by Sandy | May 29, 2019 | Actors, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Directors, Film, Movies
The “Film Noir” genre, a label used primarily for crime dramas of the 1940’s and 1950’s, were mostly in black & white. They’re famous for their evocative, often lurid, pulpy titles, (This Gun For Hire, I Wake Up Screaming, Phantom Lady, The Blue Dahlia, etc) the snappy dialogue, the scrappy, tough guys in trench coats, (Bogart, Robinson, Ladd) and the dangerous, smart, tough women in wedgies (Joan Crawford, Gloria Graham, Barbara Stanwyck).
These broody “who dunnits” are experiencing a resurgence in popularity (along with the coats and the shoes) and are soooo entertaining.The men are menacing, the women are manipulative and both are inclined to make some bad choices.
Small, independent movie theaters around the country, those that are left, often plan double bill weekends for these clever little gems. There are also DVD box sets featuring the films of major directors of the era – Nicholas Ray, Fritz Lang and Samuel Fuller. The most famous of the group, Billy Wilder’s, Double Indemnity (’44) and Otto Preminger’s, Laura (’44) show up on PBS every few years. 
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According to a PBS documentary about “German Hollywood”, the dialogue and subject matter of “Noir” might come from American crime writers, like Dashiel Hammet and Raymond Chandler, but the shadowy mood lighting, the scenes shot at night on rain slicked streets were influenced by the German expressionist movement of the 20’s (Pabst, Murnau) and was also colored by the melancholy of those who just escaped Hitler’s net: Peter Lorre, Marlene Dietrich, Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, Fritz Lang and Michael Curtiz (he directed “Casablanca”, 1942. Most of the extras were refugees – that impassioned “La Marseillaise” gets me every time.)
Just an example of typical dialogue:
Out of The Past, ‘47 – “Is there a way to win?”, the femme fatale asks and Robert Mitchum replies, “No, but there is a way to lose more slowly”. (Love it! Goes great with popcorn.)
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by Sandy | Apr 1, 2019 | Art, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Museums
If you missed it
when it was at MoMA / NYC, LACMA (Los
Angeles County Museum of Art) is presenting
this important Charles White (1918-1979) exhibit from Feb 17 thru June 9, 2019.
“The
exhibition includes approximately 100 drawings and prints along with
lesser-known oil paintings. A superb draftsman, White focused on images of both
historical and contemporary African Americans, depicted in ideal portraits and
everyday scenes. He extolled their dignity, humanity, and heroism in the face
of the country’s long history of racial injustice and encouraged his viewers
and fellow artists of color to project their own self-worth.”
“Charles White: A Retrospective” * 2/17/19 – 6/9/19
LACMA/
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
FYI: Charles White and the Contemporary (March 6–August 25, 2018) will be presented at the California African American Museum
by Sandy | Mar 15, 2019 | Art, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
“Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s unique and
immediately recognizable style was an integral part of her identity. Kahlo (1907
– 1954) came to define herself through her ethnicity, disability, and politics,
all of which were at the heart of her work.”
“Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be
Deceiving is the largest
U.S. exhibition in ten years devoted to the iconic painter and the first in the
United States to display a collection of her clothing and other personal
possessions…”
Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving
Until
May 12, 2019
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY
by Sandy | Jan 2, 2019 | Art, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Museums
“Art must be an integral part of the struggle,” Charles White insisted. “It can’t simply mirror what’s taking place. … It must ally itself with the forces of liberation.”
“Charles White: A Retrospective is the first major museum survey devoted to the artist in over 30 years. The exhibition charts White’s full career—from the 1930s through his premature death in 1979—with over 100 works, including drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, illustrated books, record covers and archival materials.”
“Over the course of his four-decade career, White’s commitment to creating powerful images of African Americans—what his gallerist and, later, White himself described as “images of dignity”—was unwavering.”
Charles White: A Retrospective
Until January 13, 2019
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street, New York, NY
Image: General Moses (Harriet Tubman). 1965. Ink on paper
by Sandy | Oct 13, 2018 | Art, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
“The Met Breuer presents a selection of some fifty works…paintings by artists of the school of Paris, a brilliant group of erotic and evocative watercolors, drawings, and prints by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Pablo Picasso, whose subjects, except for a handful, are nudes.”“The exhibition is the first time these works have been shown together…”
Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele, and Picasso
Until October 18, 2018
The MET / Breuer
945 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10021
by Sandy | Sep 30, 2018 | Art, Artist, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
Born in the Bronx (so was I), parents of Caribbean descent (Antigua, so am I) educated at Cooper Union, (no, not I). But, more importantly, Mr Bryan’s use of color immediately caught my eye.
Love it!
“Painter and Poet: the Art of Ashley Bryan is the first major art museum exhibition in Maine for the award-winning 95-year-old artist and Little Cranberry Island resident, a pioneer of African and African American representation in the children’s book medium, who has published more than 50 titles since his first collection of poems in 1967.”
Painter and Poet: the Art of Ashley Bryan
Until November 25, 2018
PMA / Portland Museum of Art
Seven Congress Square in Portland, ME
(Image: “The birds’ colors were mirrored in the waters,” circa 2002, from “Beautiful Blackbird,” collage of cut colored paper on paper)
.