Datebook: Oct. 7, 2010
Thursday, October 07, 2010 - 12:00 AM
Newspapers as art, New York's alternative histories, and some incredibly dirty pictures. Here's WNYC's very saucy guide to what's happening now:
Man, Myth and Sensual Pleasure: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art For the first time in more than four decades, the museum examines the Netherlandish painter who took the Italian Renaissance style to Northern Europe—influencing generations of painters that followed with his sumptuous detail and rich color. Through Jan. 17, in Manhattan.
The Last Newspaper, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art At a time when the reading public is debating the future of print, this little exhibit looks at the ways in which artists have worked with newspapers and the news. The show has some pieces that feel like a bad episode of freshman Journalism 101, including a video about how obituaries are written, along with an on-site newsroom that will produce newspapers throughout the course of the show. But it also has a handful of gripping pieces that make the show worthwhile. Among them: Hans Haacke’s dot matrix “News” machine, which prints out headlines from 30 RSS feeds from around the world, and Andrea Bowers “Eulogies to One and Another,” which tracks the vastly different treatment a European woman and an Iraqi man receive in a news article about their deaths. Over the course of the show, performers will eat—yes, eat—newspapers in the lobby at various times and artsy groups will pick apart news coverage. (I attended one discussion in which the aesthetics of the NYT’s spaghetti taco story were thoroughly deconstructed.) The best part of the exhibit, however, is the presence of inky fingerprints on the museum’s walls and doorways. Through Jan. 9, in Manhattan.
Alternative Histories, at Exit Art in Chelsea Students of cultural history will enjoy this exhibit geared at telling the story of the more than 130 alternative arts spaces that help nurture New York City’s cultural scene. From PS 1, to ABC No Rio to La MaMa and Taller Boricua, they are all here. The space is hosting a long roster of related events. Check out the website for details! Through Nov. 24, in Manhattan.
Tony Oursler, Peak, at Lehmann Maupin on the Lower East Side Combining elements of assemblage sculpture with some highly unusual video projections, Oursler creates installations that sometimes feel totally "Alice in Wonderland." In other words: eccentric, oddball and otherworldly. Opens today, in Manhattan.
Jeff Koons: Exaltation, at Luxembourg & Dayan, on the Upper East Side. If you’re looking for something seriously NSFW (Not Safe For Work), then look no further. Originally produced in the early ‘90s, this series of pornographic works depicts Koons in flagrante delicto with his porn star wife, Ilona Staller, otherwise known as Cicciolina. (The two have since divorced.) The pieces are BIG. They are GARISH. The tweaky color palette and ink jet printing make the whole thing look like really bad ‘80s porn (not that I’d know what that looks like). Which begs the question: Why would anyone want to see them? Well, I wondered that myself as I walked around the gallery during the press preview, amid a battalion of sheepish-looking art writers, none of whom seemed able to make eye-contact anywhere near the views of the artist’s hirsute rear. The answer came to me later: Koons so relentlessly kitschifies sex that he succeeds in making it a total turn-off—a porno that functions like a bucket of cold water to the libido. Surely, an achievement of sorts. Leave the kiddies with the babysitter for this one. Through Jan. 21, in Manhattan.
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