Wednesday, August 3
The Ultimate Art Machine
Is the Guggenheim the Shake Shack of museums? Locations, locations, locations! Not content with outposts in the Basque Country and the United Arab Emirates (as well as the now-shuttered Las Vegas outpost, which seems in retrospect a bit of an overreach…to expect real culture to take hold in the land of bilk and money), the Guggenheim is now creating a mobile lab, opening today, that will set up shop in nine cities over six years in a quest to spur discussion on urban life. The slow migration of the auto-company-sponsored BMW Guggenheim Lab (a mobile laboratory isn’t cheap, dears!) begins in New York with the erection of a mobile structure themed around “Confronting Comfort.” (While the Guggenheim Lab is referring to balancing individual desire with the common good, surely you’ll be reminded that a new BMW forces you to “confront comfort” in a whole new way!) Catch it while you can—the mobile lab jaunts to Berlin next, then on to a yet-to-be-announced city in Asia.
BMW Guggenheim Lab, 33 East First Street, opens today from 1-9pm, visit guggenheim.org for more information.
Thursday, August 4
Single-Source Stories
When we hear “Talking Head,” we think rock star/bicycle enthusiast David Byrne, of course—we see that guy everywhere! But some talking heads come on reels, not wheels: the Anthology Film Archives continue their Talking Head screening series of documentary films featuring testimonials from a single individual. The mini-genre’s rife with unreliable narrators and charismatic characters: today brings screenings of The Confessions of Winifred Wagner (about Richard Wagner’s daughter-in-law and her friendship with Adolf Hitler) and Martin Scorsese’s Italianamerican and American Boy (regarding, respectively, his parents and the Taxi Driver actor Steven Prince).
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, The Confessions of Winifred Wagner at 6:45pm, Italianamerican and American Boy at 9pm, visit anthologyfilmarchives.org for tickets and information.
Friday, August 5
Soundgarden
This weekend, the Shinnecock Indian reservation, in Southampton, is invaded by hordes even wilder than cigarette buyers looking for a tax-free carton. The Escape to New York music festival brings electro-loving ravers in for a weekend spent sleeping in campers (it’s glamorous camping, or “glamping,” for the Sunday Styles set), listening to music and enjoying all the good, clean fun the Hamptons have to offer. Tonight, noted memoirist Patti Smith and girl-group-but-not-in-the-Phil-Spector-way Best Coast perform on the main stage. It’s not just music and glamping (something about that word—we just can’t take ourselves seriously when we say it!): the organizers were responsible for the U.K.’s Secret Garden Party, an annual festival that transforms a manor house’s grounds into what a Telegraph reporter described as “a fairy woodland filled with strange sculptures” and “a Tower of Babel disco.” If this all sounds a bit foreign to you, gentle partygoing reader, know that in bringing a manic all-weekend festival to the States, the organizers adopted one indigenous custom: there will be a massive brunch for all attendees. Glamorous!
Escape to New York runs through August 7, Shinnecock Reservation (Southampton), visit escape2ny.com for tickets and information.
Saturday, August 6
Newport Lights
If you find yourself among the Gilded Age relics in Newport tonight (we mean the mansions, not the social set), contribute to the preservation of one grand home. Once owned by Pennsylvania coal baron Edward Julius Berwind and modeled after a French chauteau, the house at the Elms is fine ($1.4 million in 1901 money could buy you a pretty sturdy house), but its carriage house and stables are in need of a pick-me-up. Tonight’s black-tie dinner dance—whose theme is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”–will raise money for Newport’s Preservation Society, which plans to turn the stables of The Elms from equine domicile into a historical society devoted to researching the town’s architectural history. Let’s make sure that horsey smell is powerwashed out before the important work of this research center begins!
The Elms, 367 Bellevue Avenue (Newport, R.I.), 7pm, call (401) 847-1000 x120 for reservations.
