TIO NYC+: DEI & More on Display!

16 Nov TIO NYC+: DEI & More on Display!

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (or DEI)  is the subtext of our ongoing cultural bath in Manhattan and surrounds, just as post-election, the acronym still echoes loud and clear in the zeitgeist.

Yellow Face at the Roundabout Theatre:

Identity, noun: The fact of being who or what a person or thing is.

The much ballyhooed socio-cultural comedy “Yellow Face” explores the complexities of Asian-American identity, particularly through the lens of “yellow face” casting practices. The salient question on the table is who gets to represent a certain ethnicity on stage. The production also asks what it means to be Asian-American in a society which might not fully understand the nuances of that identity.

The show stars the rock solid, very funny Korean-American actor Daniel Dae Kim who made his Broadway debut nearly two decades after premiering off-Broadway and with shows worldwide. Written by Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang – DHH in the production – “Yellow Face” is billed as a semi-autobiographical comedy.

The plot revolves around Hwang who puts his fictional self through the wringer, following the character through the very real flop of Hwang’s 1993 play “Face Value,” which did not survive past previews.

The ’90s were a tumultuous time for the playwright. The story goes Hwang had just participated in the “Miss Saigon” protests, writing a letter against the casting of a white actor in the role of the Asian pimp. Also at the heart of the play is Hwang’s father, Henry Y. Hwang, who had founded the first Asian American bank: Far East National. For real, in 1999, the institution was placed under scrutiny for allegedly aiding the Republic of China in moving millions of dollars into the United States.

So where are the laughs?

Hwang created an alternative universe where right after participating in the aforementioned protests against casting a white actor in an Asian role, DHH casts Marcus, a white actor, thinking, perhaps hoping beyond hope, he is at least “a little bit Asian.” Marcus goes along with the folly until he is fully entrenched in the Asian-American community.

Does the gambit work? Mostly.

We give the production a solid B, not the A+, that seems to be the critical consensus. The “B” in large part because, well, over the past few years, race and diversity became a cultural leitmotif impacting whose work we get to see in museums, on gallery walls and on the boards. Yes, a course correction was long overdue – but that has gone way over the top, often at the expense of what passes for good in a medium. So much so that despite how tight yet pithy “Yellow Face” is, despite smart direction executed by a great cast, we felt the production had a “been there, seen that” feel.

In short, we already knew that a great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion runs deep. Witness the results of our most recent election.

However, our qualification is not the popular opinion. For that read Jesse Green’s rave in The New York Times.

“Suffs” at the Music Box Theatre (Through January 5):

Like “Hamilton,” “Suffs” is a story about another theme floating in the zeitgeist about yet another socio-cultural travesty: inequality. And like “Hamilton, ” its star is also its author and songwriter.

The musical event arguably over 100 in the making, “Suffs” brings to life a complicated chapter in the ongoing battle for the right to vote: the American women’s suffrage movement. Shaina Taub, easily one of the most exciting new voices in theatre, takes an unflinching look at unsung trailblazers. In the seven years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, a group of suffragists – “Suffs” as they called themselves – took to the streets, pioneering protest tactics that transformed the country, risking their lives as they clashed with President Wilson, the general public – and each other.

Brilliant yet flawed women working against and across generational, racial, and class divides? Sadly an ongoing stories featuring victories and failures of a fight for equality that may escalate under MAGA influence.

We found “Suffs” to be highly intelligent, (sadly) timely, and entertaining – featuring a number if wonderfully memorable songs, especially “Great American Bitch.”

Suffs, courtesy The New York Times.

Go here for a full review of the show.

Asia Society- Magdayin: Eight Decades of  Aboriginal Bark Painting from Yirrkala, through January 2025:

“Ravishing,” raved The New York Times.

So if you are ravenous for a show that checks off all the boxes – smart, stunning, educational – then don’t miss “Eight Decades.”  The exhibition offers up a a rich, robust  menu of aesthetic curiosities that simplifies ancient mysteries in the interest of underlining and intensifying what have been largely hidden meanings. The result: lucky viewers get to embrace all things elemental to the cultures on display.

We learn about the magical and ancient art practices and the deep cultural significance of the Yolŋu people’s bark paintings. Many have also noted the exhibition’s focus on connecting individuals and their clan to the land and cosmos through sacred designs. The minimal but  essential beauty and complexity of the bark paintings, with their intricate patterns and vibrant colors, is simply breathtaking. What’s more much of the curatorial work was done by the 16 Yolŋu artists themselves, people of northeastern Arnhem Land, Australia, a group known for miny’tji or sacred clan designs intended to evoke and connect individuals and clan with land and the cosmos.

