“In 2006, when the mayor reauthorized the marine transfer station, he did so under a false pretense. They made it seem like they were flipping a switch and reopening a facility,” Kellner said. “When the City Council approved the Solid Waste Management Plan, they only did an environmental impact statement studying what 1,800 tons of trash would bring. They need to amend their plan and do a supplemental environmental impact statement.”

The lawsuit, which also names the Department of Sanitation and the State Department of Environmental Conservation, demands that the city stop all planning for the new MTS and draft a revised impact statement, which would then need City Council approval. Kellner is the lead plaintiff in the suit; other plaintiffs are the Gracie Point Community Council, Residents for Sane Trash Solutions, Inc. and a handful of individual residents. State Sen. Liz Krueger, Assembly Member Dan Quart and Rep. Carolyn Maloney have all voiced their support of the lawsuit.

“[The MTS] will permanently and negatively impact the Asphalt Green athletic fields, which are adjacent to the site and used every day by thousands of New Yorkers,” said Jed Garfield, president of Residents for Sane Trash Solutions. “It will be a terrible environmental and health hazard for all nearby residents, including over 2,200 low-income New Yorkers and seniors residing just a couple of hundred feet away in the Holmes and Stanly Isaacs development.”

New Elementary School for Yorkville
Next year, Upper East Side tykes will get a new elementary school at the Our Lady of Good Counsel building on East 91st Street. The Department of Education has signed a 15-year lease with the Roman Catholic archdiocese to lease the school for P.S. 527, which will open this fall with two kindergarten classes and will eventually hold students through the 5th grade.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Assembly Member Dan Quart joined by his young son Sam, a future student of P.S. 527, and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott visited the building last week to commend the opening of the new school that they say will help alleviate the overcrowding that plagues the neighborhood.

Art Goodies on Sale
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Store is holding a summer clearance beginning June 28. Art fans can pick up eclectic jewelry, home décor items, toys for the sophisticated tot and art books with enough breadth to cover any coffee table on the East Side. Many items are on sale for 25 to 75 percent off the original price. It’s a great place to stock up on cool gifts for the people who have everything. Visit store.metmusuem.org or call 800-662-3397 for information.

Catch the Fireworks
While some may still be roiling over Macy’s giving the East Side and the outer boroughs the shaft by displaying their famous fireworks on the Hudson River this year, it’s still a display worth schlepping for. If you’re planning on seeing the fireworks, a game plan is mandatory. Macy’s recommends that patriotic attendees head over to 12th Avenue below 59th Street at access points every few blocks along 11th Avenue. Parking will be severely limited. There will be no access at the Hudson River piers or the Hudson River Park promenade or bike path between 59th and West Houston Street. DeWitt Clinton Park is reserved for people with disabilities.
Plan to arrive at any of the viewing spots by 5 p.m., and don’t try to bring lawn chairs or large objects with you. The 25-minute show of 40,000 synchronized fireworks begins around 9 p.m.

UES Murderer is Sentenced
Last week, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced the sentencing of Alujah Cutts, 30, who was convicted of a cold-blooded robbery and murder that he committed on the Upper East Side in 2009.
Cutts broke into the home of 90-year-old Felix Brinkmann on July 30, hoping to make off with a hefty haul. He demanded that Brinkmann give up the combination to his safe, and when he refused, Cutts brutally attacked him, strangling and killing him. He then phoned a friend, who is also being charged, to come help take a safe out of the apartment.
The district attorney condemned the cruel attack and applauded the sentence of 25 years to life in state prison.

Public School Agreement
Assemblymember Dan Quart with his son, Sam, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott and Rep. Carolyn Maloney announce the signing of 15-year lease between the DOE and the Our Lady of Good Counsel parish ensuring the location of P.S. 523, a new public elementary school in Yorkville. Sam will be a student at the school.

Taryn Simon. Chapter XVll from A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters l-VXlll (detail).

