fee's LIST / through 9/4

WEDNESDAY

AUSTIN

* Lightning Bolt (Providence) @ Emo's / 2015 E Riverside Dr, 8p/$15. The guerilla-rock Brians—Chippendale mauling the shit outta the kit, Gibson pummeling the bass—will decimate the newer, larger Emo's. Prepare to sweat.

TOKYO

* Satoru Aoyama "The Man-Machine (Reprise)" @ Mizuma Art Gallery / 2F 3-13 Ichigayatamachi, Shinjuku-ku (Yurakucho/Nanboku Lines to Ichigaya Station). Aoyama continues his investigation of man and machine's relationship, and that of labor, with a new series of embroidered newsprints on polyester that reference politics and societal concerns. 

THURSDAY

NYC

* Xiu Xiu + Talk Normal @ Bowery Ballroom / 6 Delancey St (F/JMZ to Essex/Delancey), 9p/$15. Xiu Xiu's combo of self-lacerating lullabies and blistering art-rock production continue to compel to this day, as kindreds Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo walk the feel bad/feel good line. Brooklyn neo No Wavers Talk Normal commence the heavy percussion and skronky guitars.

TOKYO

* Kazuhiro Ito "bridge" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote to Harajuku Station, Tokyo Metro Chiyoda/Ginza/Hanzomon Lines to Omotesando Station). The Fukuoka-born artist continues to redefine the possibilities of bronze sculpture, from blobs and twisting spears to meteoric figurative works. I am particularly stoked about his centerpiece "Starman Loves You" and its "Earthbound"-referencing properties.

* Group Show @ Gallery Koyanagi / 1-7-5 Ginza, Chuo-ku (Tokyo Metro Ginza/Marunouchi/Hibiya Lines to Ginza Station). Risaku Suzuki (exhilarating photography), Ataru Sato (his graphite compositions made a splash at the 2010 Gwangju Biennale), Makoto Ofune (spatial-disruption), and Kimitake Sato (twisted traditionalism) form the gallery's end-of-summer group show.

FRIDAY

NYC

* "Fargo" (dirs. Joel & Ethan Coen, 1996) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). A jag of blood shed across a snowy field. Two thugs swing near the Twin Cities, Steve Buscemi (basically playing an overly caffeinated version of himself) and the sociopathic Peter Stormare. They're meeting the tragic figure of William H. Macy, a bottled-up storm of politeness with dark intentions. Finally, there's Frances McDormand, the "Minnesota Nice"-speaking Sherlock Holmes and linchpin to this creative crime film. ALSO SAT-SUN

* Zambri + The Suzan @ Mercury Lounge / 217 E Houston St (F to 2nd Ave), 7:30p/$10. Sisters Zambri are big on image, but it doesn't overshadow their potent mix of '80s electronic and noise-pop. Couple that with their fashion sense, and they paint a strong stage presence. w/ Brooklyn-via-Tokyo tropic-pop darlings The Suzan.

AUSTIN

* Brooke Bamford "Endless Bummer" @ Forus Gallery / 1502 W 34th St #A. Local art-lovers have seen this young Studio Art major's style already: Bamford co-designed the VAC's Center Space Project's identity. Now she leads us through the last embers of summer with an exhibition of her vivid print media.

* "Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai" (dir. Takashi Miike, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S Lamar. Finally! Miike's grandiose re-imagining of '62 classic "Harakiri" hits the Drafthouse, in glorious 3D.

* "Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade" (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1989) @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. The Holy Grail, the desiccated Donovan, Dad and son Jones (Sean Connery and ol' Harrison, respectively), in glorious 70mm Alamoscope! With special screenings through next WED.

* "Memento" (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2000) midnight screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. While the commercial geek world usurped Nolan for the Dark Knight Trilogy, before he did all that he directed a chilling, labyrinthine thriller on compromised memories and self-deception called "Memento". I caught its Austin premiere and still remember the heated, enlightening conversations it inspired. ALSO SAT

SATURDAY

NYC

* James Rosenquist "Multiverse You Are, I Am" @ Acquavella Gallery / 18 E 79th St. I remain a huge fan of this consummate American Pop master, despite his sorta funny exhibition of moving canvases from 2010. This one restores his singular vision, speeding ever forward into the cosmos, yet fully embedded with memories of the American experience. 

