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“Stars and Bricks” Go Up On A Berlin Wall from Various & Gould

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“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.”

― Joseph Fort Newton, Southern Baptist minister from Texas (1876–1950)

And yet, talk again turns to the building of a contiguous wall along the southern border of the US.

Even though the wall is part of an Executive Order from President Trump, some say that in reality it is unlikely to happen because we still have in effect those complicating features of democracy where citizens actually disagree with one another and we are forced to reach a consensus. Not to mention the damage to relations with our 3nd largest trading partner with which goods and services traded totaled an estimated $583.6 billion in 2015.



It’s complete irony that the current Republican president is demanding a wall to be built when the nearly sainted architect of trickle-down small-government hands-off-the-corporations revolution, Ronald Reagan, is famous for having said to the then Russian president “Mr. Gorbachev: Tear down this wall” nearly 30 years. Likely Gorbachev has different opinions about the current president.

Berliners will tell you that their wall was incredibly damaging to the economies and more importantly, the people and the cultures who lived on both sides of it from 1961 to 1989. In fact the mayor of Berlin, Michael Müller said in a statement Friday, according to a translation by the Washington Post.

“We cannot simply accept that all our historic experiences are being thrown into disarray by the ones we have to thank most for our freedom: the Americans. I call on the U.S. President to not go down this wrong track of isolation and exclusion.”



Which leads us to this new piece from Berlin based Street Artist duo Various & Gould, who have just wheat-pasted a re-designed American flag with the red strips as bricks, partially eating into the stars.

“We made it straight from the guts after reading about Trump’s press conference on Jan. 11th. Among other things he was talking again about building the wall,” V&G tells BSA of the genesis for the new piece made in their studio and taken to the street.

“At first our design was just meant as sort of a visual web comment, but in the days following we decided to make a big poster of it and bring it to the streets,” they say.



Anytime a nations flag is redesigned or reconfigured some may infer it is a sign of disrespect, but V&G say they are just extremely worried. “Needless to say – it’s not in any way anti-American. In the contrary we fear for the America we know and think of our friends in the US! Trump’s Twitter politics will have an impact on the whole world.”

The Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu disagrees entirely and used Twitter to say so. “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea,” he tweeted. Freelance writer, author, film maker William Parry says in his opinion piece in Al Jazeera “Israel’s separation wall as an example of a valid security measure is based on gross ignorance, at best.”

So there will likely be ongoing disagreement. Certainly the world is watching and reacting.






V&G have created a downloadable version for you of their new design below. Just click on #StarsAndBricks.



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Fortune-Telling For A Fat Girl

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This piece by Allie Wachowski originally appeared on The Establishment, an independent multimedia site founded and run by women.


You will climb to the top of the jungle gym where at the tender age of 9, your best friend Bobby is hanging upside down and screaming curse words to make the other kids laugh. He never sticks up for you when they call you names, but he never calls you names either. You will sit at the top of the dome. You are hungry for acceptance, starving. You will learn how to eat off this small kindness; you will learn to pretend that it fills you up. You will recall your mother describing the car accident she got into as a teenager. You will shut your eyes as you hear her talk about getting her jaw wired shut, and how much weight she lost. You will try to use all the fifth grade math in your little fifth grade head to figure out how you can land in such a way that will require your own jaw to be wired shut, to calculate how much weight you could lose. Math was never your strong suit, though, and you’re too young to have learned geometry so you resign yourself to another day of existing Like. This. Fat.


You will feel undesired by men. Your first experience with sex will be with a man who fed you crumbs in terms of affection, crumbs you happily accepted and crumbs you convinced yourself kept you full. Your first experience with sex will be red and painful and violent. You will be 14 when you break down outside of Spanish class, and when Dante asks you what’s wrong you will confess, begging silently for him to absolve you. He will not believe you ― he will tell you, matter-of-factly, that you are simply not pretty enough to get raped. You will swallow it back down and it will be two years before you tell anyone. You will fail your Spanish exam that day. You will fail every Spanish exam after that. When you are in your art class next period, you will stare at the wire clay cutter in your hand, bile and rage and fear stinging, sour, in the back of your throat. You will fantasize about slicing your gut off like cool gray clay. About sloughing off your thighs and your hips and your chin and your arms like the soft wet brick that sits on the table in front of you. Until you are small enough to be believable. Until you are pretty enough to have been raped.



You resign yourself to another day of existing Like. This. Fat.



You will spend years in a relationship with a man who will say he loves you. You’re beautiful, he will say. When he fucks you he will maul your soft breasts, he will bite at your sinewy neck. When you examine yourself in the mirror, you will always think that you’re lucky that you have the face, the chin, the neck of a much smaller woman.


When he fucks you, the lights will stay off. He will not touch your gut. He will go out of his way to avoid it. By now, you have noticed that you’re hungry, that you’ve been hungry, that he’s left you starving, and so you end things. He will move out and take the bed, the TV, the cat you thought you wanted.


You’ll go on a date with a mortician you meet online. His curly hair will be piled on his head in a thick bun and you will think that it must weigh almost as much as the rest of his bony frame. He will try to finger you in the photo booth at a dirty dive bar. You will take him home, he’ll roll a joint, you’ll start to kiss. For a moment his desire will confuse you; you will have a fleeting feeling of fullness. You will feel close to sated until he grabs at your fat rolls so hard, you will flinch and as he pinches and pulls, you will feel his cock strain and swell against his jeans. Later, when he is buttoning up his pants, he will ask you if you have ever let anyone feed you before. You will block his number and you will cry in the shower the next day when you find dark blue fingerprints, as though he had marked you when he squeezed you, freckled across your gut and thighs.



