“Elizabeth Higgins: New Monotypes,” at George Billis Gallery, New York (through May 31): Lucid is the word that first comes to mind when viewing the art of Elizabeth Higgins. The adjective carries a double meaning: it can be used to describe something luminous or something easily intelligible. Both definitions apply to Higgins’s art. A show of new monotypes at George Billis’s New York location reconfirms this. Here, the artist’s fine sensitivity to light is on full display alongside her ability to suffuse even simple scenes with an immediate emotional poignancy. These are technically nuanced works that resist reduction to mere technical exercise. She returns repeatedly to familiar subjects—floral still lifes, moonlit horizons, quiet interiors—documenting subtle changes in light and space, each time capturing something novel and surprising. —LL
“John Bradford: All the World’s a Stage,” at Anna Zorina Gallery, New York (through May 18): “Mostly Mozart” is alive and well in the paintings of John Bradford. In his latest exhibition at Chelsea’s Anna Zorina Gallery, on view for just one more week, the greatness of the live arts finds its second act in these recompositions. Imagined performances of Mozart, Monteverdi, Strauss, and Shakespeare take center stage in impastoed paintings in which the preponderance of oil serves as transmission fluid for historical vision. “I’ve had a lifelong love of opera, classical music, and Shakespeare,” Bradford writes as a primer to the show. “I’ve come to believe that art doesn’t imitate life; just the opposite.” —JP
Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, directed by Lila Neugebauer, at Lincoln Center Theater (through June 16): In Lila Neugebauer’s production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya on Broadway, the perennial funnyman Steve Carell (in the title role) is a bit like Kierkegaard’s clown: the more he tries to warn the theatergoers that the proverbial house is on fire, the louder they howl with laughter, so primed are American audiences to his every mannerism. Though the show sometimes fails to settle down into a more serious register when needed, an overly funny Chekhov is still better than an overly dour one, and this simple and effective staging—which gently shifts Chekhov’s late-imperial Russia further west and closer to the present day—has much to offer. Look forward to Kyle Smith’s in-depth review in the June issue of the magazine. —IS
“Remaking Penn Station for the 22nd Century,” a panel discussion moderated by Peg Breen, at the General Society Library (May 21): As my colleague James Panero put it, “That the Moynihan Train Hall offers improvements over Penn’s existing facilities is a low bar to clear.” Any prettification of the commuter experience merely serves to cover up the fact that Penn Station still doesn’t work very well. But a group called “ReThinkNYC” says there is an answer, “through-running,” by which Penn Station would become a hub rather than a mere terminal for NJ Transit and LIRR. On May 21, the president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, Peg Breen, will moderate a discussion at the General Society Library of how through-running might benefit commuters across the tristate area, who suffer from “spotty connectivity” and a host of other issues. —BR
“For the Love of Joan,” at Riverside Park, New York (May 18): Celebrate the Maid of Orléans this Saturday at “For the Love of Joan,” a festival organized by the Joan of Arc Statue Committee of the Riverside Park Conservancy and the Municipal Arts Society to mark the repointing of Anna Hyatt Huntington’s historic equestrian statue at Ninety-third Street and Riverside Drive. The free outdoor festival promises remarks by the Consul General of France, performances by Norm Lewis, the PS 84 Student Choir, and the Hudson Classical Theater Company, and treats pour les personnes et les chiens. For more on the history of this monument, see my “Gallery chronicle” of January 2016. —JP
Dispatch:
“Tradition’s vanguard,” by Frederick Hervey-Bathurst. On Living Tradition: The Architecture and Urbanism of Hugh Petter by Clive Aslet.
From the Archives:
“Jane Austen for the Nineties,” by Brooke Allen (September 1995). On the penetrating humanistic insight of the great novelist.
“Kingdom & exile,” by Renee Winegarten (October 1995). On Camus & The First Man.
