fee's LIST (through 6/29)

WEDNESDAY
* Rivane Neuenschwander "A Day Like Any Other" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave). Major, major, major. The midcareer survey of the internationally renowned Brazilian artist, who has received little love stateside beyond a strong showing at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. I've followed Neuenschwander since back in the day: her mixed media installations, based on the environment and organic relationships, defy convenient mnemonic ordering. That's OK with me, I'll visit this show repeatedly.

* SUSU + The Naked Hearts @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$6. A night of delicious contrasts: the suffocating heaviness (yet disarmingly melodious) of SUSU v. Naked Hearts' raw, pop-laden duo. w/ Arc in Round

* Noveller + UnFact @ Goodbye Blue Monday / 1087 Broadway, Bushwick (J to Kosciusko, JM to Myrtle), 9p. Noveller (aka solo guitar alchemist Sarah Lipstate) celebrates new album 'Desert Fires'. UnFact (aka solo bass impresario David Wm Sims) and other equally soundscapey artists (Miracles, Brian Olin) join her.

THURSDAY
* Charles Burchfield "Heat Waves in a Swamp" @ Whitney Museum / 945 Madison Ave (6 to 75th St). Confession: I'm not familiar w/ this modern American landscape artist, whose charcoal-imbued watercolors deal less w/ his vicinity to Niagara Falls than his encyclopedic investigations of the mundane (times of day, melting snow, atmospheric pressure, barren forests). But Robert Gober curated this expansive show and, personally considering my newfound love for David Hockney's plein-air scenes, I think I've got to check this one out.

* Christian Marclay "Fourth of July" @ Paula Cooper Gallery / 521 W 21st St. Ahead of his major museum show at the Whitney next week, the gallery features Marclay's printmaking, fragmented photo composites from an Independence Day parade in Hyde Park NY.

* "The Summer Bazaar" @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery / 521 W 21st St. Nathalie Karg and her Cumulus Studios fill the gallery w/ their particular type of "functional objects in contemporary art" (think Ririkrit Tiravanija, Rob Pruitt, Mark Dion, Charles Long).

* Briona Nuda Rosch @ DCKT Contemporary / 195 Bowery. Rosch explores methodology in his practice via Arte Povera means: drywall, found book pages, recycled house paint.

* Ragnar Kjartansson "The End" @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. Remember Kjartansson, the young Icelandic artist whose contribution to the 2009 Venice Biennale was daily sketchings of a boozing friend? That creation, those 144 paintings plus archival notes, is coming to NY! Seriously. Plus a new video work filmed near Austin TX called "The Man" and feat. blues pianist Pinetop Perkins.

* Jack Pierson "Go there now and take this with you" @ Bortolami / 510 W 25th St. I'm always up for learning something new about an artist I think I already know. Case in point: Pierson's folded, mounted photographs.

* "Touched" @ Lehmann Maupin / 540 W 26th St. A very physical group show, w/ impasto paintings by Allison Schulnik and Angel Otero, ghostly paper composites by Noriko Ambe, and visceral sculpture by Maria Nepomuceno and Brett Lund.

* Andy Warhol "Rain Machine (Daisy Waterfall)" @ Nicholas Robinson Gallery / 535 W 20th St. The long and arduous history behind Warhol's circa-'69 installation — difficult fabrications and setups in Osaka and LA, leading to its partial destruction — makes seeing this awesome piece all the more cooler.

* "The Fifth Genre: Considering the Contemporary Still Life" @ Galerie Lelong / 528 W 26th St. Are still lifes still relevant? Hell yes. This huge group show (Petah Coyne, Wolfgang Tillmans, Alfredo Jaar, Miranda Lichtenstein, Louise Lawler) should convince you.

* "The Tell-Tale Heart (part 2)" @ James Cohan Gallery / 533 W 26th St. Props to the gallery for a creative focus: obsession and its unraveling, via Edgar Allan Poe's famous short-story. Feat. Tracey Emin, Maya Deren, Keren Cytter, Nan Goldi, James Ensor, Dash Snow, Felix Gonzalez Torres and more.

* "Psychedelic Summer", curated by CMRTYZ @ Rare / 547 W 27th St #514. Mayjah awesomeness here: 1. artwork by Cassie Ramone (of Vivian Girls), Matthew Volz (artist for The Beets) + more, 2. vinyl!! Captured Tracks, Psychic Lunch, Vice, of course CMRTYZ + more. 3. opening nite performances by Babies (Ramone's a member) and The Beets (and you KNOW I love some Beets!).

