello Wheels @ Scoot Inn / 1308 E 4th St, 9p/$8. "A freewheeling', trashgrassin', folk tornado" reads Whiskey Shivers' Facebook page. This is Austin, "y'all". Think upright bass, fiddle, and washboard in addition to that guitar, hard-drinking music of a nontraditional tip. Kindred locals Hello Wheels play "stomp-folk, or what they call "a new sound with an old soul". Get captivated on the bands' split 7" "Friends Do Things Together" release party tonight. w/ Wild Child
TOKYO
* Miila and the Geeks + The Suzan @ Super Deluxe / B1F 3-1-25 Nishi-azabu, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station), 7:30p/2500 yen. The G/R/L/Z showcase features singer/songwriter Moe Wadaka's incredible, indie-pop trio Miila and the Geeks (she's Miila, saxophonist Komori and drummer Ajima the geeks), whose slightly sinister, garage-rock debut "New Age" is a triumph for the indie scene. Plus Moe's behind the band's fractured lovely music videos. That praise extends to tropic-pop quartet The Suzan, who split their time b/w Tokyo and NYC (a dream, right?). w/ Limited Express (has gone?) and The Twee Grrrls Club DJs!
* DODDODO Band @ UFO Club / 1-11-6 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Marunouchi Line to Higashi-Koenji Station), 8p/2500. What's iller than Kansai noise-sprite Namin Haku, aka DODDODO? Have her on vox fronting a full band (feat. usual-suspect bassist Makoto Inada, drummer Keiko Matsunaga, uh clarinet player Masako Nakao and violinist Tetsuya Umeda), that's what! w/ ECD+ILLICIT TSUBOI
SATURDAY
NYC
* Tom Friedman @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. BOOM! This is the first NYC solo exhibition from the conceptual sculptor since 2005, and I for one am totally stoked. Friedman includes new sculpture—some incorporating ideas of technology, like a a life-sized video camera handcrafted from wood and paint—and works on paper and collages. Think of the mass-produced yet entirely, intricately handmade, the deadpan presentation looming into vertiginous infinity. This exhibit precedes a Friedman monograph, published by the gallery, which I am necessarily stoked about as well.
* George Kuchar Program 3 + 4 @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 6:45/9p. Program 3 on the underground filmmaking legend comes from the shelves of Electronic Arts Intermix, feat. "Cult of the Cubicles", "Rainy Season" and "The Creeping Crimson" (all 1987). San Francisco's Canyon Cinema culls from their archives in Program 4 with three 16mm shorts, including "Ascension of the Demonoids" (1985).
* Heliotropes + Iron Tides @ The Acheron / 57 Waterbury St, Bushwick (L to Montrose), 8p/$7. Heliotropes combine guitar dissonance and a rumbling rhythm section w/ melodious vox. If I had a soul, they'd be melting it right now. Whiskey-drinking metal dudes Iron Tides are loud enough to hang w/ the Heliotropes women. w/ Descender
AUSTIN
* Tom Molloy "New World" + Noriko Ambe "White Scape" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. Pretty stoked about this. The Irish artist Molloy returns in his third solo at the gallery, presenting painted LP sleeves from Dvorak's "New World Symphony" w/ the text blended into the background, plus his b&w photographic "Shake" series, of newsy world leaders doing just that. He leads a discussion on his work at 7p. Meanwhile Ambe commands the gallery's Project Room w/ a group of all-white layered cut-paper works, which should be a disarming visual palate cleanser against Molloy's exhibition.
* Martin Sztyk "Narratives" @ Big Medium / 5305 Bolm Rd. The practicing architectural designer and researcher draws from his ongoing, narrative-based inhabitation series—including "Urban Forest", "Empty City" and "New London Stock Exchange"—in what looks to be a mind-blowing set of intricate photo-collages.
TOKYO
* "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" (dir. David Fincher, 2011) @ Toho Cinema Hiho / 2-5-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku (Yurakucho Line to Yurakucho Station). Fincher's pulse-throbbing English language adaptation of Stieg Larsson's wildly popular novel(s), like a chunk of charred twilight doused in mercury, totally worked for me. The mix of "Se7en"'s legendary punk director w/ composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and leads Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig is just too irresistible. Tokyo, get ready.
* 「すべては『裸になる』から始まって」/"Always Start Out Naked" (dir. Saku Nakamachi, 2012) @ Ikebukuro Cinema Rosa / 1-37-12 Nishi-ikebukuro, Toshima-ku (JR Yamanote Line etc to Ikebukuro Station). AKB48's Risa Narita plays 10-year-reigning AV queen Kurumi Morishita in this biopic from Morishita's humble beginnings in Akita and tentative forays into, uh, taking off her clothes in front of a camera at Soft on Domand studio, to her self-reliant prowess at Dogma under director TOHJIRO.
SUNDAY
NYC
* George Kuchar Program 5 + 6 @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 6:30/8:30p. The final night of Anthology's Kuchar tribute, featuring 16mm shorts from Harvard Film Archive like "The Carnal Bipeds" (1973) and from Anthology's own collection, including "Anita Needs Me" (1983), plus Kuchar's feature-length film "The Devil's Cleavage" (1973), presented by Pacific Film Archive in Program 6.
AUSTIN
* Boy Friend + Love Inks @ Spiderhouse Ballroom / 2906 Fruth St, 10p. Ethereal guitar-pop duo Christa Palazzolo and Sarah Brown are Boy Friend, and they just debuted an extra-fuzzy LP called "Egyptian Wrinkle". Celebrate at their release party w/ kindred pop spirits Love Inks. w/ Missions
TOKYO
* Erebos Party @ Minami-Aoyama Trigram / B1F 4-18-10 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku (Tokyo Metro Chiyoda/Ginza/Hanzomon Lines to Omotesando Station), 4p/4000 yen. Part fetish party, part underground dance party, w/ lots of ace performances. Tokyo hosts stuff like this all the time (you just need to know where to look). Feat. pole-dancing by Aloe & Kikurage (tokyoDOLORES), the phenomenal Alk on aerial ring, plus DJs Rinko (Torture Garden Japan), Groove Patrol (eggworm/Phonika Tokyo) and assuredly other naughtiness.
* "Popbreak" @ Shibuya Glad / 2+3F 2-21-7 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 3p/3500 yen. Celebrate the venue's second anniversary with a mind-melting array of electro-clash pop cuties. Feat. live sets by personal faves RECORIDE (think Miss Kitten crossed w/ Crystal Castles), DJ/singer-songwriter Saori@destiny, "techno-pop idols" Cutie Pai, Aira Mitsuki and Mai Kotone…I'm sweating just typing this.
TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "The Burning Moon" (dir. Olaf Ittenbach, 1999) @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Uncut. Uncensored. Unconscionable. The horror anthology film as a truly vile barrage of nonstop splatter and German nihilism, shot on video in full misanthropic color. Just in time for Valentine's Day.
TOKYO
* TADZIO + DJ Sumire (Twee Grrrls Club) @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 7p/2500 yen. A double-shot of grrrl noise-punk TADZIO? Sign me up! w/ DJ Sumire of the irresistible Twee Grrrls Club
* The Suzan @ THREE / B1F 5-18-1 Daizawa, Setagaya-ku (Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station), 7p/3300 yen. The final night of tropic-pop cuties The Suzan's whirlwind return to Japan. Yes, after playing like a million shows here over a span of…two weeks, they're headed back to NYC. Celebrate w/ 'em. w/ QUATTRO, Pink Politics
* Tokyo Pinsalocks + Merpeoples @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2800 yen. All-girl techno-tinged groove-pop to my left (Tokyo Pinsalocks), all-girl breathy indie-rock to my right (Merpeoples). Sounds good to me! w/ (M)otocompo
CURRENT SHOWS
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based sculptural alchemist dropped some heady topics in her talk preceding this exhibition, not only naming a certain Gothic painting of the Visitation from a Spanish museum as her point of departure in this stunning new work "Suspended After Image", but also labyrinths (and Jorge Luis Borges), Peter Bruegel (and Babel), and the Large Hadron Collider. All this clued me into Al-Hadid's remarkable sense of harnessing space and presence in her installations, morphing bulk into something oddly ethereal and organic, though still visually commanding. "Suspended After Image" is Al-Hadid's first instance of using a 3D modeling program and CNC router in her work, and the final flowing, terraced form acts more like a 3D painting than a proper sculpture, with the figure seemingly emerging from the frontal staircase while a flow of media colored like wet Frosted Mini Wheats echoes her opulent robes. Though there is an almost total spectrum of color infused in this work, mostly as frozen drips on the sides and back, the overall is a pristine grayish-white, which is absolutely stunning in the VAC's Vaulted Gallery.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience. This plays well with Diana Al-Hadid's installation in the Vaulted Gallery. I was most quickly taken by Baum's series "Dog Ear", utilizing folded pages from paperbacks and photographing them into unique fragmented dialogue. Ga's C-prints of an illuminated fissure within the Arctic ice, shot during her residency at the scientific research vessel Tara, feel otherworldly.
* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Take a plunge into Heidkamp's latest suite of radiant, textural scenes. He shows these interiors and exteriors completely independent from his ongoing portraiture, a strong move in my opinion. For the Brooklyn-based artist isn't just this accomplished figurative painter who also happens to paint rooms and landscapes en plein air. Rather, he is a strong force in capturing natural environments as he sees them, imbuing them with a resonating life-force and character that draws us into their layers of oil paint and dollops of impasto, confronting us with a disarming nostalgia. I may never have visited that Massachusetts backyard ("Here Glows Nothing") or Florida dockside ("Alligator Alley"), but it's like I can smell the air, feel the lawn beneath my trainers and the sun on my face. There's a physicality to Heidkamp's scenes beyond the presence of actual people, who he deftly folds into scenarios (the fireside "Feel It All Around", the portraitures' meta-effect in "The Night of 1000 Paintings") as accenting players. A very strong exhibition and a bold start to Austin's 2012 gallery season.
* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ AMOA-Arthouse / 700 Congress. So check this: on 1/21/10, a young man named Fausto fired six bullets into the air outside the Texas State Capitol. Jill Magid — whose oeuvre navigates bureaucracy and security/intelligence w/ Mission Impossible deftness — was like steps away, pursuing her own future work, and witnessed it. Now six blocks from the scene and two years later, Magid stages an intriguing Conceptual show that ties Fausto's mysterious actions — and his silence throughout his trial — with that of Goethe's "Faust". The ground-floor gallery is her stage, replete with wall-decal directions ("Enter Fausto", "shots fired skyward", "enter Magid" etc), Magid's own play "Fausto: A Tragedy" (mirroring "Faust"'s original intention as a closet drama, meant to be read and not performed), and contemplative works. Deep encodings here, from six translations of "Faust" silkscreened on top of one another, to six bullet casings and a six-slide projection of the sky over the Capitol. Magid wrote a letter to Fausto, requesting his voice (absent in his trial) to read passages from "Faust" (whose Spanish translation is "Fausto") — his answer is still forthcoming, but it would add an intriguing layer to all this. Finally, there is Magid's family's '93 Mercedes, armored to B4 level and parked in Fausto's spot outside the Capitol, and her writing appearing in the February issue of the "Texas Observer", drawing this dialogue beyond the art-scene realm as it should be.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". A really brilliant group show of fractured and re-envisioned realities, curated by Arthouse's Rachel Adams. I tweeted that it made me miss NYC, because it's precisely that sort of thoughtful exhibition that makes me look twice, thrice, at what I think I already know. Ex: Strauss Borque LaFrance's "BABE", a silvery lacquered wood plank pitched diagonally on the wall like classic John McCracken,…only just around the corner is that same plank, used as a shelf amid LaFrance's complex, mixed-media display. Another: Katja Mater's "Time Passing Objects", chromogenic prints that blur the line b/w photography and geometric drawings. Justin Swinburne's "Echo" works, multiple inkjet scans onto alu-dibond that echo (no pun) Gerhard Richter's signature abstracts while maintaining that sense of disarray like Wade Guyton's inkjet silkscreens. Bravo!
CLOSING SOON
TOKYO
* "巧術 2.51" @ Radium / 2-5-17 Bakurocho, Chuo-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Bakurocho Station. AKA "skillful technique", the eponymous serial exhibition held at Spiral yearly since 2010. The third iteration, subtitled "Kowaku/fascination", gets a gallery preview, feat. artists Takuro Sugiyama, Haruo Mitsuda and others. (ENDS FRI)
NYC
* "Corporations Are People Too" @ Winkleman Gallery / 621 W 27th St. This evil-sounding group show culls some awesome talent, feat. Berenice Abbott, Ian Davis, CHris Dorland, Kota Ezawa, Louis Faurer, Yevgeniy Fiks, Jacqueline Hassink, Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange and Phillip Toledano in respective pointed takes on corporate culture, from the Great Depression and WWII to contemporary society.
* On Kawara "Date Painting(s) in New York & 136 Other Cities" @ David Zwirner / 525-533 W 19th St. Conceptualist Kawara made his first date painting in NYC, "JAN. 4, 1966" — that's over four decades ago, if you're counting, and he's still doing it. Thus, the gallery stages a seminal exhibition of over 150 date paintings, selected by Kawara, accompanied by binders of facsimile newspaper clippings, plus two one-hundred-year calendars for the 20th and 21st centuries. AND! A major catalogue published by Ludion and essayed by Japanese writer Lei Yamabe.
* Michael Snow "In the Way" @ Jack Shainman Gallery / 512 W 20th St. Snow, the visual pioneer behind '67's "Wavelength", precedes a solo show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art AND a sculpture retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario (both occurring this year) w/ new projection works and older photo-based installations, all emphasizing the art of looking and viewing through objects.
* "End of Days" @ Mixed Greens / 531 W 26th St. A dozen artists inaugurate Mixed Greens' new year, working off the notion of apocalyptic and transcendent revelations. Main draw for me is Patrick Jacobs' totally mesmerizing mixed-media dioramas (he was in my Top Ten LIST-worthy Cultural Events of 2011), though Valerie Hegarty's installation sounds dope too.
* Alfred Jensen/Sol LeWitt "Systems and Transformation" @ The Pace Gallery / 32 E 57th St. An intriguing pairing of Jensen's orderly abstract paintings based off grids and color theories vs. LeWitt's basic geometrical open structures. Beyond inclusions in group exhibitions, this is the first show to examine and contrast the artists' oeuvres in depth.
* Shirin Neshat @ Gladstone Gallery / 515 W 24th St. Really stoked for this: Neshat unveils her new photographic series "The Book of Kings", composed of b&w portraits of Iranian and Arab youth covered in calligraphic text, plus a new three-channel video installation.
