Night School: Seminar 1: Jan 31-Feb 2

Boris Groys: After the Red Square
Program Schedule:

Thursday, January 31: Boris Groys, "Religion After Communism," starting at 7 p.m. in the New Museum theater; open to the public. Tickets required (see below).

Friday, February 1: Guest Lecturer Mikhail Iampolski, "Post-Communist Russian Film," starting at 7 p.m. in the New Museum theater; open to the public. Tickets required (see below).

Saturday, February 2: Boris Groys, "Eastern European Post-Communist Art," starting at 3 p.m. in the New Museum theater; open to the public. Tickets required (see below).

Night School is an artist's project by Anton Vidokle in the form of a temporary school. A yearlong program of monthly seminars and workshops, Night School draws upon a group of local and international artists, writers, and theorists to conceptualize and conduct the program.

All events are free with Museum admission but tickets are required. Tickets can be reserved online or at the Museum one week before the seminar's start; a limited number of tickets will be available one hour before each event's start.

See website for suggested readings and additional information.

All Around the Water Cooler: Jan 30-31

Two public programs organized as part of
Human Resources

@SEAPORT!*, 133 Beekman
(at Front Street, entrance at 207A Front Street)

A Panel Discussion:
Wednesday, January 30, 7-9pm
Join us for a discussion moderated by curator Sara Reisman on the connections between military and corporate aesthetics and structures with Human Resources artists Jane Benson and Michael Cataldi, with ISCP visiting artist Mladen Miljanovic (Bosnia-Herzegovina).

An Evening of Sound Experiments:
Thursday, January 31, 7-10pm
Enjoy an evening of experimental sound performances that activate the @SEAPORT! venue, a former retail store. The evening will feature Michelle Rosenberg, Nicedisc, Ones, Kabir Carter, The And Group, and CoConuts. Organized by Sara Reisman in collaboration with Andrew Cappetta and Jeff Pash, Making Noise curators.

For more info see: www.lmcc.net

Slow Fade to Black: Jan 30

Conversations on Art: 'Slow Fade to Black'
Wednesday, January 30, 7pm
Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th St

"When you're working with a screen, you're wearing a mask and putting on a performance. There's an acknowledgement of the presence of the subject, and then there's the story, and the subject and the story are always moving back and forth between reality and fiction," states Kara Walker of her transition to projections and film. In this conversation, cultural critic Margo Jefferson and filmmakers Marco Williams and Michelle Parkerson consider cinematic portrayals of African-American history and film as a narrative device for interrogating stereotypes.

Admission: $8; senior citizens and students with valid ID $6.

http://whitney.org/www/programs/eventInformation.jsp?EventTypeID=1#ad-calendar

Gabriel Orozco: Jan 30

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
6:30 p.m.
MoMA, Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater), mezzanine, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building, 4 W. 54 Street

Gabriel Orozco's sculptures, photographs, drawings, installations, and videos weave the everyday with the philosophical; he explores how meaning is made from chance encounters and found objects. Numerous works by the artist are currently on view in the exhibition New Perspectives in Latin American Art, 1930–2006: Selections from a Decade of Acquisitions. This conversation is moderated by Glenn D. Lowry, Director, The Museum of Modern Art.

Tickets ($10; members $8; students, seniors, and staff of other museums $5) can be purchased at the lobby information desk, at the Film desk, or online via Ticketweb.

http://www.moma.org/calendar/adult_programs.php#adult_programs

Laurie Simmons & Sharon Lockhart Jan 27

Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

2:00 No (33 min.) by Sharon Lockhart

3:00 The Music of Regret (40 min.) by Laurie Simmons
(A mini-musical film starring Meryl Streep and the Alvin Ailey Dancers)

Followed by a discussion with the artists

In conjunction with the opening of the new Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography, Doug Eklund, assistant curator in the Department of Photographs, moderates a discussion with artists Sharon Lockhart and Laurie Simmons, who have works in the Museum’s collection. Two films by these artists serve as the afternoon’s focal point to explore contemporary photography and filmmaking.

