“Arbus/Avedon/Model: Selections From The LaSalle Collection”

This exhibit, 5/16/08 thru 9/7/08, brings together 3 of the important photographers of the 1960s – portraitists, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, and Lisette Model.

Arbus : (1923 – 1971) took pictures of people outside the “norm” – dwarves, giants, street people.

Avedon : (1923 – 2004) primarily known for his beautiful fashion photographs and celebrity portraits. (His photos were used on the Beatles “White Album”)

Model : (1901 – 1983) taught photography at the New School in NYC (one of her students was Diane Arbus). She was noted for her close up, revealing photos of the rich.

(Image: Marian Anderson, contralto – 6/30/55 , NYC, Richard Avedon)

ICP - 5/16 to 9/7/08

1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd St., NYC
212.857.0000

www.icp.org

In the June issue of “Vanity Fair” magazine, page 116, there is a feature about Bobby Kennedy called “The Last Good Campaign”. It is a meld of a collection of pictures from “A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the 60’s”, by Life Magazine photographer Bill Eppridge and text from a book that covers some of the same events, “The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America”, by Thurston Clarke.

It is a look back at March of 1968, when before the coming tragedies of that year, there were high expectations, hopes and joys when many Americans, both young and old, thought that they had found the man who would bring an end to the Vietnam War, wipe out poverty and make the world a better place.

We never got the chance to find out what impact, what changes, what great things might have happened if Bobby Kennedy had lived. I regret that.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/06/rfk_excerpt200806

www.vanityfair.com

A performance by the Arizona Magic of Music & Dance

This is a great event which is transformational for both the young actors and their audience.

Title: The Jungle Book
Location: Christ Church, Fountain Hills:
Description: Young people with any physical or mental disability are invited to explore in a barrier-free environment the world of creative movement, self-expression, musical creation and spontaneous listening.
Date: 2008-06-06

More information click here

“Festival International de Jazz de Montréal ” - June 26 – July 6, 2008

I’ve always liked Montreal, Canada. Beautiful and graceful, this city always seems to have something going on – regardless of the weather. ( Montreal has finessed the whole concept of “underground” shopping.)

The festival has an eclectic musical mix planned, including:

“Return to Forever” with Chick Corea and Stanly Clarke, Aretha Franklin, Leonard Cohen , Omara Portuondo, (you might know her if you saw the documentary, “ Buena Vista Social Club” she sang a duet with the late Cuban crooner, Ibrahim Ferrer), and, lots of others. There is still time to make a plan!

(photo - Festival street scene from 2007)

Montréal Jazz Festival

For information call: 1 888 515-0515 (toll free)

www.montrealjazzfest.com

http://www.montrealjazzfest.com/Fijm2007/accueil_en.aspx

Georges-Pierre Seurat, 1859-1891, is considered the first “Neo-Impressionist” and an innovator of 19th century art using the “Pointillist” style of painting.

“Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”, (1884-1886) - this 10 foot wide painting is perhaps Suerat’s most famous work. (The Tony Award winning Broadway musical, “Sunday in the Park with George” is based upon it.)

From Wikipedia:

The painting “shows members of each of the social classes participating in various park activities. The tiny juxtaposed dots of multi-colored paint allow the viewer’s eye to blend colors optically, rather than having the colors blended on the canvas or pre-blended as a material pigment.”

“Michael Eugene Chevreul, a French chemist, discovered that two colors juxtaposed, slightly overlapping or very close together, would have the effect of another color when seen from a distance. The discovery of this phenomenon became the basis for the Pointillist technique of the Neo impressionist painters.”

BTW: I saw some of Seurat’s other work at MOMA and was impressed. They are lovely, and I can only imagine the patience it took to create them. Close up, you can see the dots of paint so precisely arranged in order to get the desired color. Amazing.

The Museum of Modern Art

(212) 708-9400, 11 West 53 Street, NYC

http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=5358

I enjoyed “Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun”, a PBS “American Masters” documentary that I watched last week.

Ms Hurston, 1891 – 1960, started to publish right after the height of the Harlem Renaissance. The ability to support oneself with art that explored the African-American experience waned with the onset of the depression and she fell into obscurity until re discovered by Alice Walker (“The Color Purple”).

