Michael Smith: Dec 19

Wednesday, December 19, 6:30 PM
The Drawing Center
35 Wooster St

Artist Michael Smith will discuss his practice with curator João Ribas. Smith is best known for his video and performance works made in the late 1970s starring, Mike, an everyman version of Smith himself and for his collaborations with artists William Wegman and Joshua White. Smith’s work is currently on view in Mike's World: Michael Smith and Joshua White (and other collaborators) at the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas, Austin. An artist's book of Smith's drawings Michael Smith: Drawings Simple, Obscure and Obtuse was published this spring by Regency Arts Press, New York.

Admission is free

http://www.drawingcenter.org/events_public_01.cfm

When Time Becomes Form: Dec 18-22

When Times Becomes Form
TBL (TallBlondLadies): Solidly Grounded
Curated by Marina Abramovic
December 18-22, 2007, 5-10pm*
Opening Reception: Tuesday, December 18th, 5pm
Artists Space
38 Greene St, 3rd Fl

Artists Space is pleased to present TBL (TallBlondLadies), a collaborative project between the artists Anna Berndtson (Sweden/Germany) and Irina Runge (Germany). This exhibition marks the third installment of the durational performance series When Time Becomes Form curated by Marina Abramovic. The duo will present Solidly Grounded, a collection of three works, performed over five days for five hours per day, in Artists Space’s main galleries.

TBL inverts female stereotypes through the composition of absurd and unexpected performative gestures, often incorporating a range of accoutrement from high-end fashion to sports gear. Their works present diametrically opposed concepts; beauty and grace are juxtaposed and diminished through brute action and athleticism, tacitly disrupting and challenging gender-based categorizations.

The three pieces to be included, Big Dip, Ascendant Landing, and Potential Fertility Rite, are distinct yet share the recurrent core elements of sound, rhythm, and form embodied through purposeful movement. The symbols of the Celtic knot, the line, and the Lemniscate (eternity sign) provide the foundation for each of their performances, allowing for a poetic exploration of female tropes through notions of timelessness and the everyday.

*PLEASE NOTE: During the run of the show, Artists Space will be open from 5-10pm.

http://www.artistsspace.org/exhibitions/future.html

Performing Life: December 15

Panel Discussion
Saturday, December 15, 3-5 pm
Artists Space
38 Greene St, 3rd Fl

What is "real life" in performance art today? How many lives can a performance have? Are virtual experiences comparable to live performance? What is the future of performance art? Please join us for a panel discussion inspired by these questions and the ongoing performance series When Time Becomes Form curated by Marina Abramovic for Artists Space.

With panelists: Marina Abramovic, Emcee C.M., Master of None, and Ana Prvacki Moderated by: Jovana Stokic

Unmonumental: Dec 13

“Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century”
Thursday, Dec. 13, 7pm
New Museum, 235 Bowery
Free with Museum admission*

Laura Hoptman, Kraus Family Senior Curator, and Massimiliano Gioni, Director of Special Exhibitions, lead a conversation with three artists from “Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century”: Abraham Cruzvillegas, Gedi Sibony, and Shinique Smith

*Tickets to this event are free with Museum admission. You must request a voucher for this event in person at the Visitor Desk the day of the event. Advance reservations are not available.

http://www.newmuseum.org/events/3

Johanna Drucker: Dec 11

Tuesday, December 11, 7pm
SVA, Amphitheater, 209 East 23rd Street, 3rd floor

A pioneer in the study of artist books, artist and art historian Johanna Drucker is Robertson Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Sweet Dreams: Contemporary Art and Complicity (University of Chicago, 2006) and The Century of Artists' Books (Granary, 2004). Presented by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department.

Free and open to the public.

http://www.schoolofvisualarts.edu/events/index.jsp?sid0=70&page_id=181&content_id=2002

Jim Hodges on Joseph Beuys: December 10

Monday, December 10
6:30 pm
Dia Art Foundation
548 West 22nd St

Born in Spokane, WA, in 1957, Jim Hodges lives and works in New York. His solo exhibitions include presentations at Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2005); the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, and touring (2003), Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2003); and the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (1995).

