Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/660802
GAME ON beard and moving like a cat, coiled, ready to strike at any moment; the unstoppable Albert Drake of Dallas' Bruce Wood Dance Project; and James McGinn from Brooklyn, whose face became the model for a classical mold made by sculptor Daniel Arsham and deployed in Rules of the Game as a part-plaster profile with curls that recalls Greece overtaken by Rome. These heads, more anguished than any we remember from friezes at the Parthenon, are meant "as a fictional archaeology in my mind," Arsham says. They appear also in a video projection with hands attached to long arms, delicate, seemingly untouched by work or war, until the fingers are shattered. To keep the games going, dancers deal not only with the residue of the classical world but also with three basketballs, intact on stage but smashed in the video. All this is set to music composed by Grammy Award– winning pop star Pharrell Williams, whose raw files Bokaer played during rehearsal and again for me the day we meet — only this time arranged by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's own David Campbell (an expert at such things) for 21 instruments from the DSO. By now, what had seemed wistful and solitary has a Gershwin quality to it — a sort of swing, as Jonah put it. Suddenly the basketballs and mournful classical heads take on a new perspective. This game might be fun — though not entirely. Bokaer said in an interview for Bomb Magazine that his work in general "takes on the idea of disappearance, often the disappearance of people. That gives it an austere feeling." Maybe so. But when I speak with Arsham as he's heading to DFW airport, driven by Uber, he explains only that his pieces "have erosion in them ... It appears like they're falling apart … but they are interpretations of everyday, not apocalyptic or negative." He then adds: "If there are any rules, we're breaking them." I t's one of those radiant afternoons in early spring when the chill of the morning is wearing away and people by lunchtime are searching for the sun. That's what one of the dancers is doing on the ninth-floor terrace of the Wyly Theatre when I arrive in the rehearsal room, looking for Jonah Bokaer — choreographer, dancer and possible genius. Still wearing a taupe-brown snowcap and a red windbreaker over shorts, he seems to have neither time nor thought to shed either garment as the day grows warmer. Bokaer has been with the dancers at the Wyly's rehearsal room all morning and till 10 pm the night before, alone — creating the multidisciplinary program Rules of the Game due to open this year's Soluna Festival Tuesday, May 17, at Winspear Opera House. The Italian novelist, poet and dramatist Luigi Pirandello wrote a play called Rules of the Game. First performed in Rome almost 100 years ago, it deals with a treacherous triangle: a man, his estranged wife and her lover, who winds up dead after a duel into which he's maneuvered by the calculating husband. It's also a film by French filmmaker Jean Renoir, Les Regles du Jeu. This is a brittle study of manners and moral ambiguity in France on the eve of World War II. It is Pirandello, however, who interests Bokaer more — though it's the title he really likes. He spoke softly as he explained himself. The work he's doing with eight dancers moves from mood to mood; each time, they "play the game in a different way," posing the question: "Who are these people and what are they doing?" This I learn at a run-through of the work, watching the dancers among the troupe: Laura Gutierrez from Houston; Szabi Pataki of Budapest, who wears all black, donning a PHOTOGRAPHY SYLVIA ELZAFON What exactly will happen next month when Jonah Bokaer's choreography, Daniel Arsham's scenography and Pharrell Williams' musical score collide for the world premiere of Rules of the Game during the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's Soluna Festival? Journalist Lee Cullum spends time with the artists, getting a rare glimpse of what's going on inside their rule-bending brains. Daniel Arsham, Jonah Bokaer James Koroni Betti Rollo, Sara Procopio Laura Gutierrez BEAR IN MIND in myriad colors and expressions, to a public work in New York City called How I roll (2012), in which a Piper Seneca airplane rotated on its wingtips at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza near Central Park. "More than feelings," says Pivi, "I hope to trigger a reaction so the person can think like a supersonic thinker." This month, she brings her carnival of artful oddities to Texas, first by way of Galerie Perrotin, a protean force that's returning again to the Dallas Art Fair. The gallery's eminent French proprietor (the aforementioned Emmanuel Perrotin) is known for many things: mounting artist Damien Hirst's first commercial solo exhibition, representing sculptor Daniel Arsham (one third of the trio creating Soluna's attention-grabbing Rules of the Game performance next month) and promoting pop star Pharrell Williams when he designed a chair in collaboration with Domeau & Pérès. For the Dallas Art Fair, Perrotin will bring a collection of Pivi's latest sculptural works. On Friday evening, April 15, the day after the Art Fair's VIP preview party, Pivi will be lauded at the Dallas Contemporary during the opening celebration of her exhibition. Justine Ludwig, the Contemporary's senior curator and director of exhibitions, does curatorial honors. The artist's solo, one of three one-person debuts that evening at the Contemporary (the others being eagerly anticipated exhibitions for Helmut Lang and Dan Colen) will remain on view through late August. Ludwig tells us that Pivi will display her beloved feather bears, canvases of cascading pearls and photographs of animals in peculiar situations, plus new works and two large-scale installations. It's destined to be a perfect mix of the absurd and the beautiful that will inspire whimsy in its purest form — something both art and life can always use much more of. Solo Exhibitions for Paola Pivi, Dan Colen and Helmut Lang, April 16 – August 21, at the Dallas Contemporary; Opening Celebration Friday, April 15, for museum members only; memberships 214.821.2522 or dallascontemporary.org. S aid a bubblegum-pink feathery bear to Milanese artist Paola Pivi: "When was the first time you watched the world upside down?" She replied in her elegant Italian accent: "I don't remember, but it must be when I'm a child and I lie down on the grass." So commenced an existential conversation between Pivi and her neon bears, which were installed in 2013 at Emmanuel Perrotin's Madison Avenue gallery, an outpost of the Paris flagship, which has also exhibited the artist's work. The conversation was the idea of L'Officiel Italia editor at large Ivan Olita — he served as the fictitious voice of the ursine protagonist and was the source of the questions — and the whole bit was filmed for nowness.com. The two-minute exchange is an amalgamation of oddities worthy of Lewis Carroll: There is wit (silliness, really), intellectual depth and loads of bizarre surrealism. But perhaps that is Pivi's whole purpose: to create work that in a puzzling way makes us laugh, consider our deepest thoughts and stretch our imaginations as we did when we were children. If a friendly-looking polar bear cloaked in fluorescent quills asked you a question, what would you say in return? Pivi, who works and lives in Anchorage with her songwriter-husband Karma Lama Culture Brothers, is famous for her imaginative multimedia installations — from these endearing polar bears, which are fashioned BY CHRISTINA GEYER. PHOTOGRAPHY GUILLAUME ZICCARELLI. "WHEN I STARTED MAKING ART, IT DID NOT SEEM FUNNY AT ALL. NOW, THE FUN IS VISIBLE. IT IS — PAOLA PIVI LIKE A SLOW JOKE." View of Paola Pivi's 2013 exhibition "Ok, you are better than me, so what?" at Galerie Perrotin, NYC. Pivi's menagerie is coming to the Dallas Contemporary and the Dallas Art Fair, in the booth of Galerie Perrotin.