Taryn Simon’s gotcha pics guilt the art world

by Marsha McCreadie

One is always suspicious of an exhibit where you have to strain to “get it” by going to the wall text, then to the images, then back to the text, and so on. Such is the case with A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters 1-XVIII by artist celeb/deb Taryn Simon, at 36 the conqueror of the art world with this show at MoMA and a standalone at the Tate.

The artist instructs us how to “read” the riveting photos of the descendants/antecedents of nine families (the full show has 18 bloodlines or chapters), including the related victims of genocide in Bosnia; a tooth represents one, taken from a makeshift grave, and the last living member is a student in Syracuse. Another line descends from Hans Frank, Hitler’s legal advisor (what a journalistic coup to convince some—if not all—to be photographed!)

Also shown are those without roots: Ukrainian orphans. A sign in the orphanage’s common room is highlighted: “Those who do not know their past are not worthy of the future”; the text says most end up in the hands of human traffickers.

The “living man” of the title is an East Indian officially listed as dead by distant relatives who lay claim to his property. Is the common thread stark human misery or doomed stoicism? (Yet the very extended family of the Kenyan healer Joseph Nyamwanda Jura Ondijo, his nine wives, 32 children and 63 grandchildren, seems at ease.) Nearly all of Simon’s subjects stare vacantly at the camera, clearly at her direction.

The Australian rabbits, an example of planned decimation, have it down. Only two of the hundreds of photos carry any other expression: #66 and his despite-the-grim-orphange goofy grin and #19, Arthur Ruppin, a smiling New Jersey real estate developer, namesake of the original Arthur Ruppin sent to Palestine in 1907 by a Zionist organization to investigate possibilities for Jewish settlers.

Is the show about chance, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, genetic predisposition? The viewer must fill in all the blanks. Simon’s photographic effort is daunting—four years traveling the globe to get just the right bloodlines and families on same-sized pigmented inkjet prints. But though she may have an eye, Simon doesn’t have a vision.

Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and other Chapters 1-XVIII
Through Sept. 3, MoMA, 11 W. 53rd St.,
212-708-9431, www.moma.org.

This is Puryear’s first exhibition since his huge, traveling retrospective, which hit MoMA in 2007. It reflects both a great evolution in Puryear’s work and the continuing dedication to material, form and fabrication that makes it some of the most powerful contemporary art in America.

For Puryear, everything is in flux; everything moves. From pieces on wheels to pieces on giant rolling timbers, the entire show exudes a sense of physical potential. There are sculptural carts on wagon wheels, sculptures that are paper-thin sheets of Alaskan Cedar curving along the walls, and a huge field of willow branches that seem to blow in an invisible wind. Without the faintest hint of cliché, these all evoke a feeling of exploration, new lands and new lives. It is a show that to me expresses a great optimism. As always with Puyear’s work there is a tie to our cultural past, our history of making objects by hand. This is a critical element, I think, in what keeping Puryear’s work so consistently potent, ethereal yet accessible. Beyond its beauty there is always a connection to the hand that made it. And by extension to the viewer who imagines in him or herself the potential to be the makers of such things.

It’s a show that offers no easy interpretations, no comtempo art world irony or bratty high concept. The show quietly and powerfully draws you into Martin Puryear’s exquisite universe and leaves you feeling somehow better for the experience.

Martin Puryear: new Sculpture. McKee Gallery 745 Fifth Ave. Exhibition runs through June 29. http://mckeegallery.com/

Governors Ball

This year’s version of the now-regular outdoor festival moves from its previous home on Governors Island to Randall’s Island but retains a strong lineup. Saturday has a dancey, up-tempo set of acts, including Passion Pit, Chromeo, James Murphy and indie rap stalwarts Atmosphere. Sunday slows things down with guitar soundtrack maestros Explosions in the Sky, as well as Beck and Modest Mouse, plus a plethora of other melodic, granola-pop bands. While the performers are about as middle-of-the-road as it gets in modern Indieland (look for experimentalism and risk-taking elsewhere), all of them are established acts. This one might be worth the money.

