Art
The Biggies
The Met's rooftop garden sparkles with Sol LeWitt's wall drawing Whirls and Twirls and his recent Splotches, brightly painted fiberglass structures jutting and peaking like a rollicking seismograph against the Manhattan skyline-start a clear Friday or Saturday evening off with beer, wine and sandwiches (212-535-7710).
The Whitney (800-WHITNEY) opens their Robert Smithson retro on June 23 with paintings and drawings from 57-63, sculptures, films and earthworks by the maker of Spiral Jetty and crucial theoretical writings, who died in a plane crash in '73.
The Guggenheim salutes Hilla Rebay's art and her seminal influence on their building. Friend of Jean Arp and Hans Richter, Rebay read Kandinsky's treatise "On the Spiritual in Art" and committed herself to non-objective art, both in paint and as administrative activist. In New York by 1927, she painted Sol Guggenheim in her day job as portraitist then was big in opening his original Museum of Non-Objective Painting on E. 54th St., curating the inaugural show, "Art of Tomorrow" and contacting Frank Lloyd Wright, who'd build the Gugg's current digs. The show brings together Rebay's snazzy paintings, figurative work of dancers, paper collages and an ample sampling from that epochal first show: Gris, Klee, Leger, Picasso, et al (212-769-5100).
The Museum of Natural History (212-769-5100) has a killer show of the latest paleontological evidence. "Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries" sports big videos, interactive installations, a looming T. rex next to a six-foot robotic model displaying biomechanics, and a small predator dug up in Montana called a Bambiraptor. The centerpiece diorama shows NE China's Liaoning Province 130 million years back: all cedars, pines, ferns and fully feathered, winged dinosaurs to remind us that, no, they didn't exactly disappear.
-Alan Lockwood
Hosted II
Sun.-Sun., June 5-July 3
Last fall, 11 artists selected by Participant Inc., the cutting-edge not-for-profit space on the Lower East Side, were exhibited in the Netherlands, at Niewe Vide, an experimental space in Haarlem. This summer, Participant returns the favor with Hosted II, providing New Yorkers the opportunity to see work by eight emerging Dutch artists. Participants will include Anno Djikstra, who carves weapons from synthetic foam, Nils Muhlenbruch, the creator of Drifter.TV, known for its interactive animations featuring boy scouts in surreal settings, and Tomo Savic-Gecan, who once installed a motion detector in a Utrecht gallery, which was connected, through the internet, to an escalator in Zagreb. Although the visitors to the gallery didn't see anything, they were responsible for starting and stopping the escalator over a thousand miles. So expect mischief. Also on view will be the recently released book Van Stuk///Off Track, a history of Nieuwe Vide. Participant Inc., 95 Rivington St. (betw. Ludlow & Orchard Sts.), 917-488-0185; Wed.-Sun., 12-7, free.
-Robert Marshall
Robbert Flick
Through Sat., June 18
The Robert Mann Gallery, located slightly out of the way on the 10th floor of an 11th Avenue space, is a sanctuary for curious-minded photophiles. The current showing of works by Robert Flick, Trajectories, follows the artist's recent retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Flick is no newcomer to photography, and this show gives an inviting view into three separate bodies of work beginning in 1969. Flick's specialty, the grid, is referred to here as Sequential Views, which figure prominently in the Arena and L.A. Documents series. Using both still and video cameras, Flick explores the visual manifestations of industrial and natural spaces in their unique relationships to each other. We find ourselves caught in the web of similarities and minute differences wrought through slight shifts of time. Robert Mann Gallery, 210 11th Ave. (betw. 24th & 25th Sts.), 212-989-7600; Tues-Sat. 11-6, free.
-Caroline Shepard
Sheila Pepe: Tunnel
Through Sun., Oct. 23
Sheila Pepe's installation of crocheted shoelaces and nautical tow line began as an homage to her uncle, Augusto Nigro, who worked as a laborer digging the Holland Tunnel, and his wife, D'Amore Nigro, a garment worker in a Manhattan factory. Pepe's work examines the different meanings of work-it is both an evocation of personal and family history and a homespun, 3-D environmental Pollack. In this investigation of her dual heritage as the descendant of both Italian immigrants and New York Modernists, she manages to create spaces that are somehow both comforting and strange. Also on view at the Museum is The Superfly Effect, inspired by the Gordon Parks' film, which includes such artists as Willie Cole, Marilyn Minter, Clifford Owens and Sandra Bermudez, as well as Constructing America III, a show which looks at the influence of modernity on urban life. Jersey City Museum, 350 Montgomery St. (Monmouth St.), 201-413-0303; call for times, free.
-Robert Marshall
Alyson Shotz
Julianne Swartz
Wed.-Sat., June 1-25
This season Chelsea overflows with new galleries and summer group shows; a good place to begin is Mixed Greens' new gallery space on 26th Street. It almost doesn't matter who's up at the moment, since most everyone on its engaging roster of artists is worth a peek. Take the promising upcoming dual showing of works by Julianne Swartz and Alyson Shotz: Swartz's Bubble Portraits are novel engagements with the shape of light. Her subtle, captivating photographs investigate a bubble and a sky being blended by light and the resulting chemical transformation. Alyson Shotz's Topography is a sculptural web of glass beads and steel wire coupled with a computer rendering of outer space: a dimensional exploration of the all too infrequent merging of art and science. Mixed Greens, 531 W. 26th St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-331-8888; Mon.?Sat., 11-6, free.
-Caroline Shepard
Little Boy
Through Sun., July 24
Little Boy is the final third of Takashi Murakami's Superflat trilogy, a project conceived in 2000 to introduce the new wave of Japanese Otaku, or "pop cult" artists and contextualize them in the history and tradition of Japanese arts.