For a moment his desire will confuse you; you will have a fleeting feeling of fullness.



You will be promised that you do not deserve love. You will believe it. You will be loved in secret by men too ashamed to claim you. You will be loved in public, but you will not be able to shake the feeling that you’re loved in spite of your body. You will never ask if he loves you because. You will be fetishized. You will be told one hundred times that a body like yours was Built For Sex, that that’s all you’re good for, and you will waste years believing them.


You will fall in love with yourself, in spite of it all. You don’t know how it happens—maybe it’s the beautiful femmes down the street who paint their hair and lips blue and encase their guts in spandex and invite you to their house parties. Maybe you start to see yourself through the eyes of the beautiful boy with perfect teeth, who swallows hard and looks in awe when he sees you naked for the first time. Maybe it’s that you found magic, and through magic you have learned that your body is just a tool, a resource for navigating this life. That your tender heart is a gift. Maybe you’re just tired, maybe this lifetime of hating yourself has finally caught up with you, and maybe you need relief. 



You will fall in love with yourself, in spite of it all.



But whatever the reason, it will happen. Before you know it, you will fall in love with the way you can trace the outline of your gut pressing against your tight black bodycon dress. With the way your loud, Ursula the sea witch laugh commands just as much space as your body. With the cellulite that dots the tops of your thighs. You will not fall in love with the way it burns when they rub in the summer, but you’ll fall in love with the way you bounce when you walk.


You will fall in love with yourself, and you will feel full.


You can support The Establishment’s independent media work by purchasing a ‘Member of the Resistance’ tee or making a donation here.


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First Nighter: Tanya Saracho's "Fade," Geoff Sobelle's "The Object Lesson," Robert Holman's "Jonah and Otto"

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Two Mexicans walk into a Hollywood movie studio office. No, this isn't the beginning of a hot new joke, even though there's an early Donald J. Trump laugh line. It's the start of Tanya Saracho's Fade, at the Cherry Lane, that, for one thing, takes up within-nationality biases

Lucia (Annie Dow), who's written one novel and is blocked on a second, has accepted a writing-team job on a television series. She's moved into her second-tier but still comfortable office where Abel (Eddie Martinez), pronounced Ah-bell, is the handy cleaning man. (Mariana Sanchez is the set designer.)

Just about right off the bat, Lucia assumes--correctly--that Eddie is Mexican and, because she is, too, begins addressing him in Spanish. Although he speaks English, he doesn't respond at first. Shortly, however, he points out to her--in English--that her assumption exposes a class distinction she's made about who would be likely to learn a second language and who wouldn't.

So their earlier exchanges revolve around Abel wising Lucia up to herself as she grouses about the barely disguised biased treatment she's receiving from her states-born male writing colleagues.

In time, Lucia eases up and, as Abel visits her space to empty her wastebasket and show how to open her window, the two become friendlier and even bond with each other against the writing-team's unconscious racist remarks. They're in accord to the extent that Eddie not only opens up to Lucia about his troubles at home but also begins discussing her writing assignments.

It's here where Saracho's play--so smart about prejudice often seemingly rampant--goes somewhat off the tracks. Lucia gets Abel relaxed enough to confide something drastic about himself and family. Doing that, Saracho arms the audience with a hearty nudge as to where she's going with her script and makes a playwright's major mistake.

She lets the audience get ahead of her. The problem becomes that rather than having patrons follow the Lucia-Abel development, they're drumming their fingers in regard to how long it's going to take for the inevitable to take place.

Though that goes some way to vitiate Fade, it doesn't undermine the play completely. Her observations about the complexities of intolerance are astute. The Lucia-Abel relationship and how it grows is amusing as well as enlightening to observe.

The playwright is valuably abetted by director Jerry Ruiz, who began his work in an earlier Denver Center Theatre Company production. Dow's never-ending jitters are great fun to watch. Worth watching closely is Martinez's display of sly understanding. He also exhibits a confident workingman's stride, which he probably honed in Denver.
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At the New York Theatre Workshop they're happy to reconfigure the commodious space for whatever is lodging there temporarily. With The Object Lesson, they've gone whole hog.

When patrons enter past an opaque plastic curtain they've already passed a wall of stacked boxes. Once in, they're encouraged to wander through the hundreds(?) of additional boxes. Some are stacked. Some are not, but are open and contain what look like society's detritus. Some are designated as seats. (Steven Dufala is credited with the scenic installation design.)

After the crowd has spent time milling about and then sitting, a willowy fellow named Geoff Sobelle (not that he gives a character's name) starts talking, initially discussing objects he picks out near the chair he's occupied for a few minutes. He rambles on for a while and then makes a call (or was he called?; I don't remember) and begins talking to himself--to his just recorded opening ramble.

Sobelle, ostensibly known for award-winning installations, continues spinning sentences that are notable for adding up to nothing much. In response, the audience occasionally laughs. Otherwise, the attendees are polite throughout.

For a bit of relief from the attenuated tedium, Sobelle, climbs on a table and, with the ice skates he's wearing, does a dance in which he cuts up lettuce, carrots and a red pepper, thereby producing a salad for a woman, who's said she's Kyoko. The sequence is mildly amusing and constitutes the 90-minute diversion's high point.

(David Parker/The Bang Group is credited with the choreography. David Neumann is credited as director, although the extent of his contributions is elusive.)

