Thursday, January 3
(EXHIBITION)
How to deal with the craziness that is contemporary society? Make art about it! At least that’s the premise behind The Incomplete, the current exhibition at the Chelsea Art Museum. Rather than try to make sense of our world, over 30 artists covering four generations show us how to embrace the instability of present in the contemporary world and become comfortable with how we’ll never get “it”—that “it,” in fact, might not even exist. Sounds like a good therapy session.
Chelsea Art Museum, 566 W. 22nd St. (at 11th Ave.), 212-255-0719, chelseaartmuseum.org; Tue.-Sat. 11am-6pm & Thurs. 11am-8pm, $4/$8.
Friday, January 4
(EXHIBITION OPENING)
Tonight’s opening at PIEROGI Gallery provides an introduction to two drastically different New York-based artists. Ryan Mrozowski’s paintings depict eerie gatherings of crowds and groups around some unclear central event. Martin Wilner, on the other hand, exhibits a small fraction of the sketchbooks and journals he’s created during his travels throughout the city. Wilner’s prolific output looks in detail at those anonymous and strange individuals who make up Mrozowski’s loosely-defined crowds. Eerie huh?
PIEROGI, 177 N. 9th St. (betw. Bedford & Driggs Aves.), 718-599-2144, pierogi2000.com; 7-9, free.
Saturday, January 5
(MYSTERY PERFORMANCE)
Do you miss the days of radio serials? Do you wish you’d been around in the days of radio serials so you could claim to miss them? Your local crime and mystery bookstore has the solution to your predicament. Today’s installment of the bi-monthly W-WOW Radio Plays takes us back to the good ol’ days when families would gather in hushed silence around their radio. Partners & Crime, 44 Greenwich Ave. (at Charles St.), 212-243-0440, crimepays.com; 6 & 8, $5.
(FILM)
For people looking to soak up every scrap of Andy Warhol knowledge, or those who never took to the modern art mogul’s style, the recent documentary A Walk Into The Sea offered a refreshing glimpse of the films made by a less-known Factory-member, Danny Williams. Tonight’s Danny Williams: Factory Films is a rare opportunity to witness three of the young man’s silent films screened in their entirety, one with a live score. The films feature intimate moments with Warhol and other Factory stars such as Paul America, Brigid Berlin, Billy Name, Edie Segwick and Ingrid Superstar, as well as Williams’ film of a Velvet Underground rehearsal, the earliest-known footage of the band. Cinema Village, 22 E. 12th St. (betw. 5th & University), 212-924-3363; 11:30pm, $10.
(EXHIBITION OPENING)
In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Chelsea’s RARE art gallery opens two new exhibitions. The first is William Anskis’ Thrones, which features the artist’s intensely colorful and shiny mixed media on aluminum works depicting incomprehensible architectural spaces inspired by retro video games, cartoons and sci-fi movies. Meanwhile, the gallery’s latest emergent artist project, Barry and the Universe by Nic Rad, showcases the young artist’s rendering of our over-saturated information and media networks. Anskis and Rad offer different ways of making sense of how technology and information are changing our relationship to the physical world. RARE, 521 W. 26th St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-268-1520, rare-gallery.com; 6-8, free.
Sunday, January 6
(FILM)
For those not quite comfortable with surrealist cinema (if that’s even possible), Anthology Film Archives has devised its Clair/Picabia/Buñuel Program as a crash-course of the genre. The screening showcases three shorts by the foremost pioneers of surrealism’s extension into film. The best-known is Buñuel’s collaboration with Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou, which confounds any attempt to understand its plot. Clair and Picabia’s Entr’acte, originally created to entertain guests during intermission at a Dada performance, is a macabre parody of our funerary rituals. Finally, the surreal documentary Land Without Bread offers a portrait of the extremely isolated and primitive inhabitants of Spain’s Las Hurdes region. Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Ave. (betw. 1st & 2nd Sts.), 212-505-5181, anthologyfilmarchives.org; 7:30, $5/$8.