* "Rotary Connection", organized by Loring Randolph @ Casey Kaplan Gallery / 525 W 21st St. Pay attention to Julia Dault, an electrifying abstract-ish painter and sculptor featured in both the upcoming New Museum triennial "The Ungovernables" AND this group show, organized by the gallery's director. Also featured: Etienne Chambaud, Isabelle Cornaro, Jose Dávila, Jason Dodge (big fan), Ryan Gander (notch), Liam Gillick (ditto), Andrew Kuo, Mateo López, Benoît Maire, Arthur Ou, Marlo Pascual (HUGE fan) and Pietro Roccasalva.
TOKYO
* Ayano Kaeba "mourning flowers" @ Gallery MOMO Roppongi / 2F 6-2-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). One of my favorite Tokyo galleries, feat. young Kanagawa-born painter Kaeba in her second solo show, incorporating detailed floral patterns into her figurative silhouettes. (ENDS SAT)
NYC
* "The Displaced Person" @ Invisible-Exports / 14A Orchard St. Ron Athey, Walt Cassidy, Jesse Aron Green, Geof Oppenheimer and Sue Williams contribute to this exhibition focused on the delineation b/w public and personal space.
TOKYO
* "Walk up / and down / form / being formed" @ NADiff a/p/a/r/t 1F 1-18-4 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station). Feat. Yoichi Sano, Taku Hisamura, Mitsuhiro Yamagiwa, who explore distance, scale and movement in pinhole photography, installation and mixed-media works. (ENDS SUN)
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
fee's LIST / through 2/7
WEDNESDAY
NYC
* Tony Cragg @ Marian Goodman Gallery / 24 W 57th St. Concurrent w/ his public installation at The Sculpture Garden at 590 Madison Ave is an array of beguiling new sculptures from the Düsseldorf-based British artist, including works realized in bronze, Cor-ten steel, wood, cast iron and stone.
AUSTIN
* Laurie Frick "The Art of Self Tracking" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St, 7p. Frick's exhibition is dazzling, but the deeper meanings behind her methodology—patterned language, neuroscience—benefit from some explanation. She leads a highly visual talk on "Quantify Me" should be an illuminating experience.
* "A Lonely Place To Die" (dir. Julian Gilbey, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. This vertiginous survival thriller, set mostly among sheer rock faces in the Scottish Highlands, feat. a mountaineering team unwillingly (or unwittingly) pulled into a cat-and-mouse chase after rescuing a young Serbian girl buried alive in the forest. It will induce vivid acrophobia and make you throw up in the best way. Absolutely awesome, and a Fantastic Fest 2011 personal favorite.
TOKYO
* Eikoh Hosoe @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). Part two: "Simon Landscape 1", a continuation of the gallery's season-spanning retrospective on the singular modernist photographer, this time focusing on his portfolio of friend and model Yotsuya Simon, assimilated into Tokyo's old shitamachi landscape.
THURSDAY
NYC
* Mary Corse @ Lehmann Maupin / 540 W 26th St. This is a treat: the Light & Space artist debuts five new paintings in her inaugural show at the gallery. Though keeping true to her SoCal roots, these are perception-distorting works best enjoyed in person, as each grabs ambient and display light and shifts how we see them.
* Alec Soth "Broken Manual" @ Sean Kelly Gallery / 528 W 29th St. The NY debut of selections from Soth's four-year photographic series, detailing mostly men freed from societal constraints amid wilderness landscapes. The experts of escape, whether hermits, hippies, survivalists or just those willing to live off the grid. The previewable archival pigment prints from this series look gorgeous.
* Nikolay Bakharev, Gerard Fieret & Miroslav Tichy @ Julie Saul Gallery / 535 W 22nd St. An exhibition of three potent, enigmatic photographers who began their oeuvres in postwar Europe. I'm a big fan of Tichy, who passed away last year and whose huge body of work—surreptitious portraits of women using handmade cameras—was belatedly discovered like last decade. Fieret's bold, Dadaist spirit and Bakharev public/private delineation (NYers got to know him during "Ostalgia" at the New Museum last year) add their own intrigue.
* Carlos Giffoni @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$5. Dominick "Prurient" Fernow is guest curating at The Stone for the first half of February. Expect some significantly awesome programming from the Hospital Productions founder and noise musician, like Mr. Giffoni, electro-acoustic maimer and former maven of No Fun Fest.
TOKYO
* Maya Maxx @ Kido Press, Inc / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Maya Maxx is a trip, like a Comme des Garçons outfit come to painterly life. The Pop artist does rainbows here, mixing her calligraphy background w/ bold printmaking techniques.
* "The Scene" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1F 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (Chiyoda/Hanzomon/Ginza Lines to Omotesando Station). The show's theme is the power held within a single photograph, featuring the talents of Joy Kawakubo, Takeshi Shimamoto, Michael Stanley, Rich and TARA.
FRIDAY
NYC
* Robert Grosvenor @ Paula Cooper Gallery / 534 W 21st St. I'm doing like Eric Wareheim from "Tim & Eric" and going helllllllyeahhh in sub-sonic baritone, in voicing my appreciation for this exhibition. I love Grosvenor's meaty, room-dominating industrial sculpture and am totally stoked for this show, featuring a classic from '86-7 and a new two-part sculpture.
* Catherine Yass "LIGHTHOUSE" @ Galerie Lelong / 528 W 26th St. The US debut of British artist Yass' new film "Lighthouse", depicting the Royal Sovereign lighthouse on the coast of East Sussex in a large projection with related manipulated-image lightboxes.
* Kay Rosen "Wide and Deep" @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co / 530 W 22nd St. The Midwest-based textual artist pairs her lettered wall paintings (typically exploring and invading the space's architecture) w/ gray-toned enamel sign-paint on canvas.
* "Damnation" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1988) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6:15p. The Lincoln Center is throwing an INCREDIBLE full-film retrospective on the impeccable Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr. His oeuvre is highly visual and auditory, "slow" on action and lacking cuts in favor of drawing us to the margins, to emulating an wonderful melange of modernism and metaphysics. "Damnation" is all about despair, broken love affairs, betrayal, heavy drinking (the main location is local bar Titanik). Grim stuff! This is also Tarr's first collab w/ novelist László Krasznahorkai (whose epic writing "Satantango" became Tarr's magnum opus of a film) and actor Mihály Víg (star of "Satantango" and others). ALSO MON 1:30p
* "Family Nest" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1979) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:45p. Tarr's first full-length film, and probably his most neorealist (in the vein of Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti), focuses on a typical Budapest housing block and the dire goings-on inside. Oh yeah, he was 22 years old when he made this film. Highly recommended! ALSO MON 4p
AUSTIN
* "The Innkeepers" (dir. Ti West, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. Score another horror hit for Mr. West, who chilled us thoroughly w/ 2009 slow-burner "The House of the Devil". His latest is funnier yet more unrelenting in terror doses, as cutie Sara Paxton and spaz-wit Pat Healy get way over their heads as amateur ghost-hunters while working at a decrepit inn. "The Innkeepers" capped off a fantastic 2011 Fantastic Fest, and I for one am stoked to see it again. Note: this plays once per night late, through Thursday.
* "The Woman in Black" (dir. James Watkins, 2012) @ Regal Gateway Stadium 16 / 9700 Stonelake Blvd. Hammer Films is SO BACK w/ this spine-rattler, which does indeed star an adult-ish Daniel Radcliffe as a lawyer investigating a string of mysterious suicides and accidents in an English village…and the titular spectre out to curse his kid!
* "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. This bracing psychological thriller was a one-time-only late addition to Fantastic Fest 2011…and I missed it. Considering friends' reactions — Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly as grieving parents of a son who just murdered a bunch of his classmates — I missed something major.
* "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" (dir. Edgar Wright, 2010) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 11p. Like cocaine for the eyes, this vintage-certified video game come to life delivers 16+ bits of full-color, side-scrolling mayhem. w/ Michael Cera as the mumbly titular character and scream-queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his Manic Panic-hued love interest, you totally can't go wrong. ALSO SAT
* Zola Jesus (LA) @ The Parish / 214 E 6th St, 9p/$10. Man, forget Lana Del Rey. Channel your listening to ingenue incroyable Zola Jesus, whose twilit pop act as real "orchestral maneuvers in the dark". w/ Talk Normal (NYC)
TOKYO
* Ken Matsubara "The Sleeping Water" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). Matsubara features the video installation "Mekong Delta", his signature antique-crafted glass dome showing children floating up the titular river, recalling the deaths of children in the many wars and disasters around the world.
* Kiyomichi Shibuya "Which do you choose?" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Point: I dig this guy's name. Point: I dig his visual device, the spirograph, incorporating cast light into tracked out floral patterns that somehow encapsulates both childhood, traditional Japanese imagery, and classic literature.
SATURDAY
NYC
* Terry Winters "Cricket Music, Tessellation Figures, & Notebook" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 522 W 22nd St. Winters' kaleidoscopic paintings are as immersive as ever, but the NY-area artist adds a twist w/ "Notebook, 2003-2011", a selection of his layered found-photo collages shown for the first time stateside.
* Anne Truitt "Drawings" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 523 W 24th St. The gallery mounted a wonderful retrospective of Truitt's serene totem-like sculpture two years ago (it was one of my favorites of 2010). They continue the awesomeness w/ four decades' of the artist's drawings, a vital part of her daily creative activity of which I am frankly (embarrassingly) totally ignorant. A special monograph accompanies the show. Looking forward to this one.
* "Satantango" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1994) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 2p. Tarr's magnum opus—and my favorite from him—is a 450-minute cyclical experience within a dilapidated collective farm near the end of Communism and during the dead of winter. The central episode "Satan's Tango", an almost unmoving 10-min shot inside the pub as the townspeople get shitfaced and dance to some psychedelic folk music, is just so incredibly awesome. ALSO SUN 2p
* DIVE + Caged Animals @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F/JMZ to Essex/Delancey), 8p/$8. Psych-rockers DIVE (fronted by Beach Fossils' guitarist Z. Cole Smith) are some of the busiest dudes on the indie scene today. Pairing 'em w/ the shifting guitar-sonics of Caged Animals sounds like music to my ears. w/ Heavenly Beat (aka Beach Fossils' bassist John Peña)
AUSTIN
* "Evidence of Houdini's Return" artist talk @ Arthouse / 700 Congress, 2p. Sterling Allen and J. Parker Valentine discuss their respective works in this illuminating group show on contemporary abstract practices. See my review under CURRENT SHOWS (it's mighty dope).
* Loring Baker "A Shifting Thought, A Shifting Sea" @ Co-Lab Project Space / 613 Allen St. Baker records her drawing process in audio files, creating a sonic memory of her mark-making and—once edited with field-records—a whole 'nother layer to her figurative works.
* "Holier Than Thou" (dir. Bastion Carboni) @ Salvage Vanguard Theatre / 2803 E Manor Rd, 8:15p/$10. Carboni's bracing addition to FronteraFest 2012 is a dark comedy about a reality TV show where people compete to possess the powers of Jesus for a week. This is the final showing, and believe me when I write: holy hell, highly recommended!
TOKYO
* Ay-O "Over the Rainbow Once More" @ Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo / 4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station). The "Rainbow Artist" and Fluxus member's full-spectrum career arc, depicted in full color. Featuring a large, participatory installation (as Ay-O's oeuvre is typically multisensory), plus a new large painting, classic other paintings and videos. Ay-O is preparing a performance scheduled for late March (check back here!).
+ Atsuko Tanaka "The Art of Connecting". Define MAJYAH. The first major Tokyo retrospective of the foremost female member of Gutai Art Association, the postwar avant-garde artist group. This includes Tanaka's famous "Electric Dress" but includes loads else, like paintings, collages, and video records of her performances.
* Lee Bul "From me, Belongs to You Only" @ Mori Art Museum / Roppongi Hills Mori Tower (53F), 6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). Lee Bul was my outlet into contemporary Korean art, via some high-tech site and her own cyborgian machine-organic hybrid sculpture. This career survey showcases her major works in four sections: "Ephemeral Presence", "Beyond Human" (duh), "Utopia and Dreamscape", and "From Me, Belongs to You Only" (the exhibition's title and Lee's message in creating a personal relationship b/w her work and we the viewers. PLUS: Lee discusses her past two decades of artistic activities in a 7p talk, under the heading "Mon grand récit/Seeking an Ideal Society".
+ Ho Tzu Nyen. MAM Project 016 presents this Singapore-based video installation artist and his new work "The Cloud of Unknowing" (which debuted at the 2011 Venice Biennale), plus earlier A/V works "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Newton".
* "Arakawa Under the Bridge" (dir. Ken Iizuka, 2012) @ Shinjuku Piccadilly / 3-15-15 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit). Iizuka adapted this from Hikaru Nakamura's bestselling manga, about a self-sufficient young dude who, after a young woman saves his life, begins living under a bridge in some expression of his debt to her and rebuilding his own life. The film is as stylized as the manga, apparently, w/ a whole crazy cast of colorful characters under Arakawa Bridge.
* "Tokyo Playboy Club" (dir. Yosuke Okuda, 2012) @ Eurospace / 3F 1-5 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). Despite the glittery name, this violent and off-kilter humorous look at Tokyo's shadowy underworld has earned serious acclaim since its Busan Film Fest premier, incl. that of young director Okuda. Think Quentin Tarentino crossed w/ Kinji Fukusaku, w/ a grinding guitar soundtrack and hardboiled dudes Nao Omori and Ken Mitsuishi (in one of his most frenetic roles yet) balanced by cutie Asami Usuda.
* FOUR GET ME A NOTS @ Shibuya O-West / 2-3 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6:30p/3300 yen. BOOM. Chiba pop-punks FOUR GET ME A NOTS celebrate the Tokyo-area stop on their 2012 "Silver Lining Tour" w/ a sweaty, riff-rocking one-man show not to be missed!
* "Domina-Trix" @ Trump House/Lounge / 1-6-5 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 10p/5500 yen (men), 2000 (women), 6000 (couples). Like the tagline reads (translated): "A night of total domination by women. A night of total submission by men." Fancy that? Enter the basement for Japan's premier "FemDom" party, feat. 17 dominatrixes from fetish bars I've attended and others, plus pole-dancing, a floor s&m performance, and MC Ai Aoyama's slave auction. For real.
