April 24, 2007
Two superb installations of Walter DeMaria's stainless-steel rods at the Gagosian Chelsea locations remain on display for ten more days. On loan from the Boijmans van Beunigen Museum in Rotterdam and here for first time, A Computer Which Will Solve Every Problem in the World/3-12 Polygon (1984) at the 21st Street gallery features 75 rods placed with the grace and precision that evokes the permanent installation of DeMaria's Broken Kilometer on West Broadway. Yet the two installations could not be more different; the halide lighting and increasing space observed between successive rows of three rods in A Computer... have a profound look and feel that exude a more kinetic energy than the cool exactitude of the five rows of 100 rods of Broken Kilometer. At the 24th Street gallery, 13, 14, 15 Meter Rows (1985) compounds the fascinating effects of A Computer... in that the shapes of the rods and alignment are dramatically different. Moreover, the natural lighting in the 24th Street location allows for a markedly dramatic experience depending on the time of day.
DeMaria spent over a dozen years making enormous sculptures in horizontal format. But the joy of seeing DiMaria's rods outdoors inserted vertically into the earth is rather akin to the joy of seeing Serra sculpture outdoors, rather than in the cold confines of the museum. I've previously written about the excitement of visiting DeMaria's site-specific installation The Lightning Field near Quemado, New Mexico, something everyone with the means to see should do. The season opens again on May 1st, and reservations can be made through Dia's office in Corrales. Fans of DeMaria's work with steel rods will undoubtedly also be fascinated by his Earth Room on Wooster Street.
photo: Visitor at The Lightning Field
Tags:
broken kilometer, dia foundation, earth room, gagosian, lightning field, richard serra, the lightning field, walter demaria
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Posted on 4/24/2007
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April 22, 2007
Although last night's performance by the Brooklyn Philharmonic at BAM contained several interesting variations of works by Thomas Tallis, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst, the highlight of the "Kronos Cosmos" program was the New York premiere of Julia Wolfe's haunting and fascinating "My Beautiful Scream" written for the Kronos Quartet. Co-commissioned by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonie de Radio France and the Basel Sinfonietta, this 25-minute work premiered in February 2004 at the Festival Presence in Paris. The work begins with rather tranquil strings and quickly builds to a nearly violent crescendo. As the haunting cadences of the scream evolve musically in various directions, the timpani and amplified bass guitar add astounding and vibrant notes. Watching the orchestra closely was mesmerizing, for sudden and feverish—indeed tumultuous—phrases appeared as from nowhere. In a fascinating interview before the orchestra set forth, Wolfe described how she commenced work on "My Beautiful Scream" shortly after 9/11. As a resident of lower Manhattan close to Ground Zero, she mentioned how her otherwise "very beautiful" life took a turn, wherein she felt "this strange existence of living in beauty and having the sensation of a long drawn out internal scream." And yet her work could not be more different than other meditations on 9/11 such as John Adams' seminal On the Transmigration of Souls. Whereas Adams' piece musically evokes the thousands of lost souls ferried across the ocean of samsara—not least due to the human voices interspersed throughout—Wolfe's screams are entirely musical. While a post-concert discussion with Kronos and Wolfe further explicated some of the complicated technical aspects of composition and performance, it seems both performers and audience found the piece a tad overwhelming. Given that Holst's premiere was followed by Gustav Holst's all-too-familiar and overplayed "The Planets" with a new video projection by Hatch Productions, the questions focused more on the Holst piece. Having seen the first video projection of Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky with Prokofiev's riveting music quite a number of years ago, it was rather fascinating to learn that technology has upgraded the conductor-film relationship; maestro Stefan Asbury had no need to even observe the video while conducting as the Hatch production was computer-controlled to follow the orchestra. Rather fascinating, perhaps, but it seems even multimedia bores jaded Brooklynites: This was the first classical music performance I have ever attended where I saw not one but four audience members sending text messages throughout the performance. Perhaps they were so inspired by that portion of Holst focusing on Mercury, the winged messenger? En route back to Manhattan, I asked a member of the orchestra how he had enjoyed performing the Wolfe piece, and was rather disappointed with his answer that he preferred the Williams and Holst works. Given the three decades of virtuoso and exceedingly dynamic performances for which Kronos has become known—ranging from Caravan to the string quartets of Alfred Schnittke—Kronos' well-deserved place in the cosmos again became clear with Julia Wolfe's visionary and enthralling premiere of "My Beautiful Scream".
