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)
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
fee's LIST / through 1/17
WEDNESDAY
NYC
* Rashid Johnson "Rumble" @ Hauser & Wirth / 32 E 69th St. Ahead of the NY artist's 1st major solo museum exhibition "A Message To Our Folks" at MCA Chicago in April, the gallery debuts Johnson's cross-media series on boxing mega-promoter Don King. Consider this one of my most anticipated shows of the new year (and yeah, go see it).
* 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
* "Switchblade Sisters" (dir. Jack Hill, 1975) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:45p. Go with the tagline: "so easy to kill, so hard to love". Also: this classic mid-70's girl-gang exploitation film is a favorite of Quentin Tarantino (remember "Kill Bill"'s Elle Driver?).
THURSDAY
NYC
* 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.
* 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.
* "Hoodwinked" @ Nyehaus / 358 W 20th St. Why would I send you off the beaten W. Chelsea path? (technically, it's barely a long avenue away, but still). When it's subersive gents Mike Kelley (showing stuffed-animal assemblages) and Richard Prince (showing Brooke Shields photographs), plus some other seminal work from the two artists, then it's a LIST-worthy must-see.
* 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.
* 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.
* "Marble Sculpture from 350 B.C. to Last Week" @ Sperone Westwater / 257 Bowery. First off: props for an awesome group show title and concept. I don't know how the gallery pulled this off, but this does indeed include Greek and Roman antiquities and Neoclassical sculpture, plus Dadaist biomorphic works and recent examples from Ai Weiwei, Barry X Ball and Tom Sachs.
* 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.
* Ai Weiwei, Wang Xingwei, Ding Yi "Persona 3" @ Chambers Fine Art / 522 W 19th St. Ai's big "Sunflower Seeds" installation at Mary Boone Gallery a few blocks north of here may be drawing huge crowds, but I urge you to check this intriguing pairing as well. The three Chinese contemporary artists have created a cooperative work, temporarily exchanging artistic profiles in a demonstration of their mutual admiration for Chinese art scholar Hans van Dijk. Ai focuses Ding Yi's abstract style in iron; Wang channels Ai's furniture-manipulation in a new rosewood sculpture; and Ding Yi hearkens back to his earliest representational style in painting a Shanghai cityscape.
* "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.
* Darlings + The Suzan @ Glasslands / 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8:30p/$10. Pair Darlings' fuzzy punk-tattooed pop with The Suzan's splashy, sunny riot-grrrl punk and you get a sonic cocktail like a rollercoaster to your best buzz, w/o the hangover. w/ DAYTONA (mems. Harlem & Wild Yaks)
AUSTIN
* "Benefit For Esme" @ Scoot Inn / 1308 E 4th St, 7p/$5-10. Young Austinite and music-lover Esme Barrera's untimely passing runs deep. This solid showcase of local bands — Follow That Bird, Love Collector, The Dead Space, Foreign Mothers, Kingdom of Suicide Lovers, Neighbor, Ichi Ni San Shi, and Eric Static — fill out a benefit concert, w/ 100% proceeds going to Esme's family.
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.
* Plastic Girl In Closet @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station, South Exit), 6:30p/3000 yen. What I would do to attend this showcase of Tokyo's scorching shoegazers PGIC. This is the indie live-house's fourth anniversary! w/ SCARLET
FRIDAY
NYC
* 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.
* "Domain" (dir. Patric Chiha, 2011) @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). Chiha's debut feature-length film gets under your skin. This 2011 Film Comment Selects entry smartly pairs the enigmatic and ever-beguiling Béatrice Dalle as a "fairy godmotheresque" aunt for Isaïe Sultan, who plays Pierre, both young and gay.
* "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2011) @ Angelika NY / 18 W Houston St (BDFM to Broadway/Lafayette, 6 to Bleecker St). 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.
* "Benefit for Esme Barerra" @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$7 (band proceeds go to: http://forouresmeb.blogspot.com/ and Girls Rock Camp Austin). Indie-rock singer-songwriter Nicole Schneit delivers Air Waves (w/ friends), plus Brooklyn's gossamer-toned groove outfit Open Ocean, in this showcase for a dearly departed friend and music-lover. w/ Soft Healer
AUSTIN
* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. What's really real, and how quickly do we latch onto a fond memory, regardless of its authenticity? Three artists work in this narrative, feat. paintings by Austinite visual artist Paul Beck and Allen Brewer, plus mixed-media watercolors by Pat Snow.
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.
* "Zombie Lolita + Heaven's Door Project" @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2300 yen. Does Friday the 13th hold the same connotations in Japan as it does the States? Consider this showcase title for a second and tell me it's not coincidental. feat. HYMENs and MIDARI (actual zombie lolita punk girls) plus artsy twosome ザリガニ＄ (means "crayfish"!) w/ their new album, uh, "Avocado".
* Keiji Haino @ Club Liner / B1F 2-9-11 Umesato, Suginami-ku (JR Chuo Line to Koenji Station, S. Exit), 7p/2800 yen. Haino-san has proven himself endlessly creative as a solo and group musician since the '70s, whether he's mauling a guitar, executing tape-loops or shrieking vocals or cranking a hurdy-gurdy. His set tonight could be anything from psychedelic to hard-rocking to pure noise.
SATURDAY
NYC
* Doug Wheeler @ David Zwirner / 519 W 19th St. A major new installation from the pioneering "Light and Space" artist, and the first-ever presentation of Wheeler's "infinity environment" in NYC.
* Natalia Fabia "Punk Rock Rainbow Sparkle" + "Hybrid Thinking" group exhibition @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery / 529 W 20th St, 9th Fl. The debut E. Coast solo exhibition of young Fabia's glittering, grimy portraiture, accented by a group exhibition organized by Marc & Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective and feat. six international artists.
* Udomsak Krisanamis "Space Out" @ Gavin Brown's Enterprise / 620 Greenwich St. The Thai-born collage alchemist (and avid golfer, apparently) comes off a successful cross-media show at Kunstverein Freiburg w/ a visual and textural panoply.
* Burning Star Core + DIVE @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$7. Gorgeous sonic fury. Burning Star Core is drone-revisionist C. Spencer Yeh, conjuring hypnotic and biting soundscapes off his treated violins. Plus DIVE (feat. Beach Fossils' guitarist Cole Smith and among the hardest-working indie groups right now) contribute a "weirdo set". w/ Thee Source ov Fawnation (WA)
* Girls (San Fran) + Real Estate @ Terminal 5 / 610 W 56th St (1/AC/BD to Columbus Circle), 7p/SOLD OUT. To hear sunny San Fran indie rockers Girls crooning "Honey Bunny" in cavernous Terminal 5 is enough reason to get ME to haul out to that joint. Including NJ surf outfit Real Estate, and their super-fine new LP "Days", makes it that much sweeter. w/ King Krule
AUSTIN
* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. The NY-based artist draws from the unknown motives of Fausto Cardenas, who fired a handgun into the air outside the Texas State Capitol in 2010, and Goethe's 19th-c epic poem "Faust", in a meditation on the intermingling of private and public. Sounds tough? Luckily Magid introduces her work and leads a discussion at 2p, during the public opening.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". The provocation of abstract forms in interrupting or reconstructing everyday life, feat. Sterling Allen, Facundo Argañaraz, Strausse Bourque LaFrance, Katja Mater, Christopher Samuels, Justin Swinburne, and J. Parker Valentine.
+ 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.
* Laurie Frick "Quantify Me" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St. Geometric abstract wall reliefs composed from up-cycled paper, wood, cardboard and industrial color samples, but drawing from neuroscience and engineering? Sign me up.
* "The Divide" (dir. Xavier Gens, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 10:30. Gens' harrowing New French Extremity tale "Frontier(s)" was like a filmic axe-handle in my cerebral cortex. Meaning: I dug it. He moves from mud-drenched current-day dystopia to full-out near-future post-apocalypse, w/ a collection of strangers in NYC vs. ultra-violent HAZMATs! Plus: Peter Stormare. I am beyond stoked.
* Wu-Tang Clan @ Emo's East / 2015 E Riverside Dr, 9p/$40. The WU, man! Bringing some Strong Isle, classic NYC hip-hop to the Hill Country. Current lineup for the show: RZA, Raekwon, Method Man, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Masta Killa, U-God and Inspectah Deck. Hell, that's eight out the original nine (RIP Ol' Dirty).
* Reverend Horton Heat @ Antone's / 213 W 5th St, 8p/$20. Ask me to name the quintessential Austin live-music experience? That'd be Jim Heath, aka The Rev, the baddest-ass rockabilly heavyweight…oh, EVER. w/ Not In the Face
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?
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* "Himizu" (dir. Sion Sono, 2011) @ Cine Quinto / 14-5 Udagawacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). Sono's devastating latest is a violent coming-of-age love story w/ a backdrop set in post-earthquake Tohoku region. His films are never easy, but there is totally graspable emotion w/in the nihilism.
