Tag: Spring 2017

Beyond NY: “Brodsky/Baryshnikov” at Apollo Theater, London, UK

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Beyond NY: “Brodsky/Baryshnikov” at Apollo Theater, London, UK

Beyond NY: "Brodsky/Baryshnikov" at Apollo, London, UK
J.Brodsky, M.Baryshnikov / image source – londontheaterdirect.com

This 90 min one-man show, directed by Alvis Hermanis, is a delicate theatrical staging of complex poetry by Josef Brodsky. The selected poetry is moody and at times disturbing. And so is the acting by Mikhail Baryshnikov, an acclaimed dancer and actor, and a close friend of J. Brodsky. In the FT  “Poetry and Motion” article Baryshnikov refers to Brodsky as “his university”.

Baryshnikov opens his heart and soul in performing Brodsky’s in a rather subdued and melancholic setting. Hermanis’s production skillfully uses contrast between the simplicity of the stage set and the depth of the material to amplify the effect.  The verses, the graceful movements and sounds are full of inevitability of the passing time. The beauty of this performance is in its ability to tie together the convoluted world of Brodsky’s poetry with Baryshnikov’s elegant reading and acting. The show was performed in NYC at the BAC in March 2016 and reviewed in the New York Times.

 

For bookings go  here. 

 

Venue: Apollo Theater, London, UK                 Dates: May 3 – 5, 2017 

Beyond NYC: Celebrating 100 Years of Jazz History with Catskill Jazz Factory at Fisher Center, Bard College, NY

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Beyond NYC: Celebrating 100 Years of Jazz History with Catskill Jazz Factory at Fisher Center, Bard College, NY 

May 13, 2017, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY 

Beyond NYC: Celebrating 100 Years of Jazz History with Catskill Jazz Factory at Fisher Center, Bard College, NY
Catskill Jazz Factory

An innovative educational and performance art community Catskilll Jazz Factory is celebrating 100 years of jazz history from it’s folk roots to american classics like Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. The program brings together bandleader Chris Washburn on trombone, Brazilian pianist Andre Mehnari , vocalist/composer Sarah Elizabeth Charles, clarinetist Evan Christopher and friends.

The event will take place at the picturesque town of Annandale-on-Hudson, NY at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Art which is located on the campus of a picturesque Bard College. Bard College is well known for its rigorous and diverse art education program and best in class roster of summer performances in upstate NY. Only two hours away from hustle and bustle of New York City, the campus is sufficiently insulated for full concentration and study, yet affords a convenience of being accessible via train connection to the city.

The Richard B. Fisher Center is an architectural jewel in itself being designed by Frank Gehry and hosting a multitude of adventurous programs at the world class facilities.

For tickets click here.

Venue: Richard B. Fisher Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY       Date&Time: Saturday, May 13, 2017 at 8pm 

Places to eat around Bard College.

Art Event in NYC: Seurat’s Circus Slideshow at the Met Museum

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Art Event in NYC: Seurat’s Circus Slideshow at the Met Museum 

On view till May 29, 2017

Art Event: Seurat's Circus Slideshow at the Met Museum
From the exhibition: Circus Slideshow, G. Seurat, 1887-1888

Feel the energy of festive crowd, hear the noise of excitement, become part of Paris street fair at the end of 19th century! This is the experience of the exhibition at the Met Museum about the saltimbanques, street performers, who were a well known presence on the cities’ streets around Europe. The musicians, the acrobats, the clowns – they are all there with all their glory and misery.

The title painting in the show is a great masterpiece by Georges Seurat “Parade de Cirque” complemented by many more works on the subject of street shows and circus performances. Seurat’s oeuvre is represented by two paintings and 16 conte crayon drawings. Those are shown alongside the works of Seurat’s contemporaries such as Fernand Pelez, Louis Hayet, Honoré Daumier among others. The stunning and subtle “Parade de Cirque” is contrasted by the naturalistic depiction of saltimbangues in Perez’s “Grimaces and Misery—The Saltimbanques” from Petit Palais in Paris. Other works in this exhibition are the lithographs and posters of Corvi Cirque, street scenes, and even a drypoint by Rembrandt from 1655. The selection of material and the storyline of the show presents the viewer with multiple angles of street life mixing highs and lows of that time.

The New York Times review calls “Seurat’s Circus Slideshow” at the Met Museum “an enthralling exhibition”.

Venue: The Met Museum on Fifth Avenue        Time: till May 29, 2017

Beyond NY: Bill Viola at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC and Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy

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Beyond NY: Bill Viola at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC and at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy

Bill Viola at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC “‘Bill Viola: The Moving Portrait’—the National Portrait Gallery’s first exhibition entirely devoted to media art—offers a new interpretation of the work of the pioneering video artist as a career-long experimentation with portraiture. Since the early 1970s, Viola has been recognized for his groundbreaking and masterful use of video technologies, creating poetic works that explore the spiritual and perceptual side of human experience and search for […]

via Bill Viola: The Moving Portrait at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, through May 7, 2017 — Arts Summary

Another installation of Bill Viola’s revolutionary work is going on now half a world away at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy.  This exhibition is centered on the comparison of Viola’s films and the classical works that served as the inspirations for them.  One of those comparisons is between newly restored work by Jacopo Pontormo‘s “Visitation” (1528-9) and Viola’s “The Greeting” (1995).

Florence has a particular place in Viola’s career as he first visited the city right after graduating from the Syracuse University, NY. He came there to connect with the vibrant contemporary art scene and joined the art/tapes/22 studio founded by the video producer Maria Gloria Bicocchi. For this year installation of Viola’s work the city of Florence is going out of its way with concurrent shows of his work at the Uffizi galleries, the Santa Maria Novella Church Museum, and in the freshly refurbished museum of the city’s famous Duomo Cathedral.

The FT points out that “Viola’s art, as it returns” to Florence, “close to the sources of its inspiration, seems to have acquired an extra layer of meaning.”

 

Venue: Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC                      Time: till May 7, 2017

Venue: Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy                                                                 Time: till July 23, 2017

April – August, 2017 Art Event in NYC – Doug Wheeler: PSAD Synthetic Desert III at Guggenheim Museum

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April – August, 2017 Art Event in NYC – Doug Wheeler: PSAD Synthetic Desert III at Guggenheim Museum

April - August, 2017 Art Event in NYC - Doug Wheeler: PSAD Synthetic Desert III at Guggenheim Museum

“The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents the first-ever realized work from a group of installations conceived by Doug Wheeler during the late 1960s and ’70s: Doug Wheeler: PSAD Synthetic Desert III. Produced in close collaboration with the artist, the Guggenheim installation is developed from drawings executed in 1968 and will be on view in the museum’s Tower Level 7. In […]

via Doug Wheeler: PSAD Synthetic Desert III at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, through August 2, 2017 — Arts Summary

The installation recreates the experience of the desert with its stillness and near silence to synthesize “lunar space”.  To reach that state the gallery has controlled optics and sound environment with Wheeler’s large abstract paintings of infinite geometric forms in hermetically closed gallery. That way the visitor can experience the cosmic infinity of space.

Doug Wheeler is associated with the Light and Space art movement  popular on the West Coast in the 60s.

The installation is best experienced with as little distraction as possible, so it requires a timed ticket. You can reserve it here. 

Venue: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY                            Time: Though August, 2, 2017