My friend, Alyssa, who is an independent art curator, is helping to curate a new show for Art For Change. This one is to benefit Haiti and opens this Friday, March 5th in the Art For Change lobby, located at 1699 Lexington Avenue. There’s a party on opening night, from 7-11 in said lobby, with a suggested donation of $20-$100. All proceeds from door admissions and a portion of proceeds from art sales will benefit Partners in Health in Haiti. Hors d’oeuvres and entertainment, featuring Haitian DJ Sabine, will be provided, along with of course the art. Should be exciting! For more information and a list of artists, go here.

Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art celebrated its 30th anniversary with an evening of performances, including one by pop star Lady Gaga, who debuted her new Speechless while members of the Bolshoi danced along. Milan-based artist Francesco Vezzoli orchestrated the pairing, telling the Daily Beast, “Gaga is one of the Nijinskys of our epoch. So I don’t know if it’s going to be great artwork. But so far I think I made a good choice.”

Hmmm, not completely sure what he means by the Nijinsky ref (unless he means she has scattered moments of genius mixed with a bit of insanity, or that she’s iconoclastic…), but anyway, here’s a sampling of what happened:

Via Black Book.

Over the weekend I saw the second of the two experimental performances sponsored by the Guggenheim in celebration of the museum’s current Kandinsky exhibit. (The first was the Isabella Rossellini reading / light show I wrote about earlier). This one, which took place at Columbia University’s Miller Theater, sought to honor the ideals of the early 20th Century Kandinsky-led Blue Rider movement, which advocated the bringing together of visual, music, and literary artists to produce art that would engage all of the senses.

So, this production, The Blue Rider in Performance, combined poetry/opera libretti, music, dance, and paintings and other visuals. During the first half of the program, soprano Susan Narucki sang libretti by various composers including Arnold Schoenberg, Thomas de Hartmann, Arthur Lourie, and Anton Webern, while Sarah Rothenberg (who also conceived and directed the show), played piano.

Both women were brilliant. I also loved the images projected onto the back wall during the singing and piano playing. Sometimes a vibrant full-blown painting by Kandinsky would appear, at other times the wall would go blank and a black line would slowly begin wending its way across that wall — a painting in progress. At other times, there would be no painting, but instead a kind of light show of shadow play of what was happening onstage. The lights would catch Rothenberg as she played. She’d sometimes appear rather ghostlike, sometimes macabre, sometimes threatening, as she’d hunch over her piano, creating a rather wicked shadow, while swaying her body rather violently about as her hands flew back and forth across the keys, producing an equally violent-sounding melody.

I didn’t know that much about Kandinsky, and so, after these performances did some research. Art  historians and critics have used his painting, The Blue Rider (above), to show how he used color. Kandinsky was considered the father of abstract art. He wasn’t as interested in painting figures realistically as he was evoking an emotional response in the viewer through color and shadow – -blue being the color of spirituality to him. In the image above, your eye is drawn to the movement of the rider. But the movement is depicted through a series of colors– the blue of his jacket is lighter than that cast on the ground by his shadow — rather than specific details. Is he carrying a child in his arms or not? It’s not really clear. But you get the sense that the rider is moving very fast toward something; you feel an urgency.

I felt that as well with the way they used the lights to shadow Ms. Rothenberg as she played piano. You couldn’t see details in her movement, which was illuminated in large shadows on the back wall, but she was moving across that keyboard madly, her movements blending into one another. She looked like a mad scientist at times. The sometimes chaotic melody, along with these shadows, combined to create this feeling of frenzy, or of being haunted by something.

(photo by Julieta Cervantes, taken from the NY Times)

In the second half of the program, the piano was removed and the Brentano String Quartet took the stage and played Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2 in F-sharp minor, Op. 10 (Arnold Schoenberg was a member of the Blue Rider Group as well). During the first part of this second half, four dancers from Armitage Gone! Dance performed choreography by former “punk ballerina” Karole Armitage. Opera Chic informs that Schoenberg wrote this piece during a rather trauma-filled period in his life, when his wife left him for another man – an artist Schoenberg had hired to teach him to paint — then returned home, upon which the artist committed suicide and destroyed all of his artwork.