June 23-24; $180 for the weekend. Randall’s Island Park, governorsballmusicfestival.com. 

Catalpa Festival

Kicking off its first year, the Catalpa Festival offers yet another chance to see top-tier musical acts playing outdoors within city limits. The fest will feature more than 40 performers, including blues rock superstars The Black Keys and Snoop Dogg rocking his seminal album Doggystyle in its entirety. Other highlights include NYC faves TV on the Radio, Girl Talk and hip-hop instrumental wizard AraabMUZIK. There will also be a reggae stage sponsored by High Times magazine, a “sculpture” that belches fireballs in the air and various other novelties (inflatable “sham marriage” church?) included to distract from the fact that music lineup is mostly weak, aside from the headliners.

July 28-29; $140–$180 for the weekend. Randall’s Island Park, www.catalpanyc.com.

Electric Zoo

This is for those who dance. A lot. It’s three days; an all-night(s) blitz of modern dance music from the likes of David Guetta, A-Trak and more. If you appreciate the contemporary offshoots of what we used to call techno, this fest will be something of great joy. A zoo—of dancing people. 

Aug. 31-Sept. 2; $299 for all three days. Randall’s Island Park, electriczoofestival.com.

CITYWIDE

Make Music New York

Started in 2008, Make Music New York is a festival that has been offering an annual feast of soundbites across the city on the first day of summer. From 10 in the morning to 10 at night in hundreds of spots throughout the city, normal sidewalk sounds will be replaced by thousands of free concerts. Some of last year’s highlights were a rendition of Xenakis’ Persephassa on Central Park Lake, in which audience and musicians alike enjoyed seating on boats. Also in Central Park were middle school jazz groups from the Bronx, and Bryant Park was the site of a rock ‘n’ roll showdown between musically inclined corporate execs.

June 21; free. makemusic.org. 

DOWNTOWN

4Knots Music Festival

This annual music fest at the South Street Seaport is an indie rocker’s dream come true, with buzz bands like Bleached, Hospitality, The Drums, Crocodiles and more playing on Piers 16 and 17 along the East River. The fest benefits from the Seaport’s concentration of restaurants and bars, not to mention the food trucks that will inevitably pull up for the event—as long as you pack sunscreen and enough water to keep from daydreaming about jumping into the river, it sounds like a pretty much perfect day.

July 14, 1 p.m.; free. South Street Seaport, Fulton St. at Front St., facebook.com/4knots.

DOWNTOWN

Washington Square Music Festival

Consisting of four Friday night concerts in July, the Washington Square Music Festival is now in its 54th year of entertaining New Yorkers in one of our most beautiful parks. This year, the festival will include a night of music and poetry, a night of Viennese chamber music, a night of music for strings and wings and one of the West African sounds of the Deep Sahara Band. Seating is first-come, first-served, so get there early to enjoy a night of music beneath the stars—and the park’s famous arch—or at St. Joseph’s Church, where the first two concerts will take place.

July 10, 17, 24 & 31, 8 p.m.; free. St. Joseph’s Church, 371 6th Ave. at Waverly Place and Washington Square Park, 5th Ave at Waverly Place, washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org.

MIDTOWN

Madison Square Park’s Oval Lawn Series

Beneath the canopy of Madison Square Park’s trees—and just a dash away from Shake Shack—is one of New York’s best  summer-long music series, featuring performances from Grammy-nominated jazzman Gregory Porter, singer and actress Nellie McKay and a night of family music with Suzzy and Maggie Roche, Sloan Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche. Chairs aren’t welcome here, but bring a blanket and some snacks (or buy them from the Fatty Crab kiosk nearby) and set up camp for an unforgettable night.

 June 20-Aug. 8; free. Madison Square Park, enter park at E. 23rd St. and 5th Ave.,
madisonsquarepark.org.

