Today’s “Fab 5” +1/ Selected NYCity Events – FRIDAY, OCT. 04, 2013

The New Yorker Festival
“The literary smorgasbord known as The New Yorker Festival is offering ample servings of readings, discussions and screenings with writers, actors and others, at several locations. Online sales are closed for many events, but tickets to some notable ones are still available.

Among them are a talk on Sunday at 2 p.m. by Jill Lepore (“Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin,” just released by Alfred A. Knopf) at the SVA Theater 2, 333 West 23rd Street, Chelsea; and a conversation on Friday at 10 p.m. with Sam Lipsyte (“The Fun Parts,” released last March) and Thomas McGuane whose most recent novel is “Driving on the Rim,” at the SVA Theater. Tickets are $35. A limited number of tickets to most festival events will be available for purchase on Friday from noon to 4 p.m. at the SVA Theater. A schedule is at festival.newyorker.com.” (NYT-Anne Mancuso)

Irish Film Festival (through Sunday)
Six contemporary films — fiction and nonfiction — will be shown during this festival presented by Irish Film New York.  A screening of “Run & Jump,” a 2013 feature by Steph Green about the relationship of an Irish family and the American doctor (Will Forte) who temporarily lives with them, will open the festival on Friday at 7:30 p.m. A discussion with Ms. Green will follow the screening.
New York University’s Cantor Film Center, 36 East Eighth St., Greenwich Village.
At 7:30PM/$12, $10 for students and 62+ for each screening
998-4100, irishfilmnyc.com

Bill Bryson Book Reading: “One Summer: America, 1927”
In One Summer, Bill Bryson, one of our greatest and most beloved nonfiction writers, transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life.
Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 East 17th St.
At 7:00 PM / FREE
212-253-0810

Mannes Festival – an Evening of Piano Fantasies: 
Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Scriabin and Carter
Since 1999, Mannes College has presented a yearlong music festival every year. Each festival has a theme and a program of more than 20 concerts performed by Mannes’ gifted young student artists, distinguished faculty members, and renowned guests and held at prestigious New York City concert venues and cultural institutions.

Each festival is an exploration of an individual composer, a musical group, a stylistic movement, or a historical period. The 2013 festival,” Sounds of Change: Music in Transition” explores music written during transitional periods, from the baroque to the present. This concert, presented by the Mannes Piano Department, will feature a performance the Piano Fantasies of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Scriabin and Corigliano.
Mannes College The New School for Music, Concert Hall,
150 West 85th St. (btw Amsterdam/Columbus)
at 7:30 pm / FREE

Balanchine Black and White / NYC BALLET
George Balanchine redefined classical ballet with his groundbreaking “black and white” canon, works that forego decorative costumes and sets to focus attention on music and movement. The Four Temperaments references the medieval concept of psychological humors through classically grounded but definitively modern movement, while Episodes uses Webern’s edgy tones as the basis for a series of four arresting scenes. Duo Concertant alternates lively dancing and restful passages for two dancers before ending with a poignant play on light and shadow. Bold and breathtakingly jet-propelled, Symphony in Three Movements is a kinetic tour de force — a staggering finale to an impressive program.
Lincoln Center, DHK Theater,
8pm / $29-$159
nycballet.com

Jimmy Greene Quartet (Friday and Saturday)
“Jimmy Greene, an authoritative tenor saxophonist loosely in the Coltrane lineage, suffered an unspeakable tragedy last year when his 6-year-old daughter, Ana, was among the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He recently recorded an album inspired by her memory, “Beautiful Life,” from which he’ll draw here, leading a quartet with the pianist Renee Rosnes, the bassist Ben Wolfe and the drummer Jeff (Tain) Watts.” (Chinen-NYT)
Smoke, 2751 Broadway, at 106th Street,
At 7, 9 and 10:30 p.m./ $38 cover
(212) 864-6662, smokejazz.com

Before making final plans, we suggest you call the venue to confirm dates and check times, as schedules are subject to change. ===============================================================================

Chelsea is the heart of the NYCity contemporary art scene. Home to more than 300 art galleries, the Rubin Museum, the Joyce Theater, and The Kitchen performance spaces,   there is no place like it anywhere in the world.

