Sidra Bell Dance New York at The Met Breuer

Last evening, as part of its Theater of the Resist series, The Met Breuer hosted bass-baritone Davóne Tines (singing Julius Eastman's searing Prelude to The Holy Presence of Jeanne d'Arc), rapper Himanshu Suri (a.k.a. Heems) and Sidra Bell Dance New York. I don't know if the museum installed the metal bleacher and bench seating to keep us all on edge to the point of mind-alteration but, if so, the artists certainly did their part. Curated and MC'd by media/culture writer Kali Holloway--who, frankly, often seemed as stunned as her audience--the two-hour program offered various media and modes of artistic resistance to the ground, unholy and toxic, in which we currently find ourselves.

I was there, primarily, for Bell's Stella (2012), which you can see tonight at 6pm. The ensemble dances in a relatively shallow space across the gallery and gets up close to front-row folks in ways that heighten the persistent air of tension, risk and thrill. There are the crisp rhythms of street dance, the stark, deep-queer glamour of a fashion catwalk, the enigmatic drama that just does not quit. Bell calls upon a seemingly limitless supply of intricate movement ideas and shows no hesitation to share this largesse. And, from start to finish, her disciplined crew is ON IT.

Video closeups amplify the unfiltered anxiety with performers staring into the camera and repeatedly tugging or clawing at their own bare flesh for reasons that remain mysterious.

Sometimes you visit museums to see dance that addresses museum space (its design, contents, atmosphere and everyday functions) in harmonizing or questioning and possibly illuminating ways. Sometimes you go, and it's just another container for performance; the dance, not made for its surroundings, could have happened elsewhere. As for Stella, she simply blasts herself into The Met Breuer and makes her formidable presence felt.

Tonight and all Theater of the Resist programs are free with museum admission and run from 6pm to 8pm. For the best seating, make your way to the 5th Floor no later than 5:30pm. For information, click here.

Upcoming events 

in the Met Breuer's Theater of the Resist series
through August 12:

Saturday, July 29

For Living Lovers with Brandon Ross, and Stomu Takeishi, musicians, and poet Sadiq Bey

Sidra Bell Dance New York

M. Lamar, performer

Friday, August 4

Nicole Fleetwood, Associate Professor Department of American Studies, Rutgers University moderates discussion between Lifers Group members Maxwell Melvins, president, and rapper Picard "Original" Galette.

Saturday, August 5

Stew, Singer-songwriter, playwright

Gina Yashere, British comedian

Friday, August 11

Film: Strong Island (2017)

with Q&A with filmmaker Yance Ford

Saturday, August 12

Maria Usbeck, Ecuadorian musician, traveler and diarist

Aparna Nancherla, introspective and outrospective standup comedian

DJ Mojo: Music is Life, directed by Lawrence Kim

(2017 documentary short, 5 mins.)

Live set by DJ Mojo

The Met Breuer
945 Madison (at 75th Street)
(map/directions)

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Four minutes are plenty: NDT at The Met Breuer

Chuck Jones and Parveneh Scharafali
of Nederlands Dans Theater in Shutters Shut
(photo:  © Joris-Jan Bos Photography)

My crazy dance-going life includes things like spending time and subway fare to run up to The Met Breuer on a Saturday afternoon to catch a dance performance lasting all of four minutes.

And then, on the way out, looking longingly from the elevator's open door at the Kerry James Marshall show, powerfully drawn to revisit it but knowing I had to hustle back downtown for a DraftWork showing at Danspace Project.

And then, with less time to spare than I'd hoped, having to abandon my already rerouted downtown bus when it finally could not make it past an anti-Trump demonstration streaming down Fifth Avenue. That's okay. Walking's good for me, and walking's good for our nation. Win/win.

A gallery space on Met Breuer's fifth floor hosted the clever Sol León/Paul Lightfoot duet, Shutters Shut (2003), performed by Chuck Jones and Parvaneh Scharafali of Nederlands Dans Theater. It was repeated three times on the hour, from 1pm to 3pm, before an audience seated on four forward-facing benches and floor cushions. Many people stood to see into the initially roped-off, horizontal and narrow performance area. At a few minutes to the hour, attendants unclasped the front rope, and the dancers backpedaled into their space, Jones followed by Scharafali.

Here's a snippet of the duet, inspired by Gertrude Stein's recitation of "If I Told Him: A Complete Portrait of Picasso" (1923), with its hypnotic, staccato Cubist rhythms so well captured here in physical movement.

