Art

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares33 Views

    Anne Imhof’s ‘Doom’ at the Armory Has Everything, and Nothing

    by

    A Berlin nightclub habitué of my acquaintance has admonished me, more than once, not to go to concerts or parties without earplugs; too many D.J.s now crank to dangerous decibels, so have your fun and save your hearing. I forgot his advice ahead of “Doom: House of Hope,” an evening-length spectacle of attitude and abjection by the German artist and choreographer Anne Imhof, and may have developed tinnitus as a result.Your ears are not the only organs that may suffer if you come to the Park Avenue Armory, where Imhof’s massive performance work has been one of the most anticipated events of the winter season, and (thanks to its performers as well as its public) is already one of the most Instagrammed. You’ll start out in a corral with a thousand other spectators, prevented from moving forward by crowd control barriers. Expressionless, glassy-eyed performers will soon move toward you as a droning electronic score blares. You’ll be released to explore the whole 55,500-square-foot Drill Hall soon, but ticket holders should, like sensible Germans, opt for comfortable shoes: You’re on your feet throughout.Around the large hall are two dozen brand-new Cadillac Escalades, the preferred conveyance of the American oligarchy, whose roofs will become stages for limber dancers and mournful singers, and whose trunks will serve variously as pop-up bar, chess competition venue, vape break area and makeshift tattoo parlor. To follow the action of “Doom” you’ll have to chase the performers around the S.U.V.s, onto several stages, and even into the dressing rooms, while above you, on a Jumbotron scoreboard, the evening’s duration ticks down: three hours to go.The experience of “Doom” is indeed not unlike a night at the club — wending your way through a converted warehouse, losing your friends in the darkness, oscillating from moments of excessive emotion to total boredom. If you get bored, you can always look at your phone; to Imhof, your phone, and your boredom, are integral.A spectacle of attitude and abjection: the tale of Romeo and Juliet, told backward. Efron Danzig, below, and Toon Lobach.Cadillac Escalades become stages for limber dancers and mournful singers, with Lia Wang as Tybalt.This is a night of harsh contradictions, and I just can’t girdle my judgment into cheer-or-jeer format. “Doom” is narcissistic, frivolous, sometimes naïve — and still, despite all this, feels more important than a hundred cash-and-carry exhibitions in Chelsea. Its roughly 40 performers, who mutter in monotone when they aren’t just staring into space, indulge a youthful nihilism that is obvious and tiresome — until an extraordinary shift in the third hour (by which time much of the opening night’s audience had bailed), when they find grand, even Romantic purpose.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares54 Views

      in Theater

      A Disruptor Asks, Is New York Finally Ready for ‘DOOM’?

      by

      Barking Doberman pinchers behind chain link fencing and performers who looked like they came straight from the Berlin club scene made the ultracool German performance artist Anne Imhof infamous.But last week, at her first rehearsal for “DOOM: House of Hope” at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, there were no dogs in sight.There were still those impossibly beautiful performers, though, many very young. They were sprawled on the floor of one of the Armory’s rehearsal spaces, sitting at the piano, testing out bits of movement, or rehearsing lines from marked up copies of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” — the new project’s starting point.Belying her works’ fierce, sometimes aggro aesthetics, Imhof was a gentle, observing presence, not so much directing the performers but asking them how they wanted to proceed — utterly unlike the strict rigor of, say, a ballet rehearsal.“I count on chance and accidents and things that are not planned,” the 46-year-old Berlin-based artist told me. “There has to be enough openness to it that the performers have agency.”“I count on chance and accidents and things that are not planned,” said Imhof, 46, who conceived of “DOOM” as a performance best suited for the Armory, rather than an artwork for a museum. She had wanted to do a ballet for a long time.Tess Mayer for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares114 Views