Monday, January 7
(FILM)
As part of its eclectic screening series, Still Moving: Special New Year’s Edition, 2008, MoMA presents two outstanding and divergent films today: François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 and BMW of North America’s The Hire. Truffaut’s 1966 adaptation of a Ray Bradbury novel about an Orwellian future in which all emotion is suppressed stars the mesmerizing Julie Christie. The second is a series of eight short-films-cum-flashy-ads produced by BMW that focus on a driver (Jason Stratham) who gets important passengers from one place to another—in a BMW, of course—and are directed by a ridiculous slate of major directors: John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-Wai, Guy Ritchie, Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Woo, Joe Carnahan and Tony Scott. Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-708-9480; 6 & 8:30, $8/$10.
(KARAOKE PARTY)
What’s better than seeing a live rock band? Being a live rock band! Every Monday Arlene’s Grocery lets you do both with a couple of live shows followed by Rock and Roll Karaoke. First up tonight will be Michigan-based Al and the Black Cats at 8pm, then Buffalo’s Displaced one hour later. Then at 10pm, the real bands clear the stage to leave room for the crowd to dive into the karaoke set-list. Arlene’s Grocery, 95 Stanton St. (betw. Orchard & Ludlow Sts.), 212-995-1652, arlenesgrocery.net; 8, free.
Tuesday, January 8
(THEATER)
Join The New York Playwrights Lab for a series of free, daytime readings from until Thursday. All three days feature a reading of Ten Ex-Lovers at 4pm, a series of 10 short plays by lab-members on the theme of ex-lovers. Today, the preceding play at 2pm is Richard Vetere’s comedy, 3 Sisters from Queens. Tomorrow at 2pm the reading will be of Neena Beber’s A World Beneath, and Thursday at 2pm you can catch Horovitz’s Sins of the Mother. It’s all free but reservations are a must. Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St. (at Bedford St.), 212-989-2020, nyplaywrightslab.org; Tues.- Thurs. 4-6pm, free.
(DISCUSSION)
Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore’s Dilemna) and Dan Barber (Blue Hill in Greenwich Village) address the ethical conundrum of how to eat healthfully in an age of guilt-inducing food activism during Hedonistic, Healthy and Green: Can We Have it All?, a discussion mediated by nutritionist and Columbia professor Joan Dye Gussow. 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave. (at 92nd St.), 212-415-5500; 8:15, $26.
Wednesday, January 9
(THEATER)
The National Theatrer of Great Britian’s production of Samuel Beckett’s deeply cynical portrayal of modern notions of companionship, Happy Days—in which Winnie wakes up to find herself buried waist-deep in rubble, and tries desperately to stay distracted from her dire predicament—opens this week. BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St. (betw. Ashland & Rockwell Pl.), 718-636-4100; 7:30 (until Feb. 2), $25.
(FILM)
Woman at the Beach, Korean director Hong Sang-Soo’s subtle portrayal of disillusioned young romantics, begins a two-week run at Film Forum today. The film follows the pitfalls of a young director, played by Kim Seung-woo, as he tries to escape the stresses of his job by escaping to a seaside resort with his production designer (Kim Tae-woo) and the latter’s girlfriend (Ko Hyeon-geong). What develops, inevitably, is an apparently simple love triangle that evolves into a strange and compelling case of displaced identities and doubling. Hong Sang-soo’s most successfully executed film yet merits to be seen, as it promises even better work ahead. Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St. (betw. 6th Ave. & Varick St.), 212-727-8110; $5.50/$10.50.
(EXHIBITION)
Opening today, MoMA’s new exhibition Selections from the Richard Bellamy Papers (on view until February 25 in the museum’s Education and Research Building) highlights the role of an independent art dealer, gallery director and art enthusiast. Bellamy was able to have an instrumental role in the art world he followed so closely, sparking and supporting the careers of many talented and successful artists through his various institutional roles. This exhibition, compiled from MoMA’s Archives, features various correspondences, press materials, gallery catalogues and pamphlets that Bellamy accumulated throughout his personal and professional research. Highlighting Bellamy’s exhaustive work, MoMA foregrounds the curatorial and financial aspects of the contemporary art industry, which have become just as important as the art itself. Museum of Modern Art,11 W. 53rd St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-708-9480; 6 & 8:30, $8/$10.