SUNDAY
NYC
* Nicolas Jaar "From Scratch" @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to 23rd St/Court Square, 7 to 45th Rd/Courthouse Sq), 1p/FREE w/ admission. P4K presents this singular event, a five-hour multidisciplinary performance by electronic music producer Jaar w/ collabs Will Epstein, Dave Harrington (Darkside) and Sasha Spielberg, plus a movement piece from Lizzie Feidelson and video art from Ryan Staake, filmmaker-in-residence at Jaar's culture house Clown & Sunset Aesthetics. The whole thing goes down w/in the MoMA PS1 Performance Dome, kicking off the venue's weekly winter programming "Sunday Sessions".
* Pharmakon @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 10p/$5. Margaret Chardiet may be the rare woman musician in the American noise scene, but if her absolutely ferocious S/T EP is any indication, she can decimate w/ the best of the boys. Brace yourselves.
TOKYO
* Plastic Girl In Closet @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station), 6p/3000 yen. Tokyo's sublime shoegazers PGIC headline High's continuing 4th anniversary celebration, which also features Hi-5 and, uh, "Huckleberry Finn"?
* ASTRO & Sachiko @ SOUP / B1F 3-9-10 Kami-Ochiai, Shinjuku-ku (JR Sobu Line to Higashi-Nakano Station), 7p/2500. The inspired pairing of ex-C.C.C.C. noise-god Hiroshi Hasegawa (ASTRO) w/ drone goddess Sachiko M comes from one stop on Toronto/Berlin improv act Nadja's 2012 Japan tour. Also feat: Chihei Hatakeyama w/ Cal Lyall and Hasegawa-Shizuo (Hirotomo Hasegawa w/ Shizuo Uchida).
MONDAY
NYC
* "The Outsider" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1981) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6:15p. The classic young renegade, but in Tarr's gritty world he's no dandified "bon vivant", he's a broken case in and out of love, jobs, women, booze, etc. ALSO TUE 3:45p
* "The Prefab People" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1982) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:45p. Blue-collar marriage within Budapest's prefab government housing, disintegrating under Communist-era poverty and personal depression, right there before our very eyes.
TUESDAY
NYC
* Nicole Nadeau "Portraits of Origin" @ Y Gallery / 165 Orchard St. Nadeau reinterprets the meaning of the "female universe" and dissects pressures that pervade contemporary womanhood in this media-spanning exhibition, her debut solo at the gallery.
* "Almanac of Fall" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1984) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:30p. Tarr returns to apartment blocks for this chamber drama of sparring and double-talk. Even better, he blends social realism of his earlier works with the dreamy metaphysics of his later films.
* Yellow Tears @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$5. Dominick "Prurient" Fernow's half-month reign over The Stone continues in a big way, w/ the absolutely ferocious noise-mongers Yellow Tears aurally clawing out one helluva set.
* Dum Dum Girls (Cali) + Widowspeak @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$15. Picture perfect. Bands that sound great AND look awesome. Widowspeak enchant w/ Molly Hamilton's croon over dissonant, Spaghetti Western guitars and raw rhythm. Dee Dee & crew take it to a higher plane as Dum Dum Girls, w/ choral harmonies wrapped around a chugging, fuzz-pop core.
AUSTIN
* "Phantasm 2" (dir. Don Coscarelli, 1988) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Coscarelli's classic horror series "Phantasm" were underappreciated game-changers, in my opinion. Angus Scrimm as the iconic crypto-underkeeper Tall Man, in from some sepia-toned dimension, hurling mirrored spheres and commanding these Jawas From Hell to drag victims to his world…that is some scary shit! The '88 sequel is my favorite, though, for so many obvious reasons. Point: Reggie's chainsaw fight w/ a gasmasked baddie. Point: Reggie's quad-barreled sawed-off shotgun and Mike's blowtorch array as go-to weapons. Point: absurd dialogue like Mike remarking they—meaning he and Reggie plus their newfound girlfriends—should get some shuteye (i.e. shag) even though their hideout is barely barricaded and the Tall Man is looming like literally outside. Awesome awesome awesome.
TOKYO
* The Suzan @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 6:30p/3000 yen. By now, I am so totally used to Japanese tropic-pop riot-grrrls The Suzan headlining Brooklyn area shows—or teaming up in awesome NY rosters—that I almost forgot they play Tokyo too. Here, they support the sunny, besuited gents おとぎ話 (Otogibanashi", means "fairy-tale"), whose new-ish 5th LP "Bang Bang Attack" channels that yesteryear harmonious paisley-pop. w/ Ropes
CURRENT SHOWS
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based sculptural alchemist dropped some heady topics in her talk preceding this exhibition, not only naming a certain Gothic painting of the Visitation from a Spanish museum as her point of departure in this stunning new work "Suspended After Image", but also labyrinths (and Jorge Luis Borges), Peter Bruegel (and Babel), and the Large Hadron Collider. All this clued me into Al-Hadid's remarkable sense of harnessing space and presence in her installations, morphing bulk into something oddly ethereal and organic, though still visually commanding. "Suspended After Image" is Al-Hadid's first instance of using a 3D modeling program and CNC router in her work, and the final flowing, terraced form acts more like a 3D painting than a proper sculpture, with the figure seemingly emerging from the frontal staircase while a flow of media colored like wet Frosted Mini Wheats echoes her opulent robes. Though there is an almost total spectrum of color infused in this work, mostly as frozen drips on the sides and back, the overall is a pristine grayish-white, which is absolutely stunning in the VAC's Vaulted Gallery.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience. This plays well with Diana Al-Hadid's installation in the Vaulted Gallery. I was most quickly taken by Baum's series "Dog Ear", utilizing folded pages from paperbacks and photographing them into unique fragmented dialogue. Ga's C-prints of an illuminated fissure within the Arctic ice, shot during her residency at the scientific research vessel Tara, feel otherworldly.
+ Justin Boyd "Dubforms". Angled, floor-mounted video panels, field recordings with ample echo…all of it makes the VAC's Arcade space feel much larger and deeper than it actually is. So in transforming space, the San Antonio-based artist succeeds.
* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Take a plunge into Heidkamp's latest suite of radiant, textural scenes. He shows these interiors and exteriors completely independent from his ongoing portraiture, a strong move in my opinion. For the Brooklyn-based artist isn't just this accomplished figurative painter who also happens to paint rooms and landscapes en plein air. Rather, he is a strong force in capturing natural environments as he sees them, imbuing them with a resonating life-force and character that draws us into their layers of oil paint and dollops of impasto, confronting us with a disarming nostalgia. I may never have visited that Massachusetts backyard ("Here Glows Nothing") or Florida dockside ("Alligator Alley"), but it's like I can smell the air, feel the lawn beneath my trainers and the sun on my face. There's a physicality to Heidkamp's scenes beyond the presence of actual people, who he deftly folds into scenarios (the fireside "Feel It All Around", the portraitures' meta-effect in "The Night of 1000 Paintings") as accenting players. A very strong exhibition and a bold start to Austin's 2012 gallery season.
* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. So check this: on 1/21/10, a young man named Fausto fired six bullets into the air outside the Texas State Capitol. Jill Magid — whose oeuvre navigates bureaucracy and security/intelligence w/ Mission Impossible deftness — was like steps away, pursuing her own future work, and witnessed it. Now six blocks from the scene and two years later, Magid stages an intriguing Conceptual show that ties Fausto's mysterious actions — and his silence throughout his trial — with that of Goethe's "Faust". The ground-floor gallery is her stage, replete with wall-decal directions ("Enter Fausto", "shots fired skyward", "enter Magid" etc), Magid's own play "Fausto: A Tragedy" (mirroring "Faust"'s original intention as a closet drama, meant to be read and not performed), and contemplative works. Deep encodings here, from six translations of "Faust" silkscreened on top of one another, to six bullet casings and a six-slide projection of the sky over the Capitol. Magid wrote a letter to Fausto, requesting his voice (absent in his trial) to read passages from "Faust" (whose Spanish translation is "Fausto") — his answer is still forthcoming, but it would add an intriguing layer to all this. Finally, there is Magid's family's '93 Mercedes, armored to B4 level and parked in Fausto's spot outside the Capitol, and her writing appearing in the February issue of the "Texas Observer", drawing this dialogue beyond the art-scene realm as it should be.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". A really brilliant group show of fractured and re-envisioned realities, curated by Arthouse's Rachel Adams. I tweeted that it made me miss NYC, because it's precisely that sort of thoughtful exhibition that makes me look twice, thrice, at what I think I already know. Ex: Strauss Borque LaFrance's "BABE", a silvery lacquered wood plank pitched diagonally on the wall like classic John McCracken,…only just around the corner is that same plank, used as a shelf amid LaFrance's complex, mixed-media display. Another: Katja Mater's "Time Passing Objects", chromogenic prints that blur the line b/w photography and geometric drawings. Justin Swinburne's "Echo" works, multiple inkjet scans onto alu-dibond that echo (no pun) Gerhard Richter's signature abstracts while maintaining that sense of disarray like Wade Guyton's inkjet silkscreens. Bravo!
* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. Three artists — Austinites Paul Beck and Pat Snow, plus Minnesotan Allen Brewer — play with, and off, perception and representation, reminding us as viewers that things aren't always as clear-cut as they first seem. Brewer takes a direct approach by purposefully painting (or drawing) his subjects blind, focusing on who or what he's rendering instead of the resultant object itself. So while some works carry ghostly remnants or shifts of his mark-making, others like the old man "Poopy" are startlingly realized, fully fleshed out like a Lucien Freud painting. Snow's watercolors and drawings mine his personal space, culling from memories, songs in the background and dialogue. Perhaps reflecting his background working alongside Robert Colescott and Howard Finster, many of Snow's works feature enveloping stories, like "Record Shop Girl" (the charming awkwardness hits close to home) and "I Think My Dog Is a Racist". His ecstatically rendered 99 watercolors "Girl Crazy/Crazy Girl" mostly features women artist friends from his former hometown, Birmingham AL, interspersed with silent movie-style title cards like "TOO Bad" and "Sweet Sad True", prompting an imagined (real?) conversation. The figures' range of renderings from classical to cartoonish reminded me a bit of Richard Linklater's classic Austin rotoscoped animation "Waking Life", which is where Beck comes in. He animated for that film and Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly", and his two suites of mixed media works made for this show tread the line b/w realism and almost nightmarish fantasy, soft-contoured figures floating against stark political undertones and lettering, all with a muted reddish palette. What's the message? That our own consciousness is a jumble of memories, daily interventions and environmental/societal irregularities, as mutable as the moments captured in these works.
CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Ai Weiwei "Sunflower Seeds" @ Mary Boone Gallery / 541 W 24th St. Ai's incredible carpet of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, which last blanketed the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall in 2010, comes to the states in a site-specific installation at Mary Boone.
* Jim Isermann "Reunion" @ Mary Boone Gallery / 745 Fifth Ave. A selection of bold '80s abstract-ish paintings, both enamel on wood and yarn "paintings", plus a flower-shaped installation of Isermann's signature chairs.
* Joel Sternfeld "First Pictures" @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. Four bodies of work — the early "Happy Anniversary Sweetie Face!" from '71, plus '75's "Nags Head", '76's "Rush Hour" street portraiture and "At the Mall, New Jersey 1980" — all integral to Sternfeld's conceptual and formalistic photographic processes, and all rarely exhibited or published. An eponymous catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
* Thomas Woodruff "The Four Temperament Variations" @ PPOW / 535 W 22nd St, 3rd Fl. Woodruff wields portraiture, still-life, landscape painting and wildlife w/ uncannily equal aplomb in his fantastical, vivid paintings, threading in mythology, steampunk imagery and "lowbrow" pop surrealism. His eight solo exhibition at the gallery (the last was in 2008) comes with a monograph, essayed by another old-style master, Vincent Desiderio.
* Margaret Evangeline "Time Bomb" @ STUX Gallery / 530 W 25th St. What sounds cooler to you: gestural marks of oil paint on canvas, or bullet holes riddling stainless steel? Guess what: in Evangeline's third solo exhibition at the gallery, you get both!
AUSTIN
* Mads Lynnerup "Help is on the way" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces. This is one of those rare occasions when I visit a multidisciplinary artist's show and am most immediately drawn to the videos. These things take time, and doubly so when paired w/ Lynnerup's candy-colored "Exercise Your Artist" collages and neon cut-paper "Astrobright" arrangements, like infinitely adaptable (and flashier) Ellsworth Kelly's. But its beyond these and the Franz West-style spraypainted plywood and foam exercise "blocks" that the videos really shine. One, "Demonstration", features Lynnerup's muscly trainer in a studio space working out with the West-ish blocks and angular wall relief "Exercising Grill", pulling a Matthew Barney of exertion and stamina but towards a more relatable, self-improving goal. Or at least when he starts doing headstands, it made ME want to hit the gym. The other far quieter video, "Untitled (Shadow)", follows Lynnerup's hands and paper as he traces out a shadow-y landscape in rays of sunlight, a spontaneous flip-book executed in the simplest, and thus most thrilling, gestures.
TOKYO
* Masafumi Kawakami @ Taimatz / 1-2-11 Higashi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku (JR Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station, Toei-Shinjuku Line to Bakuro-Yokoyama Station). More nightmarish, subtly figurative paintings and collages from the young artist, who had a pretty significant solo show at Taro Nasu Gallery in 2010. Right on. (ENDS SAT)
NYC
* Tony Cragg @ Marian Goodman Gallery / 24 W 57th St. Concurrent w/ his public installation at The Sculpture Garden at 590 Madison Ave is an array of beguiling new sculptures from the Düsseldorf-based British artist, including works realized in bronze, Cor-ten steel, wood, cast iron and stone.
AUSTIN
* Laurie Frick "The Art of Self Tracking" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St, 7p. Frick's exhibition is dazzling, but the deeper meanings behind her methodology—patterned language, neuroscience—benefit from some explanation. She leads a highly visual talk on "Quantify Me" should be an illuminating experience.
* "A Lonely Place To Die" (dir. Julian Gilbey, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. This vertiginous survival thriller, set mostly among sheer rock faces in the Scottish Highlands, feat. a mountaineering team unwillingly (or unwittingly) pulled into a cat-and-mouse chase after rescuing a young Serbian girl buried alive in the forest. It will induce vivid acrophobia and make you throw up in the best way. Absolutely awesome, and a Fantastic Fest 2011 personal favorite.
TOKYO
* Eikoh Hosoe @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). Part two: "Simon Landscape 1", a continuation of the gallery's season-spanning retrospective on the singular modernist photographer, this time focusing on his portfolio of friend and model Yotsuya Simon, assimilated into Tokyo's old shitamachi landscape.
