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| A view of the Great
Exhibition of 1851 from a fold-out diorama by George F.
Bragg, on view at the Cooper-Hewitt. |
opening
Faster, Cheaper, Newer, More:
Revolutions of 1848
‘I didn’t know what I was getting into,” says
Kurt Andersen about his first curatorial effort, the Cooper-Hewitt’s
Faster, Cheaper, Newer, More: Revolutions of 1848. A
series of object lessons in cultural acceleration, the show
pinpoints the mid–nineteenth century as the beginning
of the world we know. “Once I embraced it, it was a great
project—which is the way lots of things one has never
done before turn out,” says the public-radio host, novelist,
Spy co-founder, Colors chief, and former editor
of this magazine. “Of the things I’ve ever done,
it’s some funny combination of editing a magazine and
writing an essay—how can you make these 60-odd disparate
things come together, and work to paint a picture of a moment,
tell a story, illustrate an idea? But you’re not depending
on writers to deliver, so it’s less of a moving target.”
Among the curiosities he’s selected, from the collection
of the Cooper-Hewitt and other Smithsonian museums, are watercolors
by Baudelaire’s favorite painter, Constantin Guys (“To
my eye, they look very modern”), and Samuel Morse’s
camera (“I’m enough of a gearhead that it gives
me goose bumps”). There’s also a daguerreotype of
an unidentified editor, a nod to the nineteenth century’s
proliferation of newspapers and magazines (in the accompanying
label, he calls it “the first great era of the editor”)
as well as, perhaps, Andersen’s own career. The show grew
out of research for his forthcoming second novel, a piece of
historical fiction. “It made it all the more exciting,
to spend the morning immersed in my private fantasy world of
1849 and then actually go and choose an object from that moment
in the afternoon,” he says. “My great abiding fantasy
is to time-travel; doing these two things simultaneously got
me about as close as I expect to get.” —Karen Rosenberg
• Cooper-Hewitt, 2 E. 91st St.; 212-849-8300.
6/4-1/9/05. |
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 art
review
School's Out
REVIEWED BY MARK STEVENS
Four shows around town offer fresh looks at some familiar
painters. Who knew there was anything more to learn about
Modigliani?
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| Previous Art
Reviews: Whedon,
Ink | Jeff
Koons, Cindy Sherman | Lucian
Freud | Alexis
Rockman’s Manifest Destiny | More |
|
|
 opening
The Dreamland Artist Club
Its attractions no longer include Ursa the Bear Girl, the Blowhole
Theater, or the ride known as “Human Roulette,”
but Coney Island isn’t exactly in danger of imminent Disneyfication.
Still, a little sprucing-up wouldn’t hurt. Under the guidance
of Creative Time and graffiti scholar Steve Powers, 25 artists
give the grounds a face-lift in The Dreamland Artist Club
(named for the amusement park that burned down in 1911). Look
for Ellen Harvey’s baroque makeover of a fortune-teller’s
booth, Toland Grinnell’s dolled-up marquee for the Dime
Toss, and Powers’s resurfaced Cyclone, all of which pay
tribute to Coney’s original hand-painted signage while
flipping a big foam finger at the Mouse. —Karen Rosenberg
• Various locations around Coney Island; check
creativetime.org
for details. 6/12-9/6. |
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| Wang Wei's 1/30th
of a Second Underwater (1999), at ICP. |
photography
Between Past and Future: New
Photography and Video From China
The history of photography in China pretty much begins in the
late seventies, with the end of the Cultural Revolution. This
delayed start might explain why, when New Yorkers last got a
serious look at contemporary Chinese art (1998’s “Inside
Out” at P.S. 1 and the Asia Society), painting and sculpture
reigned supreme. But a lot has changed in the past half-decade.
“Since the late nineties, there’s been a dramatic
turn toward media-based art,” says Christopher Phillips,
the co-curator, with Wu Hung, of Between Past and Future:
New Photography and Video From China, at the Asia Society
and the International Center of Photography. “It’s
dramatically different from the situation we saw after the fall
of Communism in Russia, when there was a flood of Russian art
that didn’t last long; there was no internal system to
back it. In China today, there’s a substantial, well-organized
network of artists, galleries, and unofficial exhibition spaces.”
