fee's LIST

fee's LIST / through 2/21

2012-02-15T10:00:00.081-05:00

WEDNESDAY
NYC
* The Generational: "Ungovernables", curated by Eungie Joo @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave, 6 to Spring St). The New Museum's first Generational iteration, 2009's "Younger Than Jesus", had a cheeky theme and some dope work…but I didn't love it as ecstatically as I'd hoped. This year's, inspired by strategic civil disobedience and self-determination, feat. a strong international roster, as in most of 'em have NEVER exhibited in the U.S. Meaning: we New Yorkers (and many visitors, I suspect) will actually learn a lot.

* "Printin'" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St). The artist Ellen Gallagher co-organized this accompaniment to MoMA's tour-de-force "Print/Out" (opening SUN), using her mind-blowing 60-part mixed-media portfolio "DeLuxe" as the jump-off. "Printin'" includes a sweeping chronology of artists working in multiple disciplines, incl. Vija Celmins, David Hammons, George "Krazy Kat" Herriman, Robert Rauschenberg, Martha Rosler and loads more.

* "Michael" (dir. Markus Schleinzer, 2011) @ Film Forum / 209 W Houston St (1 to Houston). It may well be an odd selling point coming from any other director, but "chilling debut feature from the casting director of Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon"" got MY attention. And from what I've read, Schleinzer's tense observational thriller—on the titular loner and the boy he keeps locked in the basement—is creepier than hell. Missed this one at 2011 Fantastic Fest.

* "Secret Reunion" (dir. Jang Hun, 2010) screening @ Tribeca Cinemas / 54 Varick St (ACE/1 to Canal St), 7p/FREE. Pair up two of Korea's most talented actors, Song Kang-ho as an NIS agent and Kang Dong-won as a sleeper cell newcomer in this thriller on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, and you get the 2nd highest grossing film in Korea's 2010 box office AND a damn awesome film.

AUSTIN
* "Viewpoints" @ AMOA-Arthouse / 700 Congress, 6p. Andrea Mellard, Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs leads a discussion on "Evidence of Houdini's Return", the kickass contemporary abstraction group show.

* Cut Hands @ ND501 Studios / 501 N IH-35, 9p/$8. William "Whitehouse" Bennett blazes into the U.S. w/ shards of boiling sonics and ill-ass beats, as his "afro-noise" persona DJ Cut Hands. I am so stoked that I plan to see him twice, in two different noncontiguous states. w/ Eloe Omoe

TOKYO
* Cults @ Unit / 1-34-17 Ebisu-nishi, Shibuya-ku (Tokyu-Toyoko Line to Daikanyama Station, JR Yamanote/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station), 7p/5000 yen. Brooklyn cuties Cults are a bit like a garage-pop version of Boards of Canada. If that gets you jonesin', Tokyo's got your answer.

THURSDAY
* "The Virgins Show", curated by Marilyn Minter @ Family Business (part of Anna Kustera Gallery, run by Cattelan and Gioni) / 520 W 21st St. feat. "Virgins" (Andrew Brischler, Eric Mistretta, David Mramor, Rebecca Ward etc) & "Born Again Virgins" (Patty Chang, Kate Gilmore, Laurel Nakadate, Wangechi Mutu, Mika Rottenberg, Aïda Ruilova—all very first works on video monitor)… plus supposedly the great Hennessy Youngman (aka Pharaoh Hennessy, aka Mr. Museums, aka The Pedagogic Pimp) joins the lineup as "coming later", so stay tuned! This just got MAYJAH-er!

* Valeska Soares @ Eleven Rivington / 11 Rivington St. Concurrent w/ Soares' exhibition at Galeria Fortes Vilaça in Sao Paulo comes three large-scale works on linen, constructed from vintage dust-jackets and hardcover books, plus works from "Edits", where Soares reproduces pages from Roland Barthes' "A Lover's Discourse".

* Yinka Shonibare, MBE "Addio del Passato" @ James Cohan Gallery / 533 W 26th St. Shonibare continues his exploration of the British Empire figurehead Lord Nelson in his latest film (lit. "so closes my sad story"), plus new photoworks from the series "Fake Death Pictures"—reenacting famous painterly suicides swathed in Shonibare's signature Dutch patterned fabric. Oh, and some fetish object sculpture from bygone eras, that too.

* "First Look" @ Yossi Milo Gallery / 245 Tenth Ave. The photo gallery inaugurates its new 10th Ave space w/ a curated group show, feat. artists whose first solo exhibition was presented at Yossi Milo. Including Mohamed Bourouissa, Pieter Hugo, Yuki Onodera, Sze Tsung Leong, Alessandra Sanguinetti and the mighty Kohei Yoshiyuki—this is an all-star lineup even if it were held in the gallery's old location. Def check it out.

* Marlo Pascual @ Casey Kaplan Gallery / 525 W 21st St. Here's what I know about Pascual: 1) I am a huge fan off her 2010 solo at the gallery, her "situations" of warped fashion-y C-prints and objects are super. 2) her press release for this show describes lighting, vegetables, and menswear. Probably a hit.

* Will Ryman @ Paul Kasmin Gallery / 293 10th Ave + 515 W 27th St. Ryman's debut with the gallery goes off in a big way, w/ site-specific sculptural installations in BOTH gallery spaces, another first for Paul Kasmin. The 10th Ave space holds one of Ryman's outsized, sinewy "everyone", w/ a paintbrush labyrinth in the back gallery. The new 27th St space becomes a gallery-sized stand-in for Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, only made of fabricated nails.

* Lyne Lapointe @ Jack Shainman Gallery / 512 W 20th St. A pictorial installation of new paintings, executed on wood panel via either paint or phosphorescent-coated pins, form the central component of Lapointe's show, focusing on darkness, light and memory.

* Charles Garabedian "Mythologies" @ Betty Cuningham Gallery / 541 W 25th St. Garabedian draws from characters and settings from Homer's epics and other Greek classics in a set of new paintings and works on paper. This exhibition, his third at the gallery , follows his 2011 career retrospective at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

* '"Artist and Publisher: Printmaking and the Collaborative Process" w/ Ellen Gallagher and Two Palms Press @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St), 6p/$10. Gallagher (who co-organized MoMA's "Printin'" show) in conversation on creative practice and collaboration w/ Two Palms Press. Christophe Cherix, Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books and organizer of "Print/Out" (opens SUN) moderates the talk.

* "The Ungovernables" artists roundtable Q&A, moderated by Eungie Joo @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave, 6 to Spring St), 7p/$8. I seriously wish I were in town for this, as curator Eungie Joo joins like TWENTY participating artists in a roundtable informal conversation. I seriously hope the museum tapes this (or streams it live?).

FRIDAY
NYC
* Charles Atlas "The Illusion of Democracy" @ Luhring Augustine Bushwick / 25 Knickerbocker Ave, Bushwick (L to Morgan). Bushwick has a teeming, fertile art-scene, full of creatives and creative gallery spaces. Now W. Chelsea powerhouse Luhring Augustine states its claim in a new space w/ a brilliant exhibition, the American post-punk video artist Charles Atlas, who despite participating in the upcoming Whitney Biennial hasn't shown locally in a long while. The exhibition feat. two video installations never seen before in NYC, "Painting by Numbers" (2008) and "Plato's Alley" (2009), plus a new large-scale video work created specifically for this show and space.

* Breyer P-Orridge "I'm Mortality" @ Invisible-Exports / 14A Orchard St. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, the mighty voice of the avant-garde, conceives an "inter-dimensional" collaboration between the material and immaterial worlds, in her second solo at the gallery.

* Adel Abdessemed "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf" @ David Zwirner / 525-533 W 19th St. In Abdessemed's debut solo at the gallery in 2009, he shoved three airplane fuselages and tailfins, like a sleeping dragon, into the space. That inherent politicized and spectator violence recurs in his new two-space show, including razorwire sculptures of the crucified Jesus, an installation of an abandoned lifeboat (recreated from one found in the Florida Keys, ostensibly used to transport immigrants)…plus a wall of taxidermy animals. Viewer beware.

* Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev "Brooklyn Bridge" @ Winkleman Gallery / 621 W 27th St. The Kyrgyzstan-based duo presents a new 6-channel video installation, a series of interviews on illegal immigration within Brooklyn's Russian-speaking neighborhoods from Central Asia's former Soviet republics, plus experimental projections of Brooklyn Bridge and photos of Brighton Beach, the "bridge" between two societies, so to speak. Sounds awesome.

* Dan Flavin "Drawing" @ Morgan Library & Museum / 225 Madison Ave (6 to 33rd St). Perhaps it's not a total surprise that the modernist alchemist of fluorescent light installations was also an avid draftsman, but this "illuminating" survey constitutes the first retrospective devoted entirely to his drawings, from early watercolors to light installation studies and, uh, landscape sketches? Still, I'm intrigued.

* Film Comment Selects @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St). Rawer than NYFF, more international than the, uh, region-specific film festivals, and 1000% cooler than Tribeca. FCS returns w/ nearly three dozen new productions and classics, some w/o stateside distribution (translation: see 'em now or maybe never see 'em again). The festival lasts through MAR 1 so I'll update w/ my favorites, and read on for this week's picks (each bears a FCS slug).

* FCS: "Faust" (dir. Aleksandr Sokurov, 2011) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:15p. Faust's crazy craving for knowledge and power as the Enlightenment, and thus the source of 20th-century evil? That's the rub in this Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion winner, Sokurov's visual and sonic fiesta. Dig in. ALSO TUES 3:15p

* "Bullhead" (dir. Michael Roskam, 2011) @ Angelika NY / 18 W Houston ST (BDFM to Broadway/Lafayette). YES! Roskam's debut full-length—a seriously dark, bruising crime-thriller centered on Belgium's mafioso cattle industry—is Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. In my opinion, it's a winner, thanks in no small part to burly lead Matthias Schoenaerts, but see it for yourself. His steroidal performance masks a brutal secret too awesome to spoil here. Highly recommended!

* "L'Enfant" (dire. les frères Dardenne, 2005) screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St), 11a. This is a hard-ass, hard-knocks film, where a newborn's entrance to this world is complicated in that its parents are homeless minors, particularly the sleazy BF who sells the baby on the black market and realizes "hey, I'm an idiot! I need to get the baby back!" THRU SUN

* Saul Williams @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$20. Legendary charismatic lyricist and encyclopedic poet Saul Williams graces the Hall in a truly next-level night. Crown Heights agit-punk CX KiDTRONiK opens the event w/ a crackle of electro-rap.

AUSTIN
* "Bullhead" (dir. Michael Roskam, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. YES! Roskam's debut full-length—a seriously dark, bruising crime-thriller centered on Belgium's mafioso cattle industry—is Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. In my opinion, it's a winner, thanks in no small part to burly lead Matthias Schoenaerts, but see it for yourself. His steroidal performance masks a brutal secret too awesome to spoil here. Highly recommended!

* "Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow" (dir. Sophie Fiennes, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. To witness an Anselm Kiefer work, whether it's an entire installation of mixed-media paintings, dioramas and sculptures or "just" a single piece, is to be thrown into a palimpsest of architectonic history. Fiennes begins with the world-renowned artist's studio and leads us deep within Kiefer's methodology and expression as a postwar master.

TOKYO
* Toshiaki Hikosaka + Takuro Sugiyama "Dead Paintings" @ Radium / 2-5-17 Bakurocho, Chuo-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Bakurocho Station). The two young artists present their own unique styles of abstraction, Hikosaka's systemic grids and Sugiyama's intertwined colors and planes.

* the milky tangerine @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 7p/2000 yen. I fell in love w/ Tokyo indie-rockers the milky tangerine based on a sweetly dissonant single ("Your Beautiful Mind")…then I saw 'em at this very venue in December and fell in even deeper. They're absolutely awesome. w/ bet.

* The Pains of Being Pure at Heart @ Club Quattro / 5F 32-13 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station), 7p/5000 yen. Would I pay approx $65 USD to see hometown (Brooklyn) indie-pop cuties—and one of my favoritest bands in the world—The Pains play Tokyo. A: you bet.

* RECORIDE @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station), 7p/2500 yen. Think Miss Kitten crossed w/ Crystal Castles…but that only 1/2 quantifies the sweaty, electro-pop awesomeness of RECORIDE. Slam-dancing in effect. w/ Lily of the Valley

SATURDAY
NYC
* Zak Prekop @ Harris Lieberman / 508 W 26th St. Paper-collaged canvases and monochromes layered with stencils from other paintings factor into Prekop's tonal, textural triumph, his second solo at the gallery.

* Bruce Brosnan "See, hear remember" + Tyler Vlahovich @ Feature Inc / 131 Allen St. Brosnan's candy-pop paintings on cut and shaped MDF and Vlahovich's smoldering, murky palette of oils or gouache on canvas and wood panel may be at opposing ends of the color spectrum, but each artist unearths this cool sense of depth and perspective in their respective abstractions while maintaining a clear flatness.

* "The Ungovernables" artist talk: "Invisible Borders Trans-African Photography Project" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave, 6 to Spring St), 3p/$8. The artist-led initiative whose vision is to become a symbol of networking and trans-border association w/in the arts and photography in Africa, discuss their mission and current activities.

* FCS: "Mortem" (dir. Eric Atlan, 2010) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 5p. Think David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" but shot in b&w and French. That got your attention, right? Plus Atlan attends the screening!

* Zola Jesus @ Webster Hall / 125 E 11th St (NR/L/456 to Union Square), 6p/$15. Highly highly highly recommend enveloping within this super-cute songbird's gossamer soundscapes. I don't know how Zola's disarming croon and experimental roots play against speed-metal openers Liturgy, but I imagine the end result transcendent.

TOKYO
* Shunsuke Taira + Akito Nakai + Shinnosuke Yoshida @ Gallery MOMO Roppongi / 2F 6-2-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). In my experience, MOMO does a great job showcasing young artists. That's the case here w/ this three-artist show, ahead of their respective graduations from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts. They're all painters of a roughly figurative angle, plus Yoshida and Nakai have both had solos (Yoshida at MOMO's Ryogoku branch).

* "Melancholia" (dir. Lars von Trier, 2011) @ Toho Cinema Shibuya / 2-6-17 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). The denouement of "Melancholia", which rightfully earned a best actress award at Cannes for Kirsten Dunst's role, had me contacting friends in NYC and Tokyo with promises of visiting them as soon as possible. It's the end of the world, beginning with a wedding reception for Dunst and teasing out her…complicated relationship w/ her sister, played pitch-perfectly by Charlotte Gainsbourg, ending w/ among the most emotionally devastating conclusions in my filmic history. Deserves to be seen on the big screen.

* 「大人の喧嘩」/"Carnage" (dir. Roman Polanski, 2011) @ TOHO Cinemas Chanter / 1-2-2 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku (Chiyoda/Hibiya Lines to Hibiya Station, Yurakucho Line to Yurakucho Station). Polanski's taut, tittering adaptation of the stage play "God of Carnage"—translated here as "Adults Fight"—works thanks to the electrifying cast of sparring parents Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz vs Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly.

* BiS + current of air @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 7p/2500 yen. See my comments on the milky tangerine under FRI, and relay that into current of air, the pitch-perfect popstars who headlined that show at Fever last December. I'm throwing my bets behind BiS, too, aka "Brand-new Idol Society", three (or four?) PYTs who know how to rock out.

SUNDAY
NYC
* "Print/Out'" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St). Part two of MoMA's tour-de-force on the printed medium (in conjunction w/ "Printin'") is this 200-work treasure trove on classic printmaking techniques, self-published artists' books, and digital technologies—mostly drawn from MoMA's own collection. Feat. Ai Weiwei, Ellen Gallagher, Martin Kippenberger, Lucy McKenzie, SUPERFLEX, Rirkrit Tiravanija and loads more.

* FCS: "I Wish/Kiseki" (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda, 2011) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6:15p. Two boys' cross-country plan to reunite their estranged parents', via the clandestine rendezvous of two bullet trains. Plus Jo "Johnny Depp" Odagiri plays the dad, so I'm game. ALSO MON 8:45p

* FCS: "My Own Private River" (dirs. James Franco & Gus Van Sant) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 9p. Let's take this from the top: one screening. With James "River Phoenix" Franco leading a Q&A. Yeah, this is place to be.

* DJ Krush @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$15. I can proudly state w/o boasting that I've been down w/ this original Japanese hip-hop DJ's smoky, jazzy breaks since '97 and "MiLight". Dude's almost 50 and he STILL brings it, like his monthly single series begun in 2011. Totally a mesmeric "evening with Krush".

TUESDAY
NYC
* Frankie Rose "Interstellar" LP release party @ Knitting Factory / 361 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, G to Lorimer), 8p/$12. Miss Frankie Ross, a magnetic presence in Brooklyn's indie scene and one tough drummer, sheds her doo-wop garage-rock sound from debut S/T LP and emerges, butterfly-like, as a starry-toned pop star. She retains that voice, oh that awesome awesome melodious voice. w/ DIVE (extra-psychedelic!)

* The Suzan @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$7. This "second home" homecoming show for Japanese tropic-pop darlings The Suzan (straight in from touring good ol' Nippon) will be undoubtedly MAYJAH. w/ The Can't Tells

AUSTIN
* "Pumpkinhead" (dir. Stan Winston, 1988) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Schlock 'n roll typifies this cult classic supernatural stunner, the directorial debut of SFX whiz Winston. Feat. the titular bayou boogeyman attacking campers, how can you go wrong??

CURRENT SHOWS
AUSTIN
* Tom Molloy "New World" + Noriko Ambe "White Scape" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. Molloy strips away the noise and distractions in his historically leaning or contemporarily relevant bodies of work—oftentimes by incredibly meticulous practices—leaving a sort-of podium for us to contemplate, discuss, argue. While he's not explicitly putting his own politics behind the dozens of thrift-store framed Internet-culled b&w images of male world leaders pressing the flesh in "Shake", the works circuitous nature and site-specific installation—where "Hussein/Mubarak" slides into "Mubarak/Bush" and "Bush/Putin", until we're back at "Hussein" again—, plus the fact these nonchronological shots span from 9-11 to the Arab Spring, naturally presents some theories. How these men are friends one minute, wheeling and dealing the next, and sworn enemies separated by several frames of their "friends" after that. Molloy's nine-part titular work features nine different LP sleeves of Dvorák's "New World Symphony", the texts painted over (Molloy's analogue to Photoshop, he said) to show only benign, sunny images of the Western frontier. That "incredibly meticulous practices" bit I alluded to earlier is most clear in "Somewhere", Molloy's hand-painted sheet music to the "Wizard of Oz"'s sweetly optimistic anthem, a work that began with a black sheet of paper and lots and lots of carefully applied white gouache. Noriko Ambe's suite of all-white cut-paper and cut-YUPO (a waterproof synthetic "paper" made from recycled polypropylene) are just sublime, "Tracking II" like footprints in fresh-fallen snow, "Spring 1" the imprint of a tree or a floodplain, "A Piece of Flat Globe Vol. 22" a calmly ancient canyon.

* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based sculptural alchemist dropped some heady topics in her talk preceding this exhibition, not only naming a certain Gothic painting of the Visitation from a Spanish museum as her point of departure in this stunning new work "Suspended After Image", but also labyrinths (and Jorge Luis Borges), Peter Bruegel (and Babel), and the Large Hadron Collider. All this clued me into Al-Hadid's remarkable sense of harnessing space and presence in her installations, morphing bulk into something oddly ethereal and organic, though still visually commanding. "Suspended After Image" is Al-Hadid's first instance of using a 3D modeling program and CNC router in her work, and the final flowing, terraced form acts more like a 3D painting than a proper sculpture, with the figure seemingly emerging from the frontal staircase while a flow of media colored like wet Frosted Mini Wheats echoes her opulent robes. Though there is an almost total spectrum of color infused in this work, mostly as frozen drips on the sides and back, the overall is a pristine grayish-white, which is absolutely stunning in the VAC's Vaulted Gallery.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience. This plays well with Diana Al-Hadid's installation in the Vaulted Gallery. I was most quickly taken by Baum's series "Dog Ear", utilizing folded pages from paperbacks and photographing them into unique fragmented dialogue. Ga's C-prints of an illuminated fissure within the Arctic ice, shot during her residency at the scientific research vessel Tara, feel otherworldly.

* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Take a plunge into Heidkamp's latest suite of radiant, textural scenes. He shows these interiors and exteriors completely independent from his ongoing portraiture, a strong move in my opinion. For the Brooklyn-based artist isn't just this accomplished figurative painter who also happens to paint rooms and landscapes en plein air. Rather, he is a strong force in capturing natural environments as he sees them, imbuing them with a resonating life-force and character that draws us into their layers of oil paint and dollops of impasto, confronting us with a disarming nostalgia. I may never have visited that Massachusetts backyard ("Here Glows Nothing") or Florida dockside ("Alligator Alley"), but it's like I can smell the air, feel the lawn beneath my trainers and the sun on my face. There's a physicality to Heidkamp's scenes beyond the presence of actual people, who he deftly folds into scenarios (the fireside "Feel It All Around", the portraitures' meta-effect in "The Night of 1000 Paintings") as accenting players. A very strong exhibition and a bold start to Austin's 2012 gallery season.

CLOSING SOON
* Damien Hirst "The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011" @ Gagosian / 555 W 24th St + 522 W 21st St + 980 Madison Ave. Ha, I totally forgot to write about this when the exhibitions went up. Now they close a full day before I arrive in NYC to judge them for myself.

* Thomas Scheibitz + Mat Collishaw @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery / 521 W 21st St. Big awesome two: Scheibitz inaugurates his SEVENTH solo at the gallery, "A Panoramic VIEW of Basic Events", w/ a powerful array of paintings, works on paper and sculpture that highlight his knack for classical architecture, urban imagery and pop culture. Collishaw fills the upstairs w/ an installation and photography from his "Insecticide" and "Last Meal on Death Row - Texas" series.

* Jeff Keen @ Elizabeth Dee / 545 W 20th St. The U.S. debut of the UK artist's post-Surrealist paintings and video, focused mainly on his influential body of work from the '60s and '70s.

* Bill Jensen @ Cheim & Read / 547 W 25th St. I like Jensen's drizzly, corroded surfaces in his very colorful abstract paintings. He introduces some triptychs here, and some worked-over etchings, in this exhibition of new works. (ENDS SAT)

NYC
* Michael Zelehoski "Secondary Structures" + Daniel Phillips "River Street" @ DODGEgallery / 15 Rivington St. The gallery pairs an alchemist of found objects and wood (Zelehoski) with Phillips' architecture/landscape-attuned video work.

* "FaceTime" @ On Stellar Rays / 133 Orchard St. A group exhibition focused on the face itself and the pernicious rarity of face-to-face encounters in a ubiquitously digital society. Feat. an international cast, including Maria Petschnig, Debo Eilers, Aleksandra Domanovic and Michel Journiac. Follows the original iteration of the show at IMO Projects, Copenhagen, curated by Toke Lykkeberg & Julia Rodrigues.

* Malcolm Morley "Another Way to Make an Image, Monotypes" @ Sue Scott Gallery / 1 Rivington St. The seasoned printmaker's first foray into monotype, demonstrating his knack for experimentation and color.

AUSTIN
* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. Three artists — Austinites Paul Beck and Pat Snow, plus Minnesotan Allen Brewer — play with, and off, perception and representation, reminding us as viewers that things aren't always as clear-cut as they first seem. Brewer takes a direct approach by purposefully painting (or drawing) his subjects blind, focusing on who or what he's rendering instead of the resultant object itself. So while some works carry ghostly remnants or shifts of his mark-making, others like the old man "Poopy" are startlingly realized, fully fleshed out like a Lucien Freud painting. Snow's watercolors and drawings mine his personal space, culling from memories, songs in the background and dialogue. Perhaps reflecting his background working alongside Robert Colescott and Howard Finster, many of Snow's works feature enveloping stories, like "Record Shop Girl" (the charming awkwardness hits close to home) and "I Think My Dog Is a Racist". His ecstatically rendered 99 watercolors "Girl Crazy/Crazy Girl" mostly features women artist friends from his former hometown, Birmingham AL, interspersed with silent movie-style title cards like "TOO Bad" and "Sweet Sad True", prompting an imagined (real?) conversation. The figures' range of renderings from classical to cartoonish reminded me a bit of Richard Linklater's classic Austin rotoscoped animation "Waking Life", which is where Beck comes in. He animated for that film and Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly", and his two suites of mixed media works made for this show tread the line b/w realism and almost nightmarish fantasy, soft-contoured figures floating against stark political undertones and lettering, all with a muted reddish palette. What's the message? That our own consciousness is a jumble of memories, daily interventions and environmental/societal irregularities, as mutable as the moments captured in these works.

TOKYO
* "The Scene" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1F 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (Chiyoda/Hanzomon/Ginza Lines to Omotesando Station). The show's theme is the power held within a single photograph, featuring the talents of Joy Kawakubo, Takeshi Shimamoto, Michael Stanley, Rich and TARA.

* Kiyomichi Shibuya "Which do you choose?" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Point: I dig this guy's name. Point: I dig his visual device, the spirograph, incorporating cast light into tracked out floral patterns that somehow encapsulates both childhood, traditional Japanese imagery, and classic literature. (ENDS SUN)

TOKYO
* Maya Maxx @ Kido Press, Inc / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Maya Maxx is a trip, like a Comme des Garçons outfit come to painterly life. The Pop artist does rainbows here, mixing her calligraphy background w/ bold printmaking techniques. (ENDS TUES)

fee's LIST / through 2/14

2012-02-08T09:41:00.000-05:00

WEDNESDAY
NYC
* "Werkmeister Harmonies" (dir. Béla Tarr, 2000) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6p. A languid, meditative film by even Tarr's standards, combining a provincial Hungarian village with a sinister traveling circus.

* "The Man From London" (dir. Béla Tarr) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 9p. Among Tarr's most gorgeously shot films is this recent exploration of anonymous breakdowns of social order in personal life—replete w/ covert briefcases stuffed with foreign cash and twilit, misty quaysides. Appeared at 2007 Cannes Film Festival.

* JEFF the Brotherhood (TN) @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$12. This is Brooklyn live music 101: sweaty JEFF swamp-rock show at checkerboard tiled DbA, $2 PBR in hand. No brainer. w/ Uncle Bad Touch (Montreal)

* Burning Star Core @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 10p/$5. Dominick Fernow's Stone curation continues! Dive into C. Spencer Yeh's electronic-enhanced, transporting violin drones and thank me later.

AUSTIN
* "Catherine & Company" (dir. Michel Boisrond, 1975) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:30p. Young Jane Birkin in a mid-'70s French softcore film is enough to spark my total attention, but couple that w/ Catherine Breillat's ("Sleeping Beauty", "Bluebeard") screenwriting and Richard Suzuki's ("Emmanuelle") cinematography, and you got a whole 'nother thing, son. Plus the filmic debut of Alexandra Delli Colli ("Zombie Holocaust", "New York Ripper")!

THURSDAY
NYC
* "Happenings New York, 1958-1963" @ The Pace Gallery / 510 W 25th St. The first exhibition to document the origins and historical development of the transient, yet pivotal, "Happenings" movement—so says the Pace press release. Hey, I'm game! As "Happenings" and the group's participants, including Jim Dine, Allan Kaprow, Carolee Schneemann and Simone Forti, emphasized the organic connection b/w art and its environment (incl. viewers), documentation had to go beyond the nature of these unique performances and events. The exhibition includes rare archival footage and original ephemera from Happenings' production, plus artworks created during performances and extensive photography by five Happenings documentarians. A special illustrated book (authored by Milly Glimcher, published by The Monacelli Press) accompanies the show and should provide further insight. Probability of an opening-night "happening": 35%.

* James Busby "White and Black" @ STUX Gallery / 530 W 25th St. BIG Busby fan here and his process-driven meditations on form and texture within stark white or graphite-covered media. He continues to blur that painting/sculpture line w/ shaped MDF and powdered graphite rubbed into formed-gesso surfaces, creating a brilliant dialogue w/ their respective display lighting.

* Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz "Night Falls" @ PPOW / 535 W 22nd St, 3rd Fl. The collaborative duo use the night sky as backdrop, adding firelight and the moon's illumination in dynamic interplay within their dreamlike archival C-prints. They are also participating in the group exhibition "Fairytales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination" at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville.

* Veronica Falls (UK) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$12. Fell in love with these London indie-pop darlings during 2010's CMJ Fest. They'll provide the sunshine on this February NYC day. w/ local rockers Grooms

AUSTIN
* "Two Ships Passing: w/ Andy Campbell" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity, 6:30p. An inspired, reactive dialogue b/w an invited speaker and their guest—a peer, mentor or new acquaintance—about some creative topic. Tonight begins the recurring series, co-presented by VAC and Pastelegram, and features Andy Campbell, lecturer in art history at Texas State University, on navigating today's abundance of images and ephemera vs. a single artwork.

* The Calm Blue Sea + The Sour Notes @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 7p/$8. Solid Austin indie-rock right here. Consider aptly named The Calm Blue Sea, blending their graceful melodies with absolutely stormy post-rock sonics. They're hard at work on a 2nd LP that could drop sometime after SXSW (stay tuned). Plus The Sour Notes, charismatic pop stalwarts of the highest calibre. w/ Follow That Bird

FRIDAY
NYC
* Juergen Teller @ Lehmann Maupin / 201 Chrystie St. A three-part exhibition of the lensman's Pop photography, including a mix of seductive portraits of Kristen McMenamy and Vivienne Westwood, deserted landscapes around Teller's Suffolk home, and shots of Teller's son—all juxtaposed w/ family photos.

* Elaine Reichek "Ariadne's Thread" @ Nicole Klagsbrun PROJECT / 534 W 24th St. Reichek literally weaves the titular Greek myth into her latest serious of embroideries, some hand-sewn, others like a large-scale tapestry woven with computerized technology. Reichek has a similar tapestry on view at the 2012 Whitney Biennial.

* "The Turin Horse" (dir. Béla Tarr, 2011) @ Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center / Lincoln Center & 65th St (1 to 66th St). Will this sombre "remodernist" film, thick with the heaviness of human existence, be Tarr's final feature? It echoes Nietzsche's own witnessing of an overworked horse's death and could well reflect a quiet emergence of the apocalypse. This Jury Grand Prix winner at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival enjoys its NYC theatrical premiere. THRU FEB 16

* George Kuchar Program 1 + 2 @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 7/9:15p. The first two parts of a six-part, three-night extravaganza on the late, great underground filmmaker. Program 1 is "A Package of Stars From George and the VDB Gang" and includes seven shorts from '89's "Point 'n Shoot" through last year's "Hotspell". Program 2 is a tribute from the Film-Maker's Coop and features six classic 16mm shorts from the '60s and '70s, including "I, An Actress" (1977).

* "Eraserhead" (dir. David Lynch, 1977) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). Lynch's debut feature is a true surrealist classic, feat. usual suspect Jack Nance as the titular character in a nightmarish industrial landscape that works best when immersed on the big-screen. ALSO SAT

AUSTIN
* "Pina" (dir. Wim Wenders, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. I was cued into the late, great German choreographer Pina Bausch's electrifying performances years ago by my mentor, and they forever changed how I view movement (e.g. by one person, by person to person, in groups) and "modern dance". Plus Bausch was a kind of muse to Yohji Yamamoto. Now Wenders, an old friend, conjures a 3D experience with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch that gives us even a glimpse of what it must be like to be a Bausch dancer, part of her kinetic, romantic world. It sounds like a triumph.

* "A Separation" (dir. Asghar Farhadi, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. The film to beat for the Oscar for "Best Foreign Feature" is Farhadi's eye-widening take on contemporary Iran, on the dissolution of a marriage and the earth-rending traumas affecting the whole family.

* "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" (dir. Edgar Wright, 2010) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 11:30p. Like cocaine for the eyes, this vintage-certified video game come to life delivers 16+ bits of full-color, side-scrolling mayhem. w/ Michael Cera as the mumbly titular character and scream-queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his Manic Panic-hued love interest, you totally can't go wrong. ALSO SAT

* Whiskey Shivers & Hello Wheels @ Scoot Inn / 1308 E 4th St, 9p/$8. "A freewheeling', trashgrassin', folk tornado" reads Whiskey Shivers' Facebook page. This is Austin, "y'all". Think upright bass, fiddle, and washboard in addition to that guitar, hard-drinking music of a nontraditional tip. Kindred locals Hello Wheels play "stomp-folk, or what they call "a new sound with an old soul". Get captivated on the bands' split 7" "Friends Do Things Together" release party tonight. w/ Wild Child

TOKYO
* Miila and the Geeks + The Suzan @ Super Deluxe / B1F 3-1-25 Nishi-azabu, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station), 7:30p/2500 yen. The G/R/L/Z showcase features singer/songwriter Moe Wadaka's incredible, indie-pop trio Miila and the Geeks (she's Miila, saxophonist Komori and drummer Ajima the geeks), whose slightly sinister, garage-rock debut "New Age" is a triumph for the indie scene. Plus Moe's behind the band's fractured lovely music videos. That praise extends to tropic-pop quartet The Suzan, who split their time b/w Tokyo and NYC (a dream, right?). w/ Limited Express (has gone?) and The Twee Grrrls Club DJs!

* DODDODO Band @ UFO Club / 1-11-6 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Marunouchi Line to Higashi-Koenji Station), 8p/2500. What's iller than Kansai noise-sprite Namin Haku, aka DODDODO? Have her on vox fronting a full band (feat. usual-suspect bassist Makoto Inada, drummer Keiko Matsunaga, uh clarinet player Masako Nakao and violinist Tetsuya Umeda), that's what! w/ ECD+ILLICIT TSUBOI

SATURDAY
NYC
* Tom Friedman @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. BOOM! This is the first NYC solo exhibition from the conceptual sculptor since 2005, and I for one am totally stoked. Friedman includes new sculpture—some incorporating ideas of technology, like a a life-sized video camera handcrafted from wood and paint—and works on paper and collages. Think of the mass-produced yet entirely, intricately handmade, the deadpan presentation looming into vertiginous infinity. This exhibit precedes a Friedman monograph, published by the gallery, which I am necessarily stoked about as well.

* George Kuchar Program 3 + 4 @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 6:45/9p. Program 3 on the underground filmmaking legend comes from the shelves of Electronic Arts Intermix, feat. "Cult of the Cubicles", "Rainy Season" and "The Creeping Crimson" (all 1987). San Francisco's Canyon Cinema culls from their archives in Program 4 with three 16mm shorts, including "Ascension of the Demonoids" (1985).