THURSDAY
NYC
* Mary Corse @ Lehmann Maupin / 540 W 26th St. This is a treat: the Light & Space artist debuts five new paintings in her inaugural show at the gallery. Though keeping true to her SoCal roots, these are perception-distorting works best enjoyed in person, as each grabs ambient and display light and shifts how we see them.
* Alec Soth "Broken Manual" @ Sean Kelly Gallery / 528 W 29th St. The NY debut of selections from Soth's four-year photographic series, detailing mostly men freed from societal constraints amid wilderness landscapes. The experts of escape, whether hermits, hippies, survivalists or just those willing to live off the grid. The previewable archival pigment prints from this series look gorgeous.
* Nikolay Bakharev, Gerard Fieret & Miroslav Tichy @ Julie Saul Gallery / 535 W 22nd St. An exhibition of three potent, enigmatic photographers who began their oeuvres in postwar Europe. I'm a big fan of Tichy, who passed away last year and whose huge body of work—surreptitious portraits of women using handmade cameras—was belatedly discovered like last decade. Fieret's bold, Dadaist spirit and Bakharev public/private delineation (NYers got to know him during "Ostalgia" at the New Museum last year) add their own intrigue.
* Carlos Giffoni @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$5. Dominick "Prurient" Fernow is guest curating at The Stone for the first half of February. Expect some significantly awesome programming from the Hospital Productions founder and noise musician, like Mr. Giffoni, electro-acoustic maimer and former maven of No Fun Fest.
TOKYO
* Maya Maxx @ Kido Press, Inc / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Maya Maxx is a trip, like a Comme des Garçons outfit come to painterly life. The Pop artist does rainbows here, mixing her calligraphy background w/ bold printmaking techniques.
* "The Scene" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1F 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (Chiyoda/Hanzomon/Ginza Lines to Omotesando Station). The show's theme is the power held within a single photograph, featuring the talents of Joy Kawakubo, Takeshi Shimamoto, Michael Stanley, Rich and TARA.
FRIDAY
NYC
* Robert Grosvenor @ Paula Cooper Gallery / 534 W 21st St. I'm doing like Eric Wareheim from "Tim & Eric" and going helllllllyeahhh in sub-sonic baritone, in voicing my appreciation for this exhibition. I love Grosvenor's meaty, room-dominating industrial sculpture and am totally stoked for this show, featuring a classic from '86-7 and a new two-part sculpture.
* Catherine Yass "LIGHTHOUSE" @ Galerie Lelong / 528 W 26th St. The US debut of British artist Yass' new film "Lighthouse", depicting the Royal Sovereign lighthouse on the coast of East Sussex in a large projection with related manipulated-image lightboxes.
* Kay Rosen "Wide and Deep" @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co / 530 W 22nd St. The Midwest-based textual artist pairs her lettered wall paintings (typically exploring and invading the space's architecture) w/ gray-toned enamel sign-paint on canvas.
* "Damnation" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1988) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6:15p. The Lincoln Center is throwing an INCREDIBLE full-film retrospective on the impeccable Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr. His oeuvre is highly visual and auditory, "slow" on action and lacking cuts in favor of drawing us to the margins, to emulating an wonderful melange of modernism and metaphysics. "Damnation" is all about despair, broken love affairs, betrayal, heavy drinking (the main location is local bar Titanik). Grim stuff! This is also Tarr's first collab w/ novelist László Krasznahorkai (whose epic writing "Satantango" became Tarr's magnum opus of a film) and actor Mihály Víg (star of "Satantango" and others). ALSO MON 1:30p
* "Family Nest" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1979) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:45p. Tarr's first full-length film, and probably his most neorealist (in the vein of Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti), focuses on a typical Budapest housing block and the dire goings-on inside. Oh yeah, he was 22 years old when he made this film. Highly recommended! ALSO MON 4p
AUSTIN
* "The Innkeepers" (dir. Ti West, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. Score another horror hit for Mr. West, who chilled us thoroughly w/ 2009 slow-burner "The House of the Devil". His latest is funnier yet more unrelenting in terror doses, as cutie Sara Paxton and spaz-wit Pat Healy get way over their heads as amateur ghost-hunters while working at a decrepit inn. "The Innkeepers" capped off a fantastic 2011 Fantastic Fest, and I for one am stoked to see it again. Note: this plays once per night late, through Thursday.
* "The Woman in Black" (dir. James Watkins, 2012) @ Regal Gateway Stadium 16 / 9700 Stonelake Blvd. Hammer Films is SO BACK w/ this spine-rattler, which does indeed star an adult-ish Daniel Radcliffe as a lawyer investigating a string of mysterious suicides and accidents in an English village…and the titular spectre out to curse his kid!
* "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. This bracing psychological thriller was a one-time-only late addition to Fantastic Fest 2011…and I missed it. Considering friends' reactions — Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly as grieving parents of a son who just murdered a bunch of his classmates — I missed something major.
* "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" (dir. Edgar Wright, 2010) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 11p. Like cocaine for the eyes, this vintage-certified video game come to life delivers 16+ bits of full-color, side-scrolling mayhem. w/ Michael Cera as the mumbly titular character and scream-queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his Manic Panic-hued love interest, you totally can't go wrong. ALSO SAT
* Zola Jesus (LA) @ The Parish / 214 E 6th St, 9p/$10. Man, forget Lana Del Rey. Channel your listening to ingenue incroyable Zola Jesus, whose twilit pop act as real "orchestral maneuvers in the dark". w/ Talk Normal (NYC)
TOKYO
* Ken Matsubara "The Sleeping Water" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). Matsubara features the video installation "Mekong Delta", his signature antique-crafted glass dome showing children floating up the titular river, recalling the deaths of children in the many wars and disasters around the world.
* Kiyomichi Shibuya "Which do you choose?" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Point: I dig this guy's name. Point: I dig his visual device, the spirograph, incorporating cast light into tracked out floral patterns that somehow encapsulates both childhood, traditional Japanese imagery, and classic literature.
SATURDAY
NYC
* Terry Winters "Cricket Music, Tessellation Figures, & Notebook" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 522 W 22nd St. Winters' kaleidoscopic paintings are as immersive as ever, but the NY-area artist adds a twist w/ "Notebook, 2003-2011", a selection of his layered found-photo collages shown for the first time stateside.
* Anne Truitt "Drawings" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 523 W 24th St. The gallery mounted a wonderful retrospective of Truitt's serene totem-like sculpture two years ago (it was one of my favorites of 2010). They continue the awesomeness w/ four decades' of the artist's drawings, a vital part of her daily creative activity of which I am frankly (embarrassingly) totally ignorant. A special monograph accompanies the show. Looking forward to this one.
* "Satantango" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1994) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 2p. Tarr's magnum opus—and my favorite from him—is a 450-minute cyclical experience within a dilapidated collective farm near the end of Communism and during the dead of winter. The central episode "Satan's Tango", an almost unmoving 10-min shot inside the pub as the townspeople get shitfaced and dance to some psychedelic folk music, is just so incredibly awesome. ALSO SUN 2p
* DIVE + Caged Animals @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F/JMZ to Essex/Delancey), 8p/$8. Psych-rockers DIVE (fronted by Beach Fossils' guitarist Z. Cole Smith) are some of the busiest dudes on the indie scene today. Pairing 'em w/ the shifting guitar-sonics of Caged Animals sounds like music to my ears. w/ Heavenly Beat (aka Beach Fossils' bassist John Peña)
AUSTIN
* "Evidence of Houdini's Return" artist talk @ Arthouse / 700 Congress, 2p. Sterling Allen and J. Parker Valentine discuss their respective works in this illuminating group show on contemporary abstract practices. See my review under CURRENT SHOWS (it's mighty dope).
* Loring Baker "A Shifting Thought, A Shifting Sea" @ Co-Lab Project Space / 613 Allen St. Baker records her drawing process in audio files, creating a sonic memory of her mark-making and—once edited with field-records—a whole 'nother layer to her figurative works.
* "Holier Than Thou" (dir. Bastion Carboni) @ Salvage Vanguard Theatre / 2803 E Manor Rd, 8:15p/$10. Carboni's bracing addition to FronteraFest 2012 is a dark comedy about a reality TV show where people compete to possess the powers of Jesus for a week. This is the final showing, and believe me when I write: holy hell, highly recommended!
TOKYO
* Ay-O "Over the Rainbow Once More" @ Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo / 4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station). The "Rainbow Artist" and Fluxus member's full-spectrum career arc, depicted in full color. Featuring a large, participatory installation (as Ay-O's oeuvre is typically multisensory), plus a new large painting, classic other paintings and videos. Ay-O is preparing a performance scheduled for late March (check back here!).
+ Atsuko Tanaka "The Art of Connecting". Define MAJYAH. The first major Tokyo retrospective of the foremost female member of Gutai Art Association, the postwar avant-garde artist group. This includes Tanaka's famous "Electric Dress" but includes loads else, like paintings, collages, and video records of her performances.
* Lee Bul "From me, Belongs to You Only" @ Mori Art Museum / Roppongi Hills Mori Tower (53F), 6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). Lee Bul was my outlet into contemporary Korean art, via some high-tech site and her own cyborgian machine-organic hybrid sculpture. This career survey showcases her major works in four sections: "Ephemeral Presence", "Beyond Human" (duh), "Utopia and Dreamscape", and "From Me, Belongs to You Only" (the exhibition's title and Lee's message in creating a personal relationship b/w her work and we the viewers. PLUS: Lee discusses her past two decades of artistic activities in a 7p talk, under the heading "Mon grand récit/Seeking an Ideal Society".
+ Ho Tzu Nyen. MAM Project 016 presents this Singapore-based video installation artist and his new work "The Cloud of Unknowing" (which debuted at the 2011 Venice Biennale), plus earlier A/V works "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Newton".
* "Arakawa Under the Bridge" (dir. Ken Iizuka, 2012) @ Shinjuku Piccadilly / 3-15-15 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit). Iizuka adapted this from Hikaru Nakamura's bestselling manga, about a self-sufficient young dude who, after a young woman saves his life, begins living under a bridge in some expression of his debt to her and rebuilding his own life. The film is as stylized as the manga, apparently, w/ a whole crazy cast of colorful characters under Arakawa Bridge.
* "Tokyo Playboy Club" (dir. Yosuke Okuda, 2012) @ Eurospace / 3F 1-5 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). Despite the glittery name, this violent and off-kilter humorous look at Tokyo's shadowy underworld has earned serious acclaim since its Busan Film Fest premier, incl. that of young director Okuda. Think Quentin Tarentino crossed w/ Kinji Fukusaku, w/ a grinding guitar soundtrack and hardboiled dudes Nao Omori and Ken Mitsuishi (in one of his most frenetic roles yet) balanced by cutie Asami Usuda.
* FOUR GET ME A NOTS @ Shibuya O-West / 2-3 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6:30p/3300 yen. BOOM. Chiba pop-punks FOUR GET ME A NOTS celebrate the Tokyo-area stop on their 2012 "Silver Lining Tour" w/ a sweaty, riff-rocking one-man show not to be missed!
* "Domina-Trix" @ Trump House/Lounge / 1-6-5 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 10p/5500 yen (men), 2000 (women), 6000 (couples). Like the tagline reads (translated): "A night of total domination by women. A night of total submission by men." Fancy that? Enter the basement for Japan's premier "FemDom" party, feat. 17 dominatrixes from fetish bars I've attended and others, plus pole-dancing, a floor s&m performance, and MC Ai Aoyama's slave auction. For real.
SUNDAY
NYC
* Nicolas Jaar "From Scratch" @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to 23rd St/Court Square, 7 to 45th Rd/Courthouse Sq), 1p/FREE w/ admission. P4K presents this singular event, a five-hour multidisciplinary performance by electronic music producer Jaar w/ collabs Will Epstein, Dave Harrington (Darkside) and Sasha Spielberg, plus a movement piece from Lizzie Feidelson and video art from Ryan Staake, filmmaker-in-residence at Jaar's culture house Clown & Sunset Aesthetics. The whole thing goes down w/in the MoMA PS1 Performance Dome, kicking off the venue's weekly winter programming "Sunday Sessions".
* Pharmakon @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 10p/$5. Margaret Chardiet may be the rare woman musician in the American noise scene, but if her absolutely ferocious S/T EP is any indication, she can decimate w/ the best of the boys. Brace yourselves.
TOKYO
* Plastic Girl In Closet @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station), 6p/3000 yen. Tokyo's sublime shoegazers PGIC headline High's continuing 4th anniversary celebration, which also features Hi-5 and, uh, "Huckleberry Finn"?
* ASTRO & Sachiko @ SOUP / B1F 3-9-10 Kami-Ochiai, Shinjuku-ku (JR Sobu Line to Higashi-Nakano Station), 7p/2500. The inspired pairing of ex-C.C.C.C. noise-god Hiroshi Hasegawa (ASTRO) w/ drone goddess Sachiko M comes from one stop on Toronto/Berlin improv act Nadja's 2012 Japan tour. Also feat: Chihei Hatakeyama w/ Cal Lyall and Hasegawa-Shizuo (Hirotomo Hasegawa w/ Shizuo Uchida).
MONDAY
NYC
* "The Outsider" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1981) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6:15p. The classic young renegade, but in Tarr's gritty world he's no dandified "bon vivant", he's a broken case in and out of love, jobs, women, booze, etc. ALSO TUE 3:45p
* "The Prefab People" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1982) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:45p. Blue-collar marriage within Budapest's prefab government housing, disintegrating under Communist-era poverty and personal depression, right there before our very eyes.
TUESDAY
NYC
* Nicole Nadeau "Portraits of Origin" @ Y Gallery / 165 Orchard St. Nadeau reinterprets the meaning of the "female universe" and dissects pressures that pervade contemporary womanhood in this media-spanning exhibition, her debut solo at the gallery.
* "Almanac of Fall" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1984) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:30p. Tarr returns to apartment blocks for this chamber drama of sparring and double-talk. Even better, he blends social realism of his earlier works with the dreamy metaphysics of his later films.
* Yellow Tears @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$5. Dominick "Prurient" Fernow's half-month reign over The Stone continues in a big way, w/ the absolutely ferocious noise-mongers Yellow Tears aurally clawing out one helluva set.
* Dum Dum Girls (Cali) + Widowspeak @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$15. Picture perfect. Bands that sound great AND look awesome. Widowspeak enchant w/ Molly Hamilton's croon over dissonant, Spaghetti Western guitars and raw rhythm. Dee Dee & crew take it to a higher plane as Dum Dum Girls, w/ choral harmonies wrapped around a chugging, fuzz-pop core.