Her work gained attention with the introduction of college Black literature classes during the 70”s. She was found and embraced by a whole new generation (including me). Her novels, short stories and poetry are now also taught in women’s studies and general literature courses.

She studied cultural anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University. As a “folklorist”, she wrote and sang in the rural style and dialect of the people she remembered from the all black town of Eaton, FL where she was born and of the folks she met while traveling across the south.

Perhaps her most famous book, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, 1937, is about “Janie”, who managed to make her way thru life and find love during a time and in a place very difficult for a woman’s survival. (This was made into a TV movie a few years ago with Halle Berry)

Zora Neale Hurston - Great story teller!

Bibliography (from Wikipedia)

• Color Struck (1925) in Opportunity Magazine
• Sweat (1926)
• How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928)
• The Gilded Six-Bits (1933)
• Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934)
• Mules and Men (1935)
• Tell My Horse (1937)
• Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
• Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939)
• Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)
• Seraph on the Suwanee (1948)
• I Love Myself When I Am Laughing…and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader (edited by Alice Walker; introduction by Mary Helen Washington) (1979)
• Sanctified Church (1981)
• Spunk: Selected Stories (1985)
• Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life (play, with Langston Hughes; edited with introductions by George Houston Bass and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and the complete story of the Mule bone controversy.) (1991)
• The Complete Stories (introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sieglinde Lemke) (1995)
• Barracoon (1999)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston

http://www.zoranealehurstonfestival.com/

I really liked “In the Bedroom” the first time I saw it. It’s a movie with a monster who does not look like a monster. I recently watched the ending and appreciated the craft of the entire crew, especially the director in the choices he made. For me the movie is not about the crimes committed or who are your friends when times are bad, rather it’s about that little monster that we have inside of us that when given the chance will choose for us to be and do unthinkable things.

There are a lot movies that I’ve seen that never warrant a second look, much less a third or fourth. That’s because the director has played all of his/her cards right up front. Once you seen the movie once there is nothing else to see. With “In the Bedroom” I noticed the quiet, there was no constant music theme interrupting my thoughts. I noticed the performances of Wilkinson, Spacek and Marisa Tomei.. The Tomei role intrigued me. I remembered her best as Lisa Bonet corky room mate in the first season of TV sitcom “A Different World”. I noticed the crabs and the town, how there seemed be no diversity.

My second look, had me pay closer attention to monster, played with perfection by Sissy Spacek. Even in her mid fifties Sissy Spacek is cute and we all had cute monsters in our life. Monsters are things that a far more relentless then we are. Monsters get what they want, with out ever compromising. They are unreasonable, like Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men” or Daniel Day-Lewis, in “There Will Be Blood”. Movies where the monster wins leaves the audience dissatisfied, but will to go back and take another look.

My most recent look got me paying attention to the scenery, how beautiful old towns, bay views, dense forest and sea ports are. That no matter how beautiful nature is, it is relentless and will get its way.

So, I’m still living on the fumes of my April in New York City adventure.

Went to MOMA on 53^rd St and saw the usual suspects – Cezanne, Picasso, Gauguin, Rothko, etc. But, then I went into a little room with the Van Gogh’s. I’ve always liked his work, but I had never seen them in person. They are all beautiful in an intense way.

Of course I’ve seen “Starry Night” in books, magazines, but, when looking close up, I noticed the coiled energy. The whirling stars look as it they are flying thru the air and about to explode. Just amazing.

“Starry Night”, Vincent Van Gogh, 1899

Museum of Modern Art, http://www.moma.org/

* I enjoyed seeing “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. Unfortunately, James Earl Jones was absent from his role as “Big Daddy” (made famous by Burl Ives in the 50’s movie of the same name), but the rest of the cast, directed by the talented Debbie Allen - Terrence Howard, Phylicia Rashad and Giancarlo Esposito - do a great job with this Tennessee Williams play about a southern family with lots of secrets and lots of lies.

Tony award winner Anika Noni Rose, the “cat” on the heated roof, is terrific as she fights with and for her man - from the opening curtain to the final scene, she radiates and sparkles. She is a star!

Big Daddy: “What’s that smell in this room? Didn’t you notice it, Brick? Didn’t you notice the powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?”

