The exhibition Caribbean: Crossroads of the World is the culmination of nearly a decade of collaborative research and scholarship organized by El Museo del Barrio in conjunction with the Queens Museum of Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Presenting work at the three museums and accompanied by an ambitious range of programs and events, Caribbean: Crossroads offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore the diverse and impactful cultural history of the Caribbean basin and its diaspora. More than 500 works of art spanning four centuries illuminate changing aesthetics and ideologies and provoke meaningful conversations about topics ranging from commerce and cultural hybridity to politics and pop culture. 
 
Counterpoints reflects on the economic developments of the Caribbean, focusing on the shift from plantation systems and commodities such as sugar, tobacco, and banana to the energy and tourism industries, which have had tremendous aesthetic and social impact while proving to be a source of wealth and conflict.

Patriot Acts studies the central role that creole culture and notions of hybridity, supported by newly empowered local economic forces, play in the configuration of national and regional discourses of identity, and how artists and intellectuals often pitted traditional, academic aesthetics against the “authentic,” indigenous and African heritages of the Caribbean.

Fluid Motions examines the complexities of the geographical and geopolitical realities of a region made up of islands and coastal areas, connected and separated by bodies of water, where human and natural forces collide, and commercial routes has often camouflaged foreign imperial ambitions.

Kingdoms of this World considers the amazing variety of visual systems, languages, cultures and religions that co-exist in the Caribbean, and their role in the development of popular traditions such as syncretic religions, popular music genres, newly created languages, and the carnival.

Shades of History explores the significance of race and its relevance to the history and visual culture of the Caribbean, beginning with the pivotal moment of the Haitian Revolution in 1791. Race is analyzed as a trigger for discussions on human rights, social status, national identity, and beauty.

Land of the Outlaw addresses the dual images of the Caribbean as a Utopian place of pleasure and a land of deviance and illicit activity, and how they intertwine in a myriad foundational myths and mediatic stereotypes (from pirates and zombies to dictators and drug smugglers) that are now part of global popular culture.

Acquavella Galleries presents a survey of works on paper by Lucian Freud (b.1922 – 2011). Beginning in the 1940s and spanning the artist’s career, Lucian Freud: Drawings brings together more than 100 works, many of which have never been shown in public before and is the most comprehensive survey of works on paper by Lucian Freud ever exhibited in the United States. 

Curator William Feaver, who presented Freud’s acclaimed retrospectives at Tate Britain, London (2002) and the Museo Correr,Venice(2005),worked closely with the artist on this exhibition for the last five years, until his death in July 2011.

The works range from the intimate, including portraits of his mother and father, his children and close friends - among them the painter Francis Bacon - to landscapes and studies of animals. Etchings, watercolours, gouaches and works rendered in chalk, charcoal, pastel, conté, and pen and ink, are to be interspersed with oil paintings, constantly interrelating.

Lucian Freud was born in Berlin in 1922, and died in England, July 2011. He held the Ordre du Mérite and the Order of the Companions of Honour. Recent solo exhibitions include: Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (2008); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008); and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2007).

Lucian Freud: Drawings has been co-organised with Blain|Southern, London, and coincided with a major retrospective of Freud’s paintings at the National Portrait Gallery, London, curated by Sarah Howgate, which will then travel to Fort Worth, Texas, 2 July – 28 October 2012.

The Walther Collection presents Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Nothing to Lose, the first solo exhibition in New York of photographs by the British-Nigerian artist, featuring large-scale color and black-and-white portraits from the late 1980s.

Fani-Kayode’s images interpret and reveal sexuality across racial and cultural differences, vividly merging his fascination with Yoruba “techniques of ecstasy” and homoerotic self-expression through symbolic gestures, ritualistic poses, and elaborate decoration. The exhibition, on view at The Walther Collection Project Space focuses on the influences of exile, religion, sexuality, and death on the artist’s last works.

As a Nigerian-born photographer who lived and worked in the U.K., Fani-Kayode was active in the gay political response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, and was a leading voice among black British artists in the 1980s. Influenced by his experience as an African exile in Europe and his spiritual heritage — his family were keepers of the shrine of Yoruba deities in Ife, Nigeria — Fani-Kayode staged and photographed performances in his studio in which the black male body served as a means of expressing the boundaries between spiritual and erotic fantasy.