* Heliotropes + Iron Tides @ The Acheron / 57 Waterbury St, Bushwick (L to Montrose), 8p/$7. Heliotropes combine guitar dissonance and a rumbling rhythm section w/ melodious vox. If I had a soul, they'd be melting it right now. Whiskey-drinking metal dudes Iron Tides are loud enough to hang w/ the Heliotropes women. w/ Descender

AUSTIN
* Tom Molloy "New World" + Noriko Ambe "White Scape" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. Pretty stoked about this. The Irish artist Molloy returns in his third solo at the gallery, presenting painted LP sleeves from Dvorak's "New World Symphony" w/ the text blended into the background, plus his b&w photographic "Shake" series, of newsy world leaders doing just that. He leads a discussion on his work at 7p. Meanwhile Ambe commands the gallery's Project Room w/ a group of all-white layered cut-paper works, which should be a disarming visual palate cleanser against Molloy's exhibition.

* Martin Sztyk "Narratives" @ Big Medium / 5305 Bolm Rd. The practicing architectural designer and researcher draws from his ongoing, narrative-based inhabitation series—including "Urban Forest", "Empty City" and "New London Stock Exchange"—in what looks to be a mind-blowing set of intricate photo-collages.

TOKYO
* "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" (dir. David Fincher, 2011) @ Toho Cinema Hiho / 2-5-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku (Yurakucho Line to Yurakucho Station). Fincher's pulse-throbbing English language adaptation of Stieg Larsson's wildly popular novel(s), like a chunk of charred twilight doused in mercury, totally worked for me. The mix of "Se7en"'s legendary punk director w/ composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and leads Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig is just too irresistible. Tokyo, get ready.

* 「すべては『裸になる』から始まって」/"Always Start Out Naked" (dir. Saku Nakamachi, 2012) @ Ikebukuro Cinema Rosa / 1-37-12 Nishi-ikebukuro, Toshima-ku (JR Yamanote Line etc to Ikebukuro Station). AKB48's Risa Narita plays 10-year-reigning AV queen Kurumi Morishita in this biopic from Morishita's humble beginnings in Akita and tentative forays into, uh, taking off her clothes in front of a camera at Soft on Domand studio, to her self-reliant prowess at Dogma under director TOHJIRO.

SUNDAY
NYC
* George Kuchar Program 5 + 6 @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 6:30/8:30p. The final night of Anthology's Kuchar tribute, featuring 16mm shorts from Harvard Film Archive like "The Carnal Bipeds" (1973) and from Anthology's own collection, including "Anita Needs Me" (1983), plus Kuchar's feature-length film "The Devil's Cleavage" (1973), presented by Pacific Film Archive in Program 6.

AUSTIN
* Boy Friend + Love Inks @ Spiderhouse Ballroom / 2906 Fruth St, 10p. Ethereal guitar-pop duo Christa Palazzolo and Sarah Brown are Boy Friend, and they just debuted an extra-fuzzy LP called "Egyptian Wrinkle". Celebrate at their release party w/ kindred pop spirits Love Inks. w/ Missions

TOKYO
* Erebos Party @ Minami-Aoyama Trigram / B1F 4-18-10 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku (Tokyo Metro Chiyoda/Ginza/Hanzomon Lines to Omotesando Station), 4p/4000 yen. Part fetish party, part underground dance party, w/ lots of ace performances. Tokyo hosts stuff like this all the time (you just need to know where to look). Feat. pole-dancing by Aloe & Kikurage (tokyoDOLORES), the phenomenal Alk on aerial ring, plus DJs Rinko (Torture Garden Japan), Groove Patrol (eggworm/Phonika Tokyo) and assuredly other naughtiness.

* "Popbreak" @ Shibuya Glad / 2+3F 2-21-7 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 3p/3500 yen. Celebrate the venue's second anniversary with a mind-melting array of electro-clash pop cuties. Feat. live sets by personal faves RECORIDE (think Miss Kitten crossed w/ Crystal Castles), DJ/singer-songwriter Saori@destiny, "techno-pop idols" Cutie Pai, Aira Mitsuki and Mai Kotone…I'm sweating just typing this.

TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "The Burning Moon" (dir. Olaf Ittenbach, 1999) @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Uncut. Uncensored. Unconscionable. The horror anthology film as a truly vile barrage of nonstop splatter and German nihilism, shot on video in full misanthropic color. Just in time for Valentine's Day.

TOKYO
* TADZIO + DJ Sumire (Twee Grrrls Club) @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 7p/2500 yen. A double-shot of grrrl noise-punk TADZIO? Sign me up! w/ DJ Sumire of the irresistible Twee Grrrls Club

* The Suzan @ THREE / B1F 5-18-1 Daizawa, Setagaya-ku (Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station), 7p/3300 yen. The final night of tropic-pop cuties The Suzan's whirlwind return to Japan. Yes, after playing like a million shows here over a span of…two weeks, they're headed back to NYC. Celebrate w/ 'em. w/ QUATTRO, Pink Politics

* Tokyo Pinsalocks + Merpeoples @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2800 yen. All-girl techno-tinged groove-pop to my left (Tokyo Pinsalocks), all-girl breathy indie-rock to my right (Merpeoples). Sounds good to me! w/ (M)otocompo

CURRENT SHOWS
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based sculptural alchemist dropped some heady topics in her talk preceding this exhibition, not only naming a certain Gothic painting of the Visitation from a Spanish museum as her point of departure in this stunning new work "Suspended After Image", but also labyrinths (and Jorge Luis Borges), Peter Bruegel (and Babel), and the Large Hadron Collider. All this clued me into Al-Hadid's remarkable sense of harnessing space and presence in her installations, morphing bulk into something oddly ethereal and organic, though still visually commanding. "Suspended After Image" is Al-Hadid's first instance of using a 3D modeling program and CNC router in her work, and the final flowing, terraced form acts more like a 3D painting than a proper sculpture, with the figure seemingly emerging from the frontal staircase while a flow of media colored like wet Frosted Mini Wheats echoes her opulent robes. Though there is an almost total spectrum of color infused in this work, mostly as frozen drips on the sides and back, the overall is a pristine grayish-white, which is absolutely stunning in the VAC's Vaulted Gallery.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience. This plays well with Diana Al-Hadid's installation in the Vaulted Gallery. I was most quickly taken by Baum's series "Dog Ear", utilizing folded pages from paperbacks and photographing them into unique fragmented dialogue. Ga's C-prints of an illuminated fissure within the Arctic ice, shot during her residency at the scientific research vessel Tara, feel otherworldly.

* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Take a plunge into Heidkamp's latest suite of radiant, textural scenes. He shows these interiors and exteriors completely independent from his ongoing portraiture, a strong move in my opinion. For the Brooklyn-based artist isn't just this accomplished figurative painter who also happens to paint rooms and landscapes en plein air. Rather, he is a strong force in capturing natural environments as he sees them, imbuing them with a resonating life-force and character that draws us into their layers of oil paint and dollops of impasto, confronting us with a disarming nostalgia. I may never have visited that Massachusetts backyard ("Here Glows Nothing") or Florida dockside ("Alligator Alley"), but it's like I can smell the air, feel the lawn beneath my trainers and the sun on my face. There's a physicality to Heidkamp's scenes beyond the presence of actual people, who he deftly folds into scenarios (the fireside "Feel It All Around", the portraitures' meta-effect in "The Night of 1000 Paintings") as accenting players. A very strong exhibition and a bold start to Austin's 2012 gallery season.

* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ AMOA-Arthouse / 700 Congress. So check this: on 1/21/10, a young man named Fausto fired six bullets into the air outside the Texas State Capitol. Jill Magid — whose oeuvre navigates bureaucracy and security/intelligence w/ Mission Impossible deftness — was like steps away, pursuing her own future work, and witnessed it. Now six blocks from the scene and two years later, Magid stages an intriguing Conceptual show that ties Fausto's mysterious actions — and his silence throughout his trial — with that of Goethe's "Faust". The ground-floor gallery is her stage, replete with wall-decal directions ("Enter Fausto", "shots fired skyward", "enter Magid" etc), Magid's own play "Fausto: A Tragedy" (mirroring "Faust"'s original intention as a closet drama, meant to be read and not performed), and contemplative works. Deep encodings here, from six translations of "Faust" silkscreened on top of one another, to six bullet casings and a six-slide projection of the sky over the Capitol. Magid wrote a letter to Fausto, requesting his voice (absent in his trial) to read passages from "Faust" (whose Spanish translation is "Fausto") — his answer is still forthcoming, but it would add an intriguing layer to all this. Finally, there is Magid's family's '93 Mercedes, armored to B4 level and parked in Fausto's spot outside the Capitol, and her writing appearing in the February issue of the "Texas Observer", drawing this dialogue beyond the art-scene realm as it should be.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". A really brilliant group show of fractured and re-envisioned realities, curated by Arthouse's Rachel Adams. I tweeted that it made me miss NYC, because it's precisely that sort of thoughtful exhibition that makes me look twice, thrice, at what I think I already know. Ex: Strauss Borque LaFrance's "BABE", a silvery lacquered wood plank pitched diagonally on the wall like classic John McCracken,…only just around the corner is that same plank, used as a shelf amid LaFrance's complex, mixed-media display. Another: Katja Mater's "Time Passing Objects", chromogenic prints that blur the line b/w photography and geometric drawings. Justin Swinburne's "Echo" works, multiple inkjet scans onto alu-dibond that echo (no pun) Gerhard Richter's signature abstracts while maintaining that sense of disarray like Wade Guyton's inkjet silkscreens. Bravo!

CLOSING SOON
TOKYO
* "巧術 2.51" @ Radium / 2-5-17 Bakurocho, Chuo-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Bakurocho Station. AKA "skillful technique", the eponymous serial exhibition held at Spiral yearly since 2010. The third iteration, subtitled "Kowaku/fascination", gets a gallery preview, feat. artists Takuro Sugiyama, Haruo Mitsuda and others. (ENDS FRI)

NYC
* "Corporations Are People Too" @ Winkleman Gallery / 621 W 27th St. This evil-sounding group show culls some awesome talent, feat. Berenice Abbott, Ian Davis, CHris Dorland, Kota Ezawa, Louis Faurer, Yevgeniy Fiks, Jacqueline Hassink, Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange and Phillip Toledano in respective pointed takes on corporate culture, from the Great Depression and WWII to contemporary society.

* On Kawara "Date Painting(s) in New York & 136 Other Cities" @ David Zwirner / 525-533 W 19th St. Conceptualist Kawara made his first date painting in NYC, "JAN. 4, 1966" — that's over four decades ago, if you're counting, and he's still doing it. Thus, the gallery stages a seminal exhibition of over 150 date paintings, selected by Kawara, accompanied by binders of facsimile newspaper clippings, plus two one-hundred-year calendars for the 20th and 21st centuries. AND! A major catalogue published by Ludion and essayed by Japanese writer Lei Yamabe.

* Michael Snow "In the Way" @ Jack Shainman Gallery / 512 W 20th St. Snow, the visual pioneer behind '67's "Wavelength", precedes a solo show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art AND a sculpture retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario (both occurring this year) w/ new projection works and older photo-based installations, all emphasizing the art of looking and viewing through objects.

* "End of Days" @ Mixed Greens / 531 W 26th St. A dozen artists inaugurate Mixed Greens' new year, working off the notion of apocalyptic and transcendent revelations. Main draw for me is Patrick Jacobs' totally mesmerizing mixed-media dioramas (he was in my Top Ten LIST-worthy Cultural Events of 2011), though Valerie Hegarty's installation sounds dope too.

* Alfred Jensen/Sol LeWitt "Systems and Transformation" @ The Pace Gallery / 32 E 57th St. An intriguing pairing of Jensen's orderly abstract paintings based off grids and color theories vs. LeWitt's basic geometrical open structures. Beyond inclusions in group exhibitions, this is the first show to examine and contrast the artists' oeuvres in depth.

* Shirin Neshat @ Gladstone Gallery / 515 W 24th St. Really stoked for this: Neshat unveils her new photographic series "The Book of Kings", composed of b&w portraits of Iranian and Arab youth covered in calligraphic text, plus a new three-channel video installation.

* "Rotary Connection", organized by Loring Randolph @ Casey Kaplan Gallery / 525 W 21st St. Pay attention to Julia Dault, an electrifying abstract-ish painter and sculptor featured in both the upcoming New Museum triennial "The Ungovernables" AND this group show, organized by the gallery's director. Also featured: Etienne Chambaud, Isabelle Cornaro, Jose Dávila, Jason Dodge (big fan), Ryan Gander (notch), Liam Gillick (ditto), Andrew Kuo, Mateo López, Benoît Maire, Arthur Ou, Marlo Pascual (HUGE fan) and Pietro Roccasalva.

TOKYO
* Ayano Kaeba "mourning flowers" @ Gallery MOMO Roppongi / 2F 6-2-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). One of my favorite Tokyo galleries, feat. young Kanagawa-born painter Kaeba in her second solo show, incorporating detailed floral patterns into her figurative silhouettes. (ENDS SAT)

NYC
* "The Displaced Person" @ Invisible-Exports / 14A Orchard St. Ron Athey, Walt Cassidy, Jesse Aron Green, Geof Oppenheimer and Sue Williams contribute to this exhibition focused on the delineation b/w public and personal space.

TOKYO
* "Walk up / and down / form / being formed" @ NADiff a/p/a/r/t 1F 1-18-4 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station). Feat. Yoichi Sano, Taku Hisamura, Mitsuhiro Yamagiwa, who explore distance, scale and movement in pinhole photography, installation and mixed-media works. (ENDS SUN)

fee's LIST / through 2/7

2012-02-01T09:18:00.000-05:00

WEDNESDAY
NYC
* Tony Cragg @ Marian Goodman Gallery / 24 W 57th St. Concurrent w/ his public installation at The Sculpture Garden at 590 Madison Ave is an array of beguiling new sculptures from the Düsseldorf-based British artist, including works realized in bronze, Cor-ten steel, wood, cast iron and stone.

AUSTIN
* Laurie Frick "The Art of Self Tracking" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St, 7p. Frick's exhibition is dazzling, but the deeper meanings behind her methodology—patterned language, neuroscience—benefit from some explanation. She leads a highly visual talk on "Quantify Me" should be an illuminating experience.

* "A Lonely Place To Die" (dir. Julian Gilbey, 2011) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. This vertiginous survival thriller, set mostly among sheer rock faces in the Scottish Highlands, feat. a mountaineering team unwillingly (or unwittingly) pulled into a cat-and-mouse chase after rescuing a young Serbian girl buried alive in the forest. It will induce vivid acrophobia and make you throw up in the best way. Absolutely awesome, and a Fantastic Fest 2011 personal favorite.

TOKYO
* Eikoh Hosoe @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). Part two: "Simon Landscape 1", a continuation of the gallery's season-spanning retrospective on the singular modernist photographer, this time focusing on his portfolio of friend and model Yotsuya Simon, assimilated into Tokyo's old shitamachi landscape.

THURSDAY
NYC
* Mary Corse @ Lehmann Maupin / 540 W 26th St. This is a treat: the Light & Space artist debuts five new paintings in her inaugural show at the gallery. Though keeping true to her SoCal roots, these are perception-distorting works best enjoyed in person, as each grabs ambient and display light and shifts how we see them.

* Alec Soth "Broken Manual" @ Sean Kelly Gallery / 528 W 29th St. The NY debut of selections from Soth's four-year photographic series, detailing mostly men freed from societal constraints amid wilderness landscapes. The experts of escape, whether hermits, hippies, survivalists or just those willing to live off the grid. The previewable archival pigment prints from this series look gorgeous.

* Nikolay Bakharev, Gerard Fieret & Miroslav Tichy @ Julie Saul Gallery / 535 W 22nd St. An exhibition of three potent, enigmatic photographers who began their oeuvres in postwar Europe. I'm a big fan of Tichy, who passed away last year and whose huge body of work—surreptitious portraits of women using handmade cameras—was belatedly discovered like last decade. Fieret's bold, Dadaist spirit and Bakharev public/private delineation (NYers got to know him during "Ostalgia" at the New Museum last year) add their own intrigue.

* Carlos Giffoni @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$5. Dominick "Prurient" Fernow is guest curating at The Stone for the first half of February. Expect some significantly awesome programming from the Hospital Productions founder and noise musician, like Mr. Giffoni, electro-acoustic maimer and former maven of No Fun Fest.

TOKYO
* Maya Maxx @ Kido Press, Inc / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). Maya Maxx is a trip, like a Comme des Garçons outfit come to painterly life. The Pop artist does rainbows here, mixing her calligraphy background w/ bold printmaking techniques.

* "The Scene" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1F 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (Chiyoda/Hanzomon/Ginza Lines to Omotesando Station). The show's theme is the power held within a single photograph, featuring the talents of Joy Kawakubo, Takeshi Shimamoto, Michael Stanley, Rich and TARA.

FRIDAY
NYC
* Robert Grosvenor @ Paula Cooper Gallery / 534 W 21st St. I'm doing like Eric Wareheim from "Tim & Eric" and going helllllllyeahhh in sub-sonic baritone, in voicing my appreciation for this exhibition. I love Grosvenor's meaty, room-dominating industrial sculpture and am totally stoked for this show, featuring a classic from '86-7 and a new two-part sculpture.

* Catherine Yass "LIGHTHOUSE" @ Galerie Lelong / 528 W 26th St. The US debut of British artist Yass' new film "Lighthouse", depicting the Royal Sovereign lighthouse on the coast of East Sussex in a large projection with related manipulated-image lightboxes.

* Kay Rosen "Wide and Deep" @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co / 530 W 22nd St. The Midwest-based textual artist pairs her lettered wall paintings (typically exploring and invading the space's architecture) w/ gray-toned enamel sign-paint on canvas.

* "Damnation" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1988) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6:15p. The Lincoln Center is throwing an INCREDIBLE full-film retrospective on the impeccable Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr. His oeuvre is highly visual and auditory, "slow" on action and lacking cuts in favor of drawing us to the margins, to emulating an wonderful melange of modernism and metaphysics. "Damnation" is all about despair, broken love affairs, betrayal, heavy drinking (the main location is local bar Titanik). Grim stuff! This is also Tarr's first collab w/ novelist László Krasznahorkai (whose epic writing "Satantango" became Tarr's magnum opus of a film) and actor Mihály Víg (star of "Satantango" and others). ALSO MON 1:30p

* "Family Nest" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1979) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:45p. Tarr's first full-length film, and probably his most neorealist (in the vein of Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti), focuses on a typical Budapest housing block and the dire goings-on inside. Oh yeah, he was 22 years old when he made this film. Highly recommended! ALSO MON 4p

AUSTIN
* "The Innkeepers" (dir. Ti West, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. Score another horror hit for Mr. West, who chilled us thoroughly w/ 2009 slow-burner "The House of the Devil". His latest is funnier yet more unrelenting in terror doses, as cutie Sara Paxton and spaz-wit Pat Healy get way over their heads as amateur ghost-hunters while working at a decrepit inn. "The Innkeepers" capped off a fantastic 2011 Fantastic Fest, and I for one am stoked to see it again. Note: this plays once per night late, through Thursday.

* "The Woman in Black" (dir. James Watkins, 2012) @ Regal Gateway Stadium 16 / 9700 Stonelake Blvd. Hammer Films is SO BACK w/ this spine-rattler, which does indeed star an adult-ish Daniel Radcliffe as a lawyer investigating a string of mysterious suicides and accidents in an English village…and the titular spectre out to curse his kid!

* "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. This bracing psychological thriller was a one-time-only late addition to Fantastic Fest 2011…and I missed it. Considering friends' reactions — Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly as grieving parents of a son who just murdered a bunch of his classmates — I missed something major.

* "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" (dir. Edgar Wright, 2010) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 11p. Like cocaine for the eyes, this vintage-certified video game come to life delivers 16+ bits of full-color, side-scrolling mayhem. w/ Michael Cera as the mumbly titular character and scream-queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his Manic Panic-hued love interest, you totally can't go wrong. ALSO SAT

* Zola Jesus (LA) @ The Parish / 214 E 6th St, 9p/$10. Man, forget Lana Del Rey. Channel your listening to ingenue incroyable Zola Jesus, whose twilit pop act as real "orchestral maneuvers in the dark". w/ Talk Normal (NYC)

TOKYO
* Ken Matsubara "The Sleeping Water" @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). Matsubara features the video installation "Mekong Delta", his signature antique-crafted glass dome showing children floating up the titular river, recalling the deaths of children in the many wars and disasters around the world.

* Kiyomichi Shibuya "Which do you choose?" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (JR Lines etc to Shibuya). Point: I dig this guy's name. Point: I dig his visual device, the spirograph, incorporating cast light into tracked out floral patterns that somehow encapsulates both childhood, traditional Japanese imagery, and classic literature.

SATURDAY
NYC
* Terry Winters "Cricket Music, Tessellation Figures, & Notebook" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 522 W 22nd St. Winters' kaleidoscopic paintings are as immersive as ever, but the NY-area artist adds a twist w/ "Notebook, 2003-2011", a selection of his layered found-photo collages shown for the first time stateside.

* Anne Truitt "Drawings" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 523 W 24th St. The gallery mounted a wonderful retrospective of Truitt's serene totem-like sculpture two years ago (it was one of my favorites of 2010). They continue the awesomeness w/ four decades' of the artist's drawings, a vital part of her daily creative activity of which I am frankly (embarrassingly) totally ignorant. A special monograph accompanies the show. Looking forward to this one.

* "Satantango" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1994) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 2p. Tarr's magnum opus—and my favorite from him—is a 450-minute cyclical experience within a dilapidated collective farm near the end of Communism and during the dead of winter. The central episode "Satan's Tango", an almost unmoving 10-min shot inside the pub as the townspeople get shitfaced and dance to some psychedelic folk music, is just so incredibly awesome. ALSO SUN 2p

* DIVE + Caged Animals @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F/JMZ to Essex/Delancey), 8p/$8. Psych-rockers DIVE (fronted by Beach Fossils' guitarist Z. Cole Smith) are some of the busiest dudes on the indie scene today. Pairing 'em w/ the shifting guitar-sonics of Caged Animals sounds like music to my ears. w/ Heavenly Beat (aka Beach Fossils' bassist John Peña)

AUSTIN
* "Evidence of Houdini's Return" artist talk @ Arthouse / 700 Congress, 2p. Sterling Allen and J. Parker Valentine discuss their respective works in this illuminating group show on contemporary abstract practices. See my review under CURRENT SHOWS (it's mighty dope).

* Loring Baker "A Shifting Thought, A Shifting Sea" @ Co-Lab Project Space / 613 Allen St. Baker records her drawing process in audio files, creating a sonic memory of her mark-making and—once edited with field-records—a whole 'nother layer to her figurative works.

* "Holier Than Thou" (dir. Bastion Carboni) @ Salvage Vanguard Theatre / 2803 E Manor Rd, 8:15p/$10. Carboni's bracing addition to FronteraFest 2012 is a dark comedy about a reality TV show where people compete to possess the powers of Jesus for a week. This is the final showing, and believe me when I write: holy hell, highly recommended!

TOKYO
* Ay-O "Over the Rainbow Once More" @ Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo / 4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station). The "Rainbow Artist" and Fluxus member's full-spectrum career arc, depicted in full color. Featuring a large, participatory installation (as Ay-O's oeuvre is typically multisensory), plus a new large painting, classic other paintings and videos. Ay-O is preparing a performance scheduled for late March (check back here!).
+ Atsuko Tanaka "The Art of Connecting". Define MAJYAH. The first major Tokyo retrospective of the foremost female member of Gutai Art Association, the postwar avant-garde artist group. This includes Tanaka's famous "Electric Dress" but includes loads else, like paintings, collages, and video records of her performances.

* Lee Bul "From me, Belongs to You Only" @ Mori Art Museum / Roppongi Hills Mori Tower (53F), 6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). Lee Bul was my outlet into contemporary Korean art, via some high-tech site and her own cyborgian machine-organic hybrid sculpture. This career survey showcases her major works in four sections: "Ephemeral Presence", "Beyond Human" (duh), "Utopia and Dreamscape", and "From Me, Belongs to You Only" (the exhibition's title and Lee's message in creating a personal relationship b/w her work and we the viewers. PLUS: Lee discusses her past two decades of artistic activities in a 7p talk, under the heading "Mon grand récit/Seeking an Ideal Society".
+ Ho Tzu Nyen. MAM Project 016 presents this Singapore-based video installation artist and his new work "The Cloud of Unknowing" (which debuted at the 2011 Venice Biennale), plus earlier A/V works "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Newton".

* "Arakawa Under the Bridge" (dir. Ken Iizuka, 2012) @ Shinjuku Piccadilly / 3-15-15 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit). Iizuka adapted this from Hikaru Nakamura's bestselling manga, about a self-sufficient young dude who, after a young woman saves his life, begins living under a bridge in some expression of his debt to her and rebuilding his own life. The film is as stylized as the manga, apparently, w/ a whole crazy cast of colorful characters under Arakawa Bridge.

* "Tokyo Playboy Club" (dir. Yosuke Okuda, 2012) @ Eurospace / 3F 1-5 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). Despite the glittery name, this violent and off-kilter humorous look at Tokyo's shadowy underworld has earned serious acclaim since its Busan Film Fest premier, incl. that of young director Okuda. Think Quentin Tarentino crossed w/ Kinji Fukusaku, w/ a grinding guitar soundtrack and hardboiled dudes Nao Omori and Ken Mitsuishi (in one of his most frenetic roles yet) balanced by cutie Asami Usuda.

* FOUR GET ME A NOTS @ Shibuya O-West / 2-3 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6:30p/3300 yen. BOOM. Chiba pop-punks FOUR GET ME A NOTS celebrate the Tokyo-area stop on their 2012 "Silver Lining Tour" w/ a sweaty, riff-rocking one-man show not to be missed!

* "Domina-Trix" @ Trump House/Lounge / 1-6-5 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 10p/5500 yen (men), 2000 (women), 6000 (couples). Like the tagline reads (translated): "A night of total domination by women. A night of total submission by men." Fancy that? Enter the basement for Japan's premier "FemDom" party, feat. 17 dominatrixes from fetish bars I've attended and others, plus pole-dancing, a floor s&m performance, and MC Ai Aoyama's slave auction. For real.

SUNDAY
NYC
* Nicolas Jaar "From Scratch" @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to 23rd St/Court Square, 7 to 45th Rd/Courthouse Sq), 1p/FREE w/ admission. P4K presents this singular event, a five-hour multidisciplinary performance by electronic music producer Jaar w/ collabs Will Epstein, Dave Harrington (Darkside) and Sasha Spielberg, plus a movement piece from Lizzie Feidelson and video art from Ryan Staake, filmmaker-in-residence at Jaar's culture house Clown & Sunset Aesthetics. The whole thing goes down w/in the MoMA PS1 Performance Dome, kicking off the venue's weekly winter programming "Sunday Sessions".

* Pharmakon @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 10p/$5. Margaret Chardiet may be the rare woman musician in the American noise scene, but if her absolutely ferocious S/T EP is any indication, she can decimate w/ the best of the boys. Brace yourselves.

TOKYO
* Plastic Girl In Closet @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station), 6p/3000 yen. Tokyo's sublime shoegazers PGIC headline High's continuing 4th anniversary celebration, which also features Hi-5 and, uh, "Huckleberry Finn"?

* ASTRO & Sachiko @ SOUP / B1F 3-9-10 Kami-Ochiai, Shinjuku-ku (JR Sobu Line to Higashi-Nakano Station), 7p/2500. The inspired pairing of ex-C.C.C.C. noise-god Hiroshi Hasegawa (ASTRO) w/ drone goddess Sachiko M comes from one stop on Toronto/Berlin improv act Nadja's 2012 Japan tour. Also feat: Chihei Hatakeyama w/ Cal Lyall and Hasegawa-Shizuo (Hirotomo Hasegawa w/ Shizuo Uchida).

MONDAY
NYC
* "The Outsider" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1981) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 6:15p. The classic young renegade, but in Tarr's gritty world he's no dandified "bon vivant", he's a broken case in and out of love, jobs, women, booze, etc. ALSO TUE 3:45p

* "The Prefab People" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1982) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:45p. Blue-collar marriage within Budapest's prefab government housing, disintegrating under Communist-era poverty and personal depression, right there before our very eyes.

TUESDAY
NYC
* Nicole Nadeau "Portraits of Origin" @ Y Gallery / 165 Orchard St. Nadeau reinterprets the meaning of the "female universe" and dissects pressures that pervade contemporary womanhood in this media-spanning exhibition, her debut solo at the gallery.

* "Almanac of Fall" (dir. Béla Tarr, 1984) screening @ Film Society of Lincoln Center / 65th St & Lincoln Center (1 to 66th St), 8:30p. Tarr returns to apartment blocks for this chamber drama of sparring and double-talk. Even better, he blends social realism of his earlier works with the dreamy metaphysics of his later films.

* Yellow Tears @ The Stone / 11 E 2nd St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$5. Dominick "Prurient" Fernow's half-month reign over The Stone continues in a big way, w/ the absolutely ferocious noise-mongers Yellow Tears aurally clawing out one helluva set.

* Dum Dum Girls (Cali) + Widowspeak @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$15. Picture perfect. Bands that sound great AND look awesome. Widowspeak enchant w/ Molly Hamilton's croon over dissonant, Spaghetti Western guitars and raw rhythm. Dee Dee & crew take it to a higher plane as Dum Dum Girls, w/ choral harmonies wrapped around a chugging, fuzz-pop core.

AUSTIN
* "Phantasm 2" (dir. Don Coscarelli, 1988) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Coscarelli's classic horror series "Phantasm" were underappreciated game-changers, in my opinion. Angus Scrimm as the iconic crypto-underkeeper Tall Man, in from some sepia-toned dimension, hurling mirrored spheres and commanding these Jawas From Hell to drag victims to his world…that is some scary shit! The '88 sequel is my favorite, though, for so many obvious reasons. Point: Reggie's chainsaw fight w/ a gasmasked baddie. Point: Reggie's quad-barreled sawed-off shotgun and Mike's blowtorch array as go-to weapons. Point: absurd dialogue like Mike remarking they—meaning he and Reggie plus their newfound girlfriends—should get some shuteye (i.e. shag) even though their hideout is barely barricaded and the Tall Man is looming like literally outside. Awesome awesome awesome.

TOKYO
* The Suzan @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 6:30p/3000 yen. By now, I am so totally used to Japanese tropic-pop riot-grrrls The Suzan headlining Brooklyn area shows—or teaming up in awesome NY rosters—that I almost forgot they play Tokyo too. Here, they support the sunny, besuited gents おとぎ話 (Otogibanashi", means "fairy-tale"), whose new-ish 5th LP "Bang Bang Attack" channels that yesteryear harmonious paisley-pop. w/ Ropes

CURRENT SHOWS
* Diana Al-Hadid @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Brooklyn-based sculptural alchemist dropped some heady topics in her talk preceding this exhibition, not only naming a certain Gothic painting of the Visitation from a Spanish museum as her point of departure in this stunning new work "Suspended After Image", but also labyrinths (and Jorge Luis Borges), Peter Bruegel (and Babel), and the Large Hadron Collider. All this clued me into Al-Hadid's remarkable sense of harnessing space and presence in her installations, morphing bulk into something oddly ethereal and organic, though still visually commanding. "Suspended After Image" is Al-Hadid's first instance of using a 3D modeling program and CNC router in her work, and the final flowing, terraced form acts more like a 3D painting than a proper sculpture, with the figure seemingly emerging from the frontal staircase while a flow of media colored like wet Frosted Mini Wheats echoes her opulent robes. Though there is an almost total spectrum of color infused in this work, mostly as frozen drips on the sides and back, the overall is a pristine grayish-white, which is absolutely stunning in the VAC's Vaulted Gallery.
+ "(im)possibilities. Five artists — Michael Stevenson, Erica Baum, Birgit Rathsmann, Patrick Resing, and Ellie Ga — extend Borges' metaphor of the library in this dialogue of narratives and human experience. This plays well with Diana Al-Hadid's installation in the Vaulted Gallery. I was most quickly taken by Baum's series "Dog Ear", utilizing folded pages from paperbacks and photographing them into unique fragmented dialogue. Ga's C-prints of an illuminated fissure within the Arctic ice, shot during her residency at the scientific research vessel Tara, feel otherworldly.
+ Justin Boyd "Dubforms". Angled, floor-mounted video panels, field recordings with ample echo…all of it makes the VAC's Arcade space feel much larger and deeper than it actually is. So in transforming space, the San Antonio-based artist succeeds.

* Daniel Heidkamp "Glow Drops at the Chill Spot" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Take a plunge into Heidkamp's latest suite of radiant, textural scenes. He shows these interiors and exteriors completely independent from his ongoing portraiture, a strong move in my opinion. For the Brooklyn-based artist isn't just this accomplished figurative painter who also happens to paint rooms and landscapes en plein air. Rather, he is a strong force in capturing natural environments as he sees them, imbuing them with a resonating life-force and character that draws us into their layers of oil paint and dollops of impasto, confronting us with a disarming nostalgia. I may never have visited that Massachusetts backyard ("Here Glows Nothing") or Florida dockside ("Alligator Alley"), but it's like I can smell the air, feel the lawn beneath my trainers and the sun on my face. There's a physicality to Heidkamp's scenes beyond the presence of actual people, who he deftly folds into scenarios (the fireside "Feel It All Around", the portraitures' meta-effect in "The Night of 1000 Paintings") as accenting players. A very strong exhibition and a bold start to Austin's 2012 gallery season.