The four dancers — two male, two female — in broad strokes portrayed this story, the two women initially beginning as companions, then fighting, breaking into couples with the two men. The couples would mirror each other — one would struggle, performing tension-filled lifts and supported stretches, while the other would be more at peace with one another. Then it would change. At one point, one of the couples was engaged in this really sadly beautiful statue-like embrace where the woman leaned toward the man, putting her weight into his chest, seemingly needing him, while he, considerably taller than she, rested one elbow atop her shoulder, and held his hand to his forehead, as if his mind was full of turmoil, trying to decide what to do about her. It was such a mesmerizing pose, especially with the way they held it for a considerable time, I almost couldn’t take my eyes off of them to watch the other couple dance.

During the second half, the dancers exited and the soprano returned. So there wasn’t a whole lot of dance. But, despite that, I really enjoyed these two experimental performances the Guggenheim put on. More please!

The Kandinsky exhibit continues through mid-January.

Top image taken from the Miller Theater site; the second, of Kandinsky’s Blue Rider, from here.

Photos above courtesy of the Guggenheim Museum.

Over the weekend, I went to see a spoken word / light performance by Mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer called Levels of Nothingness, at the Guggenheim, as part of their Works & Process series. The work was inspired by Kandinsky’s Yellow Sound. (There is currently a large Kandinsky exhibit in the Guggenheim, in celebration of the museum’s 50th anniversary). Wassily Kandinsky is considered the father of abstract art, he used color extensively to evoke inner states, and he believed in the convergence of all art forms — painting, sound, movement. Yellow Sound is basically a compilation of his notes describing his ideas for an theatrical piece or an opera in which color and lighting played a large role.

So, starting from that idea, Lozano-Hemmer (and co-writer Brian Massumi) constructed an interactive installation in which a system of lights would respond to spoken words. Actress Isabella Rossellini read the words, which were quotes from various philosophical texts about perception and color (interestingly, all texts were by non-Newtonian thinkers, who believed, in contrast to Newton, that one’s perception of color was subjective.) Basically, a computerized microphone analyzed Rossellini’s voice, taking into account her: pitch, wavelength, amplitude, intensity, speed, accent, intonation, and speech patterns. That information triggered robotic lights (these rather cute little R2D2-looking guys which were set up to surround the stage and perimeter of the auditorium) to create various light effect, such as those used in a rock concert — fly-aways, bump cues, color chases, ballyhoos, builds and flash-throughs — I don’t know what all of those things are but figure there may be theater-people reading who do!

Anyway, the effect was interesting but not really what I was expecting. Go here to see a clip of it; scroll down about halfway through the article until you see the video on the left side — on the video, you can click on the little box in the right-hand corner to enlarge the video to fit your entire computer screen.

It’s very cool to be sure, but it seemed more orchestrated than I was expecting. For example, every time Rossellini began on a new piece of text, she’d wait a few seconds for the machines to all re-adjust and prepare for that segment. So with each text there would be a specific light pattern: a white-based kaleidoscope one on the ceiling, a yellow-based one, a red light would light up behind her and go off and on as her voice stopped and started, sometimes there would be a multiplicity of lights all shining up at the ceiling making circles of light in multiple colors, etc. But they weren’t all happening at once. Each quote was set up to show one kind of pattern and then the lights would blink on and off or move around in the kaleidoscope according to her voice. It’s hard to explain, but watch that video if you want to see what I mean.