* "Bunraku" (dir. Guy Moshe, 2010) @ Shinjuku Picadilly / 3-15-15 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi/Fukutoshin, Toei Shinjuku Lines to Shinjuku-sanchome Station). 'bout time this visual feast hit the Far East, w/ strong showings from countrymen Gackt as the sword-wielder and Shun Sugata, playing his sushi-chef dad (also deft w/ the knifework). Considering it barely got a proper U.S. screening, I'm pleased.
* Incapacitants @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station, South Exit), 6:30p. As loud as possible!!! I'll give it to Merzbow for most ferocious live set — and My Bloody Valentine bring their own brand of decibel-shredding guitar sonics — but this duo should not be underestimated. They've been at it for nearly three decades, and each crackle of their contact mics brings bolts of pure sonic decimation.
* Frankie Knuckles @ Liquidroom / 3-15-5 Higashi, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station), 11:30p/4500 yen. The legendary NYC house DJ and producer drops the needle on wax at Shibuya's big-ass dance club.
SUNDAY
NYC
* Paul Heyer + Virginia Poundstone "I KNOW that I am awake" @ Rachel Uffner Gallery / 47 Orchard St. I am intrigued about the possibilities from this bicoastal pairing, feat. new work from the NYC-based Poundstone and LA-based Heyer.
TOKYO
* Keiji Haino @ Shibuya O-Nest / 6F Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6p/3300 yen. Pair improv-king Haino w/ Japanese space-squallers Bo Ningen (think Faust cut w/ noise-rock) means a very heavy night.
* 住所不定無職 @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 6p/3300 yen. What I would do for a plane ticket to Tokyo to attend this show! #1. Fever the venue is DOPE. Love it. #2. The three pop-punk girls behind "Juusho-Futei-Museki" (lit. "no job nor fixed address") rawwk in the realest sense. Whether it's bandleader Yurina singing from her drum-kit or cutie Yoko crooning whilst playing her double-neck bass-guitar, this is a surefire WIN.
* Merpeoples @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2100 yen. Local four-piece Merpeoples inject a groovy sensibility to their retro-toned indie-pop. w/ END&ODDS
* DODDODO @ UFO Club / B1F 1-11-6 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line to Higashi-Koenji Station), 6:30p/2500 yen. LIST readers will recognize Kansai cutie DODDODO, who perched over her samplers, snarling off-kilter raps whilst cueing howling Aphex Twin-esque drum loops.
MONDAY
AUSTIN
* "Haywire" (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2012) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Village / 2700 W. Anderson Lane, 7p. CIA double-crossing never looked this good. Feat. Gina Carano, aka former American Gladiator "Crush", as a freelance covert operative vs. a lot of dudes: Michael Fassbender, Ewan mcGregor, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas…who can she trust? Whose ass will she need to kick? Co-presented by Austin Film Society.
* "Aliens" (dir. James Cameron, 1986) Action Pack screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. "Get away from her…you bitch!" So says Sigourney "Ripley" Weaver in one of modern cinema's classic exchanges, as she faces off w/ the Alien Queen in the final showdown. As breathtaking and PERFECT Ridley Scott's original is, you throw in some swimming aliens and a huge-ass Queen sharing the screen w/ Ripley and Mr. Badass Michael Biehn, and you've got yourself cinematic gold.
TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "Goke: Bodysnatcher From Hell" (dir. Hajime Sato, 1968) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:45p. News to me: the deliberately artificial shots of Uma Thurman flying into Japan from Quentin Tarentino's "Kill Bill vol.1" were directly influenced by "Goke", aka Sato-san's spastic sci-fi/horror smashup involving possible extraterrestrial terrorists!
TOKYO
* FOUR GET ME A NOTS @ Shibuya O-Nest / 6F 2-3 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 7p/TKTK. Hell yeah. On the eve of FOUR GET ME A NOTS' "Silver Lining" tour, these Chiba-based pop-punks rock the roof off O-Nest. Crowd surf a few songs for me.
CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Michael Wang "Carbon Copies" @ Foxy Production / 623 W 27th St. This NY-based Conceptualist has a history of intriguing interventions, like speculative proposals for the World Economic Forum conference hall in Davos, Switzerland and a series for controlled-release of invasive species called…"Invasives". In his debut NY solo project, he crafts sculptural forms based off not only previously made artworks but also their respective carbon footprints during initial production.
TOKYO
* Asuka Ito "欲望という名のワタシー/My name is desire" @ Galerie Sho Contemporary / B1F 3-2-9 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku (Ginza/Tozai Lines to Nihonbashi Station). Awesome, awesome, awesome… I spent way too long here but I couldn't help myself. Ito magnifies notes of femininity and sexuality in her works by pairing photorealistic self-portraits (in soft-core poses: licking a sweet, tied up etc) against glittery large-scale blooms. She then covered the whole gallery floor with bright red rose petals, streaked one wall with watered-down acrylic drips and added a red bed and several paintings — like an offering — to the smaller gallery in the back. As intense as it is, Ito reappears in almost every canvas, staring out at us and daring us to return the gaze. (ENDS SAT)
NYC
* Carsten Höller "Experience" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave). You need to devote time to the Brussels-born Conceptualist (and former entomologist) and his two-decades' survey. Like I mean devote some serious hours queuing for that damn slide, aka "Untitled (Slide)", that crowning achievement first seen at the Tate as "Test Site" in 2007 that now winds itself three stories through the stacked white-box galleries of the New Museum. Because while you'll no doubt kill 1-2 hours, easy, waiting for your 10 seconds of breathtaking velocity down that damn slide, you're also riding on a slide in a museum. Think about that good and hard for a second. It's among the most obvious examples that this is not your regular survey show. You will truly experience Höller in attending "Experience", where wearing "Upside Down Goggles" have you trudging about zombie-like when the world flips upside down on you; or disrobing and floating within many gallons of super-salted, body-temperature water within "Giant Psycho Tank; or nondiscriminantly popping a "Pill Clock" capsule w/o considering what, if anything, it'll do to you. Stuff like the self-administering series of rooms w/in "Experience Corridor" are banal if somewhat amusing (I swear that "Love Drug" totally didn't work), and Höller's glassy mockups of super-high-rises (like a combo of children's laboratory sets and translucent Snakes & Ladders) don't hold attention w/in rooms of flashing lights and neon polyurethane animals. But, hell, the whole shebang is just part of the "Experience". Oh yeah, and the "Slide" is open for one more week.
* Vasily Kandinsky "Painting With White Border" @ Guggenheim / 1071 Fifth Ave (456 to 86th St). Need a serious visual palate cleanser from the Cattelan cacophony suspended in the Rotunda? Though it's uncommonly rare of me to advise staring at Kandinsky's warped landscapes as a "calming mechanism", this suite of compositions around the rolling Moscow hills within the massive "Painting With White Border" is a treat.
TOKYO
* Kazuhiro Ito "unknown touches" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1F 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (Chiyoda/Hanzomon/Ginza Lines to Omotesando Station). Ito pushes bronze sculpture to even further dimensions, exploring liquid-like abstraction and elongated forms in series "Dear Blind Phantom", "Liquid Golden Baby" and "Starman Loves You". (ENDS SUN)
NYC
* Rashid Johnson "Rumble" @ Hauser & Wirth / 32 E 69th St. Ahead of the NY artist's 1st major solo museum exhibition "A Message To Our Folks" at MCA Chicago in April, the gallery debuts Johnson's cross-media series on boxing mega-promoter Don King. Consider this one of my most anticipated shows of the new year (and yeah, go see it).
* 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
* "Switchblade Sisters" (dir. Jack Hill, 1975) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:45p. Go with the tagline: "so easy to kill, so hard to love". Also: this classic mid-70's girl-gang exploitation film is a favorite of Quentin Tarantino (remember "Kill Bill"'s Elle Driver?).
THURSDAY
NYC
* 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.
* 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.
* "Hoodwinked" @ Nyehaus / 358 W 20th St. Why would I send you off the beaten W. Chelsea path? (technically, it's barely a long avenue away, but still). When it's subersive gents Mike Kelley (showing stuffed-animal assemblages) and Richard Prince (showing Brooke Shields photographs), plus some other seminal work from the two artists, then it's a LIST-worthy must-see.
* 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.
* 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.
* "Marble Sculpture from 350 B.C. to Last Week" @ Sperone Westwater / 257 Bowery. First off: props for an awesome group show title and concept. I don't know how the gallery pulled this off, but this does indeed include Greek and Roman antiquities and Neoclassical sculpture, plus Dadaist biomorphic works and recent examples from Ai Weiwei, Barry X Ball and Tom Sachs.
* 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.