Free with museum admission

http://www.metmuseum.org/calendar/ca_program.asp?Eventid={DA9805D6-8AAF-4970-B852-3E92B2BAC17D}

Caitlin Berrigan: Jan 25

Initial Public Offerings (I.P.O.): Caitlin Berrigan
Friday, January 25, 7pm
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th St

From chocolates made in the shape of the protein structure of the hepatitis C virus to silicone objects cast from the negative space of a mouth, artist Caitlin Berrigan probes bodily systems and pathologies to create works that address the simultaneous medicalization and eroticization of the human form. The results, she says, are "quietly disturbing works of subtle humor and irony that speak to our violent and conflicted relationship to the body."

"Initial Public Offerings (I.P.O.): New Objects, New Audiences" features artists who engage, challenge, or rethink modes of creation, circulation, and scale. Each artist in the series is commissioned to develop multiples that will be made available--free of charge--to the Whitney's public audiences.

Free with Museum admission, which is pay-what-you-wish on Fridays, 6-9pm.

http://whitney.org/www/programs/eventInformation.jsp?EventTypeID=1#ad-calendar

Tobias Putrih: Jan 22

Architecture Dialogues: Tobias Putrih
Tuesday, January 22, 7 pm
Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th St

Celluloid, cardboard, and helium balloons are among the materials that constitute the fabric of Tobias Putrih's inventive sculptural environments. With cinema as one of the dominant influences in his work, Putrih constructs models and large-scale sculptures that investigate the interplay between interiority and exteriority, that is, the relationship between architecture and environment as well as the relationship between psychic, imaginary space and external manifestations of those fantasy projections.

Exploring innovative practices across contemporary art and architecture, this season's series of talks looks ahead to our exhibition on R. Buckminster Fuller (summer 2008) and explores networked communities, links between the local and the global, and architectural ecosystems.

Admission: $8; senior citizens and students with valid ID $6.

http://whitney.org/www/programs/eventInformation.jsp?EventTypeID=1#ad-calendar

“Collage: The Unmonumental Picture”: Jan 19

Saturday, January 19, 3pm
The New Museum, 235 Bowery

Chief Curator Richard Flood leads a conversation with three artists from “Collage: The Unmonumental Picture.” Mark Bradford, Christian Holstad, and Wangechi Mutu

Through collage, video, photography, and installation, Mark Bradford explores public space by excerpting and recomposing its contents to create abstract compositions whose grids, lines, and fields of color flicker with the visual and informational juxtapositions that characterize the urban experience.

Referring both to the mainstream and subculture, Christian Holstad’s collages often depict erotic couplings of gay men whose bodies are composed of decorative patterns and textures extracted from magazines. These intimate scenes are set in unexpected or even contradictory surroundings. This juxtaposition of at least two kinds of decadence and desire serves to both charge conventional environments and cheerfully normalize same-sex erotic activity.

Wangechi Mutu’s wall paintings, collages, and installations make reference to race, politics, fashion, and African identity.

*This event is free with Museum admission but tickets are required. Please request a ticket for this event in person at the Visitor Desk the day of the event. Advance reservations are not available.

http://www.newmuseum.org/events/116

Declassified: Recent Video: Jan 18

Declassified: Recent Video
Friday, January 18, 7pm
The New Museum, 235 Bowery

Devoted to presenting recent video works from around the world, “Declassified” reflects the immediacy of the form by offering a venue for challenging new works. This month features works that explore narrative, diaristic structures thereby revealing the parameters or motivations of the artists’ respective practices. Total running time 77 minutes.

Erik van Lieshout in collaboration with Core van der Hoeven
Homeland Security, 2007
HDV transferred to DVD (color, sound); 26 minutes
Courtesy the artist

Dave McKenzie
Present Tense, 2007
HDV transferred to DVD (color, sound); 23 minutes
Courtesy the artist

Haegue Yang
Squandering Negative Spaces, 2006
Video (color, sound); 28 minutes
Courtesy the artist and Barbara Wien Gallery, Berlin

*This event is free with Museum admission but tickets are required. Please request a ticket for this event at the Visitor Desk the day of the event.

http://www.newmuseum.org/events/115

Brian DeGraw: Jan 17

Get Weird: Brian DeGraw
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The New Museum, 235 Bowery

Organized by Alex Wagner,
former Editor-in-Chief, The FADER
$10 General Public, $8 Members

Brian Degraw is a DJ, visual artist, filmmaker, and the keyboardist for Gang Gang Dance. In 2007, he assembled footage from shows, soundchecks, practice tapes, field recordings, and other sources to create the Gang Gang Dance DVD Retina Riddim. As a member of Gang Gang Dance, Brian has played with Slint, Sonic Youth, and toured with Animal Collective.

