MUSIC
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 9 - 14, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 2, 2019)
11:15 AM & 12:30, 3:00 & 4:30 PM TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY1:00, 2:30, 5:00 & 6:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY

Reich Richter Pärt
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan

$52
https://theshed.org/program/2-reich-richter-part

The Shed doesn't dispel your misgivings when you first walk in.  To the contrary, when confronted, upon entering The Shed from the plaza of this glitzy collection of high-priced office and residential towers and built-in shopping mall, with a bank of monitors showing talking heads extolling the benefits of diversity and inclusivity in the arts and culture, I had to restrain myself from screaming, "how gullible do you think I am??????"  (It doesn't change anything that the admirable people who run The Shed -- as opposed to those who planned and fund it -- are almost certainly sincere in believing that message) (as am I).  The building, while stunning on the outside, is what it is:  what will tell is how the programing goes.  This show is both very good and somewhat dispiriting.  It is an almost discorporate collaboration among three major international artists.  And yes, the three principals are all undeniably great (the new piece Steve Reich wrote for this show is especially good, BTW, maybe the best thing he's written in years -- perhaps because, as he has noted, Gerhard Richter's artistic approach impelled him to recur in part to the style of his early years).   But another outlet for Major Collaborative Pieces by the Established International Avant-Garde isn't going to make at least one visitor forgive the epic scar on the urban fabric this real estate development represents, built for the ultra-rich with money filched from taxpayers.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT:  If you go to one of the early shows, you can avail yourself of Kāwi, the most forthrightly Korean (which is not to say it's straight Korean) of the Momofukus -- or its adjacent sandwich/snack bar.  Later on, you might try the meatcentric food at Belcampo -- although I must say that, emblematically, the delicious dishes they served to the elite guests (and me) at the Hudson Yards preview reception the night before opening were much more interesting and better prepared than what actually appears on the menu.