* Jill Magid "Failed States" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. So check this: on 1/21/10, a young man named Fausto fired six bullets into the air outside the Texas State Capitol. Jill Magid — whose oeuvre navigates bureaucracy and security/intelligence w/ Mission Impossible deftness — was like steps away, pursuing her own future work, and witnessed it. Now six blocks from the scene and two years later, Magid stages an intriguing Conceptual show that ties Fausto's mysterious actions — and his silence throughout his trial — with that of Goethe's "Faust". The ground-floor gallery is her stage, replete with wall-decal directions ("Enter Fausto", "shots fired skyward", "enter Magid" etc), Magid's own play "Fausto: A Tragedy" (mirroring "Faust"'s original intention as a closet drama, meant to be read and not performed), and contemplative works. Deep encodings here, from six translations of "Faust" silkscreened on top of one another, to six bullet casings and a six-slide projection of the sky over the Capitol. Magid wrote a letter to Fausto, requesting his voice (absent in his trial) to read passages from "Faust" (whose Spanish translation is "Fausto") — his answer is still forthcoming, but it would add an intriguing layer to all this. Finally, there is Magid's family's '93 Mercedes, armored to B4 level and parked in Fausto's spot outside the Capitol, and her writing appearing in the February issue of the "Texas Observer", drawing this dialogue beyond the art-scene realm as it should be.
+ "Evidence of Houdini's Return". A really brilliant group show of fractured and re-envisioned realities, curated by Arthouse's Rachel Adams. I tweeted that it made me miss NYC, because it's precisely that sort of thoughtful exhibition that makes me look twice, thrice, at what I think I already know. Ex: Strauss Borque LaFrance's "BABE", a silvery lacquered wood plank pitched diagonally on the wall like classic John McCracken,…only just around the corner is that same plank, used as a shelf amid LaFrance's complex, mixed-media display. Another: Katja Mater's "Time Passing Objects", chromogenic prints that blur the line b/w photography and geometric drawings. Justin Swinburne's "Echo" works, multiple inkjet scans onto alu-dibond that echo (no pun) Gerhard Richter's signature abstracts while maintaining that sense of disarray like Wade Guyton's inkjet silkscreens. Bravo!

* "True Story" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. Three artists — Austinites Paul Beck and Pat Snow, plus Minnesotan Allen Brewer — play with, and off, perception and representation, reminding us as viewers that things aren't always as clear-cut as they first seem. Brewer takes a direct approach by purposefully painting (or drawing) his subjects blind, focusing on who or what he's rendering instead of the resultant object itself. So while some works carry ghostly remnants or shifts of his mark-making, others like the old man "Poopy" are startlingly realized, fully fleshed out like a Lucien Freud painting. Snow's watercolors and drawings mine his personal space, culling from memories, songs in the background and dialogue. Perhaps reflecting his background working alongside Robert Colescott and Howard Finster, many of Snow's works feature enveloping stories, like "Record Shop Girl" (the charming awkwardness hits close to home) and "I Think My Dog Is a Racist". His ecstatically rendered 99 watercolors "Girl Crazy/Crazy Girl" mostly features women artist friends from his former hometown, Birmingham AL, interspersed with silent movie-style title cards like "TOO Bad" and "Sweet Sad True", prompting an imagined (real?) conversation. The figures' range of renderings from classical to cartoonish reminded me a bit of Richard Linklater's classic Austin rotoscoped animation "Waking Life", which is where Beck comes in. He animated for that film and Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly", and his two suites of mixed media works made for this show tread the line b/w realism and almost nightmarish fantasy, soft-contoured figures floating against stark political undertones and lettering, all with a muted reddish palette. What's the message? That our own consciousness is a jumble of memories, daily interventions and environmental/societal irregularities, as mutable as the moments captured in these works.

CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Ai Weiwei "Sunflower Seeds" @ Mary Boone Gallery / 541 W 24th St. Ai's incredible carpet of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, which last blanketed the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall in 2010, comes to the states in a site-specific installation at Mary Boone.

* Jim Isermann "Reunion" @ Mary Boone Gallery / 745 Fifth Ave. A selection of bold '80s abstract-ish paintings, both enamel on wood and yarn "paintings", plus a flower-shaped installation of Isermann's signature chairs.

* Joel Sternfeld "First Pictures" @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. Four bodies of work — the early "Happy Anniversary Sweetie Face!" from '71, plus '75's "Nags Head", '76's "Rush Hour" street portraiture and "At the Mall, New Jersey 1980" — all integral to Sternfeld's conceptual and formalistic photographic processes, and all rarely exhibited or published. An eponymous catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

* Thomas Woodruff "The Four Temperament Variations" @ PPOW / 535 W 22nd St, 3rd Fl. Woodruff wields portraiture, still-life, landscape painting and wildlife w/ uncannily equal aplomb in his fantastical, vivid paintings, threading in mythology, steampunk imagery and "lowbrow" pop surrealism. His eight solo exhibition at the gallery (the last was in 2008) comes with a monograph, essayed by another old-style master, Vincent Desiderio.

* Margaret Evangeline "Time Bomb" @ STUX Gallery / 530 W 25th St. What sounds cooler to you: gestural marks of oil paint on canvas, or bullet holes riddling stainless steel? Guess what: in Evangeline's third solo exhibition at the gallery, you get both!

AUSTIN
* Mads Lynnerup "Help is on the way" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces. This is one of those rare occasions when I visit a multidisciplinary artist's show and am most immediately drawn to the videos. These things take time, and doubly so when paired w/ Lynnerup's candy-colored "Exercise Your Artist" collages and neon cut-paper "Astrobright" arrangements, like infinitely adaptable (and flashier) Ellsworth Kelly's. But its beyond these and the Franz West-style spraypainted plywood and foam exercise "blocks" that the videos really shine. One, "Demonstration", features Lynnerup's muscly trainer in a studio space working out with the West-ish blocks and angular wall relief "Exercising Grill", pulling a Matthew Barney of exertion and stamina but towards a more relatable, self-improving goal. Or at least when he starts doing headstands, it made ME want to hit the gym. The other far quieter video, "Untitled (Shadow)", follows Lynnerup's hands and paper as he traces out a shadow-y landscape in rays of sunlight, a spontaneous flip-book executed in the simplest, and thus most thrilling, gestures.

TOKYO
* Masafumi Kawakami @ Taimatz / 1-2-11 Higashi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku (JR Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station, Toei-Shinjuku Line to Bakuro-Yokoyama Station). More nightmarish, subtly figurative paintings and collages from the young artist, who had a pretty significant solo show at Taro Nasu Gallery in 2010. Right on. (ENDS SAT)

fee's LIST / through 1/31

2012-01-25T09:01:00.000-05:00

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)

fee's LIST / through 1/17

2012-01-11T10:18:00.001-05:00

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)

fee's LIST / through 1/10

2012-01-04T11:34:00.000-05:00

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)

My TOP TEN LIST-worthy cultural events of 2011

2011-12-20T12:45:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year when seemingly every publication, art- and otherwise, does a 'best-of', 'year-end', 'top ten' list. Artforum did like a thousand of these. And so can I. While my writing is far more rudimentary than what you may read elsewhere, you can rest assured it is my highly subjective, slang-riddled, personally-experienced opinion. And with that:

My TOP TEN LIST-worthy cultural events of 2011 (in chronological order, b/c further ranking would be too masochistic)

1. Patrick Jacobs "Familiar Terrain" @ Pierogi Gallery
What I said then:
01/25/11: I love this exhibition's title: it felt totally appropriate as I practically dove face-first into the warm, endless meadows realized in Jacobs' awesome works — they're a combo of meticulous diorama and convex Claude glass lenses, so they appear as 3D photographs. I count myself the requisite city-dweller, a hardcore urbanite who likes his parks but is most comfortable on pavement, transit platforms and structures several stories off the ground. But I was beyond charmed by these swaths of greenery, recalling everything from some English glade to upstate New York, just off the beaten path. "Fairy Ring with English Daisies" (2010) bears a flattened oval of grass in its foreground. The tiny "Dandelion Cluster" (a 2-inch lens) is stuffed to the brim w/ thistles and that blossoming weed, like seeing it from the POV of tall grass. Water features, distant powerlines, water-towers, and other elements slowly reveal themselves in Jacobs' compositions, as our eyes soar back toward the horizon. This Cali-born, Brooklyn-based enchanter is featured in the upcoming "Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities" group exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design — but those feelings of delight when peering into a Jacobs' lens are totally natural.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
Jacobs' works — blurring sculpture, photography, painting (kinda), collage, installation — put you at ease. I could stare at and into these hemispheres for hours, off, off into the distance, of rain-matted grass, of trees and flowers, of cloud patterns and, possibly, landmarks. Everything is purposefully vague yet gently familiar. I look forward to Jacobs' inclusion at VOLTA NY 2012.

2. Laurel Nakadate "Only the Lonely" @ MoMA PS1
What I said then:
02/01/11: The fact I can't come up with an easy explanation of my feelings when walking through Nakadate's first comprehensive museum exhibition speaks to the power of what's on display. And what's on display, to put it bluntly, is the artist herself. Here goes: many of Nakadate's video works and photography features her play-acting for the camera w/ older, single, anonymous men. They may be acting out exorcisms in the guy's house — like "Little Exorcisms" (2009) — or having mock-birthday parties, "Happy Birthday" (2000), the earliest here, three videos of the guy serenading Nakadate in front of a candlelit cake. They could be reenacting the heroine's cinematic death, like in "Beg For Your Life" (2006) or kinda dancing w/ her to Britney Spears in "Oops!" (2000). Or they could be like the wild-haired artist, sketching her for "Lessons 1-10" (2002) while Nakadate poses in her panties or less, staring at us while we and the guy stare at her. These videos and related photography bear the triple assault of deep unease, gnawing loneliness and tentative comfort — most evident as her comforting them, stepping into these socially-awkward men's lives for an hour or whatever, however long it takes to film the project, though I don't suspect it to be entirely one-sided. The strong sense of voyeurism (the men's lustful or innocent demeanor around her, Nakadate's magnetic presence in the frame) is tempered by Nakadate controlling the camera. Like "Good Morning, Sunshine" (2009), where she's the off-camera voice in young women's bedrooms, coaxing them to strip to their underwear. And her self-portraits, like the new series "365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears", an overwhelming array of C-prints capturing her crying all throughout 2010, in the U.S.-Canada sojourn via Amtrak "Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind" (2006), where she throws her underwear out the moving train's window, and in "Love Hotel" (2005), a video of her coupling w/ an invisible, absent lover in Tokyo's love hotel sprawl. And, furthermore, in her project videos. She is undeniably courageous to enter a stranger's flat, but the ensuing invigoration and mutual respect and emotions may be to everyone's benefit, hers and the guys. I'm not trying to understand the thoughts going through these guys heads, having an attractive young woman artist creating a project with them, or if they ever see the final results of her respective work. Nakadate, however, is trying to understand, sharing a little face-time and a little human interaction. Both Nakadate's full-length films "Stay the Same Never Change" (2009, w/ its Sundance premiere) and "The Wolf Knife" (2010, which I hadn't seen until now) are included in the exhibition.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
There's no easy answer how you're "supposed" to feel in this survey exhibition. As a straight man, catching myself gawking (for lack of a better word) at Nakadate's varying stages of undress in her performative videos and photography, I felt no more excused from criticism as many middle-aged sad cases populating her works, tentatively joining in the performances with her. At times I found the whole lot numbing, particularly "365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears", while her videos bore a necessarily more visceral interplay between Nakadate, the camera, sometimes her guests, and us the viewers. But I kept thinking about it, and tumbling over my own feelings, long after I'd met Nakadate at her opening and walked through the show. Even after the second and third visits, I was still thinking it over. That reverberation is crucial to any good exhibition. This one doesn't just let you go.

3. Glenn Ligon "AMERICA" @ Whitney Museum
What I said then:
03/22/11: This is essential. Glenn Ligon's textured, language-imbued works encapsulate the experience of growing up Black in America, specifically a Black male in America (and even more specifically, a gay Black male in America), and bridges this nation's troubled cultural history from the slave-owning Old South to President Obama, w/ special emphasis on race relations in the '90s. The Bronx-born, NY-based Ligon begins the experience w/ a huge silkscreen "Hands" (1996), a truncated image from the previous year's Million Man March. Think about that time period for a moment: I was in middle school, the Republican Party had overtaken the House during Pres. Clinton's first term, economic disparity and unemployment for African Americans were at terrible heights, and there was an alarm of the media's fixation on O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson and the ensuing Black male targeted image. I was young but I realized there was a hell of a mess going down. Ligon felt that exponentially more acutely, and this one striking, almost abstract rendering of a sea of outstretched hands beneath a twilit horizon acts like a flag and snapshot of what's to come w/in his exhibition. His early text-only painting "Untitled (I Am a Man)" (1988), recalling the famous placards carried by Memphis sanitation workers in '68 — which, incidentally, Sharon Hayes recreates as part of her "IN the Near Future" (2009) slide-project installation at the Guggenheim (their "Found in Translation" multi-artist show) — is evident of his manipulation and control of words and texture. The type is shrunken in its heavily enameled backdrop and the leading (space between lines) is spaced out, punctuating the words: "I AM - A - MAN". The next room is lined with door-sized canvases from 1990, each roughly painted white and filled w/ repeated stenciled sentences, like a massive typewriter gone haywire. The sources range from Jean Genet's incendiary play "The Blacks", as Ligon's work "I'm turning into a specter before your very eyes and I'm going to haunt you"; to Jesse Jackson's poem "I Am Somebody" and it's neighbor "I Was Somebody" (the only one w/ white-on-white type); to Zora Neale Hurston's essay "I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background"—they read over and over ad infinitum, 'til the letters bleed black. I read the placard in the next room, installed w/ four shipping crates, for help: Ligon combines his '93 series "To Disembark" (based on a 19th-century account by a slave named Henry Brown, who escaped by mailing himself to Philadelphia in a wooden crate) w/ actual crates emitting the soft refrains of Billie Holiday ("Strange Fruit", her anti-lynching anthem) and KRS-One ("Sound of da Police") and frightening, stylized fugitive slave 'wanted' posters w/ Ligon as the fleeing subject. It's a full-on, sensorial, visceral installation that exemplifies his deftness in conveying a pan-generational Black experience, from colonial days to early '90s police brutality, in one focused gut-punch. More from Ligon's Million Man March series follows, plus a room of images from Robert Mapplethorpe's complicated and provocative "Black Book" publication, notated w/ a melange of critical commentary (both pro and con). He calls a broader scope of Black male imagery into play: whether you're "turned on" or offended by Mapplethorpe's sexually charged (or exploitative?) subject matter, whether you find traditional film roles and typecasting (the hyperbolized comedian, the sullen action hero, the sole Black guy who dies w/in 15 minutes of that slasher film etc etc) significantly troubling or you're ambivalent towards them — the "correct answer" is indeed infinitely more complicated. His series on James Baldwin's 1953 essay "Stranger in the Village" — the writer's experience staying in an Alpine hamlet that had never seen a dark-skinned person before — soaks Baldwin's chilling words in black paint and coal dust, turning "the world is white no longer, and will never be white again" into impenetrable, twinkling darkness. One of these works even represents Ligon's self-portrait, as he excised stenciled text from one, leaving a black and amorphously bordered void. Finally there's the neon, one striking installation of three imperfect neon signs spelling out AMERICA, in backward letters, in flickering tones and a third painted over in black, coolly retaining the power of the word. Sit amongst these for a few moments and let the experience of the previous rooms settle in: America's a dazzling place but mixed up, still not on the righteous path for all its people. America flickers like a caution sign, America's at half-power, struggling to get back on track. America's a big place and a symbolizes an epic many things, success, freedom, power and plight. What does it mean to you?
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
In a season of awesome retrospectives and surveys came one of the Whitney's best, at least in my recent memory and my favorite since Jenny Holzer's in 2009. Ligon's exhibition is expertly put together, not precisely chronologically, so that the gut-punch opening silkscreen recurs in context about midway through, ending with a quiet yet powerful neon installation at the conclusion. Throughout, we are reminded how much America has changed since Ligon was a boy, from the '60s Civil Rights marches onward. Yet, in this late year of Pres. Obama's first term, it's not exactly roses and bluejays, either. America has imperfectly improved, there is still hate towards people of color, the President is still vilified for his race (though critics will claim it's "not that"). Ligon reminds us the narrative is still open. It's the rare exhibit where I spent time reading his text-heavy works, for he does some incredible alchemy with words.

4. "Bye Bye Kitty!!! Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art" @ Japan Society
What I said then:
032911: Hello Kitty dies in the end, surmounting a gravestone for pet animals and photographed — I'd like to think innocuously, like the gravestone actually exists in a cemetery somewhere — by Yoshitomo Nara, the punk-rocker of Japan's contemporary art world. I trust I didn't spoil the whole exhibition for you (the clue's in the title, hello!), because besides the general flow through rooms, or "Critical Memory", "Threatened Nature" and "Unquiet Dream" as Japan Society calls 'em, there is no right or wrong way to progress through this exhibition. Though I do advise you to begin at the conventional entryway, at least to face Makoto Aida's heavy "Ash Color Mountains" (2009-11) and put that past you. It would be a disturbing painting anyway, a massive hazy landscape broken up by hills of office workers, not ostensibly gory like his notorious 2001 work "Blender" (not shown here, but you'll find it in the catalogue!!! A little warning: this show as a whole is NOT kid-friendly. Maybe the last third is…hence the other entrance, but the Nara photograph is liable to freak them out too) but imbued with this unseen, unimaginable disaster, it cannot help but conjure images of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan. I suggest you give it a closer look, at the endless multitude of ONLY corporate staff, like a landfill to Japan's salaryman way of life, and the title's meaning may resonate truer to Aida's original intent. Its neighbor, the feverishly colorful and shiny "Harakiri School Girls" (2002), its grouping of saturated-toned sailor-suited students lavishly committing seppuku (which any jidaigeki aficionado knows was originally reserved only for samurai, as part of the bushido honor code), is a blunter and therefore more immediately accessible Aida. The whole print is on this holographic sticker, and he's inscribed his name and the title in cute futuristic type whilst echoing in shodo-style Japanese cursive, bookending the brutality ritualistically enacted by these trendy ko-gals. Maybe he's commenting on teenagers' blind lust for following the next hot new thing (I mean, take director Yoshihiro Nishimura's hyperbolized version, the wrist-cut "Ge" fake commercial, during his film "Tokyo Gore Police"), or his general disdain for moralistic suicide and belligerent schoolgirls. If you can get past the gore — and believe me I can — it's damn beautiful to look at. Now it's to my understanding that Aida's slasher-film-crossed-with-a-rave style tends to dominate a room, but he shares it here w/ Kyoto-based photographer Miwa Yanagi. She is one of EIGHT women artists in this 16-person show, so fully half the artists. Way to go, Japan Society! Plus, I am sorely lacking on the Japanese women photographer front, and we've got three of 'em here. Anyway: Yanagi shows four stylized C-prints from her "My Grandmother" series, depicting college-age girls under SFX makeup and Photoshop manipulation, as they see themselves in 50 years. In essence, they free themselves of youth's societal restrictions to think big and project themselves in limitless (but attainable?) fantasy scenarios. She represented Japan w/ her recent monumental series "Windswept Women" at the 53rd Venice Biennale, and though "My Grandmother" aren't nearly as massive, nor generational-mixed (lithe, youthful bodies and prematurely aged faces), they still draw a strong, if complex reaction. Tomoko Kashiki is nearly a full generation younger than Yanagi, and depicts women too but in slightly amorphous, slow-blurred animation, retaining trails of their movement as they disintegrate in woodgrain floor ("In a Box", 2008) — there's a lucid dreamlike element to it, like they're trying to rouse themselves back into reality. Maybe that's why the landscapes they embody seem a bit too perfect. Yamaguchi Akira (who I should note retains the Japanese way of ordering his family-name Yamaguchi first, even in English text) and the slightly younger Manabu Ikeda both create wildly detailed, environmentally imbued imagery. Yamaguchi's approaches that traditional "Floating World" cutaway style but sets his pens and watercolors on Tokyo's bustling Narita International Airport, thronged with businessmen and tourists and eclipsed in yellow smog clouds. I've encountered Ikeda before in group shows and art fairs (his "Foretoken" re-imagines Hokusai's famous "Great Wave off Kanagawa" as a tidal wave of traditional architecture), and I'd like to believe his huge diptych pen-and-acrylic-ink renderings embody some utopian arcology thinking. The swelling "History of rise and fall" (2006), an infinite-pagoda-roofed structure populated with cherry blossoms, Buddha hands and waterfalls that towers over stamp-sized rice fields and its primeval forest neighbor "Existence" (2004) imagine worlds proscribing the metropolis. Though considering the devastation wrought upon Miyagi Prefecture's farmland and townships, Ikeda's organic works feel like pastoral time capsules. Or to continue the arcology idea, these fantastical environments perpetuate their existences above and away from the modernization and disasters, man-made and natural, though on the other hand they appear to crumble under their own wildly unrealistic structures. It's here the exhibition switches gears into "Threatened Nature" (I think??), as a corridor separates the previous pairing of classical technique and super-contemporary pop with an overall naturalistic angle. Chiharu Shiota's installation "Dialogue with Absence" (2010, eschewing her telltale hairlike black-yarn tangles for transparent plastic tubes, siphoning red-dyed liquid from peristaltic pumps into a painted wedding dress. Surface-level, it reminded me of Tony Feher's lyrical "Next On Line" installation at The Pace Gallery crossed w/ Anselm Kiefer's history-steeped, ruined dioramas. It does embody some of Shiota's ongoing dialogues with an individual's ties to their ancestors, peers and environment — quite literally in the attached "blood supply" — but for me it didn't have that unnerving 'oomph' factor like her earthier, hairier installations. Though it segues well enough into Motohiko Odani's set of malformed Noh masks, purposefully imbalanced with sections of lifelike human bone and flesh, and with Kohei Nawa's "PixCell-Deer #24" (2011), a taxidermy buck covered in different-sized plastic globes. Stare into the sculpture, discerning that indeed it used to be a living creature, and you'll see yourself — many dozens of you, actually — locked w/in its beaded "skin", staring back at you. That interconnectivity with nature reappears throughout Rinko Kawauchi's "AILA" series, over a dozen picture-portrait-sized C-prints of natural forms, dead and alive. I was fortunate to experience Tomoko Shioyasu's thrillingly meticulous cut-paper shadow installations at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo last year, and am stoked she reappears here with 'Vortex" (2011), a new screen-sized whirlpool that places viewers within this channel, linking history, environment, experience. Shioyasu's conduit propels us into the third phase of the exhibition "Unquiet Dream". Kumi Machida's Nihonga-based figures, created entirely from traditional pigments on handmade paper, exist in like a half-womb half-sensory deprivation chamber. Tomoko Yoneda's series of sparse interiors, like windows into unpopulated worlds (or, again, echoes of the quake and tsunami devastation), are centered in infamous history, taken in the former HQ of Korea's Defense Security Command in Seoul. I fortuitously first experienced this series at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, during that same trip last April. The past charges of torture and political unrest unleashed in Yoneda's stark photographs mutes Haruka Kojin's beautifully conceived artificial flower mirrored installation (it's lovely and a bit disorienting, how she's crafted this Rorschach effect, but almost requires its own space to breathe). We conclude with two video works by London-based Hiraki Sawa (whose wonderful "O" installation, originally commissioned by the Queensland Art Gallery for the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Australia, ends this Saturday at James Cohan Gallery), his borderless fantasy "Within" (2010) and his superb early work "Elsewhere" (2003), a poetic silent video of household objects with lives of their own. Do the materials we own control us? Are we so attached to our 'stuff' that we forfeit 'real' relationships? I'm not sure if that's fully Sawa's intent here, but there is a duality to his whimsical display. And yes, here occurs Nara's aforementioned C-print, the Hello Kitty duo holding court as guardians in a pet cemetery. This is a show that benefits from unhurried visits, because small as the overall gallery space is, there is quite a bit of layered meaning to distill. That so much here seems to preempt and visualize the wrath of Mother Nature makes it all the more emotive. And considering my deep affinity for Japan, for my awesome friends there and my ongoing studies in the language, I feel extra connected to the exhibition.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
I've little to add to the above emotional discourse (continued here for NY Art Beat) besides reiterating the deep feelings I have toward this group exhibition and Japan's art world in general. The artists' reception was easily the weirdest, heaviest I've ever attended, occurring just days after the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake. Then I visited Tokyo weeks later. I am reiterating everything I've written already. I was back in Tokyo for a week in December 2011, checking up on artists, galleries and friends. "Bye Bye Kitty!!!" would have undoubtedly left an impact on me anyway — and it totally aided me deeper appreciation of the Japanese contemporary art scene (Kumi Machida and Miwa Yanagi in particular) — but the terrible coincidence of this past March made its mark that much more indelible.

5. NYC Popfest 2011 @ Cake Shop
What I said then:
05/24/11: Yep, it's a guilty pleasure, but I attend Popfest every year. And the kickoff show at Cake Shop (feat. local lovelies Dream Diary, Georgia's Gold-Bears, Cali's Sea Lions) just got a helluva lot awesomer when Popfest announced last week that the secret headliners are none other than my favorite band The Pains of Being Pure At Heart! Devoted LIST-readers will recall these NYC jangle-pop champs just sold out Webster Hall, so to have 'em playing tiny Cake Shop (my fourth time seeing 'em at this venue) is super special. If you were lucky enough to nab a ticket, join me up front.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
On practically the eve of my departure from NYC, I attended the awesomest Popfest show in Popfest history. It would've been dope anyway, considering the announced lineup, but when my favorites The Pains of Being Pure At Heart (aka NYC's cutest indie-pop band) became the secret headliners, I was ecstatic, over the moon. See, I'd seen 'em in a sold-out show at a much bigger venue like two weeks earlier, and I was coming to terms w/ the truth that they are so good now, and so popular now, that I'll never see 'em like I did two years ago at tiny basement Cake Shop. Well, here they were, practically tearing the roof off with their amped-up dream-pop noise, smashing through oldies like "Everything With You" and second LP tracks "Heart In Your Heartbreak" with panache. Honorable mention to Georgia's Gold-Bears for onstage kineticism. They whipped the crowd into a frenzy with "Record Store", and I was right there in front. I had my favorite spot from the get-go, and once The Pains took the stage and rocked out, I was transported back to their headlining spot at the "Twee as Fuck" Cake Shop show two years prior. Absolute bliss.

6. "Wild Beasts" @ Champion
What I said then:
09/13/11: Who's afraid of color, of paintings? Of vibrantly colorful, physically rendered, representational paintings…of stuff like portraiture and interior scenes? NYTimes' Roberta Smith writes of the Painting and Sculpture reconfigurings at MoMA, injecting those hallowed halls w/ key contributions from women artists (an EXCELLENT move) and lots and lots of experimental and increasingly non-painterly combinations. She quotes from Douglas Crimp's '81 essay "The End of Painting" in remarking on the Conceptual, Process and Video Art filling the latter part of the (newer) 4th Fl, along w/ stylistic liberties on the (older) 5th Fl, like reducing the (iconic, primary-colored) Piet Mondrian holdings and upping the biomorphic sculptures. Meanwhile in Austin, the young NY-based painter Ryan Schneider culled a potent five-artist exhibition reveling in color and canvas, in realism refracted through a 21st century prism. Check Atlanta native Shara Hughes (who's spent a lot of time in NY, plus is featured in the Saatchi Collection), whose entire current output is based on interiors — for her, "total paintings", encapsulating all her ideas and giving each of us something juicy and personal to grasp hold of. These ain't 19th Century European, I can tell you that much, though like the Met exhibition "Rooms with a View", Hughes uses outside illumination to intriguing effect. The vaguely cosmic, multiplanar composition "You Don't Know, I Can't Tell You" opens up to floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking an autumnal backyard and a smaller De Chirico-metaphysical doghouse casting long shadows. Daniel Heidkamp — who I've seen paired w/ Schneider before, at Priska Juschka Gallery's "Big Picture" show — pairs surroundings w/ posed portraiture (hell, his ongoing modus is "en plein air"), teasing out unusual and unexpected color combinations by painting these from life. The dry, washed out Texas sun affects his "Carte Blanche" series of portraits painted in situ at Champion, particularly when compared w/ his NY portraits. Schneider throws jeweled patterns over some of his newer compositions, maintaining Skittles-hued palettes he's been championing since I've been familiar w/ his work. The new canvas "Not to Sleep Just Rest" is one of his most exciting I've seen, cropping a nude (except for socks) female form into a wall-to-wall menagerie of floral mosaic tiles and chevron drapes; even the tabby cat's stripes play into it. While Joshua Abelow's ostensibly reductive works (think graphic symbols, numerals and shapes painted on burlap) might seem at odds w/ their wildly vivacious kindred, the geometries in Hughes' spacier interiors and particularly in Schneider's patterned compositions are totally in play here, along w/ some very intriguing, if limited, color combos. Finally Ezra Johnson reveals two painterly stop-frame animations, like 2009's "The Time of Tall Statues" (shown at Asya Geisberg Gallery this summer). His technique reminded me of vintage painted-cel animations, circa Windsor McKay's "Little Nemo in Slumberland", and if that sounds untrendy and potentially brilliant, it very much is.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
This group show of old and new NY friends definitely made my transition from NYC to ATX a lot easier. Plus, painting is awesome. Finally: Champion is among my favorite galleries, anywhere, and its tight, smart programming renews my faith that the South holds as much impact in the contemporary art world as either East or West Coasts, or Europe or Asia. It was around this time in Austin when I decided YES, this place works for me. Here's my review for New American Paintings.

7. Fantastic Fest 2011 @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar
What I said then:
I didn't! Beyond this early courtesy warning!
And subsequent reviews!
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
So epic. My favorite film festival, b/c it's a film festival for film buffs and film freaks. You'll have the odd buttoned-up journalist or PR type, but the majority are very cool people, very devoted people, who are pretty fun to geek out with. I caught "only" 24 unique films this time (25 if you count seeing the world-premiere of Noboru Iguchi's guilty pleasure "Zombie Ass" twice), but they were majorly awesome. From the long-overdue "Livid" by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, to Michael R. Roskam's lauded and buzzworthy "Bullhead", to the decimating "Melancholia" from Lars von Trier, to a helluva lotta awesome Sushi Typhoon titles, Iguchi's almost family-friendly "Karate-Robo Zaborgar" and Yudai Yamaguchi & Tak Sakaguchi's "Yakuza Weapon"…and yes, even the world premiere of Tom Six's "The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence". I drank way too much, slept way too little, befriended a bunch of directors, actors, and Japanese film journalists, made many new friends from such encounters, and hung out for long periods of time with team Sushi Typhoon. A splatter-loving boy's dream, right?

8. Battles + Nisennenmondai @ Emo's East
What I said then:
10/25/11: I've been hotly anticipating this team-up for a good long while, a rhythmic square-off b/w Battles' man-machine John Stanier and Nisennenmondai's thrash goddess Sayaka Himeno. This is the latter's first U.S. showing in like SIX years: the ladies have honed their hypnotic math-rock sets to almost ESP precision — but Himeno keeps it kinetic and improvisational. Plus, this is my 1st Battles show post-Tyondai. Stoked!
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
Full disclosure: my entire draw to this show was Nisennenmondai. I'd seen Battles twice already, though with Tyondai Braxton both times. And Battles didn't disappoint as a trio, no way, they whipped up a slinky, robotic dance-off with a set of mostly "Ice Cream"-era tracks, with a laudable light-show to boot. But I was beyond floored by Nisennenmondai, beginning with their Kraut-rock opener "appointment", leading with Yuri Zaikawa's sludge bass, followed by Sayaka Himeno's percolating hi-hat and, finally, Masako Takada's synth melody. Then just…epic…versions of "fan", "mirrorball" and the ferocious "ikkyokume" (turning Himeno from a jazz drummer to pure thrash and back again). The kind of jams that get lodged deep within your cerebral cortex. I met them afterward and shot the shit for a long time w/ Zaikawa. Next goal: see 'em live in Tokyo.

9. Maurizio Cattelan "All" @ Guggenheim
What I said then:
11/15/11: 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.
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
I loved loved LOVED this. It is subversive Cattelan at his very best. You want a career retrospective? Fine, suspend all of my artwork (sans like two) from the ceiling, out of order, out of synchrony, out of hierarchy. At the very least, this unorthodox installation "de-staticizes" Cattelan's oeuvre, forming new narratives. So what if coffined JFK "Now" is usually shown in small, solitary rooms, and now it's hanging in midair alongside over a hundred pop culture kindred? Is the message not even broader now, more impactful, that JFK is suspended over an entire American Dream? Or dream of the western world?…shown here with trussed foes (Hitler, the Klan-sheeted elephant) and "friends" (Picasso, children, the Pope)? I wrote about Cattelan's retrospective for …might be good (link here) too. Yeah it's spectacle. But it will probably leave a much deeper impression than you expect.

10. tokyoDOLORES "赤頭巾/dear my red hunter" @ Ebisu livingroom
What I said then:
I didn't! Though I did have a long buildup to tokyoDOLORES' huge winter performance, themed after Little Red Riding Hood (or "Akazukin" in Japanese). The troupe's leader and my good friend Cay had clued me into Akazukin's mythology since this past summer, and that coincided toward their Lucca, Italy preparations. See, before this major, hour-long original production, tokyoDOLORES were embarking on their first-ever European tour, playing at Lucca's Comics and Games Festival in November. Huge!
Why it is LIST TOP TEN-worthy:
Akazukin is the second major tokyoDOLORES performance I've seen this year. I caught their bracing, fascinating "Eline the Mermaid" in April, which featured 12 dancers, four poles, aerial silk, floor routines and an ass-rattling bass-heavy soundtrack. I loved it. Akazukin focused it down to six dancers — pole-aficionados Cay Izumi, Aloe, Nancy Kikurage and JILL, plus contemporary dancers Sayano Ichinohe and Yukika Masai — and a very clear story most of us know, i.e. Little Red Riding Hood, the woods, Grandma's house, and of course the Big Bad Wolf. So there was Cay as Akazukin/Red Riding Hood, moving from floor routines with "flower" dancers and pole gymnastics, and there was little Aloe, stunningly transformed into this lurching, demonic wolf, crawling about the stage, slinking up poles, owning the darkness. The music was bard-friendly until dissolving into like Lords of Acid rage, the lighting and background images excellent, the costumes and makeup superlative. The girls were AWESOME. Like I told Aloe and Cay after their performance, I sincerely hope they tour this show. The buzz they received upon completing Italy has opened many many new avenues, w/ possibilities in Paris, Russia, Korea, Shanghai…and of course the U.S. For any naysayers doubting the possibility of pole-dancing as an art form, tokyoDOLORES elevated it once again, in a cascade of contemporary styles stronger than ever. For these girls, 2012 will be amazing.

Annnnnd that's it for 2011, at least to the tune of regular blog posts. 2012 will be mayjah. I'll be in NYC, ATX and Tokyo...if not equally, then at least regularly. Hell, March 2012 equals the Whitney Biennial, the New Museum Triennale, major retrospectives at the Guggenheim and MoMA. And that's just NYC. You want more burlesque, more international art, more live music and crazier film premieres? Strap yourselves in tight, girls and boys. Or do like I do, o-shibari style (: 'Til 2012!

fee's LIST / through 12/20

2011-12-14T11:40:00.000-05:00

WEDNESDAY
AUSTIN
* AMOA/Arthouse Talks @ Arthouse / 700 Congress Ave, 6p. Erin Gentry, Manager of Education Programs, leads a discussion on Arthouse's pretty awesome "The Anxiety of Photography" grip exhibition, which ends later this month.