AUSTIN
* "Phantasm 2" (dir. Don Coscarelli, 1988) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Coscarelli's classic horror series "Phantasm" were underappreciated game-changers, in my opinion. Angus Scrimm as the iconic crypto-underkeeper Tall Man, in from some sepia-toned dimension, hurling mirrored spheres and commanding these Jawas From Hell to drag victims to his world…that is some scary shit! The '88 sequel is my favorite, though, for so many obvious reasons. Point: Reggie's chainsaw fight w/ a gasmasked baddie. Point: Reggie's quad-barreled sawed-off shotgun and Mike's blowtorch array as go-to weapons. Point: absurd dialogue like Mike remarking they—meaning he and Reggie plus their newfound girlfriends—should get some shuteye (i.e. shag) even though their hideout is barely barricaded and the Tall Man is looming like literally outside. Awesome awesome awesome.
TOKYO
* The Suzan @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 6:30p/3000 yen. By now, I am so totally used to Japanese tropic-pop riot-grrrls The Suzan headlining Brooklyn area shows—or teaming up in awesome NY rosters—that I almost forgot they play Tokyo too. Here, they support the sunny, besuited gents おとぎ話 (Otogibanashi", means "fairy-tale"), whose new-ish 5th LP "Bang Bang Attack" channels that yesteryear harmonious paisley-pop. w/ Ropes
CURRENT SHOWS
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based sculptural alchemist dropped some heady topics in her talk preceding this exhibition, not only naming a certain Gothic painting of the Visitation from a Spanish museum as her point of departure in this stunning new work "Suspended After Image", but also labyrinths (and Jorge Luis Borges), Peter Bruegel (and Babel), and the Large Hadron Collider. All this clued me into Al-Hadid's remarkable sense of harnessing space and presence in her installations, morphing bulk into something oddly ethereal and organic, though still visually commanding. "Suspended After Image" is Al-Hadid's first instance of using a 3D modeling program and CNC router in her work, and the final flowing, terraced form acts more like a 3D painting than a proper sculpture, with the figure seemingly emerging from the frontal staircase while a flow of media colored like wet Frosted Mini Wheats echoes her opulent robes. Though there is an almost total spectrum of color infused in this work, mostly as frozen drips on the sides and back, the overall is a pristine grayish-white, which is absolutely stunning in the VAC's Vaulted Gallery.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience. This plays well with Diana Al-Hadid's installation in the Vaulted Gallery. I was most quickly taken by Baum's series "Dog Ear", utilizing folded pages from paperbacks and photographing them into unique fragmented dialogue. Ga's C-prints of an illuminated fissure within the Arctic ice, shot during her residency at the scientific research vessel Tara, feel otherworldly.
+ Justin Boyd "Dubforms". Angled, floor-mounted video panels, field recordings with ample echo…all of it makes the VAC's Arcade space feel much larger and deeper than it actually is. So in transforming space, the San Antonio-based artist succeeds.
* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Take a plunge into Heidkamp's latest suite of radiant, textural scenes. He shows these interiors and exteriors completely independent from his ongoing portraiture, a strong move in my opinion. For the Brooklyn-based artist isn't just this accomplished figurative painter who also happens to paint rooms and landscapes en plein air. Rather, he is a strong force in capturing natural environments as he sees them, imbuing them with a resonating life-force and character that draws us into their layers of oil paint and dollops of impasto, confronting us with a disarming nostalgia. I may never have visited that Massachusetts backyard ("Here Glows Nothing") or Florida dockside ("Alligator Alley"), but it's like I can smell the air, feel the lawn beneath my trainers and the sun on my face. There's a physicality to Heidkamp's scenes beyond the presence of actual people, who he deftly folds into scenarios (the fireside "Feel It All Around", the portraitures' meta-effect in "The Night of 1000 Paintings") as accenting players. A very strong exhibition and a bold start to Austin's 2012 gallery season.
* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. So check this: on 1/21/10, a young man named Fausto fired six bullets into the air outside the Texas State Capitol. Jill Magid — whose oeuvre navigates bureaucracy and security/intelligence w/ Mission Impossible deftness — was like steps away, pursuing her own future work, and witnessed it. Now six blocks from the scene and two years later, Magid stages an intriguing Conceptual show that ties Fausto's mysterious actions — and his silence throughout his trial — with that of Goethe's "Faust". The ground-floor gallery is her stage, replete with wall-decal directions ("Enter Fausto", "shots fired skyward", "enter Magid" etc), Magid's own play "Fausto: A Tragedy" (mirroring "Faust"'s original intention as a closet drama, meant to be read and not performed), and contemplative works. Deep encodings here, from six translations of "Faust" silkscreened on top of one another, to six bullet casings and a six-slide projection of the sky over the Capitol. Magid wrote a letter to Fausto, requesting his voice (absent in his trial) to read passages from "Faust" (whose Spanish translation is "Fausto") — his answer is still forthcoming, but it would add an intriguing layer to all this. Finally, there is Magid's family's '93 Mercedes, armored to B4 level and parked in Fausto's spot outside the Capitol, and her writing appearing in the February issue of the "Texas Observer", drawing this dialogue beyond the art-scene realm as it should be.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". A really brilliant group show of fractured and re-envisioned realities, curated by Arthouse's Rachel Adams. I tweeted that it made me miss NYC, because it's precisely that sort of thoughtful exhibition that makes me look twice, thrice, at what I think I already know. Ex: Strauss Borque LaFrance's "BABE", a silvery lacquered wood plank pitched diagonally on the wall like classic John McCracken,…only just around the corner is that same plank, used as a shelf amid LaFrance's complex, mixed-media display. Another: Katja Mater's "Time Passing Objects", chromogenic prints that blur the line b/w photography and geometric drawings. Justin Swinburne's "Echo" works, multiple inkjet scans onto alu-dibond that echo (no pun) Gerhard Richter's signature abstracts while maintaining that sense of disarray like Wade Guyton's inkjet silkscreens. Bravo!
* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. Three artists — Austinites Paul Beck and Pat Snow, plus Minnesotan Allen Brewer — play with, and off, perception and representation, reminding us as viewers that things aren't always as clear-cut as they first seem. Brewer takes a direct approach by purposefully painting (or drawing) his subjects blind, focusing on who or what he's rendering instead of the resultant object itself. So while some works carry ghostly remnants or shifts of his mark-making, others like the old man "Poopy" are startlingly realized, fully fleshed out like a Lucien Freud painting. Snow's watercolors and drawings mine his personal space, culling from memories, songs in the background and dialogue. Perhaps reflecting his background working alongside Robert Colescott and Howard Finster, many of Snow's works feature enveloping stories, like "Record Shop Girl" (the charming awkwardness hits close to home) and "I Think My Dog Is a Racist". His ecstatically rendered 99 watercolors "Girl Crazy/Crazy Girl" mostly features women artist friends from his former hometown, Birmingham AL, interspersed with silent movie-style title cards like "TOO Bad" and "Sweet Sad True", prompting an imagined (real?) conversation. The figures' range of renderings from classical to cartoonish reminded me a bit of Richard Linklater's classic Austin rotoscoped animation "Waking Life", which is where Beck comes in. He animated for that film and Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly", and his two suites of mixed media works made for this show tread the line b/w realism and almost nightmarish fantasy, soft-contoured figures floating against stark political undertones and lettering, all with a muted reddish palette. What's the message? That our own consciousness is a jumble of memories, daily interventions and environmental/societal irregularities, as mutable as the moments captured in these works.
CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Ai Weiwei "Sunflower Seeds" @ Mary Boone Gallery / 541 W 24th St. Ai's incredible carpet of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, which last blanketed the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall in 2010, comes to the states in a site-specific installation at Mary Boone.
* Jim Isermann "Reunion" @ Mary Boone Gallery / 745 Fifth Ave. A selection of bold '80s abstract-ish paintings, both enamel on wood and yarn "paintings", plus a flower-shaped installation of Isermann's signature chairs.
* Joel Sternfeld "First Pictures" @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. Four bodies of work — the early "Happy Anniversary Sweetie Face!" from '71, plus '75's "Nags Head", '76's "Rush Hour" street portraiture and "At the Mall, New Jersey 1980" — all integral to Sternfeld's conceptual and formalistic photographic processes, and all rarely exhibited or published. An eponymous catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
* Thomas Woodruff "The Four Temperament Variations" @ PPOW / 535 W 22nd St, 3rd Fl. Woodruff wields portraiture, still-life, landscape painting and wildlife w/ uncannily equal aplomb in his fantastical, vivid paintings, threading in mythology, steampunk imagery and "lowbrow" pop surrealism. His eight solo exhibition at the gallery (the last was in 2008) comes with a monograph, essayed by another old-style master, Vincent Desiderio.
* Margaret Evangeline "Time Bomb" @ STUX Gallery / 530 W 25th St. What sounds cooler to you: gestural marks of oil paint on canvas, or bullet holes riddling stainless steel? Guess what: in Evangeline's third solo exhibition at the gallery, you get both!
AUSTIN
* Mads Lynnerup "Help is on the way" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces. This is one of those rare occasions when I visit a multidisciplinary artist's show and am most immediately drawn to the videos. These things take time, and doubly so when paired w/ Lynnerup's candy-colored "Exercise Your Artist" collages and neon cut-paper "Astrobright" arrangements, like infinitely adaptable (and flashier) Ellsworth Kelly's. But its beyond these and the Franz West-style spraypainted plywood and foam exercise "blocks" that the videos really shine. One, "Demonstration", features Lynnerup's muscly trainer in a studio space working out with the West-ish blocks and angular wall relief "Exercising Grill", pulling a Matthew Barney of exertion and stamina but towards a more relatable, self-improving goal. Or at least when he starts doing headstands, it made ME want to hit the gym. The other far quieter video, "Untitled (Shadow)", follows Lynnerup's hands and paper as he traces out a shadow-y landscape in rays of sunlight, a spontaneous flip-book executed in the simplest, and thus most thrilling, gestures.
TOKYO
* Masafumi Kawakami @ Taimatz / 1-2-11 Higashi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku (JR Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station, Toei-Shinjuku Line to Bakuro-Yokoyama Station). More nightmarish, subtly figurative paintings and collages from the young artist, who had a pretty significant solo show at Taro Nasu Gallery in 2010. Right on. (ENDS SAT)
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
fee's LIST / through 1/31
WEDNESDAY
AUSTIN
* "Last New Year" @ Ink Tank Lab / 1319 Rosewood Ave, 7-11p. The 10-member Austin art collective comment on an end-of-the-world theme—a tongue-in-cheek take on the 2012 doomsday phenomenon—with varying site-specific cataclysmic installations to their bungalow space. The show begins with a gallery talk at 7:30p and is open THU 8-11p and SUN noon-6p.
* Viewpoints on: Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress, 6p. Rachel Adams, Arthouse's Associate Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs, leads a discussion of Magid's very awesome, multilinear exhibition "Failed States" (see my review under CURRENT SHOWS).
* "Liza With A Z" (dir. Bob Fosse, 1972) Celluloid Handbag screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Oh, FIERCE! Can you handle hostess Rebecca Havemeyer? Because — and trust me w/ this one — if you can handle Mizz Havermeyer, you can handle Liza Minnelli in this silver screen classic.
* "Messiah of Evil" (dir. Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, 1973) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:45p. This week's installment of Weird Wednesday at the Ritz is right on the money. Ex: take the director of "Howard the Duck" and his WIFE, pair them w/ beautiful actresses from "The Baby", "Invasion of the Bee Girls" and "Pretty Maids All In a Row", and basically let 'em cut loose w/ a dreamy non-narrative subtitled "Dead People".
* The Kills (US/UK) + JEFF the Brotherhood (TN) @ Stubb's / 801 Red River, 7p/$25. HUGE. Alison "VV" Mosshart and Jamie "Hotel" Hince are The Kills, a swaggering, sexy blues-rock combo feat. fiery crooning, screeching guitar riffs and more all-out rockin' than you can handle. That goes for openers & Nashville swamp-punk brothers JEFF, who commence the crowd-surfing and heavy perspiration early.
TOKYO
* The Loyettes + ジ・アジナーズ @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2100 yen. Kanagawa-area quartet The Loyettes are obsessed w/ dissonant garage-rock, straight outta early '90s London, and frontwoman "Deepa" sounds shockingly like Kim Gordon! Then there's ジ・アジナーズ ("The Aginers"), a Kanagawa "hardcore girl group" formed by frontwoman Aina Ougi. w/ VOLGA
* the HIATUS @ Zepp Tokyo / 1-3-11 Aomi, Koto-ku (Yurikamome to Aomi Station), 7p/2500 yen. Chiba alt-rock heavyweight Takeshi Hosomi (of Ellegarden) fronts this engaging super-group, whose single "Deerhounds" off new LP "A World of Pandemonium" was consistently on MTV Japan's Top Ten when I visited Tokyo in December.
THURSDAY
NYC
* Motoyuki Daifu "Lovesody" @ Lombard-Freid Projects / 518 W 19th St. Last year this young Yokohama-based photographer wowed me and loads others at the gallery's awesome "Minor Cropping May Occur" group show. Daifu returns w/ his debut solo here, a followup to his "Family" series that traces his brief, intense personal relationship with a young single mother.
* Chris Martin @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash / 534 W 26th St. BIG Martin fan here — not the Coldplay guy but rather the Brooklyn-based painter. He just got off a solo at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and, in his third exhibition at the gallery, introduces newspaper clipping grids into his wildly textured, colorful paintings. I am stoked.
AUSTIN
* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. I fell in love with this gallery last September, in the NY painterly badass group show "Wild Beasts". Heidkamp was in that exhibition, and now he unleashes his mesmeric, textural interiors and exteriors in a solo show. This is the first time his nonfigurative works will be shown independent from Heidkamp's portraits, and he's got a knack for both. Count me stoked.
* "Holier Than Thou" (dir. Bastion Carboni) @ Salvage Vanguard Theatre / 2803 E Manor Rd, 9p (also JAN 28 5:30p, JAN 31 9p, FEB 4 8:15p). Carboni's bracing addition to FronteraFest 2012 is a dark comedy about a reality TV show where people compete to possess the powers of Jesus for a week. Holy hell, highly recommended!