Like his contemporaries Derek Jarman and David Wojnarowicz, Fani-Kayode positioned his photography as a public and political act, even while he broke with the predominant approach of documentary realism practiced by many black and African Diaspora artists. For Fani-Kayode, the imaginative space of the studio allowed him to create new icons whose sexuality and keen sense of mortality offered a vision of the black body outside of common Western perceptions.

“On three counts I am an outsider: in matters of sexuality, in terms of geographical and cultural dislocation; and in the sense of not having become the sort of respectably married professional my parents might have hoped for,” Fani-Kayode said. “Such a position gives me the feeling of having very little to lose.”

The photographs on view at The Walther Collection Project Space represent key works from the series Nothing to Lose, commissioned as part of the 1989 group exhibition Bodies of Experience: Stories About Living with HIV, which feature primarily portraits and self-portraiture; and from the series Ecstatic Antibodies, included in the 1990 group exhibition Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology, which display transformations of the body through the use of masking. These highly personal images illuminate the various combinations of Western and African forms in Fani-Kayode’s late works and highlight his desire to give artistic voice to marginalized social groups.

Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955–1989) was born in Nigeria to a prominent Yoruba family, who fled to the U.K. as political refugees in 1966. He lived and worked in London until his early death at the age of 34. Fani-Kayode was the founding member and first chairman of Autograph ABP (Association of Black Photographers) in 1988. His photographs have been exhibited internationally, including retrospectives presented by Autograph ABP at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University in 2009 and Rivington Place, London, in 2011.

Francesca Woodman is the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s brief career to be seen in North America---more than thirty years after her death by suicide in 1981 at the age of 22. Woodman’s oeuvre  explores the human body in space and the genre of self-portraiture in particular. Her interest in female subjectivity, seriality, Conceptualist practice, and photography’s relationship to both literature and performance are also hallmarks of the heady moment in American photography during which she came of age.

Spanning the breadth of Woodman’s oeuvre, this presentation includes more than 120 vintage photographs, ranging from her earliest student experiments to her late, large-scale blueprint studies of caryatid-like figures for the ambitious Temple project (1980). The exhibition includes two of her artist books, which were an important form of expression, particularly at the end of her career. Woodman also experimented with moving images; six of her recently discovered and rarely seen short videos are presented in the exhibition.

The exhibition explores four related themes that focus on the connections between spirituality and daily life, the shifting of people into and out of urban spaces, the persistence of abstraction as a visual language, and the constant presence of the water. Among the featured works is a large-scale painting on hand-made paper by Puerto Rican artist Rossana Martinez. This work considers islands: small, golden, irregularly shaped forms that cover the rich cobalt blue of an endless sea. Other featured objects include a selection of Haitian paintings, featuring a work by Prefet Duffaut; Puerto Rican and Guatemalan masks; sculptures by Charles Juhasz -Alvarado and Federico Ruiz; photographs by Ana Mendieta and a trio of En Foco artists, Charles Biasiny Rivera, Roger Cabán and Felipe Dante; and a costume worn by Coco Fusco in a performance as Queen Isabella, created by Pepón Osorio.

Gran Caribe considers the significance of race and ethnicity, language and dialogue, affinities and differences throughout this part of the world

Performance Schedule

Brian Brooks
Moving Company:
May 30 7:30pm;
May 31 8pm;
Jun 1 8pm

Jodie Gates and
Peter Quanz:
Jun 2 8pm;
Jun 3 2pm

One Night Celebration: Working Women
Jun 5 7:30pm

BODYTRAFFIC:
Jun 6 7:30pm;
Jun 7 8pm

Gallim Dance:
Jun 8 8pm;
Jun 9 8pm;
Jun 10 2pm

Combining voluptuous physicality with classical technique created by the most provocative dance makers in the world, Cedar Lake is one of the most exciting companies performing today. Returning to The Joyce for two weeks this spring with its sixteen magnificent dancers, led by Artistic Director Benoit-Swan Pouffer, the company will perform two programs of highly anticipated New York premieres, including Violet Kid, the latest work for the company by UK based choreographer Hofesh Shechter, and Grace Engine by Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite. Also highlighting the Joyce season--New York premieres by Sweden's Alexander Ekman and the Netherland's Regina van Berkel.