* Ai Weiwei, Wang Xingwei, Ding Yi "Persona 3" @ Chambers Fine Art / 522 W 19th St. Ai's big "Sunflower Seeds" installation at Mary Boone Gallery a few blocks north of here may be drawing huge crowds, but I urge you to check this intriguing pairing as well. The three Chinese contemporary artists have created a cooperative work, temporarily exchanging artistic profiles in a demonstration of their mutual admiration for Chinese art scholar Hans van Dijk. Ai focuses Ding Yi's abstract style in iron; Wang channels Ai's furniture-manipulation in a new rosewood sculpture; and Ding Yi hearkens back to his earliest representational style in painting a Shanghai cityscape.
* "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.
* Darlings + The Suzan @ Glasslands / 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8:30p/$10. Pair Darlings' fuzzy punk-tattooed pop with The Suzan's splashy, sunny riot-grrrl punk and you get a sonic cocktail like a rollercoaster to your best buzz, w/o the hangover. w/ DAYTONA (mems. Harlem & Wild Yaks)
AUSTIN
* "Benefit For Esme" @ Scoot Inn / 1308 E 4th St, 7p/$5-10. Young Austinite and music-lover Esme Barrera's untimely passing runs deep. This solid showcase of local bands — Follow That Bird, Love Collector, The Dead Space, Foreign Mothers, Kingdom of Suicide Lovers, Neighbor, Ichi Ni San Shi, and Eric Static — fill out a benefit concert, w/ 100% proceeds going to Esme's family.
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.
* Plastic Girl In Closet @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station, South Exit), 6:30p/3000 yen. What I would do to attend this showcase of Tokyo's scorching shoegazers PGIC. This is the indie live-house's fourth anniversary! w/ SCARLET
FRIDAY
NYC
* 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.
* "Domain" (dir. Patric Chiha, 2011) @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). Chiha's debut feature-length film gets under your skin. This 2011 Film Comment Selects entry smartly pairs the enigmatic and ever-beguiling Béatrice Dalle as a "fairy godmotheresque" aunt for Isaïe Sultan, who plays Pierre, both young and gay.
* "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2011) @ Angelika NY / 18 W Houston St (BDFM to Broadway/Lafayette, 6 to Bleecker St). 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.
* "Benefit for Esme Barerra" @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$7 (band proceeds go to: http://forouresmeb.blogspot.com/ and Girls Rock Camp Austin). Indie-rock singer-songwriter Nicole Schneit delivers Air Waves (w/ friends), plus Brooklyn's gossamer-toned groove outfit Open Ocean, in this showcase for a dearly departed friend and music-lover. w/ Soft Healer
AUSTIN
* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. What's really real, and how quickly do we latch onto a fond memory, regardless of its authenticity? Three artists work in this narrative, feat. paintings by Austinite visual artist Paul Beck and Allen Brewer, plus mixed-media watercolors by Pat Snow.
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.
* "Zombie Lolita + Heaven's Door Project" @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2300 yen. Does Friday the 13th hold the same connotations in Japan as it does the States? Consider this showcase title for a second and tell me it's not coincidental. feat. HYMENs and MIDARI (actual zombie lolita punk girls) plus artsy twosome ザリガニ＄ (means "crayfish"!) w/ their new album, uh, "Avocado".
* Keiji Haino @ Club Liner / B1F 2-9-11 Umesato, Suginami-ku (JR Chuo Line to Koenji Station, S. Exit), 7p/2800 yen. Haino-san has proven himself endlessly creative as a solo and group musician since the '70s, whether he's mauling a guitar, executing tape-loops or shrieking vocals or cranking a hurdy-gurdy. His set tonight could be anything from psychedelic to hard-rocking to pure noise.
SATURDAY
NYC
* Doug Wheeler @ David Zwirner / 519 W 19th St. A major new installation from the pioneering "Light and Space" artist, and the first-ever presentation of Wheeler's "infinity environment" in NYC.
* Natalia Fabia "Punk Rock Rainbow Sparkle" + "Hybrid Thinking" group exhibition @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery / 529 W 20th St, 9th Fl. The debut E. Coast solo exhibition of young Fabia's glittering, grimy portraiture, accented by a group exhibition organized by Marc & Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective and feat. six international artists.
* Udomsak Krisanamis "Space Out" @ Gavin Brown's Enterprise / 620 Greenwich St. The Thai-born collage alchemist (and avid golfer, apparently) comes off a successful cross-media show at Kunstverein Freiburg w/ a visual and textural panoply.
* Burning Star Core + DIVE @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$7. Gorgeous sonic fury. Burning Star Core is drone-revisionist C. Spencer Yeh, conjuring hypnotic and biting soundscapes off his treated violins. Plus DIVE (feat. Beach Fossils' guitarist Cole Smith and among the hardest-working indie groups right now) contribute a "weirdo set". w/ Thee Source ov Fawnation (WA)
* Girls (San Fran) + Real Estate @ Terminal 5 / 610 W 56th St (1/AC/BD to Columbus Circle), 7p/SOLD OUT. To hear sunny San Fran indie rockers Girls crooning "Honey Bunny" in cavernous Terminal 5 is enough reason to get ME to haul out to that joint. Including NJ surf outfit Real Estate, and their super-fine new LP "Days", makes it that much sweeter. w/ King Krule
AUSTIN
* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. The NY-based artist draws from the unknown motives of Fausto Cardenas, who fired a handgun into the air outside the Texas State Capitol in 2010, and Goethe's 19th-c epic poem "Faust", in a meditation on the intermingling of private and public. Sounds tough? Luckily Magid introduces her work and leads a discussion at 2p, during the public opening.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". The provocation of abstract forms in interrupting or reconstructing everyday life, feat. Sterling Allen, Facundo Argañaraz, Strausse Bourque LaFrance, Katja Mater, Christopher Samuels, Justin Swinburne, and J. Parker Valentine.
+ 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.
* Laurie Frick "Quantify Me" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St. Geometric abstract wall reliefs composed from up-cycled paper, wood, cardboard and industrial color samples, but drawing from neuroscience and engineering? Sign me up.
* "The Divide" (dir. Xavier Gens, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 10:30. Gens' harrowing New French Extremity tale "Frontier(s)" was like a filmic axe-handle in my cerebral cortex. Meaning: I dug it. He moves from mud-drenched current-day dystopia to full-out near-future post-apocalypse, w/ a collection of strangers in NYC vs. ultra-violent HAZMATs! Plus: Peter Stormare. I am beyond stoked.
* Wu-Tang Clan @ Emo's East / 2015 E Riverside Dr, 9p/$40. The WU, man! Bringing some Strong Isle, classic NYC hip-hop to the Hill Country. Current lineup for the show: RZA, Raekwon, Method Man, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Masta Killa, U-God and Inspectah Deck. Hell, that's eight out the original nine (RIP Ol' Dirty).
* Reverend Horton Heat @ Antone's / 213 W 5th St, 8p/$20. Ask me to name the quintessential Austin live-music experience? That'd be Jim Heath, aka The Rev, the baddest-ass rockabilly heavyweight…oh, EVER. w/ Not In the Face
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?
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* "Himizu" (dir. Sion Sono, 2011) @ Cine Quinto / 14-5 Udagawacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). Sono's devastating latest is a violent coming-of-age love story w/ a backdrop set in post-earthquake Tohoku region. His films are never easy, but there is totally graspable emotion w/in the nihilism.
* "Bunraku" (dir. Guy Moshe, 2010) @ Shinjuku Picadilly / 3-15-15 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi/Fukutoshin, Toei Shinjuku Lines to Shinjuku-sanchome Station). 'bout time this visual feast hit the Far East, w/ strong showings from countrymen Gackt as the sword-wielder and Shun Sugata, playing his sushi-chef dad (also deft w/ the knifework). Considering it barely got a proper U.S. screening, I'm pleased.
* Incapacitants @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station, South Exit), 6:30p. As loud as possible!!! I'll give it to Merzbow for most ferocious live set — and My Bloody Valentine bring their own brand of decibel-shredding guitar sonics — but this duo should not be underestimated. They've been at it for nearly three decades, and each crackle of their contact mics brings bolts of pure sonic decimation.
* Frankie Knuckles @ Liquidroom / 3-15-5 Higashi, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station), 11:30p/4500 yen. The legendary NYC house DJ and producer drops the needle on wax at Shibuya's big-ass dance club.
SUNDAY
NYC
* Paul Heyer + Virginia Poundstone "I KNOW that I am awake" @ Rachel Uffner Gallery / 47 Orchard St. I am intrigued about the possibilities from this bicoastal pairing, feat. new work from the NYC-based Poundstone and LA-based Heyer.
TOKYO
* Keiji Haino @ Shibuya O-Nest / 6F Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6p/3300 yen. Pair improv-king Haino w/ Japanese space-squallers Bo Ningen (think Faust cut w/ noise-rock) means a very heavy night.
