That's Entertainment

 

Hangmen (2*)

 

I often have wondered how the artist who created Joe Camel feels about his ubiquitous cartoon, which purportedly pushed thousands of teens into premature death by encouraging them to light up.  Martin McDonough takes his exploration of work-related guilt--or lack thereof--and transforms it into a black "comedy."  Olivier award for best play and superb reviews for the Broadway production notwithstanding, it made me laugh exactly once, at the expense of poor Scotland where I will be traveling for the first time next month.  Despite the impeccable stagecraft behind Hangmen--particularly the extraordinary set which enables the audience to witness (and laugh uproariously at, if their senses of humor are a lot less squeamish than mine) a form of capital punishment that the United Kingdom hasn't seen since 1964--the play is utterly pointless, unless you weren't aware that some people do their jobs better than others.   Killing people is a nasty business and so is this play. 

Art Fix

Thanks to the Met, I was able to mainline four exhibits as soon as I returned to New York.  

Charles Ray: Figure Ground

Familiarity with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn helps viewers understand how Ray plays with concepts of race and gender.  Huck, for example, goes undercover as a woman.   It's interesting how stainless steel erases color differences.

"Sarah Williams" (2018)

Jim kneels behind Huck.

"Sarah Williams" (Partial view, 2018)

Would you believe Huck and Jim were supposed to be part of a fountain standing in front of the Whitney Museum downtown? 

Other enigmatic works aren't quite as charged with meaning.

Boy with frog" (Partial view, 2009)

"Tractor" (2005)

"Mime" (Partial view, 2014)

"Family romance" (1993)

Winslow Homer:  Crosscurrents

Reviving the reputation of a self-taught 19th-century artist--even one as talented as Homer--is tricky business nowadays.  He mostly depicts African Americans in subservient positions while strapping white guys come to the rescue a lot.  As much as the Fox News crowd misses it, that America has long vanished while Homer's work endures because of its undeniable beauty.

"Dressing for the Carnival" (1877)

"The Life Line" (1884)

Winslow never married. He exposes a lot of male flesh in his work.  As Mary Louise Parker observed so memorably in Longtime Companion, "you tell me."

"Undertow" (1886)

"The Gulf Stream" detail (1906)

It irritated Homer that people thought this young hunter was drowning this buck.  The truth is just as cruel: both paintings depict a common practice:  dogs hounded deer into water where it was easier to shoot them because of their decreased mobility.

"Hound and Hunter" (1892)

"An October Day" (Partial, 1889)

Homer's smaller watercolors are more appealing if less ambitious.  Painted mostly in the Caribbean and Florida, they have a relaxed vibe that accompanies warmer weather.

"Customs House, Santiago de Cuba" (1885)

"Coral Formation" (1901)

Louise Bourgeois Paintings

Bourgeois turned away from painting early in her career.  But there's no denying her subconscious found expression on canvas as easily as in her sculpture and installations.

Untitled (ca 1945)

Untitled (1946-47)

"Roof Song" (1946-48)

"The House of My Brothers" (1940-42)

Untitled (1945-47)

Untitled (ca 1947)

Fictions of Emancipation:  Carpeaux Recast

This thought-provoking exhibit educates clueless visitors like me about the dangers of judging art on the basis of its beauty alone.  What looks from its title to be an indictment of slavery was also widely reproduced so members of the 19th-century bourgeoisie could display their woke bonafides without having to do the hard work of actually dismantling the systems that perpetuate racism.

"Why Born Enslaved!" by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1873)

Kehinde Wiley's homage to the same statue depicts how little has changed by choosing a Los Angeles Laker as his model in a sly reference to the way professional sports continues to enslave African-American men. Watch "Winning Time," HBO's hugely entertaining account of how Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Spencer Haywood and others dominated basketball in the 1980s under the control of lily white management and coaching if you're skeptical.  

"After La Negresse, 1872" by Kehinde Wiley (2006)

Here, a French artist inscribes his bust of a boy with a racial epithet used by French colonialists to identify his African ethnicity.  The artwork also serves as a corollary to phrenology, the then fashionable "science" that used race, facial characteristics and skull shape to categorize individuals. 

"Bust of Hora" by Dantan Jeune (1848)

How I Learned To Drive (3*)

 

I wish I had seen this play off Broadway 25 years ago when Paula Vogel's extraordinarily brave drama still had the shock of the new.  The writing, performances and structure remain fine but awareness of "grooming" and gender power imbalances has grown so exponentially thanks to the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts and the "Me Too" movement that cynical politicians at this very moment are using it to frighten parents.  As traumatic as Ms. Vogel's abuse was, I've heard it all before thanks to a father who instilled in me such a fear of pedophilia that I've never been entirely comfortable around kids because he equated it with homosexuality.  Still, How I Learned to Drive taught me something I won't soon forget:  how internalized shame can find exhilarating expression.

