WNYC Culture just wrapped up its Cityscapes series with the Brian Lehrer Show. One architect we would have liked to have included is Max Bond, who was one of the most influential African-American architects in New York City, and around the world. He died four months ago in February, but not before designing some of New York’s most iconic buildings, and making his mark as an educator, mentor, and visionary.

WNYC’s Janaya Williams spoke with friends and colleagues of Max Bond including Roberta Washington, Victor Body Lawson and Richard Franklin.

Photos courtesy of 651 ARTS

Five black women at the top of their field perform a rare program of solo pieces this weekend at the Kumble Theatre in Brooklyn.

• Germaine Acogny
  Few have done more to bridge contemporary Western dance and African tradition.
• Carmen de Lavallade
  The former actress was the second black ballerina to dance for the Metropolitan Opera.
• Dianne McIntyre
  Known for her jazz collaborations, McIntyre has long been a unifying force in the Harlem arts scene.
• Bebe Miller
  This Bessie Award-winner started her own company in 1985.
• Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
  She founded Urban Bush Women in 1984 to amplify the voice of the African Diaspora dance community.

WNYC’s Siddhartha Mitter filed this report on the event on Friday’s Morning Edition.

651 ARTS.org

Didja miss us? The podcast team has sure been busy with our new project Cityscapes. Today Cityscapes producer Benjamen Walker checks in with this month’s guest blogger Andrew Blum for some insight into landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh’s latest video diary, shot in the under-construction Brooklyn Bridge Park. Also we have WNYC’s Ellen Horne here to tell us about Damon’s Frugal Friday’s at the celebrity-powered Craft Restaurant, and we’ll hear from MoMA’s organist accompanying their new western films, or at least the silent ones.

Subscribe: Part events calender, part cultural diary — get WNYC’s Art.Cult Podcast automatically on your iTunes, or in your RSS reader.

LAST NIGHT

WNYC’s new project Cityscapes is taking advantage of the pause in the NYC building boom to explore just what got built during the last construction binge and whats coming next. In addition to video diaries from architects such as Hugh Hardy and Liz Diller, we have architectural critic Andrew Blum helping out here on the blog for the month.

Here’s the video he was chatting with Benjamen Walker about:

RIGHT NOW

Photo by Bill Bettencourt

When business dropped off in the private dining room of Craft Restaurant (celebrity chef Tom Colicchio’s culinary empire), the kitchen decided to start offering a small plates meal deal every Friday with nothing on the menu over ten dollars. The name of the Friday special is Damon Frugal Fridays, after head chef Damon Wise. WNYC spoke with Colicchio on the perks of the weekly low-cost dining (how a-w-f-u-l could it be?), it allows chefs and guests alike the power to experiment with their meals.

Frugal Friday is open every Friday night at 47 E. 19th St and it’s located in the private dining room of the restaurant.

AND BEYOND

MoMA’s new show Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West is more than just pictures of cowboys at dusk, there’s also a corresponding film series called “The Old West: Myth, Character and Reinvention.” Some of the films like 1897 “Indian Charge” are silent, and that’s where professional silent film accompanist Ben Model steps in. We spoke with Mr. Model about how he performs improvisational tunes on his Miditzer theater organ, underscoring dramatic moments with his own tunes while also letting the audience make their own judgments.

Coming up:
Follow Andrew Blum as he keeps up with NYC architecture
Hugh Hardy and Architecture Critic Paul Goldberger on Brian Lehrer
Craft Resteraunt, hosting Frugal Fridays
Let MoMA take you “Into the Sunset”

Music: In our show today, you heard music from The Excepter at The Bell House this Saturday, Bishop Allen at The Music Hall of Williamsburg this Saturday, and Bora Yoon playing at The Stone this Saturday.

Comment: What’s your perfect cheap-date food? Would you take Damon Wise’s advice on the whole chicken, or can you go cheaper than that?

Turkish clarinetist Selim Sesler will be among the bands at LPR on Saturday night. He was called the “Coltrane of the Clarinet” by the UK-newspaper The Guardian.

Bulgare is a 31-piece folk dance group from Sofia, Bulgaria, that’s on its first ever North American tour. Here they are in action:

Eastern Europe gave birth to Klezmer music, along with Gypsy sounds. And Klezmer’s getting its due in an All-Star Klezmer line-up at Carnegie Hall. Clarinetist David Krakauer and his group Klezmer Madness led the pack:

Krakauer has also collaborated with Montreal-based, “Judeo-beat-meister,” DJ Socalled on a very cut-and-pastey CD called Bubbemeises – Lies my Gramma Told Me.

And this Saturday, a grassroots musical event at the Ukranian National Home on 2nd Ave, The Balkan Shout Out. The Raya Brass Band will be on hand, led by Matthew Fass, of the Zagnuts Cirkus Orkestar.