For the final 10 or 15 minutes of a piece originally commissioned by Lincoln Center Theater, Sobelle stands at one end of the room pulling seemingly endless objects from a medium-sized box. Eventually, he runs out of junk, making his perhaps major point that in time civilization comes down to nothing.

Early on, Sobelle dubs the undertaking a "bulls**t enterprise." Let's give him that final word on one of the most impoverished theater pieces by which this reviewer has ever been assaulted.
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In Robert Holman's Jonah and Otto, twentysomething-thirtysomething Jonah (Rupert Simonian) and sixty-ish Otto (Sean Gormley) don't meet cute on this side of a crumbling stone wall that could, despite the absence of gravestones, be a cemetery. (Ann Beyersdorfer is responsible for the haunted-looking set.)

They encounter when Jonah slinks through a wooden door pushing a laden cart. He arrives to menace Otto, who's been rubbing against the wall, ostensibly to extract the heat soaked up during the day.

Otto calls Jonah a hoodlum. Jonah claims he isn't. Throughout the ensuing conversation, which stretches into a series of conversations, Jonah and Otto alternately rag each other or declare their concern for one another. Slowly, it becomes obvious that, despite their differently troubled lives, they're forging a friendship. One of the reasons is the sleeping infant daughter whom Jonah takes care of in his cart.

Trying to make precise sense of what's transpiring moment to moment may not be worth a ticket buyer's time. The script doesn't bear the weight of too much analysis--certainly not the sequence in which while Otto is apparently sleeping, Jonah strips him of his outer clothes. This piece may be a small lapse in playwright Holman's career.

Little known stateside, if known at all, he does include among his works an exquisite one-act produced in 1986 about the also all but unknown writer Denton Welch. It's called Being Friends, and also there's A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky, co-authored with David Eldridge and Simon Stephens. Would that those two plays would be presented here.

The pressing reason to see Jonah and Otto is to watch what Simonian and Gormley do with their meaty roles, as directed by Geraldine Hughes. Swizzlestick-thin Otto switches with speed from scared clergyman (at least a clergyman is what Otto claims to be) to overbearing aggressor. Chunky Simonian--who gets to throw a terrifyingly convincing epileptic fit--slowly instills irresistible humanity into the openly emotional Jonah.

Although Holman's play adds up to less than the sum of its parts, the acting amounts to a good deal more.

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Marc Trujillo: 'Nowhere And Everywhere'

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Painter Marc Trujillo, who paints airports, big box stores and the occasional bag of potato chips with Vermeer-like candor, is currently having two shows: one at the Bakersfield Museum of Art and another at the Winfield Gallery in Carmel. Working with banal material, Trujillo generates scenes that attempt walk a fine line between the ordinary and extraordinary. Carefully modulated and cannily observant, Trujillo’s canvases show us that the places we barely notice can be recast as scenes of unexpected grandeur.

John Seed Interviews Marc Trujillo



Marc, where did you grow up and how did your childhood shape you? 

I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico, it's big sky country like Montana and the land keeps you aware that you're a small figure in a vast landscape which makes sense to me as a worldview and manifests itself in the paintings in the way I tend to scale the figures, they're important but are held in check by scale.  As a child, I only wanted to draw and read books, so my parents put me in gymnastics which gave me a good sense of discipline and I also realized that painting was something I could do my whole life, as opposed to gymnastics which has a short shelf-life.



How did your studies at Yale, and your interactions with Andrew Forge help you mature as an artist? 

Graduate school is where you go to have the philosophical core you operate from thoroughly cross-examined. Andrew Forge would parse out distinctions that were fine enough to nudge and refine the way you thought. He defined 'Artiness' as 'when the aesthetic effect is a consequence of things known beforehand', for example. 

William Bailey was also important to me as a model of making sure what you were doing was really painting. There are different forms and why something should be a painting as opposed to a song or novel or photograph should be a part of your intention or area of investigation from the outset. While a painting may show a place, for Bailey 'the painting is the place.’ A painting has an autonomous reality as a painting and Bailey's teaching and paintings both bear this out. 



You are known for painting subject matter that others might consider banal: when did you realize that ordinariness held a special attraction for you? 

The chill of the void is alluring to me. These places that are nowhere and everywhere, big stretches of concrete and linoleum give me a chill that makes me want to paint them. Also, when a painting goes too low or too high in terms of subject matter it plays to easily into people's fantasy lives, and showing something that the viewer fantasizes about is narrative poison to me.  

Joyce defined pornography that way: when you show the viewer something that they want to possess.  I think he got this from Kant who said that the greatest experience you can have in front of a work of art is the "God-like moment', which is disinterested pleasure; the pleasure you get from the paintings is not because you want what they are showing you. The low temperature of my subject matter also helps keep the painting the thing, to go back to the point about 'the painting is the place.’ If I paint something like Mount Everest or the Grand Canyon then the painting reminds you of this greater experience outside of itself, like a postcard. On the other hand if I'm painting a gas station or Costco, then the painting has a chance at being more of an experience than you had when you were there. 



Tell me how the works of Jan Vermeer have informed and influenced you. 

First of all by being part of what made me want to paint in the first place; my reaction to them came before my reflection about why they're so good. Then you go back and look at them as a painter instead of as a fan so that you can bring something back to you own work, Vermeer's paintings are superbly composed and balanced, the light in them is as important a character as anything in the painting, and his sense of scale is very refined.  



View of Delft is a pretty perfect painting, when you're standing in front of it, it's large enough to have some physical scale to it, but intimate enough that you don't notice the size of the painting before you see what Vermeer is showing you. View of Delft is about 38 inches high, so if I'm not sure how large to make a painting, then I'll make it 38 inches high by whatever width I need for the composition.  I've made quite a few 38 inch high paintings.



