omson T Ayotzinapa On Virgil Virgil On C O IL Festival Field Notes from Notes Field arah Lewis a, and S Interviews: Tal R, An-My Lê, Yael Bartan Brett Bigbee TWO PAINTINGS Opening Thursday, February 27th at 5:30 pm ALSO ON VIEW Lois Dodd: Recent Panel Paintings Alexandre Gallery Fuller Building 41 East 57th Street New York 212.755.2828 www.alexandregallery.com Josie Over Time, 2011–15, oil on linen, 13 3/8 x 12 1/8 inches Dear Friends and Readers, Tied to a tree together one barking Te other has a bad ear Squeals at him —Aram Saroyan aving kept up with the insightful articles that appeared in omson our Field Notes section, as well as those in the NY Times, the T Nation, and other news sources that cover social and political Ayotzinapa H afairs around the world, I was deeply saddened, like most of us, by the Charlie Hebdo shooting on January 7, which quickly became the top news story, overshadowing the endless bombings in Baghdad; Virgil On the Ebola crisis in West Africa; the missing AirAsia fight 8501; the CO ISIS hostage situation; and Winter Storm Frona that took 16 lives in IL the Midwest, the Great Lakes, and the Northeast, among many other Festival natural and human disasters. How is it that we can be subjected to steady and simultaneous streams of bad news and consumerist distraction? from Notes Field How can we still aspire to notions of freedom and justice while we are Tal R haunted by religious wars, ideological genocides, and other masochistic Inte “m” 2014. Crayon, pigment, and rabbit rviews: Tal R, An-My Lê nd Sarah Lewis terrors which lurk right beneath the surface of our fears? , Yael Bartana, a skin glue on painted paper. 15⅜ × 11⅜˝. Having been brought up in a Vietnamese family where divided Courtesy of Cheim & Read, New York. politics was always a source of confict, especially afer the Tet Ofensive in 1968 in Vietnam, I was primed in my youth by the past of my old country: from the nearly 2,000 years of Chinese domination, 200 years of French colonization, and 25 years of war with the Americans, to the recent and ongoing disputes with the ancient adversary China over Vietnamese borders. Recent events are more fuid and symptomatic that we like to think—I mean the inevitable complexities that are tied to the mere diferences that polarize Western emphasis on individualism and Eastern depersonalized systems of belief. Even though Nietzsche’s concept of “will to power”—which once undermined a dominant Christian ethos—is now seamlessly integrated with both pragmatism and capitalism, the greatest resistance to it is based on a longing to restore a utopian dream associated with brotherhood. Religious conficts are inevitable in our times. Late last night, in between working on the Rail’s editorial content and the portraits for the featured interviews in the Art section, I was pacing my racing thoughts (thanks to Jasper Johns for having concret- INTERVIEWS WITH AN-MY LÊ ized the term in his 1983 painting “Racing Toughts”) over the pages YAEL BARTANA SARAH LEWIS of William James’s classic volume Te Varieties of Religious Experience: TAL R An-My LÊ ON VIRGIL THOMSON A Study in Human Nature. What I found in the following words was COIL FESTIVAL “Tai and U.S. Navy Admiral, quite revelatory: FIELD NOTES FROM AYOTZINAPA HTMS Chakri Naruebet, Gulf of Tailand,” 2010. Courtesy of the Te warring gods and formulas of the various religions do indeed cancel artist and Murray Guy, New York. each other, but there is a certain uniform deliverance in which religions all appear to meet. It consists of two parts: 1. An uneasiness; and 2. Its solution. 1. Te uneasiness, reduced to its simplest terms, is a sense that there is something wrong about us as we stand. 2. Te solution is a sense that we are saved from the wrongness by making proper connection with the higher powers. As life goes on we are urgently reminded how short is it before we Yael Bartana all leave this earth. What is it that we all want to accomplish and what (Top) Still from Inferno, 2013. diferences do we wish to make for the betterment of our culture before Alexa camera transferred onto HD, we die? At the Rail, we turn to the labor of love shared among creative Interviews: Yael Bartana, An-My Lê, Sarah Lewis, and Tal R 22 minutes. Courtesy of the artist, individuals in the felds of the arts and the humanities, as well as sciences COIL Festival I Field Notes from Ayotzinapa I On Virgil Thomson Petzel Gallery, New York; Annet and other disciplines that are driven by inner necessity. However much Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; and all are guided by their particular notion of truth, they are constantly Sommer Contemporary, Tel Aviv. correcting themselves for the sake of greater unity. Tey’re the masters (Bottom) Still from True Finn, 2014. of their works and rise above the fears of others. Teir freedom can HD, 50 minutes. Courtesy of the inspire others to be free. artist, Petzel Gallery, New York; All the updates about our forthcoming projects and publications will Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; be sent out for your attention as soon as these coming weeks in February. and Sommer Contemporary, Tel Aviv. Tanks for your support and compassion. In solidarity as always, Phong FEBRUARY 2O15 CONTENTS ART MUSIC · IN CONVERSATION Sarah Lewis with Phong Bui . 