This avant-garde-in-the-making welcomes performances that assert
individual identity in a collective society, such as Ma Liuming’s
nude walk on the Great Wall and Song Dong’s Breathing
(in which he lay face-down in Tiananmen Square, in frigid weather,
until his breath formed a layer of ice). It also exploits, often
in large-scale color photographs, the contrast between China’s
hyperdeveloped business centers and their less glamorous residential
outskirts. Concurrent U.S. solo debuts by Wang Qingsong, at
Salon 94, and Hai Bo, at Max Protetch, provide additional proof
of a phenomenon the Ministry of Culture can no longer afford
to ignore. “The next step is for China’s official
museums and galleries to show more confidence in their younger
artists,” Phillips says. “In the next decade or
two, you’ll see a wave of building new museums of modern
and contemporary art, tied to plans to boost tourism.”
—Karen Rosenberg
• Wang Qingsong: Salon 94, 12 E. 94th St.; 646-672-9212;
by appointment only.
• Hai Bo: Protetch, 511 W. 22nd St.; 212-691-4342.
6/11-7/30.
• Asia Society and Musuem, 725 Park Ave.,
at 70th St.; 212-288-6400. 6/11-9/5.
• International Center of Photography, 1133
Sixth Ave.; 212-857-0000. 6/11-9/5.
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 opening
Constantin Brancusi: The Essence
of Things
When Constantin Brancusi tried to ship his streamlined sculpture
Bird in Space from Paris to the United States, a baffled
Customs inspector labeled it a “kitchen utensil”
and slapped a 40 percent tariff on it. The sculptor sued—and
won, sparking a Duchampian dialogue about just how abstract
a work of art can get before it begins to resemble something
more utilitarian. A focused coda to the Guggenheim’s minimalist
spring, Constantin Brancusi: The Essence of Things fills
three turns of the museum’s spiral with a smattering of
the Romanian artist’s pared-down carvings and bronzes.
It’s also the first public viewing of the newly discovered
Sleeping Muse III/IV (pictured, 1917–18), a disembodied
head that’s served up on its side like a hard-boiled egg.
—Karen Rosenberg
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Ave.,
at 88th St.; 212-423-3500. 6/11-9/19.
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 on
view
Childe Hassam, American Impressionist
It wouldn’t be summer without an Impressionist blockbuster
somewhere in the tri-state area, even if the Impressionist in
question happens to be a relatively minor American. The Met’s
Childe Hassam, American Impressionist positions the New
England blueblood (1859–1935) as a leading importer of
French Impressionism—never mind that by the time Hassam
was in his prime, the French had moved on to Post-Impressionism
and even Modernism. But if Hassam chose not to engage the social
or aesthetic battles of his time, favoring genteel displays
of patriotism (pictured, Flags on the Waldorf, 1916)
and the view from his East Hampton estate, he at least “made
the formula of Impressionism his own,” according to a
critic of the day, “and imbued it with the native tang
of our own soil.” —Karen Rosenberg
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth
Ave., at 82nd St.; 212-879-5500. 6/10-9/12. |
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 on
view
The Unfinished Print
Few painters would let an “incomplete” canvas out
of the studio, but printmakers since Dürer have been more
than happy to distribute their working proofs. The Unfinished
Print, at the Frick, tracks the phenomenon from a promising
plate abandoned by Hendrik Goltzius (pictured, Massacre of
the Innocents, ca. 1584) to the many lives of Munch’s
vampiric Madonna—revealing printmaking as an art
of seemingly infinite accretion, and the “finished”
work itself as a mere fragment. —Karen Rosenberg
• Frick Collection, 1 E. 70th St.; 212-288-0700.
6/2-8/15. |
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 architecture
review
Flower Power
REVIEWED BY JOSEPH GIOVANNINI
Just in time for spring, a new entrance to the New York Botanical
Garden gives the city’s most expansive garden a gateway commensurate
with the glories inside.
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| Previous Architecture
Reviews: Brooklyn
Museum of Art | Skyscraper
Museum | Time
Warner Center | Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards | More |
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