Robert Wilson traffics in memory, controlling the passage of time and playing around with it—with us—by juxtaposing temporal spheres. In a fascinating tribute to his collaborator, Judson movement alum Suzushi Hanayagi, Wilson created with choreographer Carla Blank KOOL: Dancing in My Mind, which premiered at the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series last weekend. It was mounted in conjunction with the museum’s thought-provoking exhibition, Third Mind. The just-closed show focused on direct and implied Asian influence on Western art over the last century. KOOL is the perfect example of this in performance.
Hanayagi, immobile and incommunicative, suffers from advanced dementia. When Wilson visited her in Japan recently, he found that by making old gestures or small movements of hers, he elicited some reaction. KOOL incorporates imagery of Hanayagi’s face and gnarled hands and feet, expressive symbols of a long life approaching its end. There’s also footage of her in early performances and rehearsals. read more
The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia 1860-1989, at the Guggenheim, derives its title from a mixed-media work by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin in which disparate elements combine to make a new form. The show, on view through April 19, in the works years before the current economic tailspin, coincides with the moment’s need to diminish the material and seek the spiritual. (Okay, many of the objects in the show are still worth a bundle. And then there’s The Death of James Lee Byars, a room covered in fluttering, luminous gold leaf…) read more
Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Arvo Pärt’s compositions rank among the most inspirational for choreographers, at least in my neck of the woods. Reich and Glass are beloved for their muscular propulsiveness, their vigorous rhythms, their hypnotic threads. But it is Pärt’s compositions that invite collaborators into a shared space, a helium-filled elysium, or on Earth — in the earth, rich with dirt, minerals and other creatures. The Guggenheim Works & Process series focused on Pärt as a muse for artist Sophie Calle, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, and another composer, Tarik O’Regan.
Wheeldon, artistic director of Morphoses, has done some of his finest work to Pärt, and it is perhaps not a coincidence that NYCB ballerina Wendy Whelan — another of Wheeldon’s muses — is usually the star. Two duets done for NYCB were performed at the Guggenheim: Liturgy (2003), featuring Whelan with Albert Evans, and the pas de deux from After the Rain, which she danced with Sébastien Marcovici. read more
If you recall with cynicism some of the Guggenheim’s more commercial exhibitions over the last decade (such as The Art of the Motorcycle, Brazil: Body and Soul, and the Armani retrospective), you might feel redeemed by the current show, theanyspacewhatever (http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/exhibition_pages/anyspace/index.html). Or you might feel a bit duped, depending on your persuasion and/or patience.
Theanyspacewhatever emphasizes the exhibition itself as the medium. If you like to see art objects, for example Louise Bourgeois’ excellent show at the Guggenheim that closed recently, you may be disappointed. However, if you do a little homework, and like to be challenged by food for thought and not just food, theanyspacewhatever might float your boat. The ten artists included emerged in the 1990s, channelling their points of view through sometimes untraditional genres: rituals, information, storytelling. They traffic in engaging the viewer in a dialogue.
Rirkrit Tiravanija famously lived in Gavin Brown Enterprise for a spell, inviting viewers to join him for meals. Here, he has created a documentary, Chew the Fat, featuring the Guggenheim artists talking about their work … read more
Summer has a kind of Jekyll/Hyde duality. As appealing as outdoor events might sound – concerts and plays in the park, hot dog eating contests on the boardwalk – I find myself seeking cool indoor places more often than not. Two major art shows currently on view – Henry Moore outside at the New York Botanical Garden , and Louise Bourgeois inside at the Guggenheim – reflect this kind of external/internal tension, and not simply because of the obvious settings.
Moore (1898 – 1986) is one of England’s most respected and widely seen modern artists. In “Moore in America,” the show at the New York Botanical Garden his large sculptures of bronze and fiberglass span a familiar array of reclining figures, mother and child, echoes of hillsides. There is no artist whose work looks more comfortable and – in a way that demonstrates his ubiquity and legacy to public art – predictable in a verdant setting. For a viewer, the work offers numerous pleasures, and many of them stem from these qualities. Yet Moore was also a master of mass, negative space, and form.
Bourgeois (born 1911) has produced a body of work, on the other hand, that’s anything but predictable. A stroll up the ramp at the (did I say cool?) Guggenheim, unspools the artist’s progression through forms and media. It also shows her voracious and fearless – even compulsive – exploration of the psyche, and it’s this total package that makes the air conditioned environment even more rewarding. read more
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