      in Music

      Coming Soon to Trump’s Kennedy Center: A Celebration of Christ

      by

      President Trump took control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington only last week. But his administration is already making plans for reshaping the institution’s programming.Chief among them: a celebration of Christ planned for December. Richard Grenell, whom Mr. Trump named as the Kennedy Center’s new president, told a conservative gathering on Friday that the “big change” at the center would be that “we are doing a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas.”“How crazy is it to think that we’re going to celebrate Christ at Christmas with a big traditional production, to celebrate what we are all celebrating in the world during Christmastime, which is the birth of Christ?” Mr. Grenell said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md.The Kennedy Center has long held Christmas-themed events.Last December, the center hosted “A Candlelight Christmas” by the Washington Chorus; “A Family Christmas” by the Choral Arts Society of Washington; and “Go Tell It,” a Christmas celebration by the Alfred Street Baptist Church, a prominent Black church in Virginia. (On Sunday, the church said it would cancel its Christmas concert there this year because the Kennedy Center’s new leaders stood in opposition to the “longstanding tradition of honoring artistic expression across all backgrounds.”)Mr. Grenell’s comments were his first public remarks in which he discussed his plans as the Kennedy Center’s new leader. His appointment was part of a series of extraordinary actions Mr. Trump took to solidify control over the Kennedy Center, which has been a bipartisan institution throughout its 54-year history.Mr. Trump, who stayed away from the Kennedy Center Honors during his first term after some of the artists being honored criticized him, stunned the cultural world when he decided this month to purge the center’s board of all Biden appointees and install himself as chairman, ousting the financier David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. The new board fired Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for more than a decade, and the post was given to Mr. Grenell, a Trump loyalist who was ambassador to Germany during the president’s first term.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares82 Views

      in Music

      At Kennedy Center, Trump Inherits a Tough Job: Fund-Raising

      by

      For the arts institution, which receives only a small portion of its budget from federal funding, the perennial challenge is to raise additional revenue through ticket sales and private donations.In just one week, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has been completely transformed.President Trump purged the center’s board of all Biden appointees and installed himself as chairman, ousting the financier David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. The new board fired Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for more than a decade. At least three other top staff members were dismissed.Performers have dropped out in protest amid fears that Mr. Trump’s call to rid the center of “woke” influences, drag shows and “anti-American propaganda” will result in a reshaping of programming too narrowly aligned with the president’s own tastes.This concern — that the center’s tradition of pluralism, free expression and classical art forms is in jeopardy — has dominated conversation about its future. But just as relevant, experts say, are questions about its financial stability.Though the abrupt takeover by the new administration might suggest the center is an arts adjunct of the federal government, it is actually a semi-independent nonprofit.It operates under the Smithsonian Institution as a public-private partnership, and only a small portion of its $268 million budget — about $43 million, or 16 percent — comes from the federal government. That subsidy is not spent on programming but is earmarked for operations, maintenance and repairs of the property, which is federally owned.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares183 Views

      in Theater

      David Edward Byrd, Whose Posters Captured Rock’s Energy, Dies at 83

      by

      David Edward Byrd, who captured the swirl and energy of the 1960s and early ’70s by conjuring pinwheels of color with indelible posters for concerts by Jimi Hendrix, the Who and the Rolling Stones as well as for hit stage musicals like “Follies” and “Godspell,” died on Feb. 3 in Albuquerque. He was 83.His husband and only immediate survivor, Jolino Beserra, said the cause of death, in a hospital, was pneumonia brought on by lung damage from Covid.Mr. Byrd made his name, starting in 1968, with striking posters for the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Iron Butterfly and Traffic at the Fillmore East, the Lower Manhattan Valhalla of rock operated by the powerhouse promoter Bill Graham.For a concert there that year by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Mr. Byrd rendered the guitar wizard’s hair in a field of circles, which blended with the explosive hairstyles of his bandmates, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell.For a 1968 concert at the Fillmore East by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, David Edward Byrd rendered the guitar wizard’s hair in a field of circles, which blended with the explosive hairstyles of his bandmates, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell.Design sketch via “Poster Child: The Psychedelic Art & Technicolor Life of David Edward Byrd,” by David Edward Byrd and Robert von Goeben; final poster, Bill Graham Archives, LLCMr. Byrd also put his visual stamp on the Who’s landmark rock opera, “Tommy,” producing posters for it when it was performed at the Fillmore East in October 1969 and again, triumphantly, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York a few months later. In 1973, he shared a Grammy Award for his illustration work on the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s rendition of “Tommy.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares177 Views