* Erik Parker "Bye Bye Babylon" @ Paul Kasmin Gallery / 293 10th Ave. Henri Rousseau on acid doesn't even begin to encapsulate the experience of seeing Parker's large psychedelic jungle landscapes up close. The Brooklyn-based artist celebrates his related monograph with a signing at the gallery shop around the corner, beginning at 6p.

* "Zombie Doom" (dir. Andreas Schnaas, 1999) midnight screening @ Spectacle / 124 S 3rd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), $5. AKA "Violent Shit III: Infantry of Doom". That's about all I need to write about this German gore god Schnaas and his metal-masked avatar Karl Jr (not Carl's Junior), son of cyborg zombie Karl the Butcher, who lord over an island of ultraviolent mercenaries. Once two vengeful ninja brothers dare trespass, the only answer is a splatteriffic brawl for the ages. Violent!

TOKYO

* Ryan McGinley "Reach Out, I'm Right Here" @ Tomio Koyama Gallery / 7F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station). The young rockstar-ish artist presents perhaps the pinnacle of his oeuvre: color photographs chronicling summer road trips he took with nude models across the grand ol' US of A.

* Yuichi Hirako "The Green Pieces" @ Gallery MOMO Ryogoku / 1F 1-7-15 Kamezawa, Sumida-ku (Toei Oedo/JR Sobu Line to Ryogoku Station). Hirako's marriage of greenery sculpture with floral, figurative paintings appeared earlier this year at Copenhagen's Galleri Christoffer Egelund. Now the Okayama-born artist conjures some of that magic in Tokyo.

* Yoshihiro Kikuchi "Nullized Layers Inside the Institutional Coverups 1" @ Aisho Miura Arts / B1F 2-17-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station). Don't paint Kikuchi into a corner. The young Tokyo-based painter and printmaker is equally adept at creating visceral collage and highly technical inkjet abstractions.

* "Autumn Place" @ Nanzuka Underground / B1F 2-17-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station). Five artists with strong image-making properties constitute this group show, feat. Kohei Akiba, Hiroki Tsukuda, Julia Chiang (Brooklyn), Johannes Weiss (Berlin), and Klaus Scheckenbach (Switzerland).

* "Blindsight" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). Yasushi Kurabayashi curated this perceptive group exhibition, feat. contributions from Kei Imazu, Toru Kuwakubo, Tadasuke Go, Junji Sakai, Midori Sato, Minoru Nomata, Aki Yamamoto, and Heechang Yoon, with a special project by Yasuko Iba.

* Hiroshige Fukuhara @ Ai Kowada Gallery / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Fukuhara introduces new silkscreens featuring silver leaf embossing alongside pencil and gesso compositions on panel, all featuring hyperrealized wildlife.

* Yusuke Tsuchiya "gilding" @ Kido Press, Inc / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Very weird-ass figurative sculpture, created with terra-cotta and painted paper, from the young Chiba-born artist.

MONDAY

TOKYO

* Toru Nogawa "Sanctuary of Darkness" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). Sumptuous oils of Gothic Lolitas and sorta domino types? Sign me up!

TUESDAY

AUSTIN

* Emily + Andy's Film Club @ Visual Arts Center Courtyard / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity, 6:30p. Ahead of Emily Roysdon's multimedia survey in the VAC's Vaulted Gallery (opening Sept 21, tune back in!) comes this first iteration of her co-curated film series with art historian Andy Campbell, kicking off with two films of rock 'n roll and queer culture by G.B. Jones: "The Troublemakers" (1990) and "The Yo-Yo Gang" (1992).

* "Pieces" (dir. Juan Piquer Simón, 1982) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10:30p. THIS epitomizes '80s cult slasher classics, baby, a psycho stalking college coeds with an oversized chainsaw! If the locker room chase doesn't give you nightmares, the batshit shocker of an ending totally will! BAAASSSTAAARRRD!