* 住所不定無職 @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 6p/3300 yen. What I would do for a plane ticket to Tokyo to attend this show! #1. Fever the venue is DOPE. Love it. #2. The three pop-punk girls behind "Juusho-Futei-Museki" (lit. "no job nor fixed address") rawwk in the realest sense. Whether it's bandleader Yurina singing from her drum-kit or cutie Yoko crooning whilst playing her double-neck bass-guitar, this is a surefire WIN.
* Merpeoples @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2100 yen. Local four-piece Merpeoples inject a groovy sensibility to their retro-toned indie-pop. w/ END&ODDS
* DODDODO @ UFO Club / B1F 1-11-6 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line to Higashi-Koenji Station), 6:30p/2500 yen. LIST readers will recognize Kansai cutie DODDODO, who perched over her samplers, snarling off-kilter raps whilst cueing howling Aphex Twin-esque drum loops.
MONDAY
AUSTIN
* "Haywire" (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2012) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Village / 2700 W. Anderson Lane, 7p. CIA double-crossing never looked this good. Feat. Gina Carano, aka former American Gladiator "Crush", as a freelance covert operative vs. a lot of dudes: Michael Fassbender, Ewan mcGregor, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas…who can she trust? Whose ass will she need to kick? Co-presented by Austin Film Society.
* "Aliens" (dir. James Cameron, 1986) Action Pack screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. "Get away from her…you bitch!" So says Sigourney "Ripley" Weaver in one of modern cinema's classic exchanges, as she faces off w/ the Alien Queen in the final showdown. As breathtaking and PERFECT Ridley Scott's original is, you throw in some swimming aliens and a huge-ass Queen sharing the screen w/ Ripley and Mr. Badass Michael Biehn, and you've got yourself cinematic gold.
TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "Goke: Bodysnatcher From Hell" (dir. Hajime Sato, 1968) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:45p. News to me: the deliberately artificial shots of Uma Thurman flying into Japan from Quentin Tarentino's "Kill Bill vol.1" were directly influenced by "Goke", aka Sato-san's spastic sci-fi/horror smashup involving possible extraterrestrial terrorists!
TOKYO
* FOUR GET ME A NOTS @ Shibuya O-Nest / 6F 2-3 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 7p/TKTK. Hell yeah. On the eve of FOUR GET ME A NOTS' "Silver Lining" tour, these Chiba-based pop-punks rock the roof off O-Nest. Crowd surf a few songs for me.
CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Michael Wang "Carbon Copies" @ Foxy Production / 623 W 27th St. This NY-based Conceptualist has a history of intriguing interventions, like speculative proposals for the World Economic Forum conference hall in Davos, Switzerland and a series for controlled-release of invasive species called…"Invasives". In his debut NY solo project, he crafts sculptural forms based off not only previously made artworks but also their respective carbon footprints during initial production.
TOKYO
* Asuka Ito "欲望という名のワタシー/My name is desire" @ Galerie Sho Contemporary / B1F 3-2-9 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku (Ginza/Tozai Lines to Nihonbashi Station). Awesome, awesome, awesome… I spent way too long here but I couldn't help myself. Ito magnifies notes of femininity and sexuality in her works by pairing photorealistic self-portraits (in soft-core poses: licking a sweet, tied up etc) against glittery large-scale blooms. She then covered the whole gallery floor with bright red rose petals, streaked one wall with watered-down acrylic drips and added a red bed and several paintings — like an offering — to the smaller gallery in the back. As intense as it is, Ito reappears in almost every canvas, staring out at us and daring us to return the gaze. (ENDS SAT)
NYC
* Carsten Höller "Experience" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave). You need to devote time to the Brussels-born Conceptualist (and former entomologist) and his two-decades' survey. Like I mean devote some serious hours queuing for that damn slide, aka "Untitled (Slide)", that crowning achievement first seen at the Tate as "Test Site" in 2007 that now winds itself three stories through the stacked white-box galleries of the New Museum. Because while you'll no doubt kill 1-2 hours, easy, waiting for your 10 seconds of breathtaking velocity down that damn slide, you're also riding on a slide in a museum. Think about that good and hard for a second. It's among the most obvious examples that this is not your regular survey show. You will truly experience Höller in attending "Experience", where wearing "Upside Down Goggles" have you trudging about zombie-like when the world flips upside down on you; or disrobing and floating within many gallons of super-salted, body-temperature water within "Giant Psycho Tank; or nondiscriminantly popping a "Pill Clock" capsule w/o considering what, if anything, it'll do to you. Stuff like the self-administering series of rooms w/in "Experience Corridor" are banal if somewhat amusing (I swear that "Love Drug" totally didn't work), and Höller's glassy mockups of super-high-rises (like a combo of children's laboratory sets and translucent Snakes & Ladders) don't hold attention w/in rooms of flashing lights and neon polyurethane animals. But, hell, the whole shebang is just part of the "Experience". Oh yeah, and the "Slide" is open for one more week.
* Vasily Kandinsky "Painting With White Border" @ Guggenheim / 1071 Fifth Ave (456 to 86th St). Need a serious visual palate cleanser from the Cattelan cacophony suspended in the Rotunda? Though it's uncommonly rare of me to advise staring at Kandinsky's warped landscapes as a "calming mechanism", this suite of compositions around the rolling Moscow hills within the massive "Painting With White Border" is a treat.
TOKYO
* Kazuhiro Ito "unknown touches" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1F 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (Chiyoda/Hanzomon/Ginza Lines to Omotesando Station). Ito pushes bronze sculpture to even further dimensions, exploring liquid-like abstraction and elongated forms in series "Dear Blind Phantom", "Liquid Golden Baby" and "Starman Loves You". (ENDS SUN)
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
fee's LIST / through 1/10
WEDNESDAY
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.
AUSTIN
* "The Human Tornado" (dir. Cliff Roquemore, 1976) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Before he was an "Avenging Disco Godfather", Blaxploitation champ Rudy Ray Moore was "The Human Tornado", doing it up Dolemite style in nonstop duels w/ rednecks and the mob!
* Girl in a Coma + Love Inks @ Frank / 407 Colorado, 9p/FREE. Regular LIST-readers know I am a smitten kitten when it comes to local mini-pop trio Love Inks. They do it right, w/o unnecessary gloss and gilding. Pair 'em w/ San Antonio grrrl-rock trio Girl in a Coma (and young singer-guitarist Nina Diaz's superlative vox) in my favorite swank downtown hotdogs-and-beer pub and THEN make it a free show = ATX perfection. This is a Transistor Six (local, analogue-based) taped show.
THURSDAY
NYC
* 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.
* 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.
* 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!
* "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.
AUSTIN
* "The Devil Inside" (dir. William Brent Bell, 2012) screening @ Regal Westgate / 4477 S. Lamar Blvd, 9:45p. What's harder-core than a demonic exorcist possessing a woman? Try FOUR of them…and thanks to her daughter and a film crew, the whole bit is caught on tape! That it was shot in old-school Christian Europe only heightens the chilling vibe.
TOKYO
* Metro-Ongen @ Aoyama Moonromantic / B1F 4-9-1 Minami-Aoyama (Tokyo Metro Ginza Line to Gaienmae Station), 6p/2000yen. Show up early for this indie-pop blowout, b/c while the artsy Tokyo new-wave renegades Metro-Ongen headline the night, there's still much awesomeness before they take the stage. Like sun-drenched trio Goomi and NJ-born singer-songwriter Kate Sikora.
FRIDAY
NYC
* 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.
* 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.
* "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.
* Michael Wang "Carbon Copies" @ Foxy Production / 623 W 27th St. This NY-based Conceptualist has a history of intriguing interventions, like speculative proposals for the World Economic Forum conference hall in Davos, Switzerland and a series for controlled-release of invasive species called…"Invasives". In his debut NY solo project, he crafts sculptural forms based off not only previously made artworks but also their respective carbon footprints during initial production.
* "Norwegian Wood" (dir. Tran Ahn Hung, 2011) @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). A cool YEAR after its Japan release comes this tentative, calming adaptation of Haruki Murakami's bestselling novel. And while I can't slather it with glowing praise like I'd hoped to, I did really dig it. I'm pleased to have seen it and encourage you to see it too. Kenichi "Cheekbones" Matsuyama is pretty perfect as the Murakami everyman, as is Rinko Kikuchi and Kiko Mizuhara as the simultaneously cute and quirky Murakami women. But this is a slow-burning, moody film, even quieter than the book, and if you're not prepared to gently immerse yourself within minutes of silence, of wind in the trees and strained gazes between lovers, you might just find it boring.
* 2012 NYC Winter Jazzfest @ multiple W. Village venues (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St, 6 to Bleecker etc), one-day pass $35 (FRI+SAT pass $45). My picks:
- Sullivan Hall / 214 Sullivan St, 7:45p. Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog is possibly the most emotive improv trio around today (he's joined by mighty bassman/electronics whiz Shahzad Ismaily and avant-drummer Ches Smith). They follow the NY Gypsy All-Stars and precede Big Sam's Funky Nation, led by N'awlins all-star trombonist "Big" Sam Williams.