* "Shiny & New" @ Elysium / 705 Red River, 10p/$10. Frequent LIST-readers—and particularly those of you who know me in person—understand me a big burlesque buff. Yet what's the scene like in Austin? Apparently it's BOOMING, as this showcase promises, spotlighting newish trio Head Over Heels Burlesque (Gemmi Galactic, Merci Fa'Tale and Norah Leans), w/ guest performances by Nova Nyx (Vaude-Thrills) and pole-dancer Miss Sophie (Brass Ovaries).
FRIDAY
NYC
* James Rosenquist "F-111" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St). NYC, you MUST see this. The American Pop alchemist's magnum opus, 23 sections and about 86 feet of garishly colorful antiwar agitprop and good ol' Americana, blended discomfortingly w/ aluminum panels and day-glo accents. "F-111" kicked off MoMA's refurbishing at the new 53rd St HQ and it's reinstalled once again, this time on the 4th Fl Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Gallery . Highly recommended.
* "Village of the Damned" (dir. John Carpenter, 1995) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). Ahead of James Watkins' harrowing Hammer horror film "The Woman in Black" (you know, the one w/ Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe) comes Carpenter's glowing-eyed classic, in gorgeous 35mm!!! "Children of the Corn"? Dug it enough, but Carpenter's platinum-haired squadron of demonic kneebiters is just so so sick and twisted. Have fun! ALSO SAT
* "The Theatre Bizarre" (various dirs, 2012) midnight screening @ Sunshine Cinema / 143 E Houston St (F to 2nd Ave). This new horror anthology, inspired by Paris' legendary Grand Guignol theatre (i.e. so there's a LOT of subject matter to draw from), plays but two nights! I suggest going FRI, when co-director Douglas Buck attends (he's one of six directors, incl. Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain (cinematographer of Jason Eisener's Canadian exploitation film "Hobo with a Shotgun"), Richard "Hardware" Stanley and Tom "Maniac" Savini) w/ actors Lindsay Goranson and Debbie Rochon, plus executive producer Daryl Tucker. ALSO SAT
AUSTIN
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based artist creates a site-specific installation in the VAC's vaulted gallery, utilizing a 3D modeling program (a first-time in Al-Hadid's practice) to form both a painterly space and an immersive sculptural experience. I should note that Al-Hadid was just in Texas for her "Sightings" contribution to Dallas' Nasher SculptureCenter (her installation ended JAN 15).
+ Justin Boyd "Dubforms". Boyd incorporates field recordings into his destructuralization of the gallery, adding geometric and glass elements to morph perceptions of space.
+ "Across the Divide". A group exhibition of two generations of Chinese artists, from Mao- and Post-Mao eras but who all took graduate studies in America. The blend of Eastern and Western cultural aesthetics across these two dozen artists should be intriguing.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience.
* "The Grey" (dir. Joe Carnahan, 2012) @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. Liam Neeson punching wolves in the remote Alaskan wilderness. That in itself is so mind-blowingly badass that it deserves inclusion in my LIST. But wait! There's more! Because beyond the notorious scene is a survival tale, of oil-rig workers stranded in a plane crash in the icy north, led by rugged Neeson to an uncertain escape amid packs of ravenous wolves and imperiling weather. I, for one, am stoked.
* "Bullhead" (dir. Michael Roskam, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 7p. YES! Roskam's debut full-length—a seriously dark, bruising crime-thriller centered on Belgium's mafioso cattle industry—is Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. In my opinion, it's a winner, thanks in no small part to burly lead Matthias Schoenaerts, but see it for yourself. His steroidal performance masks a brutal secret too awesome to spoil here. Highly recommended!
TOKYO
* current of air @ Koenji HIGH / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station, South Exit), 6:30p/2500 yen. I was totally enamored by the bright pop riffs from Tokyo-area quartet current of air (they headlined the same show that included darlings PASSEPIED). I've got a feeling this showcase, part of Koenji HIGH's 4th anniversary, will be awesome. w/ newline and vivid bease culture
SATURDAY
NYC
* Real Estate @ K&K Super Buffet / 1678 Palmetto St, Bushwick Heights (L/M to Myrtle/Wyckoff), 9p/$5. According to Brooklyn's über-indie concert promoter ToddP: "K&K Super Buffet is a transformer. Family-style Chinese steam-table buffet restaurant by day…soaring ceilinged, opulently decorated, decadent party palace and cheap-assed bar by night." That Ridgewood NJ's surf-rock kings Real Estate headline a night of awesome local-ish bands means this trek is more than worth it. w/ Black Dice + The Babies
* NULLSLEEP @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford/JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Or hell, you want some great indie but can't bear to be on the L for 45 minutes? Chiptune soul-meister NULLSLEEP is just the ticket. w/ dissassembler
AUSTIN
* AMODA Performance: Matrices & Entropy @ Mexican American Cultural Center / 600 River St, 8p/$15. The cutting-edge digital arts organization curates an evening of percussion and electronics, feat. Austin ensemble Line Upon Line and NYC composer Sam Pluta.
TOKYO
* Suehiro Maruo "New Century SM Pictorial" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). Maruo-san, one of the kings of ero-guro manga ("Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show" ring any bells?!) — and he's an accomplished artist beyond the pages — celebrates the release of his new collected works publication "New Century SM Pictorial" with a signing party, from 5-7p, at the gallery!
* Tatsuo Majima "All the right moves" @ Taro Nasu Gallery / 1-2-11 Higashi-kanda, Chiyoda-ku (Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station). Majima takes on classic Tom Cruise movie posters in the artist's ongoing collision of cultural differences in modern society.
* Neat's @ Shimokitazawa GARDEN / B1F 2-4-5 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku (Keio Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station, S. Exit), 7p/4000 yen. A "one-man show" and LP release party for Yui Niitsu, the young singer-songwriter and pianist behind RYTHEM and her new-ish solo project Neat's. Her debut "Wonders", full of sparkling keys and Yui's honeyed voice, launches tonight.
* PASSEPIED @ Shibuya LUSH / 1-10-7 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6p/2300 yen. The magnetizing Tokyo quintet PASSEPIED won me over back in December, channeling a distinctly Japanese "Twin Sister" in their heady cocktail of electronics, rock accoutrements and songbird Natsuki's soaring vox. w/ The Puzzles
* SLUDGE-TAPES release party @ Super Deluxe / B1F 3-1-25 Nishi-azabu, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station), 6p/2000 yen. The experimental "mutant music" label and champion of Tokyo's indie scene unfurls a wall-to-wall fiasco of beautiful sonic disarray. Feat. pairings like PAINJERK vs. Kelly Churko, miclodiet x Yousuke Fuyama, plus telco suicide, Nobuki Nishiyama and more.
* Poleco Night Vol 2 @ Decadance Bar / 9F 5-17-13 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi/Fukutoshin Lines to Shinjuku Sanchome Station), 11p/2000 yen. Yeah, this is going to be a riot. Highlight for me here, beyond the DJs and visual talent, is the "Sexy & Cute" pole-dance duo Aloe & Kikurage, both members of tokyoDOLORES and both guaranteed to rock your socks off.
SUNDAY
NYC
* Henry Taylor @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to 23rd St/Court Square, 7 to 45th Rd/Courthouse Sq). The LA-based artist had a residency in PS1's former classrooms leading up to this exhibition, a sort of creative brain-space where he painted new culturally perceptive works for the show.
AUSTIN
* Twin Sister (Brooklyn) @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 9p/$12. Brooklyn in the house tonight, that's right! Gorilla vs Bear presents this awesome, transfixing disco-rock quintet, who have been mesmerizing me since I took a chance on 'em like three years ago. w/ Ava Luna (Brooklyn)
TOKYO
* Michiko Kanade 「２４人の解離性ミチコ」 @ Gallery Bar Amarcord / 2-18-7 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit), 9p/FREE (500 yen/drink. So Amarcord is two awesome things: a fetish bar AND a gallery. The title hints at the nature of this show, "The 24 people of dissociative Michiko", as the titular model/photographer/dominatrix was photographed in two very different styles by 12 photographers. My mind reels just thinking what that means. And beyond the displayed prints, Michiko-san created a dedicated photo-book to accompany this exhibition. AND Amarcord's usual door charges have been decreased for the duration of the show (2000 yen for men/1000 yen for women, through FEB 29). Check back on my LIST, as Michiko-san's got a special "dissociative" Valentine's Day event in the works.
* "Vivid" @ Ucess Lounge / 4-32-13 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Harajuku Station), 4p/2000 yen. Who's up for some tech-house in the afternoon? If it involves the ültra-fierce ME:CA (Torture Garden Japan/Night Mare), then count me totally IN. Plus, META (SonicTribe) and others.
MONDAY
AUSTIN
* "A Lonely Place to Die" (dir. Julian Gilbey, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. This vertiginous survival thriller, set mostly among sheer rock faces in the Scottish Highlands, feat. a mountaineering team unwillingly (or unwittingly) pulled into a cat-and-mouse chase after rescuing a young Serbian girl buried alive in the forest. It will induce vivid acrophobia and make you throw up in the best way. Absolutely awesome, and a Fantastic Fest 2011 personal favorite.
TOKYO
* "Minimal/Conceptual" @ Galerie Sho Contemporary / B1F 3-2-9 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku (Ginza/Tozai Lines to Nihonbashi Station). A transformative array of international artists represent and re-present the amorphous subject matter, feat. works by Vito Acconci, Sarah Charlesworth, Max Ernst, Imi Knoebel, Glenn Ligon, Ugo Rondinone, Donald Sultan and others.
TUESDAY
NYC
* Megafortress + Carlos Giffoni @ Glasslands / 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8:30p/$10. A slightly different taste from the always-dependably fun but usually indie-rock/pop/electro driven venue. Synth lord Bill Gillim's drone outfit Megafortress celebrates its debut, self-titled LP (out on Software). And if that wasn't enough, we've got Brooklyn noise stalwart (and former operator of the celebrated No Fun Fest) Carlos Giffoni on the bill. MAYJAH. w/ Slava
* Captured Tracks showcase @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Brooklyn's ice-cold coolest indie label, hands down, is Captured Tracks. Maybe that's my opinion, but they launched "The Shoegaze Archives" this past Nov (reissuing obscure '90s shoegaze classics, like deardarkhead and Should) AND they continue to sign sharp romantic talent. Tonight's blowout feat. Blouse (who made their NYC debut in Sept), Cosmetics (those dreamy Canadians), The New Lines, Beige and Mosaics. For lovers of yesteryear pop and lovers in general, this is unmissable.
AUSTIN
* "Computer Error!: The Worst CGI in Movie History" (various dirs.) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. I'm a freak for practical FX, and while I "get" that CGI is important, useful, awesome…when put in the wrong hands, it's just LAME. Witnessing 90 minutes of some of the most eye-mauling examples in filmic history might raise my blood pressure to obscene levels, but thankfully this is the Drafthouse, and there's a lot of beer to cushion the blow.
* "The Car" (dir. Elliott Silverstein, 1977) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:30p. Six years before Stephen King and John Carpenter's automobile horror "Christine", there was badass desert sheriff James Brolin vs. a Satan-propelled, 666-mph custom cruiser!
CURRENT SHOWS
AUSTIN
* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. So check this: on 1/21/10, a young man named Fausto fired six bullets into the air outside the Texas State Capitol. Jill Magid — whose oeuvre navigates bureaucracy and security/intelligence w/ Mission Impossible deftness — was like steps away, pursuing her own future work, and witnessed it. Now six blocks from the scene and two years later, Magid stages an intriguing Conceptual show that ties Fausto's mysterious actions — and his silence throughout his trial — with that of Goethe's "Faust". The ground-floor gallery is her stage, replete with wall-decal directions ("Enter Fausto", "shots fired skyward", "enter Magid" etc), Magid's own play "Fausto: A Tragedy" (mirroring "Faust"'s original intention as a closet drama, meant to be read and not performed), and contemplative works. Deep encodings here, from six translations of "Faust" silkscreened on top of one another, to six bullet casings and a six-slide projection of the sky over the Capitol. Magid wrote a letter to Fausto, requesting his voice (absent in his trial) to read passages from "Faust" (whose Spanish translation is "Fausto") — his answer is still forthcoming, but it would add an intriguing layer to all this. Finally, there is Magid's family's '93 Mercedes, armored to B4 level and parked in Fausto's spot outside the Capitol, and her writing appearing in the February issue of the "Texas Observer", drawing this dialogue beyond the art-scene realm as it should be.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". A really brilliant group show of fractured and re-envisioned realities, curated by Arthouse's Rachel Adams. I tweeted that it made me miss NYC, because it's precisely that sort of thoughtful exhibition that makes me look twice, thrice, at what I think I already know. Ex: Strauss Borque LaFrance's "BABE", a silvery lacquered wood plank pitched diagonally on the wall like classic John McCracken,…only just around the corner is that same plank, used as a shelf amid LaFrance's complex, mixed-media display. Another: Katja Mater's "Time Passing Objects", chromogenic prints that blur the line b/w photography and geometric drawings. Justin Swinburne's "Echo" works, multiple inkjet scans onto alu-dibond that echo (no pun) Gerhard Richter's signature abstracts while maintaining that sense of disarray like Wade Guyton's inkjet silkscreens. Bravo!
+ Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani "Toute la memoir du monde/The world's knowledge". The artists reinterpret Alain Resnais' '56 film, filming the historic and now barren original location of the French Bibliotheque Nationale and the imbued memories within its empty shelves.
* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. Three artists — Austinites Paul Beck and Pat Snow, plus Minnesotan Allen Brewer — play with, and off, perception and representation, reminding us as viewers that things aren't always as clear-cut as they first seem. Brewer takes a direct approach by purposefully painting (or drawing) his subjects blind, focusing on who or what he's rendering instead of the resultant object itself. So while some works carry ghostly remnants or shifts of his mark-making, others like the old man "Poopy" are startlingly realized, fully fleshed out like a Lucien Freud painting. Snow's watercolors and drawings mine his personal space, culling from memories, songs in the background and dialogue. Perhaps reflecting his background working alongside Robert Colescott and Howard Finster, many of Snow's works feature enveloping stories, like "Record Shop Girl" (the charming awkwardness hits close to home) and "I Think My Dog Is a Racist". His ecstatically rendered 99 watercolors "Girl Crazy/Crazy Girl" mostly features women artist friends from his former hometown, Birmingham AL, interspersed with silent movie-style title cards like "TOO Bad" and "Sweet Sad True", prompting an imagined (real?) conversation. The figures' range of renderings from classical to cartoonish reminded me a bit of Richard Linklater's classic Austin rotoscoped animation "Waking Life", which is where Beck comes in. He animated for that film and Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly", and his two suites of mixed media works made for this show tread the line b/w realism and almost nightmarish fantasy, soft-contoured figures floating against stark political undertones and lettering, all with a muted reddish palette. What's the message? That our own consciousness is a jumble of memories, daily interventions and environmental/societal irregularities, as mutable as the moments captured in these works.