Out East (2*)

If you were going to come out to your parents and straight friends as a young adult, this is probably the memoir you'd want to give them to soften the blow:  squeaky clean and nary a drag queen to be found.  Perhaps I've been jaded by spending more than three decades sharing houses in the Pines, but the people, scene and emotions described by John Glynn are so boring and refined that I'd probably drink as much members of "the Hive" to get through my Montauk weekends too. Dismissive references to Provincetown and Fire Island suggest that Glynn is less comfortable with letting his freak flag fly than many in his peer group.  Not that there's anything wrong with that; Out East just isn't very interesting despite being competently written. 

Love Letters

I got back to New York just in time to see "Dear Jean Pierre: The David Wojnarowicz Correspondence” before it closed at the PPOW Gallery.

I'm a big fan of Wojnarowicz, as much because I admire his work as we were born just a year apart and lived in New York City before AIDS.  But Wojnarowicz spent a lot of time in France where he met Jean Pierre Delage in the Tuileries, the City of Light's much older equivalent of the Ramble.

Normandie (1980)

Wojnarowicz moved in with Delage, a hairdresser 11 years older, for several months.  Really passionate love letters that Wojnarowicz wrote to him for more than three years after returning to New York comprise the show, along with a small selection of art work. 

New York (2022)

Delage provided creative support, too.  Reproduction of a collage idea that Wojnarowicz borrowed from a French artist greets visitors to the gallery.  The man wearing the Rimbaud mask in front of the Eiffel Tower is Delage.

Wojnarowicz included Jean Genet, another of his French heroes, in an early collage.

It must be pretty intoxicating to have an older lover--a sophisticated French man, no less--believe in your art, especially one with the foresight to preserve all your letters.

Reading them, however, almost seemed like an invasion of privacy, especially because none of Delage's replies have survived.  You've also got to wonder how often Delage, whose English was self-taught, wrote back.  Wojnarowicz considered himself a writer and while declarations of love and the mundane details of his daily life--including frequent bouts of what he called the "grippe"--inform his voluminous correspondence, not everyone has the time or inclination to respond in kind.

The post cards are less overwhelming and cleverly exhibited, with the fronts visible from below in a catalog of Wojnarowicz's visual influences and taste.

I don't know how I feel about their sale. Art, after all, is meant to be shared with the world.  Love letters aren't.  Wojnarowicz greatly reduced the frequency of his correspondence with Delage after learning that Delage had slept with one of his friends.  Would he feel equally betrayed by this show?

Wojnarowicz played in a rock 'n roll band called 3 Teens Kill 4.  

After Jesse Hultberg, bottom center, slept with Delage while visiting Paris, Wojnarowicz's infatuation with his French lover ended even though he had never been faithful to Delage. Gay relationships can be tricky.

Wojnarowicz spent so much time at Danceteria, one of my favorite clubs, that he took multiple Polaroids of the staff and his friends.

Keith Haring, another New Jersey boy, albeit one with a much more stable home life, was among them.  AIDS killed Haring first, in 1990; it got Wojnarowicz two years later.  I lost David six months after that.  It was a terrible time to be a gay man.

 

The Minutes (4*)

 

Think Mr. Smith Goes To Washington meets Get Out.  Playwright Tracy Letts (who's also terrific in Winning Time, currently on HBO) is definitely going to get another Tony nom for this shocking comedy that left me stunned, implicated and dispirited, but in a good way.  Plus it stars Noah Reid, the cute boyfriend from Schitt's Creek.

More Bonnets, Fewer Masks

Fifth Avenue's Easter Parade felt like being inside a confetti bomb compared to the natural beauty of South Florida.  

Psychedelic Ascot meets Drag Race by way of Alexander McQueen.  These fellas aced the costume competition with attitude to match.  

Lovely, just lovely.

The Glinda the Good Bus pulled in just as I arrived.

Lemme tell you, it ain't easy climbin' in platforms.

This bonnet's relevance was a little too on-the-nose.

(Fortunately you still can get a covid test in Times Square. And I did see more than a few people wearing masks.)

"If no one's gonna take MY picture, I'll take my own!"

Check out the wonder on this little girl's face as she encounters a hat nearly the size of St. Patrick's Cathedral. 

Cheeky!

Spring has sprung at Rockefeller Center!

Gospel singers and roller skaters mix surprisingly well.

I've missed tulips since becoming a snowbird.