(EXHIBITION)
How to deal with the craziness that is contemporary society? Make art about it! At least that’s the premise behind The Incomplete, the current exhibition at the Chelsea Art Museum. Rather than try to make sense of our world, over 30 artists covering four generations show us how to embrace the instability of present in the contemporary world and become comfortable with how we’ll never get “it”—that “it,” in fact, might not even exist. Sounds like a good therapy session.
Chelsea Art Museum, 566 W. 22nd St. (at 11th Ave.), 212-255-0719, chelseaartmuseum.org; Tue.-Sat. 11am-6pm & Thurs. 11am-8pm, $4/$8.
Friday, January 4
(EXHIBITION OPENING)
Tonight’s opening at PIEROGI Gallery provides an introduction to two drastically different New York-based artists. Ryan Mrozowski’s paintings depict eerie gatherings of crowds and groups around some unclear central event. Martin Wilner, on the other hand, exhibits a small fraction of the sketchbooks and journals he’s created during his travels throughout the city. Wilner’s prolific output looks in detail at those anonymous and strange individuals who make up Mrozowski’s loosely-defined crowds. Eerie huh?
PIEROGI, 177 N. 9th St. (betw. Bedford & Driggs Aves.), 718-599-2144, pierogi2000.com; 7-9, free.
Saturday, January 5
(MYSTERY PERFORMANCE)
Do you miss the days of radio serials? Do you wish you’d been around in the days of radio serials so you could claim to miss them? Your local crime and mystery bookstore has the solution to your predicament. Today’s installment of the bi-monthly W-WOW Radio Plays takes us back to the good ol’ days when families would gather in hushed silence around their radio. Partners & Crime, 44 Greenwich Ave. (at Charles St.), 212-243-0440, crimepays.com; 6 & 8, $5.
(FILM)
For people looking to soak up every scrap of Andy Warhol knowledge, or those who never took to the modern art mogul’s style, the recent documentary A Walk Into The Sea offered a refreshing glimpse of the films made by a less-known Factory-member, Danny Williams. Tonight’s Danny Williams: Factory Films is a rare opportunity to witness three of the young man’s silent films screened in their entirety, one with a live score. The films feature intimate moments with Warhol and other Factory stars such as Paul America, Brigid Berlin, Billy Name, Edie Segwick and Ingrid Superstar, as well as Williams’ film of a Velvet Underground rehearsal, the earliest-known footage of the band. Cinema Village, 22 E. 12th St. (betw. 5th & University), 212-924-3363; 11:30pm, $10.
(EXHIBITION OPENING)
In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Chelsea’s RARE art gallery opens two new exhibitions. The first is William Anskis’ Thrones, which features the artist’s intensely colorful and shiny mixed media on aluminum works depicting incomprehensible architectural spaces inspired by retro video games, cartoons and sci-fi movies. Meanwhile, the gallery’s latest emergent artist project, Barry and the Universe by Nic Rad, showcases the young artist’s rendering of our over-saturated information and media networks. Anskis and Rad offer different ways of making sense of how technology and information are changing our relationship to the physical world. RARE, 521 W. 26th St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-268-1520, rare-gallery.com; 6-8, free.
Sunday, January 6
(FILM)
For those not quite comfortable with surrealist cinema (if that’s even possible), Anthology Film Archives has devised its Clair/Picabia/Buñuel Program as a crash-course of the genre. The screening showcases three shorts by the foremost pioneers of surrealism’s extension into film. The best-known is Buñuel’s collaboration with Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou, which confounds any attempt to understand its plot. Clair and Picabia’s Entr’acte, originally created to entertain guests during intermission at a Dada performance, is a macabre parody of our funerary rituals. Finally, the surreal documentary Land Without Bread offers a portrait of the extremely isolated and primitive inhabitants of Spain’s Las Hurdes region. Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Ave. (betw. 1st & 2nd Sts.), 212-505-5181, anthologyfilmarchives.org; 7:30, $5/$8.