On today’s podcast, host Benjamen Walker and Soundcheck’s Joel Meyer go for a walk down 6th Street in Austin, Texas. If you’ve never been there, apparently it’s a lot like MacDougal Street in the West Village, but with more tacos. They’re at SXSW, a festival devoted to vicariously enjoying the twitter in-crowd, talking to bands in alleyways, afro-punk showcases, and seeing how many films you can possibly watch in one day.

We spoke with Mark Rosenberg of Rooftop Films, SXSW first timers Telekinesis, the girl from another planet, Janelle Monáe, and the NY web editor/blogger/social media-star Amanda McCormick about SXSW and all the great ideas flowing down 6th street.

Subscribe: Part events calender, part cultural diary — get WNYC’s Art.Cult Podcast automatically on your iTunes, or in your RSS reader.

Twitter users find each other on a JetBlue flight to Austin.

Janelle Monae at Austin Music Hall on Thursday, March 19. The audio track, “Sincerely Jane,” is off her album — the bass was so heavy in the venue it blew out my recording. Surprisingly, for the purposes of this video, it works.

Down at SXSW, we have had a stellar team of WNYC producers, including Adnaan Wasey of The Takeaway, who spoke with us about the interactive festival, Leital Molad of Studio 360, who explored SXSW’s Afro-punk showcase, and Joel Meyer of WNYC’s Soundcheck, who spoke with the band Telekinesis about coming to SXSW for the first time, and our own Benjamen Walker.

Janelle Monáe, Girl from Another Planet

From Today’s Show:
WNYC’s Joel Meyer has been blogging SXSW for Soundcheck
WNYC’s Adnaan Wasey on Twitter, iPhone and Zombie at SXSW Interactive
Amanda McCormick’s Blog
Film Linc
Benjamen Walker on Short Films at SXSW
Rooftop Films
45365 Trailer, one of Mark Rosenbaum’s favorites
St. Nick Trailer, another one of Mark Rosenbaum’s favorites
The Roadside Graves
Telekinesis
Janelle Monáe, Girl from Another Planet
The Afropunk Showcase at SXSW
PRI’s Studio 360
The Studio 360 Blog

The film adaptation of a beloved comic book series “The Watchmen” is now in theaters. Host Benjamen Walker (who actually quoted the 80’s comic in his high school yearbook!) invited two fellow self-proclaimed fanboys into the studio to ask the tough questions like, “if there’s no giant squid, is it really worth seeing?”

Those fan boys included cultural reporter Eric Molinsky, who had a piece on PRI’s Studio 360 this past weekend, and CUNY professor Jonathan Gray, who as on the radio this past weekend talking with WNYC’s Brian Zumhaggan about the film and fanboy culture.

Subscribe: Part events calender, part cultural diary — get WNYC’s Art.Cult Podcast automatically on your iTunes, or in your RSS reader.

Comment: So what about you? No squid, no movie? Or did you enjoy the film? Let us know by commenting below, shooting us a tweet, or sending an old fashioned e-mail to culture [at] wnyc [dot] org.

On today’s podcast, two young musicians have a new take on Indian classical music, the Public Lab lets the process of developing new shows be part of the art, and Bushwick’s emerging arts scene was on display (in addition to meat cooked with a blowtorch) this weekend at the Bushwick SITE festival.

Subscribe: Part events calender, part cultural diary — get WNYC’s Art.Cult Podcast automatically on your iTunes, or in your RSS reader.

LAST NIGHT

Classical music jumped across continents this weekend. The two-week festival that celebrated the opening of the new Alice Tully Hall came to a close with a concert that showcased a new take on Indian classical music. WNYC’s Siddhartha Mitter was there, and we have his report.

All of the beautiful music from the Tully’s opening night concert is available for streaming right over here.

RIGHT NOW

On today’s podcast we have a little music from a show called Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson being presented at the Public Theater later this spring. It’s just one of the shows that performance critic Claudia La Rocco has picked out for us for this coming season. We asked her about Alex Timbers, who created this show and who’s kind of a darling of performance right now.

Timers show is part of the Public Lab series at the Public Theater — Claudia explained a bit about what happens in the lab.

You can join Claudia La Rocco in person or online when you sign up for her Performance Club.

AND BEYOND

It was a nonstop, un-curated stream of art making in Bushwick this weekend. For the SITE festival there were performances in central culture hubs like Chez Bushwick, but also on street corners and in apartments across the neighborhood.

Inside of the studio Grace Space, performances ranged from a sexy dance set to a Nietzsche Lecture to cooking meat with a blowtorch. Jill McKeena is the owner of the Grace Exhibition Space. She said there wasn’t always an audience for the work:

When we first opened we would have an attendance of zero and we would still hold the event anyway — like a film screening or something, and no one would be here. And people say, “How did it go?” And I would say, “Yeah, it went great!” Then it increased to like 5 people, and then it was like 15 or 20. Now last night there were probably 150 or 200 people coming here. I don’t know if that’s just changes in the neighborhood or if it’s just cause people are finally learning about us.