Get Weird is a monthly series of performances featuring experimental and freaky jams. Expect anything from dusted-off salsa to psychedelic harmonies, performed by unknown legends and young-gun mavericks. Get Weird takes place on the third Thursday of each month.

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

Lawrence Weiner and Liz Kotz: Jan 17

Thursday, January 17, 7 pm
Gallery Talk: Liz Kotz and Lawrence Weiner on AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

"Language itself is a component in the making of a sculpture," states Lawrence Weiner of his text-based structures. Join Weiner and art historian Liz Kotz for a special look at this forty-year retrospective of the artist's work.

The exhibition, on view at the Whitney through February 10, is the first major retrospective organized in the United States spanning the forty-year career of this key figure in the emergence of conceptual art.

Admission: $8; senior citizens and students with valid ID $6. This is a standing event in the gallery.

http://whitney.org/www/programs/eventInformation.jsp?EventTypeID=1#ad-calendar

Merce Cunningham in conversation with Lynne Cooke: Jan 12

Saturday, January 12, 3:30pm
Dia Beacon

Merce Cunningham, born in Centralia, Washington, received his first formal dance and theater training at the Cornish School (now Cornish College of the Arts) in Seattle. From 1939 to 1945, he was a soloist in the company of Martha Graham. He presented his first New York solo concert with John Cage in April 1944. Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) was formed at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953. The group included Carolyn Brown, Viola Farber, Paul Taylor, and Remy Charlip. John Cage was music director and David Tudor the company musician; MCDC has commissioned scores from more contemporary composers than any other organization. Visual artists who have contributed designs for works by Cunningham include Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, and Roy Lichtenstein. Cunningham has choreographed over 180 works for his company.

http://www.diacenter.org/prg/conversations/index.html

Continuing Education for Dead Adults: Jan 11

Continuing Education for Dead Adults
Friday, January 11, 7pm
The New Museum, 235 Bowery
$8 General Public, $6 Members

Three multimedia performances riff off youth culture and adolescent education. East Coast collective Paper Rad will premiere two videos: the twenty-minute "Problem Solvers" (2008), and a three-minute short, "crank dat spongebob batman dropdead robocop" (2008). New York-based artist Ben Coonley will present a new fifteen-minute performance, "Kindred Spirits is the Working Title," and the Providence-based experimental band Wizzards will perform in front of a mesmeric animated tapestry composed of images taken from the Web.

Paper Rad
Formed in 2001, Paper Rad is an East Coast collective whose unique pop iconography synthesizes material from the Web, video games, advertising, and television. Visual artists and performers, Paper Rad seamlessly translates their aesthetic across mediums, from video installation to print to music to Web-based Flash animation.

Ben Coonley
Ben Coonley is a Brooklyn-based video and performance artist, cat fancier, and baseball fan. His work has been shown in exhibitions and festivals including the Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, the Sundance Film Festival New Frontier Program, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the New York Underground Film Festival, the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, and the Corcoran Gallery. He has received the Barbara Aronofsky Latham Award for an Exceptional Emerging Video Artist, Cinematexas, 2003. Video Data Bank distributes his work.

Wizzards
Wizzards is the performance project of Providence-based artists Brian Gibson and Rich Porter. Their music—inspirational, uplifting electronics floating over hyper drum beats—is accompanied by animations, elaborate costumes, and stage sets. Porter is also known as Bug-Sized Mind, a one-man noise ensemble. Gibson is also the bass player in the band Lightning Bolt and the creator of Barkley's Barnyard Critters. Wizzards has existed for three years and recently released an album, Hidden City of Taramound, through Load Records.