- The Bitter End / 147 Bleecker St, 7:15p. Come early for honeyed chanteuse Lucy Woodward, stay late for Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber (anchored by bassist Jared Michael Nickerson and guitarist/frontman Greg "Ironman Tate") and drummer Jamire Williams' progressive ensemble ERIMAJ.
AUSTIN
* "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. Cold War-era crime thriller served chilled to perfection. Alfredson's first English-language feature is a magnetizing labyrinth, led by Gary Oldman as a natty, slow-burning British spy and his team of three-piece suit-clad, purportedly untrustworthy kin.
* "Escape From New York" (dir. John Carpenter 1981) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E 6th St, 11:30p. The date is 1997: NYC as a post-apocalyptic prison island! Donald Pleasance as the president! Isaac Hayes as a crazed gang leader runnin' thangs! Kurt "Snake" Russell as the eyepatch-wearing badass aiming to clean (stuff) up!
* Quiet Company @ Emo's East / 2015 E Riverside, 9p/FREE. Quiet Company, Austin's nattiest brass-toned indie-rock stalwarts, inaugurate 2012 w/ a block party-proportioned set. w/ My Education
TOKYO
* Eikoh Hosoe @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). The gallery stages a mind-blowing six-part retrospective of the iconic, experimental postwar Japanese photographer's oeuvre. "Kamaitachi", Hosoe's groundbreaking collaboration w/ ankoku button founder Tatsumi Hijikata, begins the experience, which will rotate through the decades approximately monthly (check back for updates and special events!).
SATURDAY
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.
* "The Wondrous Worlds of Dr. Höller" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave), 3p/$8. Ah, "Experience", Carsten Höller's debut (and necessarily site-specific) survey, panned overall by art critic types but adored by the art-going public — if those meandering queues for the damn "Untitled (Slide)" are any indication! On its penultimate weekend, listen in as a diverse and divergent panel (incl. NYTimes art critic Ken Johnson; Princeton asst. professor of architecture Spyridon Papapetros; and CUNY grad. professor of philosophy Jesse Prinz) talk out Höller's work and its relation to their own research. Then ride that slide one more time. Moderated by art historian Matthew Levy.
* 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.
* 2012 NYC Winter Jazzfest @ multiple W. Village venues (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St, 6 to Bleecker etc), one-day pass $35 (FRI+SAT pass $45). My picks:
- (le) poisson rouge / 158 Bleecker St, 6:45p. LPR is the usual epicenter of Winter Jazzfest and tonight is particularly hot. Two words: Cindy Blackman-Santana (three words?). The virtuoso drummer's ensemble Another Lifetime totally funks up LPR. Plus NYC hip-hop legend DJ Spinna mans the decks between sets! Oh, and a solo bass set by Bill Laswell. Yeah.
- Zinc Bar / 82 W 3rd St, 7:15p. The 2nd hottest lineup tonight includes Argentine vocalist Sofia Rei, Ayelet Rose Gottlieb w/ string quartet ETHEL and percussionist Satoshi Takeshi, culminating w/ NYC saxophonist Sharel Cassity and her quintet No Reservations. Hell yeah.
AUSTIN
* "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret" (dir. David Cross, 2011) marathon @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E 6th St, 9p. The acerbic and tremendously witty avant-everyman David Cross created, wrote and stars in this IFC TV show that I've never heard of, b/c I don't watch television except for "American Horror Story" on F/X, which I stream, but… Look: David Cross is in Austin, he's attending this marathon, six-episode show. The show itself is set in London and features Sharon Horgen and Spike Jonze, amid others. Sounds good to me!
* Cruiserweight + Dynamite Boy @ Emo's East / 2015 E Riverside, 7p/$15. Oh snap: CRUISERWEIGHT! I remember this ATX-area pop-punk quartet from back in the day ("This Will Undoubtably Come Out Wrong", circa '01). Apparently they and like-minded dudes Dynamite Boy are both disbanded, but hell, both bands reunite for this concert. Live the memories. w/ Riddlin' Kids (also, ah, disbanded)
TOKYO
* 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.
* "White Night" (dir. Park Shin-woo, 2009) @ Cinemart Roppongi / 3-8-15 Roppongi, Minato-ku. This decadent crime-mystery thriller, replete w/ decade-spanning murders and entangled relationships, is based off Keigo Higashino's Shueisha-published story "Byakuyako" from the late '70s (later compiled into a best-selling novel). Plus Son Ye-jin plays the lead (hello!).
SUNDAY
NYC
* "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.
AUSTIN
* "Road Warrior" (dir. George Miller, 1981) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:45p. AKA "Mad Max 2", and in my opinion superior to the original, w/ Mel Gibson in an actually redeeming role against mohawked, leathered-up bikers zipping across postapocalyptic Australian desert vistas. And badass as "Beyond Thunderdome" unquestionably is, it couldn't exist w/o "Road Warrior"! A triumph of '80s dystopian/punk cinema.
* Artificial Music Machine 10th Anniversary @ Salvage Vanguard Theatre / 2803 Manor Rd, 7:30p/$5. Church of the Friendly Ghost hosts this epic night of live drone, ambient, downtempo and psychedelic music from Texas' stalwart experimental label Artificial Music Machine. Feat. performances by R Lee Dockery, Thomas Fang, Carbon Theory, Malloc, Gift Culture, and Wonder Nexus, w/ live visuals by Katie Rose Pipkin and Paul "Dronetube" Baker.
MONDAY
AUSTIN
* "Control" (dir. Anton Corbijn, 2007) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10:35p. Corbijn's contrasty b&w biopic on Joy Division's tragic frontman Ian Curtis still gives me chills…and I had the pleasure of meeting Sam Riley! The whole vibe is encapsulated in the scene where he and band transition to their classic sound, to the tune of "She's Lost Control".
TOKYO
* CAUCUS + Shojo Skip @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station, South Exit), 5:30p/2500 yen. A night of primo dream-pop. I'm smitten w/ Tokyo darlings CAUCUS ever since I saw 'em at NYC Popfest 2011 (the sole Japanese band there, though they share members w/ Smilelove) and their prowess for catchy indie-pop spans both covering intriguing underground '90s acts (Rocketship) and their own unique arrangements. Plus Shojo Skip and the charmingly named sugardrop and 死んだ僕の彼女 (lit. "my dead girlfriend"!).
* SHOW-YA + Aldious @ Shibuya O-West / 2-3 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 5:30p/4000 yen. The "WOMEN'S POWER 20th Anniversary" showcase, feat. hostess club-garbed metalheads Aldious and classic '80s hard-rockers SHOW-YA, plus BABYMETAL and other ass-kicking grrrl groups.
TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" (dir. Joseph Zito, 1984) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10:45p. Yeah, so Jason Voorhees returned to the screen like less than two years later (ignoring the copycat killer/tanked sequel "A New Beginning"). But before that could happen, there was the potent "Final Chapter", the fourth film of one of the most successful, iconic slasher serials ever, the one that made skinny-dipping a no-no for a generation of teenagers! See it again, in glorious 35mm.
TOKYO
* "Exlibris of Lithograph" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). A multigenerational group show harnessing the graphic, narrative power of the lithograph. Feat. dreamlike compositions from Keiko Ajito, master printmaker and Kodansha Publishing Culture Award-winner Yosuke Inoue, sharp-toned and sensuous Aquirax Uno and the phantasmic Shuji Tateishi.
* KK Null + DJ Urine (France) @ Bar Isshee / 4F 33-13 Udagawacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 8p/donation charge. Tokyo noise-rock legend Kazuyuki Kishino, the axe slayer behind progressive hardcore trio Zeni Geva (plus collaborator w/ a who's-who of experimental talent, from Sonic Youth to Seiichi Yamamoto) leads this night of loud awesomeness. W/ French noise-loving avant-DJ Urine (he's teamed with Otto von Schirach and Saul Williams in the past), plus a duet b/w Seiichiro Morikawa (ex-ZOA) and Mitsuru Tabata!