Perhaps most widely known for his album-cover art (Flaming Lips, Nobukazu Takemura, etc.), Murakami's own work evokes a world that belies the whimsy of its cartoon surface. "I express hopelessness," says Murakami. "When I consider what Japanese culture is like, the answer is that it is all subculture. Therefore, art is unnecessary."
Faced with a wall of tiny smiling flowers, hopelessness may not be the viewer's first impression, but this show, and Superflat in general, puts an illuminating spin on the seemingly sugary world of Japanese graphic, game and toy arts. Though Little Boy features dozens of artists' film and video animations, video games, music and toys, the title also refers to Hiroshima, 1945. Murakami makes a deft and devastating link between the bomb and its metaphysical effects-in his view, the infantilized nature of postwar Japanese culture is no coincidence. Already recognized by the academy as a serious artist, "Superflat" should establish him as such for the mainstream. Japan Society, 333 E. 47th St. (1st Ave.), 212-832-1155; call for hours, $12.
-John Dylan Keith
Something Is Somewhere
thurs.-Sat., June 2-July 30
In this exhibit organized by gallerist Monya Rowe and independent curator Anat Egbi, 20 artists, all women, use diverse media to explore the ways in which self is constructed and understood through engaging with one's environment. It promises to be a treasure trove. Look for selections from Jeanine Oleson and Ellen Lesperance's witty, bravura Off the Grid, a series of performance-based large-format photographs, which simultaneously mock and celebrate the fantasy of escaping contemporary life for a pre-modern feminist utopia. Also be sure not to miss Larissa Bates, whose weird and elegant drawings evoke a peculiar and rather lovely fantasy world, and Sigrid Sandstrom, a Swedish-born painter known for her lush depictions of mountains and glaciers. Other artists include Abby Williams, Elizabeth Huey, Francis Trombly and Angela Dufresne. Monya Rowe, 526 W. 26th St. #504 (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 646-234-8645; Tues.-Sat. 11-6, free.
-Robert Marshall
Comix Ex Machina
Opening Sat., June 18
Equal parts live-in commune and outsider-art collective, Flux Factory in Long Island City is worth the trek. On the heels of last year's interactive maze cum graphic art installation, CarTunnel, the collective presents Comix Ex Machina. A group project based again on comic art, Comix Ex Machina features 11 artists, including Shutterbug Follies creator Jason Little and Press contributor Wendi Koontz. Mechanical and graphical components create narratives that viewers will actively navigate. It's in the spirit of most Flux works: bringing it to the people, dragging them in, and joyriding around for a while. Flux Factory, 38-38 43rd St., Long Island City, Queens, 718-707-3362; call for times, free.
-John Dylan Keith
Gregory Crewdson
Through Sat., June 18
Gregory Crewdson's latest manifestation "Beneath the Roses" is an exhaustive look at 20 new, large-scale photographs. Although his focus on the mysterious, darker side of middle-class America hasn't shifted much since his last show at Luhring Augustine, this show moves to a new place. Crewdson's images-often a nod to such filmmakers as Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk, Spielberg and others-have left his influences behind, truly evincing his take on the staged tableau. His characters, denizens of anonymous towns and ordinary houses, are lost in unending despair and confusion, trapped by the banal. Be sure to see Untitled (backyard romance) (summer 2004). Though at this point the artist's intense movie-set behind-the-lens production is familiar, these images are unnervingly complete and uncomfortably perfect. Luhring Augustine, 531 W. 24th St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-206-9100; Tues.-Sat. 10-6, free.
-Caroline Shepard
OUT OF TOWN
v isit the Hamptons for the Jackson Pollock/Lee Krasner homestead in the Springs, near East Hampton. The New York School's famous painting couple relocated out over Accobonac Creek to get their new marriage the hell outta Dodge-or Manhattan, as it were-and got a 19th-century house with a barn. The house has his jazz LP collection, while the barn has a paint-slopped floor and a sample of the 500 photos Hans Namuth took for Harpers' Bazaar while Pollock was ripping off early-50s masterworks. For hours ($5) and tours ($10), call 631-324-4929.
Dia:Beacon sallies into their third year as the world's largest contemporary art building and one of New York's excellent day trips. For just under $30, Metro North zips from Grand Central up the Hudson's lush bank to the old manufacturing town of Beacon (head uphill to Main Street for burgeoning galleries and a diner lunch. Robert Irwin landscaped the car park and garden, Bruce Nauman videos are in the former Nabisco carton-printing factory's basement, Louise Bourgeois sculptural nightmares haunt the attic and four Richard Serra steel ellipses poise on the loading platform. "Dia's Andy: Through the Lens of Patronage" is the museum's second special exhibition, spotlighting Warhol's "Skull," "Disaster" and portrait series alongside Dia's chamber of "Shadows" painting, supplemented by screenings of films and Screen Tests. Meanwhile, "?unknown territory?" continues Dia's four-year Agnes Martin retro, placing the spare, penetrating glow of 21 of her six-foot canvases from the 60s under Dia's sawtooth skylights (845-440-0100).
Storm King Art Center's 500 acres lie near the Hudson's west bank, an hour's drive from the George Washington Bridge. On Old Pleasant Hill Road in Mountainsville, NY, one gets the picture: woods, grass meadows and monumental sculpture in a collection anchored by 13 David Smiths, Calder, Moore, Nevelson, Magdalena Abakanowicz and Naim June Paik. Pack a picnic, then visit the granite, Norman-esque museum building for 50 photos of Mark di Suvero's sculpture by his dealer Richard Bellamy, companions to the four di Suvero's on Storm King's grounds (845-534-3115).
-Alan Lockwood