Come here to browse free exhibitions by world-renowned artists and those unknowns waiting to be discovered in an art district that is concentrated between West 18th and West 27th Streets, and 10th and 11th Avenues.

Afterwards stop in the Chelsea Market, stroll on the High Line, or rest up at one of the many cafes and bars and discuss the fine art – my fave is Ovest on W 27th St., where the aperitivo is like Happy Hour on steroids.

WHAT’S ON VIEW: Here are a few Special Exhibitions in Chelsea Galleries that you may want to see:

Matthew Day Jackson, “Something Ancient, Something New, Something Stolen, Something Blue” (until Sat Oct.19)
“Space missions, military hardware and anatomy are some of the points of departure for the artist’s latest works, which, as usual, plumb the darker reaches of American history, life and popular culture.” (TONY Mag)
Hauser & Wirth New York 511 W 18th St. (btw 10th/111th Ave)
Tue–Sat, 10am–6pm / FREE
212-794-4970 / hauserwirth.com

Michael St. John, “Country Life” (ONLY until Oct.05)
“Over the past several years, St. John has managed, with some success, to evoke America’s propensity for racism, violence, grandiosity, self-delusion and general cheesiness through relatively simple collage-on-canvas compositions, using personal and pop-cultural detritus as elements. He continues to do so in these latest works, which hearken back to American 19th-century trompe l’oeil painting.” (TONY Mag)
Andrea Rosen Gallery 544 W 24th St, (btw 10th/11th Aves)
Tue–Sat 10am–6pm / FREE
212-627-6000 / andrearosengallery.com

Sol LeWitt (until Oct. 12)
“Reincarnated here for the first time since its presentation in the 1988 Venice Biennale, Sol Lewitt’s “Wall Drawing #564: Complex forms with color ink washes simperimposed” offers 2,448 square feet of visual sumptuousness covering three walls of Paula Cooper’s main exhibition space. Bold, black lines about half a foot wide divide the surface into rectangular compartments occupied by multicolored, crystalline forms surrounded by single-color fields. It’s beautiful.” (Johnson-NYT)
Paula Cooper Gallery, 521 West 21st St.
255-1105, paulacoopergallery.com.

Taner Ceylan, “The Lost Paintings Series” (until Oct.26)
This Turkish painter employs photorealist techniques to deconstruct Orientalism, a 19th-century genre in Europe and the United States that featured exotic scenes of the mysterious Levant. Some artists relied on pure fantasy; others traveled to North Africa and elsewhere to base their visions on some observable reality. Either way, Orientalism went hand in glove with colonialism, as the stereotypes it helped foster were essential to the psychology of Western empire building. Ceylan plays with and against these same stereotypes, portraying dusky, alluring women as well as men in fezzes and kaffiyehs, though with notable twists (the inclusion of evidently gay subjects, for instance). More to the point, he juxtaposes one sort of illusion (paintings that look like photographs) with another—the myths and misconceptions that have emerged about the Middle East.
Paul Kasmin Gallery, 515 W 27th St. (btw Tenth/Eleventh Aves)
Tue–Sat 10am–6pm / FREE
212-563-4474 / paulkasmingallery.com

Josh Smith (until Oct.19)
Smith’s painterly spin on bad-boy aesthetics is given ample room in this two-space show, taking up Luhring Augustine’s Chelsea and Brooklyn locations.
Luhring Augustine, 531 W 24th St. (btw Tenth and Eleventh Aves)
Tue–Sat 10am–6pm
212-206-9100 / luhringaugustine.com

For a listing of 25 essential galleries in the Chelsea Art Gallery District, organized by street, which enables you to create your own Chelsea Art Gallery crawl, see the Chelsea Gallery Guide (nycgo.com) ==========================================================

For other selected Museum and Gallery Special Exhibitions see Recent Posts in the right Sidebar: “Selected Events + Special Exhibitions : Manhattan’s WestSide” dated (10/02) and (09/30).