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Gagosian exhibits Nan Goldin's 'Sisters, Saints, Sibyls' at former Welsh chapel in London
LONDON.- Gagosian is presenting Nan Goldin’s Sisters, Saints, Sibyls, the second presentation of Gagosian Open, a series of off-site projects that allows audiences to experience remarkable artworks in unusual contexts. The exhibition is on view at the former Welsh chapel at 83 Charing Cross Road, London, from May 30 to June 23, 2024. Goldin begins her film Sisters, Saints, Sibyls (2004–22) with the myth of Saint Barbara, presenting the story of the early Christian martyr as a three-channel projection that echoes the triptych format of classical religious painting. Images of Saint Barbara accompany a voiceover that describes her defiance of her parents’ beliefs, a transgression for which they tortured her. This is analogous to the real subject of Goldin’s film and underpins its visual narrative. In 1958, Goldin’s elder sister, Barbara ... More

Pace presents a group show curated by Cy Schnabel at its gallery in Seoul
SEOUL.- Pace is presenting Illusive Places: Thomas Chapman, Alejandro Garmendia, Louis Jacquot, Lucy Mullican, Milko Pavlov, a group show curated by Cy Schnabel, at its gallery in Seoul. This exhibition, on view from May 10 to June 15, brings together works by artists who, in one way or another, share an interest in reinventing landscape painting. These five artists—Thomas Chapman, Alejandro Garmendia, Louis Jacquot, Lucy Mullican, and Milko Pavlov—use landscape as a point of departure to create nuanced approaches to subject matter, form, and content. Throughout this exhibition, natural settings turn into imaginary realms that suggest new perspectives of the physical world and life in general. An abstracted sense of space in the pictures on view gives way to unstable compositions that are charged with desire, fantasy, and sometimes ... More

Kendra Jayne Patrick opens Eva & Franco Mattes latest exhibition
BERN.- Kendra Jayne Patrick is presenting Eva & Franco Mattes’ first solo gallery exhibition in Switzerland. Since the early nineties, the duo are renowned for prescient artworks that materialize the exchanges between the visible and invisible infrastructures which compose our entirely internet-ed lives. From Net Art’s inception - and indeed, the Mattes’ work is foundational to any understanding of the genre - their sculptural/and/or/video objects rework familiar hard- & softwares to reveal how the omnipresent sequences of zeros and ones in our digitized society shape notions of labor, time, one another, and self. The Mattes’ objects have always borne witness to the dystopian potential of total visibility. At the same time, the works themselves are methods - however macabre, funny, or questionable - for subverting the precarious conditions ... More

Leslye Headland hopes the force is with 'The Acolyte'
NEW YORK, NY.- Leslye Headland has been telling “Star Wars” stories onscreen since she was a teenager. Ostracized at school for being different, she retreated inward, making stop-motion films starring her action figures. So when she found success as an adult in Hollywood — Headland helped create “Russian Doll,” the 2019 Netflix comedy starring Natasha Lyonne — and got the chance to create an actual “Star Wars” show, it was the realization of a lifelong dream. And a chance for humiliating failure. On a galactic scale. “I essentially cold-called Lucasfilm and, after a lot of conversations, found myself pitching a show — utterly elated, my ultimate career goal, the culmination of my fandom,” Headland said. “At the same time, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. There is so much pressure. It’s extreme. I had never done anything this big before.” ... More

Review: For 'Molly Sweeney,' not seeing was never the obstacle
NEW YORK, NY.- Molly Sweeney can identify dozens of plants by touch, catch a lie in a familiar voice and dance ecstatically through a crowd without disturbing a hair. Because she lost much of her eyesight when she was 10 months old — except, crucially, her ability to discern light from dark — Molly has developed keen powers of sensory perception. Sure-footed though she is, the title character in “Molly Sweeney,” now running at the Irish Repertory Theater, is treated like a pawn by two men who can’t see beyond their own self-interests. That’s one of several conspicuous paradoxes explored in Brian Friel’s 1994 confessional drama, the final installment of the theater’s season devoted to the playwright’s work. Like Friel’s more often revived “Faith Healer,” “Molly Sweeney” is told through a series of monologues addressed to the audience. All ... More