UPPER WEST SIDE

RCTA Sunset Concert Series

Nine concerts over the course of the summer, from evenings of jazz to nights of Middle Eastern sounds, will grace the tennis lawn overlooking the Hudson River at West 97th Street. Kicking off with a concert from jazz bassist Ron McClure, the series will include sets from Gotham Winds, Dave Glasser, Musica Bella Orchestra, The Atwaters, Efendi, Dartmouth Boys, Los Hermanos Cintron and Steve Tarshis and his Instrumental Trio. You won’t need to bring a racquet or even be any good at sport in order to make a night at these tennis courts a win.

June 10-Aug. 19, 7 p.m.; free. Riverside Clay Tennis Courts, enter Riverside Park at W. 96th St. and Riverside Dr., rcta.info.

CITYWIDE

New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Park 

The New York Philharmonic will play a series of six concerts around the five boroughs. Performing classical favorites—and in two cases conducted by superstar baton-wielder Alan Gilbert—the group will provide listeners with those only-in-New-York evenings of music and entertainment, which we’ve found goes quite well with a picnic meal and a discreetly dispensed bottle of wine.

July 11-17; free. nyphil.org.

CITYWIDESummerStage 

Founded in 1986 at the Rumsey Playfield in Central Park, SummerStage expanded to venues in all five boroughs two years ago. The program—featuring everything from screenings, dance performances and concerts—has now become synonymous with summer in the city; the best part is that the programming is largely free. This season kicks off with the SummerStage Gala June 5 honoring the music of Jimi Hendrix and featuring performances by G. Love & Special Sauce, Bebel Gilberto and The Roots.

June 5-Aug. 30. summerstage.org. 

The Metropolitan Opera Summer Recital Series 

If ticket prices for the Met Opera are a bit too steep for your wallet, check out the Opera’s annual Summer Recital Series. The tenors and sopranos get to practice their vocal dexterity while you take in genius performances at no cost at all. You also don’t have to travel too far, as the series travels to all five boroughs throughout the summer—even Staten Island! This year will feature soprano Danielle de Niese, bass-baritone John Del Carlo and tenor Dimitri Pittas.

July 25-Aug. 9; free. metoperafamily.org. 

CITYWIDE

Blue Note Jazz Festival 

While the Blue Note Jazz Festival is a relative newcomer on the summer concert scene—it only started last year—the Blue Note jazz club was started in Greenwich Village in 1986, and the record imprint of the same name has brought listeners the likes of Norah Jonest debut. This year, Blue Note is once again offering an eclectic mix of sounds and artists ranging from Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def), Béla Fleck and Kathleen Battle.

June 4-30; prices vary. bluenotejazzfestival.com. 

CENTRAL PARK

Naumburg Orchestral Concert Series 

While classical music isn’t the usual top pick for summer concerts, who can pass up the opportunity to listen to classic orchestral arrangements from the likes of Wagner and Schumann outdoors in Central Park—did we mention that it’s free? Celebrating its 107th year of providing gratis concerts, the Naumburg series is sure to please in its 700-seat uptown venue.

June 19-Aug. 7; free. Concert Ground at Central Park, south of Bethesda Terrace betw. 66th & 72nd Sts.,  naumburgconcerts.org.

UPPER EAST SIDE

Harlem Meer Performance Festival 

Summer is the optimal season to enjoy the sights and sounds that New York City has to offer, and there is perhaps no better program or venue for this than the Harlem Meer Performance Festival. Entering its 19th year, the festival is situated lakeside in Central Park at 110th Street. The program features a mix of sounds, from emerging jazz musicians to Latin and gospel music. Attendees are encouraged to pack a picnic, bring a chair and relax for this free outdoor concert series.

June 17-Sept. 2; free. Plaza of the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, 110th St. betw. 5th & Lenox Aves., centralparknyc.org. 

MIDTOWN

Scandinavian Summer Sessions 

Scandinavia,—especially Sweden,—is known for its smart furniture, eclectic cuisine and unbelievable catchy pop music. While this summer series held at the Scandinavia House leans more to the acoustic and jazz side, the range of artists, from a Danish songstress to an Icelandic guitarist, combined with the locale, Smörgås Chef’s terrace cocktail bar, is sure to please. Dubbed an alternative to happy hour, the series runs through August and will only set you back $12.