Tell me about one of the paintings you have on view in Bakersfield. How did it come about, and what kind of impact do you want it to have on viewers? 

I think the show as a whole helps show how the work is made and am grateful to the curator, Rachel Magnus, since it was important to us  to show how synthetic the paintings are- I make them like one frame movies, building the set (The vanishing point is the first thing on the painting), lighting it, and casting it.  Making as thinking is vital to me. since I need to do a lot of drawing to more fully imaginatively own my subject as well as to distill my visual motive for making a painting of it, the muted narratives in the painting are all kept that way so that the viewer is the most important figure in the painting.  

My area of investigation has come out of the work, rather than starting with a narrative and painting it, there are also cases filled with sketchbooks which I work in steadily, plein air paintings and studies from life: all of this is part of the food chain with the studio paintings at the top. It helps since some viewers might misunderstand the paintings as being 'photorealist'. Since scale is important, I hope people experience the work in person, to continue from the last question; the actual painting is the result and the test of everything that goes into it.



So, to answer your question by singling out a painting, 517 East 117th Street is 25 x 44 inches. My motive for painting this was the red carpet of meat that you get when you stand in this spot in Costco. This painting is shown along with the composition drawing for it and there's an iPad on the wall as well with various stages of the painting in progress.  This preparatory work also determines the scale and we've grown too accustomed to the fluid scale that things we see digitally has: are you looking at it on your phone or is it being projected on a wall? People mostly look at things on screens, so both scale and tactility suffer, as well as the sense of light that I take a lot of pains to calibrate out of what photography gives you, which the fixed iris of the camera rolls back.  

Is it fair to say that you are -- in your heart -- a very traditional painter who sees yourself as part of a long unbroken lineage? 

Bringing the long, slow, patient way of looking and making to bear on the places we've made for ourselves that are hardly meant to be looked at at all is an important counterpoint of tradition and our contemporary world.  In 'Tradition and the Individual Talent', T.S. Eliot couches a healthy relationship to tradition and that it needs to include the historical sense: 'This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.’

And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his own contemporaneity.' Eliot also points up that tradition has to be earned and is not automatically inherited and opposes it to what people sometimes think of as tradition ' following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes.'  So, yes would have been the short answer but the word tradition is mostly used in the sense of following and the criticality of it gets lost sometimes. 



What are you interested in outside of painting? 

The sister arts, literature, sculpture, music (I play guitar some and am the first name on the music credits for 'El Mariachi', Robert Rodriguez' first movie).  Linda and I like to go hiking together and have a Rottweiler Ursa, who is a rescue dog.



Exhibitions:

Marc Trujillo: Urban Ubiquity

The Bakersfield Museum of Art

January 26, 2017 - May 7, 2017

Marc Trujillo ‘Urban Ubiquity’

Winfield Gallery, Carmel, CA

February 1 - 28, 2017

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Celebrate Winter with Festivals in Canada!

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By Caitlin Leonard, ZEALnyc Contributing Writer, February 10, 2017

As the winter season continues, a great way to break away from your regular routine is on a weekend or for a short-getaway. Come check out what your nearby neighbors in Canada are up to with their many exciting and unique winter festivals. Whether you've always wanted to experience an ice-wine tasting, ice sculpting, or even a ride down an ice slide, Canada's many inviting winter festivals have got you covered.

Quebec City


Quebec Winter Carnival: through Februay 12, 2017

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Sledding at the Quebec Winter Carnival


Celebrations are still going strong at the Quebec Winter Carnival which comes from a long-standing tradition in Canadian culture since 1894. Taking place at the end of January to mid-February every year, it is notably the world's largest winter carnival. Providing a chance to light-heartedly embrace the chilly weather, the festival brings night parades, a sugar shack, snow sculptures, axe throwing, giant bowling, and an Ice Palace. Also take in the local music, beer, and sausage pairings, and even take selfies with the Bonhomme de neige, the festival's friendly snowman mascot (pictured in cover photo).

The winter carnival is not only a great chance to enjoy the outdoors in the middle of winter, but is also an opportunity to learn about the rich history of French culture in Canada, and maybe even pick up a bit of the language at the same time.

Event passes are only $15 or $45 for a full carnival pass which includes drinks and snacks. Children under 7 are free. For more information click here.

Montreal


Montreal Festival of Lights: February 23 - March 11, 2017

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Montréal en Lumière festivities


There is still plenty of time to plan a trip to the Montréal en Lumière, an exciting event taking place at the end of February. The dynamic festival will combine the performing arts, music, free outdoor activities for families, and fine dining to create an outdoor winter celebration that is one of the largest of its kind in the world.

This year will feature musical performances on stage in a variety of styles ranging from opera and classical, to Quebecois musicians and renowned Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk. Other noteworthy performances include Alex Cuba on March 3 and Regina Spektor on March 5.

Sign up for a Sugar Shack dining experience at Valois with a brunch menu featuring delicious Quebecois products and maple-flavoured delights, or walk by the interactive bonfire created from bulb flashes, controlled by human warmth.

The festival will also feature a Nuit Blanche on an evening of over 200 mostly free outdoor activities, which in the past have included the NHL-sized skating rink, a giant ski slope, special museum tours, and celebratory fireworks. The Nuit Blanche program will be announced this year on February 13. For more information click here.

