By Zoë Lescaze 6/19 7:00pm

artists

5362_2_PAA_Paul_McCarthy_WS_JamesEwing-9506 CAP

Naked Ambition: Paul McCarthy Takes the Park Avenue Armory

If you harbor childhood memories of Snow White and would prefer their innocence remains intact, avoid the Park Avenue Armory this summer. A few minutes inside “WS,” artist Paul McCarthy’s staggering new project, which opened there earlier today, will be enough to make you never look at Dopey the same way again.

If, however, the prospect of spelunking through the weirdest corners of Mr. McCarthy’s subconscious—a Boschian realm that lays bare the sinister side of fairy tales, subverts American domesticity with unhinged humor, and involves enough debauched sexuality to send any mental-health professional screaming from the room—appeals, get to the Drill Hall. Read More

By Andrew Russeth 3/22 12:30pm

music

'Oktophonie.' Visuals by Tiravanija, sound projection by Kathinka Pasveer, sound design by Igor Kavulek and lighting design by Brian Scoot. (©Stephanie Berger/Park Avenue Armory)

Ground Control to Karlheinz Stockhausen: ‘Oktophonie’ Alights at Park Avenue Armory

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s sound work Oktophonie (1990/91) is 70 minutes of unsettling drones and occasional violent bursts recorded by the German composer almost entirely with electronic equipment. Stockhausen, who died in 2007, intended for it to be played on eight speakers arrayed in a cube around the audience as part of his opera Dienstag (Tuesday) from his 29-hour series Licht. At the moment, it’s playing at the Park Avenue Armory through March 27. It’s perhaps worth mentioning that Stockhausen reportedly felt that the ideal location for it was outer space. Read More

By Zoë Lescaze 1/31 12:36pm

Art Fairs

19 Photos

New exhibitor Glass Past

New Dealers Add Modernism to Winter Antiques Show Mix

Wandering through the annual Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory is about as close to time travel as one can get. The elaborate booths often resemble the rooms of a cross-sectioned dollhouse, complete with wallpaper and flooring to better complement the art, furniture and artifacts on view. The show, which will run through Feb. 3, features 73 dealers, including eight new ones that are participating in the fair for the first time this edition. Of the new additions, three are presenting pieces from the more recent past that enliven the exposition by broadening its range. Read More

By Anthony Haden-Guest 5/12/12 9:18am

artists

10 Photos

Tom_Sachs_1

Major Tom: An Artist’s Quest for Interplanetary Travel

Tom Sachs’s “Space Program” lifts off at the Park Avenue Armory on Tuesday. Technically, it is an art exhibition. But know this: Tom Sachs is going to Mars.

The Observer was introduced to the project on a visit to the artist’s Chinatown studio last November; our entry required that we be photographed at the door and issued with a facsimile NASA pass. Members of Mr. Sachs’s core team of 17 who were on hand included Mary Eannarino, a 23-year-old from South Carolina who most recently worked at an art gallery in Moscow, and who is to be one of Armory show’s two astronauts. “Mary’s in on this meeting because she represents the face of our space program,” Mr. Sachs said. Read More

2/28/12 4:49pm

Performance

Philip Glass. Photo by James Ewing. Courtesy Park Avenue Armory.

Party of Twelve: Philip Glass Celebrates His 75th at the Armory

Music in Twelve Parts is, along with the opera Einstein on the Beach, the most famous of Philip Glass’s compositions, but he began it with modest intentions. In 1971, he composed Part I, which was originally meant as its own stand-alone work. Roughly 20 minutes’ worth of layered ostinati comprising 12 polyphonic lines, it is one of the most expressive—and surprisingly slow—pieces of music in Mr. Glass’s repertoire.

“I played it for a friend of mine,” he recalled in the liner notes to his 1993 Nonesuch recording of Music in Twelve Parts, “and, when it was through, she said, ‘That’s very beautiful; what are the other eleven parts going to be like?’” He liked the misunderstanding and took it as a challenge. Read More

2/21/12 6:58pm

remodeling

Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Photo by Elliot Kaufman. Courtesy Park Avenue Armory.

My Beautiful 19th-Century Gothic Revival Fantasy

Rebecca Robertson, president of the Park Avenue Armory, was sitting in one of that massive building’s newly renovated rooms, which used to be the locker room of the Seventh Regiment’s Company E, when a booming bass reverberated from the Armory’s drill hall, sounding a little paradoxical in the room’s gaudy late-Victorian interior. Tommy Hilfiger was having his Fashion Week runway show there. A crew was busy building a catwalk and testing the sound. Ms. Robertson said what she liked about fashion crowds taking over the drill hall was that they were “fantasy people and we’re all about fantasies here.” Read More

1/02/12 12:25pm

Dance

Merce Cunningham Dance Company

After The End Of Merce

Last Thursday, on the first night of the last performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Park Avenue Armory, an overzealous staffer sounded more like a ringmaster as he handed out programs.

“We have three stages! Six balconies for you to go on! You can walk around! It’s a very interactive show!” Read More