TOKYO

* Koji Enokura @ Taka Ishii Gallery / 5F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Two decades of Enokura's "Documentation" prints, photographs echoing respective exhibitions throughout Japan and abroad, plus additional photographic materials from the mid-'60s through '80s. Enokura's documentation also appears at "RAUM 2012 Revision with Photographs SPACE TOTSUKA 70", at Shigeru Yokota Gallery.

* MERZBOW + Guitar Wolf @ WWW / 13-17 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6:30p/3000 yen. Aural ferocity, via Nagoya jet-rockers Guitar Wolf and noise god himself MERZBOW! Decibel levels be damned! w/ VJ Rokapenis (ahem)

fee's LIST / Fall 2012 Preview

fee's LIST / through 8/14

WEDNESDAY

AUSTIN

* "Possession" (dir. Andrzej Żuławski, 1981) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Rejoice, for this deeply disturbing (and blood-drenched) divorce drama, which won lead Isabelle Adjani the Palme d'Or, sees the light of day once again! The disintegration of a marriage is at the heart of this psychological horror film, which somehow balances political undertones, splatter SFX, and superb cinematography in one unclassifiable, unforgettable cinematic package. LIST-recommended! 

THURSDAY

TOKYO

* Electric Eel Shock @ 20000 Den-atsu / B1 1-7-23 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line to Higashi-Koenji Station, Exit 2), 6:30p/2300 yen. Punk is bunk, in a tongue and cheek way, to these rip-roaring metalheads. If Motörhead were Japanese and Lemmy a mop-topped guitarist, they might look and sound a bit like Electric Eel Shock. w/ Mangadoron

FRIDAY

NYC

* "Eraserhead" (dir. David Lynch, 1977) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). The sodden industrial landscape, the contrasty shadows and flagellate-like figures, the hiss of a radiator (and the woman living inside it). Very little compares to cult surrealist film like Lynch's nonpareil debut. ALSO SAT

* Little Dragon (Sweden) + Frankie Rose @ Prospect Park Bandshell / Prospect Park West & 9th St (F/G to 7th Ave), 7:30p/FREE. Celebrate Brooklyn continues with local indie mainstay Frankie Rose, mesmerizing the crowd w/ her '60's-channeling gossamer charms. Then the stage opens up for songbird Yukimi Nagano and synth-pop absolutes Little Dragon, cuing an otherworldly dance party. Show up early, kids. w/ Voices of Black

AUSTIN

* "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" (dir. Alison Klayman, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. The auspicious timing behind this documentary on one of contemporary art's finest activists is just too great: Klayman met Ai back in '08 and created a short film for his photography exhibition…then came Ai's beating by Chinese police and eventual detention, which captivated and alarmed the global community. A gripping portrait of a relentless figure, never stifled by threats nor repression.

* "Carrie" (dir. Brian De Palma, 1976) midnight screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. I am beyond stoked about the remake adaptation to Stephen King's debut published novel…which is extremely rare for me and probably has a lot to do w/ Chloe Grace Moretz as the titular figure. But decades before her came awkward Sissy Spacek, in a heart-wrenching role as the glasslike, abused high-school girl with ferocious telekinetic powers. "Carrie" has lost little to none of its original bracing cinematic power. See it on the big screen! ALSO SAT

TOKYO

* PLASTIC GIRL IN CLOSET @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station), 7p/2500 yen. My favorite Iwate-area dream-popstars PGIC are just bursting with twee joy, tempered by waves and waves of snarling guitar feedback — these kids are LOUD live! They're joined by 7eyes40days, who celebrate their "Blind City/Closed Mind" EP release!

SATURDAY

NYC

* Warm Up 2012: Photek (UK) @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to 23rd St/Ely Ave), noon/$15. Rupert Parkes' seminal '97 LP "Modus Operandi" changed my appreciation for d'n'b—as Photek, his razor-sharp drum edits and spare, sinister soundscapes added a whole new zenith of (not totally) dancefloor-friendly drama. In his later years and increasingly progressive sound…I've fallen off. But I hear he's working on a 2K12 take on "MO", and he's still undeniably among the best beatmasters around. w/ Morgan Geist and Shlohmo (LA) (FREE for members)

AUSTIN

* Aesop Rock (San Fran) + Rob Sonic (NYC) @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 8p/$20. Ace-rizzle is among my favorite lyricists, and though he moved to Cali he still lives, breathes, and speaks NYC. He answered commercial success from the "Daylight" EP with the impenetrable, thematic "Bazooka Tooth", and now the recent, superlative "Skelethon". Rob Sonic's got the rhyme chops to hold his own with Aesop's sinuous prose. Going to be a hot night for 'heads everywhere.