* "Emanuelle In Prison" (dir. Bruno Mattei, 1983) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10:30p. AKA "Violence in a Women's Prison", AKA "Caged Women" — and indeed member of the ostentatious subset 'women-in-prison films' — this French-Italian episode from the "Black Emanuelle" series stars Laura Gemser, ever the enterprising, globe-trotting, hedonistic investigative journalist, exposing corruption w/in a women's prison.

THURSDAY
NYC
* "Extraterrestrial" (dir. Nacho Vigalondo, 2011) screening @ Walter Reade Theatre / Lincoln Center at 65th St (1 to 66th St), 9p. An enchanting and super-quirky romantic comedy, set within what could be an alien invasion. A fan favorite at this year's Fantastic Fest film festival, Vigalondo's latest also spearheads "Spanish Cinema Now" at the Lincoln Center.

* Ducktails + Big Troubles @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$10. 285 Kent's holiday party, but really anytime Matt Mondanile's guitar-loopy outfit Ducktail (plus fuzzed-out Slumberland alums Big Troubles) are on the roster, you know it's gonna be a good time. w/ Amen Dunes and Hard Bop

FRIDAY
NYC
* "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.

* "Carnage" (dir. Roman Polanski, 2011) @ Angelika NY / 18 W Houston St (BDFM to Broadway/Lafayette). This taut dramedy, adapted from Yasmina Reza's acclaimed play "God of Carnage", boasts a killer cast as warring couples: Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly in one corner, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz in the other. You think their kids have issues: just wait 'til the adults are locked in a Brooklyn apartment together to "sort things out".

* Parts & Labor @ Knitting Factory / 361 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, G to Lorimer), 7p/$10. Brooklyn math-punk kings perform their 2006 classic "Stay Afraid", strewn with noisy thrashers like "A Great Divide" and "New Buildings", ahead of their early 2012 retirement. w/ kindred speed-rock kings Pterodactyl

* Quiet Hooves + Bubbly Mommy Gun (ATL) @ Shea Stadium / 20 Meadow St, E. Williamsburg (L to Grand), 8p. This is WEIRD Atlanta, care of Party Party Partners and amorphous psych-rock ensemble Quiet Hooves, which shares some members w/ equally psych-rock group Bubbly Mommy Gun. The experience of seeing these dudes and girls live is (to my estimation) akin to attending a charismatic Christian service, but w/o the religious intonations. Love in for all!

AUSTIN
* "Shame" (dir. Steve McQueen, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. Props for Violet Crown for featuring this notorious anti-rom-com, unflinchingly focused on one man's (McQueen regular Michael Fassbinder) dirty sexual proclivities.

* Man or Astroman? @ Emo's / 603 Red River, 9p/$20. Surf-rock pioneers from deep space (really: Auburn, AL but who's counting?) beam down to Emo's to rock us hard w/ sci-fi samples and new wave crunch. w/ Fuckemos

TOKYO
* Nisennenmondai @ Shibuya O-West / 2-3 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 6p/$4000. Japan's finest math-rock women electrify synapses with their pulsing kraut-rock groove and relentless, thrash rhythms. w/ Sick Team

SATURDAY
NYC
* Twin Sister + Widowspeak @ Bowery Ballroom / 6 Delancey St (F/JMZ to Essex/Delancey), 8p/$8. Brooklyn's darkly opulent disco-rock lovelies Twin Sister, augmented by Captured Tracks' mesmeric signees Widowspeak (check this summer's jam "Nightcrawlers") convert the Ballroom into a twilit dance party. w/ Ava Luna, who get the groove on early

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.

* Ei Arakawa + Sergei Tcherepnin @ Taka Ishii Gallery / 5F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). An A/V performance installation by NY-based collaborative spirit Arakawa (he's slaying at the Tate Modern in 2012 as well) and Brooklyn-based Tcherepnin, who you might've seen at Performa11 at the New Museum this year. w/ special duo performances on DEC 24 + JAN 14 (check here for updates).

* DODDODO @ Sound Studio DOM / 3F 4-25-7 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Marunouchi Line to Higashi-Koenji Station), 1p/1000 yen. The "Communications in Hell" showcase, a full afternoon and night of experimental music for like $12 USD! Kansai cutie DODDODO headlines the lot, perched over her samplers, snarling off-kilter raps whilst cueing howling Aphex Twin-esque drum loops. Plus JAH EXCRETION, FACIALMESS, ACIDWHITEHOUSE Drastik Adhesive Force, and a bunch other really ill-sounding artists.

SUNDAY
NYC
* Sanja Iveković "Sweet Violence" @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St). YES. The first stateside museum exhibition of the pivotal Croatian feminist and video pioneer, plus she's a member of the Nova Umjetnička Praksa (New Art Practice). Iveković's exhibition includes media installation and single-channel videos from throughout her career, including the titular work and "Personal Cuts", plus photomontages from her series "Double Life" and much more. She's also participating in VOLTA 2012, which is doubly awesome.

AUSTIN
* "Enter the Void" (dir. Gaspar Noe, 2009) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 3. Ever wondered what a DMT trip would feel like? Watch this 2.5 mind-melter and you'll have a pretty good idea! Or at least the epic title sequence and Nathaniel Brown's float over a flickering, neon-lit Tokyo nightscape. That and Paz de la Huerta's go-go dancing in a throbbing underground club elevates the other rather normal plot sequences, in Noe's psychedelic melodrama. Also MON, 9:15p

* "Drunken Tai Chi" (dir. Yuen Woo-ping, 1984) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. Donnie Yen's ass-kicking debut, where he learns the finer martial arts under the influence of alcohol.

TUESDAY
NYC
* Digable Planets @ Brooklyn Bowl / 61 Wythe Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$10. You can't mess w/ Ladybug Mecca, man (or Butterfly and Doodlebug for that matter). Look: $10 is on the cheap for this talented, original Brooklyn-based jazz-rap trio. Can't nothing touch their '94 elevator "Blowout Comb". Despite breakups in the late '90s, they're totally back again, in an unmissable set for heads and newbies alike. w/ F. Stokes

AUSTIN
* "Love Actually" (dir. Richard Curtis, 2003) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Normally you can't get me near these wretched holiday ensemble films. See: Garry Marshall's heinous "Valentine's Day" and disgusting upcoming followup "New Year's Eve". No doubt the Brits do it better, but honestly I dig most everything about "Love Actually". I mean, we have über-hotties Keira Knightley (and, if you like, her onscreen beau Chiwetel Ejiofor), Heike Makatsch and Martine McCutcheon. We have Hugh Grant pretending to be the new Prime Minister whilst BILLY BOB THORNTON plays the U.S. President, Martin Freeman is a body double for sex scenes… and Bill Nighy an aging rock 'n roll legend! Sign me up to see this again, seriously.

CURRENT SHOWS
NYC
* Uta Barth + Jack Strange @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery / 521 W 21st St. This is the most painterly Barth show I've seen yet. She consistently pushes the envelope on lighting and perception in photography, but by focusing on sunlight and shadow piercing through linen-y curtains, she effectively creates a canvaslike texture to her polyptych works. Upstairs, that trickster Strange immerses a neon FENNEL sign in dirt and iPod Touches feat. animated, talking sea creatures in water-filled baggies, plus acrylic soda-straw rods on flatscreen monitors and cut veggies with headphones.

* Bianca Beck "Body" @ Rachel Uffner Gallery / 47 Orchard St. I've encountered this young NY-based artist's intriguing, very physical oeuvre (gestural, abraded abstract mixed-media paintings, small painted-wood sculpture) in group shows only, so I'm totally psyched to see a larger showing of it. In her solo debut here, she includes ripped canvases in "body colors" (makes me think of Ana Mendieta), small-scale sculpture and works that incorporate sculptural and 2D elements. The figurative elements imbued in these, whether a rough-hewn wood block like a feminine torso, or a burned oil on panel.

* Nan Goldin "Scopophila" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 522 W 22nd St. This is Goldin's first solo exhibition in NYC since 2007 (not counting, obvs, her dreamy/sinister contributions to "New Works" at this gallery last year), and it's a biggie. She unveils the titular slide installation — stay with me here! it's doper than it sounds! —, commissioned by the Louvre Museum last year, nearly a half-hour of over 400 photographs from Goldin's life intermingled w/ classic Louvre paintings and sculpture. Beyond that, she includes a bunch of image pairings, reclining "Odalisque" versus her own nudes, "Veiled" figures decadent and dreamy, for an entirely intoxicating encounter.

* Tommy Hartung "Anna" @ On Stellar Rays / 133 Orchard St. Bit of nostalgia here: my 1st (belated) gallery-viewing at On Stellar Rays (now one of my favorite LES spots) was Hartung's debut solo exhibition, the sublime and utterly beguiling "The Ascent of Man" video/installation, which recurred at MoMA PS1's "Greater NY". I've high expectations for Hartung, in this new stop-motion and historical verity video "Anna" (recalling Anna Karenina, naturally), with related and expanded sculptural and installation materials.

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.

* Jonathan Faber "Idle" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Memory is a tricky thing, subject to re-tweeks and reinterpretations depending on circumstance, outside encounters, time of day. Faber channels this idea vividly in depicting things very natural, like a landscape or a childhood backyard, painting the bare essentials and piling on tangles of brushwork as in the titular work, creating a curtain of swamp-vines that partially obscure the minimalist, geometric form (a boat?) idling in the background. Or he'll add an almost solid, vertical wipe of paint (like a Barnett Newman "zip"), executing a literal blind-spot in the foresty "Blind Spot". Or a grove of graffiti-like renderings that consume a shed?…or some small-frame building in "Veneer", like living language and memories consuming a forgotten dwelling.

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.

* Photographer Hal "Flesh Love" @ Gallery Tosei / 5-18-20 Chuo, Nakano-ku (Marunouchi Line to Shin-Nakano Station, Exit 1 or 2). Funny (but true) story: I met Photographer Hal at a Kabukicho basement bar called Bikini Machine this past April. He's a total badass, photographing embracing couples in Love Hotels, area bars within their own bathtubs, all in lurid, gloriously saturated color. His new series skrinkwraps his subjects. Intimacy is a plus.

* Yoshiko Fukushima "spring snow" @ Gallery MOMO Roppongi / 2F 6-2-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). A stunning FIFTH solo exhibition for this young Nagano-born painter, equally versed in runny watercolors and opulent, Rembrandt-ish oils. Fukushima has increasingly incorporated sunny colors to her dramatic, burnt palette here, eking out cheery yellows and opalescent pastels within her squadron of (self)-portrait nymphettes.

* 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.

* Junichi Mori "trinitite" @ Mizuma Art Gallery / 2F 3-13 Ichigayatamachi, Shinjuku-ku (Yurakucho/Nanboku Lines to Ichigaya Station). Mori packs a wallop in his debut solo exhibition here, sparsely outfitting the high-ceiling gallery with fantastically, deftly carved wood and ceramic. The centerpiece is the large titular work, his largest to date, practically on its own surmounting a plinth in the main gallery, recalling both the holy trinity and the artificial mineral generated by the Trinity Test during America's nuclear bomb testing in '45. The several "birds" included around it appear more like intricately carved and arranged leaves, or the framework of some vicious beast conjured by the bomb's mighty impact.

* Larry Clark @ Taka Ishii Photography / 2F 6-6-9 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). Ten of the famed lensman's vintage b&w prints from '63, each executed way before "Kids" and his developing forays into teenage lust. But that impassioned indulgence figures into these oddly cropped scenarios, occupied sometimes by one, other times multiple figures, young men and women.

CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Andreas Gursky @ Gagosian Gallery / 522 W 21st St. The Düsseldorf-based epic photographer debuts his "Bangkok" series, focusing his abstracting lens on the Chao Phraya, as much a prescient waterway through the city-center as a notorious dumping ground for manmade detritus. Compound that w/ the devastating monsoon floods affecting the Chao Phraya and the Mekong River basins NOW…and it's much more unsettling. Displaying "Bangkok" against his nuanced 2009-10 series "Oceans" only highlights the benevolence and destructive unpredictability of water.

* Jim Isermann @ Mary Boone Gallery / 541 W 24th St. The Palm Springs-based artist goes after the gallery's iconic trussed-roof ceiling and skylight, installing a modular drop-ceiling grid with tilting planes, transforming the entire space into a Op-Minimalist event throughout the day.

* Jacob Hashimoto "The End of Gravity" @ Mary Boone Gallery / 745 Fifth Ave. Hashimoto's previous solo exhibition at Mary Boone (the Chelsea location) was a sublime event, a vivid coupling of ethereal "woven" kite reliefs. He furthers their figurative potential in this new series, moving away from his kaleidoscopic cut-paper collage into mimicking graphic drawings.

* Richard Pousette-Dart "East River Studio" @ Luhring Augustine / 531 W 24th St. I usually gloss over press releases "to get the vibe", relying more on my instincts and history w/ the mentioned artist. But I'm glad I read this show's, as a crucial detail just blew my mind: Christopher Wool (the mighty, the Xerox-looking abstractor) organized this exhibition alongside Joanna Pousette-Dart. See, Wool studied w/ Richard, the youngest member of the Abstract Expressionists, in college! The body of work on view, pairing Pousette-Dart's paintings and wire sculptures, comes from the late 40s to 1951 and mostly hasn't been exhibited in NY again since its initial show at Betty Parsons Gallery in the '50s.

* "Masked Portrait Part II" @ Marianne Boesky Gallery / 509 W 24th St. Back in early 2008, Midori Nishizawa curated a fantastic grouping of Japanese avant-garde artists, from the Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai (Gutai Art Association) like Atsuko Tanaka and Jiro Yoshihara to realist photographers Daido Moriyama and Eikoh Hosoe and contemporary contributors (from Aya Takano to Yuichi Higashionna) — plus a related Atsuko Tanaka and Akira Kanayama dual exhibit at Paula Cooper Gallery. I REALLY dug the exhibition. Now we have part two.

* George Condo "Drawing Paintings" @ Skarstedt Gallery / 20 E 79th St. Condo furthers his aggressively graffiti-like abstracts from his New Museum survey with even wilder, lyrical renderings, piling up cartoonish heads in rubber-stamp formation (or Andy Warhol misguided silkscreen-style), to where they obliterate one another in intermingling colors.

* Michaël Borremans "The Devil's Dress" @ David Zwirner / 525 W 19th St. "Moody", "creepy", "dramatic" — or better yet, "cinematic" — are apt describers to Borremans' murky, ageless portraits and ambiguously staged scenes. He doesn't make the going any easier for us, in this new series of paintings w/ purposefully subtle/sinister titles and a variant three-part work on paper.

* Neo Rauch "Heilstaetten @ David Zwirner / 533 W 19th St. I had a significantly belated psylocibin flashback upon experiencing Rauch's latest. The social realist (and subtle surrealist) unveils new oils (in both large-format and intimate flavors), plus a bronze sculpture "Falknerin". Spatial perceptions dissolve in multi-figure renderings like "Ware", w/ seemingly giant men (with greatly distended arms) intermingle w/ reduced figures, and in the much smaller "Rota", where either a Golden Age UFO or carnival ride breaks up an otherwise typical country landscape. Heavy, lovely works.

* Byron Kim @ James Cohan Gallery / 533 W 26th St. Kim's debut at the gallery exemplifies his exercise of the "abstract sublime". Previous exhibitions (the UN meditations at Max Protetch, his famous "Synecdoche" at MoMA) had a soothing planar regularity, like emotive Ellsworth Kelly or even flatter Brice Marden. Kim's new one, inspired by his viewings of the nighttime sky, is even sparser, moodier, almost impenetrable fields of black or midnight blue.

* Jim Lambie @ Anton Kern Gallery / 532 W 20th St. Lambie, who inaugurated MoMA's new building (and even some moneyed homes) w/ his site-specific multicolored vinyl tape ZOBOP, cuts into gallery walls w/ "Vortex"es and layers crushed sheets of colorful metal (like very stiff craft paper) elsewhere. His continued usage of nontraditional and industrial media is a riot to our senses.

AUSTIN
* "Looking for a Fight" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. Three studio art undergrads and members of the all-female Deluscious Group, Lucy Parker, Isabella Burden and Layne Bell, split this cross-media exhibition highlighting gender discourse and their respective feminine identities in a continually male-prone society. Each takes an ultrafeminine approach (think lots of pink, frilly cloth materials and truncated womanly forms) to hook us in and cerebrally wallop us to attention, as there's depth in all the surface-level cuteness. Bell walks the figurative tightrope most deliberately, suspending two pairs of scissors over an inflated balloon in "Emptied IV" (the fourth of a series of subtly simple assemblages, which also included the aforementioned frilly cloth elbow gloves and a Tooth Fairy-sized sewn pillow clothespinned to a wooden tray) and naming another "All Tits and Legs" after like a Bravo plastic surgery reality show stereotype. Though with this one, a pair of vaguely ghostly forms surmounting barstool legs, I got Rene Magritte vibes (both the Belgian surrealist's penchant for masking his figures and painting lingerie with erogenous zones plainly visible), but then I thought of Rebecca Horn's "Finger Gloves" performance from the early '70s, particularly in the elongated 'stems', as it were. In any case, Bell's assemblage is topped by sewn multicolored beads as the titular 'tits'. Burden included both video/sculptural assemblages (her "Upskirt Series"), augmenting cropped body parts with distended branchlike physicality, and two photographic prints (her "Tongue-in-Cheek Series"). The prints struck me more deeply, as I was reminded of both Ana Mendieta and Adrian Piper's very physical, conceptual oeuvres. Though the one artist she directly references is Joseph Beuys, the granddaddy of conceptual and philosophical performance, via the icky sculpture "Boys, Beuys, Boys!!!", combining a loglike beaver muff with glistening, white lard, tangentially recognizable to Beuys' style while superseding him in pronounced decadence. Parker unveils only two works, but this editing makes their underlying force that much stronger. The one, "Suspended Bean Bag Chair (after Bruce Nauman)", is an older work, the titular smallish pink chair stretched painfully in four directions overhead by metal accoutrements, is like Nauman's own self-portrait face-pulling, highlighting artificial elasticity and how the gesture can easily twist from affectionate to torturous. Her other, "Funk Trunk (including artist as Vito Acconci)", begins with Parker's disembodied voice emanating from a coffin-sized box. Kneel down and peer inside, and amid bedsheets and acid-pink fluorescent lighting is a video projection of Parker reenacting Acconci's perversely intimate "Theme Song" in her own spin on 'pillow talk'. "You could be anybody out there, but there's gotta be somebody watching me. Somebody who wants to come in close to me…Come on, I'm all alone..I'll be honest with you, OK. I mean you'll have to believe me if I'm really honest…" Parker-as-Acconci monologues, shifting on her bed as she stares straight into us.
+ Mika Tajima "The Architect's Garden". Tajima's the artist-in-residence this fall, and she adapts her modular chromatic chaos to fill and cover the VAC's Vaulted Gallery. She pairs a grid of candy-colored spray-painted acrylic frames, her "Furniture Art" (after Erik Satie's "Musique d'ameublement"), on one gallery wall, flat-boards "The Roundabout" covered in paint and tacked-on adverts, and wheeled scaffolds lined w/ geometric silkscreens and huge letters, "Detour (1-7)" and "Untitled (Go)".
(ENDS SAT)

fee's LIST (through 12/6)

2011-11-30T10:20:00.000-05:00

WEDNESDAY
NYC
* Assume Vivid Astro Focus "Cyclops Trannies" @ The Suzanne Geiss Company / 76 Grand St. So this has actually been open since NOV 8 but… 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.

AUSTIN
* "Collecting Women: What We Treasure and Why" @ Women & Their Work Gallery / 1710 Lavaca St, 7p. Dr. Melinda Barlow, an Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, leads a lecture and screening in how women have used art, film, found objects, and personal mementos to express aspects of personal identity. An audience discussion follows Dr. Barlow's presentation.

* "Utopia London" (dir. Tom Cordell, 2010) screening @ Arthouse / 700 Congress Ave, 7:30p. Bundle up for the last of 2011's Rooftop Architecture Film Series. Cordell's documentary observes the method and practice of Modernist architects who rebuilt London after WW2.

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".

THURSDAY
NYC
* "Alpha's Bet Is Not Over Yet: Steffani Jemison and Friends" @ New Museum / 235 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave, BD to Grand St, 6 to Spring St), 7p/FREE w/ RSVP: museumashub@newmuseum.org. Way above the hubbub of Carsten Höller's mind-altering "Experience" survey is this fantastic Black history reading room. Co-curator Jemison joins guests Firelei Baez, Mildred Beltre, Aisha Cousins and Zachary Fabri in reading from selections of the displayed periodicals.

* Dum Dum Girls + DIVE @ Brooklyn Bowl / 61 Wythe Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$10. Just announced! Dee Dee and crew form Dum Dum Girls, the fiercest quartet of '60s girl-group-channelers possibly EVER. Beach Fossils' guitarist Cole keeps DIVE shoegaze-hazy and totally psychedelic. w/ underground locals Xray Eyeballs, tying in the bicoastal thing quite nicely.

AUSTIN
* "Part One" artist talk @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity, 6:30p. Lee Chesney, Interim Chair of the Dept of Art and Art History at UT Austin, moderates this forum and Q&A feat. Sarah Canright, Elizabeth Chiles, Lawrence McFarland, Rob Verf, Susan Whyne and Barna Kantor — all faculty artists and participants in the exhibition "Part One" (see my review under CURRENT SHOWS).

* "Die Hard" (dir. John McTiernan, 1988) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Bruce Willis as John McClane is the ultimate '80s tough guy. Like the classic VHS cover tagline screams in this 40-story thriller: "Twelve terrorists. One cop. The odds are against John McClane…That's just the way he likes it." Strap in tight.

TOKYO
* Deerhoof @ Liquidroom / 3-15-5 Higashi, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station), 7p/4800 yen. Art-rock vets Deerhoof command one of the tightest live acts I've ever seen…and that's in spite of their almost improv-y sound: Greg Saunier's jazzy drumming, shards of guitar punctuating Satomi Matsuzaki's lyricism. Hard to believe it's been nearly a year since their P-Vine-released LP "Deerhoof vs. Evil". w/ Kirihito

FRIDAY
NYC
* "Sleeping Beauty" (dir. Julia Leigh, 2011) @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). The Australian novelist's erotic debut feature reflects the titular fairytale in name only (though admittedly I'm more familiar w/ the Disney adaptation than the original Brothers Grimm…which could be totally sinister). In Leigh's, Emily Browning is a uni student who performs the role of "sleeping beauty" to old suitors.

* "Outrage" (dir. Takeshi Kitano, 2010) @ Cinema Village / 22 E 12th St (NR/L/456 to Union Square). Good ol' bruised-knuckle violence in this Yakuza crime thriller as tangled and double-crossing as a Dostoevsky novel. Kitano returns to form from his comedy-film forays as the reliable right-hand trigger-man in a duel between crime bosses for who's gonna be on top…and if that means Kitano has to assume that role, then so be it. Plus: a PERFECT, uncanny cameo from Eihi "Audition/Tokyo Gore Police" Shiina (look out for it!).

AUSTIN
* "P^4" @ ART 4.418 / UT Austin Campus, 23rd St at Trinity, 6-8p. A one-night only salon of Painting 4 talent, feat. over a dozen artists including Lucy Parker (one-third of the awesomeness "Looking for a Fight" at the VAC), Nick Griffin, Ashley Collingnon, Allie Underwood, Ally Acheson-Snow, Suzanne Lewis, Jade Abner, Yusuke Ito, Francesca Giamona, Liz Williams, Anne Riley, Christina Macal, Leah Flippen, Sarah Milbrath, Gillian Rhodes and Clayton Westmeier.

* "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale" (dir. Jalmari Helander, 2010) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 11p. This is my kind of holiday film. Think all the magic of X-mas, like hard-working widowed dad baking cookies for his son and taking him hunting…only Saint Nick's a naked vagrant with a taste for child-blood! ALSO SAT

* "The Yellow Sea" (dir. Na Hong-jin, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. This breakneck cross-Korean thriller is like an out of control bullet train of mob hits, police chases and shattered bones. Na's film screened in the Un Certain Regard section of 2011 Cannes, plus it was a box office hit in S. Korea and overwhelmingly lauded at the NYAFF and diverse other film festivals.

* Love Inks @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 9p/$10. Pitch-perfect pop in three-minute morsels, courtesy one of the finest local acts in the scene. w/ Awkward Robot

* Rachael Yamagata + Mike Viola @ The Parish / 214 E 6th St, 8p/$16. Consider this the softer side of Fee's LIST. I.e. an illuminating night of singer-songwriterly talent, with the bluesy Rachael Yamagata and hardest working indie musician Mike "Candy Butchers" Viola.

TOKYO
* Sakan Kanno "Quantize" @ Radium / 2-5-17 Bakurocho, Chuo-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Bakurocho Station). Kanno channels musical improvisation into his visual compositions, beginning with deconstructed templates and then layered with paint.

* Photographer Hal "Flesh Love" @ Gallery Tosei / 5-18-20 Chuo, Nakano-ku (Marunouchi Line to Shin-Nakano Station). Funny (but true) story: I met Photographer Hal at a Kabukicho basement bar called Bikini Machine this past April. He's a total badass, photographing embracing couples in Love Hotels, area bars within their own bathtubs, all in lurid, gloriously saturated color. His new series skrinkwraps his subjects. Intimacy is a plus.

* Mayumi Hosokura "Kazan" @ G/P Gallery / 2F 1-18-4 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station). The second floor of this awesome art bookstore and gallery hosts the young photographer Hosokura and her "Volcano" series. She was recently on the cover of the Dutch photography publication FOAM and was in the Fotografia Festival in Rome this September.

* Keiko Matsumoto "Panoramic Bowl" @ INAX Gallery / 2F 3-6-18 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Yurakucho Station). Takes something special to get me all jazzed on a ceramics show, esp. one that promises to be more than "arts and crafts". Enter young glaze-whiz Matsumoto, who combines traditional firing techniques and imagery in very intriguing ways, like that five-story pagoda bursting from a Celadon vase.

* Cut Hands + Incapacitants @ Unit / 1-34-17 Ebisu-nishi, Shibuya-ku (Tokyu-Toyoko Line to Daikanyama Station, JR Yamanote/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station), 6p/5000 yen. Brutal noise on the eve of my Tokyo trip. I can't believe I am missing this. Pairing veteran Tokyo duo Incapacitants, pioneers of "hard noise" (think hard-bop but with feedback and voice, primarily) with William "Whitehouse" Bennett in his ferocious guise Cut Hands (his new LP "Afro Noise 1" is just so good) means an unmissable show. w/ RAMLEH

* oh my god, you've gone @ Koiwa BushBash / 7-28-11 Minami-Koiwa, Edogawa-ku (Sobu Line to Koiwa Station), 7p/1300 yen. Perhaps Tokyo's finest example of fiercely indie, ultra-dissonant noise-rock is this charmingly named trio oh my god, you've gone. Don't miss 'em! w/ EGO and MEKARE-KARE

SATURDAY
NYC
* Mark Ryden "Editions" book signing @ Paul Kasmin SHOP / 511 W 27th St, 4-6p. Dress to the Gay Nineties nines and prepare to queue up as subversive illustrator/painter Ryden inaugurates Paul Kasmin SHOP with his signature eerie meats, nymphs and Lincoln heads.

* Winter Formal 2011 & Goth Prom 1986 @ Barnard College / 3009 Broadway at 117th St (1 to 116th St), 7p/FREE. That title might give you pause, or might make you go bonkers with enjoyment, but check this: WBAR Barnard College Radio features four acts that definitely fall along the "Goth Prom 1986" range, like RL Grime, Leather, the fantastic Purling Hiss and hot newish thing Balam Acab, who blissed out (le) poisson rouge last month (hopefully he brings that female vocalist w/ him to this show!). Though keep the first part of the show's title in mind, as dressing to the nines is totally encouraged.

AUSTIN
* Mads Lynnerup "Help is on the way" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. Art object as exercise equipment, intellectual heft vs physical exertion. Lynnerup eschews funnily worded signs for manipulated photography of weight trainers lifting Franz West-ish…stuff…plus collages of shock-bright cut paper and "Demonstration", a video adding some reality to these "virtual sculptures"…plus Lynnerup performs (demonstrates) at the opening. Who's in for some self-improvement?

TOKYO
* "Suzune: Genesis x Evolution" (dir. Ryu Kaneda, 2011) @ Ikebukuro Cinema Rosa / 1-37-12 Nishi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Ikebukuro Station). Twitchfilm is one of my go-to film resources, and their sole blog post for this film had a headline reading "Suzune Battles Sex Parasites With Leather-Bound Cleavage". Rei Yoshii plays the titular bondage-garbed lead (actually a doctor!), fighting off desire-inducing parasites controlled by "Cold Fish" star Megumi Kagurazaka. Uh, see you there?

* "Never-ending Blue" (dir. Takaomi Ogata, 2010) screening @ Shibuya Uplink / 37-18 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 7p. A truly disturbing high-school/family drama, centered on Sushi Typhoon regular Maki Mizui as a too-beautiful girl in up against impossible odds: her classmates tease or ignore her, her father beats and molests her. She's a self-harmer, too. This is Ogata's feature film debut, and he crafts a taut, minimalist thriller uniquely Japanese and harrowing in its realism.

* 「ピザボーイ史上最凶のご注文」 (dir. Ruben Fleischer, 2011) @ HT Cinema Shibuya / 1-23-16 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, East Exit). The Japanese title loosely translates to: "Pizzaboy: Most Dangerous Order Ever", but this is just "30 MInutes or Less", that madcap crime-comedy with Jesse Eisenberg as the overly-thinking delivery boy w/ a bomb strapped to his chest, forced to rob a bank with buddy Aziz "Funniest Man on Earth" Ansari or else. Inclusion of Dilshad Vadsaria as Ansari's "twin sister" is reason enough to see this film dozens of times.

* "50/50" (dir. Jonathan Levine, 2011) @ TOHO Shibuya / 2-6-17 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit). I found this a very thoughtful telling of life on the line, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt the hale young dude diagnosed with a rare, terminal form of cancer, and Seth Rogen in the awkward role of funnyman in a VERY un-funny situation. Both gents pull it off w/ panache. (P.S. even though I cannot stand Anna Kendrick, playing a psychologist here, I still advise seeing this film)

SUNDAY
NYC
* Black Pus @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$7. Brian Chippendale, the manic, masked man-machine drummer behind Black Pus (and one-half of speed-punk outfit Lightning Bolt) will maul your skull with his thrash acrobatics. You will sweat, you will mosh, and you will love it. w/ Witch Hat

AUSTIN
* "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" (dir. Joe Dante, 1990) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. w/ Dante in person! Though the violence is increasingly slapstick and the action more cartoon-like and parodying of other films, I still feel this one superior to the far darker original. Hell, Mohawk and crew are scary enough on their own!

TOKYO
* Plastic Girl In Closet @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 7p/3500 yen. Some of the indie scene's best local shoegazers PGIC coat Fever in a gauzy haze of feedback-sonics and ethereal vox. w/ an acoustic set from Shokichi Ishida

* Merpeoples + THE GIRL @ Shibuya Milkyway / 3F 3-7 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 5p/2500 yen. Super-indie Tokyoite grrrls Merpeoples temper their twee affections with great slabs of guitar noise, though their bouncy 2011 cover of classic '80s J-glam-rock sets the bar on scene-making experimentation. Just to make this awesomer, they're joined by girl-trio THE GIRL, Pop Chocolat and kinbaku-bi (rope-bondage artist) Hajime Kinoko.

MONDAY
NYC
* Lana Del Rey @ Bowery Ballroom / 6 Delancey St (F/JMZ to Essex/Delancey), 8p/SOLD OUT. So singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey (né Elizabeth Grant) is trendy as hell right now, despite having "just" an EP out, but listen to her smoldering delivery on "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans" and…well…it's obvious.

* Jamie Woon (UK) + Erika Spring (Au Revoir Simone) @ Mercury Lounge / 217 E Houston St (F to 2nd Ave), 6:30p/$12. These nouveau-R&B cats are almost a dime a dozen these days, but Londoner Jamie Woon excels in synth virtuosity and charisma. Expect bittersweet loveliness from Erika Spring, co-frontwoman of keyboard contingent Au Revoir Simone and a dazzling singer-songwriter in her own right.

TOKYO
* Asuka Ito "A Desire/欲望" @ Galerie Sho Contemporary / B1F 3-2-9 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku (Ginza/Tozai Lines to Nihonbashi Station). The young Nara-born artist's debut solo exhibition at the gallery presents her name in two ways, as artist of lushly painted, sexually-charged portraits of flowers and women, and as subject and spectator. She inaugurates her show with a live painting from 6-8p. Yeah, I'll be there.

TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "Love Actually" (dir. Richard Curtis, 2003) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Normally you can't get me near these wretched holiday ensemble films. See: Garry Marshall's heinous "Valentine's Day" and disgusting upcoming followup "New Year's Eve". No doubt the Brits do it better, but honestly I dig most everything about "Love Actually". I mean, we have über-hotties Keira Knightley (and, if you like, her onscreen beau Chiwetel Ejiofor), Heike Makatsch and Martine McCutcheon. We have Hugh Grant pretending to be the new Prime Minister whilst BILLY BOB THORNTON plays the U.S. President, Martin Freeman is a body double for sex scenes… and Bill Nighy an aging rock 'n roll legend! Sign me up to see this again, seriously.

* "Nightmare City" aka "City of the Walking Dead" (dir. Umberto Lenzi, 1980) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 10p. A somewhat self-explanatory dose of spastic cinema courtesy the director of cannibalistic lovelies "Eaten Alive!" and "Cannibal Ferox" (aka "Make Them Die Slowly"). Think your favorite low-budget zombie film but a million times more gruesome!

TOKYO
* Kazuma Koike "Repetitions and variants", 2nd half @ Aisho Miura Arts / B1F 2-17-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR lines etc to Shibuya Station). Part two of Koike's two-month-long exhibition focuses on transformative methods in three-dimensional works (he's got a BFA in sculpture from Nihon University College of Art) and video.

* Yuka Namekawa "A Place of innocence" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (Toyoko Line to Daikanyama Station). Somewhat interestingly, this is the 2nd exhibition in a row at the gallery featuring cubes forming artwork. In Namekawa's case, she builds up translucent plastic cubes into half-formed structures that both channel this past year's Tohoku earthquake (and anticipate it, since she completed most in 2010) and the potential for rebirth.