Afterward, the audience got to test it, which was fun. The host walked around with a microphone and let various people speak into it, reading from text projected on the back wall. Everyone was behaved and no one did crazy voices or spoke really loudly or anything so the lights were kind of mild as well. What I (and another woman, who asked) really wanted was for several different people to say the exact words side by side to see how the lighting design was different for each voice. But the system wasn’t set up to do that. At one point, Lozano-Hemmer re-read the same text an audience member had just read, and there did seem to be a subtle different in the lights, but I needed to see more of that to compare.

Anyway, after the performances, the Guggenheim hosts these little cocktail hours where you can meet the artists.

Here is Lozano-Hemmer speaking with some of the attendees. I couldn’t find Rossellini. Sorry so blurry — I hate flashing in people’s faces.

Well, anyway, the Guggenheim seems to have replaced their tray-loads of mini sandwiches with these rather long bread sticks. Probably a wise idea to get rid of the mini sandwiches because, as James Wolcott has noted, people go downright mad for those things, nearly killing each other in the stampede toward the food tables. You’d think none of these people eat for a month before a Guggenheim Works & Process event just so they can load up on “free” (if you subtract the $30 you paid for the ticket) little cucumber and mayonnaise squares. Could never figure out what gives with that?

Anyway, the bread sticks are tasty, and surprisingly filling, but when I went to put one to my mouth I realized how blasted long they were — it was like eating a baton. You had to really hold the end of the breadstick out quite a distance from your mouth. It was rather amusing watching all these people standing around with a glass of wine in one hand, holding a bread stick up in the air with another! For a moment they looked like cigarette holders and the whole scene looked a bit Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Photo by Fabrizio Ferri of Cory Stearns, Alexandre Hammoudi and Grant DeLong, from ABT website.

The Guggenheim Museum has just released its Works & Process events schedule for the fall and there’s some good stuff coming up.

On October 11 and 12 ABT will give a program, entitled, The Art of Adaptation, in which dancers will perform portions of the company’s upcoming contemporary season, held this year at Avery Fisher Hall, and panelists will discuss how they’re adapting work for a non-dance venue. (The company is performing at Avery Fisher this year because City Center, where they usually have their fall season, is going to be temporarily closed for remodelling). It hasn’t yet been revealled who the dancers or moderators will be, but I’ll let you know when I do!

On September 23 and 25 there will be a new dance / music commission inspired by artist Vasily Kandinsky’s Blue Rider Almanac of 1912, performed at the Miller Theater at Columbia University. Music is by the Brentano String Quartet, soprano Susan Naruki, and pianist Sarah Rothenberg; the dancing will be by Armitage Gone! Dance. This, along with a couple of art installations in the museum and another music piece, is commissioned in conjuction with a Kandinsky retrospective to show in the main museum.

On September 11 and 12, young choreographers Larry Keigwin and Peter Quanz are each showing a piece they’ve made to Steve Reich’s Pulitzer-winning Double Sextet. Dancers will be from Keigwin + Company and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Reich will participate in the panel discussion on the 12th.

And, finally, on October 24 and 25, Shen Wei Dance Arts will perform in celebration of the company’s 10th anniversary and Shen Wei will discuss his creative process.

There are other, non-dance events as well, including a talk on “Sex Stress and Music,” a world premiere by composer Charles Wuorinen, and a spoken word performance inspired by Kandinsky’s Yellow Sound (1912) in which actress Isabella Rossellini will read and Mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer will generate an array of colors from the sound of her voice. Very cool-sounding!

The schedule’s not yet on line but it’ll be here when it is.

My friend Alyssa is an independent art curator and she’s working with Art For Change on an upcoming festival in East Harlem, called Hacia Afuera. The festival will take place August 22-23 in the streets and parks of Spanish Harlem.

The festival organizers have issued a call for submissions or project proposals in installation, visual, and performance art, which includes music and dance — that speaks to that community and has a social justice bent. I know some choreographers and dance artists read my blog, so I thought I’d put the word out here. If you’re interested in submitting (and please consider doing so if you have work that fits), go here for more information. The deadline is July 17th.

