blendnewyork…Fashion.Art.Style.Inspiration.Love

For decades now, the Whitney Biennial has been pushing the envelope of art. Traditional forms like painting and sculpture long ago ceded the stage to site-specific installations. Some pieces poked through the wall. An artwork might actually be the hole itself. Sometimes, the art wasn’t even in the museum, but over in Central Park. The latest trend has been to get away from art that is strictly visual. Installations typically whirr, click, howl or vocalize. The last Biennial had a talking hearse.

WU TSANG

The group show includes Sam LeWitt’s ‘Untitled (material for Fluid Employment),’ a photograph of a magnetic liquid, and ’Wildness,’ (production still) by the popular drag artist Wu Tsang, whose work focuses on transgender Latinas in Los Angeles.

SAM LEWITT AND MIGUEL ABREU GALLERY

This year, co-curators Jay Sanders and Elisabeth Sussman take the Biennial a few more steps beyond the quaint idea that museums are places for “art objects,” with an exhibit that trumpets performance.

The entire fourth floor has been transformed into an enclosed theatrical space with bleacher seating. The show kicks off with four weeks of on-site rehearsals by choreographers Sarah Michelson and Michael Clark. On a recent day, a dancer in a horse’s head circled the space, poking her equine nose over the top of the fence to the accompaniment of a minimalist electronic soundtrack.

REVIEW: THE 2012 WHITNEY BIENNIAL

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Ave. at 75th Street
212-570-3600 or whitney.org

Through May 27th 2012
11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday; 1 to 9 p.m. Friday.

Admission: $18, $12 over 62; free under 18.

Among the subsequent groups to perform will be the experimental rock band The Red Krayola, who will present an opera written in collaboration with the British conceptual art group Art & Language.

CONCEPTUAL WORKS

Behind the performance area, visitors can peer into the functioning dressing room, where performers do their makeup, don costumes and chatter, acting oblivious to the audience. Also accessible to visitors is a “green room” installation by the popular drag artist Wu Tsang, modeled on a Los Angeles bar called The Silver Platter that employs and caters to transgender Latinas.

In another nod to transparency and performance, L.A. artist Dawn Kasper has taken up residence in one of the galleries as part of what she calls her Nomadic Studio Practice Experiment. The artist has surrounded herself with books, tools, clothing, audio-visual equipment and a double bed, leaving barely enough room to stand. But Kasper, who converses with visitors, plans to live and work in the messy space for the duration of the show, at least during museum hours.

Documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog might seem a bit of a stretch for inclusion in this show, but stretch is what it’s all about here. Inside his spooky installation, he evokes the mood of a primeval world with a Dutch artist’s 350-year-old etchings and music from his award-winning documentary, “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”

Collaboration is another buzzword this year. The more people involved, the more senses engaged, the better. Take Gisele Vienne’s creepy animatronic mannequin of a mumbling adolescent boy holding a bloody puppet. Credits are given for music, voices, lighting, wall drawing and the dialogue – a psychotic rant by Dennis Cooper, a writer notorious for sadistic stories about pedophilia, Satanism and torture.

A work in progress is Sam Lewitt’s installation, in which magnetic liquid has been poured over small objects and is being made to evaporate with electric fans.

STATIC MEDIA

With all the noise and activity here, you have to pity the artist who works in a traditional, silent, static medium like oil painting. But some have made it into this exhibit of contemporary art by virtue of one unusual attribute or another, including that of being dead. Inexplicably, there’s an oil of a bare-chested man by American modernist Marsden Hartley, who died in 1943, and a watercolor of two seminude figures by Charles Demuth, who died in 1935.

As always, the Biennial has a full program of films and videos. Included is work by the pioneering underground filmmaker of the ’60s, George Kuchar, who died in 2011 and whose “Weather Diaries” document annual visits to the shabby El Reno hotel in tornado-alley, Oklahoma.