Several works by Joseph Beuys, including Arena—where would I have got if I had been intelligent! (1970–72), are on view at Dia:Beacon.

http://www.diacenter.org/prg/lectures/artists/index.html

I-Be AREA: Ryan Trecartin: Dec 8

I-Be AREA, 2007, Ryan Trecartin
Saturday, December 8
3pm
New Museum, 235 Bowery
$8 general public, $6 Members

Trecartin's first feature-length video I-Be AREA extends the artist's singular process and style into new territory. Fast-paced and dense with drama, I-Be AREA relates the intertwined stories of an exuberant ensemble, played by Trecartin and dozens of others, as they cope with themes such as cloning, adoption, self-mediation, lifestyle options, and virtual identities. The film centers around Jaime's Area (played by Lizzie Fitch), a space which functions, in the artist's words, as a kind of “bedroom/classroom/drama department/blog space/Internet-community site where the characters malfunction in the face of everything being everything and come to act on their own creative potential.”

Ryan Trecartin lives and works in Philadelphia. He has had solo exhibitions at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York; Crane Arts, Philadelphia; and QED, Los Angeles.

The artist will discuss his practice with Lauren Cornell, Director of Rhizome, on December 14. See that date for details.

http://www.newmuseum.org/events/2

Lorna Simpson: Dec 5

Wednesday, December 5
Parsons, 65 Fifth Ave. Swayduck Auditorium
3:15 PM - 5:00 PM
Free and open to all

Lorna Simpson first became known in the mid-1980s, for confronting and challenging conventional views toward gender, identity, culture, history, and memory with her large-scale photograph and text works that are both formally elegant and subtly provocative. Simpson uses the African-American woman to examine the ways in which gender and culture shape the interactions, relationships and experiences of our lives in contemporary multi-racial America. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Miami Art Museum; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. She has participated in such important international exhibitions as the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany. She has been the subject of numerous articles, catalogue essays, and a monograph published by Phaidon Press.

http://www.parsons.newschool.edu/events/event_detail.aspx?eID=827

Dana Schutz: Dec 4

Tuesday, December 4, 6:30pm
SVA, 133/141 West 21st Street, room 101c

Dana Schutz' provocatively-entitled pictures of cannibals, castaways, and primordial landscapes are in the collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Presented by the BFA Fine Arts and Art History Departments.

Free and open to the public.
http://www.schoolofvisualarts.edu/events/index.jsp?sid0=70&page_id=181&content_id=2001

Experimental Magazines, Circa 1986: Dec 3

Experimental Magazines, Circa 1986 featuring Jonathan Crary , Meyer Schapiro , Thomas Lawson , Susan Morgan and May Castleberry

Monday, December 3 at 6:30 PM
MoMA, Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater), mezzanine, Cullman Education and Research Building

Following last fall season's panel discussion, Experimental Magazines and the International Avant-Gardes, 1945-1975, this program examines a particular moment in experimental journals and magazines. Focusing on publications established in the 1980s, scholars, artists and editors address the magazine as a platform for new ideas as well as original contributions by artists. Participants include: Jonathan Crary, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory, Columbia University, founding editor of Zone Books; and Thomas Lawson, Dean of Cal Arts and Susan Morgan, former editors of REAL LIFE. The program is moderated by May Castleberry, Editor, Library Council Publications, The Museum of Modern Art.
$5.00 - $10.00

http://www.moma.org/calendar/events.php?id=5687&ref=calendar

Glenn Ligon on Andy Warhol's Shadows: Dec 3

Monday, December 3
6:30pm
Dia Art Foundation
548 West 22nd St

Glenn Ligon was born in the Bronx and lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include shows at the Power Plant, Toronto, and touring (2005–06); the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2001); and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2001). In 2003, Dia launched Ligon’s web project Annotations.

Andy Warhol’s Shadows (1978–79) is on view at Dia:Beacon.

http://www.diacenter.org/prg/lectures/artists/index.html