NDT's performances of Shutters Shut were presented in conjunction with the exhibition Humor and Fantasy—The Berggruen Paul Klee Collection, on view at The Met Breuer, September 1, 2016–January 2, 2017. For information on the exhibition, click here.

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The Met Breuer presents "Kerry James Marshall: Mastry"

Detail, Untitled (Studio), 2014
Kerry James Marshall
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Kerry James Marshall (American, b. 1955). Untitled (Studio), 2014. Acrylic on PVC panels. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Gift, Acquisitions Fund and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Multicultural Audience Development Initiative Gift, 2015 (2015.366) © Kerry James Marshall

Kerry James Marshall at press preview
for Kerry James Marshall: Mastry at The Met Breuer
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Tomorrow, The Met Breuer opens its first monographic exhibition for a living artist--Alabama-born Kerry James Marshall. Open through January 27, 2017, Kerry James Marshall: Mastry explores over 35 years of the artist's dedication to telling complex stories of Black experience.

Detail, Bang, 1994
Kerry James Marshall
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

At a press preview for the show--introduced by Met director and CEO Thomas P. Campbell and exhibition co-curator Ian Alteveer--Marshall spoke of imagery's power to inspire a more expansive sense of possibilities than we generally allow ourselves to imagine. His work positions Black people, for better or for worse, squarely in the fabric of America, just as he joyfully positions himself and his work within the stream of great Western and world art history.

Wall text at the exhibition describes Marshall's "defiant and celebratory assertion of blackness in a medium in which African-Americans have often been invisible." At the preview, he explained that curious word "mastry" as an act of undermining the authority of master over servant. In every work of Marshall's art, you can hear that "e" drop like a mic.

Detail, Memento #5 (2003)
Kerry James Marshall
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Marshall can do what he wants with the word "master" because, in its most positive meaning, it absolutely belongs to him. Large (as many of the paintings are) or small, vibrantly bright or pitch dark, narrative-based or abstract, austere or decorative, each one of his works has a formal and expressive confidence you will come to recognize as pure Marshall.

Overall, he renders skin tones slate black and darker in ways that appear stereotypical only to those too timid to imagine a Blackness that hearty and that sure of itself. I came to call it "royal black"--like royal blue or royal purple. A 2014 work called Untitled (Club People) stands as one of its best examples. It depicts a young couple out on a date, being completely themselves, free of whatever might constrict them at other hours. They are radiantly royal black.

The show also includes 40 works from the Met collection by artists who have interested and influenced Marshall. The list is long, diverse, uniting everyone from Albrecht Dürer to Willem de Kooning, from Andrew Wyeth to an anonymous mask maker of the Dan. But exploring Marshall's work itself with even a layperson's basic exposure to the visual arts can offer enjoyable discoveries.

In De Style (1993), for instance, a neighborhood barber resembles a Renaissance saint with modest halo, open fingers of his left hand raised in a gesture of benediction above his customer's head, the halo's orange lines and the razor's orange surface mirroring each other's life-giving energy. De Style exemplifies Marshall's interplay of illumined iconography and the everyday--mundane items like a trash bucket lined in black plastic; ample coils of hair littered around the barber's chair; snaking electric cords jammed into one overworked plug adapter. In The Lost Boys (1993), Marshall presents his own version of a kabbalistic Tree of Life, dark blue of leaf but bearing strangely glowing (radioactive?) fruit. Each of its seven sephirot reveal a bullet at its core. Other paintings symbolically reference Afro-Atlantic spiritual/magical traditions or evoke histories of oppression or resistance.

He makes space, too, for Black people to participate in leisure, suburban activities, to enjoy nature, to love one another, to float within visions of rose-colored American optimism--just like everybody else. At the press conference, Marshall quoted art scholar W. J. T. Mitchell--author of What Do Pictures Want?--"Images don't only express desires. They teach us how to desire in the first place."

Marshall's desire is to be radically present, to represent presence and to activate presence in others of his race. In person, he is a warm, charming speaker--so clearly reflective of the outgoing, self-assured nature of his art--and an ardent fan pleased to be honored by a museum he has long treasured. His show rewards extended study and will inspire return visits. I'm already checking my calendar for my next chance to go.

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO
of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and
exhibition co-curator Ian Alteveer (below)
speak to the assembled press at The Met Breuer.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry runs from October 25-January 27, 2017.  For exhibition and events information, click here. For museum hours and ticket information, click here.

The Met Breuer
3rd and 4th floors
945 Madison Avenue (at 75th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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