* Juicy J (Memphis) @ Beauty Ballroom / 2015 E Riverside Dr, 9p/$25. So much hip-hop in the city tonight! If cerebrum-shattering soliloquies isn't your jam, Three-6 Mafia frontman Juicy J is the thing. He's still among the crunkest out there. w/ Chevy Woods and Smoke DZA

TOKYO

* "Sleep Tight" (dir. Jaume Balaguero, 2011) @ Theatre N Shibuya / 2F 24-2 Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, West Exit). A lowly, brawny concierge of a hoity-toity condo takes a severely demented liking in a sunny-dispositioned, young resident. As in, hiding under her bed, drugging her all clandestine-like, and just wait 'til her boyfriend returns…or a neighbor finds out! One of the creepier entries at 2011's Fantastic Fest.

SUNDAY

AUSTIN

* Janice Lee & Anna Joy Springer @ Tiny Park / 1101 Navasota St, 6p. The "Daughter & VRRL" book tour—featuring writer/curator Lee's "Daughter" and Springer's memoir "The Vicious Red Relic, Love"—touches down in ATX. The writers read queer literature, weird science, and other assuredly mind-expanding texts. 

TOKYO

* 住所不定無職 @ Shinjuku LOFT / 1-12-0 Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, Kabukicho Exit), 5p/3000 yen. Killer tune explosions! The candy color-coded cuties behind 住所不定無職 (lit. "no job nor fixed address") rock the house with their potent combo of vintage sway and garage rasp. w/ THE NEATBEATS

MONDAY

NYC

* "Drive" (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St), 8p. Call me the biggest holdout to "Drive" mania—possibly b/c I don't get the fervor for Ryan Gosling. But whatever, I saw it, and I really dug it. Take raw '80s glam and neon-lit LA with a kickass soundtrack and a decent Gosling role, as a former getaway driver trying to make good, and you've got a pretty solid picture

TUESDAY

AUSTIN

* "Alligator" (dir. Lewis Teague, 1980) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Imagine you're a kid in industrial-town Texas, and you see a creature-feature starring a huge-ass (animatronic, but whatever, you're young!), human-devouring alligator in the sewers. You now believe all NYC sewers contain such reptiles! Yes, I realize this schlock-tastic film is set in Chicago, but as a kid all big cities look the same. Anyway, it was scary enough that I haven't seen it since.

CLOSING SOON

NYC

* "The Nature of Disappearance", curated by Dr. Dieter Buchhart @ Marianne Boesky Gallery / 509 W 24th St. The gallery produced a stunning advert for this group exhibition, an image of participating artist Mathias Kessler's wonderful aquarium diorama "Nowhere to Be Found", feat. a human skull slowly consumed by a flourishing coral ecosystem. In a subtle gesture, he reclaimed the ubiquitous art-world symbol—the skull—from post-Warholian emo-trendiness and Damien Hirst glitz. That alone receives my highest praise to see this unmissable exhibition. But beyond this, all the artists here are interested in the material integrity of their works and the possibilities of total loss from their respective experimentation and transgressive practices. Feat. Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys, Robert Smithson, Bas Jan Ader, Dieter Roth, Gustav Metzger, Félix Gonzalez-Torres, and Kessler.

* "Painting is History" @ Winkleman Gallery / 621 W 27th St. O RLY? I ask myself at this cheeky titling. Edward Winkleman himself, along w/ Jay Grimm, curated this intriguing group show, feat. six artists who use traditional painterly techniques in representing historical events. Don't expect to be bored, though, considering Charles Browning's raw imagery and Valerie Hegarty's cheeky alterations.