Jun. 14-Aug. 2, doors at 6 p.m., concerts start at 7; $12. 58 Park Ave., betw. 32nd & 33rd Sts., scandinaviahouse.org.

MIDTOWN

Summergarden: New Music for New York 

As is its tradition, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presents its annual summertime concert series in the sculpture garden, tapping the talent of performers from The Juilliard School and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Spanning four evenings, the series offers the best in “adventurous contemporary music” with premieres each night. While the event is always free, seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

July 10-31; free. The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at MoMA, enter through the Sculpture Garden gate on W. 54th St. betw. 5th & 6th Aves., moma.org. 

UPPER EAST SIDE
Crossroads of the World
You don’t have to head south to the Carribean to the beach this summer, just take the subway up to the El Museo del Barrio. It, along with The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Queens Museum of Art, is presenting the culmination of the decade-long collaboration of research and scholarship Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, which includes more than 500 works of art spanning four centuries from the Caribbean islands and coasts. The exhibit covers topics such as politics, pop culture, language, the various cultures and history, among many others.
June 12 – Jan. 6, 2013, El Museo Del Barrio, 1230 5th Ave., elmuseo.org.

UPPER EAST SIDE
Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940
An artist searching for his muse is a theme that reverberates back to Greek mythology. French artist Edouard Vuillard found inspiration in his career stretching from the 1890s to the 1940s in a variety of sources, from experimental theater to urbane domesticity. This exhibit at The Jewish Museum looks at six periods of the artist’s career and the impact his friends and patrons had on his work, from his artistic beginnings to his later portraits.
Through Sept. 23, The Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave., thejewishmuseum.org.

UPPER EAST SIDE
Women Work
With conservative politicians intent on rehashing decades-old debates that everyone thought were long settled, it’s fitting that the National Academy Museum & School has chosen now to kick off its new exhibit, Women Work, featuring the artwork of women from the 19th century to present day. The series brings together works by Mary Cassatt, Colleen Browning and May Stevens, as well as female sculptors.
Through Aug. 26, The National Academy Museum & School, 1083 5th Ave., nationalacademy.org.

UPPER EAST SIDE
Activist New York
New York City has always been a city that thrived in the midst of social change and progress. Activist New York, the new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, brings that history into focus, exploring the history of social activism in the city from the 17th century right up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. From picket lines to civil rights, the exhibition uses artifacts, photographs, audio and video to tell the history of agitation in the city.
Through the summer, The Museum of the City of New York, 1220 5th Ave., mcny.org.

UPPER EAST SIDE
Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective
The Guggenheim hosts this mid-career retrospective of Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra. The artist, best known for her striking portraits of humanity in transition—adolescents and new mothers have been prime subjects for her lens—has been working for more than two decades at her craft. Like all great portraitists, Dijkstra’s work captures fleeting moments and fills them with meaning. “I make normal things appear special,” she said in an interview for the book Image Makers, Image Takers. That this is not a brag but a statement of successfully fulfilled artistic intent says it all.
June 29 – Oct. 3, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Ave., www.guggenheim.org.

UPPER WEST SIDE
Beer Here: Brewing New York’s History
New York has a rich (albeit unheralded) history of brewing that stretches back to colonial times. The New-York Historical Society hopes to rectify this with its new exhibit. With artifacts and documents that showcase the city’s long-lived love of suds, Beer Here covers what the soldiers were drinking in the Revolutionary War, famous hometown brewers and the Prohibition era. When you are finished, step on over to the beer hall for a taste of New York City and state’s best local brews.
May 25 – Sept. 2, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park W., nyhistory.org.

MIDTOWN
Josef Albers in America: Painting on Paper
What better way to spend your summer than hanging out in a library, especially if you’re going to see the Morgan Library & Museum’s Josef Albers exhibit. Albers, the iconic 20th-century artist who died in 1976, is best known for his painting series Homage to the Square, in which he explored color relationships in concentric squares. This exhibit displays the less well-known studies and sketches for these paintings. The materials in this exhibit were never shown during Albers’ life and are rarely displayed since his death; The Morgan is the only U.S. stop for this exhibition before it heads back to Europe.
July 20 – Oct. 14, The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Ave., themorgan.org.

