96th Street Branch

New York Public Library

112 East 96th Street (btwn Park & Lex.)

(212) 289-0908

Adult Events for March 2010

All Programs are ADMISSION FREE

Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 2:00 p.m.

Film: The Painter in Asia – PAINTED FIRE (2002)

PAINTED FIRE (dir. by Kwon-taek-Im, 2002), starring Min-sik Choi, Sung-kee Ahn, Ho-jeong Yu, Yeo-jin Kim, Ye-jin Son. In a time of political and social unrest in 19th century Korea, an uncouth, self-taught painter explores his natural talent amidst the repressive world around him.

Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 2:00 p.m.

Film: Ill-Fated Artists — VINCENT, A DUTCHMAN (1985) & FROZEN (1996)

VINCENT, A DUTCHMAN (dir. by Christopher Higham, 1985). Narrator Christopher Reeve follows the artist's extraordinary life from his childhood in Holland through his years in a socialist commune in Paris where he worked with such artists as Degas, Gauguin Pissaro and Toulouse-Lautrec and his flight to the south of France. The program explores Van Gogh's incredibly productive though tormented period in Arles and St. Remy and concludes with his death at Auberge sur Oise in 1890. FROZEN (dir. by Xiaoshuai Wang, 1996), starring Hongshen Jia, Xiaoqing Ma, Yu Bai, Geng Li, Yefu Bai, Ye Wei, Yongning Zhang, Lixin Qu, Jie Liu. This film provides a rare look at the avant-garde art world of Beijing. A young performance artist decides to make his own suicide his last work of art. On the longest day of the year, he plans to melt a huge block of ice with his own body heat and die of hypothermia. The artist who Jia's character was based on had actually died performing the freezing piece.

Saturday, March 20 2010 at 12:30 p.m.

New York Opera Forum performs Bizet’s CARMEN

New York Opera Forum performs the complete opera CARMEN by Georges Bizet (1838-1875). In 19th century Seville, the cigarette girl, Carmen seduces a naive army corporal, Don Jose, who abandons his career and comrades for the love of this fickle gypsy woman.

The musical program is cosponsored with New York Opera Forum which was founded by Richard Nechamkin in 1983 to give classically trained singers the opportunity to learn and perform standard operatic repertoire in the original languages. They work with singers on all levels, from student to professional, providing quality training and performance opportunities. Complete operas and opera selections are performed in concert with piano accompaniment. NYOF, (212) 865-6786, www.nyoperaforum.com

Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 2:00 p.m.

Film: The Painter in Asia – SOUL HAUNTED BY PAINTING (2004)

SOUL HAUNTED BY PAINTING (dir. by Shuqin Huang, 2004), starring Li Gong, Fang Cen, Shichang Da, Tung-Shing Yee, Zunxia Gao, Hairong Shen, Shaodong Zhou, Sabine Bail. In a time of political and social unrest in 19th century Korea, an uncouth, self-taught painter explores his natural talent amidst the repressive world around him.

Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 2:00 p.m.

Film: Ill-Fated Artists — POLLOCK (2005)

POLLOCK (dir. by Ed Harris, 2000), starring Ed Harris, Marcia Gay Harden, Tom Bower, Jennifer Connelly, Bud Cort, John Heard, Val Kilmer, Robert Knott, David Leary, Amy Madigan, Sally Murphy, Molly Regan, Stephanie Seymour, Matthew Sussman, Jeffrey Tambor. Fellow artists and lovers Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner are at the center of New York's 1940's art scene, but as Krasner neglects her work to push Pollock's career forward, Pollock begins to unravel emotionally.