* "Size Matters" @ DODGEgallery / 15 Rivington St. Artists comfortable w/ shifting scales within their respective practices. Some of this sounds tongue-in-cheek, like Rebecca Chamberlain presenting simultaneously her largest work (a 5ft-tall diptych) and smallest (a 12-inch double-sided plinth), but her adaptability within architecture and that of her peers Ted Gahl, Cassie Ralhl, Matt Rich, and Michael Zelehoski, sounds dope to me. (ENDS FRI)

AUSTIN

* "Manscape: Male as Subject and Object", curated by Christopher Eamon @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces. There is a disclaimer on the gallery door noting that this group show "may not be suitable to all viewers". Sounds like my kind of show! But seriously, Eamon pulls off a thoughtful dissection of traditional male imagery and hierarchy in art via three young and compelling female artists (Mariah Robertson, Michele Abeles, and Adina Popescu) and tempered by a less-known male some 25 years their senior (John Massey). Photography is the focal point here: Robertson's two-pronged visual assertion of lone phalluses infringing onto optical illusion backdrops and Abeles' stealthy still-lifes (in one, she makes a compelling critical portrait of blue-drenched objectifier Yves Klein). Popescu gives her male subject a face (in her video "Jeremiah", screened earlier this year in "Blind Cut" at Marlborough Chelsea in NYC), but his voice is really her own words, a dialogue on consumption. Massey is not simply counterbalance here as the sole male artist and older figure. I wonder what the exhibition would be like without him. His contribution, a sensitive gaze into his own head and thoughts via his "Studio Projections" photographs (involving a maquette of Massey's studio and projections of images rephotographed from newspapers in the '70s), gives a vulnerability to this male artist via the admitted failures of depicted male-headed modernist activities. Back to the women: are they striving for the same sort of utopian goals in their respective truncations and takedowns of male imagery? I think when you take these works into the greater contexts of their respective oeuvres—like Robertson's darkroom experimentation and Abeles' continually groundbreaking compositional techniques—then the answer is not so clear. At the very least, I do not see these artists' progresses "destined for failure" like Massey's mining of decades' old modernism. 

TOKYO

* Hiroko Okada "No Dress Code" @ Mizuma Art Gallery / 2F 3-13 Ichigayatamachi, Shinjuku-ku (Yurakucho/Nanboku Lines to Ichigaya Station). Okada reinterprets the "human-painting relationship" via photorealistic renderings of…underwear! Expect a multimedia installation related to her continued pointed takedowns of hypercommodified society. (ENDS SAT)

TOKYO

* Michiko Sago + Shoko Matsumiya "Harmony" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). The gallery creates a dialogue b/w two young artisans: Matsumiya's brilliant, organic glassworks and Sago's contemporary ceramic forms. (ENDS SUN)

fee's LIST / through 8/7

WEDNESDAY

TOKYO

* Yoshiro Takeuchi @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote to Harajuku Station, Tokyo Metro Chiyoda/Ginza/Hanzomon Lines to Omotesando Station). Takeuchi returns to the gallery with two years' worth of new paintings, beguiling and minimalist pools of color surrounded by almost ornate ribboned borders.

THURSDAY

AUSTIN

* Dirty Projectors (Brooklyn) @ Emo's / 2015 E Riverside Dr, 9p/$22. Confession: I know Dirty Projectors for the girls' wordless harmonizing over "A Peace of Light" (on The Roots' wonderful "How I Got Over" LP), that and "Stillness is the Move". Not Dave Longstreth's decade-long, multilayered project and pretty kick-ass live band. That's changing w/ new LP "Swing Lo Magellan". Call me what I am, a johnny-come-super-lately, but I dig it: astute and emotive, almost totally genre-less. w/ Wye Oak

TOKYO

* Ryoichi Saito 「如是」 @ Gallery TOSEI / 5-18-20 Chuo, Nagano-ku (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line to Shin-Nakao Station, Exit 1-2). "Nyoze" is a Buddhist term roughly translating to "like this", as an opener to a sutra. It's a good indicator of the Tokyo-based photographer's new show, ephemeral and luscious gelatin silver prints of floodplains, mirrored lakes, and weathered plains.

* Hiroko Osugi @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). The Fukuoka-born shod master delights in her continued prowess with ink and calligraphy as a contemporary art form.