6 · The Real Folk Blues IN CONVERSATION Feral Foster with Stephanie Joy Del Rosso . 64 · IN CONVERSATION An-My Lê with Sara Christoph. 10 · A Concert, with Footnotes · IN CONVERSATION Yael Bartana with Sara Roffno . 13 Gabriel Kahane, The Ambassador by Marshall Yarbrough . 65 · IN CONVERSATION Tal R with Phong Bui . 16 · About Last Night by Jeff Tompkins . 66 · Dreamland: Coney Island and the 20th Century Avant-Garde · Outtakes by Steve Dalachinsky . 67 by Kurt Hollander. 20 · by Herbert R. Hartel, Jr. Demystifying Gerhard Richter’s Gestural Abstraction . 23 FILM · Tribute to Jane Freilicher Nostalgia by Anne Waldman. 50 · Theme and Variations: The Royal Road, Phoenix, and The Dragon is the Frame · Tribute to Jake Berthot illustration by Sam Messer . 51 by Max Goldberg. 68 · Dirty Pretty Things: David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars by Glenn Heath Jr. 69 · Surveillance Aesthetics: On Laura Poitras’s 9/11 Trilogy by Ava Kofman. 70 CRITICS PAGE · Plenty of Causes for Concern: BAM’s Migrating Forms by Ben Mendelsohn . 70 · Toward Polyphonic Criticism by Jarrett Earnest . 25 · On Refection: When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism · About Polyphony: All in One by Bill Berkson . 25 by David Gregory Lawson . 71 · The Enamord Mage by David Levi Strauss . 26 · Lisa Yuskavage on Nina Simone and Giovanni Bellini . 28 · Black Wedding by Aliza Shvarts . 30 DANCE · “Putting yourself in a place where Grace can fow to you” · Refections on Seeing and Saying by Leslie Allison . 71 Nancy Goldring on Robert Lax. 31 · Elements of Erasure by Cassie Peterson . 72 · Dolly Parton’s Songs by Dave Hickey. 33 · The Body in Pieces by Madison Mainwaring . 73 · The Land Where You Wanted to Be by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve . 34 · American Realness: Move You/Move Me by Jaime Shearn Coan . 73 · Six Months Later: Refecting on Ferguson by Ryan Kelly . 75 ARTSEEN · Margrit Lewczuk Me, We by Tyler Akers . 37 THEATER · Aliza Nisenbaum by Erin Yerby . 37 · Mama Said Knock You Out: Bareknuckle at Gleason’s Gym by Hannah Bos . 76 · Stuart Shils because i have no interest in these questions… by Hearne Pardee . 38 · Laundromat-Theater: Where Every Fold Matters by Ginny Mohler . 77 · Wang Jianwei Time Temple by Tatiana Istomina . 39 · Tanya Barfeld: On the Space—Time Continuum by Kathryn Walat. 78 · Sturtevant: Double Trouble by Christopher Green. 40 · All Pores Open by Molly Elizalde . 41 · Joe Fyfe make me one with everything by David Rhodes. 42 POETRY · Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet and Contemporary Art by Charlie Schultz . 44 · from Lovers in the Marquetalla Republic by Tim VanDyke . 80 · Sadie Benning Fuzzy Math by Terry R. Myers . 44 · two by Sophie Robinson. 81 · Rudy Burckhardt Subterranean Monuments: A Centenary Celebration · Police Poem by Rod Smith . 81 by Robert Berlind. 45 · warm like you* for alicia coombes by Erica Lewis . 82 · Thanks to Apple, Amazon, and the Mall by Maya Harakawa . 45 · seven by Noelle Kocot . 83 · Rough Cut by Kate Liebman . 46 · Tal R Altstadt Girl by Margaret Graham . 46 · Saul Melman Central Governor by Shana Beth Mason . 47 FICTON · Jon Schueler 1975 – 1981, The New York Years by Mary Ann Caws . 47 · Paranoia by Hassouna Mosbahi · Ryan McNamara Gently Used & No entrance, no exit by Kara L. Rooney . 48 Translated from the Arabic by William M. Hutchins . 84 · Lucy Skaer Random House & Sticks & Stones by Ann McCoy . 49 · from Delusions of Being Observed by Lewis Warsh . 86 · Conversation In The Palace Of Ch’ien-Lung by Alfred Döblin ARTBOOKS Translated from the German by Chris Godwin . 88 · from Miransù by Monica Sarsini · Learn to Read Art: A Surviving History of Printed Matter Translated from the Italian by Maryann De Julio . 90 IN CONVERSATION Max Schumann with Maya Harakawa. 52 · Nick Cave: Epitome by Holly Gavin . 54 · April Gornik: Drawings by Robert Berlind . 55 FIELD NOTES · Editor’s Note by Paul Mattick. 92 BOOKS · Is it Possible to Win the War After Losing All the Battles? by Cognord . 92 · Letter from Paris by Charles Reeve. 95 · Fearing The Feral Carousels No More by Christopher Michel. 57 · Anger and Shame · The Long Way Around by Jill Dehnert .