There are a ton of events coming up in Bushwick this month including an all-female Romeo and Juliet at the Bushwick Starr this Friday, and this Saturday, Chez Bushwick will host another event in it’s weekly Cake! performance series.

Music: In our show today, you heard music from Les Savy Fav (at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple this Friday.

On today’s podcast, radiators do more than shed paint chips at the Museum of Art and Design, buyers buy with caution at the Armory and Scope shows, and despite protest, the Israeli dance company Batsheva moves to the beat of their own drum.

Subscribe: Part events calender, part cultural diary — get WNYC’s Art.Cult Podcast automatically on your iTunes, or in your RSS reader.

LAST NIGHT

Designer Karim Rashid has designed everything from fashion to furniture, but now he’s paying attention to radiators. He says some designers have begun to generate radiators as pieces of art. He’s put these radiators to work for a new show at the Museum of Art and Design that opened on Wednesday. There is quite the variety, Rashid looked at hundreds of radiators from all over the world. They’re not just the crumbly, rusted relics that get tucked away in the corner anymore, but sculptures which adorn the halls of the MAD Museum.

The radiators in the show can be moved around or stacked on top of each other. Some of them evoke sculpture, with gently curved steel tubes, and some radiators go even farther – like the one with a bread basket on top – much like a toaster.

There is a survey of all the radiators he used – called Totally Rad — is heating up the Museum of Arts and Design, from March 4th through May 17th.

RIGHT NOW

The Armory Art Fair is open on Pier 94 and Pier 92, with over 200 galleries lined up in close quarters and the art is from all corners of the globe. Art critic Carolina Miranda took a look and found a lot of interactive pieces in the show, a watchtower to climb, and a free doughnut for riding in a golf cart.

What you do see at the fair generally that you haven’t seen in previous years is the flamboyance is a little bit toned down is that booths in the past that had crazy installations made of pizza that I saw a couple of years ago at art Basel now you’re more paintings more sculpture more of the things that people are likely to buy.

There were still some big sales, like on the work of Hernan Bas who now has a show at Brooklyn Museum, and Miranda pointed out that now is a great time for future collectors to start investing.

AND BEYOND

The five men and five women of the Batshehva Dance Company are known for moving with mathematical precision and athletic force. They’re presenting their newest work at the Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this weekend. The piece is built around almost robotic patterns of movement that repeat over-and-over peppered with flashes of humor and sensuality.

Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin has been director of the Tel Aviv-based company for nearly 20 years, and he works closely with his dancers.

I stay away from these connotations of national, religious, ethnic and political even though it’s something I have a very clear and strong opinion about. But that’s not why and how I choreograph.

On this US tour, Naharin’s company has run into pro-Palestinian protesters who want a boycott of Israeli cultural exchange. A handful of protesters and police gathered outside BAM last night. But at a rehearsal earlier this week, Naharin said his work is about expressions of texture and strength of movement rather than any explicit commentary on the conflict in Israel.

Coming up:
The Museum of Art and Design has some rad radiators
Tonight’s the opening of the Pulse Art Fair
Visit Art Week before its all over
Discover Gaga, a dance performed by the Batsheva Company

Music: In our show today, you heard music from Chairlift(at Santos Party House this Saturday) and Aquiles Báez (at Rose Live Music next Tuesday).

Comment: Buy anything at this year’s Art Week? Plan to grab anything this weekend? Tell us. Show us.

On today’s podcast, a Bushwick book club takes on a whole new dimension — singing, young spoken-word artists faced off in the annual New York Knicks Poetry Slam and the Scope show at Lincoln Center is Cheap Fast & Out of Control, and like all those electronics stores in Times Square “Everything must go!!”

Subscribe: Part events calender, part cultural diary — get WNYC’s Art.Cult Podcast automatically on your iTunes, or in your RSS reader.

LAST NIGHT

Last night in Williamsburg, the Bushwick Book Club met to … sing about their book of the month.

This month’s book was Edwin Abbott’s Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Flatland is a 19th century Victorian novella that chronicles the adventures of two-dimensional figures who encounter something three-dimensional for the first time.

Susan Hwang who started the club, took the novella’s theme of two-dimensional objects seriously — all the way to the snacks she prepared for the evening. She brought geometrically shaped crackers and chips that are kind of triangles and hexagons, with little squares of cheese.

One of the performers, Tom Curtin explained that the great thing about the singing book club is that writing a song forces people to focus their thoughts and avoid the usually rambling that will ruing the club AND the book.

