Art Appreciation for Depressives

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Outline

1. Introduction
   1. Never having been a fan
   2. Other things do it better than art
   3. Art = Shame
2. Jessica Stockholder
   1. Reaction against the way art is normally written about
   2. Looking at objects as opposed to relating to them in a textual manner, viz how they've been written about before

2. The MoMA/PS1 Situation
   1. Klaus and the summer programming
   2. Alana and James Franco
   3. Everybody and James Franco
   4. Everybody and Jay-Z (esp. Marina)

3. Gals about Town
   1. Fran Lebowitz: so disappointing
   2. Dorothy Parker: yes, please. May I have another?
   3. Jean Stafford
   4. Elizabeth Hardwick
   5. Sandra Bernhard: I'm not sure that I get it...
   6. Adrian Piper

4. Other Rooms, Other Voices
   1. Trying to be alone in the city
   2. Gay spaces
   3. Coffee Shops and bars

5. Shopping
   1. How I learned to stop worrying and love the Capitalism
   2. IKEA
   3. KIOSK
   4. The idea of the gallery
   5. The big department stores
   6. Thrift shops (vs. Vintage)

6. Some Guys
   1. See list in the back of the notebook. In this section I want to talk about particular artists who mean something to me.

7. Artists and Time
   1. Kafka
   2. Jane Bowles
   3. Proust
   4. David Foster Wallace

JAY-Z:

Kalup Linzy

enjoyed Jay-Z's performance today at Pace. I ws a bit nervous early on. Finally, I gave him a high-five, went out, shook his hand, after I sat down with my friend Xaviera Simmons, the electricity went out. I was reminded of Beyonce's superbowl moment.... We sat there for five minutes. Didn't get another moment....they wanted to give other people a chance, his manager said. "You've been profiled enough." she continued. I enjoyed it, but left wanting another moment.....It was a great moment! A fun day!

A Doll's House at BAM

By Henrik Ibsen
English language version by Simon Stephens
Young Vic
Directed by Carrie Cracknell

Hattie Morahan is incandescent in this faithful remounting of the classic. Ian MacNeil's revolving set is funny, smart and terrifying. 

Paul Taylor Dance Company: Diamond Anniversary

Photo: Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

 A strange evening of somehow very American-feeling dance. Incredibly hunky, muscled-out dancers performing routines of extraordinary athleticism without even a whiff of sex in evidence. I think that must be very hard to do... it was like watching action figures come to life. Amazing.

Forbidden Broadway: Comes Out Swinging!

The inimitable Katie Vida needed a little cheering up. Let me say simply that I will never, ever, look at Mandy Patinkin the same way again.

What Is A Photograph? at the ICP

The Servant, dir Joseph Losey, at MoMA

Harold Pinter's 1963 adaptation of Robin Maugham's 1948 novella. Sex, friendship, desire, loneliness, apparent incest, good clothes, humilitation, domestic service, broken dreams and cocktails. What's not to love?

Love and Information, by Caryl Churchill, at the Minetta Lane

Linda Bassett and Josh Williams in Linguist, one of the scenes. Photo: Donald Cooper

Directed by James Macdonald

Caryl Churchill's Far Away was one of the most formative theater-going experiences for me (and was the first time I saw Marin Ireland on stage,) so it was a great deal of excitement that I looked forward to seeing Love and Information. It's a Twitter play; very short, rapid fire scenes cascade down at you from beginning to end in a seamless set (designed by Miriam Buether) in which props and actors appear and disappear as if by magic. It left me feeling breathless and excited immediately afterward, though now I rather wish I had a copy of the script to remind me of what happened; it's rather like just after a train passes when you've been standing too close to the tracks, at night, and you're a kid.  

Jonathan Groff at Lincoln Center, American Songbook

Thanks to Nicolaus Aufdenkampe for inviting me!