* Rivane Neuenschwander in conversation w/ Richard Flood @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave), 7p/$8. Neuenschwander, whose midcareer retrospective just opened at the museum, discusses Brazilian conceptualism and her unique oeuvre w/ the museum's chief curator.

* Northside Music and Arts (and Film!) Festival / Williamsburg/Greenpoint (L to Bedford/Lorimer, JM to Marcy, G to Greenpoint/Nassau etc etc). Last year's inaugural Northside Fest (think the Wsburg/Greenpoint equivalent to SXSW only decidedly less corporate) was majorly dope. It was sticky-hot and I saw loads of bands (hundreds!) even w/o the convenient show badge ($50, buy it here). Beer was a-flowing, the galleries had all these super art exhibitions on, people were in the streets. It was massive. This year it coincides w/ NYAFF (read on under FRI), which is a big BUH-BUHHH for me, as I cannot attend a single Northside show this year past Thursday, due to film engagements. That said, however, there's much to do here, so read on for my picks, or check the site for the full schedule (I've picked only the dopest stuff but I have to be a bit democratic here).

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Wavves + Cloud Nothings @ Knitting Factory / 361 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, G to Lorimer), 8p/$14. That lo-fi misfit Wavves has new surf-noise tunes out that are so great I forgive him the antics that unfortunately tend to precede him. And the aural mauling from Cloud Nothings is icing on the proverbial cake. My #1 THU pick.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Aa + YellowFever + Air Waves @ Union Pool / 484 Union Ave, Williamsburg (L/G to Lorimer), 7:30p/$10. Or let's say you want a sonically diverse affair, say the shoegaze-y Airwaves, Texas' funky indie YellowFever and the percussive rave-assault of our local boys Aa? Nice one, this.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: My Teenage Stride + German Measles @ The Charleston / 174 Bedford Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$5. But honestly you cannot go wrong here. This is primo local indie at it's very finest. Summertime party anthems from German Measles and My Teenage Stride is classic, lyrical indie rock. w/ I'm Turning Into + many more.

FRIDAY
* "Please Jump Around Here", curated by Jessica Duffett @ Storefront / 16 Wilson Ave, Bushwick (L to Morgan). An illuminating grouping of Brooklyn artists working w/in geometric abstraction, from the razor-sharp sparseness of Nathlie Provosty to the psychedelia of Marnie Tinkler and Rico Gatson to Tamara Gonzales' seductive figuration.

* Joshua Kirsch "Sympathetic Resonance" @ 3rd Ward / 195 Morgan Ave, Bushwick (L to Morgan). Kirsch's incredible audio installation — which looks sort of "Jetsons" — is, unlike Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's similarly cool vacuum-harmonica assault, totally demanding audience participation!

* "The Mass Ornament", curated by John Rasmussen @ Gladstone Gallery / 515 W 24th St. Marginalization and discreet interventions sounds like a difficult subject to wrap one's head around (don't get me started), but this ace lineup (Gedi Sibony, Nick Mauss, Patrick Hill, Alina Szapocznikow, Patricia Esquivias etc) embody quite a bit of emotive pull belying their "challenging" respective mediums.

* "Tom of Finland and then some" @ Feature Inc / 131 Allen St. Studly vintage Tom of Finland sketches paired w/ a suitable motley of other artists — Richard Prince, Sean Landers, Mie Yim, Kathy Opie, Judy Linn and more.

* "memories of the future" curated by Laurent Grasso @ Sean Kelly Gallery / 528 W 29th St. I like this very much: a mix of forward-thinking Modernists (Marcel Duchamp, Marine Hugonnier) and generation-skipping contemporaries (Markus Schinwald, David Maljkovic, Rita McBride).

* New York Asian Film Festival 2010 @ Walter Reade Theatre / Lincoln Center @ 65th St (1 to 66th St), through July 8. By now you should know that I live, breathe and bleed film festivals, specifically NYAFF. This year's is a winner if you're into Nouveau Hong Kong action (from Wilson Yip's "Ip Man 2", hot on the heels of its successful original last year, Alex Law's "Echoes of the Rainbow" and the Pang Bros' "The Storm Warriors", to name a few), and there's loads else, from lovey Korean ("Castaway on the Moon") to twisted Japanese ("Mutant Girls Squad"). I've hyped my picks already, and check the site for full schedule and ticket info (though I know you heeded my earlier alarm call and are already booking your tix, right? Right?). Also: there are 4-5 special midnight screenings this year, at NYAFF's old home IFC Center (read along for those specific nights). DIG IT!