If you’re interested in joining in on it all, next month they will be back at Goodbye Blue Monday with songs based on the book James and the Giant Peach.

RIGHT NOW

Young poets are taking their craft to the stage. Last night, 14 young spoken-word artists faced off in the annual New York Knicks Poetry Slam.

One finalist was 17-year-old Elton Ferdinand from the High School for Public Service in Brooklyn. His poem talked about how he communicates with his mute uncle. Ferdinand says it took a year to write this poem. Even though he wasn’t the winner, Ferdinand says he plans to keep writing poetry. He also hopes to be a neuroscientist.

You can hear more poems from the young contestants over here.

AND BEYOND

The Armory Show, the centerpiece of arts week, opens tonight, and we’ll hear all about it on Friday… but an alternative to the big name big ticket show also opens today – the Scope show, at the bandshell at Lincoln center.

The show is called fast cheap and out of control – it features work in multiples with some pieces priced as low as 20 bucks. Lilah Freedland is an artist and the co director of Scope. She says the pricing plan is tied to economic realities. She pointed this out:

People who buy art like to buy art, and if they can’t afford to buy what they normally would be affording to buy, they still need to buy art.

You can go to all the shows at Art Week and not actually buy art (just pay the admission fees, of course), especially since they’ll be so much to look at, including music, film screenings, and experimental performances. Our favorite? The film that you watch while you have biofeedback done on you….

Cheap Fast and Outta Control opens today, and runs through weekend.

Coming up:
Bushwick Book Club
Goodbye Blue Monday
New York Knicks Poetry Slam
More young slam-poets share their work for Art.Cult
Arts Week
Scope Art Fair

Music: In our show today, you heard music from Vijay Iyer (at Alice Tully Hall this Friday) and the Blank Dogs (at The Shank this Friday).

On today’s podcast, crossword puzzlers gather at a Brooklyn Marriott, Chautauqua! brings intellectual aspirations (!) to PS.122, and there isn’t a great forecast for the Armory Arts Week – and no, we don’t mean the snow.

Subscribe: Part events calender, part cultural diary — get WNYC’s Art.Cult Podcast automatically on your iTunes, or in your RSS reader.

LAST NIGHT

Yesterday at the Marriott in downtown Brooklyn, the 32nd annual crosswords tournament wrapped up. The popular contest is the nation’s oldest and largest crossword competition. Scoring is based on accuracy and speed.

Amanda Yesnowitz teaches creative writing at NYU. Though she didn’t make it to the finals, she certainly enjoys the competition:

There’s something just incredibly satisfying about looking at all these blank squares and then putting in what you know, what you can figure out, and then seeing it all come together to complete this beautiful thing that when it’s done. It’s just filled and, you know (laughs), everyone here just loves doing puzzles.

Dan Feyer came in fourth place:

I’m a pianist, there are a lot of musicians and mathematicians who are very good at crosswords… well, it’s something in the brain wiring where it has to do with pattern recognition like how I can look at a sheet of piano music and all these notes and play them all at once… it’s a similar skill to looking at where letters might go… music and math and puzzles are somehow related (laugh) in the brain.

In first place was Tyler Hinman – no musician – but reigning champ of the crossword universe 5 years running.

RIGHT NOW

A night at the theater that combines art and intellectual aspiration… that’s the idea behind a new show at PS 122. It’s called Chautauqua! and it’s being put on by the National Theater of the United States of America based on the 19th century traveling lecture series that brought lectures, scientific demonstrations and stories about far off lands to people all over the country.

James Stanley and Yehuda Duenyas, two members of the National Theater of the United States of America, were guests today on the Brian Lehrer show. They explained what Chautauqua!’s all about.

It remains to be seen whether the added exclamation point makes the show more exciting – but that’ll be up to you to decide. And you can go check out Chautauqua! this Friday, March 6th with WNYC’s own Performance Club, led by performance critic Claudia La Rocco.

AND BEYOND

Its not exactly a great forecast for New York’s Arts Week – and no, we don’t mean the snow. It’s the time of year when gallerists from all over the world descend upon the city to sell contemporary art. Most of it takes place at the Armory with the highlight being the Armory show which opens on Wednesday.

We’ll tell you more about the armory and other big ticket shows later in the week, and we will ask what this year’s Arts Week says about the current state of the city’s art scene.

Coming up:
The Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
Chautauqua! from the NTUSA at PS 122
Join the Art.Cult Performance Club
Yehuda Duenas and James Stanley, co-founders of the National Theater of the United States of America on the Brian Lehrer Show
Amory Arts Week

Music: In our show today, you heard music from Paolo Angeli (at The Stone this Thursday ), Kruno (at Jalopy Theatre this Saturday ) and Stuart Bogie’s Superhuman Happiness (at Zebulon Tonight ).