MIDTOWN
Quay Brothers: On Deciphering the Pharmacist’s Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets
Filmmaking identical twins the Quay Brothers—or The Brothers Quay, in their preferred nomenclature—end the summer with a major retrospective of their work at the Museum of Modern Art. Born in Philly but developed as European surrealists in the grime of London, the Quays have been conjuring up their creepy-crawly, stop-motion animated work since the late ’70s. Featuring repurposed doll heads and other unsettling motifs of mold and decay, the Brothers’ oeuvre became a major aesthetic touchstone for the burgeoning industrial goth movement of the late ’80s and ’90s. This collection promises a rare view inside their work, with never-before-seen images, moving works, installations and artistic output, as well as screening of their best shorts and filmic output.
Aug. 12 – Jan. 8, 2013, The Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St., www.moma.org.

DOWNTOWN
The Parade: Nathalie Djurberg with Music by Hans Berg
Bird is the word at the New Museum’s Studio 231 space as Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg, known for her nightmarish animations, and videographer Hans Berg show off five trippy animations and an unnerving menagerie of more than 80 free-standing bird sculptures. These hybrid, sometimes monstrous forms speak to the artist’s interest in physical and psychological transformation, as well as pageantry and perversion.
Through Aug. 26, The New Museum, 235 Bowery, newmuseum.org.

By Mario Naves

Long gone, I hope, are the days when the French painter Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) was pooh-poohed as being insufficiently radical or, if you prefer, overly bourgeois—as if art steeped in domesticity and comfort somehow precluded pictorial innovation. If Édouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940, an exhibition at the Jewish Museum, doesn’t put that avant-gardist trope to bed, nothing will.

Actually, make that the first three galleries. In them, we encounter an artist of brooding intensity and startling economy. The standard telling of Intimism underlines how a select group of painters brought Impressionist facture out of the sunlight and into the dining room. Dubbing themselves the Nabis—from the Hebrew and Arabic, meaning “prophets”—these artists looked for inspiration in the color-laden symbolism of Paul Gauguin, the decorative flourishes of Art Nouveau and the flat spaces found in Japanese prints. The resulting imagery spoke (as the novelist André Gide had it) “in a low tone, suitable to confidences.”

Low, confidential and given to unnerving moments of introspection. New Yorkers familiar with MoMA’s “Interior: Mother and Sister of the Artist” (1893), a cornerstone of the permanent collection, know Vuillard wasn’t inspired by hearth and home so much as haunted by them. In the best paintings, familial complexity is distilled into images of daunting psychological nuance. (Not for nothing is Proust’s name bandied about when speaking of Vuillard’s art.) A blunt emphasis on pattern and architecture reinforces a signature strain of emotional pressurization. The curators insist on the theatricality of “Marie Opening the Window” (1893), a portrait of Vuillard’s sister, as if its cloistered drama were somehow diminished by it.

The organizing conceit of A Painter and His Muses is the role Jewish patronage played in the Parisian art world—a fascinating historical fillip and as good an excuse as any to mount a summer crowd-pleaser. But a truer title might be What’s Love Got to Do With It? It was, after all, about the time Vuillard began an extended relationship with his dealer’s wife that the art slackened, its gains in scale, vigor and sumptuousness being a lousy recompense for a marked loss in tone, pith and bite. Which is no reason to forego the astringent pleasures shunted toward the front end of this handsomely mounted, if lopsided, exhibition.

Édouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940, at the Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave., until Sept. 23.