Ottawa


Winterlude Festival: February 3 - 20, 2017

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Ice sculptures at Winterlude Festival


The Winterlude festival in Canada's beautiful capital city happens over three exciting weekends in February. Known for attracting close to 600,000 people every year, it is also the site of the world's largest naturally frozen skating rink, the Rideau Canal Skateway. Running 7.8 kilometers, the skateway is free of charge, and has snack stations along the way. Try the Canadian classic treat, the Beaver Tail, a sweet, deep-fried pastry invented in Ottawa in 1978.

This year there will also be the 37th Annual Accora Village Bed Race on hospital beds across the ice, with costumed team members competing in the fun-filled event.

The first ever Ice Dragon Boat Festival will also be happening as part of Winterlude on February 17-18 on the frozen Rideau Canal Skateway. Ice sculptures by professional carvers will also bring their skills from all over the world for an International Ice-Carving competition in the Confederation Park's Crystal Garden. The Snowflake Kingdom children's snow playground provides outdoor fun for kids, and will be offered every day of the week except Tuesday and Wednesday.

Many of the events for Winterlude are free and provide an exciting opportunity to take in Canada's capital city during the country's well-known winter season. For more information click here.

Vancouver


Winterruption: - February 17 - 19, 2017

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Winterruption on Granville Island


Located in downtown Vancouver on Granville Island, Winterruption is a yearly music, arts, film, performance and food festival. Known as a uniquely Vancouver festival, it boasts a maple sugar shack, a donut spectacular, and shows by Vancouvers #1 improv company.

This year will also include the likes of a bookbinding workshop, a Yoga Film Festival, a Granville Island Market Tour, and a live stone carving demonstration.

The festival will also showcase work by Vancouver's media and visual arts students in the Winterruption Art Exhibit, featuring winter-themed artwork. For more information click here.

Halifax


Nova Scotia Icewine Festival: February 24 - 25, March 4 - 6, 2017

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Red and white Icewine glasses in a vineyard


Home to actress Ellen Page, and a favourite vacation destination of David Letterman, Halifax, Nova Scotia is especially beautiful this time of year. The coastal city is celebrating in the sub-zero temperatures with the Nova Scotia Icewine Festival which is sure to delight.

The festival will be presented by seven different wineries which be pouring a selection of wines with food pairings. Experience Nova Scotia's still and sparkling wines, icewine and local cuisine for a ticket of only $30. For more information click here.

Photos courtesy of Canadian Tourism Commission / go-canadatravel.com.
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Caitlin Leonard, a Contributing Writer for ZEALnyc is based in Canada and writes frequently on arts, culture and lifestyle related topics.

For more from ZEALnyc read:

The Pictures Get Small as Close Reprises Norma in 'Sunset Boulevard'

'Outside the Box' Ways to Celebrate Valentine's Day

Donald Trump--From Broadway Producer to President

Jazz Notes: Pedrito Martinez--A Look Back on the Journey Thus Far

For all the news on New York City art and culture, visit ZEALnyc's Front Page.

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Bruce Weber in color, stuff of dreams.

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We have been used to see photographs of Bruce Weber in major fashion shoots and advertising campaigns (Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Versace, and many other major ads), but the lingering effects of his art always seemed to be in black and white. Until now. A new exhibit now demonstrates how glorious and vibrant his color pictures can be.

One must take a double look to decide if the color views on the walls are oil paintings or real pictures. The texture and refined details of his elaborate stage scenes are witnesses to his ability to transcend even a simple glimpse of everyday life into an art piece.

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Colors of dream scenes.


An intimate look at a red couch in a hallway draws the eye until you discover a horse, a naked man, open precious stones, and the bust of Byron.

Two red-haired young ladies seem to enjoy the fresh ocean water, perched on top of a countryside cliff on a nice sunny day.

Another shows a couple on what seems to be a rooftop, reclining on gorgeous of rich velvet, and some red pants jumping out of the picture.

A jovial fisherman proudly displays his giant fish in a serene manner.

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The surprising show is still mainly comprised of black and white photographs by Weber, but not so much of fashion models - also a few are present - but of certainly more iconic people, such as nelson Mandela, who's close up face illuminates the wall where it hangs, or Iman the activist, also vividly present.

It seems Weber took witness to a few great moments in lives of important people, capturing them at ease in a time frame of his choosing. The vibrancy and life coming through the pictures are drawing the viewer into a magnificent world of special events and incredible people.

Even though about 60 shows around the world have already demonstrated Weber's work, these rarely-seen - and some even never shown - photographs reflect in a new way on his world travels for the past few decades. A few of Weber's own short videos are also shown.

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A grand reporter of daily lives.

Some 300 images are on view at the Contemporary in Dallas. A lover of beautiful things, dogs, and people, Bruce Weber's new show baffles with its endless display of men and women in a various state of undress, but also places and happenings showing how Weber is as well a fantastic photo-reporter, on top of a fashion icon.

The 37,000 square foot cavern-like space at the Dallas Contemporary allows light to freely float and touch each piece of art. The height of the ceilings truly reminds of its past as a warehouse, where one could fit several 18-wheelers stacked up on top of each other in that vast hangar, an amazing and art-perfect gallery.

Weber stated that "When you have a camera and you travel, people really open up to you." Bruce Weber was born on March 29, 1946, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. He resides in Miami with companion Nan and several dogs.

More info:
This is the largest museum exhibition of Bruce Weber's photography ever displayed in the USA.
"Far From Home," at Dallas Contemporary - until March 12, 2017.
161 Glass St., Dallas Texas 75207. Tel: 214.821.2522. Free admission.

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Reach me at sidoniesawyer@gmail.com
My website is full of my stories.