CURRENT SHOWS
NYC
* Byron Kim @ James Cohan Gallery / 533 W 26th St. Kim's debut at the gallery exemplifies his exercise of the "abstract sublime". Previous exhibitions (the UN meditations at Max Protetch, his famous "Synecdoche" at MoMA) had a soothing planar regularity, like emotive Ellsworth Kelly or even flatter Brice Marden. Kim's new one, inspired by his viewings of the nighttime sky, is even sparser, moodier, almost impenetrable fields of black or midnight blue.

* Bianca Beck "Body" @ Rachel Uffner Gallery / 47 Orchard St. I've encountered this young NY-based artist's intriguing, very physical oeuvre (gestural, abraded abstract mixed-media paintings, small painted-wood sculpture) in group shows only, so I'm totally psyched to see a larger showing of it. In her solo debut here, she includes ripped canvases in "body colors" (makes me think of Ana Mendieta), small-scale sculpture and works that incorporate sculptural and 2D elements. The figurative elements imbued in these, whether a rough-hewn wood block like a feminine torso, or a burned oil on panel.

* George Condo "Drawing Paintings" @ Skarstedt Gallery / 20 E 79th St. Condo furthers his aggressively graffiti-like abstracts from his New Museum survey with even wilder, lyrical renderings, piling up cartoonish heads in rubber-stamp formation (or Andy Warhol misguided silkscreen-style), to where they obliterate one another in intermingling colors.

* Michaël Borremans "The Devil's Dress" @ David Zwirner / 525 W 19th St. "Moody", "creepy", "dramatic" — or better yet, "cinematic" — are apt describers to Borremans' murky, ageless portraits and ambiguously staged scenes. He doesn't make the going any easier for us, in this new series of paintings w/ purposefully subtle/sinister titles and a variant three-part work on paper.

* Neo Rauch "Heilstaetten @ David Zwirner / 533 W 19th St. I had a significantly belated psylocibin flashback upon experiencing Rauch's latest. The social realist (and subtle surrealist) unveils new oils (in both large-format and intimate flavors), plus a bronze sculpture "Falknerin". Spatial perceptions dissolve in multi-figure renderings like "Ware", w/ seemingly giant men (with greatly distended arms) intermingle w/ reduced figures, and in the much smaller "Rota", where either a Golden Age UFO or carnival ride breaks up an otherwise typical country landscape. Heavy, lovely works.

* Uta Barth + Jack Strange @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery / 521 W 21st St. This is the most painterly Barth show I've seen yet. She consistently pushes the envelope on lighting and perception in photography, but by focusing on sunlight and shadow piercing through linen-y curtains, she effectively creates a canvaslike texture to her polyptych works. Upstairs, that trickster Strange immerses a neon FENNEL sign in dirt and iPod Touches feat. animated, talking sea creatures in water-filled baggies, plus acrylic soda-straw rods on flatscreen monitors and cut veggies with headphones.

AUSTIN
* Jonathan Faber "Idle" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Memory is a tricky thing, subject to re-tweeks and reinterpretations depending on circumstance, outside encounters, time of day. Faber channels this idea vividly in depicting things very natural, like a landscape or a childhood backyard, painting the bare essentials and piling on tangles of brushwork as in the titular work, creating a curtain of swamp-vines that partially obscure the minimalist, geometric form (a boat?) idling in the background. Or he'll add an almost solid, vertical wipe of paint (like a Barnett Newman "zip"), executing a literal blind-spot in the foresty "Blind Spot". Or a grove of graffiti-like renderings that consume a shed?…or some small-frame building in "Veneer", like living language and memories consuming a forgotten dwelling.

* "Part One" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. In a group exhibition showcasing artist-professors from UT's Department of Art and Art History, one might go in w/ some predispositions. Viz. studio art profs probably really know how to draw/paint, photography profs excel at their craft etc. I found some surprises, however, which really clinched this as a dope, worthwhile show. 1) Sarah Canright, contributing easily the earliest works in the show, like a woven cut-paper duet from 1975 and 1977. 2) A veritable array of Conceptualism from Rob Verf going beyond his painterly ways. He has one still-life like painting "the beginning of a Vanitas" that looks like Paul Cezanne crossed with Francis Bacon, plus a collage cheekily titled "Spicy Peach" that (to me anyway) resembles Max Ernst's classic "Ambiguous Figures (1 copper plate, 1 zinc plate, 1 rubber cloth…)" run through a contemporary hardware store, AND a disarmingly addictive video work of pingpong balls in water. Beyond these, I rather dug Susan Whyme's shattered ceramics and torn plastic conglomerates, from her "Perpetuity/Wall Flower" series, and Margaret Meehan's equal deftness with sculpture (butterfly-winged revolvers composed of ceramic and liquid graphite) and drawing media (the modified cabinet card duo "Sugar" and "Shit").
+ "Looking for a Fight". Three studio art undergrads and members of the all-female Deluscious Group, Lucy Parker, Isabella Burden and Layne Bell, split this cross-media exhibition highlighting gender discourse and their respective feminine identities in a continually male-prone society. Each takes an ultrafeminine approach (think lots of pink, frilly cloth materials and truncated womanly forms) to hook us in and cerebrally wallop us to attention, as there's depth in all the surface-level cuteness. Bell walks the figurative tightrope most deliberately, suspending two pairs of scissors over an inflated balloon in "Emptied IV" (the fourth of a series of subtly simple assemblages, which also included the aforementioned frilly cloth elbow gloves and a Tooth Fairy-sized sewn pillow clothespinned to a wooden tray) and naming another "All Tits and Legs" after like a Bravo plastic surgery reality show stereotype. Though with this one, a pair of vaguely ghostly forms surmounting barstool legs, I got Rene Magritte vibes (both the Belgian surrealist's penchant for masking his figures and painting lingerie with erogenous zones plainly visible), but then I thought of Rebecca Horn's "Finger Gloves" performance from the early '70s, particularly in the elongated 'stems', as it were. In any case, Bell's assemblage is topped by sewn multicolored beads as the titular 'tits'. Burden included both video/sculptural assemblages (her "Upskirt Series"), augmenting cropped body parts with distended branchlike physicality, and two photographic prints (her "Tongue-in-Cheek Series"). The prints struck me more deeply, as I was reminded of both Ana Mendieta and Adrian Piper's very physical, conceptual oeuvres. Though the one artist she directly references is Joseph Beuys, the granddaddy of conceptual and philosophical performance, via the icky sculpture "Boys, Beuys, Boys!!!", combining a loglike beaver muff with glistening, white lard, tangentially recognizable to Beuys' style while superseding him in pronounced decadence. Parker unveils only two works, but this editing makes their underlying force that much stronger. The one, "Suspended Bean Bag Chair (after Bruce Nauman)", is an older work, the titular smallish pink chair stretched painfully in four directions overhead by metal accoutrements, is like Nauman's own self-portrait face-pulling, highlighting artificial elasticity and how the gesture can easily twist from affectionate to torturous. Her other, "Funk Trunk (including artist as Vito Acconci)", begins with Parker's disembodied voice emanating from a coffin-sized box. Kneel down and peer inside, and amid bedsheets and acid-pink fluorescent lighting is a video projection of Parker reenacting Acconci's perversely intimate "Theme Song" in her own spin on 'pillow talk'. "You could be anybody out there, but there's gotta be somebody watching me. Somebody who wants to come in close to me…Come on, I'm all alone..I'll be honest with you, OK. I mean you'll have to believe me if I'm really honest…" Parker-as-Acconci monologues, shifting on her bed as she stares straight into us.

* 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.

CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Georges Braque "Pioneer of Modernism" @ Acquavella Gallery / 18 E 79th St. This retrospective on the co-founder of Cubism, curated by Dieter Buchhart, is filled with two floors and 75% of paintings you've probably never seen before, not even in art catalogues. Because despite Braque's seminal forays with papier collé and mechanical Cubism (in my strong opinion equalling his better-known peer Picasso), his legacy in Fauvism and his lasting impression on the post-Cezanne generations is just not shown stateside. So his more typically Braque-ish works resonate like cannonballs in placid waters, like the stunning "Glass, Bottle and Newspaper" (a collage of charcoal and faux-bois wallpaper on paper) and the vertically-oriented beauties "The Mantlepiece" and "Still Life with Metronome", all shards of awesomeness. Though I was taken by works completed decades after his internationally recognized heyday, like "Woman at an Easel (Yellow Screen)" from '36, texturized with sand and enlightened by figuration, but only just so. (ENDS WED)

NYC
* Rene Magritte "Dangerous Liaisons" @ Blain-DiDonna / 981 Madison Ave. Define 'dream come true'. If you're a surrealist buff like yours truly, then seeing a swath of your personal hero Rene Magritte's oeuvre up close and personal is just that: overwhelmingly emotive and sheer art-viewing perfection. The gallery inaugurates its presence above the Waldorf-Astoria with a survey of 30 oil paintings, gouaches and drawings by the Belgian Surrealist, the largest Magritte show in NYC in years (decades?) and culled almost entirely from private collections. It leads off w/ "Cinéma Bleu", aka Magritte's first mighty plunge into dreamland's embrace and includes such heady offerings as "La Mémoire" (the marble head w/ her bloodstained temple), "L'Empire des Lumieres" (one of his massive twilit dwellings beneath a blue sky) and "Cosmogonie élémentaire" (where his familiar skittlepin imagery becomes a fire-belching odalisque). Also: the titular painting, a seductive nude whose reflection turns the opposite direction in a mirror and gouaches of the bowler-hatted man with a green apple floating in front of his face and that famous pipe-not-a-pipe. Now define 'mayjah'. (ENDS THURS)

NYC
* Rashaad Newsome "Herald" @ Marlborough Chelsea / 545 W 25th St. Newsome walks a thin line b/w gaudy and glamorous, but he does so with panache. In his debut w/ the gallery, he unveils a bunch of signature collages — wildly detailed conglomerates of bling and reverence, Rosetta stones of hip-hop culture and neo-Baroque imagery — each in a lavish, customized antique frame. I'm not totally surprised I was drawn immediately to "Black Barbie", for its underlying Nicki Minaj resonance, but in all I think these are Newsome's strongest collages yet. He also contributes a rap video-style animation "Swag" and, to contrast, a fascinating video installation "Herald", shot in b&w at NYC's St. Patrick's Basilica, chronicling the artist's ceremonial coronation.

* Rebecca Horn "Ravens Gold Rush" @ Sean Kelly Gallery / 528 W 29th St. I consider a Horn exhibition an EVENT, perhaps due to her kinetic, gestural ethos. That the show's title references her '86 NY exhibit "The Gold Rush" (which occurred during international financial uncertainty), plus contains a rarely-seen early sculpture alongside new poignant paintings and a large sculptural installation — plus! the N. American premiere of Horn's film "Moon Mirror Journey", playing at the Rubin Museum a few blocks away — means we're in for something very special. (for Rubin info, read on under SAT)

* Llyn Foulkes @ Andrea Rosen Gallery / 525 W 24th St. Wow. This incredible LA-based artist and musician (who came of age w/ John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha, plus played in a band w/ R. Crumb) is almost purposefully indescribable. His early contributions to assemblage and American Pop are as deep as his ever-changing oeuvre. This isn't his first time here, either, as Foulkes' meta-work w/in the Dec 2009 artist/curator group show "The Perpetual Dialogue" is still burned into my memory.

* Sarah Braman "Yours" @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash / 534 W 26th St. Few years back, Braman had a really dope dual exhibition at Andrea Rosen Gallery w/ Joel Shapiro — a tiny one in the side gallery, inspired by a dialogue b/w Rita Ackermann and Rosen. It wasn't my first Braman encounter but I felt it totally worked, her angular, intersecting planes of wood and glass against Shapiro's cascading blocks. I'm interested to see her debut w/ M-I&N, as she deconstructed an entire camper to incorporate it in the other works, mindful of Plexiglas (for light, volume, that pop of color) and cardboard (time, wear).

AUSTIN
* Bradney Evans "Still" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. I sense that LA-based artist Bradney Evans is an alchemist with paper, viz. earlier work "Phoenix" as the titular mythological bird folded origami-style from magician's paper (i.e. quick-burning, no ash). He pulls a hat-trick in his debut in the gallery's Project Room, in a suite of three works on paper that ostensibly "look" like torn packing paper (that fibrous brown workhorse) with bits of light emanating from behind them, viz. "Constellation", "Eclipse" and personal favorite "Sunset". Thing is, they're each stunning, meticulous trompe-l'oeil renderings in acrylic, each "tear" and "crinkle" the result of some laborious brushwork. Same deal w/ the "light". The effect is like a combo between Tauba Auerbach's beguiling "rippled" Op-art paintings and Robert Gober's lovingly articulated household recreations, perhaps slanting even closer to Gober's style. Evans instills an intensity to these three works, as if the light were really pushing through the "torn paper", as the paper tenuously attempts to hold the illumination back. Displayed with these is an earlier single-channel video "Exposure", spotlit owls, with a sound element, disjointed page-turnings and an occasional sub-bassline that sounds like it's coming from another room.

TOKYO
* Diego Singh "Table for One" @ Tomio Koyama Gallery / 7F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station). The Argentinian artist lays on the abstraction, muting his palette in moody blues and grays, a departure from the neon shards in "The Indirect Man", his prior solo exhibition here.

* Kae Higuchi @ Kido Press, Inc / 6F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Toei Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). The Sendai-based artist's second exhibition here, featuring soft-toned portraits in oil tempera and mixed media on canvas and paper.

* Kazuma Koike "Repetitions and variants", 1st half @ Aisho Miura Arts / B1F 2-17-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR lines etc to Shibuya Station). As the title precludes, this is the first half of Koike's new body of work, with this section concentrating on two-dimensional works, vividly executed, textural acrylic paintings on cotton. (ENDS SAT)

NYC
* Terry Richardson "Mom Dad" @ Half Gallery / 208 Forsyth. The iconic (and iconoclastic!) downtown lensman celebrates the release of his titular two-volume monograph (launched at Paris' Colette in late Sept) w/ an intimate selection of portraits of his mother Annie and late father, fashion photographer Bob Richardson.

* Jeronimo Elespe @ Eleven Rivington / 11 Rivington St. Ahead of his big solo exhibition at the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo in Malaga, Spain, the Madrid-based artist unveils a set of new small and very VERY tiny, meticulously brushy paintings on aluminum panels. Figures coalesce with and disappear into light-infused fog.

TOKYO
* Okazaki, Onishi, Object (2) @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). An intriguing collaboration between two incredibly detail-focused trompe-l'oeil sculptors, Kazuo Okazaki and Nobuaki Onishi (some 40 years Okazaki's junior). I am familiar w/ Onishi after he represented the gallery w/ his intricate, resin-based sculptures at VOLTA NY 2010, and look forward to where these two take their mutual figuration.

* Takeshi Abe "幽玄/Subtle Grace" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (Toyoko Line to Daikanyama Station). Abe executes wonderful, figurative "paintings" utilizing a cube grid printed with bits of the subject — think 3D pixels or a 21st century version of Roy Lichtenstein's Ben-Day dots. Abe includes a proper sculpture w/ these 3D prints. (ENDS SUN)

TOKYO
* Shiro Matsui "Like when you miss button your shirt" @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). The Kansai-born artist works in vividly colorful silicone rubber, tricking us with his works' sculpted liquidity and mix of flatness and three-dimensionality, whether they intentionally present themselves as "sculpture", "relief" or both. (ENDS TUES)

fee's LIST (through 11/22)

2011-11-16T10:36:00.000-05:00

WEDNESDAY
NYC
* "The Eye" (dirs. The Pang Bros, 2001) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 7p. Along w/ such simply titled J-Horror classics as "The Ring" and "The Grudge" came this chilling powerhouse from Hong Kong, whose literal title "Seeing Ghosts" pronounce the plot a bit too literally. Forget the 2008 American remake (I did!) and see the scary original, of a young violinist whose cornea transplant has her seeing vengeful specters everywhere!

* Jack Smith Program 4: "I Was a Male Yvonne DeCarlo" (1967-70s), "Song for Rent" (1969), "Hot Air Specialists" (1980s), "Cobra Woman" (dir. Robert Siodmak, 1944) @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 6:30p. This fourth iteration of the underground avant-garde iconoclasts films includes the "novella-length" "Cobra Woman", which despite involving a different director starred frequent Smith collaborator/muse Maria Montez and the high-larious late work "Hot Air Specialists".

AUSTIN
* An evening with Don Hertzfeldt @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 7p. The Sundance Film Fest winner, Oscar nominee and über-creative Hertzfeldt has more animated awesomeness in his left pinkie than most of us in our entire bodies. No offense, but Hertzfeldt's a phenom. He presents his entire 35mm "Bill" trilogy, the older works "Everything Will Be OK" and "I Am So Proud of You" plus debuting "It's a Beautiful Day", along with other shorts and a guaranteed insightful Q&A and discussion. ALSO THURS

* Plaid @ ND at 501 Studios / 501 I-35, 9p/$12. Warp Records-led IDM (and actually Nothing Records, too — remember them??) released this pivotal UK duo's classic "Not for Threes" back in '97, a very happy time for glitchy music. I admittedly fell off 'em around 2001 and "Double Figure"…but I never forgot 'em, and I am terribly stoked that they've not only got a new LP out, the sometimes genius "Scintilli", but they're ALSO here, live.

* Real Estate + Big Troubles @ The Parish / 214 E 6th St, 8p/$15. Ridgewood NJ's surf-tinged mellow-men Real Estate released the cutest video for new single "It's Real", that if you're a dog lover you'll instantly melt for and if you're not, unless you're made of like granite, you'll be moved. It's telling of their warmly inviting style, as appropriate at the beach as fireside, when the temperature drops. Their Bushwick brethren Big Troubles open w/ soul-searing rock.

TOKYO
* SUNDAYS @ Club Que / B2F 2-5-2 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku (Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station), 6:30p/2500 yen. This tough-as-nails Tokyo power-pop quartet SUNDAYS (propelled by firecracker vocalist Fuyumi Kobayashi — think a cute girl version of Mick Jagger) celebrate their ripping new single まるいとんがり that'll rock your socks off. w/ KINGONS　

THURSDAY
NYC
* Alexander Tinei "Dark Pearl" @ Ana Cristea Gallery / 521 W 26th St. I've been a massive fan of the Moldova-born artist, whose darkly glamorous oils somehow combine Caravaggio and Goya with Hedi Slimane to scintillating effect, since his barnstorming at VOLTA 2010. He returns in his second solo show here, washing out his subjects' skin and illuminating them seemingly from within. Sounds delicious.

* 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.

* Richard Mosse "Infra" @ Jack Shainman Gallery / 512 W 20th St. Mosse pairs discontinued military surveillance technology — the color infrared Kodak Aerochrome — with images of rebel groups and ongoing conflicts in East Congo. His previous exhibition here of abandoned aircraft and vehicles in desiccated environments was moving, but "Infra" could double that intensity.

* 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.

* Laura Ortiz Vega "Cosmografiti" + Cayce Zavaglia "Multiple Stitches" @ Lyons Wier Gallery / 542 W 24th St. Vega adapts and abstracts her own photography of graffiti in her native Mexico City with traditional artisanal techniques, while Zavaglia embroiders portraits in a hyperrealistic, "modern pointillism" style.

* A Celebration of George Kuchar: Rambunctious Rarities, Moody Masterpieces @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 6:30p. American underground filmmaking legend Kuchar passed away earlier this year. I had the esteemed pleasure of meeting him in March and lemme tell you: he's a helluva storyteller. That should prove true in an evening celebrating his video works, from the early "Mosholu Holiday" (1966) to the absolutely bonkers "Temple of Torment" (2006) and the classic "Statue in the Park" (1996), honoring his frequent collaborator, twin brother Mike. Plus longtime friends Trisha Donnelly and Bruce Hainley attend to discuss Kuchar's life and oeuvre.

* "Tears of the Black Tiger" (dir. Wisit Sasanatieng, 2000) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 4p. This psychedelic-toned, stylized Thai Western was a HUGE splashy debut for Sasanatieng, which was rightly lauded at Cannes 2011, Vancouver International Film Festival…and then Miramax purchased it for distribution and SHELVED IT. Lucky for the world, there's Magnolia Pictures, who resurrected this outlaw romantic drama and brought it in limited release to U.S. cities. See it on the big screen.

* Heliotropes + Strange Rivals @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F/JMZ to Essex/Delancey), 8p/FREE. Are you here to rock? I want to see you lose your minds!!! Strange Rivals will unnerve you with psych-tinged dissonance before the women of Heliotropes lovingly maul your skulls with the pinnacle of doom-pop coming outta Brooklyn (or anywhere, really). w/ No Fun + Lead Stones

* Balam Acab (PA) @ (le) poisson rouge / 158 Bleecker St (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St, 6 to Bleecker St), 11p/$16. The intense, fractured beauty of this very young Pennsylvanian producer's watery "chamber dub" puts him one rung firmly above the witch-house pack. w/ Trust and True Womanhood

* Thee Oh Sees (San Fran) + The Beets @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$12. The tireless, tatted skronk-punks Thee Oh Sees may have satisfied legions w/ their stirringly melodious psych-folk LP "Castlemania" this summer, but they have ANOTHER album dropping like now, "Carrion Crawler/The Dream", and tonight's the night to celebrate. w/ Jackson Heights' finest garage-rockers The Beets and Aussie synth-punks Total Control.

AUSTIN
* Jonathan Faber "Idle" @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. Landscapes refocused through the prism of memory and lucid dreams, revealing multiplanar environments, shifting grounds and chaotically abstracted structures. I approach this show with "immersive" whispered on my lips.

* Holy Ghost! (NYC) w/ Jessica 6 (NYC) @ The Parish / 214 E 6th St, 8p/$17. I'm well aware Austin can handle electropop w/ aplomb, so this pairing of DFA funk-meisters Holy Ghost! ("Hold Your Breath" and the New Order-ish "Do It Again") w/ dark disco divas Jessica 6 (led by absolute hottie Nomi Ruiz, trust me "I know") should be, ah, perfection.

TOKYO
* Atari Teenage Riot @ Liquidroom / 3-16-6 Higashi, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line etc to Ebisu station), 7p/5500 yen. Digital hardcore-core-core!!!!!!! Original Berlin-area electro-punks ATR have been keeping it real and noisy for years, and now with Nic Endo front and center you best believe they can rile a crowd to action (or at least very sweaty slam-dancing!). w/ Tokyo ultra-punks 9mm Parabellum Bullet

FRIDAY
NYC
* Karen Arm @ PPOW / 535 W 22nd St, 3rd Fl. The Brooklyn- and Shelter Island-based artist moves her intensely process-driven abstract painting style to intimately scaled works on paper, but don't think the contrast will do anything to lessen her technique: a gradual, effervescent accumulation of dots that echo sunbursts, splashing water, fog and other near-intangibles.

* "Last Life in the Universe" (dir. Pen-ek Ratanaruang, 2003) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 4p. This surreal crime thriller, half set in neon-drenched Bangkok and half set in the dreamy, dusty beachside, is among my most favorite films, ever. That's a big statement from a cinema buff like me, so take my word. The tentative friendship b/w troubled Japanese businessman Kenji (a superb, understated Tadanobu Asano) who just may be a former Yakuza thug, and trippy, mourning barmaid Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak), communicating in a pastiche of Japanese, Thai and English, is just magical. Highly recommended!

* "Tyrannosaur" (dir. Paddy Considine, 2010) @ Angelika NY / 18 W Houston St (BDFM to Broadway/Lafayette). Back this spring, the co-presentation of "Tyrannosaur" w/ New Directors/New Films went for the jugular. It's Considine's debut full-length, about a violent and self-destructive bloke named Joseph in Leeds falling for a charity worker named Hannah, whose got her own devastating secrets, and about damn time it gets a proper screen-run.

* Shonen Knife (Japan!) + Heavy Cream (TN) @ Bell House / 149 7th St, Gowanus (F/G to Smith/9th St), 8p/$12. I'll be honest with you: I think this venue is a bit too tidy for a sweaty, fierce Shonen Knife show. But no worries, the ladies of the original "Osaka Ramones" will tear it up, accented by local Azn riot-grrrls Hard Nips and Nashville garage-punk cuties Heavy Cream. Get wild.

* Parts & Labor @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/. Brooklyn's penultimate noise-rockers are ticking off performances before their 10-year anniversary and retirement next Feb. Tonight they tackle the classic "Mapmaker", what with its thunderous "The Gold We're Digging" that got music geeks from here to Sweden drooling over 'em. w/ Knyfe Hyts and Antimagic

AUSTIN
* "Part One" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. The Department of Art and Art History at UT Austin shows their mettle in the first of a three-year, three-part show. This first iteration focuses on the Studio Art wing and 10 faculty-artists, including Margaret Meehan (who just concluded an awesome solo exhibition at Women & Their Work Gallery), photography by Lawrence McFarland and Elizabeth Chiles, plus printmaking by the department's interim chair, Lee Chesney.

* Melancholia" (dir. Lars von Trier, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St + Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. The denouement of "Melancholia", which rightfully earned a best actress award at Cannes for Kirsten Dunst's role, had me contacting friends in NYC and Tokyo with promises of visiting them as soon as possible. It's the end of the world, beginning with a wedding reception for Dunst and teasing out her…complicated relationship w/ her sister, played pitch-perfectly by Charlotte Gainsbourg, ending w/ among the most emotionally devastating conclusions in my filmic history. Deserves to be seen on the big screen.

* Pterodactyl (Brooklyn) @ Emo's / 603 Red River, 10p/$10. Brooklyn's fiercely indie thrash-rockers Pterodactyl hit the Hill Country on their two-month tour (culminating back home in mid-Dec) w/ a new LP "Spills Out", and if lead track "Nerds" is any indication — high melodiousness and percolating rhythm, plus an upped fuzz factor — it's gonna be DOPE. w/ Daniel Francis Doyle

TOKYO
* Maiko Haruki "view for a moment" @ Taro Nasu Gallery / 1-2-11 Higashi-kanda, Chiyoda-ku (Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station). The Ibaraki-born photographer exhibits from her boldly over/underexposed b&w body of work that induces an interesting degree of participatory "seeing". She is also participating in Vol 10 of contemporary Japanese photographers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu (opening Dec 10).

* cyclo (Ryoji Ikeda + Carsten Nicolai) + Nisennenmondai @ WWW / 12-17 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 10:30/4000 yen. The live-house celebrates its first anniversary in a HUGE way, headlined by the awesome sound-artist duo Ikeda and Nicolai as cyclo, accented by Tokyo's kraut-infused math-rockers Nisennenmondai, O.N.O. and duo NUMB + Masato Tsutsui.

SATURDAY
NYC
* Jason Middlebrook "A Break From Content" @ DODGEgallery / 15 Rivington St. Middlebrook highlights his series "planks" in his debut solo exhibition at the gallery, merging internal cuts of various woods with repeated geometries in saturated pigments.

* Otomo Yoshihide + Christian Marclay "The Art of Noise" @ Japan Society / 333 E 47th St (E/M to 53rd/Lexington, 6 to 51st St), 5p/SOLD OUT (discussion), 8:30p/SOLD OUT (concert), both/SOLD OUT. This is HUGE: experimental music heavies Otomo-san (the loudest free-jazz virtuoso around) and Marclay (beyond "The Clock") take turntablism eons further. Do it up: take in their electrifying lecture on the Japanese experimental music scene and non-music movements worldwide, then stick around for a ferocious live concert.

AUSTIN
* Jasmyne Graybill "Home Sweet Home" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St. Graybill highlights notions of natural growth and decay, plus the ecosystem balance therein, with her realistic installations of sculpted fungus, lichen and mold. I.e. the kind of science-y exhibition I can really get into.

* East Austin Studio Tour @ various East Austin venues, 11a-6p/FREE. Some 300 E. Austin artist studios and indie venues open their doors for this 10th anniversary, two-weekend artsy bash. All YOU need to do is show up. This is my first E.A.S.T. since returning to the city, so I have some major planning to do, but check the website for an exhaustively detailed PDF map: http://www.eastaustinstudiotour.com/. Better yet: pick up a free E.A.S.T. catalogue from any Austin public library and tack its massive enclosed map to your wall. Thumb through pages of galleries and artist studios and sort out what you want to see and when. Looks like beautiful weather this weekend. See you there? ALSO SUN.

* Lisa Choinacky "Reality is Only a Rorschach Ink-Blot, You Know" @ Co-Lab / 613 Allen St, 7-11p. Choinacky created a life-sized diorama in the style of that iconic, amorphous psych-test, collaged with mirror images of basketball players in motion but reflecting our own focused (and at times blatantly brusque, violent) movements within the world. (on view throughout E.A.S.T.)

* Melt-Banana (Japan) @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 8p/$12. EEEYUHH! Melt-Banana will rock your face off!!! At first I thought it was funny psych-electro bands Prince Rama (NYC) and Indian Jewelry were on the roster, but they're playing inside whilst grindcore legends Melt-Banana (with 400 Blows!) tear up the larger outdoor stage. That's more like it.

* The Ghost Wolves @ Beerland / 711 Red River, 9p. Local gritty juke-joint blues duo The Ghost Wolves are best enjoyed LOUD and live. Their debut LP "In Ya Neck!" only hints at their swagger. Don't miss this.

TOKYO
* Sumiyo Ito "child's play" @ Nanzuka Underground / Shirokane Art Complex 2F, 3-1-15 Shirokane, Minato-ku (Namboku/Mita subway lines to Shirokane-Takanawa Station). Ten new figurative sculpture works, steeped in childhood memories, mythology and free creativity, from the Nagano-born artist.

* 「天使突抜六丁目」 (dir. Masafumi Yamaha, 2011) @ K's Cinema / 3F 3-35-13 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit). Umm…so Noboru (Taku Manabe), fall-guy in a corporate bankruptcy, finds himself transported one day to neighborhood in Kyoto he's never heard of, called "Tenshi-Tsukinuke-Rokuchome" (like the title), and he grows angel wings and hits it off w/ some weird winged girl named Miyuki (eerie cutie Natsumi Seto). Oh an a bunch of old-school actors (anchored by the infallible Akira Emoto) show up too. Exclusive premiere at K's!
http://tentsuki6.jp/

* 「ネムリユスリカ」 (dir. Katsumi Sakaguchi, 2011) @ Imageforum Theatre / 2-10-2 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR etc to Shibuya Station, East Exit). Called "Sleep" in its successful premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival 2011, "Nemuri-Yusurika" focuses on nomadic Kotono, victim of a rape 17 years ago, and the daughter Natsume born from that rape, plus their respective bonds and motivations for living on the road.
http://www.nemuriyusurika.com/

* lemon's chair + DJ Twee Grrrls Club @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 7p/4000 yen. Tokyo's ferociously loud shoegazers lemon's chair and the ever-effervescent Twee Grrrls Club DJ contingent support Stockholm lovelies Sad Day for Puppets on their Japan tour. w/ sugardrop and Shelling

* Hair Stylistics + GENOCIDE etc @ Meguro RockMayKan / B1 1-5-17 Meguro, Meguro-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Meguro Station), 5:30p/4200 yen. I wish I were in Tokyo NOW for this furious showcase, feat. GENOCIDE's epic, old-school metal and Hair Stylistics' sound-collage noise assault. w/ SIGH and DORAID

SUNDAY
NYC
* "All About Lily Chou Chou" (dir. Shunji Iwai, 2001) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 2p. Iwai's singular dream-like film "Lily Chou-Chou" eerily encapsulates the high-school experience of contemporary Japanese youth: the bullying, the pop-idol worship, the grip of Internet message boards and the peer pressure to do unspeakably evil things. To watch this is to be immersed in Iwai's story, grounded in the pop ethereality of Lily herself.

* "The Yellow Sea" (dir. Na Hong-jin, 2011) screening @ Museum of the Moving Image / 36-01 35 Ave, Astoria (R to Steinway St), 4p. This breakneck cross-Korean thriller is like an out of control bullet train of mob hits, police chases and shattered bones. Na's film screened in the Un Certain Regard section of 2011 Cannes, plus it was a box office hit in S. Korea and overwhelmingly lauded at the NYAFF and diverse other film festivals.

TOKYO
* 住所不定無職 @ THREE / B1F 5-18-1 Daizawa, Setagaya-ku (Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station), 7p/3000 yen. I am terribly addicted to this charmingly titled trio, which in English literally means "no fixed address nor job" — which can mean either a transient or your typical post-high school badass. Plus I'm a sucker for lead-singer drummers, as Yurina totally is, and even more so for double-necked bass-guitarists who ALSO sing, which cutie Yoko TOTALLY is. Take single "Magical Night Rock 'n Roll" (and other single "I Wanna Be Your Beatles") as clues to their awesomeness.

MONDAY
NYC
* "Springtime in a Small Town" (dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang, 2002) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 7p. Tian's acclaimed return to the camera was his remake of Fei Mu's '48 film, the rekindling of a love affair that began a decade before the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

AUSTIN
* Japan Seminar: "What is Black Literature and Can You Write It In Japanese?" @ Meyerson Conference Room, WCH 4.118, UT Austin Campus, 4p. Intriguing: a talk on postwar Japanese authors who read, translated and ultimately incorporated African American literary techniques into their own literary discourse as mode of protest on cultural hegemony, beginning with Kenzaburo Oe, Kenji Nakagami and Eimi Yamada as points of departure.

TOKYO
* the milky tangerine @ Club Que / B2F 2-5-2 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku (Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station), 7p/2300 yen. Love love LOVE local indie-rock quartet the milky tangerine — to me they're like The Brilliant Green of 2011, sweetly strong female vox around lots of guitars. LIST recommended!

* FOUR GET ME A NOTS @ NINESPICES / B1 2-1-1 Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit), 7p/2300 yen. The definition of live music-going masochism, is scheduling two of my favorite indie bands, Tokyo's the milky tangerine (see above) with Chiba power-punks FOUR GET ME A NOTS. Shoganai, as it goes in Japanese, can't be helped!

TUESDAY
NYC
* Mark di Suvero @ Paula Cooper Gallery / 534 W 21st St. The preeminent American artist presents a new monumental steel sculpture that furthers his skill in making colossal and torqued steel beams appear ethereal, plus a huge painting of explosive color overlays.

AUSTIN
* "Infra-Man" (dir. Shan Hua, 1975) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E 6th St, 9:45p. AKA "Chinese Superman" (it's original Hong Kong title, seriously!), which would hide the brilliantly bonkers pairing of kung fu action and "henshin", monster/robot costume action. Notable for being China's first superhero movie, and IMO equally famous for lead antagonist "Princess Dragon Mom", the stage-name of a Michigan-based harsh noise duo.

