Addict (drugaddict) wrote,
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EXENE CERVENKA

The story of Hannibal Lecter and his sister as orphans after the Second World War. Directed by Peter Webber and written by Thomas Harris.

EXENE CERVENKA
Kurt Schwitters’s “Merz,” the self-invented term for his Dada assemblages of prosaic refuse, is reinvented with punk-feminist pluck by Cervenka, best known as a singer for the Los Angeles band X. Her first New York exhibition features journals in a vitrine, collages, and a table of published works, including a collaborative text-and-photo project (with Kenneth Jarecke) on the 1991 Gulf War that is depressingly pertinent and contemporary-looking. The journals’ naïve aesthetic veers at times into quaint adolescent angst, but you can practically hear the rough poetry-cum-lyrics moaning off the page. Through Feb. 11. (DCKT, 552 W. 24th St. 212-741-9955.)

“FAKING DEATH”
This shrewd, sprawling survey of contemporary Canadian “art photography” includes work by Jeff Wall, Edward Burtynsky, Rodney Graham, Michael Snow, and Roy Arden, all of whom have been exhibited widely in the U.S., but many of the more than seventy pieces here are by artists who might be new to New Yorkers. If the show is largely educational, it’s never dull, and a bias toward heavy-handed conceptual work is balanced by a slew of visceral, emotional images, many evoking pain and death. A. A. Bronson, Paul Litherland, and Michel Campeau all imagine themselves as corpses; Evergon, Irene Whittome, Sylvain Cousineau, and Donigan Cumming probe the body in anguish; and Wall’s expansive landscape centers on a graveyard. Through Feb. 4. (Shainman, 513 W. 20th St. 212-645-1701.)

“PORTRAITS OF ARTISTS”
One of the most enjoyable and engrossing shows in town explores the many ways artists confront the camera and their own self-image. Working primarily from a private collection, the curator, Olivier Renaud-Clement, has filled the gallery with more than a hundred photographs that span the history of the medium, from works by Felix Nadar and August Sander to those of Cindy Sherman and Rineke Dijkstra. Whether they’re shoring up, shattering, or deliberately turning their back on the myth of the creative genius, the artists and their portraitists are always engaging, frequently funny, and not to be missed. Through Feb. 4. (Luhring Augustine, 531 W. 24th St. 212-206-9100.)

A show that explores—and explodes—the tradition of the family snapshot, with work by Loretta Lux, Sally Mann, Catherine Opie, and others.




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