Monday, January 7
(FILM)
As part of its eclectic screening series, Still Moving: Special New Year’s Edition, 2008, MoMA presents two outstanding and divergent films today: François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 and BMW of North America’s The Hire. Truffaut’s 1966 adaptation of a Ray Bradbury novel about an Orwellian future in which all emotion is suppressed stars the mesmerizing Julie Christie. The second is a series of eight short-films-cum-flashy-ads produced by BMW that focus on a driver (Jason Stratham) who gets important passengers from one place to another—in a BMW, of course—and are directed by a ridiculous slate of major directors: John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-Wai, Guy Ritchie, Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Woo, Joe Carnahan and Tony Scott. Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-708-9480; 6 & 8:30, $8/$10.
(KARAOKE PARTY)
What’s better than seeing a live rock band? Being a live rock band! Every Monday Arlene’s Grocery lets you do both with a couple of live shows followed by Rock and Roll Karaoke. First up tonight will be Michigan-based Al and the Black Cats at 8pm, then Buffalo’s Displaced one hour later. Then at 10pm, the real bands clear the stage to leave room for the crowd to dive into the karaoke set-list. Arlene’s Grocery, 95 Stanton St. (betw. Orchard & Ludlow Sts.), 212-995-1652, arlenesgrocery.net; 8, free.
Tuesday, January 8
(THEATER)
Join The New York Playwrights Lab for a series of free, daytime readings from until Thursday. All three days feature a reading of Ten Ex-Lovers at 4pm, a series of 10 short plays by lab-members on the theme of ex-lovers. Today, the preceding play at 2pm is Richard Vetere’s comedy, 3 Sisters from Queens. Tomorrow at 2pm the reading will be of Neena Beber’s A World Beneath, and Thursday at 2pm you can catch Horovitz’s Sins of the Mother. It’s all free but reservations are a must. Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St. (at Bedford St.), 212-989-2020, nyplaywrightslab.org; Tues.- Thurs. 4-6pm, free.
(DISCUSSION)
Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore’s Dilemna) and Dan Barber (Blue Hill in Greenwich Village) address the ethical conundrum of how to eat healthfully in an age of guilt-inducing food activism during Hedonistic, Healthy and Green: Can We Have it All?, a discussion mediated by nutritionist and Columbia professor Joan Dye Gussow. 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave. (at 92nd St.), 212-415-5500; 8:15, $26.
Wednesday, January 9
(THEATER)
The National Theatrer of Great Britian’s production of Samuel Beckett’s deeply cynical portrayal of modern notions of companionship, Happy Days—in which Winnie wakes up to find herself buried waist-deep in rubble, and tries desperately to stay distracted from her dire predicament—opens this week. BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St. (betw. Ashland & Rockwell Pl.), 718-636-4100; 7:30 (until Feb. 2), $25.
(FILM)
Woman at the Beach, Korean director Hong Sang-Soo’s subtle portrayal of disillusioned young romantics, begins a two-week run at Film Forum today. The film follows the pitfalls of a young director, played by Kim Seung-woo, as he tries to escape the stresses of his job by escaping to a seaside resort with his production designer (Kim Tae-woo) and the latter’s girlfriend (Ko Hyeon-geong). What develops, inevitably, is an apparently simple love triangle that evolves into a strange and compelling case of displaced identities and doubling. Hong Sang-soo’s most successfully executed film yet merits to be seen, as it promises even better work ahead. Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St. (betw. 6th Ave. & Varick St.), 212-727-8110; $5.50/$10.50.
(EXHIBITION)
Opening today, MoMA’s new exhibition Selections from the Richard Bellamy Papers (on view until February 25 in the museum’s Education and Research Building) highlights the role of an independent art dealer, gallery director and art enthusiast. Bellamy was able to have an instrumental role in the art world he followed so closely, sparking and supporting the careers of many talented and successful artists through his various institutional roles. This exhibition, compiled from MoMA’s Archives, features various correspondences, press materials, gallery catalogues and pamphlets that Bellamy accumulated throughout his personal and professional research. Highlighting Bellamy’s exhaustive work, MoMA foregrounds the curatorial and financial aspects of the contemporary art industry, which have become just as important as the art itself. Museum of Modern Art,11 W. 53rd St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-708-9480; 6 & 8:30, $8/$10.
