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FERLINGHETTI IN ROME, SQUATTERS AND TWO PASSIONS | May 13th 2008

MOMIX, The Joyce Theatre

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

Our guide to what's on around the world, compiled by Ariel Ramchandani

ROMAN HOLIDAY

"If you call yourself a poet, don't just sit there", wrote Lawrence Ferlinghetti in "Poetry as an Insurgent Art". He followed his own advice--especially in Italy--travelling, writing, reading, performing and exhibiting in every nook and cranny of the boot throughout his career. Rome returns his affections with a week of events to celebrate the man and his work. On May 16th Ferlinghetti will attend an exhibition of his multimedia work called "Underwear" at the Teatro India, which combines poetry, images of San Francisco and documentary film. The following night he will give a bilingual reading at Teatro Tor Bella Monaco. The city's libraries have planned a concurrent series of lectures, screenings and readings entitled "Bibliobeat", honouring the work of the Beat generation. All of this coincides with New Directions publishing a 50th anniversary edition of his most famous work, "A Coney Island of the Mind".

NOT LIKE DANTE: FERLINGHETTI A ROMA, from May 16th, Teatro India, Rome

YOUR FAVOURITE GALLERY, RECESSION-PROOF AND TAX-FREE

Hong Kong puts itself on the international art-festival circuit this month with its first fair: Art HK O8. Expect plenty of modern and contemporary art, with around 850 artists represented by 100 galleries from over 20 countries. Heavy hitters include the Albion Gallery of London and Max Lang Gallery in New York (the latter is expected to bring a Basquiat valued at $7.5m). Notable Asian galleries are also participating, such as Mumbai's long-established Chemould Prescott Road, which brings the inventive, expensive work of Rashid Rana, a Pakistani artist.

HONG KONG INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR, May 14th to May 18th, Hong Kong

LITTLE PEOPLE, BIG WORLD

Tom McCarthy, who directed "The Station Agent" (2003), is becoming a reliable source of modest films of understated beauty. "The Visitor", his latest, features Richard Jenkins ("Six-Feet Under") as Walter, a nondescript, widowed economics professor in Connecticut. Seemingly depressed, he returns to his unused New York City apartment to find two illegal immigrants squatting there: a Syrian musician and his Senegalese girlfriend. He lets them stay, opening the way for a makeshift cultural exchange that rouses him from his stupor. Post-9/11 immigration policies lend drama, but McCarthy avoids sentimentalism. Instead he captures the momentum and music of Walter's life as it begins to roll again.

THE VISITOR, Select theatres, USA

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

MOMIX, an American dance company, begins performances of "The Passion" at the Joyce Theatre in New York. Moses Pendleton, who founded the troupe, has created a piece inspired by both the passion of Christ and our own ordinary passions--our energy, our more sensual instincts. More than a decade old and set to a score by Peter Gabriel, the choreography manages to feel new and inventive. MOMIX is known for its arresting imagery--it is often hard to tell where one dancer ends and another begins. They meld and twist, bending into shadows and coloured lights. The effect is often a surreal feast for the eyes.

MOMIX, from May 13th, the Joyce Theatre, New York

X-RAY VISION

Now in its final weeks, Julian Schnabel's exhibition at the Robilant+Voena Gallery in London is worth a visit. The old-world gallery, at once formal and intimate, provides an excellent backdrop for Schnabel's large canvases. Also a study in contrasts, his work features strong ink patterns unfurling over ghostly early-20th-century X-rays, delineated but delicate and translucent. The inverted figure of Christ reminds me of an art history lecture in which the professor flipped a Pollock upside down to demonstrate the care and balance in Pollock's paint-splattered, accidental-seeming composition. Though Schnabel's Christ figure is in free fall, it is a carefully calibrated plunge; the artist's gift is in making the deliberate decisions of a planned, weighted composition seem organic. His markings appear to bloom and slip out from within the canvas.

JULIAN SCHNABEL CHRIST'S LAST DAY ATTO II, through May 22nd, Robilant+Voena, London