PROGRAM A: May 15-20
Violet Kid by Hofesh Shechter (New York Premiere), Annonciation by Angelin Preljocaj, Grace Engine by Crystal Pite (New York Premiere)

PROGRAM B: May 22-27
Simply Marvel by Regina van Berkel (New York Premiere), Tuplet by Alexander Ekman (New York Premiere), Necessity, Again by Jo Stromgren (World Premiere)

Lukas dives into the jazz ilk with a jazz-influenced ensemble, the Lukas Ligeti Quintet featuring Leron Thomas (trumpet), Travis Sullivan (sax), Evan Lipson (bass), LL (drums) and TBA (piano).  On the program will be new works by Lukas.  He most recently explored the jazz realm in his 2011 release of Pattern Time (Innova) which was described as an unusually articulate hybrid of jazz, modern-classical, and African ideas.

Composer-percussionist Lukas Ligeti has developed a musical style of his own that draws upon downtown NY experimentalism, contemporary classical music, jazz, electronica, and world music, particularly from Africa. Lukas creates music ranging from the through-composed to the free-improvised, often exploring non-Western elements, and is a pioneer in the field of experimental intercultural collaboration. He is the recipient of the Alpert Award in the Arts in Music (2010).

Lukas studied composition and jazz drums at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria, and spent two years working at CCRMA, the computer music research center at Stanford University, before settling in New York City in 1998.

Lukas has been commissioned by Bang on a Can, Kronos Quartet, Ensemble Modern, the American Composers Orchestra, the Vienna Festwochen, Austrian Radio, and Radio France, to name a few; his music has also been performed by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, the London Sinfonietta, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Amadinda, Third Coast, and So Percussion Groups. He frequently performs solo on the marimba lumina, a rare electronic percussion instrument.

The Stone, Corner of Avenue C + 2nd St
New York, NY
Train F/M 2nd Ave or Train 6 Astor Place

Join Lady Bunny and Bianca Del Rio in celebrating the Queen of Disco’s fabulous at XL Cabaret’s weekly drag review Hot Mess. The night will be dedicated to Donna Summer, performing her legendary songs. Dance the last dance and feel the love with Lady Bunny, Biana Del Rio and the HOT MESS crew.

Lady Bunny has handpicked some of the city's most talented drag divas for a weekly Wednesday night extravaganza. The ladies include Bianca Del Rio (widely regarded as the quickest wit on the NYC drag scene), Milan (Rupaul Drag Race 4 favorite), Skyla Versai (the talented newcomer from Lips), Sugga Pie Koko (the comedian of the group), the live vocal styling of Epiphany and special guests each week.

Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman
Directed by Mike Nichols

Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman stars in the revival of Arthur Miller's classic.

Death of a Salesman concerns Willy Loman (Hoffman) an aging traveling salesman coming to terms with the emptiness of his life. Willy had great dreams for his oldest son, Biff (Garfield), a former high school football star who has not lived up to his father’s expectations. Emond co-stars as Willy's steadfast wife, Linda.

Cast

Willy Loman: Philip Seymour Hoffman 
Biff: Andrew Garfield 
Linda: Linda Emond 
Charley: Bill Camp 
Happy: Finn Wittrock 
Stanley: Glenn Fleshler 
Uncle Ben: John Glover 
Miss Forsythe: Stephanie Janssen 
Bernard: Fran Kranz 

Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th Street (Between Broadway and 8th Avenue)
New York, NY 10036

Winner of nine Tony Awards including Best Musical, The Book of Mormon centers on two young Mormon missionaries sent off to spread the word in a dangerous part of Uganda. Their tale is told alongside the founder Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Trey Parker, director 
Casey Nicholaw, director 
Book, Music, Lyrics: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Robert Lopez
Casey Nicholaw, choreographer

Cast

Andrew Rannells: Elder Price 
Josh Gad: Elder Cunningham 
Nikki M. James: Nabulungi 
Rory O'Malley: Elder McKinley 
Michael Potts: Mafala Hatimbi 

Memphis: A New Musical

Set in the turbulent south (Memphis, Tennessee) in the 1950s, it is the story of Huey Calhoun, a white radio DJ whose love of good music transcends race lines and airwaves.

Christopher Ashley, director 
David Bryan, music and lyrics 
Joe DiPietro, book and lyrics 

Cast

Chad Kimball: Huey Calhoon 
Montego Glover: Felicia Farrell 
Derrick Baskin: Gator 
J. Bernard Calloway: Delray Jones 
James Monroe Iglehart: Bobby 
Michael McGrath : Mr. Simmons 
Cass Morgan: Gladys Calhoun 


Paul Tazewell, costume design 
David Gallo, set design 
Howell Binkley, lighting design 
Sergio Trujillo, choreographer 
Ken Travis, sound design