Winter just isn’t winter without ice-skating in New York City. And though most of us can probably name two or three rinks off the top of our heads, there are actually 11 facilities open for public ice-skating this holiday season throughout the City. (The famous Kate Wollman Rink in Prospect Park is currently undergoing renovations and is closed for the season.) The most well-known of the City’s rinks is without a doubt The Ice Rink at Rockefeller Center. Millions of visitors plan trips to the City every year just to catch a glimpse of skaters taking a spin on the ice below the famous Christmas tree and gilded statue of Prometheus, and others will wait in long lines to experience it for themselves. Surrounded by famous restaurants, shops and landmarks, Rockefeller Center provides the quintessential NYC skating experience.

Admission at the rink varies throughout the season. Between October 9 and November 4, Monday through Thursday, adults pay $10 and children under 11 are $7.50. Friday through Sunday, adults are $14 and children are $8.50. During this time period, skate rental costs $8. If you visit the Rockefeller Center rink November 5–18, from Monday to Thursday, adults are $15.50 and children under 11 are $9.50; Friday through Sunday, adults are $19 and children are $10.50. Between November 19, 2010, and January 7, 2011, adults are $19 and children are $12.50 each day. Skate rental from November 5, 2010, through January 7, 2011, is $9.

If Rockefeller Center gets too crowded, you can visit one of the five other rinks in Manhattan. Walk several blocks south and you’ll hit Citi Pond at Bryant Park, the most affordable rink in all of New York City (if you already own a pair of skates)—admission is free; skate rental costs $13. The rink is centrally located, off Sixth Avenue between West 40th and West 42nd Streets, and Bryant Park also hosts annual holiday shops if you want to cross some gifts off your list after your turn around the ice. Citi Pond at Bryant Park closes on February 27, 2011.

Few rinks can match the ambience of Central Park’s Wollman Rink, located inside the park between West 62nd and West 63rd Streets, especially after a fresh snowfall. This rink closes on April 3, 2011. For adults, admission is $10.25 (Monday through Thursday) or $14.75 (Friday through Sunday); for kids, it’s $5.50 (Monday through Thursday) or $5.75 (Friday through Sunday). Skate rental is $6.25. Farther north in Central Park is Lasker Rink, between West 106th and West 108th Streets. Lasker Rink closes on March 27, 2011; admission is $6.50 for adults and $3.50 for children 12 and under. Skate rental is $5.50. If you get the chance to skate at Wollman or Lasker Rinks at night, be sure to look up for some New York City stargazing opportunities.

Even farther north, in the Hamilton Heights section of the City, is The Ice Rink at Riverbank State Park. Riverbank, along Henry Hudson Parkway between West 138th and West 145th Streets, is the only state park in Manhattan, and it offers incredible river views across to New Jersey and gorgeous vistas of the George Washington Bridge. Its rink is open for public ice-skating Friday to Sunday from November 2010 through March 2011. Rates for the season have yet to be determined; check the Riverbank State Park website for updates.

If you prefer to skate downtown, visit the Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers. This enormous sports complex offers ice-skating year-round (just in case the mood should strike you in mid-July). Admission is $13 for adults and $10.50 for children; skate rental is $7.50.

In Queens, the World Ice Arena in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park is open year-round. Skating is $5 Monday through Friday; for Friday’s evening session and those on Saturday and Sunday, the rate is $8. Skate rental is $5. Long Island City, meanwhile, is home to City Ice Pavilion, a facility offering the only rooftop ice-skating in New York City. Admission is $5 Monday to Friday and $8 Saturday and Sunday. Skate rental is $5.

If you’re headed to Brooklyn, you’ll have two skating rinks to choose from, each boasting its own incredible environment. Already missing the beach? Take a trip to Abe Stark Rink, located along the Coney Island Boardwalk. The rink is scheduled to open after Thanksgiving and close in March 2011. Abe Stark Rink is open for public skating on Saturday and Sunday; admission is $8 and skate rental is $4. Your other option is to take a trip to the Aviator Sports and Events Center at Floyd Bennett Field for indoor ice-skating year-round, where you can rest up in the sports lounge before or after your skate. Adult skating is $8, children skate for $6 and skate rental is $5.