CURRENT SHOWS
NYC
* Maurizio Cattelan "All" @ Guggenheim / 1071 Fifth Ave (456 to 86th St). Maybe you've heard of Maurizio Cattelan, that Italian artist-provocateur whose two decades'-plus oeuvre contains a superrealistic effigy of Pope John Paul II attacked by a meteor ("La Nona Ora"), a squirrel lying face-down at the kitchen table after an apparent bullet-administered suicide ("Bidibidobidiboo"), and a taxidermy racehorse hoisted in midair ("Novacento"). That last part's key, as in his supposed swan-song feat, he's hoisted about 130 of his nearly complete works up, suspending them like gaudy Pop-culture sausages within the iconic museum's iconic Rotunda, leaving some six floors of ramps totally bare. Does this detract from the experience, seeing Cattelan's mostly elusive (at least stateside), alarming works from more than an arm's span distance? I say NO: we see his entire output in concert, not just non-chronological but nonlinear, crashing, competing and (at times) quite intriguingly combining in 3D space. So while the site-specific version of JFK in funereal reverence, as "Now", doesn't apply here, seeing him from above contextualizes it in surreal reverie. Or approaching the sinister mini-Hitler "Him" from below only to then effectively supersede him one ramp higher. In sinister terms, his ironic entry to the Gugg's international show "theanyspacewhatever", Pinocchio floating facedown in the Rotunda fountain ("Daddy Daddy") recurs here hovering 10 feet ABOVE the fountain, in frozen free-fall. Taken as whole, it's one massive echo of the trickster's own multifaceted contribution to and dialogue with the art world and society.
* Carsten Höller "Experience" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave). You need to devote time to the Brussels-born Conceptualist (and former entomologist) and his two-decades' survey. Like I mean devote some serious hours queuing for that damn slide, aka "Untitled (Slide)", that crowning achievement first seen at the Tate as "Test Site" in 2007 that now winds itself three stories through the stacked white-box galleries of the New Museum. Because while you'll no doubt kill 1-2 hours, easy, waiting for your 10 seconds of breathtaking velocity down that damn slide, you're also riding on a slide in a museum. Think about that good and hard for a second. It's among the most obvious examples that this is not your regular survey show. You will truly experience Höller in attending "Experience", where wearing "Upside Down Goggles" have you trudging about zombie-like when the world flips upside down on you; or disrobing and floating within many gallons of super-salted, body-temperature water within "Giant Psycho Tank; or nondiscriminantly popping a "Pill Clock" capsule w/o considering what, if anything, it'll do to you. Stuff like the self-administering series of rooms w/in "Experience Corridor" are banal if somewhat amusing (I swear that "Love Drug" totally didn't work), and Höller's glassy mockups of super-high-rises (like a combo of children's laboratory sets and translucent Snakes & Ladders) don't hold attention w/in rooms of flashing lights and neon polyurethane animals. But, hell, the whole shebang is just part of the "Experience".
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
* 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.
* Asuka Ito "欲望という名のワタシー/My name is desire" @ Galerie Sho Contemporary / B1F 3-2-9 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku (Ginza/Tozai Lines to Nihonbashi Station). Awesome, awesome, awesome… I spent way too long here but I couldn't help myself. Ito magnifies notes of femininity and sexuality in her works by pairing photorealistic self-portraits (in soft-core poses: licking a sweet, tied up etc) against glittery large-scale blooms. She then covered the whole gallery floor with bright red rose petals, streaked one wall with watered-down acrylic drips and added a red bed and several paintings — like an offering — to the smaller gallery in the back. As intense as it is, Ito reappears in almost every canvas, staring out at us and daring us to return the gaze.
CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Joan Mitchell "The Last Paintings" @ Cheim & Read / 547 W 25th St. Much as the phenomenal, exhaustively comprehensive De Kooning retrospective at the MoMA is rightfully a must-see (doubly so considering the dearth of De Koonings at the MoMA's prior "Abstract Expressionist New York" exhibition), there's another crucial, much smaller exhibition by a member of the AbEx movement that deserves attention. In fact, Mitchell's initial entry into the older male-dominated movement came in '52, via inspiration and introduction to De Kooning. The gallery gathers 13 of Mitchell's late-work paintings (from 1985-92), some of the most attuned to atmosphere, light and her relationship to the environment. (ENDS WED)
AUSTIN
* Jasmyne Graybill "Home Sweet Home" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St. Ceramics ain't exactly the kind of art that generally gets my aesthetic juices flowing. But Graybill excels in pairing vintage china, decorative spoons and cut-glass platters — like you'd find in the back of your grandmother's servingware cabinet — with methodically applied dabs and patterns of colorful polymer clay. The result is period-piece objects afflicted with sculpted fungus, lichen, and mold, some of which incorporates quite well amid rosebud details or painted flowers, or elsewhere mimics silk in a site-specific wallpaper installation. Graybill keeps the new lot untitled, but a 2008 combo of actual muffin pan with cake batter-colored clay standing in for burned sweets is "Crested Buttercream Polyps", my favorite of the show. (ENDS THURS)
NYC
* Esther Kläs "Nobody Home" @ Peter Blum Chelsea / 526 W 29th St. The German artist focuses on the strength and independence of sculpture, i.e. their physicality and illusion of movement, in her debut at the gallery. That Kläs sticks to industrial elements like resin and concrete amid more traditional clay and plaster keeps the lots visceral.
* Howard Fonda @ Mixed Greens / 531 W 26th St. Fonda's been on a search for sincerity and truth in mark-making, and in his fifth solo exhibition at the gallery and this new array of vividly colorful abstract oil paintings, he just may have locked in on it. (ENDS SAT)
AUSTIN
* Mai Yamashita & Naota Kobayashi "Infinity" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. The Chiba-born, Berlin-based duo inscribe their own straightforward, ingenious take on endurance and Land art: jogging an infinity mark pattern in a field of grass. It's ritualistic, natural and — as the flattened grass grows in again — fleeting and temporary. (ENDS SUN)
NYC
* "De Kooning: A Retrospective" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St). Just taking this first major museum exhibition on prolific Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning by the numbers hints at the gravity and immensity behind it. Let's see: seven decades of work, spread over nearly 200 works from public and private collections and 17,000 square feet of gallery space (i.e. the entire 6th Fl, the first time MoMA's done this for a single artist since the new building). In sum, it's exhaustive and exhausting! I'm not a massive De Kooning fan (finding his well-timed doses at MoMA's "Abstract Expressionist NY" barnstormer excellent if sparse), but I have to give MoMA well-deserved props here, as this is precisely the kind of chronological, full-treatment retrospective they accomplish so well. There are necessary surprises throughout (unless you're a De Kooning scholar), like his very earliest still-life paintings from the '20s and his figures in interiors from the '30s into early '40s, already taking on a Francis Bacon-esque elasticity of form against geometry, along w/ an acidic color palette (check "Seated Woman", 1940, and "Woman Sitting", 1943-4). Though the one-two punch of "Pink Lady" and "Pink Angels" (1945) was my visual hook, as figures rippled into shards and organic blobs, immersing within fractured backdrops. "Untitled (Three Women)" (1948) was one oil and pastels drawing predating his famous "Women", and the linchpin b/w this and that series was the massive "Excavation", like a sea of Paul Klee-style spiky, twittering figures zooming about an enamel-thickened pale ground, over 8' in width. "Excavation" required an entire gallery wall, as the museum devoted another full one to his "Women", from the incredible first that graced "Abstract Expressionist NY" to the wildly abstracted sixth. His loose painterliness and massive brushstrokes decreased into luminous, liquid-like Montauk landscape and beach scenes in the '60s, then, after visits to Rome and Japan in the late '60s and 1970, gestural figurative works and even some bronze sculpture. And finally the brightly glazed, sparsely outfitted later and last works, seemingly eons away from "Pink Angels" but still very much in De Kooning's hands. (ENDS MON)
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.
AUSTIN
* "The Human Tornado" (dir. Cliff Roquemore, 1976) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Before he was an "Avenging Disco Godfather", Blaxploitation champ Rudy Ray Moore was "The Human Tornado", doing it up Dolemite style in nonstop duels w/ rednecks and the mob!
* Girl in a Coma + Love Inks @ Frank / 407 Colorado, 9p/FREE. Regular LIST-readers know I am a smitten kitten when it comes to local mini-pop trio Love Inks. They do it right, w/o unnecessary gloss and gilding. Pair 'em w/ San Antonio grrrl-rock trio Girl in a Coma (and young singer-guitarist Nina Diaz's superlative vox) in my favorite swank downtown hotdogs-and-beer pub and THEN make it a free show = ATX perfection. This is a Transistor Six (local, analogue-based) taped show.
THURSDAY
NYC
* 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.
* 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.
* 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!
* "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.
AUSTIN
* "The Devil Inside" (dir. William Brent Bell, 2012) screening @ Regal Westgate / 4477 S. Lamar Blvd, 9:45p. What's harder-core than a demonic exorcist possessing a woman? Try FOUR of them…and thanks to her daughter and a film crew, the whole bit is caught on tape! That it was shot in old-school Christian Europe only heightens the chilling vibe.
TOKYO
* Metro-Ongen @ Aoyama Moonromantic / B1F 4-9-1 Minami-Aoyama (Tokyo Metro Ginza Line to Gaienmae Station), 6p/2000yen. Show up early for this indie-pop blowout, b/c while the artsy Tokyo new-wave renegades Metro-Ongen headline the night, there's still much awesomeness before they take the stage. Like sun-drenched trio Goomi and NJ-born singer-songwriter Kate Sikora.