TOKYO
* THE APRILS @ Koenji High / 4-30-1 Koenji-Minami, Suginami-ku (Chuo Line to Koenji Station), 6p/3000 yen. Tsukuba retro-futurists THE APRILS celebrate the release of their "Magical Girls" EP, an almost French-pop array of wheezy synths and crystalline guitars (with coed vocals!) and a helluva fun time. w/ DJs from Shibuya Girls Pop

CURRENT SHOWS
NYC
* Richard Serra "Junction/Cycle" @ Gagosian / 555 W 24th St. Shame on us jaded art-goers who approach a Serra installation w/ tired expectations, believing there'll be just some big-ass weathered steel to navigate and it's a been-there, done-that sort of thing. No big deal. Shame on us, b/c this duet of mazelike monoliths is singularly amazing, a Zen-like wandering through soaring sheets of steel streaked with sunlight, mottled with either undersea shadows or the primordial gasses of some distant nebula. My favorite Gagosian-installed Serra exhibition, and easily rivaling his MoMA retrospective in sheer interactive bliss. Do not disregard it.

* Rene Magritte "Dangerous Liaisons" @ Blain-DiDonna / 981 Madison Ave. Define 'dream come true'. If you're a surrealist buff like yours truly, then seeing a swath of your personal hero Rene Magritte's oeuvre up close and personal is just that: overwhelmingly emotive and sheer art-viewing perfection. The gallery inaugurates its presence above the Waldorf-Astoria with a survey of 30 oil paintings, gouaches and drawings by the Belgian Surrealist, the largest Magritte show in NYC in years (decades?) and culled almost entirely from private collections. It leads off w/ "Cinéma Bleu", aka Magritte's first mighty plunge into dreamland's embrace and includes such heady offerings as "La Mémoire" (the marble head w/ her bloodstained temple), "L'Empire des Lumieres" (one of his massive twilit dwellings beneath a blue sky) and "Cosmogonie élémentaire" (where his familiar skittlepin imagery becomes a fire-belching odalisque). Also: the titular painting, a seductive nude whose reflection turns the opposite direction in a mirror and gouaches of the bowler-hatted man with a green apple floating in front of his face and that famous pipe-not-a-pipe. Now define 'mayjah'.

* Michaël Borremans "The Devil's Dress" @ David Zwirner / 525 W 19th St. "Moody", "creepy", "dramatic" — or better yet, "cinematic" — are apt describers to Borremans' murky, ageless portraits and ambiguously staged scenes. He doesn't make the going any easier for us, in this new series of paintings w/ purposefully subtle/sinister titles and a variant three-part work on paper.

* Neo Rauch "Heilstaetten" @ David Zwirner / 533 W 19th St. I had a significantly belated psylocibin flashback upon experiencing Rauch's latest. The social realist (and subtle surrealist) unveils new oils (in both large-format and intimate flavors), plus a bronze sculpture "Falknerin". Spatial perceptions dissolve in multi-figure renderings like "Ware", w/ seemingly giant men (with greatly distended arms) intermingle w/ reduced figures, and in the much smaller "Rota", where either a Golden Age UFO or carnival ride breaks up an otherwise typical country landscape. Heavy, lovely works.

* Bianca Beck "Body" @ Rachel Uffner Gallery / 47 Orchard St. I've encountered this young NY-based artist's intriguing, very physical oeuvre (gestural, abraded abstract mixed-media paintings, small painted-wood sculpture) in group shows only, so I'm totally psyched to see a larger showing of it. In her solo debut here, she includes ripped canvases in "body colors" (makes me think of Ana Mendieta), small-scale sculpture and works that incorporate sculptural and 2D elements. The figurative elements imbued in these, whether a rough-hewn wood block like a feminine torso, or a burned oil on panel.

* Nan Goldin "Scopophila" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 522 W 22nd St. This is Goldin's first solo exhibition in NYC since 2007 (not counting, obvs, her dreamy/sinister contributions to "New Works" at this gallery last year), and it's a biggie. She unveils the titular slide installation — stay with me here! it's doper than it sounds! —, commissioned by the Louvre Museum last year, nearly a half-hour of over 400 photographs from Goldin's life intermingled w/ classic Louvre paintings and sculpture. Beyond that, she includes a bunch of image pairings, reclining "Odalisque" versus her own nudes, "Veiled" figures decadent and dreamy, for an entirely intoxicating encounter.

* Mike Bayne "Kingston Spring and Muffler" @ Mulherin + Pollard / 187 Chrystie St. Simply breathtaking little photorealist oils on board, remarkable both for their respective small (even very tiny) scales and their incredible, natural realism. I'm talking both portraiture and snowy urban vistas, populated with graffiti'ed buildings, banal adverts and automobiles.

AUSTIN
* "Looking for a Fight" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. Three studio art undergrads and members of the all-female Deluscious Group, Lucy Parker, Isabella Burden and Layne Bell, split this cross-media exhibition highlighting gender discourse and their respective feminine identities in a continually male-prone society. Each takes an ultrafeminine approach (think lots of pink, frilly cloth materials and truncated womanly forms) to hook us in and cerebrally wallop us to attention, as there's depth in all the surface-level cuteness. Bell walks the figurative tightrope most deliberately, suspending two pairs of scissors over an inflated balloon in "Emptied IV" (the fourth of a series of subtly simple assemblages, which also included the aforementioned frilly cloth elbow gloves and a Tooth Fairy-sized sewn pillow clothespinned to a wooden tray) and naming another "All Tits and Legs" after like a Bravo plastic surgery reality show stereotype. Though with this one, a pair of vaguely ghostly forms surmounting barstool legs, I got Rene Magritte vibes (both the Belgian surrealist's penchant for masking his figures and painting lingerie with erogenous zones plainly visible), but then I thought of Rebecca Horn's "Finger Gloves" performance from the early '70s, particularly in the elongated 'stems', as it were. In any case, Bell's assemblage is topped by sewn multicolored beads as the titular 'tits'. Burden included both video/sculptural assemblages (her "Upskirt Series"), augmenting cropped body parts with distended branchlike physicality, and two photographic prints (her "Tongue-in-Cheek Series"). The prints struck me more deeply, as I was reminded of both Ana Mendieta and Adrian Piper's very physical, conceptual oeuvres. Though the one artist she directly references is Joseph Beuys, the granddaddy of conceptual and philosophical performance, via the icky sculpture "Boys, Beuys, Boys!!!", combining a loglike beaver muff with glistening, white lard, tangentially recognizable to Beuys' style while superseding him in pronounced decadence. Parker unveils only two works, but this editing makes their underlying force that much stronger. The one, "Suspended Bean Bag Chair (after Bruce Nauman)", is an older work, the titular smallish pink chair stretched painfully in four directions overhead by metal accoutrements, is like Nauman's own self-portrait face-pulling, highlighting artificial elasticity and how the gesture can easily twist from affectionate to torturous. Her other, "Funk Trunk (including artist as Vito Acconci)", begins with Parker's disembodied voice emanating from a coffin-sized box. Kneel down and peer inside, and amid bedsheets and acid-pink fluorescent lighting is a video projection of Parker reenacting Acconci's perversely intimate "Theme Song" in her own spin on 'pillow talk'. "You could be anybody out there, but there's gotta be somebody watching me. Somebody who wants to come in close to me…Come on, I'm all alone..I'll be honest with you, OK. I mean you'll have to believe me if I'm really honest…" Parker-as-Acconci monologues, shifting on her bed as she stares straight into us.

* Bradney Evans "Still" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. I sense that LA-based artist Bradney Evans is an alchemist with paper, viz. earlier work "Phoenix" as the titular mythological bird folded origami-style from magician's paper (i.e. quick-burning, no ash). He pulls a hat-trick in his debut in the gallery's Project Room, in a suite of three works on paper that ostensibly "look" like torn packing paper (that fibrous brown workhorse) with bits of light emanating from behind them, viz. "Constellation", "Eclipse" and personal favorite "Sunset". Thing is, they're each stunning, meticulous trompe-l'oeil renderings in acrylic, each "tear" and "crinkle" the result of some laborious brushwork. Same deal w/ the "light". The effect is like a combo between Tauba Auerbach's beguiling "rippled" Op-art paintings and Robert Gober's lovingly articulated household recreations, perhaps slanting even closer to Gober's style. Evans instills an intensity to these three works, as if the light were really pushing through the "torn paper", as the paper tenuously attempts to hold the illumination back. Displayed with these is an earlier single-channel video "Exposure", spotlit owls, with a sound element, disjointed page-turnings and an occasional sub-bassline that sounds like it's coming from another room.
+ Colby Bird "Dust Breeds Contempt". Bird's exhibition, his first solo at the gallery, has definitely become "funkier" since the opening in September. Stuff that I witnessed then, incl the look of certain sculptures, have indeed added the titular, intentional dust. He's highlighting the mutability of artwork, from its creation and display to its adaptation in the hands of a collector (or in storage, wherever it goes after its taken off the wall or out of the gallery). Most of his sculptures, like the candy-colored "33", mounted on two misshapen wood pillars that count as part of the assemblage, include "dust" as a medium, anticipated on the work's variously flat and angled surfaces as the exhibition continues through this month. Explicit instructions for the staff to not Swiffer that dust away. It's like Walter de Maria's "Trilogies" exhibition that at Houston, TX's Menil Collection: his "Channel Series" had to be literally dusted off from storage for the exhibition. Not the case w/ Bird. He's got a single framed print on view, rotated throughout the show at irregular intervals by staff (I saw this happen at the opening, as it shifted from "Howdy" to "Keira" and strongly encourage watching it), which becomes pretty gnarly looking w/ dust bunnies on its display table and grime on the print's glass.

CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Josh Keyes "Migration" + AJ Fosik "Time Kills All Gods" @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery / 529 W 20th St, 9th Fl. Two flavors of animalistic awesomeness, in these Pacific NW-based artists. I was pretty psyched for Keyes' contribution, as I'd dug his solo debut here last year, but he extended his photorealist technique of animals in odd predicaments (here coexisting, either benevolently or tentatively, in human-empty environments) with a set of graphite work drawings that each contain his high level of artistic integrity and detail. Shadows, ripples in the water and reflections all recur in sharp contrast. But Fosik's addition (after seeing his absolutely stunning rendering for Mastodon's latest LP) was just too sweet. His lovingly, exhaustively hand-crafting of these locally sourced wooden animal busts and figures into wildly psychedelic, seemingly extra-dimensional beings is like a strong acid trip without the recurring flashbacks. At least that's what I think, since I just saw the show. Too early to tell if there will be flashbacks (but I wouldn't mind 'em, really).

* Rebecca Campbell "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" @ Ameringer McEnery Yohe / 525 W 22nd St. I consider this a bit of a departure for the gallery, though a welcome one, as they switch from modernism abstract, Abstract Expressionist and installation artists (think Al Held, Morris Louis, Judy Pfaff) to a younger, figurative painter who imbues her works with gestural, though dreamily realist, touches. Big brushy renderings of nudes and clothed figures, plus portraits and some color-streaked abstracts, like the strokes grew and just obliterated what realism used to be there.

TOKYO
* Katsuhisa Toda "Imaginary Books" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). Acrylic paintings and drawings of Toda's telltale books, now rendered unleashing their innate dreamworld powers.

* Naomi Okubo "It seems like a dream" @ Gallery MOMO / 2F 6-2-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Toei Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). In Okubo's third solo at MOMO, she reveals stunningly rendered acrylic and oil paintings of young women within gorgeous, patterned interiors.

* Kaoru Usukubo "Brightness falls from the air" @ Taimatz / 1-2-11 Higashi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku (JR Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station, Toei-Shinjuku Line to Bakuro-Yokoyama Station). Brand spanking new gallery inaugurates its program w/ a suite of gorgeous, glossy figurative paintings by Usukubo. She's also participating in the 2011 Yokohama Triennale "Our Magic Hour".

* Kazumi Kurigami "Hi to Hone II" @ Taka Ishii Photography / 2F 6-6-9 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station). Kurigami has some 4+ decades of independent, commercial photography behind him. This exhibition focuses on his Polaroid SX-70 and spans nearly his entire career, magnifying the emotive "unrealness" of the Polaroid. (ENDS SAT)

TOKYO
* Yoko Asakai "Northerly Wind" @ NADiff a/p/a/r/t 1F 1-18-4 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station). A series of Asakai's new landscape photographs, who explored Aomori Prefecture on foot and by car this summer during her artist residency there. This is a departure from her usual portraiture. Also: this is an INCREDIBLY DOPE art bookstore. (ENDS SUN)

fee's LIST (through 11/15)

2011-11-09T11:37:00.000-05:00

WEDNESDAY
NYC
* Liliana Porter @ Hosfelt Gallery / 531 W 36th St. The ever-beguiling Porter is a kitsch alchemist (coining that phrase now!), drawing us into frightening events and peculiar situations w/ a strong dose of dark humor. Viz. a "calamitous" installation, a dozen photographic works, and one huge-ass painting. I, for one, am stoked.

* Mika Rottenberg & Jon Kesslar "Seven" @ Nicole Klagsbrun PROJECT / 534 W 24th St, 2-8p/FREE. A chakra sauna channeling chromatic body fluids from NY to Cradle of Humankind in the African savannah, mixed w/ Rottenberg's videos and Kessler's kinetic sculpture. Through SAT (same time)

* Noveller @ Union Hall / 702 Union St, Park Slope (D/NR to Union St), 8p/$8. Sarah Lipstate covers our entire emotional spectrum in her scintillating, ferocious and hypnotically sweet guitar soundscapes as Noveller. Pairs well w/ Her Vanished Grace's dream-pop. w/ Field Mouse

* Quilt (LP release party) + DIVE @ Glasslands / 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8:30p/$10. It's like Boston trio Quilt had '69's Woodstock mainlined into their veins, as their psych-folk refrains (the campfire vibe of "Cowboys in the Void", the sway of "Penobska Oakwalk") come so naturally. They match well w/ my new favorite local indie rockers DIVE (fronted by Zachary Cole Smith of Beach Fossils). w/ Total Slacker and Royal Baths

AUSTIN
* "The Anxiety of Photography" talk w/ Jennie Lamensdorf @ Arthouse / 700 Congress Ave, 6p. Lamensdorf, Curatorial Assistant at the gallery (who also curated the kickass dual exhibition "Something Happened Here" w/ NYC artists Matthew Schenning and Yadir Quintana at Champion, closing this SAT), leads a discussion of 'The Anxiety of Photography'.

* Centerpiece Theater: "!Women Art Revolution" (dir. Lynn Hershman Leeson) screening @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity, 7p. Hershman Leeson debuted four decades of her interviews w/ pivotal women creatives — from Laurie Anderson, Judy Chicago and Yoko Ono to Miranda July, Cindy Sherman and Carrie Brownstein — as a potent documentary on the feminist art movement at the MoMA last year. It was a much-needed (and belated) entry into MoMA's progressive future, particularly when the film begins w/ the Guerilla Girls vs a totally male-dominated museum. In conjunction w/ the VAC's exhibit "Looking for a Fight", we get another look at Hershman Leeson's crucial dispatch.

* Phantogram (NY) @ Mohawk / 912 Red River, 7:30p/SOLD OUT. Yes! Those glossy upstate NY electro dreamers Phantogram put on a helluva show, mixing lush soundscapes and vocals with rockin' and raucous rhythms. I'm still hurting over missing Fun Fun Fest, but Phantogram should balm it nicely. You lucky peeps with tix, find me up front.

* Wild Child @ Antone's / 213 W 5th St, 8p/$7. Austin's natty indie-folk outfit Wild Child just released their debut LP "Pillow Talk", and a celebration is in order! Get on down here, "y'all". w/ Bobby Jealousy

THURSDAY
NYC
* "The Bearden Project" @ Studio Museum in Harlem / 144 W 125th St (23 to 125th St). To celebrate the centennial celebration of legendary, NY-proud African-American artist Romare Bearden and his mighty, groundbreaking collage-based oeuvre, the Studio Museum asked 100 artists to make art "inspired, influenced or informed by" Bearden's "life, work and legacy". Works will be added and the exhibition rearranged in the coming months, encouraging repeat visits.

* Sherrie Levine "MAYHEM" @ Whitney Museum / 945 Madison Ave (6 to 77th St). Through her intriguing (and sometimes quite subtle) methods of re-contextualization, Levine has made us look differently, more closely, at even the most immediately familiar works of art. She developed this project to reconfigure earlier works against new ones in different combinations, from photographic "memoirs" to bronzes and cast-glass sculpture, to both highlight their decades of interconnectivity and have us looking again.

* John Powers "Star Wars and the Rhetoric of Power" @ Performa Hub / 233 Mott St (NR to Prince St, 6 to Spring St), 3p/$10. Powers, the Brooklyn artist behind "Star Wars Modern", presents George Lucas' iconic '77 film as an artifact of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, Cold War America, as much as America rebelled against Modernist urban development and minimalist art.

* Maria Petschnig "See-Saw, Seen-Saw" @ Austrian Cultural Form / 11 E 52nd St (E/M to 5th Ave/53rd St, 6 to 51st St), 7:30p/FREE. Andreas Stadler curated this Performa 11-related installation, in which Petschnig perfects her disquieting oeuvre of juxtaposing live-action suggestive performances with video clips, which tend to put our own reactions in sharp relief.

* "Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale" (dir. Wei Te-sheng, 2011) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 7p. A sneak preview of Wei's historical epic, which just premiered at the Venice Film Festival. He focuses on the early 20th century, when Taiwan was colonized by both Japanese, Han Chinese, and remnants of aboriginal tribes who eventually rallied against the Rising Sun. Wei intros this special screening.

* Wooden Shjips (San Fran) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$15. Classic West Coast space-rock, fueled by hypnotic kraut rhythms (and some heavy-ass bass!) and accented by Moog-y keys and scorching guitar: that's Wooden Shjips. First time I saw these guys was a Halloween party, to give you an idea. They're INTENSE! w/ Birds of Avalon

AUSTIN
* Perspectives: El Anatsui @ Blanton Museum of Art / UT Austin campus, MLK at Congress, 12:30p. Annette Carlozzi, the Blanton's Deputy Director for Art and Programs, discusses works in the phenomenal El Anatsui retrospective "When I Last Wrote to You about Africa".

* Art Night Austin: EAST @ Domy Books / 913 E Cesar Chavez, 7-10p/$65 (get 'em here). The official preview party for E.A.S.T. (the annual East Austin Studio Tour, which runs for two weekends beginning NOV 12) is stacked w/ local grub, booze, flash and art. Because art's the whole reason, no? Shuttle buses link venues, incl. Domy Books (where I suggest beginning, if you're the linear type, plus it's the event HQ and spot for will-call tix), Fisterra Studio (1200 E 2nd St), Denise Prince's studio (1404 Willow St), Peacock Salon (1519 E Cesar Chavez), Okay Mountain (1619 E Cesar Chavez), Delta Mills (4701 E 5th St) and Splinter Group (4709 E 5th St). The bash concludes w/ an afterparty at 916 Springdale, feat. DJ Lil LoLo the Don of Time (aka Carlos Rosales-Silva, whose installation currently graces Arthouse's lobby).

* Kingdom of Suicide Lovers @ Beerland / 711 Red River St, 9p. Upon moving to Austin several months ago, I made it a point to immerse myself in the local music scene. Cue Kingdom of Suicide Lovers' beautiful doomsday vibe, that makes me miss NYC's post-punk landscape not too much anymore. w/ A Tiger Named Lovesick
.
FRIDAY
NYC
* Terry Richardson "Mom Dad" @ Half Gallery / 208 Forsyth. The iconic (and iconoclastic!) downtown lensman celebrates the release of his titular two-volume monograph (launched at Paris' Colette in late Sept) w/ an intimate selection of portraits of his mother Annie and late father, fashion photographer Bob Richardson.

* Ragnar Kjartansson and Davíd Fiór Jónsson "Artist Class: On Music and Forgiveness" @ Performa Hub / 233 Mott St (NR to Prince St, 6 to Spring St), 3p/$10. Performa 11 Commission artist Kjartansson (whose sublime video installation "The Man" is currently on at Arthouse in Austin TX) and pianist-composer Jónsson conduct a class on Mozart, music and forgiveness.

* Bibbe Hansen "On Al Hansen" @ Golden Gallery Inc / 120 Elizabeth St (BD to Grand St, J to Bowery, 6 to Spring St), 8p/FREE. Hansen talks of "growing up Fluxus" and of her father, Fluxus and Happenings artist Al Hansen, the evolution of his art pedagogy and the establishment of his Ultimate Academy in Cologne, Germany.

* "Melancholia" (dir. Lars Von Trier, 2011) @ Angelika NY / 18 W Houston St (BDFM to Broadway-Lafayette). The denouement of "Melancholia", which rightfully earned a best actress award at Cannes for Kirsten Dunst's role, had me contacting friends in NYC and Tokyo with promises of visiting them as soon as possible. It's the end of the world, beginning with a wedding reception for Dunst and teasing out her…complicated relationship w/ her sister, played pitch-perfectly by Charlotte Gainsbourg, ending w/ among the most emotionally devastating conclusions in my filmic history. Deserves to be seen on the big screen.

* "Love Exposure" (dir. Sion Sono, 2008) screening @ Museum of Arts & Design / 2 Columbus Circle (AC/BD to 59th St/Columbus Circle), 7p. Sono's magnum opus, filling four hours of vivid cinema w/ family drama, Catholic guilt, upskirt photography and flashy cultism that'll leave you breathless and craving more.

* "Inni" (Sigur Ros live, dir. Vincent Morisset, 2008) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). Coinciding w/ release of Sigur Rós' same-name LP is this enchanting live documentary, capturing the dreamy Icelandic post-rockers' performances at London's Alexandra Palace in 2008. ALSO SAT

* Plaid @ (le) poisson rouge / 158 Bleecker St (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St), 7p/$22. Warp Records-led IDM (and actually Nothing Records, too — remember them??) released this pivotal UK duo's classic "Not for Threes" back in '97, a very happy time for glitchy music. I admittedly fell off 'em around 2001 and "Double Figure"…but I never forgot 'em, and I am terribly stoked that they've not only got a new LP out, the sometimes genius "Scintilli", but they're ALSO here, live. w/ Gamelan Dharma Swara

AUSTIN
* "The Skin I Live In" (dir. Pedro Almodóvar, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. Almodóvar's latest nail-biter was the secret screening I missed at this year's Fantastic Fest, and though I knew it'd be premiering in theaters soon, I still counted the days until now. This cyclical narrative of blurred identities and sexual obsession, with Antonio Banderas as a fantastically twisted plastic surgeon and the ever-lovely Elena Anaya as his main "guinea pig".

* Solid Goldblum: "Jurassic Park" (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1993) midnight screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. Oh, Dr. Ian Malcolm, you MADE "Jurassic Park" for me, you the scruffy genius dropping frantic, deadman one-liners like "Must go faster," when chased by a T-Rex, or observations like "It's a, um…It's an impact tremor, that's what it is…I'm fairly alarmed here." Even if you've seen this dated classic a thousand times already, "Jurassic Park" the original is still THE dinosaur film, and it owns the big-screen. also 11/12

* Fungi Girls + Rayon Beach @ Beerland / 711 Red River St, 11p. A strong showcase of local indie-rock talent, feat. those sensitive young men Fungi Girls and the roasty psychedelic Rayon Beach. Plus Voyageurs, The Zoltars and Year of the Bear.

* Extravagasm X @ nd501 / 501 N. I-35, 9p/$25. The 10th and final fantasy ball Extravagasm also marks a celebration of Forbidden Fruit's 30 years of supplying Austinites and visitors in all matters of kink — something I am personally grateful for as a former university student and now recent resident. Feat. a reunion by local premiere burlesque troupe Kitty Kitty Bang Bang, performances by Brass Ovaries (pole-dancing), Sky Candy (aerial silks), and much naughtiness. Costumes and creative dress is encouraged.

TOKYO
* Shiro Matsui "Like when you miss button your shirt" @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). The Kansai-born artist works in vividly colorful silicone rubber, tricking us with his works' sculpted liquidity and mix of flatness and three-dimensionality, whether they intentionally present themselves as "sculpture", "relief" or both.

* TADZIO @ THREE / B1F 5-18-1 Daizawa, Setagaya-ku (Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa Station), 7p/2000 yen. None fiercer than these Tokyo noise-rock girls TADZIO. You want to rock out? w/ toddle

* Battles @ Shibuya Ax / 2-1-1 Jinnan, Shibuya-ku (JR line etc to Shibuya Station), 7p/5800 yen. Tokyo's consummate hypno-kraut-rockers Nisennenmondai toured the U.S. w/ America's leading math-rockers Battles. So it's only fitting that Battles extend the honor, at least in an undoubtedly bonkers Tokyo concert.

* CHARLTON @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), TKTK. If you told me this coed electro-pop trio CHARLTON hailed from Bushwick, Brooklyn (as opposed to Tokyo), I'd totally believe you. Check that crunchy pulse and barked lyrics powering track "Insider" (off their demo) and see what I mean. w/ I-Na and bluesy space-rockers 日の毬

SATURDAY
NYC
* "Last Life in the Universe" (dir. Pen-ek Ratanaruang, 2003) screening @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 5p. This surreal crime thriller, half set in neon-drenched Bangkok and half set in the dreamy, dusty beachside, is among my most favorite films, ever. That's a big statement from a cinema buff like me, so take my word. The tentative friendship b/w troubled Japanese businessman Kenji (a superb, understated Tadanobu Asano) who just may be a former Yakuza thug, and trippy, mourning barmaid Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak), communicating in a pastiche of Japanese, Thai and English, is just magical. Highly recommended!

* Dir en Grey @ Irving Plaza / 17 Irving Plaza (NR/L/456 to Union Square), 7p/$29.50. Know what "yaoi" means? Believe it or not, there was I time when I didn't! I came of age in all things J-Rock and -Pop while in university, and "yaoi" happened to dovetail into this. Enter freaky visual-kei Osaka rockers Dir en Grey, whose huge third LP "Kisou" (lit. "demonic burial") could totally still resurrect nightmares. Yeah they're older now, and maybe more hopeful, but with new LP "Dum Spiro Spero" and lengthy track titles echoing Keiji Haino's black-hearted soliloquies, I've no doubt they still rock out HARD. w/ The Birthday Massacre

* The 5.6.7.8's @ Mercury Lounge / 217 E Houston St (F to 2nd Ave), 10:30p/$12. Yes, it's that all-female retro-tinged garage-rock trio from "Kill Bill"! They totally tore it up in Tokyo a few weeks ago (including covering the "Mothra" theme) and they lead an all-Japanese lineup tonight, incl. speed-punks Theee Bat and Brooklyn-based The Back C.C.'s.

AUSTIN
* East Austin Studio Tour @ various East Austin venues, 11a-6p/FREE. Some 300 E. Austin artist studios and indie venues open their doors for this 10th anniversary, two-weekend artsy bash. All YOU need to do is show up. This is my first E.A.S.T. since returning to the city, so I have some major planning to do, but check the website for an exhaustively detailed PDF map: http://www.eastaustinstudiotour.com/. Better yet: pick up a free E.A.S.T. catalogue from any Austin public library and tack its massive enclosed map to your wall. Thumb through pages of galleries and artist studios and sort out what you want to see and when. Looks like beautiful weather this weekend. See you there? ALSO SUN.

* Ink Tank "Future: Diorama!" @ Co-Lab / 613 Allen St, 7-11p. Constantly shifting scales and perspectives and an opportunity to engage with them in a space. The evolving artist collective Ink Tank highlights these scenarios within their members' own collaboration and experimentation. (on view throughout E.A.S.T.)

* "Eastside" @ Studio2Gallery / 2832 MLK Blvd #1, 6-8p. Revel in this new artsy alt-venue's location with a group show of 14 contemporary local artists, incl. photographer Tina Weitz and Leon Alesi, Jill Alo, Chalda Maloff, Carol Schiraldi and Oscar Silva. The space will be open throughout E.A.S.T.

* The Cobra Show 2011 party @ Cobra Studios / 902 Gardner Rd, 6-11p. The venue hosts a group show of local E.A.S.T. artists, including Nic Noblique, Steven Noreyko, Andrea Mendoza, Beth Evans-Colonna, Heather Curiel, Jenny Urbanek and Johnny Villarreal, w/ live music by Lost Soul Revue and Channel 13. Plus, the show will be open throughout E.A.S.T.'s two weekends.

* Eleanor Friedberger (NYC) @ Cactus Cafe / UT Austin Student Union, 23rd St at Guadalupe, 8p/$15. Friedberger is more than just one gorgeous enigmatic half of poetic NY rockers The Fiery Furnaces. She is a multi-instrumentalist and badass songwriter with a honeyed voice, and should easily hold her own in this special, intimate performance. Recommended for lovers and lovers of smooth vibes.

* Rasputina (NYC) @ The Parish / 214 E 6th St, 8p/$18. Believe it or not, there was a time when chamber-rock was an oddity best kept to dark cabaret ensembles like Rasputina, the Brooklyn decadents fronted by cellist/vocalist Melora Creager since the early '90s. w/ The Wilderness of Manitoba

TOKYO
* Chika Osaka "It's pure in a good way…" @ Gallery MOMO Ryogoku / 1F 1-7-15 Kamezawa, Sumida-ku (Toei Oedo/JR Sobu Line to Ryogoku Station). Osaka unveils 15 large watercolors, incorporating traditional ukiyo-e techniques, in her debut solo exhibition at the gallery.

* Hisato Sugihara "A Friend of a Friend" @ Waitingroom / 3F 2-8-11 Ebisu-nishi, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). This is the young Nagoya University A&D graduate's debut solo exhibition in Tokyo, featuring her C-prints, mixed media works and video.

* Yukinori Maeda "ECHOES" @ Taka Ishii Gallery / 5F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). In Maeda's second solo exhibition at the gallery, he focuses on light and its wavelengths as shown through sculptural installations. He's also participating in Yokohama Triennale 2011 with the series "The Seven Seasons", based on Rudolf Steiner's philosophy of anthroposophy, the seven processes believed to lead to human evolution.

* Kazuma Koike "Repetitions and variants", 1st half @ Aisho Miura Arts / B1F 2-17-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (JR lines etc to Shibuya Station). As the title precludes, this is the first half of Koike's new body of work, with this section concentrating on two-dimensional works, vividly executed, textural acrylic paintings on cotton.

* Shiro Matsui + O JUN artists' talk @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station), 4:30p/500 yen. Matsui, whose sculpted silicone exhibition "Like when you miss button your shirt" is currently on view at the gallery, and peer O JUN speak of their experiences living in Germany and their collaborative works.

* "Guilty of Romance" (dir. Sion Sono, 2011) @ Theatre Shinjuku / 3-14-20 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit). The third film of Sono's "Hate Saga" (which included the epic "Love Exposure" and gruelingly beautiful "Cold Fish") was also the director's debut at Cannes this year. It's a Kafka-esque intertwined narrative of sex, money and murder, that won the In-Competition award for Best Motion Picture at Sitges. It's gorgeous and tough, which is that complicated duality Sono does so well.

* "Contagion" (dir. Steven Soderberg, 2011) @ Shinjuku Picadilly / 3-15-15 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station). I respected this bloated ensemble film on a deadly mystery pandemic WAY more than I expected, from understated, brave performances by Matt Damon and Kate Winslet to the fact that the "pros" (beginning w/ a rugged Laurence Fishburne) really didn't know what they were up against.

* Libido's 4th Anniversary Party Masquerade Night @ AXALL Roppongi / B1F 7-8-6 Roppongi, Minato-ku (Hibiya/Oedo Lines to Roppongi Station), 11p/4000 yen (women 3000 yen). This late-night debauch-fest begins w/ a "Libido Opening Dance", includes a "Pole Attack" (Kaori and Makotomia pole dance) and Tamayo's burlesque performance, plus a "fetish dandy contest" (don't slack, dudes!) at 1a and a "libido playland" throughout. Dude on the flyer looks like a gladiator. Women are decked in either rubber or frills and lace. Get creative here.

* Tokyo Dark Castle @ Marz / B1F 2-45-1 Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit), midnight/3500 yen. So let's say you want a late-night party but care to eschew BDS&M for really freaky Japanese-style death-metal…with go-go dancing! Tokyo Dark Castle vs Rituals The Head Shop vol 5 is just the ticket. Feat. bands AUTO-MOD, Gabriels Stiletto (love it), W.A.R.P., Custom Mummy and The くそGIGY (warped takes on The Prodigy), plus a bunch of DJs, the astute visualists kokekakiki (who worked with pole-dance troupe tokyoDOLORES ahead of their Lucca, Italy tour) AND go-go dancers Nasty Cats (aka tokyoDOLORES' Aloe and Nancy Kikurage). Fierce.

SUNDAY
NYC
* Clifford Owens "Anthology" @ MoMA PS1 / 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City (E/M to Court Sq/23rd St, 7 to 45th Rd/Courthouse Sq). You may have seen Owens enacting his performance scores around PS1 this past summer, as he had studio residence there. The results of those highly choreographed (though at times very improvised) actions, as video, photographs and objects, comprise Owens' debut NY museum exhibition, perhaps the most extensive ever for an African-American performance artist. Along with these static and archival elements, Owens will perform select scores throughout the exhibition's run.

* James Franco and Laurel Nakadate "Three Performances in Search of Tennessee" @ Abrons Art Center / 466 Grand St (F/JMZ to Essex/Delancey), 12p/$30. My Sunday Performa 11-related must-see is this collaboration b/w two very good-looking, very talented artists, Franco and Nakadate. They create a three-part project based on Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie", beginning with a séance, following w/ an audition to play Laura (w/ her lines running along a video projection of Franco's "Gentleman Caller") and finally actors playing Tom, utilizing the same monologue.

* Jack Smith Program 1: "Respectable Creatures" (1950-66), "Scotch Tape" (1959-62), "Overstimulated" (1959-63), "Flaming Creatures" (1962-3) @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 3p. MoMA is conducting a fantastic mini-retrospective on the avant-cinematic and downtown treasure Jack Smith, highlighting their 11 acquisitions of newly restored 16mm prints from his oeuvre. This kickoff screening is the must-see, as frequent collaborator Mario Montez leads the introduction.

* Jack Smith Program 2: "Yellow Sequence" (1963-5), "Jungle Island" (1967), "No President" (1967-70) @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 5:30p. Stay around for the second program of über-influential Jack Smith, which features two shorts and a "novella" of a film, "No President", that I've not seen yet.