Last but certainly not least, Staten Island is home to the Staten Island War Memorial Ice Skating Rink, located in Clove Lakes Park. This rink is encased within a huge heated white bubble, similar to that of enclosed tennis courts. The rink closes in March 2011.

In addition to public skating, many of the above rinks offer skating lessons, group rates and private-party bookings. Some even have their own hockey leagues, with open enrollment. So now that you have the scoop, it’s time to lace up your skates and go have some winter fun!

When: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 8:00PM
Where: Central Park/Mainstage
info@SummerStage.org
(212) 360-2777

SummerStage is pleased to welcome back Comedy Central for their fourth annual free comedy program. This show will feature stand-up performances by correspondents and friends of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart including Rory Albanese, John Oliver, Rob Riggle and more.

Lewis Black has performed his caustic, cranky, bile-spewing, dead-on social and political comedy throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. As “America’s Foremost Commentator on Everything,” he is a weekly political commentator on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has starred in comedy specials for the network.

Now that the Bloomberg administration has snatched Governors Island from New York’s paralytic and destitute state government, the city can do something radically old-fashioned: build a big new park and hope that greenbacks will follow greenery instead of the other way around.

Think of Governors Island as a pair of conjoined pancakes, one bumpy, the other flat. The bumpy pancake, which faces north toward lower Manhattan, contains fortifications run by the National Park Service and a landmarked historic district of old military buildings that can be spiffed up but not transformed. Pancake No. 2, a flat, unpromising wasteland, will be partitioned between a core of sculpted parkland and blank patches available for private development. So far, the island has attracted plenty of fantasies—an NYU outpost, a conference center, a theater, a hotel—but no developer has offered any concrete proposal. So the agency that administers the island commissioned the Dutch architectural firm West 8 to fashion the park first and let future buildings form around it. The result would be 87 acres of public space that’s truly public, including ball fields with views of the Statue of Liberty and man-made hills and dales.

For decades, new open areas have been born as by-products of business deals and carved out of leftover acreage into awkward, stingy shapes. A 1961 law traded space in the sky for space on the ground in midtown: Companies that built public plazas could pack an extra 20 percent onto their towers’ height. The city and state have funded the construction of Hudson River Park, but not its upkeep. The Bloomberg administration’s rezoning of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront forced developers to adorn their high-rises with a strip of greenery. The financing for Brooklyn Bridge Park presupposed a phalanx of condos and a big hotel. The High Line was predicated on its power to boost property values. Gradually, a new park evolved from a public good to just another real-estate amenity, like closet space.

If that doctrine had governed New York during its most frantic periods of growth, this would be a far less breathable city. Central Park and Prospect Park exist because nineteenth-century aristocrats and politicians concurred that creating a place where urban multitudes could immerse themselves in nature was a civic undertaking, not a business venture. In the thirties, Robert Moses expanded Riverside Park as a scenic haven from industrial grime.

The future of Governors Island is shaped less by lofty aspirations than by a history of puzzled neglect. Since nobody could quite figure out how to make money there, it has been lying in a state of suggestive dilapidation. During the years when the state government festered, funding dried up, and delays mounted, the island turned into a real-life laboratory of leisure. Leslie Koch, president of the agency that administers the island, has used her paltry budget to entice a growing stream of visitors and to experiment with low-tech attractions like hammocks and free bicycles. The once forbidden island has quietly insinuated itself into the public’s consciousness, and the lessons learned from observing New Yorkers at play have made their way into the future park’s design—which is why the Dutch architect Adriaan Geuze’s design for the park includes a “Hammock Grove.”

If the city’s initiative winds up luring investment, then all of Koch’s watching, waiting, and tinkering will eventually yield a private project that began with a public park—a campus or complex that molds itself to the contoured land and architecture that takes its cues from pathways, hills, and people. Governors Island could wind up being the most conspicuously virtuous legacy of Mayor Bloomberg’s third term.