* "Death Kappa" (dir. Tomoo Haraguchi, 2010) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDF to W 4th St). The NYAFF may have moved uptown, but their juiciest grindhouse-iest films lurk in the midnight hour back at the IFC, amid the tattoo parlors and sex boutiques, and you bet I'm happy about that. 1st up: in classic kaiju style, Tokyo is attacked by a giant monster. The citizens summon a kappa for protection that, by some WWII-related mixup, becomes a super-sized dancing behemoth. Is it friend or foe?

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Darlings + Grooms + Sisters @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$10. The Less Artists More Condos + Famous Class showcase is filled to the brim w/ dopeness. This could well be the loudest show of the night, w/ Darlings' poppy indie and the heavy Grooms. My #1 pick for FRI.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Woodsist Night @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$17. The Woodsist label don't mess around, as they say. Fresh off some great West Coast shows, we have Real Estate, Woods, Sic Alps + Moon Duo (Ripley Johnson from Wooden Shjips + Sanae Yamada).

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Family Portrait + Fluffy Lumbers @ Bar Matchless / 557 Manhattan Ave, Greenpoint (G to Nassau), 8:30p/$6. The grittier alternative to the Woodsist show, w/ the guys behind Underwater Peoples (Family Portrait, psychedelic) and the Fluffy Lumbers' fuzzy indie.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: The Beets + So So Glos @ Shea Stadium / 20 Meadow St, Williamsburg (L to Grand), 8:30p/$10. Lots of good vibes here, w/ The Beets' (Jackson Heights' finest garage rockers) stripped-down sing-along thump and the So So Glos' revolt/party-punk.

* Hisham Bharoocha + Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe @ Monster Island Basement / 128 River St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Or just totally, extensively chill out, w/ this Showpaper alternative to Northside, feat. Bharoocha (Soft Circle) and Lowe (Lichens).

SATURDAY
* Jeff Soto "Lifecycle" + Dave Cooper "Mangle" @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery / 529 W 20th St 9th Fl. Another successful match: the toxic environmental nostalgia (plus a site-specific mural) by Soto and the fleshy abstract oils by Cooper.

* Vlatka Horvat "This Here and That There" @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E to 23rd St/ELy, G to Courthouse Square), 12p (part of "Greater New York"). Horvat, whose ultra-minimalist office products installation in the exhibition continues to charm and bewilder me, performs a six-hour chair rearrangement in the museum's public spaces, reprising a performance she first did in the pond next to Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, in 2007.
+ Naamar Tsabar "Untitled (Speaker Wall)" rehearsals, 2p. Wondered what those black monolithic slabs on the 2nd floor signified? Tsabar, I'm guessing, teaches you how to "play" them.

* New Humans + more @ SculptureCenter / 44-19 Purves St, Long Island City (E to 23rd/Ely, G to Courthouse Square), 5p. A late-afternoon/early evening round of performances related to the current 'Knight's Move' exhibition, ranging from Anna Ostoya's violence/desire narrative + Mika Tajima's New Humans aural takedown.

* "L.A. Streetfighters" (dir. Park Woo-sang, 1985) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDF to W 4th St). Those Subway Cinema programmers aren't holding back: this "undiscovered classic" is in the league of last year's outstanding "Hausu". If you can take Technicolor-drenched, psychedelic schoolgirl horror, you're probably ready for '80s-kitsch action, denim vests and leaden dialogue included for free.

* French Avant-Garde of the 1920s (various dirs.) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 5p. It's summertime and you will attend loads of backyard/garden/beachhouse soirees and say one of those suddenly delves heavily into classic abstract cinema. You need to hold your end of the conversation! Hence this lovely bijou from MoMA: a cornucopia of French Avant-Garde (Man Ray's "Le Retour a la raison", Fernand Léger's "Ballet Mécanique", Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali's "Un Chien Andalou, and more!).

* The Bastard Noise + Anal Cunt @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$10. I made it clear I was bummed No Fun Fest wasn't happening in NY this year. So any of you w/ eardrums aching for brutal torture, welcome to the party.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Frankie & the Outs + Coasting + Total Slacker @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$10. The Impose party, led by Miss Frankie Rose and her fab band, is my #1 pick for SAT.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: BrooklynVegan Showcase @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$15. BrooklynVegan is my main go-to on local music listings, so the show is typically hot and of-the-moment. feat. the overwhelmingly gorgeous bands Twin Sister, ZAZA, Memory Tapes + Dom.