FRIDAY
NYC
* 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.
* 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.
* "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.
* Michael Wang "Carbon Copies" @ Foxy Production / 623 W 27th St. This NY-based Conceptualist has a history of intriguing interventions, like speculative proposals for the World Economic Forum conference hall in Davos, Switzerland and a series for controlled-release of invasive species called…"Invasives". In his debut NY solo project, he crafts sculptural forms based off not only previously made artworks but also their respective carbon footprints during initial production.
* "Norwegian Wood" (dir. Tran Ahn Hung, 2011) @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). A cool YEAR after its Japan release comes this tentative, calming adaptation of Haruki Murakami's bestselling novel. And while I can't slather it with glowing praise like I'd hoped to, I did really dig it. I'm pleased to have seen it and encourage you to see it too. Kenichi "Cheekbones" Matsuyama is pretty perfect as the Murakami everyman, as is Rinko Kikuchi and Kiko Mizuhara as the simultaneously cute and quirky Murakami women. But this is a slow-burning, moody film, even quieter than the book, and if you're not prepared to gently immerse yourself within minutes of silence, of wind in the trees and strained gazes between lovers, you might just find it boring.
* 2012 NYC Winter Jazzfest @ multiple W. Village venues (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St, 6 to Bleecker etc), one-day pass $35 (FRI+SAT pass $45). My picks:
- Sullivan Hall / 214 Sullivan St, 7:45p. Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog is possibly the most emotive improv trio around today (he's joined by mighty bassman/electronics whiz Shahzad Ismaily and avant-drummer Ches Smith). They follow the NY Gypsy All-Stars and precede Big Sam's Funky Nation, led by N'awlins all-star trombonist "Big" Sam Williams.
- The Bitter End / 147 Bleecker St, 7:15p. Come early for honeyed chanteuse Lucy Woodward, stay late for Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber (anchored by bassist Jared Michael Nickerson and guitarist/frontman Greg "Ironman Tate") and drummer Jamire Williams' progressive ensemble ERIMAJ.
AUSTIN
* "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. Cold War-era crime thriller served chilled to perfection. Alfredson's first English-language feature is a magnetizing labyrinth, led by Gary Oldman as a natty, slow-burning British spy and his team of three-piece suit-clad, purportedly untrustworthy kin.
* "Escape From New York" (dir. John Carpenter 1981) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E 6th St, 11:30p. The date is 1997: NYC as a post-apocalyptic prison island! Donald Pleasance as the president! Isaac Hayes as a crazed gang leader runnin' thangs! Kurt "Snake" Russell as the eyepatch-wearing badass aiming to clean (stuff) up!
* Quiet Company @ Emo's East / 2015 E Riverside, 9p/FREE. Quiet Company, Austin's nattiest brass-toned indie-rock stalwarts, inaugurate 2012 w/ a block party-proportioned set. w/ My Education
TOKYO
* Eikoh Hosoe @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). The gallery stages a mind-blowing six-part retrospective of the iconic, experimental postwar Japanese photographer's oeuvre. "Kamaitachi", Hosoe's groundbreaking collaboration w/ ankoku button founder Tatsumi Hijikata, begins the experience, which will rotate through the decades approximately monthly (check back for updates and special events!).
SATURDAY
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.
* "The Wondrous Worlds of Dr. Höller" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave), 3p/$8. Ah, "Experience", Carsten Höller's debut (and necessarily site-specific) survey, panned overall by art critic types but adored by the art-going public — if those meandering queues for the damn "Untitled (Slide)" are any indication! On its penultimate weekend, listen in as a diverse and divergent panel (incl. NYTimes art critic Ken Johnson; Princeton asst. professor of architecture Spyridon Papapetros; and CUNY grad. professor of philosophy Jesse Prinz) talk out Höller's work and its relation to their own research. Then ride that slide one more time. Moderated by art historian Matthew Levy.
* 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.
* 2012 NYC Winter Jazzfest @ multiple W. Village venues (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St, 6 to Bleecker etc), one-day pass $35 (FRI+SAT pass $45). My picks:
- (le) poisson rouge / 158 Bleecker St, 6:45p. LPR is the usual epicenter of Winter Jazzfest and tonight is particularly hot. Two words: Cindy Blackman-Santana (three words?). The virtuoso drummer's ensemble Another Lifetime totally funks up LPR. Plus NYC hip-hop legend DJ Spinna mans the decks between sets! Oh, and a solo bass set by Bill Laswell. Yeah.
- Zinc Bar / 82 W 3rd St, 7:15p. The 2nd hottest lineup tonight includes Argentine vocalist Sofia Rei, Ayelet Rose Gottlieb w/ string quartet ETHEL and percussionist Satoshi Takeshi, culminating w/ NYC saxophonist Sharel Cassity and her quintet No Reservations. Hell yeah.
AUSTIN
* "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret" (dir. David Cross, 2011) marathon @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E 6th St, 9p. The acerbic and tremendously witty avant-everyman David Cross created, wrote and stars in this IFC TV show that I've never heard of, b/c I don't watch television except for "American Horror Story" on F/X, which I stream, but… Look: David Cross is in Austin, he's attending this marathon, six-episode show. The show itself is set in London and features Sharon Horgen and Spike Jonze, amid others. Sounds good to me!
* Cruiserweight + Dynamite Boy @ Emo's East / 2015 E Riverside, 7p/$15. Oh snap: CRUISERWEIGHT! I remember this ATX-area pop-punk quartet from back in the day ("This Will Undoubtably Come Out Wrong", circa '01). Apparently they and like-minded dudes Dynamite Boy are both disbanded, but hell, both bands reunite for this concert. Live the memories. w/ Riddlin' Kids (also, ah, disbanded)
TOKYO
* 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.
* "White Night" (dir. Park Shin-woo, 2009) @ Cinemart Roppongi / 3-8-15 Roppongi, Minato-ku. This decadent crime-mystery thriller, replete w/ decade-spanning murders and entangled relationships, is based off Keigo Higashino's Shueisha-published story "Byakuyako" from the late '70s (later compiled into a best-selling novel). Plus Son Ye-jin plays the lead (hello!).
SUNDAY
NYC
* "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.
AUSTIN
* "Road Warrior" (dir. George Miller, 1981) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:45p. AKA "Mad Max 2", and in my opinion superior to the original, w/ Mel Gibson in an actually redeeming role against mohawked, leathered-up bikers zipping across postapocalyptic Australian desert vistas. And badass as "Beyond Thunderdome" unquestionably is, it couldn't exist w/o "Road Warrior"! A triumph of '80s dystopian/punk cinema.
* Artificial Music Machine 10th Anniversary @ Salvage Vanguard Theatre / 2803 Manor Rd, 7:30p/$5. Church of the Friendly Ghost hosts this epic night of live drone, ambient, downtempo and psychedelic music from Texas' stalwart experimental label Artificial Music Machine. Feat. performances by R Lee Dockery, Thomas Fang, Carbon Theory, Malloc, Gift Culture, and Wonder Nexus, w/ live visuals by Katie Rose Pipkin and Paul "Dronetube" Baker.
MONDAY
AUSTIN
* "Control" (dir. Anton Corbijn, 2007) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10:35p. Corbijn's contrasty b&w biopic on Joy Division's tragic frontman Ian Curtis still gives me chills…and I had the pleasure of meeting Sam Riley! The whole vibe is encapsulated in the scene where he and band transition to their classic sound, to the tune of "She's Lost Control".
TOKYO
* CAUCUS + Shojo Skip @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station, South Exit), 5:30p/2500 yen. A night of primo dream-pop. I'm smitten w/ Tokyo darlings CAUCUS ever since I saw 'em at NYC Popfest 2011 (the sole Japanese band there, though they share members w/ Smilelove) and their prowess for catchy indie-pop spans both covering intriguing underground '90s acts (Rocketship) and their own unique arrangements. Plus Shojo Skip and the charmingly named sugardrop and 死んだ僕の彼女 (lit. "my dead girlfriend"!).
* SHOW-YA + Aldious @ Shibuya O-West / 2-3 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 5:30p/4000 yen. The "WOMEN'S POWER 20th Anniversary" showcase, feat. hostess club-garbed metalheads Aldious and classic '80s hard-rockers SHOW-YA, plus BABYMETAL and other ass-kicking grrrl groups.
TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" (dir. Joseph Zito, 1984) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10:45p. Yeah, so Jason Voorhees returned to the screen like less than two years later (ignoring the copycat killer/tanked sequel "A New Beginning"). But before that could happen, there was the potent "Final Chapter", the fourth film of one of the most successful, iconic slasher serials ever, the one that made skinny-dipping a no-no for a generation of teenagers! See it again, in glorious 35mm.