* "Rubber" (dir. Quentin Dupieux, 2010) screening @ BAM / 30 Lafayette Ave, Ft Greene (23/45 to Nevins ST, C to Lafayette Ave), 9:15p. This almost unclassifiable (and thus very French?) meta-horror comedy features a Goodyear tyre gone bad, unleashing its psychokinetic powers across a Cali desert landscape. Of course there's a cute girl. And an audience.

AUSTIN
* "La Jette" (dir. Chris Marker, 1962) + "Sans Soleil" (dir. Chris Marker, 1983) screening @ Paramount Theatre / 713 Congress Ave, 3:30p/$10. Arthouse and AMOA co-present French filmmaker Marker's creep-tastic sci-fi short "La Jette" (shot nearly entirely from still photos and inspiring "12 Monkeys" some three decades later!) plus his meditative, experimental documentary "Sans Soleil", both in vivid 35mm. In conjunction w/ "The Anxiety of Photography", on now at Arthouse.

* "Battle Royale" (dir. Kinji Fukasaku, 2000) screening @ Spiderhouse Ballroom / 2908 Fruth St, 8:30p/FREE. Can I picture seeing Fukasaku's notorious (though never officially banned stateside) film of high-school students murdering their classmates under martial law on a far-flung island of traps and slave-collar head explosions, in this super-chill venue? A: no, though the cheap Lone Stars tonight should make the ride a bit smoother.

* "Howard the Duck" (dir. Willard Huyck, 1986) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. Why was this live-action adaptation of a Marvel Comics oddity, centered around an ill-tempered anthropomorphic duck in NYC (Huyck's last directorial effort, though mostly definitely NOT George Lucas' last production credit) ever even created? A: it was the '80s! What an alibi. Something to note: Ed Gale, who wears the Howard suit part of the time, was also Chucky in the "Child's Play" series! Now THAT is reason to see this stinker again.

TOKYO
* 妖精達 + ユートピア条約 @ Heaven's Door / 1-33-19 Sangen-jaya, Setagaya-ku (Den-en-toshi Line to Sangen-jaya Station), 7p/2100 yen. A joint production w/ Killer Baby, feat. all-woman hard-rockers 妖精達 (Joseitachi, lit. "Fairies" but pronounced the same way as "Women"!) and all-women percussive ユートピア条約 (lit. "Utopia Treaty"). w/ Very Ape and Sister Paul

MONDAY
NYC
* Artists on Artists: Jutta Koether on Agnes Martin @ DIA: Chelsea / 535 W 22nd St, 5th Fl, 6:30p. Koether, the German artist and musician (she's collaborated with Kim Gordon for "Her Noise" at the Tate in 2005 etc) whose on paintings blend color, form and line-work quite sublimely, converses on Martin's quintessential resplendent, minimalist oeuvre.

* "Normal Love" (dir. Jack Smith, 1963-5) @ MoMA / 11 W 53rd St (E/M to 5th Ave, 6 to 51st St), 4:15p. Smith's only conventional-length film (i.e. running up to 120 min), a psychedelic romp in the Garden of Eden w/ Mario Montez, Diane di Prima, Tiny Tim, Francis Francine, Beverly Grant and many other underground stars.

AUSTIN
* Art in Practice: Erin Curtis @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity, 6:30p. Curtis preempts her residency at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, CO next year w/ a presentation and discussion of her vividly patterned acrylic paintings. She has exhibited extensively in Austin (incl. solo shows at Women & Their Work and Champion), plus she had a solo exhibition at Kashi Art Gallery in Kochi, Kerala, India in 2009.

* "Fix: The Ministry Movie" (dir. Doug Freel, 2001) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 10p. Granted, there is much more to Chicago industrial band Ministry than my all-time favorite release "Twelve Inch Singles (1981-1984)" and lead track "(Everyday Is) Halloween"… (hell, that was almost a decade before they hit the mainstream and way before their 'classic' '96 doom-ish LP "Filth Pig"). This documentary traces their career and frontman Al Jourgenson, plus interviews w/ Trent Reznor, Dead Kennedys, Tool, Skinny Puppy, The Jesus Lizard and more. ALSO TUES

* "Antichrist" (dir. Lars von Trier, 2009) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 9:50p. If you've not had the pleasure of seeing this notorious eye-mauler from the iconoclastic genius, particularly on the big screen, consider yourselves warned. It's a filmic speed-coaster, starring a nameless, grief-stricken Charlotte Gainsbourg and her nameless, psychoanalyst hubby Willem Dafoe, relaxing in the forest as "chaos reigns" indeed. ALSO TUES

TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "I Drink Your Blood" (dir. David Durston, 1970) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E 6th St, 9:45p. If your quaint town is overrun by LSD-addled hippie cultists, the last thing you want to do is poison them with rabies-infused meat pies. Because then they'll still be grimy worshipers of hydroponics and the Dark Arts, only they'll now be RABID.

* "Wittgenstein" (dir. Derek Jarman, 1993) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 7p. Austin Film Society co-presents Jarman's highly theatrical representation of the life story and philosophical thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

TOKYO
* Takeshi Abe "幽玄/Subtle Grace" @ Art Front Gallery / Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku (Toyoko Line to Daikanyama Station). Abe executes wonderful, figurative "paintings" utilizing a cube grid printed with bits of the subject — think 3D pixels or a 21st century version of Roy Lichtenstein's Ben-Day dots. Abe includes a proper sculpture w/ these 3D prints.

CURRENT SHOWS
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.

* 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".

* 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.
+ Vasily Kandinsky "Painting With White Border". 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.

* Rene Magritte "Dangerous Liaisons" @ Blain-DiDonna / 981 Madison Ave. Define 'dream come true'. If you're a surrealist buff like yours truly, then seeing a swath of your personal hero Rene Magritte's oeuvre up close and personal is just that: overwhelmingly emotive and sheer art-viewing perfection. The gallery inaugurates its presence above the Waldorf-Astoria with a survey of 30 oil paintings, gouaches and drawings by the Belgian Surrealist, the largest Magritte show in NYC in years (decades?) and culled almost entirely from private collections. It leads off w/ "Cinéma Bleu", aka Magritte's first mighty plunge into dreamland's embrace and includes such heady offerings as "La Mémoire" (the marble head w/ her bloodstained temple), "L'Empire des Lumieres" (one of his massive twilit dwellings beneath a blue sky) and "Cosmogonie élémentaire" (where his familiar skittlepin imagery becomes a fire-belching odalisque). Also: the titular painting, a seductive nude whose reflection turns the opposite direction in a mirror and gouaches of the bowler-hatted man with a green apple floating in front of his face and that famous pipe-not-a-pipe. Now define 'mayjah'.

* Josh Keyes "Migration" + AJ Fosik "Time Kills All Gods" @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery / 529 W 20th St, 9th Fl. Two flavors of animalistic awesomeness, in these Pacific NW-based artists. I was pretty psyched for Keyes' contribution, as I'd dug his solo debut here last year, but he extended his photorealist technique of animals in odd predicaments (here coexisting, either benevolently or tentatively, in human-empty environments) with a set of graphite work drawings that each contain his high level of artistic integrity and detail. Shadows, ripples in the water and reflections all recur in sharp contrast. But Fosik's addition (after seeing his absolutely stunning rendering for Mastodon's latest LP) was just too sweet. His lovingly, exhaustively hand-crafting of these locally sourced wooden animal busts and figures into wildly psychedelic, seemingly extra-dimensional beings is like a strong acid trip without the recurring flashbacks. At least that's what I think, since I just saw the show. Too early to tell if there will be flashbacks (but I wouldn't mind 'em, really).

* Rebecca Campbell "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" @ Ameringer McEnery Yohe / 525 W 22nd St. I consider this a bit of a departure for the gallery, though a welcome one, as they switch from modernism abstract, Abstract Expressionist and installation artists (think Al Held, Morris Louis, Judy Pfaff) to a younger, figurative painter who imbues her works with gestural, though dreamily realist, touches. Big brushy renderings of nudes and clothed figures, plus portraits and some color-streaked abstracts, like the strokes grew and just obliterated what realism used to be there.

* Richard Serra "Junction/Cycle" @ Gagosian / 555 W 24th St. Shame on us jaded art-goers who approach a Serra installation w/ tired expectations, believing there'll be just some big-ass weathered steel to navigate and it's a been-there, done-that sort of thing. No big deal. Shame on us, b/c this duet of mazelike monoliths is singularly amazing, a Zen-like wandering through soaring sheets of steel streaked with sunlight, mottled with either undersea shadows or the primordial gasses of some distant nebula. My favorite Gagosian-installed Serra exhibition, and easily rivaling his MoMA retrospective in sheer interactive bliss. Do not disregard it.

* Georges Braque "Pioneer of Modernism" @ Acquavella Gallery / 18 E 79th St. This retrospective on the co-founder of Cubism, curated by Dieter Buchhart, is filled with two floors and 75% of paintings you've probably never seen before, not even in art catalogues. Because despite Braque's seminal forays with papier collé and mechanical Cubism (in my strong opinion equalling his better-known peer Picasso), his legacy in Fauvism and his lasting impression on the post-Cezanne generations is just not shown stateside. So his more typically Braque-ish works resonate like cannonballs in placid waters, like the stunning "Glass, Bottle and Newspaper" (a collage of charcoal and faux-bois wallpaper on paper) and the vertically-oriented beauties "The Mantlepiece" and "Still Life with Metronome", all shards of awesomeness. Though I was taken by works completed decades after his internationally recognized heyday, like "Woman at an Easel (Yellow Screen)" from '36, texturized with sand and enlightened by figuration, but only just so.

* Rashaad Newsome "Herald" @ Marlborough Chelsea / 545 W 25th St. Newsome walks a thin line b/w gaudy and glamorous, but he does so with panache. In his debut w/ the gallery, he unveils a bunch of signature collages — wildly detailed conglomerates of bling and reverence, Rosetta stones of hip-hop culture and neo-Baroque imagery — each in a lavish, customized antique frame. I'm not totally surprised I was drawn immediately to "Black Barbie", for its underlying Nicki Minaj resonance, but in all I think these are Newsome's strongest collages yet. He also contributes a rap video-style animation "Swag" and, to contrast, a fascinating video installation "Herald", shot in b&w at NYC's St. Patrick's Basilica, chronicling the artist's ceremonial coronation.

* Yoko Ono @ Galerie Lelong / 528 W 26th St. The pivotal cross-media Conceptualist and Fluxus original reminds of our global interconnectivity and universality of human experience in a new installation of doorways, figurative transparent sculptures and a simple, handwritten instruction noting our interactive opportunities with our own shadows.

* Claire Fontaine "Working Together" @ Metro Pictures / 519 W 24th St. Get it? The Parisian collective-as-readymade-artist display two new video works, "Situations" and "The Assistants", plus "her" signature sharp take on art and fashion's couplings, like "Joke Paintings (Richard and Marc)", excerpting conversation b/w Marc Jacobs and Richard Prince and silkscreening it on painted surfaces.

* George Condo "Drawing Paintings" @ Skarstedt Gallery / 20 E 79th St. Condo furthers his aggressively graffiti-like abstracts from his New Museum survey with even wilder, lyrical renderings, piling up cartoonish heads in rubber-stamp formation (or Andy Warhol misguided silkscreen-style), to where they obliterate one another in intermingling colors.

* Michaël Borremans "The Devil's Dress" @ David Zwirner / 525 W 19th St. "Moody", "creepy", "dramatic" — or better yet, "cinematic" — are apt describers to Borremans' murky, ageless portraits and ambiguously staged scenes. He doesn't make the going any easier for us, in this new series of paintings w/ purposefully subtle/sinister titles and a variant three-part work on paper.

* Neo Rauch "Heilstaetten @ David Zwirner / 533 W 19th St. I had a significantly belated psylocibin flashback upon experiencing Rauch's latest. The social realist (and subtle surrealist) unveils new oils (in both large-format and intimate flavors), plus a bronze sculpture "Falknerin". Spatial perceptions dissolve in multi-figure renderings like "Ware", w/ seemingly giant men (with greatly distended arms) intermingle w/ reduced figures, and in the much smaller "Rota", where either a Golden Age UFO or carnival ride breaks up an otherwise typical country landscape. Heavy, lovely works.

* Byron Kim @ James Cohan Gallery / 533 W 26th St. Kim's debut at the gallery exemplifies his exercise of the "abstract sublime". Previous exhibitions (the UN meditations at Max Protetch, his famous "Synecdoche" at MoMA) had a soothing planar regularity, like emotive Ellsworth Kelly or even flatter Brice Marden. Kim's new one, inspired by his viewings of the nighttime sky, is even sparser, moodier, almost impenetrable fields of black or midnight blue.

* Jim Lambie @ Anton Kern Gallery / 532 W 20th St. Lambie, who inaugurated MoMA's new building (and even some moneyed homes) w/ his site-specific multicolored vinyl tape ZOBOP, cuts into gallery walls w/ "Vortex"es and layers crushed sheets of colorful metal (like very stiff craft paper) elsewhere. His continued usage of nontraditional and industrial media is a riot to our senses.

* Uta Barth + Jack Strange @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery / 521 W 21st St. This is the most painterly Barth show I've seen yet. She consistently pushes the envelope on lighting and perception in photography, but by focusing on sunlight and shadow piercing through linen-y curtains, she effectively creates a canvaslike texture to her polyptych works. Upstairs, that trickster Strange immerses a neon FENNEL sign in dirt and iPod Touches feat. animated, talking sea creatures in water-filled baggies, plus acrylic soda-straw rods on flatscreen monitors and cut veggies with headphones.

* Hiroshi Sugimoto "Surface of the Third Order: Objects and Sculpture" @ The Pace Gallery / 510 W 25th St. If your only point of reference for Sugimoto-san's transcendent oeuvre are his magical seascapes, you might be quite surprised by this exhibition: two bodies of conceptual 3D work, crystal pagodas inlaid w/ photographs and huge aluminum sculptures based on mathematical functions. It's of particular note that works from this series are displayed simultaneous at the sublime Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX, which just sounds perfect.

* Bianca Beck "Body" @ Rachel Uffner Gallery / 47 Orchard St. I've encountered this young NY-based artist's intriguing, very physical oeuvre (gestural, abraded abstract mixed-media paintings, small painted-wood sculpture) in group shows only, so I'm totally psyched to see a larger showing of it. In her solo debut here, she includes ripped canvases in "body colors" (makes me think of Ana Mendieta), small-scale sculpture and works that incorporate sculptural and 2D elements. The figurative elements imbued in these, whether a rough-hewn wood block like a feminine torso, or a burned oil on panel

* Nan Goldin "Scopophila" @ Matthew Marks Gallery / 522 W 22nd St. This is Goldin's first solo exhibition in NYC since 2007 (not counting, obvs, her dreamy/sinister contributions to "New Works" at this gallery last year), and it's a biggie. She unveils the titular slide installation — stay with me here! it's doper than it sounds! —, commissioned by the Louvre Museum last year, nearly a half-hour of over 400 photographs from Goldin's life intermingled w/ classic Louvre paintings and sculpture. Beyond that, she includes a bunch of image pairings, reclining "Odalisque" versus her own nudes, "Veiled" figures decadent and dreamy, for an entirely intoxicating encounter.

* Tommy Hartung "Anna" @ On Stellar Rays / 133 Orchard St. Bit of nostalgia here: my 1st (belated) gallery-viewing at On Stellar Rays (now one of my favorite LES spots) was Hartung's debut solo exhibition, the sublime and utterly beguiling "The Ascent of Man" video/installation, which recurred at MoMA PS1's "Greater NY". I've high expectations for Hartung, in this new stop-motion and historical verity video "Anna" (recalling Anna Karenina, naturally), with related and expanded sculptural and installation materials.

* Walton Ford "I Don't Like to Look at Him, Jack. It Makes Me Think of That Awful Day on the Island @ Paul Kasmin Gallery / 293 10th Ave. When I think of Ford, I think of monumental, realist watercolors of animals in almost medieval situations. They're so beautiful, so damn BIG…how can he, like, take it even further? In this exhibition of new works he totally does that, featuring the titular absolutely enormous watercolors (even a record for Ford, like 9x12 FEET per paper) tracing King Kong's heartbreak (the show's titular quote stems from Fay Wray, of the Depression-era "Kong" film), plus a simian-themed series focused on an unsettling passage from Audubon's memoirs.

* 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. They're also quite figurative.

* Mike Bayne "Kingston Spring and Muffler" @ Mulherin + Pollard / 187 Chrystie St. Simply breathtaking little photorealist oils on board, remarkable both for their respective small (even very tiny) scales and their incredible, natural realism. I'm talking both portraiture and snowy urban vistas, populated with graffiti'ed buildings, banal adverts and automobiles.

* Jeronimo Elespe @ Eleven Rivington / 11 Rivington St. Ahead of his big solo exhibition at the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo in Malaga, Spain, the Madrid-based artist unveils a set of new small and very VERY tiny, meticulously brushy paintings on aluminum panels. Figures coalesce with and disappear into light-infused fog.

* "Burning, Bright: A Short History of the Light Bulb" @ The Pace Gallery / 545 W 22nd St. Goofy name aside (hey, I jest!), I enjoyed this group exploration of a century's worth of artists working with the incandescent medium. From a handsome Arman "Chandelier" of lightbulbs to that old Joseph Beuys lemon-light to a typically sublime Lee Ufan ("Relatum", incorporating a hanging bulb illuminating an expanse of graphite-streaked canvas) to artists like Jim Dine, Jasper Johns and Zhang Xiaogang, who regularly incorporate the object in their works.

AUSTIN
* "Looking for a Fight" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. Three studio art undergrads and members of the all-female Deluscious Group, Lucy Parker, Isabella Burden and Layne Bell, split this cross-media exhibition highlighting gender discourse and their respective feminine identities in a continually male-prone society. Each takes an ultrafeminine approach (think lots of pink, frilly cloth materials and truncated womanly forms) to hook us in and cerebrally wallop us to attention, as there's depth in all the surface-level cuteness. Bell walks the figurative tightrope most deliberately, suspending two pairs of scissors over an inflated balloon in "Emptied IV" (the fourth of a series of subtly simple assemblages, which also included the aforementioned frilly cloth elbow gloves and a Tooth Fairy-sized sewn pillow clothespinned to a wooden tray) and naming another "All Tits and Legs" after like a Bravo plastic surgery reality show stereotype. Though with this one, a pair of vaguely ghostly forms surmounting barstool legs, I got Rene Magritte vibes (both the Belgian surrealist's penchant for masking his figures and painting lingerie with erogenous zones plainly visible), but then I thought of Rebecca Horn's "Finger Gloves" performance from the early '70s, particularly in the elongated 'stems', as it were. In any case, Bell's assemblage is topped by sewn multicolored beads as the titular 'tits'. Burden included both video/sculptural assemblages (her "Upskirt Series"), augmenting cropped body parts with distended branchlike physicality, and two photographic prints (her "Tongue-in-Cheek Series"). The prints struck me more deeply, as I was reminded of both Ana Mendieta and Adrian Piper's very physical, conceptual oeuvres. Though the one artist she directly references is Joseph Beuys, the granddaddy of conceptual and philosophical performance, via the icky sculpture "Boys, Beuys, Boys!!!", combining a loglike beaver muff with glistening, white lard, tangentially recognizable to Beuys' style while superseding him in pronounced decadence. Parker unveils only two works, but this editing makes their underlying force that much stronger. The one, "Suspended Bean Bag Chair (after Bruce Nauman)", is an older work, the titular smallish pink chair stretched painfully in four directions overhead by metal accoutrements, is like Nauman's own self-portrait face-pulling, highlighting artificial elasticity and how the gesture can easily twist from affectionate to torturous. Her other, "Funk Trunk (including artist as Vito Acconci)", begins with Parker's disembodied voice emanating from a coffin-sized box. Kneel down and peer inside, and amid bedsheets and acid-pink fluorescent lighting is a video projection of Parker reenacting Acconci's perversely intimate "Theme Song" in her own spin on 'pillow talk'. "You could be anybody out there, but there's gotta be somebody watching me. Somebody who wants to come in close to me…Come on, I'm all alone..I'll be honest with you, OK. I mean you'll have to believe me if I'm really honest…" Parker-as-Acconci monologues, shifting on her bed as she stares straight into us.

* Bradney Evans "Still" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. I sense that LA-based artist Bradney Evans is an alchemist with paper, viz. earlier work "Phoenix" as the titular mythological bird folded origami-style from magician's paper (i.e. quick-burning, no ash). He pulls a hat-trick in his debut in the gallery's Project Room, in a suite of three works on paper that ostensibly "look" like torn packing paper (that fibrous brown workhorse) with bits of light emanating from behind them, viz. "Constellation", "Eclipse" and personal favorite "Sunset". Thing is, they're each stunning, meticulous trompe-l'oeil renderings in acrylic, each "tear" and "crinkle" the result of some laborious brushwork. Same deal w/ the "light". The effect is like a combo between Tauba Auerbach's beguiling "rippled" Op-art paintings and Robert Gober's lovingly articulated household recreations, perhaps slanting even closer to Gober's style. Evans instills an intensity to these three works, as if the light were really pushing through the "torn paper", as the paper tenuously attempts to hold the illumination back. Displayed with these is an earlier single-channel video "Exposure", spotlit owls, with a sound element, disjointed page-turnings and an occasional sub-bassline that sounds like it's coming from another room.
+ Colby Bird "Dust Breeds Contempt". Bird's exhibition, his first solo at the gallery, has definitely become "funkier" since the opening in September. Stuff that I witnessed then, incl the look of certain sculptures, have indeed added the titular, intentional dust. He's highlighting the mutability of artwork, from its creation and display to its adaptation in the hands of a collector (or in storage, wherever it goes after its taken off the wall or out of the gallery). Most of his sculptures, like the candy-colored "33", mounted on two misshapen wood pillars that count as part of the assemblage, include "dust" as a medium, anticipated on the work's variously flat and angled surfaces as the exhibition continues through this month. Explicit instructions for the staff to not Swiffer that dust away. It's like Walter de Maria's "Trilogies" exhibition that at Houston, TX's Menil Collection: his "Channel Series" had to be literally dusted off from storage for the exhibition. Not the case w/ Bird. He's got a single framed print on view, rotated throughout the show at irregular intervals by staff (I saw this happen at the opening, as it shifted from "Howdy" to "Keira" and strongly encourage watching it), which becomes pretty gnarly looking w/ dust bunnies on its display table and grime on the print's glass.

CLOSING SOON
TOKYO
* Anri Sala @ Kaikai Kiki Gallery / B1 2-3-30 Moto-azabu, Minato-ku (Hibiya Line to Hiroo Station). Three new video pieces and an immersive environmental work from the time-based Albanian artist, restructuring our sensations of everyday life. (ENDS THURS)

NYC
* Kim Beck "Under Development" @ Mixed Greens / 531 W 26th St. Beck works in large-scale drawings (from architectural to charcoal and lush) and a site-specific installation in her exploration of desire, stability and economic security.

* Roy Lichtenstein "Entablatures" @ Paula Cooper Gallery / 534 W 21st St. I have little sense of classical architecture, nor Greco-Roman revivalist stuff and early 20th C. Beaux-Arts, but that's where the consummate Pop artist drew inspiration for his early '70s "Entablatures" series. They look sort of like crown moulding to me, railroad tracks, abstracted pipes and machine gears, all incredibly reductive and horizontal.

* Martin Wittfooth "The Passions" @ Lyons Wier Gallery / 542 W 24th St. The debut NY solo exhibition for the Brooklyn-based painter, who explores sainthood, martyrdom and religiosity from a contemporary standpoint.

* Anton Kannemeyer "After the Barbarians" @ Jack Shainman Gallery / 512 W 20th St. The Cape Town-born artist turns his satire to contemporary instances of political correctness and xenophobic wrath, depicting genocide in Rwanda and post-apartheid S. Africa with biting sociopolitical wit and boldly conceived renderings.

* Rosy Keyser "Promethean Dub" @ Peter Blum Chelsea / 526 W 29th St. Keyser pushes the limits of her canvases in this kinetic offering of process-driven abstractions (some dotted w/ fire markings), incl. a set stretched beyond the parameters of their backings. Plus the exhibition's title just rocks.

* Katharine Kuharic "Pound of Flesh" @ PPOW / 535 W 22nd St, 3rd F. Kuharic put some seven years into her latest exhibition, collaging stock images from junk mail and other sources into hallucinogenic, ultra-colorful painterly landscapes.

AUSTIN
* "Something Happened Here", curated by Jennie Lamensdorf @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. An inspired dialogue b/w two NY-based artists, Yadir Quintana and Matthew Schenning, who simultaneously make their Texas debuts in this exhibition. And if you've not seen 'em before, this is an incredible opportunity, and an expert pairing by Lamensdorf (Arthouse's Curatorial Assistant and Exhibitions Coordinator). Mark-making and durational qualities are in effect here, most immediately in Quintana's multipanel silver leaf "Portraits"(channelling Rudolf Stingel's studio floor works, yet Quintana's come off far more personal in their clever remnants of the "sitter"), which are left unsealed so the metal gets all wacky and patina'ed over the months and years. Though a closer look at Schenning's series "Some Things Will Fade" — painted walls either added to or manipulated on small-scale photographs of Porto, Portugal residences — finds an intriguing instance of aging in effect: the C-prints will degrade very differently from the layered acrylic paint, perhaps making what's real and what's Schenning's touch more apparent. For now, though, the tromp l'oeil on some of these is quite pronounced. Switching scales and disciplines, Quintana's much smaller "Yadir" set echo other works (quite a bit of his work comes from sculpture) in their surface residues, while Schenning's blow-ups of wheel-streaked walls under the Brooklyn Bridge remind of his background as a skateboarder. Verdict: must-see.

* Margaret Meehan "Hystrionics and The Forgotten Arm" @ Women & Their Work / 1710 Lavaca St. The Austin-based artist moves deftly between photography, sculpture, mixed-media drawing and installation (hell, even SOUND installation) — much like a boxer in the ring, which is just one of the themes of her stunning solo exhibition at the gallery. Another is the "other", blending the Circassian lass with the albino oddity and the hypertrichotic, bloodied and bruised in her whiter-than-white apparel as she feints, dodges and connects with the viewer. Some of this reminded me (on surface level) w/ Ellen Gallagher's maskings and media treatments of women, but the crushed glass glitter (from small-scale prints like "The Haymaker (Glitter)" to the five-row vintage cabinet cards of "The Barnburners"), at times like Glenn Ligon's use of coal-dust, feels very much Meehan's own. That aforementioned sound installation is "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Nina Simone)", a dreamy collab w/ Austin black metal duo Odessa (aka Mark Garcia and Landon O'Brien) that sneaks up on you as it cycles like every 10 minutes, filling the gallery with walls of guitars and a shouting voice (Meehan's?). It pairs well w/ the installation across from the speakers, "Glass Jaw", a punching bag enclosed within shimmering black glitter.

TOKYO
* Akino Kondo "KiyaKiya" @ Mizuma Art Gallery / 2F 3-13 Ichigayatamachi, Shinjuku-ku (Yurakucho/Nanboku Lines to Ichigaya Station). The new titular painterly animation work immerses us in a girl's fantastical and subtly disturbing imagination, a superb exhibition from Kondo.

* Keiichi Tanaami @ Nanzuka Underground / Shirokane Art Complex 2F, 3-1-15 Shirokane, Minato-ku (Namboku/Mita subway lines to Shirokane-Takanawa Station). The seminal graphic designer, illustrator and participant in postwar Neo-Dadaist movements presents a huge mandala-like painting tracing his 70-year personal history, plus life-sized sculptures and drawings. (ENDS SAT)

NYC
* Ted Gahl "Night Painter" @ DODGEgallery / 15 Rivington St. Lyrical abstract compositions executed at night, or about the night — though they definitely transport us into Gahl's twilit narrative. This is his debut solo show in NYC.

TOKYO
* Kanako Ohya "Per Person" @ hpgrp Tokyo / B1F 5-1-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (Chiyoda/Hanzomon/Ginza Lines to Omotesando Station). Ohya, recipient of the 2008 Gunma Youth Biennale Award, targets our emotions in vividly conceived figures, layered in warm colors and airbrush on paper. (ENDS SUN)

NYC
* "Accidental Thoughts and Metaphors" @ Ana Cristea Gallery / 521 W 26th St. A great coupling of four Belgian artists and their divergent acts with traditional media (clay, canvas, paper). I was particularly drawn to the youngest, Michiel Ceulers, and his process driven abstraction, though Ellen de Meutter's emotive, non-narrative paintings seemed quite deep. (ENDS TUES)

fee's LIST (through 11/08)

2011-11-02T11:10:00.000-04:00

WEDNESDAY
NYC
* Suzanne McClelland "left" @ Sue Scott Gallery / 1 Rivington St. While "gestural" is one way to describe McClelland's abstract paintings, the adverb is even clearer in this exhibition of new works, feat. a site-specific installation, paintings and video that explore classic call-and-response methodology, as she revisits Dara Birnbaum's salient '79 video "Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman".

* Rashaad Newsome "Tournament" performance @ Marlborough Chelsea / 545 W 25th St, 6p/FREE. In conjunction w/ Performa 11 (and simultaneous w/ Newsome's debut "Herald" at the gallery), Newsome hosts a medieval-style freestyle rap "joust" between 10 emerging NY-based lyricists, judged by five cultural impresarios.

* "In the Realm of the Senses" (dir. Nagisa Oshima, 1976) screening @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 7p. Perhaps the most (in)famous film by the pivotal Japanese director is this brutal drama, the entanglement and escalating love affair between a former prostitute and a suave nobleman w/ some basis in a real-life incident in 1930s Japan.

* Nisennenmondai (Tokyo) @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$8. Japanese "kraut-funk" trio Nisennenmondai aim to blow the doors off this tiny venue, what w/ Sayaka Himeno's ferocious drumming forming the core around which Masako Takada's guitar squalls and Yuri Zaikawa's pummelling basslines. w/ Little Women + Pet Bottle Ningen (Tzadik)

* Nite Jewel @ Glasslands / 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8:30p/$12. "Am I Real?" the simultaneously lullingly downtempo and liltingly sweet track (and 2010 EP title) by LA's Ramona Gonzalez, aka Nite Jewel, holds a special place in my heart. Quaff in her lo-fi disco and be charmed. w/ local dreamers Caged Animals

AUSTIN
* Talking Art w/ Carlos Rosales-Silva @ Arthouse / 700 Congress Ave, 6p. The local cross-media artist, whose vivid, mixtape-imbued installation "National Register" currently occupies the gallery's lobby, talks about his methodology and practices.

* "Abar: The First Black Superman" (dir. Frank Packard, 1977) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E 6th St, 10p. This under-appreciated blaxploitation film bears the distinction of being possibly the first Black sci-fi film. Consider this: successful Dr. Kinkaide & family are shunned, persecuted and finally physically threatened by their suburban white neighbors. So Kinkaide whips up an elixir, turning his idealistic young body guard into an invincible bald superman to take on those vicious whiteys. Now you have to see it.

TOKYO
* Diego Singh "Table for One" @ Tomio Koyama Gallery / 7F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station). The Argentinian artist lays on the abstraction, muting his palette in moody blues and grays, a departure from the neon shards in "The Indirect Man", his prior solo exhibition here.

* Yoko Kikukawa @ Art Lab Fukagawa Ippuku / 1F 3-2-15 Shirakawa, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station). And while you're out in Kiyosumi, checking out Diego Singh at Tomio Koyama (highly recommended), haul out east and take a break at Yoko Kikukawa's week-long installation of dreamy, figurative prints, in this very unique gallery-cafe collaborative space.

* Yoko Asakai "Northerly Wind" @ NADiff a/p/a/r/t / 1F 1-18-4 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station). A series of Asakai's new landscape photographs, who explored Aomori Prefecture on foot and by car this summer during her artist residency there. This is a departure from her usual portraiture. Also: this is an INCREDIBLY DOPE art bookstore.

THURSDAY
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.

* Howard Hodgkin @ Gagosian Gallery / 980 Madison Ave. Brushy, gestural oils, both large-scale and tiny, that navigate representation and abstraction "just so". Plus Hodgkin fills and covers the wood frame and supports w/ his maximalist, saturated-color brushstrokes.

* Walton Ford "I Don't Like to Look at Him, Jack. It Makes Me Think of That Awful Day on the Island @ Paul Kasmin Gallery / 293 10th Ave. When I think of Ford, I think of monumental, realist watercolors of animals in almost medieval situations. They're so beautiful, so damn BIG…how can he, like, take it even further? I'm interested to see that, in this exhibition of new works, which features more absolutely enormous watercolors (even a record for Ford, like 9x12 FEET per paper) tracing King Kong's heartbreak (the show's titular quote stems from Fay Wray, of the Depression-era "Kong" film) and a simian-themed series focused on an unsettling passage from Audubon's memoirs.

* Mai-Thu Perret w/ Laurence Yadi "Love Letters In Ancient Brick" @ Joyce SoHo / 155 Mercer St (BDFM to Broadway/Lafayette), 8p/$15. Perret is way underappreciated stateside, IMO, so her Performa 11 collaboration is a particular must-see. She created a dance adaptation of George Herriman's classic Krazy Kat comic and its signature bizarro love triangle, w/ help from choreographer Yadi, singer-narrator Tamar Barnett-Herrin, musician Vincent de Rouuin and costumer Ligia Dias. ALSO FRI-SAT, 8p

* Mika Rottenberg & Jon Kesslar "Seven" @ Nicole Klagsbrun PROJECT / 534 W 24th St, 6p/FREE. A chakra sauna channeling chromatic body fluids from NY to Cradle of Humankind in the African savannah, mixed w/ Rottenberg's videos and Kessler's kinetic sculpture.

* Lili Reynaud-Dewar "Interpretation" @ Calder Foundation / 207 W 25th St, 12th Fl (1/NR/FM to 23rd St), 9p/FREE w/ RSVP: boxoffice@performa-arts.org. The artist weaves Afro-futurist Sun Ra's philosophical texts, free jazz and the Civil Rights movement w/ her own personal story in this Performa 11 feature. She's joined by electroacoustic composer Sabisha Friedberg and Parisian experimental musician Hendrik Hegray. ALSO SAT 9-10p

* Claire Fontaine "Working Together" @ Metro Pictures / 519 W 24th St. Get it? The Parisian collective-as-readymade-artist display two new video works, "Situations" and "The Assistants", plus "her" signature sharp take on art and fashion's couplings, like "Joke Paintings (Richard and Marc)", excerpting conversation b/w Marc Jacobs and Richard Prince and silkscreening it on painted surfaces.