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In New Exhibition Nearly 50 Arab Women Artists Forget Trump's Travel Ban And Revel In Female Lust

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About a year ago, Irish actress Róisín O' Loughlin stumbled across a collection of Arabic poems compiled by Abdullah al-Udhari. Entitled "Classical Poems by Arab Women," the verses -- which read like short, intense pop lyrics - were written by women over the span of thousands of years, mostly between the 7th and 12th centuries.

One of those poems, by Wallada bint al-Mustakfi in 11th century Cordoba, stayed with O'Loughlin long after she'd set down the collection:

"I am made for higher goals and by Allah
I am going my way with pride.
I allow my lover to touch my cheek
And bestow my kiss on him who craves it"



Think Muslim women back then were submissive?

Turns out, O'Loughlin told me, Wallada was "this amazing Muslim poet and the daughter of a Caliph who inherited her father's estate and ran her own palace and literary salon, which many of the great minds of the time attended. She gave lessons to the women of her court and held her love affairs openly and unapologetically, writing rhymes in praise of her lover, Ibn Zaydún, and when things went bad, lambasting him. This was in today's Spain. Why have so many of us never heard about her?"

Moved to introduce the poems to a modern audience, O'Loughlin decided to curate an exhibition. Called "Radical Love: Female Lust," the show features 48 female artists, half of Arab and Muslim heritage, responding to the Arabic poetry written by women over a thousand years ago.

Having already created quite a buzz long before it opens (appropriately) on February 14th at The Crypt Gallery in London, the show features both emerging and acclaimed artists from around the world, including Syrian artists who have been displaced, such as Yara Said, who designed the flag for refugee athletes competing in the recent Olympics (inspired by the life preserver she wore while fleeing Syria)

Given that the show is especially timely in light of the current court hearings regarding President Donald Trump's executive order restricting immigration and refugee resettlement from seven Muslim countries, featured below are six artists from four of those banned nations, along with the ancient poems these contemporary artists are engaging with.

1. Aula al Ayoubi (Syria) "My Eyes Outshine the Oryx's Eyes"

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Salma bint al- Qaratisi
Iraq, 12th Century

My eyes outshine the oryx's eyes
My neck outfines the gazelle's neck
and my neckline sparkles my necklaces.
I have no problems with my hips
and my breasts don't weigh me down.
If I had neighboured the land of Thamud
Heaven's wrath wouldn't have fallen on the Thamudis.





2. Takwa Barnosa (Libyan) "Fear"

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Zahra al-Kilabiyya
Iraq, 8th Century

I keep my passion for Juml to myself.

It's burning me up
Like a sick man's dream of getting well
Or a mother stricken by the death of her only son
Or a refugee watching a gathering of friends.





3. Darin Ahmad (Syria) "Bless Those Wonderful Nights"

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Nazhun al Gharnatiyya
Granada, 11th Century

Bless those wonderful nights
and best of all,
Saturdays

If you had been there
You'd have seen us locked together
Under the chaperone's sleepful eyes
Like the sun in the arms of the moon
Or a panting gazelle in the clasp of a lion.





4. Rosaline Shahnavaz (British Iranian) "Riding Beasts"

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Fadl Ashsha'ira
Bahrain, 9th Century


Riding beasts are no joy to ride
until they're bridled and mounted.
So pearls are useless
unless they're pierced and threaded.
(in response to accusation she wasn't a virgin, 'an unpierced pearl')




5. Nadine Faraj (Canadian Iraqi) "Only A Thrust Rocks Out My Strains Until My Blues Fly Away"

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Dahna bint Mas-hal
Basra, Iraq, 8th Century

Lay off,
You can't turn me on with a cuddle,
a kiss or scent.
Only a thrust rocks out my strains
until the ring on my toe falls in my sleeve
and my blues fly away




6. Noor Issa (Syria) "Finerthanwine Delicious Dew"

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Hafsa bint al Hajj Arrakuniyya
Granada, 12th Century

I know too well those marvellous lips.
I swear I'm not lying if I say
I love sipping their finerthanwine delicious dew.



As the poems and images show, the exhibition is a dialogue between the past and present, words and visuals, across different faiths and using various mediums.

Yet, in spite of the media buzz, O'Loughlin says that "it's a bit of a miracle that the show came to life" given that it's completely self-funded with the help of "so many people who did so many favors, including graphic designer Rebecca Roche and assistant curator, Kosha Hussain."

While proceeds will be donated to The Global Fund for Women to help support Syria's refugees, O'Loughlin has also set up a crowdfunding page asking for donations, "however small."

During this tumultuous time for American foreign policy, it seems more pressing than ever to support O'Loughlin. After all, it's that independence which allows artists to freely express themselves - and it's the artist's nuanced and complex way of seeing the world that's desperately needed in these divided times.

When I asked artist Darin Ahmed about the travel ban that includes her own country of Syria, she told me,

"Radical Islam says 'Islam is the solution.' And anti-Islam way of thinking (the current ban belongs to this way of thinking) says, 'Islam is the problem.' For me, both sentences are wrong because both are promoting the separation between cultures."

O'Loughlin is in total agreement: "The show is not focusing on faith or politics, which tends to be manipulated to divide rather than unite, but it is it's own f*** you to fascism. Like the amazing female poets before them, these artists have no explanations to give. Instead the show revels in a female lust, for the love and life we see as shared and timeless."