This weekend I finally made it to MoMA for the Martin Kippenberger exhibit, which I highly recommend if you’re in New York. It ends May 11th. I remember being really struck by one of Kippenberger’s gigantic installations, The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s Amerika, when I’d first seen it in Sweden when I was there in 1998. It was at a special exhibition called Memento of the Metropolis that was part of European Culture Capital, which was in Stockholm that year. (Every summer a different European city is chosen as the Capital of Culture; they have a bunch of art exhibitions, special music, theater and dance performances, etc. all summer long).

Anyway, toward the end of Kafka’s unfinished novel, Amerika (also called The Man Who Disappeared) (which I, embarrassingly, haven’t yet read), the young man goes for a job interview in Oklahoma, not knowing that the corporation is corrupt and the whole thing is a scam. In Kippenberger’s installation piece, numerous pairs of chairs each separated by a table are all set up on a soccer field, bleachers aligning each side of it.  So, it’s like a job fair with numerous interviews ongoing at the same time. Except here, the chairs are rather ridiculously funny — two gigantic lifeguard stands sit opposite one another; two amusement-park-ride seats with umbrellas circle on a piece of roller coaster track continuously around a table that looks like a fried egg; two big arm-chairs are separated by a table on which sets a light hooked up to a brain, etc. At times the chairs actually resemble people: a big bean bag sits opposite an art deco stool with long spindly legs, making the interviewer look like a giant potato-head, the interviewee a tiny frightened spider.

Amazingly, they let us take pictures (the only part of the Kippenberger exhibit where we could):

And that the whole thing sits on a soccer field surrounded by bleachers makes it seem like the modern job interview is just one big spectacle.

Last night Ariel and I went to a launch party for the new online version of Read Russia, a magazine about all things Russian, at Idlewild Books in Union Square. I’d heard about the event through Lauren Cerand’s happening Monday column, The Smart Set, on Maud Newton’s literary blog.

I hadn’t heard of the magazine before, but it looks like a fun, informative read, and just the kind of publication I’d be into, nostalgic Russophile that I am. I say nostalgic because it seems kind of like a zine for Russian expats living here — as well as Americans– but kind of the reverse of the Prague Post and St. Petersburg Times, and all those literary mags founded by members of my generation for Americans living in Eastern Europe in the 90s, right after the fall of Communism. Oh, to be young in the fin de siecle again :S…

And totally fell in love with Idlewild Books. Honestly, best bookstore I think I’ve seen. At least it suits me to a t. They specialize in foreign and “travel books” but I put the latter in quotes because they’re not only the kind of cheesy travel books you’re used to that really might better be called tourist books, but novels, historical accounts, and the like, written by that region’s writers, or insightful visitors, that give you a much richer, deeper sense of the place.

And, unbelievably, they had this back table of heavily discounted books, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen at a small, independent bookstore before! Books I can actually afford I had an armful ready to buy but the cash register was long closed by the time Ariel and I ended our vodka fest (okay, my vodka fest) and got ready to leave.

Yes, they had free flavored vodka, which of course I had to have. Right when I got there, a man had just emptied into his cup the remaining bottle on the table, so a Read Russia editor brought out a new one. But she didn’t open it, and I couldn’t figure out the blasted cap to save my life. A guy must have seen me picking desperately at the thing, then giving up, and embarrased, placing it back down on the table and trying to walk away nonchalantly. He came up, unscrewed it, and without pouring himself a glass, sat the bottle right back down before where I’d been standing and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. How embarrasing.

They also had these delicious Russian candies, but the blasted things were downright elephantine. I unwrapped a cherry-wrapped log thinking it was going to be all squishy and gummy-bear-like so I could tear it apart with my teeth, but no, it was hard candy. I couldn’t bite it apart, so had to put the whole thing in my mouth. It was like the size of a small hot dog — like the kind you use for pigs in blankets! I couldn’t talk without my mouth drooling red syrup, and I kept feeling like I was going to choke, so I nonchalantly wrapped it in a napkin and placed it in an empty, used vodka cup. Apparently it takes practice to be Russian.