Richard Ellis, 'poet laureate' of deep-sea creatures, dies at 86
NEW YORK, NY.- Richard Ellis, a polymath of marine life whose paintings, books and museum installations — especially the life-size blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History in New York — revealed the beauty and wonders of the ocean, died May 21 in Norwood, New Jersey. He was 86. His daughter, Elizabeth Ellis, said the cause of his death, at an assisted living facility, was cardiac arrest. Ellis had no formal training in marine biology, conservation, painting or writing. But in fusing his artistic flair with an encyclopedic knowledge of ocean creatures, he became an invaluable, sui generis figure to conservationists, educators and those curious about sea life. “Richard was an enthusiast, and he absolutely adored the natural world, especially the sea,” said Ellen V. Futter, the former presiden ... More

Jaap van Zweden's brief, fraught time atop the New York Philharmonic
NEW YORK, NY.- On a balmy spring morning, after a breakfast of coffee and plain yogurt at a luxury Manhattan hotel, Jaap van Zweden grabbed his bag of conducting batons and scores by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Sofia Gubaidulina and set out for Lincoln Center through the wilds of Central Park. “I love the air, I love the trees,” he said. “Everybody can do whatever they want here. This is freedom, absolute freedom.” Van Zweden, 63, will leave the New York Philharmonic this summer after six seasons as its music director, the shortest tenure of any maestro since Pierre Boulez, the eminent French composer and conductor who led the Philharmonic in the 1970s. Van Zweden helped the orchestra emerge from the turbulence of the pandemic; shepherded it through a trying, nomadic season when its home, David Geffen Hall, was undergoing a $550 ... More

Amid orchestral waves, the sound of cultures conversing
CINCINNATI, OH.- Eleven members of Steiger Butte Drum sat in a circle around a large elk-hide drum at the front of the stage of Cincinnati’s Music Hall last Thursday. Washes of sound from the orchestra behind them built and receded in grand waves. The group was the concerto soloist, of a kind, in “Natural History” by Michael Gordon, one of the Bang on a Can composers who infused minimalism with rough, rebellious energy in the 1980s. A few times over the course of the 25-minute piece, Steiger Butte Drum, a traditional percussion and vocal ensemble of the Klamath Tribes of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, broke out in a ceremonial song, the members beating the drum in fast, dramatic unison as they made a piercing, tangily pitch-bending, wordlessly wailing chant. They were joined by a full chorus, placed in the first balcony: the men ... More

At City Ballet, a once-in-a-generation dancer arrives
NEW YORK, NY.- Mira Nadon was 5 when she took her first ballet class. It was pre-ballet, which meant running around the studio, maybe getting a shot at fluttering like a butterfly. This was not for her. When she found out that students began proper training at 6, Nadon laid it on the line: “I told my mom, ‘This isn’t serious,’” she said. “‘I’m just going to wait till I’m 6.’” Even then Nadon was levelheaded and unflappable. Now, at 23, she is a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, approaching the close of a momentous season at Lincoln Center, where her versatility, artistry and jaw-dropping abandon have made her seem like a ballerina superhero. This week, she returns to the role of Helena, the rejected young woman determined to win her lover back in George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” An affinity for drama is in her bones, but something ... More

How 3 Texas teenagers grew up to be Broadway stars (and stayed friends)
NEW YORK, NY.- After a curtain call at a recent performance of “Hamilton,” Trey Curtis, who stars as Alexander Hamilton, put his arm around J. Quinton Johnson, who had played George Washington. They basked in the applause, shared a laugh and walked together offstage at the Richard Rodgers Theater. A block away, and nearly simultaneously, Vincent Jamal Hooper, who stars as Simba in “The Lion King,” was absorbing the cheers of the 1,700 theatergoers at the Minskoff Theater. It had been about a decade since the three men, now 29, had spent aimless nights in Austin, Texas, riding around in Johnson’s 2007 Jeep blasting show tunes — dreaming of plays they were still to perform in and music they were yet to write. Today, they are musical theater stars, appearing in some of the most commercially and critically acclaimed productions on ... More

Hamburger Bahnhof presents Marianna Simnett's "Winner"
BERLIN.- The Berlin-based artist Marianna Simnett is presenting her new film installation "WINNER" at Hamburger Bahnhof, which deals with the societal impact of soccer. This new production for Hamburger Bahnhof is being shown on the occasion of the 2024 European Football Championship in Germany. In three acts, "WINNER" echoes the dramaturgy of the game and dissects its socially constructed power hierarchies, crowd psychology, and constant pressure to perform. Through the element of dance, the work restages and radically transforms football’s most impassioned moments: elation and triumph, brutality and ferocity, suffering and defeat. The multidisciplinary approach of Marianna Simnett (born 1986 in London, UK; lives and works in Berlin) combines film, dance and music. The five-channel film installation "WINNER" (2024), ... More

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