by Sandy | Sep 12, 2011 | Blogroll, Concerts, Culture, music
Jazz at Lincoln Center presents Jimmy Heath and Jon Hendricks in concert on Saturday September 24, 2011. These 2 legends are still making great music.
“Jazz royalty begins the 2011-12 JALC season with two NEA Jazz Masters, both stylish veterans who are still finding new ways to swing. A triple threat as a composer, arranger, and player, Jimmy Heath was already a forward-looking musician when he formed his first orchestra in 1947, and has remained so… The ageless Jon Hendricks rose to fame with the renowned vocalese group, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross…he’ll revisit favorites from the LHR repertoire…”
An Evening with Jimmy Heath & Jon Hendricks
Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC – September 24, 2011
FYI: Fantastic album from 1959!
by Sandy | Sep 5, 2011 | Art, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
Those colorful, often funny illustrations that accompany Rolling Stone Magazine music reviews that so many of its readers look forward to will be exhibited in NYC until October 22, 2011.
“Rolling Stone and the Art of the Record Review,” an exhibition of over 80 original illustrations commissioned for the Record Review column of Rolling Stone magazine, will be on view in the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators… The art featured in this exhibit spans four decades representing music legends such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Steven Tyler, Whitney Houston, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and many more. It has and continues to be Rolling Stone’s belief that art is the best way to present new and legendary albums and their reviews to the world.”
“Rolling Stone and the Art of the Record Review” Until October 22, 2011
Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators
128 East 63 Street
New York, NY 10065
by Sandy | Aug 26, 2011 | Art, Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Museums
The Dallas Museum of Art / DMA has given us an opportunity to see amazing examples of masks that were created for all sorts of reasons. I love the “art” of masks. Art may not be the reason for their creation, but “art” certainly can be the result.
“The African mask is a highly developed and enduring art form. African Masks: The Art of Disguise, an exhibition of approximately fifty objects from the Museum’s collections and on loan from local collectors, will reveal the function, meaning, and aesthetics of African masks. Masks serve as supports for the spirit of deities, ancestors and culture heroes, which may be personified as a human, animal, or composite. Masked performances, which are held on the occasions of thanksgiving celebrations, rites of passage, and funerals, often entertain while they teach moral lessons. This exhibition will present a variety of masks from several different sub-Saharan peoples that offer a variety of types, styles, sizes, and materials and the contexts in which they appear.”
“African Masks: The Art of Disguise” – Dallas Museum of Art
1717 North Harwood, Dallas, Texas
(Images: Four-faced helmet mask (ñgontang), Gabon, Ogooué River and Woleu-Ntem Province, Fang peoples, Betsi or Ntumu group, 1920–40 and Helmet mask (gye), Côte d’Ivoire, Guro peoples, mid-20th century, wood, paint, and sheet metal)
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by Sandy | Aug 24, 2011 | Art, Artist, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
The Art Institute of Chicago/AIC presents the exciting “Restless Rainbow, a commissioned, site-specific work for the Art Institute of Chicago’s Bluhm Family Terrace, uses this dramatic space not as a platform for objects but as the work itself. In this piece, White drew on her interest in and knowledge of graphic design, textiles, and animation to wrap the terrace in a vibrantly colored, energetic abstracted rainbow.”
Restless Rainbow Until September 20, 2011
The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
(Image: Schematic design for Restless Rainbow, 2011© Pae White)
by Bob Martin | Aug 20, 2011 | Art, Reposted
Learned about someone who decided listening to music created in 2010, realizing that he and most of us gravitate to what we are most comfortable with and avoid listening to anything that is new. Thought this was a good idea and understand that I don’t have the same commitment but still can venture out and listen to stuff I am not familiar with.
Someone posted this video recording of Janelle Monae on David Lettermen this year. Great performance, full of fun energy.
by Sandy | Aug 18, 2011 | Art, Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits
Paintings collected by John & Vivian Hewitt of New York from 1949 – 1998 are featured at the Harvey B Gantt Center in Charlotte, NC until August 28, 2011. The 58 works by 20 artists such as Romare Bearden, Margaret Burroughs, Jonathan Green, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Ann Tanksley and Henry Ossawa Tanner reflect the Hewitt’s passion for the wide ranging themes and styles of artists of color.
John and Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art until 8/28/11
Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture
551 S. Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC
(Images: “Easter”, Jonathan Green and “Canal Builders II “, Ann Tanksley)
by Sandy | Aug 15, 2011 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Books, Culture, Exhibits, Learning
Los Angeles will host its popular Black Book Expo again this year at the L.A. Convention Center. This one day event will offer “authors, storytellers, spoken word and poetry performances, musicians, exhibitors, children’s book authors, emerging writers, publishers, booksellers, panel discussions, editors, book reviewers…”
The Los Angeles Black Book Expo (LABBX)
L.A. Convention Center – Saturday August 20, 2011
by Sandy | Aug 13, 2011 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, dvd, Film
French film, A Prophet (Un Prophète, 2009) directed by Jacques Audiard struck me as a cautionary tale for wayward youth. It details the experiences of 19 year old Malik (Tahar Rahim) as he serves his 8 year prison sentence for refusing to cooperate with police.
A product of juvenile detention facilities, incarceration in an adult prison matures him, not in the way usually meant. Instead of rehabilitation, “learning his lesson” while repaying his debt to society, etc., prison teaches him questionable survival skills and he toughens. What he learns in prison far surpasses what he could have learned on the streets.
Surviving alone may work on the outside, but in captivity, being part of a group is vital, and being the top dog in that group is prime, doing whatever it takes to get there. Malik adapts to the inhumanity that surrounds him and prospers.
You get drawn into the story and after awhile, you start to root for this young man and want him to rise above somehow. Which perhaps is a testament to both the acting and writing because Malik does some evil stuff, but you still want him alive and freed after his 8 years. (It’s not so much that you want him to “win”- but you want him to survive, to live long enough to discover another way of being in the world.)
But, what lingering effects do violent actions and experiences have on a kid? Are they difficult to erase like tattoos? Is he branded forever? I don’t know.
Fascinating movie.
BTW: Un Prophète (2009) won the Grand Prize at Cannes Festival, 2009
by Sandy | Aug 10, 2011 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Galleries, Reposted
Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler has an exhibit on view, “Paintings 1961-1973” at the Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. She “introduced the technique of painting directly onto an unprepared canvas so that the material absorbs the colors. She heavily diluted the oil paint with turpentine so that the color would soak into the canvas. This technique, known as “soak stain” was used by Jackson Pollock and others…”
FYI: Abstract Expressionism was an American post-World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris. (per WikiPedia)
Helen Frankenthaler *“Paintings 1961-1973″
John Berggruen Gallery, 228 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA
by Sandy | Aug 8, 2011 | Art, Blogroll, Museums
Dutch and Flemish paintings will be on view until October at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, CA.
“The selection of paintings includes premier examples of quintessentially Dutch subjects—from portraits and still lifes to landscapes and charming scenes of everyday life. Collectively these works chronicle a 17th-century Holland that served as a model for early American society and culture… 
Famous artists such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Hendrick Avercamp are featured, as are genre specialists Frans van Mieris and Gerrit Dou, whose magical Dog at Rest is so typically Dutch in its quiet, intense study of a small dog curled up asleep.”
Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection * Until October 2, 2011
Legion of Honor – Lincoln Park
34th Avenue & Clement Street, San Francisco, CA
(Images: Sleeping Man Having His Pocket Picked, Nicolaes Maes, 1655 and Sleeping Dog (detail), Gerrit Dou, 1650)