This collaboration with Asia Society ensures the respectful presentation of indigenous art and culture.

The show also reveals a few unexpected parallels and affinities with modern and contemporary abstraction.

Go here  for a full review of this must-see happening.

Guggenheim, Harmony & Dissonance – Orphism in Paris, 1910 – 1930,  (through 3/9/25):

It’s a kaleidoscopic doozy of a show, sure to open your eyes (also hearts and minds), ultimately lifting spirits.

Orphism was based in Cubism, but emphasized color and representations of time and experience instead of Picasso and Braque’s subdued palette. The Big Idea? As one of the earliest styles to approach complete abstraction or non-objectivity, Orphic works hoped to immerse the viewer in dynamic expanses of rhythmic form and chromatic scales.

The movement’s name was coined in 1912 by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Orphism flowered briefly in the years leading to World War I, before fading with the rise of the fight in 1914.

According to the Guggenheim:

Featuring over 90 artworks…this major exhibition… examines the vibrant abstract art of Orphism. It…explores the transnational movement’s developments in Paris, addressing the impact dance, music, and poetry had on the art, among other mediums.

Orphism emerged in the early 1910s, when the innovations brought about by modern life were radically altering conceptions of time and space. Artists connected to Orphism engaged with ideas of simultaneity in…compositions, investigating the transformative possibilities of color, form, and motion.

Selected works by artists including Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Mainie Jellett, František Kupka, Francis Picabia, and Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, and by the Synchromists Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell.

Go here to read a full review from ArtNews.

And on a side trip, we discovered some magic in Hamilton, New Jersey, (midway between Philadelphia and New York).

Grounds for Sculpture:

According to an article in The New York Times published back in 2002:

“The room stopped a visitor in his tracks. It is a vivid and accurate three-dimensional recreation of Vincent van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom in Arles. Done in the vibrant colors of the original, the 8-by-12-foot room retains van Gogh’s perspective. The bed, chair, table and even walls are a bit tipsy.

”I take naps in here sometimes,” Mr. Johnson said as he pulled a pair of tap shoes from a lopsided drawer. ”Once, when I woke up, I had so much energy I put on my shoes and danced. I’m living in my own dream, you see…”

That room is one of the stops on a tour of Grounds for Sculpture, a 42-acre property that seamlessly blends art and nature, with hundreds of contemporary sculptures, thousands of exotic trees and flowers, and numerous rotating exhibitions.

In 1984, Seward Johnson, sculptor and philanthropist, envisioned a public sculpture garden and museum in Hamilton, NJ. His desire? To make contemporary sculpture accessible and offer people from all backgrounds an opportunity to become comfortable with contemporary art.

Grounds For Sculpture opened to the general public in 1992. Renowned artists on site include Clement Meadmore, Anthony Caro, Beverly Pepper, Kiki Smith, and New Jersey native George Segal. Some of the works were commissioned specifically for the sculpture park: Magdalena Abakanowicz’s “Space of Stone” and New Jersey artist Isaac Witkin’s “Garden State.”

Johnson’s work also dots the sprawling campus – for better or for worse.

Johnson began sculpting in the 1970s.

Unlike much public art, his work is not heroic. No larger-than-life forebears on pedestals or pigeon-decorated generals on horses for him. Instead, he brings sculpture down to ground level, where it celebrates the simplest human acts and attitudes. His figures nap on park benches, ride skateboards, bop to boom boxes, eat lunch, neck and scratch their noses. One girl seated on a park bench reads a love letter from a boyfriend. But when a viewer looks carefully, he sees the name of a different boy on her ID bracelet. Another figure is unaware that his fly is unzipped, and one brazen fellow cheats at cards, wrote The New York Times.

Johnson’s ”ordinary people doing ordinary things,” as he put it, are so lifelike down to their crumpled brown bags and untied shoelaces that it is said taxis sometimes stop for the bronze man hailing a cab outside the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Noted – but the fact is Johnson was never a favorite of main stream critics, including a major mentor, art historian and author Robert Hughes, easily the foremost critic of the 20th –  21st centuries.

”Johnson’s work is chocolate-box rubbish. It has no imaginative component that I can see and apparently appeals to dull corporate minds like his own — the sort of people who run American motels and malls.”

Oh well… Win some. Lose some. Regardless, the Grounds for Sculpture is a breath of fresh air and its most famous restaurant, Rats, is a charming stop en route.