Calendar
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ART
THE SAME RIVER TWICE For his 84th birthday, Ellsworth Kelly was given a telescope. The American Minimalist painter and sculptor captured his interpretations of what he saw through the glass in a series of lithographs. The series, titled “The Rivers,” was printed at the Gemini G.E.L. studios in Los Angeles. The New York outpost of the studios, at Joni Moisant Weyl, is home to an exhibit featuring the prints. Through Saturday, December 8, Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, 980 Madison Ave., between 76th and 77th streets, 212-249-3324, free.
MUSIC
THE DEBUT A young Venezuelan conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, has his debut with the New York Philharmonic. Violinist Gil Shaham is a featured performer. Mr. Dudamel is the musical director of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, which recently completed a successful first tour in America. The rising-star conductor will take on the role of musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009. Program selections include Dvörak’s violin concerto. Tonight, 7:30 p.m., tomorrow, 8 p.m., Saturday, 8 p.m., and Tuesday, December 4, 7:30 p.m., Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, 132 W. 65th St. at Columbus Avenue, 212-875-5030, $29-$99.
TRADITION IN AMERICA National Heritage Masters is a series designed to commemorate the National Endowment for the Arts’s National Heritage Fellowships. As part of the series, the World Music Institute presents “Ireland in America,” featuring recipients of the fellowships. Performers include button accordionists Liz Carroll and Joe Derrane, musician Mick Moloney, and the Donny Golden Dancers. “Tradition and Innovation in Irish Music,” a talk with the artists, at 7 p.m., precedes the performance. Tomorrow, 8 p.m., New York University, Skirball Center, 566 La Guardia Place at Washington Square South, 212-279-4200, $32.
PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS
ONCE FORGOTTEN Helen Torr is perhaps best known as the wife of the American abstract painter Arthur Dove. But during her decades-long career, she was widely considered an important modernist painter in her own right. Torr created landscape paintings, still lifes, and architectural works in which she employed a flat design technique and her unique sense of color. Alexandre Gallery celebrates Torr’s career with an exhibit of “Selected Sketchbooks” to accompany an exhibit of works by Anne Harris. Selections from Torr’s exhibit include an untitled piece from 1930–32, above. Through Saturday, December 29, Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m., Alexandre Gallery, the Fuller Building, 41 E. 57th St. at Madison Avenue, 13th floor, 212-755-2828, free.
PHOTOGRAPHY
STARS OF THE ’60s Gianfranco Gorgoni rode the wave of Pop Art in the 1960s, enjoying the camaraderie of artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein through his work as a photojournalist. He came to New York in 1968 to work on a photographic essay. He stayed, taking on assignments and shooting for magazines including Time and Esquire.
Through Wednesday, December 12, Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Jim Kempner Fine Art, 501 W. 23rd St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-206-6872, free.
READINGS
BROTHER, I’M DYING Edwidge Danticat reads from her recently published “Brother, I’m Dying” (Knopf), a memoir of her family. The author of the 1994 novel “Breath, Eyes, Memory” (Vintage), Ms. Danticat has written a stirring account of her father, Andre, who struggled to achieve the immigrant dream in America, and her uncle, Joseph, who remained in Haiti to care for the author and her brother. On the same day in 2004, Ms. Danticat learns that her father is dying and that she is pregnant. Meanwhile, her uncle flees the volatile political situation on the Caribbean island, but dies tragically in a federal immigrant detention facility in Miami. Tonight. 7 p.m., Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 E. 17th St., between Broadway and Park Avenue, free.
LOST BOY FOUND Author Dave Eggers’s most recent novel, “What Is the What” (McSweeney’s), is inspired by the experience of a Sudanese refugee, Valentino Achak Deng. Mr. Deng, also known as one of the “Lost Boys,” was forced from his home during the civil war in Sudan in the 1980s and ’90s, which preceded the ongoing conflict in the region. His harrowing journey eventually brought him to America. Mr. Eggers shares a slideshow presentation of his last trip to the Sudan, answers audience questions, and signs books. Tomorrow, 7 p.m., Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway at 12th Street, 212-473-1452, free.
DIVIDED AND UNITED While detained at the French penal colony of Devil’s Island, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus kept up a written correspondence with his wife, Lucie. Some of those letters are read during “From the Depths of My Heart: The Letters of Alfred and Lucie Dreyfus.” Participants include two professors from the Stern College for Women, Peninnah Schram and Reuven Russell. Tonight, 7 p.m., Yeshiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History, 15 W. 16th St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 212-294-8330, free.
TALKS
DIARY OF A HOUSEWIFE A journalist and humanitarian, Ruth Gruber, looks back on her life during a conversation with Harold Ickes Jr., a deputy White House chief of staff for President Clinton. Ms. Gruber became the youngest Ph.D. recipient in the world after receiving her doctorate in German philosophy at 20. The 96-year-old went on to write for the New York Herald Tribune and traveled extensively, reporting on women’s lives under various fascist and communist regimes. In 1944, as secretary of the interior, the elder Harold Ickes asked Ms. Gruber to escort 1,000 Jewish refugees to America from Italy. Ms. Gruber recorded their stories and became an advocate for them. Her reporting includes coverage of the founding of the state of Israel, and a column in the 1950s for Hadassah magazine, “Diary of an American Housewife.” Tonight, 8:15 p.m., 92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, 212-415-5500, $26.
ACROSS THE WATERS During the past two years, the Municipal Art Society and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance have been collaborating on a documentary, “City of Water,” which examines the future of New York’s waterfront in the context of development changes taking place along the Hudson and East rivers. A panel discussion follows a screening of the film, and features Majora Carter of Sustainable South Bronx, among other panelists. Tomorrow, 6 p.m., Center for Architecture, 536 La Guardia Place, between Bleecker and West 3rd streets, 212-935-3960, free.
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