Steve Gianakos, “She Could Hardly Wait,” 1996, Oil and ink on cut-and-pasted printed paper.

by Marsha McCreadie

A show to give you nightmares and rip through your subconscious, Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration at MoMA is not so much about decay as rearrangement. The slight misnomer of the title hints at the gothic quality of the 90 paintings, drawings, images, pen-and-inks—you name it—by artists as disparate and wide-ranging as Louise Bourgeois and George Condo, with a seedbed in de Chirico, Max Ernst, Miró and other artists, from 1917 through 2004.

With the displacement and exaggeration of certain body parts comes the questioning. What is that breast doing over there (and, then, what is the function of a breast anyway)? Why does “Whip Woman” (Georg Baselitz), with her huge body and minuscule head, work as art/caricature, and make us laugh like hell? Other titles terrify: “Hand Tree,” by Marcel Jean, with hands scarily reaching out of a tree trunk; “The Flesh Fly,” by Andre Racz; “Baboon Bride,” by Chris Finley.

Then there’s that malevolent-looking leatherette phallus hanging overhead constructed by Bourgeois (with the paradoxical title “Little Girl”) which also—deliberately—suggests a female torso. She explains, in an excerpted statement, “From a sexual point of view, I consider the masculine attributes to be very delicate.”

To read the full article at CityArts click here.

Atget's s Avenue des Gobelins

Eugene Atget Photographed Reality and Surreality

by Marsha McCreadie

The title tells it all: “Documents pour artistes” is the name of the show, but was also the name of Eugene Atget’s shop in Paris. The French photographer (1857 to 1927) insisted his photographs—all 8,500 of them—were merely documents for sale to craftspeople, and then, as he grew in popularity, to avant-garde artists. He was not above, in fact clearly enjoyed, making pictures of doorknobs, gargoyles, prostitutes and gypsies—not necessarily in that order. He also was superb, finally, and at the end of his life, in photographing the ruins at the Sceaux gardens outside of the city.

Ellen Gallagher, DeLuxe, 2004–05. © 2012 Ellen Gallagher and Two Palms Press.

Museum exhibitions curated by artists are always an interesting journey into the artist’s brain. Sometimes we find out things we really didn’t want to know, like a hidden passion for paintings of big-eyed children or a love of the color beige. Sometimes, however, we get to peer deeply into the artist’s mind and actually connect the dots of how what interests them relates to their work.

Printin’, a new show in the print galleries at MoMA, is such an exhibition. It is showing concurrently with the major but unwieldy exhibition Print/Out, and trust me, you can skip the big show in favor of this superbly well-chosen, flowing and evocative collection of work. In this case, smaller is better.

Printin’ is co-curated by Sarah Suzuki, an associate curator at the museum, and the artist Ellen Gallagher. The exhibition pivots around Gallagher’s seminal suite of prints entitled DeLuxe, 60 prints that combine just about every printing technique on earth along with collage, 3-D objects and hand-painting. It is a massive and stunning work and a benchmark in Gallagher’s artistic development.

Given some amount of free rein to wander through MoMA’s collections and make the visual and conceptual connections that most interested her, Gallagher has created a startlingly beautiful and profound exhibition. The heart of the curators’ magic is an ability to exhibit links between disparate works, either visual, thematic or temperamental. The connections that the curators make are delightful, allowing the viewer the joy of seeing and understanding those visual connections.

For example, one wall of the show is hung with an unusually sensitive, large Keith Haring woodcut. Next to that is a painted Kachina made by an anonymous Hopi Indian, then the wall bounces up into a very unusual Paul Klee piece of pigmented paste on paper and cloth. Below that is a wonderful abstract print by Canadian artist Akesuk Tudlik.