TOKYO
* "Exlibris of Lithograph" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). A multigenerational group show harnessing the graphic, narrative power of the lithograph. Feat. dreamlike compositions from Keiko Ajito, master printmaker and Kodansha Publishing Culture Award-winner Yosuke Inoue, sharp-toned and sensuous Aquirax Uno and the phantasmic Shuji Tateishi.
* KK Null + DJ Urine (France) @ Bar Isshee / 4F 33-13 Udagawacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 8p/donation charge. Tokyo noise-rock legend Kazuyuki Kishino, the axe slayer behind progressive hardcore trio Zeni Geva (plus collaborator w/ a who's-who of experimental talent, from Sonic Youth to Seiichi Yamamoto) leads this night of loud awesomeness. W/ French noise-loving avant-DJ Urine (he's teamed with Otto von Schirach and Saul Williams in the past), plus a duet b/w Seiichiro Morikawa (ex-ZOA) and Mitsuru Tabata!
CURRENT SHOWS
NYC
* Maurizio Cattelan "All" @ Guggenheim / 1071 Fifth Ave (456 to 86th St). Maybe you've heard of Maurizio Cattelan, that Italian artist-provocateur whose two decades'-plus oeuvre contains a superrealistic effigy of Pope John Paul II attacked by a meteor ("La Nona Ora"), a squirrel lying face-down at the kitchen table after an apparent bullet-administered suicide ("Bidibidobidiboo"), and a taxidermy racehorse hoisted in midair ("Novacento"). That last part's key, as in his supposed swan-song feat, he's hoisted about 130 of his nearly complete works up, suspending them like gaudy Pop-culture sausages within the iconic museum's iconic Rotunda, leaving some six floors of ramps totally bare. Does this detract from the experience, seeing Cattelan's mostly elusive (at least stateside), alarming works from more than an arm's span distance? I say NO: we see his entire output in concert, not just non-chronological but nonlinear, crashing, competing and (at times) quite intriguingly combining in 3D space. So while the site-specific version of JFK in funereal reverence, as "Now", doesn't apply here, seeing him from above contextualizes it in surreal reverie. Or approaching the sinister mini-Hitler "Him" from below only to then effectively supersede him one ramp higher. In sinister terms, his ironic entry to the Gugg's international show "theanyspacewhatever", Pinocchio floating facedown in the Rotunda fountain ("Daddy Daddy") recurs here hovering 10 feet ABOVE the fountain, in frozen free-fall. Taken as whole, it's one massive echo of the trickster's own multifaceted contribution to and dialogue with the art world and society.
* Carsten Höller "Experience" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave). You need to devote time to the Brussels-born Conceptualist (and former entomologist) and his two-decades' survey. Like I mean devote some serious hours queuing for that damn slide, aka "Untitled (Slide)", that crowning achievement first seen at the Tate as "Test Site" in 2007 that now winds itself three stories through the stacked white-box galleries of the New Museum. Because while you'll no doubt kill 1-2 hours, easy, waiting for your 10 seconds of breathtaking velocity down that damn slide, you're also riding on a slide in a museum. Think about that good and hard for a second. It's among the most obvious examples that this is not your regular survey show. You will truly experience Höller in attending "Experience", where wearing "Upside Down Goggles" have you trudging about zombie-like when the world flips upside down on you; or disrobing and floating within many gallons of super-salted, body-temperature water within "Giant Psycho Tank; or nondiscriminantly popping a "Pill Clock" capsule w/o considering what, if anything, it'll do to you. Stuff like the self-administering series of rooms w/in "Experience Corridor" are banal if somewhat amusing (I swear that "Love Drug" totally didn't work), and Höller's glassy mockups of super-high-rises (like a combo of children's laboratory sets and translucent Snakes & Ladders) don't hold attention w/in rooms of flashing lights and neon polyurethane animals. But, hell, the whole shebang is just part of the "Experience".
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
* 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.
* Asuka Ito "欲望という名のワタシー/My name is desire" @ Galerie Sho Contemporary / B1F 3-2-9 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku (Ginza/Tozai Lines to Nihonbashi Station). Awesome, awesome, awesome… I spent way too long here but I couldn't help myself. Ito magnifies notes of femininity and sexuality in her works by pairing photorealistic self-portraits (in soft-core poses: licking a sweet, tied up etc) against glittery large-scale blooms. She then covered the whole gallery floor with bright red rose petals, streaked one wall with watered-down acrylic drips and added a red bed and several paintings — like an offering — to the smaller gallery in the back. As intense as it is, Ito reappears in almost every canvas, staring out at us and daring us to return the gaze.
CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Joan Mitchell "The Last Paintings" @ Cheim & Read / 547 W 25th St. Much as the phenomenal, exhaustively comprehensive De Kooning retrospective at the MoMA is rightfully a must-see (doubly so considering the dearth of De Koonings at the MoMA's prior "Abstract Expressionist New York" exhibition), there's another crucial, much smaller exhibition by a member of the AbEx movement that deserves attention. In fact, Mitchell's initial entry into the older male-dominated movement came in '52, via inspiration and introduction to De Kooning. The gallery gathers 13 of Mitchell's late-work paintings (from 1985-92), some of the most attuned to atmosphere, light and her relationship to the environment. (ENDS WED)
AUSTIN
* Jasmyne Graybill "Home Sweet Home" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St. Ceramics ain't exactly the kind of art that generally gets my aesthetic juices flowing. But Graybill excels in pairing vintage china, decorative spoons and cut-glass platters — like you'd find in the back of your grandmother's servingware cabinet — with methodically applied dabs and patterns of colorful polymer clay. The result is period-piece objects afflicted with sculpted fungus, lichen, and mold, some of which incorporates quite well amid rosebud details or painted flowers, or elsewhere mimics silk in a site-specific wallpaper installation. Graybill keeps the new lot untitled, but a 2008 combo of actual muffin pan with cake batter-colored clay standing in for burned sweets is "Crested Buttercream Polyps", my favorite of the show. (ENDS THURS)
NYC
* Esther Kläs "Nobody Home" @ Peter Blum Chelsea / 526 W 29th St. The German artist focuses on the strength and independence of sculpture, i.e. their physicality and illusion of movement, in her debut at the gallery. That Kläs sticks to industrial elements like resin and concrete amid more traditional clay and plaster keeps the lots visceral.
* Howard Fonda @ Mixed Greens / 531 W 26th St. Fonda's been on a search for sincerity and truth in mark-making, and in his fifth solo exhibition at the gallery and this new array of vividly colorful abstract oil paintings, he just may have locked in on it. (ENDS SAT)
AUSTIN
* Mai Yamashita & Naota Kobayashi "Infinity" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. The Chiba-born, Berlin-based duo inscribe their own straightforward, ingenious take on endurance and Land art: jogging an infinity mark pattern in a field of grass. It's ritualistic, natural and — as the flattened grass grows in again — fleeting and temporary. (ENDS SUN)
NYC
* "De Kooning: A Retrospective" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St). Just taking this first major museum exhibition on prolific Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning by the numbers hints at the gravity and immensity behind it. Let's see: seven decades of work, spread over nearly 200 works from public and private collections and 17,000 square feet of gallery space (i.e. the entire 6th Fl, the first time MoMA's done this for a single artist since the new building). In sum, it's exhaustive and exhausting! I'm not a massive De Kooning fan (finding his well-timed doses at MoMA's "Abstract Expressionist NY" barnstormer excellent if sparse), but I have to give MoMA well-deserved props here, as this is precisely the kind of chronological, full-treatment retrospective they accomplish so well. There are necessary surprises throughout (unless you're a De Kooning scholar), like his very earliest still-life paintings from the '20s and his figures in interiors from the '30s into early '40s, already taking on a Francis Bacon-esque elasticity of form against geometry, along w/ an acidic color palette (check "Seated Woman", 1940, and "Woman Sitting", 1943-4). Though the one-two punch of "Pink Lady" and "Pink Angels" (1945) was my visual hook, as figures rippled into shards and organic blobs, immersing within fractured backdrops. "Untitled (Three Women)" (1948) was one oil and pastels drawing predating his famous "Women", and the linchpin b/w this and that series was the massive "Excavation", like a sea of Paul Klee-style spiky, twittering figures zooming about an enamel-thickened pale ground, over 8' in width. "Excavation" required an entire gallery wall, as the museum devoted another full one to his "Women", from the incredible first that graced "Abstract Expressionist NY" to the wildly abstracted sixth. His loose painterliness and massive brushstrokes decreased into luminous, liquid-like Montauk landscape and beach scenes in the '60s, then, after visits to Rome and Japan in the late '60s and 1970, gestural figurative works and even some bronze sculpture. And finally the brightly glazed, sparsely outfitted later and last works, seemingly eons away from "Pink Angels" but still very much in De Kooning's hands. (ENDS MON)
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