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New Recordings Of Old Music: Vivaldi, Valentini, Manchicourt, Gesualdo, Bach & More

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2017-02-08-1486592292-5915779-Vivaldi7CelloConcertos.jpgVivaldi Seven Cello Concertos. Guy Fishman. Olde Focus CD

With seven members of the Handel and Haydn Society, Guy Fishman invigorates and illuminates a brilliant selection of Vivaldi's cello concertos, once more affirming the genius of the composer, the cello and historically-informed performances on period instruments.

Playing on a 1704 Roman instrument by David Techler, Fishman shows the mentoring effects of distinguished teachers from Laurence Lesser to Anner Bylsma: he possesses a gorgeous sound and always follows the long line--yet he knows his way around embellishments and filling out the continuo. Check out the magic in the slow movement of RV 418 and I guarantee you will be convinced.

2017-02-08-1486592256-9687939-Souvenirs.jpgSouvenirs d'Italie: Mr Harrach's Musical Diaries. Maurice Steger. Harmonia Mundi CD

Played with Swiss flauto dolce and recorder virtuoso Maurice Steger's customary death-defying magnificence, this deliriously delightful program of concertos and sonatas by Sammartini, Caldara (an amazing five-minute Ciaconna a 3), Vinci, Hasse, Piani and Fiorenza from the collection of manuscripts assembled by Count Aloys von Harrach of Austria. The good Count was an 18th century diplomat, statesman, Viceroy of Naples, an avid art collector, and an amateur musician who commissioned compositions and collected musical souvenirs on his travels around Europe.

It's not all high-flying thrills. The slow movements are mesmerizing feasts of line and ornamentation. Steger's distinguished colleagues in this audiophile production, recorded in the church in idyllic Seewen, even include M. Grisvard.

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In putting together this spectacular example of sound and recording, the Nordic Brass Ensemble--on modern instruments--have assembled Rensaissance music from France, England, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain, arranged specially for this ensemble by Hans Petter Stangnes and Stian Aareskjold.

The modern instruments part is a nice change in timbres, and since the Nordic Brass Ensemble is made up of top musicians from symphony orchestras and wind ensembles in the Nordic countries, obviously well-schooled in early music ways, the results are enormous, exhilarating fun.

2017-02-08-1486592273-9971239-Valentini.jpgGiovanni Valentini: Secondo libro de madrigali. ACRONYM, Les Canards Chantants. Olde Focus CD

The rough and ready Baroque string band known as ACRONYM presents the first recording of Giovanni Valentini's "Secondo libro de madrigali" (Venice, 1616), the earliest known madrigal collection to call for instruments other than continuo--exactly four hundred years after its publication.

Valentini was born in 1582 in or around Venice. In 1614 he joined the court of the Archduke Ferdinand at Graz, and upon Ferdinands 1619 election Vaneltini moved to Vienna to serve as Imperial organist. From the 1620s through the 1640s, Valentini oversaw much of the musical life of Vienna. He was music tutor to the Imperial family and retained his position of Hofkapellmeister under Ferdinand III, who took the throne in 1637.

Recorded at a historic 18th-century meeting house in rural New Hampshire, the sound is real and honest, just like the performances.

Defining their interest in forgotten composers such as Valentini, ACRONYM stands for "Altmusik Camerata Resurrecting Old---but New to You---Music."

Valentini might not have appreciated the name, he would certainly have fallen in love with the playing.

2017-02-08-1486592185-8109608-BachEntourage.jpgBach & Entourage. Johannes Pramsholer and Philippe Grisvard. Audax CD

Tyrolean Baroque violinist Johannes Pramsohler, who has the honor of owning the great Reinhard Goebel's violin, a P.G. Rogeri made in 1713 plays a provocative recital of music by Bach and his circle, inmcluding premiere recordings of Krebs and Graun, in what has become a trending discovery throughout the Baroque violin industry.

Backed with a lovely plaid of sound by harpsichoridst Philippe Grisvard, this exciting program of virtuosic sonatas for violin and basso continuo. The selection features two world-premiere recordings of works by Graun and Krebs along with other rarely-recorded sonatas attributed to Bach, whose legacy gave rise to a prodigious generation of German violinists.

2017-02-08-1486592211-1208492-Manchicourt.jpgPierre de Manchicourt Missa Reges terrae. Choir of St. Luke in the Fields under David Shuler.
MSR Classics CD

As one of the elite composers who held prestigious positions during the lives and reigns of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Philip II of Spain, Manchicourt's career culminated when he was hired as master of Philip's Flemish Chapel. By 1600, as John Bradley's engrossing booklet-note unhappily reports, "Manchicourt was largely forgotten."

Fear not: the programming and the quality of these performances by the 12 members of the Greenwich Village-based Choir enables you to feel the force of what Manchicourt brought to the swift moving evolution of the masses and motets that, along with chansons, were his genres.

2017-02-08-1486592904-44811-GesualdoSacraeCantiones.jpgGesualdo Sacrae Cantiones for five voices, Book I (1603). Marian Consort. Delphian CD

Rory McCleery's new recording with his Marian Consort of the 19 solo motets of Gesualdo's Sacrarum Cantionum Quinque Vocibus Liber Primus, printed in Naples in 1603 by Costantino Vitali, has virtually no competition in the catalogue.

Heard cumulatively over the hour it takes the beautifully balanced, unfailingly mellifluous five member ensemble to deliver the music's almost painfully sensitive intensity, it is clear once again why the Romantic yet Modern notion of a colorful, self-obsessed Renaissance genius writing music of such expressive intent and such seemingly visionary harmonic means seized the popular imagination - along, of course, with Stravinsky's.

