Speaking of Art

ICA Exhibit, Watershed, Boston: Guadalupe Maravilla: Mariposa Relámpago

GUADALUPE MARAVILLA’S EXHIBITION Mariposa Relámpago at Boston’s ICA Watershed is a dazzling arrangement of imaginative work. The exhibit centers on his personal journey of migration when he came to the United States as an 8-year-old fleeing the civil war in El Salvador. Several years earlier his parents escaped to the United States when in 1984, Guadalupe Maravilla was notified that a network of coyotes would guide him through El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to Tijuana, Mexico to eventually reunite with his family in the USA. The arduous, physical journey took more than two months. Maravilla and other children were part of the first wave of undocumented youth to come to the US as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War. Although he emigrated when he was only eight, he didn’t become a US citizen until he was twenty-six.

Broadway’s’Bad Cinderella’: a Latina Cinderella, Her Crazy-Ass Stepmother and Two Black Princes

LITTLE DID ANDREW LLOYD WEBER KNOW when he saddled his most recent musical with the ill-chosen name Bad Cinderella that he was handing theater critics here in New York a cudgel with which to beat his latest Broadway production to a pulp. And beat it they did, savagely so, to the point of forcing it to close at the Imperial Theatre on June 4, 2023 after only 33 previews, 85 regular performances, with a loss rumored to be in the neighborhood of $19 million dollars. I might add, more or less, this same play, a retooled feminist version of the Cinderella fairytale then named solely Cinderella, opened at Gillian Lynne Theatre in London’s West End to mostly warm reviews after several pandemic-related stops and starts on June 25, 2021.

Broadway’s ‘Parade’: Wrapped in Folds of Civic Pageantry

ALFRED UHRY’S MUSICAL PARADE, co-conceived by Hal Prince with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, is now playing to sell-out crowds and rave reviews, and back on Broadway after 25 years (for a limited run through Sunday, August 6) at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York City. A long time in coming, Parade took its first Broadway bow at Lincoln Center Theater in 1998 under the direction of Harold Prince where it won a Tony Award for best score and book. It ran for 39 previews and 84 regular performances.

In a major reworking in September of 2007, Parade, directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford at the Donmar Warehouse in London, opened to positive reviews. As one critic noted, “the Donmar production establishes Parade as an ambitious, musically daring piece that deserves praise attempting to intertwine the political and the personal.”

THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY in Washington, DC, has opened “1898: U.S. IMPERIAL VISIONS AND REVISIONS.” The museum describes this as the first major Smithsonian exhibition to examine the U.S. intervention in Cuba, and the nation’s expansion into Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. As such, it marks the 125th anniversary of the U.S. acquiring overseas territories and its emergence as a world power.

“PRAYER & TRANSCENDENCE” now at Washington, DC’s Textile Museum

THE TEXTILE MUSEUM at the George Washington University Museum has organized a fascinating exhibition that explores the role and iconography of classic prayer carpets–a subject I knew nothing about, but which I enjoyed thoroughly under the guidance of a superb docent.

“Pictures From Home” on Broadway: from book to stage, and into your heart

PICTURES FROM HOME currently running thru April 30 is the most delightful and thought-provoking play currently gracing the Broadway stages at this very moment. Featuring the tried-and-true Danny Burstein, Nathan Lane, and Zoë Wanamaker – three stellar actors at their very best – the play is wowing audiences with loads of laughter, wisps of tears, and nostalgia to boot, for one hour and forty-five intermissionless minutes. As to be expected, with such accomplished illuminate, be prepared to add a 7-minute tsunami of an uproariously well-deserved curtain bows.

A REDISCOVERED LINCOLN PORTRAIT AT THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, WASHINGTON, DC

THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY is currently displaying a remarkable portrait of Abraham Lincoln.The nine-foot-tall portrait by W.F.K. Travers, done from life in 1864-1865, is one of only three known full-length paintings of Lincoln. For decades, it hung in relative obscurity in the Madison, NJ, town hall. Art collector and benefactor Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge established the Hartley Dodge Foundation in the early 20th century and filled the municipal building with her collection. She added the Travers portrait to the walls of the town hall “after Congress dithered over its purchase for the Capitol” in the 1920s.

The Counter/Self at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery

THE COUNTER/SELF IS THE TITLE of this exhibition, immediately captured my attention. I have always been interested in the hidden characters of people, including myself. We all have many faces and various personalities in addition to the one we consider our true self. It brings to mind Janus with his two faces in mythology and all the people through historical and contemporary times who often changed their personalities. As I have experienced myself, it can happen when we’re under social pressure, relocating, or trying to succeed in a society that has a different culture than the one we’re used to. Every self is performative and we also summon different characters to avoid conflict with others or to please them, as needed. Each of us express or hide our various sides of ourselves. Both social and personal identities are created by inner drives and external expectations that mirror our dreams and fears. There are also the masks we choose to put on intentionally to transfer us into another world or character. So, I thought this exhibition would offer endless possibilities in addressing this complex and exiting theme.

Phillip Guston NOW, PART II: What a Difference a Curator Makes!

FINALLY, A SIGNIFICANT EXHIBITION has opened on 2 March 2023 at the National Gallery of Art—Phillips Guston NOW. This show has been “PAUSED” for two years and then again the opening date was delayed from Feb. 26 to March 2. My response to this was YIKES! However, what further flabbergasted me were the reasons for this delay given by a NGA spokesperson: “We heard very strong concerns about opening an exhibition that includes pictures of the Ku Klux Klan during Black History Month. The new opening date addresses that concern and allows more time for in-gallery training and conversation for front-facing staff prior to the opening.” Although the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols on 7^th January by Memphis police was never mentioned, possibly this factored into the changing of the date. However, why would I be surprised, given the Director of the NGA initiated the postponement of the Guston exhibition from the new opening in September 2020 after the first delay because of the pandemic?

Vincent Rosenblatt, *Bate-bola #86,* Turma do Indio, Rio de Janeiro 2017

NYC’s HIGH LINE GALLERY 4 presents an exhibition of recent works by twenty Brazilian and Iranian artists, curated by Iranian Roya Khadjavi, and Brazilian Flavia Tamoyo. In the dead of a New York winter, this engaging diverse salon style exhibition comes as a revelation, where creativity and inclusiveness are the threads that weave together the energies of cross-cultural collaboration. The curators selected works whose forms and colors combine to express a unique take on the artists’ personal lives and concerns, that speak to issues both public and private dominating their thoughts. The show includes Maritza Caneca, Afsaneh Djabbari Aslani, Sylvia Martins, Dana Nehdaran, Malekeh Nayiny, Rona Neves, Zahra Nazari, Anna Paola Protasio, Maryam Palizgir, Mana Sazegara, Atieh Sohrabi, Bruno Schmidt, Erick Vittorino, Vincent Rosenblatt, Dariush Nehdaran, Mana Sazegara, Faraaz Zabetian, Malekeh Nayiny, Atieh Sohrabi, and Farnaz Zabetian.