Ephemeralist's 2014 List

Dance/performance:

Leonid Sarafanov/Mikhailovsky Ballet, The Flames of Paris
Finding new treasures in the elegant, lithe Sarafanov, who performed in much of the Mikhailovsky's rep, including the Soviet-era spectacle Flames of Paris

Melissa Toogood (Petronio, Sally Silvers, Pam Tanowitz)
This all-purpose excellent Merce alum popped up, delightfully, everywhere.

Met Museum Presents
Twinned: John Heginbotham/Alarm Will Sound and El Greco/Cappella de Ministrers
One of the world's great museum's finds strong traction and modern relevance in its performing program. 

Kyle Abraham/Glenn Ligon's Watershed at NYLA
A harmonic partnership of movement and visuals.

What's It All About: Bacharach Reimagined, New York Theatre Workshop
Connecting pop music of yore to musical theater of today.

Art:

Chris Ofili, New Museum
A stunning exhibition, mounted beautifully.

Lee Krasner/Norman Lewis, Jewish Museum
Two overlooked expressionist greats given some overdue attention.

Books:

The Foundling Boy, Michel Leon

All the Birds, Singing, Evie Wyld

All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

The Mad and the Bad, Jean-Patrick Manchette (this is old, but new to me)

Collected Short Stories, Lydia Davis

One More Thing, BJ Novak

The Miniaturist, Jessie Norton

Overhyped books:

The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber

The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell

Goodbyes, or at least for now:

Whitney Museum on Madison Avenue

Wendy Whelan at New York City Ballet

Looking ahead... 

Sports—Signs of Life after dismal seasons:

Jacob de Grom, Mets

Odell Beckham Jr., NY Giants

Modern Dance's Future Pivots:

Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance
The repertory floodgates open to other choreographers' work. First up: Doris Humphrey's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor danced by the Limon Company, and Shen Wei's Rite of Spring danced by his own company (seven times!). The selection of Shen Wei is, artistically, somewhat mystifying, although the two companies share deep roots at ADF. 

Stephen Petronio's Bloodlines Project
A five-year project to revive modern masterpieces to which Petronio connects, just as the companies of some of modern's greats are shutting down. First up: Cunningham's RainForest. How handy that Toogood (see above) has been guesting with the company lately. The following year brings Trisha Brown's Glacial Decoy. Can't wait.

Hello again:

Whitney Museum near the Highline

Wendy Whelan doing other stuff

Chris Ofili at the New Museum—Embracing the Dark

Chris Ofili: Night and Day. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York / London. Photo: Maris Hutchinson. All works © Chris Ofili 

Go see Chris Ofili: Night and Day at the New Museum as soon as you can, because it will give you ample time to revisit the stunning show before it closes on January 25. You are probably familiar with his "elephant dung" series largely from the late '90s—full of delight, trippy patterns, and cartoon-like figures. One of them—The Holy Virgin Mary (1996)—was made a martyr-icon by Mayor Giuliani in one of the great culture war episodes of recent years (the events are retold in the companion catalogue). A strong selection of this period occupies the second floor of the exhibition, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari, and Margot Norton. The candy-colored series bursts with life, flesh, and adolescent star doodles; dung balls serve as pedestal feet and sculptural nodes. The Afro series, from the early 2000s, are painted in red, green, and black, and are suffused with mysterious romance and vitality.

Chris Ofili, Ovid-Desire, 2011–12.
 Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, New York/
London, and Victoria Miro, London. © Chris Ofili 

On the fourth floor is an intoxicating installation 
of wildly colorful canvases hung on a lavender floral  background. Many of these paintings (primarily in classic rectangular proportions of approximately 120" x 80") are from the Ovid series, painted around 2010 while he was working on a two-year commission from London's National Gallery in response to Titian's Metamorphosis series, inspired by the Ovid poem. Many titles are hyphenates—Ovid-Destiny, -Desire, -Actaeon. Even without the references, these paintings, of effusive yellows, violets, and greens deserve to be carefully looked at. 

Several evoke the interior compositions of Matisse, with tension strung between foreground and background. The verticality of the canvases is underscored by depicting one or two figures, a geological cleave, or splitting the rectangle with the floor taking half, and the wall the rest, as in Ovid-Desire (2011—12). Ofili applies layer upon layer, so that even fields that seem solid can, upon further examination, reveal subtleties of shadowy patterns. He frequently adds elements of relief, be they blobs or dung balls or simply bulked up sheafs of paint.

Untitled (Afromuse), 1995—2005. Courtesy the
artist and David Zwirner, New York/London. © Chris Ofili 

As you enter the main third floor gallery, you encounter what seems to be a group of black paintings. After you've allowed your eyes to adjust, you notice subtle variations in what are really inky blues. Some appear reddish, some violet, some have a sheen. Shapes emerge—figures, animals, foliage. It evokes being outside in the dark, with no artificial lights on. Everything takes on a sinister feel, especially when a lynched man becomes clear. Ofili has a home in Trinidad, and he noted in a fascinating New Yorker profile: “I had found that if you put silver underneath blue, the blue sits back, like night, or glows like moonlight.” He uses ultramarine, Prussian, and cobalt blues that read like feelings as much as hues. The dark, foreboding gallery becomes, in the passage of a short amount of time, a place you want to linger in to absorb the depth and intricacies of the work.

Several sculptures are on view, as well as suites of drawings—the Afro Margin series of abstract, black and white drawings, and Afro Muses, an engaging group of cameo watercolor portraits with washy gem tone clothes. The exhibition fills the New Museum to bursting, perhaps the best use of its new building since it opened. And Ofili's oeuvre connects the present with the history of art, infusing it with a life we had perhaps forgotten.