* Laurie Frick "Quantify Me" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St. Shoot, back in university, had you told me there's an exhibition of geometric abstract wall reliefs composed from up-cycled paper, wood, cardboard and industrial color samples, BUT ALSO culled from neuroscience and engineering, well I would've been all over that in a heartbeat. Consider me a bit older and jaded now, though I still quite dug Frick's installations. The titular work is a hanging labyrinth of laser-cut, textured paper, augmenting itself by throwing amorphous shadows off the gallery walls. Another highlight, for the sheer gaudiness of subject matter, is "Moodjam", a long wall covered in shimmering color tiles like a showroom from hell. What's your daily mood, in color?
CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Assume Vivid Astro Focus "Cyclops Trannies" @ The Suzanne Geiss Company / 76 Grand St. You need to totally check AVAF if you've not already. It's in the former Deitch Space, run now by the Projects' former executive director Suzanne Geiss, so that's a biggie. Plus AVAF (a Deitch mainstay) debuted Geiss' first iteration of the company, at 2011 Art Basel Miami Beach w/ their "Acid Flashback" installation. AND they collaborated w/ Lady Gaga in Barneys store windows for the 2011 holiday campaign. Mayjah.
* Jazz-minh Moore "Is That All There Is?" @ Lyons Wier Gallery / 542 W 24th St. Moore features her sister in a ramshackle Oregon cabin, echoing the artist's birthplace, and integrates her realist compositions with the woodgrain of their panel backdrops against her sister's tattooed skin.
* Matta: A Centennial Celebration @ The Pace Gallery / 534 W 25th St. It's grand exhibitions such as this (and Romare Bearden's cross-institution survey) that elucidate the very memorable, very great and old artists we've enjoyed and lost — and brings my attention to the superlative Louise Bourgeois (also born in 1911, on Dec 25) and what should come for her. But of that later. This exhibition focuses on the famed Chilean artist's later oeuvre, some 14 massive canvases following his powerful adaptation of biomorphic surrealism and abstraction. Now if only the complete "Matta 1911-2011" museum retrospective would travel from Santiago to the states...
* "Out of Nowhere" @ Julie Saul Gallery / 535 W 22nd St. Back at this indie coffeeshop during uni, one of the baristas always had The Weakerthans on repeat, meaning that slightly goofy track "I Hate Winnipeg". Not to be outdone, Winnipeg-born breakcore maestro Venetian Snares released an album entitled "Winnipeg Is a Frozen Shithole", containing tracks like "Winnipeg Is a Boiling Pot of Cranberries" and the title track. Who knows? I've never had the pleasure of visiting. This group show of Winnipeg artists, curated by Sarah Anne Johnson and Meeka Walsh, may well shed some celestial light to the far northern city.
TOKYO
* Masumi Sakamoto "Good-bye Idols" @ Gallery MOMO Ryogoku / 1F 1-7-15 Kamezawa, Sumida-ku (Toei Oedo/JR Sobu Line to Ryogoku Station). The Osaka-born artist fuses an Impressionistic style and landscape with entirely nude youths. (ENDS SAT)
TOKYO
* Aki Eimizu "birth" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). I was speechless when previewing Eimizu's second outstanding solo exhibition at the gallery. Or rather, I was talking a lot, to her and to gallerist Matsubara, but all short phrases of giddy bemusement. Eimizu's talent is layering tiny, tiny methodically applied paint-dots to canvas or paper, or covering a panel with so many thinly translucent washes of paint that the end result is preserved in a resin-like history. Or, alternately, becomes three-dimensional, swirling or stretching out depending on your angle to the canvas. Her palette of opal-ish whites and grays extends here with seductive traces of firefly yellow, both cosmic and entirely earthly, like seeing will o' the wisps in the fog.
* Ryan Gander "Icarus Falling - An exhibition lost" @ Maison Hermes 8F Le Forum / 5-4-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku (Ginza Line to Ginza Station). The London-based Conceptualist celebrates Le Forum's 10th anniversary as an exhibition space by reflecting on the history of art exhibitions themselves, incl. the 10 years of them in this space. He also showed at the 2011 Yokohama Triennale.
* Bunpei Kado "Nest" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Kado's style is like Dada mixed w/ steampunk, as he dissects furniture, steel and found objects, pairs them w/ delicate living (or once-living) things, and fashions out these awesomely emotive sculptures. (ENDS SUN)
TOKYO
* M.C. Escher @ Bunkamura Gallery / 2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). YES! Bunkamura is back open, after nearly a year-long refurbishment. I missed this joint, so what better way for the box gallery to kick off 2012 than a dozen prints from the trompe-l'oeil legend M.C. Escher? (ENDS MON)
TOKYO
* Motoyuki Daifu x Ken Kagami @ Strange Store / 12-3-301 Uguisudani-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Toyoko Shibuya Line to Daikanyama Station). Young realist photographer Daifu-kun and the absolutely bonkers Ken Kagami (like a younger, Japanese Mike Kelley…sort of) collaborate in a special dual show…which, considering their respective backgrounds, should be nothing short of badass. (ENDS TUES)
AUSTIN
* "Last New Year" @ Ink Tank Lab / 1319 Rosewood Ave, 7-11p. The 10-member Austin art collective comment on an end-of-the-world theme—a tongue-in-cheek take on the 2012 doomsday phenomenon—with varying site-specific cataclysmic installations to their bungalow space. The show begins with a gallery talk at 7:30p and is open THU 8-11p and SUN noon-6p.
* Viewpoints on: Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress, 6p. Rachel Adams, Arthouse's Associate Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs, leads a discussion of Magid's very awesome, multilinear exhibition "Failed States" (see my review under CURRENT SHOWS).
* "Liza With A Z" (dir. Bob Fosse, 1972) Celluloid Handbag screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Oh, FIERCE! Can you handle hostess Rebecca Havemeyer? Because — and trust me w/ this one — if you can handle Mizz Havermeyer, you can handle Liza Minnelli in this silver screen classic.
* "Messiah of Evil" (dir. Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, 1973) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:45p. This week's installment of Weird Wednesday at the Ritz is right on the money. Ex: take the director of "Howard the Duck" and his WIFE, pair them w/ beautiful actresses from "The Baby", "Invasion of the Bee Girls" and "Pretty Maids All In a Row", and basically let 'em cut loose w/ a dreamy non-narrative subtitled "Dead People".
* The Kills (US/UK) + JEFF the Brotherhood (TN) @ Stubb's / 801 Red River, 7p/$25. HUGE. Alison "VV" Mosshart and Jamie "Hotel" Hince are The Kills, a swaggering, sexy blues-rock combo feat. fiery crooning, screeching guitar riffs and more all-out rockin' than you can handle. That goes for openers & Nashville swamp-punk brothers JEFF, who commence the crowd-surfing and heavy perspiration early.
TOKYO
* The Loyettes + ジ・アジナーズ @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2100 yen. Kanagawa-area quartet The Loyettes are obsessed w/ dissonant garage-rock, straight outta early '90s London, and frontwoman "Deepa" sounds shockingly like Kim Gordon! Then there's ジ・アジナーズ ("The Aginers"), a Kanagawa "hardcore girl group" formed by frontwoman Aina Ougi. w/ VOLGA
* the HIATUS @ Zepp Tokyo / 1-3-11 Aomi, Koto-ku (Yurikamome to Aomi Station), 7p/2500 yen. Chiba alt-rock heavyweight Takeshi Hosomi (of Ellegarden) fronts this engaging super-group, whose single "Deerhounds" off new LP "A World of Pandemonium" was consistently on MTV Japan's Top Ten when I visited Tokyo in December.
THURSDAY
NYC
* Motoyuki Daifu "Lovesody" @ Lombard-Freid Projects / 518 W 19th St. Last year this young Yokohama-based photographer wowed me and loads others at the gallery's awesome "Minor Cropping May Occur" group show. Daifu returns w/ his debut solo here, a followup to his "Family" series that traces his brief, intense personal relationship with a young single mother.
* Chris Martin @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash / 534 W 26th St. BIG Martin fan here — not the Coldplay guy but rather the Brooklyn-based painter. He just got off a solo at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and, in his third exhibition at the gallery, introduces newspaper clipping grids into his wildly textured, colorful paintings. I am stoked.
AUSTIN
* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. I fell in love with this gallery last September, in the NY painterly badass group show "Wild Beasts". Heidkamp was in that exhibition, and now he unleashes his mesmeric, textural interiors and exteriors in a solo show. This is the first time his nonfigurative works will be shown independent from Heidkamp's portraits, and he's got a knack for both. Count me stoked.
* "Holier Than Thou" (dir. Bastion Carboni) @ Salvage Vanguard Theatre / 2803 E Manor Rd, 9p (also JAN 28 5:30p, JAN 31 9p, FEB 4 8:15p). Carboni's bracing addition to FronteraFest 2012 is a dark comedy about a reality TV show where people compete to possess the powers of Jesus for a week. Holy hell, highly recommended!
* "Shiny & New" @ Elysium / 705 Red River, 10p/$10. Frequent LIST-readers—and particularly those of you who know me in person—understand me a big burlesque buff. Yet what's the scene like in Austin? Apparently it's BOOMING, as this showcase promises, spotlighting newish trio Head Over Heels Burlesque (Gemmi Galactic, Merci Fa'Tale and Norah Leans), w/ guest performances by Nova Nyx (Vaude-Thrills) and pole-dancer Miss Sophie (Brass Ovaries).
FRIDAY
NYC
* James Rosenquist "F-111" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St). NYC, you MUST see this. The American Pop alchemist's magnum opus, 23 sections and about 86 feet of garishly colorful antiwar agitprop and good ol' Americana, blended discomfortingly w/ aluminum panels and day-glo accents. "F-111" kicked off MoMA's refurbishing at the new 53rd St HQ and it's reinstalled once again, this time on the 4th Fl Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Gallery . Highly recommended.
* "Village of the Damned" (dir. John Carpenter, 1995) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). Ahead of James Watkins' harrowing Hammer horror film "The Woman in Black" (you know, the one w/ Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe) comes Carpenter's glowing-eyed classic, in gorgeous 35mm!!! "Children of the Corn"? Dug it enough, but Carpenter's platinum-haired squadron of demonic kneebiters is just so so sick and twisted. Have fun! ALSO SAT
* "The Theatre Bizarre" (various dirs, 2012) midnight screening @ Sunshine Cinema / 143 E Houston St (F to 2nd Ave). This new horror anthology, inspired by Paris' legendary Grand Guignol theatre (i.e. so there's a LOT of subject matter to draw from), plays but two nights! I suggest going FRI, when co-director Douglas Buck attends (he's one of six directors, incl. Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain (cinematographer of Jason Eisener's Canadian exploitation film "Hobo with a Shotgun"), Richard "Hardware" Stanley and Tom "Maniac" Savini) w/ actors Lindsay Goranson and Debbie Rochon, plus executive producer Daryl Tucker. ALSO SAT
AUSTIN
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based artist creates a site-specific installation in the VAC's vaulted gallery, utilizing a 3D modeling program (a first-time in Al-Hadid's practice) to form both a painterly space and an immersive sculptural experience. I should note that Al-Hadid was just in Texas for her "Sightings" contribution to Dallas' Nasher SculptureCenter (her installation ended JAN 15).
+ Justin Boyd "Dubforms". Boyd incorporates field recordings into his destructuralization of the gallery, adding geometric and glass elements to morph perceptions of space.
+ "Across the Divide". A group exhibition of two generations of Chinese artists, from Mao- and Post-Mao eras but who all took graduate studies in America. The blend of Eastern and Western cultural aesthetics across these two dozen artists should be intriguing.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience.
* "The Grey" (dir. Joe Carnahan, 2012) @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. Liam Neeson punching wolves in the remote Alaskan wilderness. That in itself is so mind-blowingly badass that it deserves inclusion in my LIST. But wait! There's more! Because beyond the notorious scene is a survival tale, of oil-rig workers stranded in a plane crash in the icy north, led by rugged Neeson to an uncertain escape amid packs of ravenous wolves and imperiling weather. I, for one, am stoked.
* "Bullhead" (dir. Michael Roskam, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 7p. YES! Roskam's debut full-length—a seriously dark, bruising crime-thriller centered on Belgium's mafioso cattle industry—is Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. In my opinion, it's a winner, thanks in no small part to burly lead Matthias Schoenaerts, but see it for yourself. His steroidal performance masks a brutal secret too awesome to spoil here. Highly recommended!
TOKYO
* current of air @ Koenji HIGH / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station, South Exit), 6:30p/2500 yen. I was totally enamored by the bright pop riffs from Tokyo-area quartet current of air (they headlined the same show that included darlings PASSEPIED). I've got a feeling this showcase, part of Koenji HIGH's 4th anniversary, will be awesome. w/ newline and vivid bease culture
SATURDAY
NYC
* Real Estate @ K&K Super Buffet / 1678 Palmetto St, Bushwick Heights (L/M to Myrtle/Wyckoff), 9p/$5. According to Brooklyn's über-indie concert promoter ToddP: "K&K Super Buffet is a transformer. Family-style Chinese steam-table buffet restaurant by day…soaring ceilinged, opulently decorated, decadent party palace and cheap-assed bar by night." That Ridgewood NJ's surf-rock kings Real Estate headline a night of awesome local-ish bands means this trek is more than worth it. w/ Black Dice + The Babies
* NULLSLEEP @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford/JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Or hell, you want some great indie but can't bear to be on the L for 45 minutes? Chiptune soul-meister NULLSLEEP is just the ticket. w/ dissassembler
AUSTIN
* AMODA Performance: Matrices & Entropy @ Mexican American Cultural Center / 600 River St, 8p/$15. The cutting-edge digital arts organization curates an evening of percussion and electronics, feat. Austin ensemble Line Upon Line and NYC composer Sam Pluta.
TOKYO
* Suehiro Maruo "New Century SM Pictorial" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). Maruo-san, one of the kings of ero-guro manga ("Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show" ring any bells?!) — and he's an accomplished artist beyond the pages — celebrates the release of his new collected works publication "New Century SM Pictorial" with a signing party, from 5-7p, at the gallery!
* Tatsuo Majima "All the right moves" @ Taro Nasu Gallery / 1-2-11 Higashi-kanda, Chiyoda-ku (Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station). Majima takes on classic Tom Cruise movie posters in the artist's ongoing collision of cultural differences in modern society.