Tags:
bam, brooklyn philharmonic, gustav holst, julia wolfe, kronos quartet, ralph vaughan williams, Stefan Asbury
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Posted on 4/22/2007
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April 22, 2007
Although nearly six weeks remain until theRichard Serra Sculpture: Forty Yearsexhibit opens At the Museum of Modern Art, now on view are two massive sculptures installed last week several weeks ago in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden as well as monumental works on the second and sixth floors. Serra fans remember the fascinating exhibit Rolled and Forged at the Gagosian Chelsea last year, as well as the monumental torqued ellipses in the permanent collection of Dia: Beacon. Yet by placing two massive outdoor sculptures at the Museum, MoMA has achieved two very intriguing results: First off, early arrivals at the museum can see how the steel takes on different aspects as the sun over Midtown peeks over a nearby highrise to the east. From 10:30 am to noon, the intensity of the light shifts dramatically, highlighting particularly the "Torqued Ellipse IV" (1999). Secondly, these two sculptures smartly divide the garden—in particular, Intersection II (1992-3)—forcing visitors to contemplate the sculptures by walking around and through them. The spatial orientation and placement toy with the basic precepts of the western sculpture garden, and the elegant curves provide many possibilities for contemplative speculation. Thus it seems in this otherwise ossified space that intrigue and innovation have finally taken hold; this garden now indeed appears (post-)(post-)modern. On this spectacular weekend when Manhattan's magnolia trees were in full bloom, while flâneurs were out in full force and while French voters stood in line outside their Consulate on Fifth Avenue, this oasis of tranquility in Midtown was greatly enhanced by the addition of these two Serra sculptures. Perhaps they will become as beloved as some of Serra's most famous installations—or despised as "Tilted Arc" (1981) was on Federal Plaza years ago. How New Yorkers relate spatially to sculpture in public places remains an open question, and most certainly for the next six weeks until this full 40-year retrospective of Serra's dazzling work officially opens.
Update: On Sunday, June 3rd—the opening day of the exhibit—an early-morning leak at the museum initially prevented public access to the massive sculptures on the second floor. Although it was wryly noted that little damage to these sculptures could be caused by water, it was nevertheless an unusual event with most unfortunate timing. Though several days of closed previews preceded the public opening, how the crowds interact with the Serra sculpture at MoMA is of key importance. Thus, our full review of Serra's work on the second and sixth floors of the Museum will follow at a later date, including an extensive discussion of Band (2006) and Sequence (2006) and the spatial relationships between the public and the sculpture.
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moma, museum of modern art, richard serra, tilted arc, torqued ellipse
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Posted on 4/22/2007
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April 21, 2007
This curious Peter Morgan play directed by Michael Grandage and adapted for an American audience after a successful run in London has a limited engagement at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on West 45th Street. Frost/Nixon originally premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in mid-August 2006, then moved to London's Gielgud Theatre three months later. Certainly the British audiences were keen to see how David Frost—who was already becoming a larger-than-life entertainment figure in the mid-1970s—managed to cleverly coax the most deceptive of 20th-century American presidents into revealing his innermost thoughts about Watergate. In 28 hours of interviews over a twelve-day period, Frost had tremendous difficulty in getting Nixon to speak in a straightforward and candid manner about the failures of his presidency until the final interview, and this play explores the tension and dynamics of those interviews. Yet on the New York stage, the parameters are rather different, and even augmented by an enormous backdrop of 36 vintage televisions that nicely frame the action on stage, somehow it's not entirely clear who the intended audience might be here. One assumes the Broadway audience will be captivated by Nixon's haunted mien, through exploring the agenbite of inwit plaguing Nixon in his post-White House years.
While one must resist easy attempts to compare the disarray of the late Nixon White House with the presidency's present incumbent, it's clear that Frost's failure in the bulk of the Nixon interviews to get the president to openly admit his errors has numerous parallels with the current soul-searching over manipulations of the press. In fact, there are so many parallels with the political state of the nation thirty years ago that it would seem Ron Howard's fervent desire to film Frost/Nixon makes good cinematic sense in the run-up to next year's election, despite the Weinstein company's current string of bad press as well as rumors that Warren Beatty turned down Howard for the role of Nixon. Frank Langella brilliantly captures the mood of a broken and lonely Nixon, eager to explicate his carefully-scripted and -edited story of the great successes of his presidency. Langella's gesticulations, verbal circumlocutions and rhetorical excesses indeed underscore how Nixon, in exile in San Clemente with Pat and with the bottle, keenly missed the spotlight to which he had grown so accustomed in his political life. Michael Sheen in the role of David Frost smartly evokes Frost's own successful transformation in shifting from entertainment figure (notably on Australian television) to political commentator with this expensive gamble in getting Nixon to speak in exchange for a hefty and (in this country) hitherto unheard of fee. Stephen Kunken puts in an admirable performance as Jim Reston, a bit of dynamic glue pushing the glib Frost politically left of center, while a few other figures—notably Stephen Rowe as Swifty Lazar and Mike Wallace—have cameos.
Tags:
bernard jacobs theatre, david frost, gielgud theatre, michael grandage, peter morgan, richard nixon, watergate
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Posted on 4/21/2007
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April 18, 2007
Opening Friday at the PaceWildenstein gallery, 32 East 57th Street, a thought-provoking show that explores the role early cinema played in the evolution of Cubism. What struck me about an article in the Sunday Arts & Leisure section about this forthcoming exhibit was not so much Picasso's early dissembling about Cubism but rather the photograph by Chester Higgins Jr. accompanying the article. Shown are art dealer Arne Glimcher and curator Bernice Rose. I stared at Glimcher's hands for a minute, and—voilà! I immediately recalled Otto Dix's portrait of art dealer Alfred Flechtheim—in particular the Cubist portrait behind Flechtheim that underscores Dix's virtuosity in depicting the art dealer as rather dated. Perhaps the artists indeed have the last laugh.
Tags:
alfred flechtheim, arne glimcher, braque, otto dix, pacewildenstein, picasso
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Posted on 4/18/2007
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