* Jim Lambie @ Anton Kern Gallery / 532 W 20th St. Lambie, who inaugurated MoMA's new building (and even some moneyed homes) w/ his site-specific multicolored vinyl tape ZOBOP, cuts into gallery walls w/ "Vortex"es and layers crushed sheets of colorful metal (like very stiff craft paper) elsewhere. His continued usage of nontraditional and industrial media should prove a riot to our senses.

* Simen Johan @ Yossi Milo Gallery / 525 W 25th St. The photographer and sculptor excerpts from his ongoing project "Until the Kingdom Comes", photographing animals in natural preserves, zoos and farms before digitally resituating them in new, oftentimes unnerving if believable environments. Of note: the gallery is moving elsewhere in W. Chelsea in Jan 2012, so Johan culminates with a final exhibition in its 525 space.

* "An Evening with Daido Moriyama" @ Japan Society / 333 E 47th St (E/M to 53rd/Lexington, 6 to 51st St), 6:30p/$14. On the eve of his Performa 11-related exhibition/performance "PRINTING SHOW-TKY" at Aperture Gallery (see FRI), the quintessential Japanese realist photographer discusses his oeuvre, past inspirations and current projects w/ Christopher Phillips (Curator, International Center of Photography).

* "Cold Fish" (dir. Sion Sono, 2010) screening @ Museum of Arts & Design / 2 Columbus Circle (AC/BD to 59th St/Columbus Circle), 7p. You are DEFINITELY not ready for this. No director around conveys contemporary domestic drama like Sono-san, and while blackmail and murder — lots and lots of murder, dismemberment, tripping over gore in the bathroom etc — figures heavily w/in this adapted-from-reality thriller, as the pace speeds up to a fevered pitch, he remains true to his roots and keeps teasing out the dysfunctional family. All in all, breathless and brilliant.

* Zambri + BRAHMS @ Glasslands / 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8:30p/$10. Apocalyptic pop?? So say the blogs to NYC duo Jessica and Cristi Jo's clanging, rhythmic tribal electronic jams. Check "On Call", then cheer for their EP release party tonight. Kindred Autre ne Veut DJs whilst Brooklyn trio BRAHMS add burbling electro-pop jams w/ Martin Gore-emoting lyricism. w/ Beige

AUSTIN
* Conversation: "Writing Histories of Art" @ Blanton Museum of Art / UT Austin campus, MLK at Congress, 6p. Art historians and writers Alexander Nemerov (Yale, author of "Acting in the Night: Macbeth and the Places of the Civil War") and Roberto Tejada (SMU, co-editor of "Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas") discuss the aesthetics of writing on art.

TOKYO
* 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's also showing at the 2011 Yokohama Triennale.

* Motohiro Tomii + Gen Umezu "Experiential Art and the Potential of Books" @ NADiff a/p/a/r/t / 1F 1-18-4 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line/Hibiya Line to Ebisu Station), 5:30p. Niigata-born artist Motohiro Tomii's bracing, colorful stacks (which I happily caught at this year's MOT Annual "Nearest Faraway") are a bit like Patrick Johnson's tchotchke layerings combined w/ Christopher Wilmarth's signature cut-glass translucence (maybe with a bit of bonkers Keith Tyson thrown in). As the artist celebrates his new monograph, collecting four years of his oeuvre, he discusses the physicality of the book and its relation to experiencing art w/ Gen Umezu, the Chief Curator at Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, and essayist in Tomii's catalogue.

* "Laforet Sound Museum" @ Laforet Harajuku / 6F 1-11-6 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Harajuku Station), 4/7p, 6000 yen. Only ballers need apply at this live concert in Harajuku's iconic, ever-changing dept store. Those who do are rewarded by something special: a duo with avant-garde jazz saxophonist Naruyoshi Kikuchi and pianist Hiroshi Minami, w/ art direction by flower artist Makoto Azuma.

* SPEED @ Shibuya Ax / 2-1-1 Jinnan, Shibuya-ku (JR line etc to Shibuya Station), 1/5:30p/5250 yen. Oh shit. The final leg of the penultimate Avex J-Pop dance quartet's "FanMeeting" mini-tour, which began in Nagoya last month. Some background: these Okinawan girls were already disbanding just as I began my first Japanese language courses, learning the lyrics to "White Love" (ahem) and "Long Way Home" (and that was circa '99 LP "Carry On My Way"). After a bunch of solo offerings (big reveal: I was never into 'leader' Hiroko Shimabukuro, but favored cutie Takako Uehara WAY more), they regrouped in 2008, but haven't created a proper LP (besides stuff like "Speedland: The Premium Best Re Tracks") in years. Still…talk about 'samishii!'. If I were in town, I'd totally try to go to this.

FRIDAY
NYC
* Maurizio Cattelan "All" @ Guggenheim / 1071 Fifth Ave (456 to 86th St). MAYJAH. The Italian provocateur has been pushing buttons since even before he suspended a taxidermy'd horse head-first from high up a gallery wall ("Untitled") and modeled Pope John Paul II felled by a meteorite ("La Nona Ora") — or his infamous uses of a stand-in (replete w/ stock evasive answers and one-liners) for media interviews. So in celebrating his retrospective (over two decades' of his iconic career), Cattelan had to be "Cattelan", no? Hence why some 130 works from all over the world hang suspended in midair over the Gugg's rotunda. So sayeth the NYTimes profile: "The flying Hitler and pope and 35th President of the United States will be joined in the air by a fake skeleton of a dinosaur-size housecoat and a taxidermied donkey hitched to a cart and a 21-foot-long foosball table and a Carrara marble sculpture of a hand giving a middle-finger salute". I reiterate: MAYJAH.

* Andreas Gursky @ Gagosian Gallery / 522 W 21st St. The Düsseldorf-based epic photographer debuts his "Bangkok" series, focusing his abstracting lens on the Chao Phraya, as much a prescient waterway through the city-center as a notorious dumping ground for manmade detritus. Compound that w/ the devastating monsoon floods affecting the Chao Phraya and the Mekong River basins NOW…and it's much more unsettling. Displaying "Bangkok" against his nuanced 2009-10 series "Oceans" only highlights the benevolence and destructive unpredictability of water.

* Byron Kim @ James Cohan Gallery / 533 W 26th St. Kim's debut at the gallery exemplifies his exercise of the "abstract sublime". Previous exhibitions (the UN meditations at Max Protetch, his famous "Synecdoche" at MoMA) had a soothing planar regularity, like emotive Ellsworth Kelly or even flatter Brice Marden. Kim's new one, inspired by his viewings of the nighttime sky, is even sparser, moodier, almost impenetrable fields of black or midnight blue.

* Tom Sachs "WORK" @ Sperone Westwater / 257 Bowery. The NY-based sculptor and painter has been busy! His cobbled oeuvre ceaselessly proves that (from his working "Waffle Bike" to that steel-and-plywood "Apollo LEM" lunar module)…and he focuses his tireless creativity on diverse references in this new show, from James Brown ("the hardest working man in show business") to a laminated resin and plywood "Cinderblock" and a plywood, glass and metal model of the gallery itself.

* Michaël Borremans "The Devil's Dress" @ David Zwirner / 525 W 19th St. "Moody", "creepy", "dramatic" — or better yet, "cinematic" — are apt describers to Borremans' murky, ageless portraits and ambiguously staged scenes. He doesn't make the going any easier for us, in this new series of paintings w/ purposefully subtle/sinister titles and a variant three-part work on paper.

* Neo Rauch "Heilstätten @ David Zwirner / 533 W 19th St. The social realist (and subtly surrealist) unveils new oils (in both large-format and intimate flavors), plus a bronze sculpture "Falknerin", a rare instance for Rauch.

* George Condo "Drawing Paintings" @ Skarstedt Gallery / 20 E 79th St. If these dozen paintings, covered in drafting swoops, lyrical lines and abstract figuration, are anything like Condo's more abstract large-scale works in his New Museum survey, then consider me totally excited. Not that I don't dig his brutally figurative portraits, but Condo's stylized improvisation is particularly impressive.

* Jonathan Meese "Hot Earl Green Sausage Tea Barbie (First Flush)" @ Bortolami Gallery / 520 W 20th St. Meese inaugurates his new exhibition with a German Kasperletheater-style unscripted performance "War 'Saint Just (First Flash)'" beginning at 6:30p. Total art = total metabolism. So says Meese.

* Daido Moriyama "PRINTING SHOW—TKY" @ Aperture Gallery / 547 W 27th St, 4th Fl, 2-4p, $75 (purchase thru www.aperture.org). Usually I don't include baller events on my LIST, b/c I don't consider myself a baller and nearly everything that goes on this LIST is stuff I'd readily attend (viz. "afford"). But this one deserves special mention. The seminal Japanese realist photographer echoes his titular '74 performance, utilizing a photocopier to duplicate prints made in Tokyo over the last 15 years, then assembling them with YOUR help into silkscreen-covered ad hoc photo-books called "TKY" that you keep afterward. Organized by Ivan Vartanian of Goliga and performed in conjunction w/ Performa 11. ALSO FRI 6-9p, SAT 12-3p & 5-8p.

* "Brain Damage" (dir. Frank Henenlotter, 1988) screening @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 7p. If you're like Brian (not me, but the lead Rick Hearst), who's got a malevolent brain-devouring alien parasite mainlining your brainstem w/ hallucinogens, you'll do whatever it takes to keep that sucker satisfied! Viz. find unsuspecting victims (and their brains) for said parasite! Honestly, this film isn't about me, the naming thing is a major coincidence.

* Aphex All Night Long @ Tandem Bar / 236 Troutman St, Bushwick (L to Jefferson), 10p/FREE. Much as I'd love Richard D. James himself to drop by this bar and play like three hours of whatever the hell he wants, DJs Safety Scissors and Don DeVore (of Ill Fits) crafting their own analogue "bubblebath" of Aphex Twin albums is a close second. I mean, have you ever danced to "Windowlicker", or "Laughable Butane Bob"? It's fun!

* Caged Animals (LP release party) + DIVE @ Shea Stadium / 20 Meadow St, E. Williamsburg (L to Grand), 8p. Brooklyn Caged Animals mix dazzling hypnopop and angular, shattered dissonance to astute perfection. Celebrate their debut LP "Eat Their Own", alongside the psych-haze of DIVE (feat. Beach Fossils' lead guitarist Cole on frontman duties). Essential.

AUSTIN
* "Looking for a Fight" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. Three studio art undergrads and members of the all-female Deluscious Group, Lucy Parker, Isabella Burden (creatively channels Bruce Nauman in her own specific style) and Layne Bell (organizing "Re:Riot Grrrl"), split this cross-media exhibition highlighting gender discourse and their respective feminine identities in a continually male-prone society.

* "Martha Marcy May Marlene" (dir. Sean Durkin, 2011) @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar. Elizabeth Olsen should win big for her lead, multinamed role in this discomfiting and disorienting psychological thriller. She's Martha, fleeing an abusive cult to rejoin bourgeois elder sister and BF at their moneyed country home. She's also Marcy May, deeply connected to said cult, paranoid, and not exactly warming to a new life among the materialists. Demands repeat viewings — you'll know what I mean.

* "Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life" (dir. Joann Sfar, 2011) @ Violet Crown Cinema / 434 W 2nd St. An admirable biopic on the (in)famous and influential French singer-songwriter, w/ an absolutely brilliant cast: Eric Elmosnino in the lead, the lovely Mylene Jampanoï and Laetitia Casta as Bambou and Brigitte (Bardot), respectively (even famed, late director Claude Chabrol as Gainsbourg's producer)…and late model Lucy Gordon as the ineffable Jane Birkin.

* Solid Goldblum: "The Fly" (dir. David Cronenberg, 1986) midnight screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St. What did Cronenberg's adaptation of the kooky, same-named '58 film teach us? He's totally the king of body horror (and props to Chris Walas Inc's "Brundlefly" FX). Most importantly: scientists can be sexy! (that's you, Jeff) also 11/5

TOKYO
* Akiko & Masako Takada "Magic Carpet" @ Radium / 2-5-17 Bakurocho, Chuo-ku (JR Yamanote Line to Bakurocho Station). The Tokyo-based twin sisters reveal embroidered playing cards (like tiny carpets) in their debut solo show at the gallery. The dual meaning of "trump" (lit. "playing card" in Japanese and "winning hand" or "admirable value" in English) is of particular note here.

* Miwa Yanagi "1924 Kaisen" @ Kanagawa Arts Theatre / 281 Yamashita-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama (Minatomirai Line to Nihon-Odori Station), 7p/3500 yen. The awesome photographic artist (I seriously dug Yanagi's vivid inclusion in "Bye Bye Kitty!!!" at Japan Society in NYC) hearkens back to her early "Elevator Girls" performance works. She moves them back to Japan's Taisho era following the Great Kanto earthquake, crafting an immersive stage performance about Japan's first fringe theatre. ALSO SAT 2/7p

* DODDODO @ Minami-Ikebukuro Music.org / B2 1-20-11 Minami-Ikebukuro, Toyoshima-ku (JR etc to Ikebukuro Station), 7p/2300 yen. Namin Haku, the one-woman "electro-smash" producer and performance-imbued artist leads an evening of creative combinations and fractured grooves. Also feat. steel drummer/vocalist Tonchi w/ Mamasaya Koji (guitarist for FRATEEN)

SATURDAY
NYC
* Miriam Cahn @ Elizabeth Dee / 545 W 20th St. I love, love, LOVED the Swiss artist's triumphant NY gallery return earlier this year, as she's not exhibited here since '84 (coinciding w/ her representation at that year's Venice Biennale). I thoroughly enjoyed the survey of her raw '80s charcoal works and much-newer mixed-media diptychs, her deft handling of composition and various mediums. So despite the "changes" going down at the gallery (Ryan Trecartin's departure to an as-yet undecided, though rumored, other institution), another survey of three decades' of Cahn painterly practice is a blessing.

* Jim Hodges @ Gladstone Gallery / 515 W 24th St & 530 W 21st St. I think I might really dig this two-part exhibition, as the press release claims it "a significant departure from the ephemeral quality and intimate scale of Hodges's previous work" — which admittedly I've taken issue to. Though they're still contemplative, like the massive black-mirrored sculpture and a room-filling installation inspired by his recent travels to India.

* Mai-Thu Perret "Artist Class: On Utopia" @ Performa Hub / 233 Mott St (NR to Prince St, 6 to Spring St), 3p/$10. The Geneva-based artist explores topics of Russian Constructivism and Utopia (which, for some of us, IS Utopia), as part of Performa 11. (ALSO: have you seen her performance "Love Letters in Ancient Brick" at the Joyce yet?)

* "Basket Case" (dir. Frank Henenlotter, 1982) screening @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 4:45p. I love this film. Where it lacks budget, it 1000% makes up in over-the-top, obscenely, gloriously gory practical FX. The plot, of greenhorn Duane Bradley arriving in grimy big-city NYC w/ a wicker basket (containing…his monstrous, malformed twin!) and checking into a flophouse before targeting enemies from their pasts is just…cinematic perfection.

* "Basket Case 2" (dir. Frank Henenlotter, 1990) screening @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 7p. OK, how did gangly good-guy Duane and his beastly, basket-bound twin survive part one? I won't give away that film's ending, but suffice to say part two picks up literally minutes later, and while they shack up at a home of kindred "Unique Individuals", soon enough brothers Bradley must face their murderous past.

* Screaming Females + 3jane @ 285 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$12. Like it loud? Check NJ's fiercely indie rockers Screaming Females and the combustible ball of kinetics that is vocalist/guitarist Marissa Paternoster. Special mention to their New Brunswick NJ kindred 3Jane, named after William Gibson-speak and sounding good and sludgy. w/ The Men (the Brooklyn four-dude punk rockers, not JD Samson's MEN)

AUSTIN
* "Wapatui" @ Grayduck Gallery / 608 W Monroe Dr. Wapatui is "Midwest" for what we UT alum call "trashcan punch" — but what it means in this context (unless there's a bin of it at the opening!) is a communal-created spirit. Hence, the 15 local artists conjuring their own visual Wapatui, feat. K.C. Collins, Pat Snow, Jeffrey Swanson, Emily Galusha and more.

* Ragnar Kjartansson "The Man" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. I caught Kjartansson's mesmeric video installation "The Man" last year at Luhring Augustine in NYC. That the Icelandic artist filmed this meditation on legendary blues pianist Pinetop Perkins outside Austin TX makes its inclusion at Arthouse that much sweeter.

* Boris @ Red 7 / 611 E 7th St, 9p/Fun Fun Fest wristband required! Well, if you're one of the lucky sumbitches who jumped on FFF before the full lineup even came out, I suggest getting thee to Red 7 quick-style, as Japanese stoner-rockers Boris promise to do no less than blow the roof off this joint. Considering their recent set-lists, by the time they hit speed-metal wailer "8" (like song #2), you'll be bowing down in decibel-shredding reverence. w/ Russian Circles and more heaviness.

TOKYO
* "Kaiji 2" (dir. Toya Sato, 2011) road-show. Did you see "Kaiji", the wildly popular live-action adaptation of Nobuyuki Fukumoto's gambling manga "Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji" (lit. "Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji")? You know…w/ dreamboat Tatsuya Fujiwara in the lead, navigating gangsters and loan shark Endo (Yuki Amami of "The Magic Hour") to clear his debt aboard a gambling ship? How Dostoevskian! In the sequel, enter other dreamboat Yusuke Iseya, a casino manager controlling the monster pachinko machine "Numa" that is obviously Kaiji's next target. Try to control yourselves, girls (and boys).

* "Sleeping Beauty" (dir. Julia Leigh, 2011) @ Cinemart Shinjuku / 3-13-3 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (JR etc to Shinjuku Station, East Exit). Incredible… Tokyo gets this film like a full month before it's proper stateside screen-run (though a few weeks after a one-shot debut). The Australian novelist's erotic debut feature reflects the titular fairytale in name only (though admittedly I'm more familiar w/ the Disney adaptation than the original Brothers Grimm…which could be totally sinister). In Leigh's, Emily Browning is a uni student who performs the role of "sleeping beauty" to old suitors.

* Okazaki, Onishi, Object (2) @ MA2 Gallery / 3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku (Yamanote Line to Ebisu Station). An intriguing collaboration between two incredibly detail-focused trompe-l'oeil sculptors, Kazuo Okazaki and Nobuaki Onishi (some 40 years Okazaki's junior). I am familiar w/ Onishi after he represented the gallery w/ his intricate, resin-based sculptures at VOLTA NY 2010, and look forward to where these two take their mutual figuration.

* moools + Limited Express (has gone?) @ Fever / 1-1-14 Hanegi, Setagaya-ku (Odakyu Inokashira Line to Shindaita or Shimokitazawa Stations), 3:30p/3500 yen. The 30th "moools matsuri" is an all-afternoon and -evening blowout, befitting a longstanding Japanese indie-rock trio who sound kinda like a heavier Modest Mouse (due to, or despite the fact, that they've been associated w/ Washington's K Records scene for years). I'm particularly taken by Kansai's Tzadik-friendly rockers Limited Express (has gone?), plus there's Shiraoka, nhhmbase, YOMOYA…and food! The "moools-yaki".

SUNDAY
NYC
* "Brain Damage" + "Basket Case" pt 1-2 screenings (all dir. Frank Henelotter, 1988, 1982, 1990) @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 4:30p-onward. See my reviews on FRI/SAT for these classic, gory horror-comedies. Funny thing is, the ending of "Brain Damage" contains a vague cameo by Kevin Van Hentenryck (as "Duane Bradley"), clutching a wicker basket that obviously echoes his role in "Basket Case".

MONDAY
NYC
* 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, happening now!) 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...

* Paul McCarthy "The Dwarves and The Forests" @ Hauser & Wirth / 32 E 69th St. The modern iconoclast McCarthy has a LOT of source material to remark upon and maim w/in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves". His 2009 H&W exhibition "WHITE SNOW" filled the gallery w/ huge gestural works on paper executive in performative practices. But McCarthy's just as well known in the past several decades for his nightmarish, warped figurative sculptures, thus this new grouping of grotesque and somewhat mournful bronzes, coated in a coal-like finish, plus McCarthy's first-ever large-scale wooden sculpture, carved from walnut. Of note, too, is H&W's London gallery is concurrently showing a survey of McCarthy's recent sculptural installation, the ambitious, motley work-bench "Pig Island".

* Robert Graham "Early Work 1963-1973" @ David Zwirner Gallery / 519 W 19th St. A decade of the of the Los Angeles artist's early dialogue w/ Minimalism and figurative sculpture in wax, plus his acute awareness of space, light and form.

* Mika Rottenberg & Jon Kessler artist talk @ Performa Hub / 233 Mott St (NR to Prince St, 6 to Spring St), 6:30p/FREE w/ RSVP: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2351074126. The artists discuss their collaborative project SEVEN, on view at Nicole Klagsbrun PROJECT and created in conjunction w/ Performa 11. This talk is co-presented w/ Columbia University School of the Arts.

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.

* Art in Practice: Andy Coolquitt @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity, 6:30p. I really dig Coolquitt's creative, witty assemblages and their meta-messages…plus I had no idea the mostly NY-based artist was born in Texas. Coolquitt discusses his oeuvre and leads a Q&A this evening.

* "Inni" (Sigur Rós live, dir. Vincent Morisset, 2008) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 7p. Coinciding w/ release of Sigur Rós' same-name LP is this enchanting live documentary, capturing the dreamy Icelandic post-rockers' performances at London's Alexandra Palace in 2008.

* "Fix: The Ministry Movie" (dir. Doug Freel, 2001) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E Sixth St, 9:15p. Granted, there is much more to Chicago industrial band Ministry than my all-time favorite release "Twelve Inch Singles (1981-1984)" and lead track "(Everyday Is) Halloween"… (hell, that was almost a decade before they hit the mainstream and way before their 'classic' '96 doom-ish LP "Filth Pig"). This documentary traces their career and frontman Al Jourgenson, plus interviews w/ Trent Reznor, Dead Kennedys, Tool, Skinny Puppy, The Jesus Lizard and more.

TOKYO
* Katsuhisa Toda "Imaginary Books" @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). Acrylic paintings and drawings of Toda's telltale books, now rendered unleashing their innate dreamworld powers.

* Nisennenmondai @ O-Nest / 6F 2-3 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku (JR Yamanote Line etc to Shibuya Station, Hachiko Exit), 7p/4500 yen. Upon completing their U.S. tour w/ NY math-rock kings Battles, Tokyo's finest and fiercest "kraut-funk" trio Nisennenmondai return home, clobbering eardrums and coaxing out grooves in prime form.

TUESDAY
AUSTIN
* "Shock Waves" (dir. Ken Wiederhorn, 1977) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse Ritz / 320 E 6th St, 9:45p. What's worse — or at least more abhorrent, more reprehensible — than zombies? A: water-breathing albino Nazi zombies! It's the Third Reich's secret weapon, The Death Corps, rising off the coast of Florida to wreak havoc. Gross.

* "Caravaggio" (dir. Derek Jarman, 1986) screening @ Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar / 1120 S. Lamar, 7:30p. Austin Film Society co-presents this fantastic faux biopic from the experimental and ever-controversial late British filmmaker. Though I'm blessedly versed in Jarman's short films, I am particularly enthused by his fluidic and narrative-ambiguous take on the homoerotic Baroque master Caravaggio, a film that also starred a young Tilda Swinton in her first role.

CURRENT SHOWS
* Bradney Evans "Still" @ Lora Reynolds Gallery / 360 Nueces St. I sense that LA-based artist Bradney Evans is an alchemist with paper, viz. earlier work "Phoenix" as the titular mythological bird folded origami-style from magician's paper (i.e. quick-burning, no ash). He pulls a hat-trick in his debut in the gallery's Project Room, in a suite of three works on paper that ostensibly "look" like torn packing paper (that fibrous brown workhorse) with bits of light emanating from behind them, viz. "Constellation", "Eclipse" and personal favorite "Sunset". Thing is, they're each stunning, meticulous trompe-l'oeil renderings in acrylic, each "tear" and "crinkle" the result of some laborious brushwork. Same deal w/ the "light". The effect is like a combo between Tauba Auerbach's beguiling "rippled" Op-art paintings and Robert Gober's lovingly articulated household recreations, perhaps slanting even closer to Gober's style. Evans instills an intensity to these three works, as if the light were really pushing through the "torn paper", as the paper tenuously attempts to hold the illumination back. Displayed with these is an earlier single-channel video "Exposure", spotlit owls, with a sound element, disjointed page-turnings and an occasional sub-bassline that sounds like it's coming from another room.
+ Colby Bird "Dust Breeds Contempt". Bird's exhibition, his first solo at the gallery, has definitely become "funkier" since the opening in September. Stuff that I witnessed then, incl the look of certain sculptures, have indeed added the titular, intentional dust. He's highlighting the mutability of artwork, from its creation and display to its adaptation in the hands of a collector (or in storage, wherever it goes after its taken off the wall or out of the gallery). Most of his sculptures, like the candy-colored "33", mounted on two misshapen wood pillars that count as part of the assemblage, include "dust" as a medium, anticipated on the work's variously flat and angled surfaces as the exhibition continues through this month. Explicit instructions for the staff to not Swiffer that dust away. It's like Walter de Maria's "Trilogies" exhibition that at Houston, TX's Menil Collection: his "Channel Series" had to be literally dusted off from storage for the exhibition. Not the case w/ Bird. He's got a single framed print on view, rotated throughout the show at irregular intervals by staff (I saw this happen at the opening, as it shifted from "Howdy" to "Keira" and strongly encourage watching it), which becomes pretty gnarly looking w/ dust bunnies on its display table and grime on the print's glass.

* "The Anxiety of Photography" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. Matthew Thompson, the associate curator at Aspen Art Museum (which originated this exhibition) noted the fluidity of the photographic medium — plus its probable ubiquity w/ gallery visitors (i.e. nearly all of us have taken a photo, thus we have even basic understanding of "what it is" and "how it's done") — as part of his own anxiety in culling this pretty cool show together. I had a moment of anxiety, or rancor, when noting the exhibition's catalogue cover (a reproduction of Roe Ethridge's "Thanksgiving 1984") looked like a damn fashion glossy advert! Had he turned up model Hilary Rhoda's makeup or super-saturated the backdrop, it could've been a Miles Aldridge. For all I knew, they were marketing Rhoda's gold heart-shaped necklace. Wrong! In fact, this was part of Ethridge's deft modus operandi: he intentionally perverts his commercial photography in newly realized art, so like that shot of Rhoda came from Ethridge's Lancome shoot. His trickster nature is further exemplified by pairing Rhoda w/ "Pumpkin Sticker", a hugely magnified rendition of his daughter's gourd sticker, as Ethridge is just as keen to nab from what's already out there as he is getting creative w/ his own editorial shoots. That got me looking closer. Matt Keegan wants us looking at everything, like the entire gallery space, a bit more carefully, so he placed a life-size cutout of his cat Neptune, "Domestic Cat", in an otherwise bare corner. Colby Bird (subject of a superbly conceptual show at Lora Reynolds Gallery) extends images of (kinda garish, Danielle Steele et al) book-jacket photos at us in an almost still-life video "Books". And as provoking as Liz Deschenes' "Black Panel 2" might be to some, its mirroring quality spotlights us, or those around us, w/in the print's frame. So we ask: "are WE that interesting to look at?" Upstairs, I particularly dug Matt Saunders' duo, one a painted photo-negative angel, the other a direct-contact print created over a painting. Plus: Anthony Pearson's process-driven "Untitled (Pour Arrangement)", which if memory serves contained the silver nitrate-patina'd bronze cast of an unequally plaster-filled box, set atop a gorgeous walnut pedestal, bookended by two solarized prints of a blending stick run through India ink that marked up photo paper. I think. And, a small but crucial point on Sara VanDerBeek's duo: she printed both images, the smallish and dazzling "Presence" and the huge, twilit "Streamers", in their same respective scales, dismissing the illusion of the subjects' presence (or perhaps increasing it, as we can more readily visualize those same-sized objects w/in the gallery space). A few missteps: I am totally over David Benjamin Sherry and his color carnival self-portraits. If physicality in photography is needed, I would have loved to see Zipora Fried or Michele Abedes instead. Also, Mariah Robertson's photogram experimentation would have been dope juxtaposed w/ Dirk Stewen's ink-painted photo paper collage. But still, the exhibit accomplishes what it promises, in really highlighting the malleability of photography and its intrinsic ties w/ trends in the broader contemporary art world.

* "Something Happened Here", curated by Jennie Lamensdorf @ Champion / 800 Brazos St. An inspired dialogue b/w two NY-based artists, Yadir Quintana and Matthew Schenning, who simultaneously make their Texas debuts in this exhibition. And if you've not seen 'em before, this is an incredible opportunity, and an expert pairing by Lamensdorf (Arthouse's Curatorial Assistant and Exhibitions Coordinator). Mark-making and durational qualities are in effect here, most immediately in Quintana's multipanel silver leaf "Portraits"(channelling Rudolf Stingel's studio floor works, yet Quintana's come off far more personal in their clever remnants of the "sitter"), which are left unsealed so the metal gets all wacky and patina'ed over the months and years. Though a closer look at Schenning's series "Some Things Will Fade" — painted walls either added to or manipulated on small-scale photographs of Porto, Portugal residences — finds an intriguing instance of aging in effect: the C-prints will degrade very differently from the layered acrylic paint, perhaps making what's real and what's Schenning's touch more apparent. For now, though, the tromp l'oeil on some of these is quite pronounced. Switching scales and disciplines, Quintana's much smaller "Yadir" set echo other works (quite a bit of his work comes from sculpture) in their surface residues, while Schenning's blow-ups of wheel-streaked walls under the Brooklyn Bridge remind of his background as a skateboarder. Verdict: must-see.

CLOSING SOON
NYC
* Nicola Tyson @ Friedrich Petzel Gallery / 535 + 537 W 22nd St. Tyson fills the larger 537 space with her large-scale, shockingly colorful figurative paintings, while, in a new twist to her oeuvre, including smaller sculptures in the adjacent 535 gallery, working with fast-dry modeling compound to achieve a similar "sketched" effect as her 2D works.

AUSTIN
* "Queer State(s)" @ Visual Arts Center / UT Art Building, 23rd St at Trinity. Noah Simblist (VAC Curatorial Fellow) and artist David Willburn curated this Texas-tied artists group exhibition, which is like half-video art and half-not. This necessarily requires more of our time than just a quick breeze-through, but the strong visual nature of most of the art keeps our attention. We're warned going upstairs of the "strong subject matter" — which I guess is accurate if "queer" is a tough subject for the viewer, but I didn't find too many shockers. Senalka McDonald's textile-imbued photography was startling, though. The (now) San Francisco-based visual/performance artist focuses on the monstrous side of domesticity, according to her bio, displaying that w/in a crocheted gimp-suit "Force". It's not just a little unnerving. Wura-Natasha Ogunji's agonizing performance "Will I still carry water when I am a dead woman?", documented in a 10-minute video of Ogunji dragging herself along the road through Lagos, Nigeria's Ejigbo neighborhood, with two kegs of water tied to her ankles, kept me rapt. She's commenting on women's contributions and struggles kept invisible in the public and political sphere, and the existence of redemption for those efforts. Otis Ike and particularly Paul "CHRISTEENE" Soileau dare to one-up Ryan Trecartin on the immersive video environment front — but CHRISTEENE takes the prize for out-raunching Peaches AND Hunx & His Punks w/ her "Fix My Dick" music video, replete w/ woolly-chested hipster backup dancers. Were she reenacting this live, it might put her in Paul McCarthy territory. Libby Black, another San Fran-based artist, contributes a quieter side of her oeuvre (maybe you've seen her life-size recreations of glitz, like a to-scale Benz and even a Louis Vuitton retail store, at Manolo Garcia Gallery), two restrained realistic paintings of gender-ambiguous figures. On a similarly restrained note, Thomas Feulmer, based in Dallas, framed the Walmart-safe plastic covers of two gay men's interest magazines, "Attitude"'s "The Sex issue" and "DNA", then adapted their blocks of coverup color into two sublime geometric abstracts.

TOKYO
* Yuka Ohtani "Memories of Dialogs" @ Gallery MOMO Ryogoku / 1F 1-7-15 Kamezawa, Sumida-ku (Toei Oedo/JR Sobu Line to Ryogoku Station). The Kanazawa-born artist punctuates minimalist fields of saturated color with line-work (signifying depth and dimension), curious little forest creatures, and sometimes central trees erupting in showers of flower petals. In this, she draws us deep into her lush world.

* Yoshiaki Machino @ Span Art Gallery / 2-2-18 1F Ginza, Chuo-ku. (Yurakucho Line to Ginza-Itchome Station). "La Perle", almost sexless lithe figures amid Italian Renaissance-style opulent backdrops, which feature subtle traditional Japanese imagery.

* "About A House" @ Taka Ishii Gallery / 5F 1-3-2 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku (Hanzomon/Oedo Lines to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station). A co-presentation between the gallery and White Cube, London, an investigation into the visible/invisible and present/absent — plus it's also on view at Taka Ishii's Kyoto gallery space.

* "gesture, form, technique" @ Taro Nasu Gallery / 1-2-11 Higashi-kanda, Chiyoda-ku (Sobu Line to Bakurocho Station). A group show on formalists (or iconoclasts, if you will) on the show's three-prong subject, feat. On Kawara, Robert Ryman, Daniel Buren, Joseph Grigley, Ryan Gander, Jean Prouve, Charlotte Perriand, Georges Jouve and Serge Mouille. (ENDS SAT)

AUSTIN
* Sarah Buckius "trapped inside pixels" @ Arthouse / 700 Congress. In her debut Texas installation, the Ann Arbor-based video/performance artist presents her 2008 looping digital animation "trapped inside pixels", where she executes synchronous maneuvers w/in a field of ice cube-shaped "pixels". Part of the venue's SCREEN Projects series (so you can watch Buckius fluttering about from the street).

TOKYO
* Toshio Shibata "Concrete Abstraction" @ BLD Gallery / 2-4-9 Ginza, Chuo Ward Tokyo (JR Yurakucho Station, Marunouchi Line to Ginza Station). A survey of some 50 large-format images of dams and tiered natural and manmade landscapes, injected with Shibata's growing use of aggressive color (vs. his earlier, tensely monochromatic prints). (ENDS SUN)