FRIDAY

NYC

* "Hausu" (dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). The now almost-monthly late-night screenings of this spastic art-house horror classic returns! Think black cats are the only harbingers of evil? You haven't met Auntie's Himalayan! With enough painted landscapes, in-camera FX, fight-sequence theme-songs and cute girls to overwhelm even the most discerning crowd. See it on the big screen, again! ALSO SAT

SATURDAY

TOKYO

* "Another" (dir. Takeshi Furusawa, 2012) @ TOHO Cinemas Roppongi Hills / 6-10-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Toei Oedo/Hibiya Lines to Roppongi Station). "Another" began as a mystery horror novel, then a serialized manga, then a recent 12-part TV anime series. Thank you, Japan, for your thoroughness! I really dig this: it's a middle-school drama where young dude and his eerie, doll-like classmate (played by mop-topped cutie Ai Hashimoto, who was the titular villain in "Sadako 3D") investigate the senseless, violent murders of their classmates.

* nisennenmondai @ clubasia / 1-8 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 11p/3500 yen. Tokyo's all-female, instrumental krautrock champs just clobber the hell out of clubasia. Think rubber-band basslines that slap against your spinal column, searing guitar loops, and Sayaka's ferocious spitfire drumming.

* tokyoDOLORES "Bionic Trigger" Summer Showcase @ Differ Ariake / 1-3-25 Ariake, Koto-ku (Rinkai Line to Kokusai-Tenjijo Station), 4p/4000 yen. Earlier this year, Japan's premiere pole-dance team tokyoDOLORES defended Italy from a deep-space viral terror. Led by Cay Izumi, the girls must now defend Japan against certain danger! 

SUNDAY

AUSTIN

* "Possession" (dir. Andrzej Żuławski, 1981) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Rejoice, for this deeply disturbing (and blood-drenched) divorce drama, which won lead Isabelle Adjani the Palme d'Or, sees the light of day once again! The disintegration of a marriage is at the heart of this psychological horror film, which somehow balances political undertones, splatter SFX, and superb cinematography in one unclassifiable, unforgettable cinematic package. LIST-recommended! ALSO MON

MONDAY

TOKYO

* Yuuji Kaida "KAIJU" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). You need not be a geek to know Kaida, aka Japan's "monster painter" and top-notch fantasy illustrator. He's responsible for contributing artwork to Godzilla, Transformers, Gundam, and decades of general mind-blowing monster design.

CURRENT SHOWS

AUSTIN

* "Tamed Territory" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. I see three levels of abstraction, or tweaking of reality, in this group show, focused on animals and their environments. Areca Roe uses the zoo as backdrop to her photographs, manufactured dioramas of "realistic spaces" for their animal inhabitants. Calder Kamin's ceramics tread the spectrum of pure kitsch—candy-colored and nostalgic, Koons-like—and disturbing, for even her sculpted roadkill appears cute under gloss and glaze. Casey Polachek's smallish-scale paintings (besides one rendering of a mammoth puppy frolicking in the snow) appear ostensibly the most lifelike, but in fact Polachek extracted elements from multiple photographs and studies—like painterly, analogue Photoshop—to execute his scenes. They have little to no semblance with reality beyond memory and imagination, yet his compositions are convincingly real. 

* "Manscape: Male as Subject and Object", curated by Christopher Eamon @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces. There is a disclaimer on the gallery door noting that this group show "may not be suitable to all viewers". Sounds like my kind of show! But seriously, Eamon pulls off a thoughtful dissection of traditional male imagery and hierarchy in art via three young and compelling female artists (Mariah Robertson, Michele Abeles, and Adina Popescu) and tempered by a less-known male some 25 years their senior (John Massey). Photography is the focal point here: Robertson's two-pronged visual assertion of lone phalluses infringing onto optical illusion backdrops and Abeles' stealthy still-lifes (in one, she makes a compelling critical portrait of blue-drenched objectifier Yves Klein). Popescu gives her male subject a face (in her video "Jeremiah", screened earlier this year in "Blind Cut" at Marlborough Chelsea in NYC), but his voice is really her own words, a dialogue on consumption. Massey is not simply counterbalance here as the sole male artist and older figure. I wonder what the exhibition would be like without him. His contribution, a sensitive gaze into his own head and thoughts via his "Studio Projections" photographs (involving a maquette of Massey's studio and projections of images rephotographed from newspapers in the '70s), gives a vulnerability to this male artist via the admitted failures of depicted male-headed modernist activities. Back to the women: are they striving for the same sort of utopian goals in their respective truncations and takedowns of male imagery? I think when you take these works into the greater contexts of their respective oeuvres—like Robertson's darkroom experimentation and Abeles' continually groundbreaking compositional techniques—then the answer is not so clear. At the very least, I do not see these artists' progresses "destined for failure" like Massey's mining of decades' old modernism. 

