The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Uncovers Picasso’s ‘Blue Period’
Another Picasso exhibition? Yes, he was brilliant and there are new generations waiting to discover his significance—but is there really anything new to say? The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, and the Art Gallery of Ontario think there is, and have co-curated a new exhibition whose ambitious purpose is revelation. To achieve this goal, PICASSO: PAINTING THE BLUE PERIOD showcases how X-Ray imaging reveals young Picasso’s emergence as a distinctive painter in his early career in Paris and Barcelona. There is always room for new ideas in art history, and Phillips Head of Conservation Elizabeth Steele believes that since much conservation work is done behind the scenes, sharing their work with the public “is a unique chance to spotlight the science of preserving art.”
MoreNYC’s Almine Rech Gallery with Sarah Cunningham: “In Its Daybreak, Rising”
Almine Rech presents “In Its Daybreak Rising,” an exhibition of eighteen new abstract oil paintings by Sarah Cunningham. The exhibition is unusually focused and pure in its means. The semi-abstract works with representational underpinnings speak for themselves; their surprising immediacy quickly engages the viewer. One is not asked to read long texts pertaining to the show, or to contend with convoluted explanations of current trends that abound from the Metropolitan Museum to galleries in every art district in New York. Abstract painting comes in many guises; the works are often visually attractive, but ultimately fail to convey meaningful content, which would make them matter more authentically. Beauty is never wrong if it is authentic, but without an in-depth foothold, it can tilt toward the decorative, Sarah Cunningham’s works have no link to decoration. The psychologically complex works present configurations of thick worked media that create depth, movement, and inner space.
MoreWashington, DC’s Hillwood Museum: “The Luxury of Clay- Porcelain Past and Present”
Today ceramic objects are taken for granted, including earthenware, brick or even fine porcelain because of their omnipresence. We eat from plates, drink from cups and mugs and decorate our dwellings with vases filled with flowers. The ceramic industry is one of the oldest that goes back thousands of years, perhaps because clay was plentiful, the process basic and people figured out how to make useful and decorative things with it. One of the earliest pieces ever created using fired clay dates back to the late Paleolithic period 28,000 BC. A female statue of a nude woman, known as the Venus of Dolní V?stonice, was discovered in the Paleolithic site Dolní V?stonice in the Moravian area south of Brno in the Czech Republic. Also found at this same site in a horseshoe shaped kiln were hundreds of clay figurines representing Ice Age animals ––bear, lion, fox, horse and owl along with over 2000 balls of burnt clay.
In China pot fragments dating back to 18,000-17,000 BCE have been found. Historians believe that China’s use of pottery successively spread to Japan and the Russian Far East region where archeologists have recovered shards of ceramic artifacts dating to 14,000 BCE. However, progress toward porcelain making evolved very slowly in China since its production is far more challenging than that for earthenware or stoneware. Porcelain is the most prestigious kind of pottery because of its delicacy, strength, and radiant translucent, white color and was finally produced about 2,000 to 1,200 years ago in China.
MorePicasso and the Guitar: Memory and Metaphor
Inspired by, ‘Picasso: Guitars (1912-14)’- At the Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Though living in France most of his life, Picasso was a Spaniard, through-and-through, remaining proud of his birthright, cultural heritage and sun-drenched memories of childhood, over his lifetime. Any retrospective of his work as a painter and sculptor reveals that he was continually informed by the iconic images of Spain, at both conscious and unconscious levels: the raven-haired, large-eyed female figures, matadors and bull-fighting motifs, the open-balcony studio settings of his imagination, replete with palm-strewn vistas of warm seas, mythic creatures from Greco-Roman legend and seductive naked sylphs, all belie his enduring visceral attachment to las cosas de españa.
MoreNew York City Opera & Museum of Jewish Heritage: ‘The Garden of the Finzi-Continis’
Despite countless closings, postponements, cancellations, empty seats, Covid interventions, and the annoying requirement of having to wear a mask, present proof of a vaccination with a valid government issued photo ID, and go through a security check, even before you enter the theatre, New York City’s theater scene appears to be chugging along, surprisingly so, with an abundance of better than- usual fare.
MoreTwo Rivers, Worlds Apart: Linked by Opium and American Ambition
The Connecticut River cradles the city of Middletown (f. 1653), at a modest bend in its course, a place originally called Mattabesset, Algonquin for “end of the carrying place.” Tranquility now prevails over the city’s waterfront park, with its east-facing view of neighboring Portland (once called Chatham), and expansive southerly vista toward Haddam’s broad navigable channel.