* Neat's @ Shimokitazawa GARDEN / B1F 2-4-5 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku (Keio Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station, S. Exit), 7p/4000 yen. A "one-man show" and LP release party for Yui Niitsu, the young singer-songwriter and pianist behind RYTHEM and her new-ish solo project Neat's. Her debut "Wonders", full of sparkling keys and Yui's honeyed voice, launches tonight.
* PASSEPIED @ Shibuya LUSH / 1-10-7 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6p/2300 yen. The magnetizing Tokyo quintet PASSEPIED won me over back in December, channeling a distinctly Japanese "Twin Sister" in their heady cocktail of electronics, rock accoutrements and songbird Natsuki's soaring vox. w/ The Puzzles
* SLUDGE-TAPES release party @ Super Deluxe / B1F 3-1-25 Nishi-azabu, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station), 6p/2000 yen. The experimental "mutant music" label and champion of Tokyo's indie scene unfurls a wall-to-wall fiasco of beautiful sonic disarray. Feat. pairings like PAINJERK vs. Kelly Churko, miclodiet x Yousuke Fuyama, plus telco suicide, Nobuki Nishiyama and more.
* Poleco Night Vol 2 @ Decadance Bar / 9F 5-17-13 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi/Fukutoshin Lines to Shinjuku Sanchome Station), 11p/2000 yen. Yeah, this is going to be a riot. Highlight for me here, beyond the DJs and visual talent, is the "Sexy & Cute" pole-dance duo Aloe & Kikurage, both members of tokyoDOLORES and both guaranteed to rock your socks off.
SUNDAY
NYC
* Henry Taylor @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to 23rd St/Court Square, 7 to 45th Rd/Courthouse Sq). The LA-based artist had a residency in PS1's former classrooms leading up to this exhibition, a sort of creative brain-space where he painted new culturally perceptive works for the show.
AUSTIN
* Twin Sister (Brooklyn) @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 9p/$12. Brooklyn in the house tonight, that's right! Gorilla vs Bear presents this awesome, transfixing disco-rock quintet, who have been mesmerizing me since I took a chance on 'em like three years ago. w/ Ava Luna (Brooklyn)
TOKYO
* Michiko Kanade 「２４人の解離性ミチコ」 @ Gallery Bar Amarcord / 2-18-7 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit), 9p/FREE (500 yen/drink. So Amarcord is two awesome things: a fetish bar AND a gallery. The title hints at the nature of this show, "The 24 people of dissociative Michiko", as the titular model/photographer/dominatrix was photographed in two very different styles by 12 photographers. My mind reels just thinking what that means. And beyond the displayed prints, Michiko-san created a dedicated photo-book to accompany this exhibition. AND Amarcord's usual door charges have been decreased for the duration of the show (2000 yen for men/1000 yen for women, through FEB 29). Check back on my LIST, as Michiko-san's got a special "dissociative" Valentine's Day event in the works.
* "Vivid" @ Ucess Lounge / 4-32-13 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Harajuku Station), 4p/2000 yen. Who's up for some tech-house in the afternoon? If it involves the ültra-fierce ME:CA (Torture Garden Japan/Night Mare), then count me totally IN. Plus, META (SonicTribe) and others.
MONDAY
AUSTIN
* "A Lonely Place to Die" (dir. Julian Gilbey, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. This vertiginous survival thriller, set mostly among sheer rock faces in the Scottish Highlands, feat. a mountaineering team unwillingly (or unwittingly) pulled into a cat-and-mouse chase after rescuing a young Serbian girl buried alive in the forest. It will induce vivid acrophobia and make you throw up in the best way. Absolutely awesome, and a Fantastic Fest 2011 personal favorite.
TOKYO
* "Minimal/Conceptual" @ Galerie Sho Contemporary / B1F 3-2-9 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku (Ginza/Tozai Lines to Nihonbashi Station). A transformative array of international artists represent and re-present the amorphous subject matter, feat. works by Vito Acconci, Sarah Charlesworth, Max Ernst, Imi Knoebel, Glenn Ligon, Ugo Rondinone, Donald Sultan and others.
TUESDAY
NYC
* Megafortress + Carlos Giffoni @ Glasslands / 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8:30p/$10. A slightly different taste from the always-dependably fun but usually indie-rock/pop/electro driven venue. Synth lord Bill Gillim's drone outfit Megafortress celebrates its debut, self-titled LP (out on Software). And if that wasn't enough, we've got Brooklyn noise stalwart (and former operator of the celebrated No Fun Fest) Carlos Giffoni on the bill. MAYJAH. w/ Slava
* Captured Tracks showcase @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Brooklyn's ice-cold coolest indie label, hands down, is Captured Tracks. Maybe that's my opinion, but they launched "The Shoegaze Archives" this past Nov (reissuing obscure '90s shoegaze classics, like deardarkhead and Should) AND they continue to sign sharp romantic talent. Tonight's blowout feat. Blouse (who made their NYC debut in Sept), Cosmetics (those dreamy Canadians), The New Lines, Beige and Mosaics. For lovers of yesteryear pop and lovers in general, this is unmissable.
AUSTIN
* "Computer Error!: The Worst CGI in Movie History" (various dirs.) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. I'm a freak for practical FX, and while I "get" that CGI is important, useful, awesome…when put in the wrong hands, it's just LAME. Witnessing 90 minutes of some of the most eye-mauling examples in filmic history might raise my blood pressure to obscene levels, but thankfully this is the Drafthouse, and there's a lot of beer to cushion the blow.
* "The Car" (dir. Elliott Silverstein, 1977) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:30p. Six years before Stephen King and John Carpenter's automobile horror "Christine", there was badass desert sheriff James Brolin vs. a Satan-propelled, 666-mph custom cruiser!
CURRENT SHOWS
AUSTIN
* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. So check this: on 1/21/10, a young man named Fausto fired six bullets into the air outside the Texas State Capitol. Jill Magid — whose oeuvre navigates bureaucracy and security/intelligence w/ Mission Impossible deftness — was like steps away, pursuing her own future work, and witnessed it. Now six blocks from the scene and two years later, Magid stages an intriguing Conceptual show that ties Fausto's mysterious actions — and his silence throughout his trial — with that of Goethe's "Faust". The ground-floor gallery is her stage, replete with wall-decal directions ("Enter Fausto", "shots fired skyward", "enter Magid" etc), Magid's own play "Fausto: A Tragedy" (mirroring "Faust"'s original intention as a closet drama, meant to be read and not performed), and contemplative works. Deep encodings here, from six translations of "Faust" silkscreened on top of one another, to six bullet casings and a six-slide projection of the sky over the Capitol. Magid wrote a letter to Fausto, requesting his voice (absent in his trial) to read passages from "Faust" (whose Spanish translation is "Fausto") — his answer is still forthcoming, but it would add an intriguing layer to all this. Finally, there is Magid's family's '93 Mercedes, armored to B4 level and parked in Fausto's spot outside the Capitol, and her writing appearing in the February issue of the "Texas Observer", drawing this dialogue beyond the art-scene realm as it should be.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". A really brilliant group show of fractured and re-envisioned realities, curated by Arthouse's Rachel Adams. I tweeted that it made me miss NYC, because it's precisely that sort of thoughtful exhibition that makes me look twice, thrice, at what I think I already know. Ex: Strauss Borque LaFrance's "BABE", a silvery lacquered wood plank pitched diagonally on the wall like classic John McCracken,…only just around the corner is that same plank, used as a shelf amid LaFrance's complex, mixed-media display. Another: Katja Mater's "Time Passing Objects", chromogenic prints that blur the line b/w photography and geometric drawings. Justin Swinburne's "Echo" works, multiple inkjet scans onto alu-dibond that echo (no pun) Gerhard Richter's signature abstracts while maintaining that sense of disarray like Wade Guyton's inkjet silkscreens. Bravo!
+ Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani "Toute la memoir du monde/The world's knowledge". The artists reinterpret Alain Resnais' '56 film, filming the historic and now barren original location of the French Bibliotheque Nationale and the imbued memories within its empty shelves.
* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. Three artists — Austinites Paul Beck and Pat Snow, plus Minnesotan Allen Brewer — play with, and off, perception and representation, reminding us as viewers that things aren't always as clear-cut as they first seem. Brewer takes a direct approach by purposefully painting (or drawing) his subjects blind, focusing on who or what he's rendering instead of the resultant object itself. So while some works carry ghostly remnants or shifts of his mark-making, others like the old man "Poopy" are startlingly realized, fully fleshed out like a Lucien Freud painting. Snow's watercolors and drawings mine his personal space, culling from memories, songs in the background and dialogue. Perhaps reflecting his background working alongside Robert Colescott and Howard Finster, many of Snow's works feature enveloping stories, like "Record Shop Girl" (the charming awkwardness hits close to home) and "I Think My Dog Is a Racist". His ecstatically rendered 99 watercolors "Girl Crazy/Crazy Girl" mostly features women artist friends from his former hometown, Birmingham AL, interspersed with silent movie-style title cards like "TOO Bad" and "Sweet Sad True", prompting an imagined (real?) conversation. The figures' range of renderings from classical to cartoonish reminded me a bit of Richard Linklater's classic Austin rotoscoped animation "Waking Life", which is where Beck comes in. He animated for that film and Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly", and his two suites of mixed media works made for this show tread the line b/w realism and almost nightmarish fantasy, soft-contoured figures floating against stark political undertones and lettering, all with a muted reddish palette. What's the message? That our own consciousness is a jumble of memories, daily interventions and environmental/societal irregularities, as mutable as the moments captured in these works.
* Laurie Frick "Quantify Me" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St. Shoot, back in university, had you told me there's an exhibition of geometric abstract wall reliefs composed from up-cycled paper, wood, cardboard and industrial color samples, BUT ALSO culled from neuroscience and engineering, well I would've been all over that in a heartbeat. Consider me a bit older and jaded now, though I still quite dug Frick's installations. The titular work is a hanging labyrinth of laser-cut, textured paper, augmenting itself by throwing amorphous shadows off the gallery walls. Another highlight, for the sheer gaudiness of subject matter, is "Moodjam", a long wall covered in shimmering color tiles like a showroom from hell. What's your daily mood, in color?
CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Assume Vivid Astro Focus "Cyclops Trannies" @ The Suzanne Geiss Company / 76 Grand St. You need to totally check AVAF if you've not already. It's in the former Deitch Space, run now by the Projects' former executive director Suzanne Geiss, so that's a biggie. Plus AVAF (a Deitch mainstay) debuted Geiss' first iteration of the company, at 2011 Art Basel Miami Beach w/ their "Acid Flashback" installation. AND they collaborated w/ Lady Gaga in Barneys store windows for the 2011 holiday campaign. Mayjah.
* Jazz-minh Moore "Is That All There Is?" @ Lyons Wier Gallery / 542 W 24th St. Moore features her sister in a ramshackle Oregon cabin, echoing the artist's birthplace, and integrates her realist compositions with the woodgrain of their panel backdrops against her sister's tattooed skin.
* Matta: A Centennial Celebration @ The Pace Gallery / 534 W 25th St. It's grand exhibitions such as this (and Romare Bearden's cross-institution survey) that elucidate the very memorable, very great and old artists we've enjoyed and lost — and brings my attention to the superlative Louise Bourgeois (also born in 1911, on Dec 25) and what should come for her. But of that later. This exhibition focuses on the famed Chilean artist's later oeuvre, some 14 massive canvases following his powerful adaptation of biomorphic surrealism and abstraction. Now if only the complete "Matta 1911-2011" museum retrospective would travel from Santiago to the states...
* "Out of Nowhere" @ Julie Saul Gallery / 535 W 22nd St. Back at this indie coffeeshop during uni, one of the baristas always had The Weakerthans on repeat, meaning that slightly goofy track "I Hate Winnipeg". Not to be outdone, Winnipeg-born breakcore maestro Venetian Snares released an album entitled "Winnipeg Is a Frozen Shithole", containing tracks like "Winnipeg Is a Boiling Pot of Cranberries" and the title track. Who knows? I've never had the pleasure of visiting. This group show of Winnipeg artists, curated by Sarah Anne Johnson and Meeka Walsh, may well shed some celestial light to the far northern city.
TOKYO
* Masumi Sakamoto "Good-bye Idols" @ Gallery MOMO Ryogoku / 1F 1-7-15 Kamezawa, Sumida-ku (Toei Oedo/JR Sobu Line to Ryogoku Station). The Osaka-born artist fuses an Impressionistic style and landscape with entirely nude youths. (ENDS SAT)
TOKYO
* Aki Eimizu "birth" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). I was speechless when previewing Eimizu's second outstanding solo exhibition at the gallery. Or rather, I was talking a lot, to her and to gallerist Matsubara, but all short phrases of giddy bemusement. Eimizu's talent is layering tiny, tiny methodically applied paint-dots to canvas or paper, or covering a panel with so many thinly translucent washes of paint that the end result is preserved in a resin-like history. Or, alternately, becomes three-dimensional, swirling or stretching out depending on your angle to the canvas. Her palette of opal-ish whites and grays extends here with seductive traces of firefly yellow, both cosmic and entirely earthly, like seeing will o' the wisps in the fog.
* Ryan Gander "Icarus Falling - An exhibition lost" @ Maison Hermes 8F Le Forum / 5-4-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku (Ginza Line to Ginza Station). The London-based Conceptualist celebrates Le Forum's 10th anniversary as an exhibition space by reflecting on the history of art exhibitions themselves, incl. the 10 years of them in this space. He also showed at the 2011 Yokohama Triennale.
* Bunpei Kado "Nest" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Kado's style is like Dada mixed w/ steampunk, as he dissects furniture, steel and found objects, pairs them w/ delicate living (or once-living) things, and fashions out these awesomely emotive sculptures. (ENDS SUN)
TOKYO
* M.C. Escher @ Bunkamura Gallery / 2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). YES! Bunkamura is back open, after nearly a year-long refurbishment. I missed this joint, so what better way for the box gallery to kick off 2012 than a dozen prints from the trompe-l'oeil legend M.C. Escher? (ENDS MON)
TOKYO
* Motoyuki Daifu x Ken Kagami @ Strange Store / 12-3-301 Uguisudani-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Toyoko Shibuya Line to Daikanyama Station). Young realist photographer Daifu-kun and the absolutely bonkers Ken Kagami (like a younger, Japanese Mike Kelley…sort of) collaborate in a special dual show…which, considering their respective backgrounds, should be nothing short of badass. (ENDS TUES)
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