This Week’s Must-See Art Events: S’Long Summer Bloggin’

With the final lull before we jump back into the insanity next week, now’s a good time to catch up on exoticizing documentaries, blaxploitation films, and Korean anime—all of which you’ll find at Spectacle this week. On Monday, they’re showing “The Black Atlantis,” a film about the Afrofuturist legend of Drexciya, an underwater island of lost children who can breathe underwater.

Or maybe, this weekend, we just trade art for ass-kicking. On Saturday, Spectacle Theater will show the heir to Bruce Lee’s throne, Sonny Chiba, in his crowning, kung fu achievement, The Street Fighter trilogy. Followed by a midnight screening  of female kung fu movies.

As part of an ongoing Abramovic-style performance, performance artist Lia Chavez will be meditating for six hours a day in the gallery’s window, donning a seat-covering white dress and black feathered headdress. No potty-related information for this event was available at the time of publication.

The Met Opera is in the midst of a ten-day free opera HD screening festival. The “live” in the title is innacuarte, as these are all re-broadcasts. Tonight is composer Thomas Adès’s version of the Shakespeare play and later in the week they’ll also show Verdi’s Otello, Un Ballo in Maschera, and Aida, as well as Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, and Massenet’s Manon.

Conductor: Thomas Adès; Production: Robert Lepage; Audrey Luna, Isabel Leonard, Alan Oke, Alek Shrader, Simon Keenlyside

In the midst of the Jack Goldstein revival, the Kitchen launches an exhibition by another late, overlooked Pictures Generation artist Gretchen Bender. They describe her as “one of the most prescient yet overlooked figures of her generation,” which, if that’s true, is a huge deal. Incidentally, she also designed the titles for “America’s Most Wanted.”

Screenings of one of her better-known videos Total Recall take place on the hour, 12 – 5 PM, and runs for 14 minutes.

Held in concert with the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington, BAM will present four short films documenting the march and its participants. The line-up includes renowned cinematographer Haskell Wexler’s The Bus (1964) and pioneering film, video, and computer animation artist Ed Emshwiller’s rare, nine-minute-long Freedom March (1963).

American Intrigue is a free-to-download “PDF for the arts” made specifically for reading on a smartphone. Go mingle with your art and sci-fi brethren in Bushwick at the second issue’s launch party. You’ll hear contributors like philosopher Johannes Thumfart and sci-fi writer AE Ribbon (someone’s pseudonym, we presume due to the lack of Google data on this person) read from the issue.

Naked Eye Cinema, and their East Village buddies, are another important eighties scene that’s getting a thorough reexamination at the moment—but unlike Pictures Generation, it’s got sex and politics. On Thursday, they’ll be screening films from collaborative work by Peter Cramer, Leslie Lowe, Jack Waters, Bradley Eros, and Aline Mare.

Momofuku gave everyone a reason to crave fancy, flavored milk. This week in the arts, we get a free milk-tasting by designer and artist Laurel Schwulst. Varieties will range from the well-known (whole, skim, and cream) to the obscure (pomegranate, coffee, and donkey).

Women of the Internet: come to Transfer for a night of all-female performance and readings, aimed at building an IRL community. The night’s hosted by Zoë Salditch, recently, of Rhizome, and currently, of Eyebeam. Girls only.  Write to directors@transfergallery.com if you’d like to attend.

Leap! Twirl! Roll! This weekend, bring your friends, family, and out-of-towners to Long Island City’s jewel of a park while checking out the final performance in Norte Maar’s contemporary dance residency. This week’s performances will include Rachel Cohen and racoco productions’ absurdist interactions with everyday objects, Morgan McEwen and MorDance’s ballet-inspired practice, and Kim Jones, of the Martha Graham Dance company.

If distortion-trance is your thing, then you’ll probably want to swing by PS1’s second to last Warm-Up which  includes Liars, Lil Silva, and IO ECHO. Get stoned after.

Line-up:

Cajmere / Cajual / Chicago, IL
Liars (Live) / Mute / Los Angeles, CA
Lil Silva / Good Years, Young Turks / Bedford, UK
IO ECHO (Live) / IAMSOUND / Los Angeles, CA
Jon Hopkins / Domino / London, UK