by Sandy | Jun 25, 2010 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Creativity, dvd, music
“This Is It” is the DVD documentary that captured the final days of the “King of Pop” as he prepared for a concert tour in 2009. I’ll be honest, I began to watch with some hesitation – Is this going to be a sad, tragic documentary about a frail former super star? (I didn’t really want to see that.) But happily, no worries. 
“This Is It” is a joyous celebration of the pop entertainer’s talent and hard work. This compilation of rehearsal footage includes a lot of the songs and dance moves we all know and love and as the show is rehearsed and shaped, we also get to see the attention to detail, the professionalism that was Michael Jackson. He was totally present and engaged. Nothing was too small to go over until it was right. He loved it all.
It becomes obvious why MJ was not “famous” just for wearing gem encrusted gloves – his fans loved him because he so obviously cared about them. He wanted his audience to be entertained. He wanted them to say “Wow” and they did.
Michael Jackson * star ( Don’t believe it has been a year – R.I.P.)
by Sandy | Jun 22, 2010 | Art, Artist, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
“Salvador Dali- the Late Work” * High Museum of Art Atlanta
“August 7, 2010 through January 9, 2011 The High will be the sole venue for the first exhibition to focus on Dalí’s art after 1940. The exhibition, featuring more than 40 paintings and a related group of drawings, prints and other Dalí ephemera, will explore the artist’s enduring fascination with science, optical effects and illusionism, and his surprising connections to artists of the 1960s and 1970s such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Willem de Kooning.“
High Museum of Art Atlanta * August 7 to January 9, 2011
1280 Peachtree Street, N.E., Atlanta, GA
(Image: “Santiago El Grande”, 1957, oil on canvas)
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by Bob Martin | Jun 21, 2010 | Art, Culture, Exhibits
Portrait by Tamara De Lempicka
As kids, every year we looked forward to going to Radio City Music Hall. Usually it was to see the Christmas show, which went on for ever and was an exceptional treat. At the breaks or intermission our trip to the concession stand was a visit to a new world. Unlike our neighborhood movie house, the lobby was lit up like a Christmas tree and all of the candy seemed be in extra size boxes (I don’t know if this was true, but it seemed like). What I loved most was the art, which reminded me of all of the black and white films I loved, except this place was full of color.
Jean Harlow
At the time I didn’t know what Art Deco was and it fueled my imagination.
There is an exhibit of works by Tamara de Lempicka, possibly the best known Art Deco painter, at the Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City. I am always reminded of Jean Harlow in that white dress whenever I see these paintings.
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by Bob Martin | Jun 18, 2010 | Art, Exhibits, Museums
A copper sculpture of a king, from Nigeria. Credit: Karin L. Willis/Museum for African Art/Fundación Marcelino Botín
The “Museum for African Art” of New York is on scheduled to be completed next spring and will extend the 5th Ave “Museum Walk” up to Harlem.
I think this is a great accomplishment and another sign that the “American Dream” can be more then “A very, very, very fine house, with two cats in the yard “
by Sandy | Jun 18, 2010 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
Beginning June 22, 2010, the Frick Collection, in New York City celebrates its 75th Anniversary with special events, free days, etc. 
Frick started out collecting works by artists from the Barbizon school, (a group of 19th-century French landscape painters) along with work from Titian, Rembrandt, Velazquez, El Greco, Goya and Fragonard. He continued to collect things that he liked and thought beautiful – Limoges enamels, Sevres porcelain, 18th-century French furniture and tapestries. All are on display here.
“It was the desire of Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) that his extraordinary art collection and magnificent home at 1 East 70 Street be opened as a museum following his family’s period of residence. After the death of his wife, Adelaide, in 1931, the mansion, built in 1913–14 by Thomas Hastings (1860–1929) of Carrère and Hastings, underwent further construction in order to transform it into a space suitable as a public institution…expanded by architect John Russell Pope (1873–1937), the resulting building opened to a fascinated public on December 16, 1935 as of The Frick Collection.”
The Frick Collection
1 East 70th Street
New York, NY
(Images: Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, “An officer Conde de Teba”, 1804 and “Portrait of a Woman”, 1635, Frans Hals)
by Sandy | Jun 15, 2010 | Art, Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Museums
“Louisiana Art” is one of the mainstays of the permanent exhibits at the New Orleans Museum of Art.
“NOMA’s collection includes an outstanding survey of Louisiana art from the 19th and 20th Centuries, including important works by contemporary Louisiana artists.”
The New Orleans Museum of Art’s other permanent collections include photography, decorative arts and drawings from all over the world.
New Orleans Museum of Art / NOMA
One Collins C. Diboll Circle, City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana
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by Sandy | Jun 14, 2010 | Art, Blogroll, Creativity, Museums, Photograhy
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has always supported the idea of Photography as art.
“SFMOMA was one of the first museums in the country to treat photography as an equal to painting and sculpture. In celebration of the museum’s 75 years of engagement with the medium, this exhibition explores the variety and vitality of California‘s photographic tradition from the 1840s to the present.”
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA
(Images: “Contour Graded Hills”, William Garnett 1953 and “San Francisco Strike”, Dorothea Lange 1933)
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by Bob Martin | Jun 12, 2010 | Art, Culture, Exhibits
We’ve had this extraordinary relationship , most of which has been frustrated by tension, mistrust and stubbornness, some of Cuba’s
Manuel Mendive Hoyo "The Sons of Water, Talking to a Fish" 2001
greatest assets, Music and Art have been missed. Hats off and thanks to the Katonah Museum of Art for hosting this exhibit, which runs from June 27 to September 19, 2010.
by Sandy | Jun 9, 2010 | Blogroll, Books, Culture, Education, Exhibits
12th Annual Harlem Book Fair & Arts Festival – the largest annual African American book fair and it’s free! 
Featured on Friday, Saturday and Sunday July 17 until July19, will be over 200 exhibit booths, there will be music stages, panel discussions and children’s activities.
Harlem Book Fair 7/17 thru 7/19, 2010
“The vision of the Harlem Book Fair is to partner with local and national leadership organizations under the banner of literacy awareness, affirming HBF as the nation’s largest African American literary event celebrating family literacy, community empowerment, and community cooperation. “
by Bob Martin | Jun 7, 2010 | Art, Directors, Movies
There are tons of movies that tell interesting and compelling stories about women. Two movies stand out for me, “The Hours” and “Revolutionary Road“. The women in these movies are asked to give up who they are for the sake of normalcy and to embrace mediocrity 
instead of their dreams. Dreams, aspirations and achievement was a man’s domain and women were seen as farms, a place where something is grown. Giving up your individuality was cost of love and marriage.
Love is not Love if it’s not Free
Today the only people who talk about the good old days are the people who where not there or those who benefited from them. The American Dream is a bit more complex then we had thought. It is interesting watching these movies back to back.
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