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, Broadhurst Theater, NYC

*And, I saw the marvelous Laurence Fishburne in “Thurgood”. Only 90 minutes, the play takes the audience thru personal and historic events of the life of the first African American Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall.

Written by George Stevens and directed by Leonard Foglia, “Thurgood” highlights how the man called “Mister Civil Rights” in the 1950’s, used the law to effect change.

The play follows him from childhood, thru his dangerous and stubborn excursions into the South to register black voters, to his successes with anti segregation legislation and then thru his 20 years on the court.

Fishburne delivers, not just an historic figure but, an accomplished, complex man. Great stories, great events some human and funny, others just make you proud.

“Thurgood”, Booth Theatre, NYC

I had a great time on my recent city visit. I set up a series of “play dates”: “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, “Passing Strange”, “Macbeth” and “Thurgood”. I enjoyed them all!

Macbeth

My niece, Cybel, and I loved “Macbeth” with Patrick Stewart, (a consummate theater actor, but, perhaps best know from “Star Trek: Next Generation”). This Shakespearian tale of greedy ambition was moved out of Scotland and into an unnamed totalitarian country of 30’s/40’s Europe. It is a rousing, rambunctious, and riveting tale of misdeeds, murder and mayhem. (Yes, I’m showing off- I love alliteration.) Awesome.

The acting was wonderful. Mr. Stewart was appropriately blood thirsty, Kate Fleetwood, as Lady Macbeth, was both ferocious and fragile and the 3 witches, dressed in nurse uniforms, were as creepy as they should be.

Most of the original text remained, even with the modern presentation, but it all worked anyway. (Towards the end of the play when Macbeth, ready to fight to the death, calls out, “Bring me my armor” – instead of a helmet and metal breast plate, he is fitted with an army issue “flak” jacket and machine gun. By this time, the audience is so wrapped up in it all, it didn’t matter.) A definite standing “O” for all. Great fun.

“Macbeth”, William Shakespeare, Directed by Rupert Goold, Lyceum Theater, NYC

Passing Strange

“Passing Strange” is clever and funny, with great music. The terrific band, whose members along with the few actors, tell the story of a young man, “Stew”, trying to look for the “real” by moving from middle class L.A., where he feels he doesn’t fit in and everything is a fraud, to Amsterdam and Germany.

In Europe, he is more “American”, than he was in California. To gain friends and acceptance in the avant garde scene- his new girl friend is only impressed with the oppressed- he “passes” as the stereotype of a ghetto youth and writes songs about the “struggle”. After a few years, he wonders what if the only thing real is your “art” and “reality” is phoney?

He eventually returns to America to pursue his art and just be himself. He is amazed that the direction of his life was decided by the decisions he made as a teenager.

Serious questions, but told with humor and music. Hard to describe - a different type musical, but, very entertaining.

To be continued…

After spending weeks following sports, you come away feeling that there is a top ten to every subject. Who are the top ten “Point Guards” to ever play the game. Who are the best Golfers, who is or was the best putter, who the best sports announcer. It seems fitting and at the same time unrealistic to declare “best”  ever in sports. This concept I believe does not lend itself to the creative arts. I don’t see art as being at all competitive, it’s more about what you like or appreciate.

Because I’ve spent so much time following basketball,  I’ve not worked on many paintings of my own. So I will share with you a few artists who’s work I feel have been important to me. (Key words “to me”).

All three of these artists  were introduced to me by Harvey Dinnerstein. I feel that they have influenced  how I see my own paintings.

I believe “The Tate” has the largest collection of Gwen John’s painting. On my only trip to London, I was disappointed to see that they only had one painting on exhibit, having just pulled a complete showing of her work a week or two before.

When Isabel Bishop passed away, there was a small and brief exhibit of her work in New York. I did not know much about her but loved her paintings. There are a few examples of her work here at the Phoenix Art Museum, and I always look for them  when I visit the museum.

Mary Beth McKenzie, teaches at the Art Students League of New York. When I was living in New York, she had a one person show. She also has a good book (if you can find it) “A Painterly Approach”.

Gwen Johns	Isabel Bishop	Mary Beth McKenzie

Well I just completed something. This is an unauthorized painting of Cybel that I did from memory. This is a lot easier to do then you might think. I recognize my family in my paintings all the time and spend days trying to lose the resemblance.