Art: The Singular Photography of Alvin Baltrop
Through Feb. , ; bronxmuseum
Born
in the Bronx in , Alvin Baltrop returned to New York after serving in
Vietnam with the Navy and stayed until his death in . Though his work
was rarely exhibited in his lifetime, he was a singularly dedicated
photographer. His major project was documenting the intense sexual and
creative autonomy of the city’s abandoned Hudson River waterfront
between and , and he stayed there for days at a time, capturing runaway
teens, men cruising and experimental artists like Gordon Matta-Clark
with the same eager lens. Blunt images of sex or nudity, like the ones
included in “The Life and Times of Alvin Baltrop” at the Bronx Museum,
only make explicit a quality that’s equally present in his early shots
of antiaircraft guns at sea, or in stately, unpopulated views of the
decaying piers: It’s an experience of the erotic as essentially
volatile, impossible to fix, even in a still print. Be sure to pick up
the catalog, which includes a tender and insightful introduction by
Douglas Crimp, a critical champion of Baltrop’s work, who died in July.
WILL HEINRICH
Dance: Circles in a Cemetery
Aug. , pioneerworks
The
body on the ground, moving slowly or approaching stillness, is a
recurring image in the work of Kim Brandt. An architect of large-group
constellations that hover between sculpture and dance, she can hint at
monumental events through acts as simple as crawling and lying down. In
her new “Untitled Green-Wood,” presented by Pioneer Works as part of its
Graveyard Shift series, Brandt brings these inclinations to Green-Wood
Cemetery in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where themes of loss can’t help but
surface. “I’m kind of always thinking about inertia,” she said in a
phone interview, “but that has taken on sort of a new meaning in the
cemetery.”
Her first outdoor
site-specific work, “Untitled Green-Wood” unfolds in the open circular
space of Cedar Dell, which lends itself to explorations of loops and
spirals, physical and metaphorical. With tombstones dating to the s, the
space invites contemplation of endings, beginnings and where they meet.
SIOBHAN BURKE
Pop Music: Oshun Will Bring the Love
Aug ; eventbritem
Borrowing
its name from a Yoruba deity who symbolizes water, femininity and
prosperity, this vocal duo makes music that honors a “lifelong
commitment to representing love,” Thandiwe, one of the singers, told The
Fader. She and Niambi Sala have channeled activist instincts — honed by
the N.Y.U. community service and social justice program, where they met
— into songs like “I wake upstay woke,” from their mixtape, and the
buzzy anti-Trump single “Not My President”; they championed self-worship
on “Glow Up,” from their debut album, released last April. Titled
“Bittersweet Vol. ,” the record weaves together strands of rap and soul,
nodding to their creative and spiritual ancestry while cultivating a
sound that is distinctly futuristic. On Sunday, Oshun will appear at an
outdoor concert as part of the Open Air series, alongside the New
York-based Resistance Revival Chorus, at Scott in Brooklyn. OLIVIA HORN
Classical Music: Free Concert of Iranian Female Composers
Aug. , lincolncenter
For
some time, the young composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh sought out
compatriots in a field that has long been predominantly white and male.
“Growing up in Iran, I was actively discouraged from pursuing
composition, and I never got to know a female composer as a mentor,” she
told the web magazine I Care If You Listen last year. When studying in
the states, though, Nourbakhsh connected with two peers, Anahita Abbasi
and Aida Shirazi, and they decided to form the Iranian Female Composers
Association. Since , the organization has promoted the work of Iranian
women in music, and on Monday, Aug. , as part of the Mostly Mozart
festival, the International Contemporary Ensemble will present a concert
of works by composers associated with the group. The music explored in
the free performance at Bruno Walter Auditorium includes Nourbakhsh’s
darkly lyrical reed quintet “Firing Squad” and Shirazi’s angularly
searching violin solo “longing for a distant memory …” and should
provide a wide-ranging portrait of a compelling cohort. WILLIAM ROBIN
Film: It’s a Scorcher at the Quad With ‘Beach Reads’
Aug. -; quadcinemam
We
all love a juicy, lusty, pulpy summer book — just maybe not when our
sunglasses are steaming over. Take respite from the heat and eye strain
with “Beach Reads: From Sand to Screen,” nine days of guilty pleasures
spun from popular midcentury potboilers, starting Aug. at the Quad in
Manhattan.
Grace Metalious’s
scandalous “Peyton Place,” about a quaint New England town racked by
secrets — Murder! est! Moral hypocrisy! — and starring Lana Turner and
Hope Lange, fittingly kicks things off. Peter Benchley is represented
with “The Deep,” featuring Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset as Bermuda
lovebirds who dive into sunken artifacts and trouble; Arthur Hailey with
his disaster thriller “Airport,” which finds Burt Lancaster, Dean
Martin and George Kennedy averting a blizzard and a bomb threat; and
Jacqueline Susann with her campy showbiz cautionary tale, “Valley of the
Dolls,” with Patty Duke, Barbara Parkins and Sharon Tate as actresses
mired in addiction, self-esteem and man problems.
The
lineup also includes adaptations of Benchley’s “The Island,” Hailey’s
“Hotel” and Susann’s “The Love Machine” as well as Harold Robbins’s “The
Lonely Lady,” Alistair MacLean’s “Ice Station Zebra” and Sidney
Sheldon’s “The Other Side of Midnight.” KATHRYN SHATTUCK
Theater: Jonathan Cake as Coriolanus in Central Park
Through Aug. , publictheater.
If
escape from political tumult is what you want from an evening at the
theater, Shakespeare’s tragedy “Coriolanus” is not the answer. But if
you find it comforting, amid the barrage of grim headlines, to consider
that human folly has been ever thus — and the species somehow has
managed to soldier on — then the Shakespeare in the Park revival may be
just the ticket.
Directed by
Daniel Sullivan, who has a quiet flair for bringing clarity to dense
complexity, this “Coriolanus” stars a rather ripped Jonathan Cake in the
title role of a military hero whose sense of entitlement leads him into
politics despite his stubborn contempt for the suffering populace.
Cake, who played the part in in London, at Shakespeare’s Globe, has
called Coriolanus a “manchild,” and many have called this Shakespeare’s
most political play. In previews at the Delacorte Theater in Central
Park, it opens on Monday, Aug. . LAURA COLLISIONS
TV: It’s Vegas or Bust, on ‘GLOW
Aug. ; Netflixm
As
Netflix’s “GLOW” enters the ring for Round , the Gorgeous Ladies of
Wrestling are off to a spectacularly rocky start. It’s Jan. , , the
morning of the Challenger launch and just hours before the opening night
of their residency on the Vegas Strip. Debbie Betty Gilpin and Ruth
Alison Brie are channeling their alter egos, Liberty Belle and her
Soviet archenemy, Zoya the Destroya, during a live broadcast on local
TV.
Then the space shuttle
explodes in the midst of Zoya’s anti-American rant, sending Ruth
spiraling into an emotional crash and burn. But the show must go on, and
it belongs to Brie and the Emmy-nominated Gilpin more than ever this
season as Debbie struggles with misogyny and long-distance motherhood,
and Ruth tries to love Russell Victor Quinaz while denying her feelings
for Sam Marc Maron.
All hail
Geena Davis as the newest guest star, the Fan-Tan Hotel and Casino
entertainment director, Sandy Devereaux St. Clair. Late in the season,
in a moment of pure razzle-dazzle, she uncloaks the assets that captured
the title of Miss Las Vegas Showgirl and proves she still has it
years later. KATHRYN SHAT TUCK