* Colin Doyle "An Inquiry Concerning" @ Courtyard Garden, AT&T Center / 1900 University Ave, 2nd Fl. This handsome photography presentation by young Austin-based artist Doyle left me hungry for more. And that was after staring for like an hour at the five well-sized prints, each focusing crisply on a single object or several related elements on a non-fussy, usually monochrome backdrop. I felt an intriguing kinship b/w Doyle's compositions and those of camera-geek Christopher Williams, some 30 years Doyle's senior. Both capture the purportedly mundane or banal, boosting that image into something quite beautiful and thought-provoking. Though Williams gets a bit funny sometimes with his bisected cameras and lengthy titles, while Doyle features only one funny print of five, "Picture For Maggie", the oldest work in the show. Compare this— the red funnel, enlarged to bucket proportions and topped off with white powder, floating tuliplike on a just-there clear test-tube—to "Three Lines", both a gigantic staple and three finger-sized black lines forming a most elementary shape. The former feels almost excessive and flashy now, yet it is practically as elegant as can be. Ditto "Six Bricks", a Carl Andre-style array that speaks both to preschool-age counting exercises and my favorite style of Minimalism. Couple these with the blinged-out "Triangle" and the graceful curves and bright colors of "Sum Sum" (refrigerator magnets?), and you have a whole reductive visual language. You might be surprised at how long you spend looking at them.

CLOSING SOON

NYC

* "Wish You Were Here" @ Ana Cristea Gallery / 521 W 26th St. Nobody in NYC is showing young E. European talent like Ana Cristea. Case in point: laddish Andrej Dubravsky, whose murkily titillating scenes I first discovered via Prague's Jiri Svestka Gallery. Or the jewellike subversion by Oana Farcas (seen her in Copenhagen's LARMgalleri). Their elder Gideon Kiefer rounds out the lot with his subtly surreal scenes. Recommended! 

TOKYO

* Yuki Tawada "Burnt Photographs" @ Taro Nasu Gallery / 1-2-11 Higashi-kanda, Chiyoda-ku (Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station). The Shizuoka-born artist returns to the gallery with a truly transformative solo exhibition. She burns inkjet prints and paints them in acrylic, creating a new image phoenix-like from the gnarly, ashen remains of its previous state. Much emotional involvement and sense of place occurs here.

* Katsumi Hayakawa "PHASE III" @ Gallery MOMO / 2F 6-2-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). Intricate, gridlike paper structures emulating mathematical formulas, superconductor circuits, futuristic city-plans straight outta "Neuromancer" and a whole helluva lotto other cool stuff.

* Ine Izumi @ Taimatz / 1-2-11 Higashi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku (JR Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station, Toei-Shinjuku Line to Bakuro-Yokoyama Station). I'm totally a fan of Izumi's thoughtful, delicate ink and acrylic renderings of the mundane, ornamental, and dreamlike. (ENDS SAT)

TOKYO

* Yutokutaishi Akiyama @ Aisho Miura Arts / B1F 2-17-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station). The performance artist, who gained nationwide fame in the '70s by running in the Tokyo gubernatorial election under "politics to be pop art", unveils a new performance work plus Buriki sculpture.

* Keiichi Tanaami @ Nanzuka Underground / B1F 2-17-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station). Tanaami is one of Japan's strongest answers to classic Pop art — think more the acid-toned Chicago school than NYC — which he's been producing since the '60s. This exhibition traces his creative and subversive illustrated history, plus includes a new digital animation. (ENDS SUN)