* NORTHSIDE FEST: Ducktails + Big Troubles + Dana Jewell @ Shea Stadium / 20 Meadow St, Williamsburg (L to Grand). Mellow out at this Chocolate Bobka show, w/ Matt Mondanile (Ducktails) and other Underwater Peoples-friendly bands who tread the line b/w psychedelic and folksy.

SUNDAY
* The Depreciation Guild + Dream Diary @ Mercury Lounge / 217 E Houston St (F to 2nd Ave), 7p/$10. The lovely Depreciation Guild are playing up their fuzzed-out shoegaze more and more, dropping the NES beats back under layers of feedback. These boys are incredibly, blissfully loud. Only caveat: early showtime so don't dally!

MONDAY
* The Bastard Noise + Child Abuse @ Death by Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p. In case you missed The Bastard Noise's furious performance at Cake Shop and just cannot sleep w/o experiencing them, again, you are SO in luck.

TUESDAY
* Rineke Dijkstra @ Marian Goodman Gallery / 24 W 57th St. Straight from the Paris gallery, Dijkstra's video-based show puts us, the viewers, into the role of active spectator (if that makes any sense). Uniformed schoolchildren sketch and regard Picasso, while five teenagers dance in a stark studio to their favorite tunes in "The Krazyhouse, Liverpool, UK (Megan, Simon, Nicky, Philip, Dee)", captured here as a four-wall video installation.

* Dream Diary @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F to 2nd Ave), 9p/$6. In case you missed Brooklyn's starry-eyed Dream Diary opening for The Depreciation Guild at Mercury Lounge due to the way-early set-time, they play a more reasonably timed show tonite, w/ Soft Spot.

LAST CHANCE
* Karla Black + Nate Lowman @ Andrea Rosen Gallery / 525 W 24th St. Throw these disparate young artists together might sound like mixing oil and water, but it works, Black's sugary-or-powdery color-field works (incl. an allergenic-looking installation) play well off Lowman's grungier alkyd-upped figurative paintings and sloganeering.
+ "She Awoke With a Jerk", curated by Nigel Cooke. The double entendre in the title is intentional, and I give it to Cooke for contributing the coolest cat (a Bozo-ish burnout) in this mini-show, which also includes a suitably vile Sean Landers, a chic George Grosz and (surprise) a Picasso.

* Anne Truitt "Sculpture 1962-2004" @ Matthew Marks / 522 W 22nd St. Dally about the 'forest' of Truitt totem sculptures — acrylic on wood all, except for the enameled earliest — and it's like being in your own constructed painting. The works (mixed unchronologically by date) do resemble human-sized oil pastels, but there's lots of little Easter eggs hidden in these seemingly minimalist pylons. Check the sharp white cap, like salty foam, atop "The Sea, The Sea" (2003) and the cool energy in "First Spring" (1981), which looks exactly THAT, like Truitt managed to capture the sky in sculpture. This is a beautiful retrospective and primer and a joy to visit.

* Darren Almond "Sometimes Still" @ Matthew Marks / 523 W 24th St. Almond's new six-screen film, tracing the path of a Tendai monk engaging in a rigorous process toward Buddhahood near Kyoto, is a thrillingly immersive video experience. Though your arrival during this 25-min film will vary person to person, hopefully it'll go somewhat like mine: you feel your way into the pitch-dark room, to the echoing chants of a Buddhist monk. Suddenly five of the screens light up w/ flashes of the forest, tree trunks at night spanning all cardinal directions as, in the center screen, the camera tracks a solitary nascent monk ascending a stone staircase.

* Tatiana Trouvé @ Gagosian / 980 Madison Ave. 1st thing that should tip you off to Trouvé's installation on the gallery's 5th fl is the exposed pipes in the entryway. Maybe that or the collection of shoes. Don't make the mistake of removing YOUR shoes too! Inside, she has created a sort of industrial portrait (slightly a la Mark Manders, w/ "Being John Malkovich" thrown in for good measure), mattresses and shoes lashed against pillars, oil-spattered glass sheets and little un-enterable cubbyholes.

* Claude Monet "Late Work" @ Gagosian / 522 W 21st St. The recurring discussions in art-writings on museum-quality exhibitions disguised as gallery shows has culminated w/ a big payoff: the elevating experience that is this fine collection of Monets. Gagosian has succeeded in converting the 21st St location into a serene, intimate space — akin to a special exhibitions wing of the Met — and filled it w/ 27 gorgeous canvases from the Expressionist master. Walk amid the alternately shimmering and soggy "Nymphéas" and fall into the autumnal light of the Japanese footbridges and the "L'Allée de Rosiers". Lose yourself for a bit and forget your in W. Chelsea, surrounded by several hundred bustling white-box galleries.