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

Sharon Hayes: Jan 10

Thursday, January 10, 7pm
The New Museum, 235 Bowery

Sharon Hayes organizes an evening of images and ideas in conjunction with her performance and exhibition I march in the parade of liberty, but as long as I love you I'm not free.

New York-based artist Sharon Hayes works in performance, video, and installation, creating situations that expose dramatic frictions between collective activities and personal actions. With interventions that are inspired by the language of politics and the dramaturgy of theater, Hayes has staged protests, delivered speeches, and organized demonstrations in which crowds and individuals are invited to rethink their roles in the construction of public opinion.

*This event is free, but tickets are required. Please request a ticket for this event in person at the Visitor Desk the day of the event. Advance reservations are not available.

http://www.newmuseum.org/events/112

Christian Boltanski: January 8

Tuesday, January 8, 6:30 pm
Guggenheim Museum
1071 5th Avenue (at 89th Street)
Lewis Theater, Sackler Center

Internationally acclaimed conceptual artist Christian Boltanski speaks on his expansive body of work, in which he examines the collision of the personal and social, as well as the intersection of memory and archival documentation in shaping our vision of the past.

http://www.guggenheim.org/education/tours_lectures.shtml#category_10

On Martin Puryear: Jan 8

Tuesday, January 8, 6:30 pm
MoMA, Theater 2
(The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2), T2

Through a series of presentations and a moderated discussion, David Levi Strauss, scholar, critic, and chair of the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department, School of Visual Arts; Judith Russi Kirshner, professor of Art History and dean of the College of Architecture and the Arts, University of Illinois at Chicago; Josiah McElheny, artist; Terry Winters, artist; and others offer their perspectives on the work of Martin Puryear. John Elderfield, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art, and organizer of the exhibition, moderates the discussion.

This event is held in conjunction with the exhibition Martin Puryear

Tickets ($10; members $8; students, seniors, and staff of other museums $5) can be purchased at the lobby information desk, at the Film desk, or online via Ticketweb.

http://www.moma.org/calendar/events.php?id=7167&ref=calendar

The City from Below, Above, and Sideways

Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Flux Factory
38-38 43rd Street, Long Island City, Queens
Free and open to the public

A panel discussion and presentations by acclaimed urban historians and artists with slightly unusual views of New York City. Featuring: Julia Solis, Steve Duncan, Katherine McMahon, Douglas Paulson and Marie Lorenz. Moderated by Chen Tamir.

In conjunction with the exhibition New York, New York, New York

For more information and directions to Flux Factory: http://www.fluxfactory.org

"Why I Go to the Movies Alone": Jan 5-6

"Why I Go to the Movies Alone"
A two-day film program curated by Richard Prince
Saturday and Sunday, January 5 and 6, starting at 2pm

Ranging from classic dramas and cult shorts, to obscure, retro erotica, these films shed light on the artist's vision and creative practice. Plus "Lies My Father Told Me: Collier Schorr Speaks On Richard Prince"

Saturday, January 5
The Savage Eye, 1960 (dir: Ben Maddow, Joseph Strick, Sidney Meyers)
C'etait un Rendez-vous, 1976 (dir: Claude LeLouche)
A Place in the Sun, 1951 (dir: George Stevens)
Stealing Altitude, 1990 (dir: John Starr, Roger Teich)
Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971 (dir: Monte Hellman)
The Touch of her Flesh, 1968 (dir: Michael Findlay)

Sunday, January 6
Honeymoon Killers, 1970 (dir: Leonard Kastle)
The Zapruder Film, 1963 (dir: Abraham Zapruder)
Sin in the Suburbs, 1964 (dir: Joseph Sarno)
Lenny Bruce, 1967 (dir: John Magnuson)
Young Playthings, 1972 (dir: Joseph Sarno)

Film screenings are FREE with museum admission and open to the public. Tickets will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Some of the films contain sexually explicit and violent scenes not suitable for persons under the age of 18. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Richard Prince: Spiritual America, on view through Jan 9.