      in Music

      Trump Names Richard Grenell Interim Leader of Kennedy Center

      by

      President Trump announced in a post on social media Monday that he was appointing Richard Grenell as the “interim executive director” of the Kennedy Center in Washington. Mr. Grenell, who was Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration, is one of his most fiercely loyal apparatchiks.The president wrote that Mr. Grenell “shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture” and would be overseeing “daily operations” to ensure there was no more “ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA.”The appointment was just the latest in a series of moves designed to strengthen Mr. Trump’s grip on the performing arts center in Washington.He kicked off a purge Friday night, when Mr. Trump announced his intent to gut the Kennedy Center’s board and install himself as chairman. He had denounced the center’s programming choices.On Monday, 18 board members and the board chairman were removed from an official roster on the center’s website. The excised members were appointees of Mr. Trump’s predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr. The board’s chairman, David M. Rubenstein, was also removed.Mr. Rubenstein, a financier who was initially appointed to the board by former President George W. Bush, has given $111 million to the center over the years, making him the biggest donor in its history.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Paint Me a Road Out of Here’: Faith Ringgold’s Gift to Prisoners

      by

      In this documentary, the artist depicts what a more just and beautiful world might look like.In 1971, the artist Faith Ringgold received a grant to make a painting for a public institution in New York City. She decided to ask the prisoners in the Women’s House of Detention on Rikers Island what they wanted to see in a painting. “I want to see a road leading out of here,” one incarcerated woman told her.Ringgold took that idea and ran with it. She didn’t paint a literal road. Instead, her canvas — entitled “For the Women’s House” and installed at the prison in January 1972 — is divided into eight sections. In each, women are depicted performing jobs traditionally held by men at the time: bus driver, construction worker, basketball player, president. The road is implied: Seeing women in positions and roles they don’t always occupy can open up the viewer’s world. She might be in a prison for now, but there’s a place for her worth aspiring to beyond these walls.This was Ringgold’s imagination at work, always depicting what a more just and beautiful world might look like, particularly for the people whom the powerful prefer to ignore. Ringgold and “For the Women’s House” both appear in the documentary “Paint Me a Road Out of Here” (in theaters), directed by Catherine Gund, and hearing and seeing her talk is reason enough to see the film. Ringgold died in 2024 at 93, and is widely considered one of the most important American artists of the 20th century, a native New Yorker who was unflagging in her activism and commitments to dismantle racism wherever it surfaced. As a Black woman and an artist, she insisted on coupling political meaning with her work, which is suffused with curiosity and joy.“Paint Me a Road Out Of Here” is not a biographical film about Ringgold, even though you’ll learn a lot about her biography from it. The film has bigger aspirations, connecting art, prisons, activism and an expansive life. One major subject in the film is the artist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, an executive producer of the film whose prison reform work often draws on her own experiences while incarcerated. Shortly after her own arrest, for example, Baxter went into labor — 43 hours while shackled to a bed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Fun Things to Do in NYC in February 2025

      by

      Looking for something to do in New York? Enjoy laughs with Liza Treyger, learn about Clara Schumann, or see the Urban Bush Women in a Great Migration love story.ComedyLiza Treyger, above in her new Netflix comedy special, “Night Owl,” will host a “Show and Tell” at Union Hall on Friday.Netflix‘Show and Tell With Liza Treyger’Feb. 7 at 10 p.m. at Union Hall, 702 Union Street, Brooklyn; unionhallny.com.Hot off the heels of the debut of “Night Owl,” her hourlong comedy special on Netflix, Liza Treyger is presenting this showcase in which her funny friends joke about their most cherished possessions.Treyger, who was born in the former Soviet Union and grew up on the outskirts of Chicago, has made a name for herself in the New York City comedy scene over the past decade through her blunt appraisals of herself and society’s sexual politics. This reputation earned her an appearance on Netflix’s “Survival of the Thickest” and a consultant gig on “The Eric Andre Show.” She recently had a supporting role on an episode of the Amazon Prime Video series “Harlem.”Taking part in Treyger’s “Show and Tell” on Friday are Tommy McNamara, Drew Anderson, Marie Faustin and Molly Kearney. Tickets are $15 on Eventbrite. SEAN L. McCARTHYMusicFrom left, Why Bonnie’s Blair Howerton on guitar, Josh Malett on drums and Chance Williams on bass, in Boston in 2022. The band will be at Night Club 101 on Friday.Olivia LeonPop & RockWhy BonnieFeb. 7 at 8 p.m. at Night Club 101, 101 Avenue A, Manhattan; dice.fm.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More