* Anna Gaskell "Turns Gravity @ Yvon Lambert / 550 W 21st St. Gaskell ups the haunting, cinematic factor in this vaguely religious set of large photographic prints shot in some snowy forest in Iowa, though it could be anywhere, at a vague time period too. Young, suited boys leap out of frame or pull another (who could be either resisting or injured, I can't quite tell). Another, truncated at the waist as he kneels behind a tree (is he sick?). Just what ritual are they performing?

* Sherrie Levine @ Mary Boone Gallery / 745 Fifth Ave. This is a great elegant take on Levine's redoubling, in a classic look at her oeuvre. The standout "Newborn (Black/White)" installation, four cast-glass Brancusi redoes on borrowed pianos (taken in spirit from a Brancusi home installation photo), is soothing: the relative scales of the delicate sculpture against their super-sized 'display platforms' works well. Levine's cheeky answer to Duchamp in "Fountain (Buddha)" is a shiny, cast-bronze wonder, esp. when you observe the reflections in the interior surfaces. And her framed and painted wood works from the mid-'80s show a hand-crafted Levine that you just might not be that familiar with.

* David Salle "Some Pictures from the 80s" @ Mary Boone Gallery / 541 W 24th St. The innocuous exhibition title belies the gravity of this 'Pictures Generation' maestro, whose massive, multilayered 'nonrepresentational' canvases are like catapulting head first into a surrealist pre-Youtube-generation stew. If the imagery of "Gericault's Arm" and "His Brain" don't totally blow you away, you're lying.

* Mike Kelley "Arenas" @ Skarstedt Gallery / 20 E 79th St. Bring a hankie: Kelley's classic circa-1990 'Arenas', aka stuffed toys with blankets on the gallery floor, conjure powerful sensations of nostalgia, let alone transgressive anthropomorphizing. Seven of the eleven originals assembled here for the 1st time since their debut installation. Don't miss it.

* Hany Armanious "Birth of Venus" @ Foxy Production / 623 W 27th St. At the offset, Armanious' 2nd solo show at the gallery may seem quite a bit quieter (and smell better) than his alarming "Year oft the Pig Sty" installation in 2007, but his core practice of meticulous object-castings is in full form here. Don't miss checking everything from all angles, like the underside of the metaphysical "Effigy of an Effigy with Mirage" or the charmingly named "Party Pooper". Things, as they say, are NOT always what they appear.

* Carsten Nicolai "moiré" @ The Pace Gallery / 534 W 25th St. The many iterations and eye-trickeries of the interference pattern. Nicolai takes us from the deceptively simple (film tape stretched in a grid between two points, creating these bending shadows and varying thicknesses) to the installation-complex (a darkened room illuminated by whirling coils of light, or at least I think they were moving...). Sculpture (a Dan Graham-esque semi-reflective block in the main gallery) and works on paper are quieter overall but nothing is entirely 'static' here.

* Judith Schaechter "Beauty and the Beef" @ Claire Oliver / 513 W 26th St. Nobody is doing what Schaechter is doing, in her trademark stained glass lightboxes. The figures and arrangements are as sumptuous as ever (and her skill in composition is unparalleled), but she's created a fantastic depth to these new works, like "Cold Genius Study" and "You Are Here", where the backdrop recedes far out as the subjects float in space.

* Liz Magic Laser "Chase" @ Derek Eller Gallery / 615 W 27th St. Laser videotaped a rather creative bunch and their soliloquies (ranging from the comedic to unhinged) to ATM booths inside banks — get the show-title now? Also: check Laser at MoMA PS1, her film on the Da Vinci Surgical System (robot-assisted surgery) on her handbag is not as immediately gratifying as the gallery show, but dope anyway.

* Jim Nutt "'Trim' and Other Works: 1967-2010" @ David Nolan NY / 527 W 29th St. This is a delightful little gem buried 'way up' on 29th St. One of the more...twisted of the Hairy Who movement, who balanced their grotesqueness w/ psychedelic color and intriguing media pairings. The acrylic portraitures on MDF, the new stuff, bears that weird, almost Picasso-style abstraction that Nutt does so well, but it's the back room that got me going. It contains a stash of old works, the iconic "Miss Sue Port", an acid-colored acrylic on plexiglas, and other plexiglas-painted works and works on paper of gender-vagues and quirky personages.