The visual themes dance across this wall in a giddy flash of discovery. You get it. You are able to see what Gallagher sees and presumably loves in these pieces. A 1921 photograph of the black vaudevillian Bert Williams dressed incongruously in both tuxedo and chicken suit hangs above a print by Otto Dix entitled “American Riding
Act,” which depicts horse-borne men in elaborate feathered headdresses shooting at something beyond the picture plane. The connections are both funny and chilling. As opposed to the conceptually dense and overly hip showcase exhibition Print/Out, Suzuki and Gallagher have mounted a show that is intellectually accessible, artistically illuminating and a sheer joy to visit.
Printin’
Through May 14, The Museum of Modern
Art, 11 W. 53rd St., 212-708-9400, www.
moma.org.
This article first appeared in the March
7 issue of CityArts. For more from New
York’s Review of Culture, visit www.cityartsnyc.com

The Armory Show is back with an artistic vengeance. Celebrating important works of art from the 20th and 21st century. They’ll be taking over Pier 92 and 94, displaying modern work from the present and past. It is worth checking it out.

(Photo courtesy of neonindian.com)

In the meantime it’s The Armory Party, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) was the kid with their parents out of town. HOUSE PARTY. They invited everybody. Discrimination in art is non-existent. Come play, learn, view; and they did, with glasses of this and that clinking between dead space. Making friends in the time span of a sip. The suited peacocked in their brown pinstripe suits (awful), or their heavy gray wool, though it was close to sixty out. The less suited relaxed their ties, and slicked their hair back with the excess sweat from the crowded room, and that Jack they were holding didn’t help any. Go for gin, I say. The even less suited were the hips. It was like a much less awesome version of A West Side Story battle. Who can pretend to be cooler? The LMFAO wannabes, in their high top Adidas, or the Rick Owens lovebugs, looking grim with white powdered faces? Yup. It’s exactly like A West Side Story. Except their cellphones are their weapons. “TWEET AT ME DOG!” Then there were the free lovers man, and god bless their souls. They keep the spirit of modern art and crazy nightlife thriving and pumping behind the fishnet stockings they pull over their faces. One spacey fellow, was wearing a lovely sequin getup, while a dolled up missum looked high and mighty in a full out red flamenco dress. AI! AI! AI! And then there was the Neon Indian.

No. This is not a type of demographic. This is one specific individual. The musician Neon Indian. Who took the stage at ten, donning a white button down under a black leather jacket and a mess of quaffed up curls. To say he killed it, would be an understatement, because he did something more interesting than sudden death through music. He drew attention to the crowd. There he was, up on stage, rocking the hell out of his own music. Singing in the perfect pitch, as if he had a producer behind the scenes calibrating his voice. It sounded good. But more so, it looked good. The dude kicked and flailed, keeping on beat with his feet and his groove. Looking out over the crowd from the second floor, it was apparent that no one was dancing. I turned to my friend, checking if she saw what I saw. She did. She shook her head, “No one dances in New York City anymore.”

WHAT?! Why?! Have I missed something? Has New York City suddenly become Elmore City, OK? Do I needa call up John Lithgow and have a little heart to heart about the merits of dancing in youth? Sure, some people were side stepping, y’know, real cute and all. But where were the people letting their body loose. Where were the Neon Indians? Where have all the neon indians goooooooone? I tried releasing myself from the death grasp of the repressed, but my limbs felt heavy. The judgment felt heavier. Like everyone had taken a break from their cocktails to stare at me, shaking their heads. “Trouble.” I shrugged my shoulders. If ya can’t beat them, join them. But Neon Indian didn’t. He played the fantastic synth heavy “Fallout.” The electro sonic “Era Extrana.” And he did it all while dancing. Hats off to you gent.

My friend and I walked the space some more. One of the galleries was open, and it was cool walking the stream without the tourist bustle of weekend one-a-days. The third floor was closed, so I decided to run up the escalator that ran down from it hoping I might find some living wax statues just hanging out, smoking a joint. Andy Warhol taking a picture of Cindy Sherman, taking a picture of herself, while Rauschenberg took a piss on a Pee-Coss-Oh. All I found was a small Indian security guard yelling that I couldn’t be up there, which wasn’t wholly untrue as I was up there, but I think he meant in the more what is and isn’t permissible sense. Ahhh, bless your heart old timer.

I went back to the main space. Walls lit up in fluorescent splattered splendor. Neon Indian wrapped his set, and the space cleared out some. The DJ took over and started blowing his goddamned air horns. It was time to leave.