FILM: NEW YORK
Very Extremely Dangerous
This Saturday the intimate Wythe Hotel Cinema in Brooklyn hosts the New York premiere of Irish filmmaker Paul Duane’s documentary about Memphis rock’n’roll outlaw Jerry McGill, Very Extremely Dangerous. Back in 1959 McGill recorded for the legendary Sun Records label (home of fellow rock and country originators Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash), but a life spent on the run from charges ranging from drunkenness to attempted murder meant the charismatic singer never capitalised on early success. McGill has since died and the film follows an old rocker’s attempts to record new music and perhaps right a few wrongs. The latter being less straight forward as his fiery personality – a mix of charmingly mischievous and downright unpleasant – is always centre stage.
‘Very Extremely Dangerous’ is being shown on Saturday 18 January, 19.00, at the Wythe Hotel Cinema, 80 Wythe Avenue at N. 11th, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
wythehotel.com/cinema
screenworks.ie
EXHIBITION: LOS ANGELES
Old Sailors Never Die
What would you need if you were stuck alone on a desert island? Not much except for a healthy sense of humour and a surrealist’s eye, it seems, if you’re Pennsylvania-born artist Joel Kyack. His mixed-media exhibition, Old Sailors Never Die, opens on Saturday at the François Ghebaly Gallery in Culver City, LA. Featuring four sculptures, one video installation and a painting, the centrepiece is a 20-foot double-hulled boat resting atop a small building. Visitors enter this building to see a film showing a man stranded on a ‘desert island’ – which actually turns out to be the very same real-life boat that they are standing beneath. It’s a peculiar way of dealing with loneliness, but conventional logic just won’t float in Kyack’s world.
François Ghebaly Gallery, 2245 E Washington Blvd. Open Tuesday to Saturday 11.00-18.00. Until 8 March.
ghebaly.com
MULTIMEDIA ART: ISTANBUL
Autonomous and Beautiful
Two notable features from the past couple of decades of Turkish contemporary art – autonomy and beauty – serve as the backbone for this exhibition at Istanbul’s Akbank Sanat art gallery. Entitled Ozerk ve Cok Guzel (Autonomous and Beautiful) the show features works from over 20 Turkish artists examining notions such as memory, identity, belonging, space and the body. Local artist Nazif Topcuoglu’s dramatic prints focus on the passing of time while video installations from artists Ferhat Ozgur and Sukran Moral interpret beauty and autonomy’s more current manifestations.
Akbank Sanat Gallery, Sht Muhtar Mh, Zambak Sk No:17, Beyoglu. Open Tuesday to Saturday 10.30-19.30. Until 1 March.
akbanksanat.com
SCULPTURE: HONG KONG
Frank Gehry: Fish Lamps
Celebrated architect Frank Gehry also branches into design, as with his latest collection of ‘fish lamps’ – intricately angular models of fish made from pieces of ColorCore laminate (plastic) – currently on show at Gagosian Gallery Hong Kong. The first of these sculptures, each made by hand, debuted in 1984 at Gagosian Los Angeles. Wire armatures are moulded into fish shapes and then shattered pieces of ColorCore are glued to create allusions of fish in motion. For Gehry, the fish embodies a perfect form that has played a recurring role in his work since the 1980s. Two decades on, the Canadian-American architect is still creating new works that marry form, material and function.
Gagosian Gallery, 7F, Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central. Open Tuesday to Saturday, 11.00-19.00. Until 1 March.
gagosian.com
MUSIC: GLOBAL
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings: Give the People What they Want
Veteran soul singer Sharon Jones and her Brooklyn-based backing band the Dap-Kings delayed the release of their sixth album after Jones was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, but thankfully now in the clear, the band are finally giving the people what they want. So that’s 10 songs of joyfully gutsy, foot-stomping, old-school soul music that wouldn’t be out of place during the genre’s 1960s and 70s golden era. Call it retro, perhaps, but it’s delivered with such thunderously self-assured positivity that the nimble-noted nods to classics gone by come across more like timely reminders of where we should be going rather than anywhere we’ve been before.
‘Give the People What they Want’ is available to buy now.
sharonjonesandthedapkings.com