At the end of the evening, they gave us each as parting gifts a “Literary Map of St. Petersburg.” I was so excited — just my kind of thing! I have one of London as well. And even more exciting when Ariel discovered that there were series numbers listed on the bottom right corners. Mine was 25/100 and hers 24/100. Real, original prints! Oh how I love free art!

How does it look on my wall?

Update: for more info on this lovely little gem, go here.

Friday night Ariel invited me to my first (I think, that I can remember anyway) fashion show. It’s currently Fashion Week in New York, and though the event is mainly held in various tents at Bryant Park, they have some other shows in other places. Malan Breton, who was on Project Runway last season (says Ariel; I confess, I don’t much watch the program!) had a show in the Eli Klein Gallery in SoHo. (photo above, Breton posing for photos with his models, below, being applauded at the end of the evening)

Instead of a runway though, models just stood atop small pedestals lined up along the walls, in front of artwork in the back of the gallery. They stood there for a good two hours, while the party lasted. I have to say, I wasn’t a huge fan of his clothes (from what I saw at the gallery), but Ariel, and our friend Angie, were.  Ariel fell for a sweet creme satin-faced swing dress and a long, tulle and lace ball skirt.

(Ariel in front of some of the models, one wearing a dress she liked)

Breton was really nice and unassuming, and posed for several pictures with Ariel and other fans at the end of the evening. It was interesting, though now I’d love to see a real runway show. Interesting art too, though we didn’t get to see much of it since it was so crowded. I took this one downstairs, where we went for a while to escape the crowd.

(how cute is Ariel!)

Yesterday I went to Williamsburg (Brooklyn) with a new friend I met recently at the Dance on Camera festival, Teressa Valla. Teressa’s an artist — a painter and sculptor. She calls herself a “kinetic artist” because she’s inspired by and tries to capture movement. She often uses dancers as her models. Visit her website to see some of her beautiful work. We went to Brooklyn to see one of her paintings that is currently showing in the Sideshow gallery. I think it’s this painting.

I loved this gallery. It’s one of those whose walls are almost entirely covered by art. I love that. That’s the effect I try to create with my walls, although my art is all quite cheap! Some people may think it looks too busy, but not me. I love busy!

Anyway, I totally fell in love with this one piece of art by an artist named Terrence Miele. Unfortunately, the painting isn’t on the gallery’s website and the artist doesn’t seem to have his own site. It was called “Portrait of –” — someone with a long Polish or Czech-sounding last name that began with “K” — and it wasn’t really a realistic, lifelike portrait (like the above), but kind of more expressionistic, like more expressive of a feeling (like Scream — one of my favorite art works). The man, K’s features — his mouth, his eyes, and eyebrows, were all doubled, so it looked like he was shuddering. It was really disconcerting, even dizzying, to look at.

Anyway, we walked around Williamsburg, which is one of those recently gentrified arty areas where there are many galleries, browsed some over-priced used books on the street (guy wanted $10 a piece — the covers were all dirty and buggy, some pages rain-soaked, etc., come on), had Thai food (and I had Thai iced tea with brandy, which was fun but I later got a violent migraine — either from that or perhaps they used msg in my fish), and then we ended up at this great store called Junk. It was huge and they had everything from antiques to used furniture, paintings, jewelry, buttons, clothing, videos, books, etc. Teressa found a chair and a shirt and I found a table (we didn’t buy the furniture — yet) and this painting (above, for $5) that I really fell for. She laughed and said, “hmmm, Rembrandt??,” but to me it said, Musketeer! It makes me wonder who painted it — an art student playing around with Rembrandt style or is it indeed a Musketeer (I think he is about to withdraw a sword) — and how long ago was it painted, and how did it get to Junk?

Anyway, he looks kind of cute on my mantle, no?