MoreMaryland’s Glenstone with Charles Ray: An Ongoing Series of Rotating Exhibitions
Charles Ray is known for his uncanny realistic sculptures of cars, plants, and humans. He has been making art for nearly five decades. He was born in Chicago and moved to L.A. in 1981 where he continues to reside. Ray has had a flourishing international career; exhibiting his work in numerous prestigious venues as three Venice Biennales, Kunst Museum Basel, five Whitney Biennials, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago and Documenta to mention only a few. Although he is known for such iconic figurative works as the Family Romance, 1993; Boy with Frog, 2009 and his experimental statues. Ray’s work does not lend itself to specific categorization since it is ever evolving and rooted in the time and place of its conception
MoreNYC’s Atlantic Theater Co.- Kimberly Akimbo: A Young Soul In An Old Body
Kimberly Akimbo the newly penned musical with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, Shrek the Musical) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home, Caroline, or Change) is the most loving, loveliest, and poignant theatrical experience of the year. Starring the invincible Victoria Clark whose every performance is pure gold (she won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for The Light in the Piazza 2005), Kimberly Akimbo is currently gracing the stage at NYC’s Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater through Saturday, January 15.
MoreIN THE HEIGHTS, BELFAST, and WEST SIDE STORY: Capturing a Sense of Place
A pandemic life of semi-isolation has given me a renewed appreciation for living in a community. In between Covid surges this past year, three movies struck me as more relevant than they perhaps originally intended. IN THE HEIGHTS, BELFAST, and the new version of WEST SIDE STORY each showcased neighborhood communities and the generations that fostered them. Each also conveyed how new generations had their own dreams, and how fulfilling their new hopes demanded escaping the place that had originally nurtured them. Life is complicated.
MoreIn Memorium: Stephen Sondheim
There will be hundreds of “appreciation” pieces published in print and online during the next few days memorializing the life and work of Stephen Sondheim who died Friday at the age on 91. There will be tens of thousands of mourning Facebook posts and emails spun around the globe. But this one may be slightly different from the majority, although thousands and thousands of devotees feel the same way.
MoreA Guest Editorial: “Beauty in Things that Pass – what dogs can teach us”
It wasn’t planned. And that’s perhaps what made it all the more magical. But this past Christmas morning, Vlad and his best friend Malibu were the only dogs in the baseball field (the one we pretend is a dog park). I’m not sure why they were the only dogs there. It might have been the holiday, of course, or the hour (7am). Or it could have been the mud left from the previous day’s snow flurries. And HERE is what ensued:
MoreManhattan Theatre Club’s ‘Morning Sun’: No Heart Untouched
Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of British Playwright Simon Stephen’s three-generation memory play Morning Sun ran through Sunday, December 19th at New York City Center.For the discerning theatergoers who live and die theater, and perhaps still remember the dazzling effectiveness of Stephen’s Tony winning play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night (2015) it was a must see. I kid you not.
MoreNGA & A WIDER ANGLE: “THE NEW WOMAN BEHIND THE CAMERA”
The National Gallery in Washington, D.C., has recently opened a major exhibition celebrating significant 20th century women photographers. As curator Andrea Nelson explains, The New Woman Behind the Camera is intended to explore how photography became “a global symbol of female empowerment based on real women making revolutionary changes in life and art.”
MoreNew York’s Gagosian Shows Nathaniel Mary Quinn: Not Far From Home: Still Far Away
Nathaniel Mary Quinn, “Not Far From Home; Still Far Away,” on view at Gagosian, presents an exploration of Quinn’s relationships in fourteen intense portraits, created in a range of media that includes oil paint, gouache, charcoal, oil stick and pastel. Distortion is the keynote of Quinn’s inner-based perception, expressed in a vision that transforms the artist, his friends and his female subject, apparently his mother. He disregards visually perceivable features, boldly executing truncated, layered, re-imagined, and spliced images that exude a sense of deep emotional anguish. Quinn’s impeccable inventive paintings compare with the visceral images Francis Bacon created in his portraits, and Picasso’s Synthetic Cubist women.
MoreBoston’s Gardner Museum with, ‘Titian: Women, Myth & Power’
Tiziano Vecellio, known as Titian, was a Venetian painter during the Renaissance, and is considered to be the most significant artist of the 16th century. The Venetian school began in the 1400s under the leadership of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini who emphasized using color to create dramatic forms. The range of Titian’s oeuvre was extensive including subjects from landscapes, portraiture, spiritual and mythological stories. Throughout his career his style changed noticeably however is art always displayed his mastery of color and tone. He excelled in painting vigorous compositions filled with supreme richness and distinct psychological expression. As an artist Titian is generally viewed as only second in greatness and success to Michelangelo.
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