McCleery's highly detailed, unfailing elegant liner notes provide all the ingredients for linking your own visceral response to Gesualdo's vivid music to the texts, whether you read ahead or just let the music hit you unprepared.

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Venice's long history as a sanctuary city for migrants is under threat

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'Venice Inflatable Refugee', an artist's project displayed in Venice in 2016. Dirk Knot/Schellekens

Filippo Furri, Université de Montréal

In an incident that profoundly shocked the city of Venice, and Europe more broadly, a young Gambian asylum seeker was left to drown in a canal late January, as onlookers stood by. His tragic death highlights the desperation of migrants across Italy.



It echoes the case of a young woman from Côte d'Ivoire, who died of thrombosis in a centre for migrants near Venice at the beginning of 2017. Several occupants had protested against living conditions in the centre, which was originally built for 540 people but actually housed 1,400 at the time of the incident.



Similar events have been cropping up regularly in Italy, demonstrating that places such as Venice, which used to be centres of welcome for migrants, are increasingly failing them.



In 2016 alone, more than 181,000 migrants arrived in the country, including numerous unaccompanied minors. Of these, 133,727 (77.7%) were housed in temporary structures; 14,015 in induction centres; 1,225 in so-called hot spots; and 22,971 in centres that are part of the national asylum system.



The situation has become critical due to lack of funding and an approach favouring containment.



A sanctuary city



Since 2015, "sanctuary cities" have been cropping up across Europe.



In these places, local authorities are taking charge of the conditions and methods for integrating migrants, in order to counterbalance the fact that governments are shirking their responsibilities.



Also known as asylum cities, cities of welcome and solidarity cities, sanctuary cities include Glasgow, Barcelona and Madrid.



The concept is not new. In 1996 French philosopher Jacques Derrida explicitly called on local authorities to come together and renew their traditions of hospitality.



And Venice, in particular had developed its own tradition of hospitality before other new sanctuary cities emerged.






Refugees from Padua arrive on Dorsoduro Island (circa 1684) in a fresco by Antonio Zonca in San Zaccaria church, Venice.
Didier Descouens/Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA



The Balkan precedent



According to migration expert Christopher Hein, Italy welcomed 80,000 refugees during the Balkan wars. More than 70,000 people were granted visas on humanitarian grounds, 57,000 of those between October 1991 and October 1995. He wrote:




Just 2,000 were housed in state run accommodation ... All of the others relied on the hospitality provided by town councils, private organisations, parishes, pilgrim centers, and other non-government institutions.




Around 500 migrants from the Balkans settled in Venice in 1992 and 1993. Confronted with the proliferation of makeshift camps, the local authorities quickly organised the new arrivals in the city (which then counted around 310,000 inhabitants), while seeking to provide more extensive support.



This show of solidarity stands in stark contrast to the current situation. Violence in Syria and broader geopolitical instability are constantly swelling the ranks of exiled populations, who are looking to the European Union for help. Yet the EU appears to be limiting its approach to crisis management and control. But alternatives forms of hospitality have been developed by local authorities and ordinary citizens.



'Emergenza' in Venice



In the 1990s, the first difficulties with ex-Yugoslavian migrants arose from material, sanitary and sociocultural issues. In response, the Venice town council set up public meetings to discuss ways to welcome and live alongside new populations, calling for suggestions from the community.



This bottom-up approach contrasted with a quantitative and faceless institutional approach to humanitarian crisis management. As Beppe Caccia, the deputy mayor for social affairs at the time, explained in 2004:




The 'Emergenza' refugee management strategy was always intended to be long term and forward thinking. The goal was to help these people integrate into society.




Thanks to support in finding schooling, employment and housing, the majority of people in the induction centres gradually settled down in the region. When the Italian government, whose military was still engaged in former Yugoslavia, declared that the emergency was over and cut funding to the programme, the Venetian town council decided to keep it going, using its own budget.



The Fontego Project



This experiment led the town council to refine its integration methods over the course of the 1990s and the 2000s. In 2001, Venice launched the Fontego Project -- three centres that could house around 110 people.



Upon signing a contract with the council, asylum seekers were granted a six-month stay and given medical treatment, administrative support, and training in order to help them integrate and create ties with the local community. They participated in music and theatre workshops, the opening of an "Exile cafe" and the Mostra del Cinema.



The Fontego Project evokes Venice's tradition of hospitality. The name itself is indicative of an open desire to evoke a rich past.



From an architectural standpoint, the Fontego is typical of Venetian lodging. Dating back to the 13th century, Fonteghi provided temporary accommodation to foreigners, especially merchants.






Fontego dei Turchi, a typical 'palazzo' that housed travellers from the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.
Didier Descouens/Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA



Conjuring this proud tradition is an attempt to add legitimacy to a more recent commitment to welcoming migrants by grounding it in the city's cosmopolitan past.



According to a mix of history and legend, Venice was founded in 421 in the lagoon by people we would now call refugees from coastal communities, fleeing hordes of "Barbarians".



In telling its own story, however, the city has been forced to acknowledge the contradictions inherent in the organisation of public space and the life of a community confronted with outsiders. Let us not forget that, in 1516, it was Venice that gave us the term "ghetto", now used to describe systems of control and confinement in urban spaces.






The central square of the Venetian ghetto, another way Venice 'welcomed' foreigners.
Didier Descouens/Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA



The crisis approach



So how did we end up where we are today, with migrants drowning in the canals of Venice, rather than being welcomed by the city?



Starting in 2010, financial difficulties began to plague several Italian cities. Coupled with a "crisis" approach to managing new arrivals, especially from 2011 onwards, the Venetian integration initiative stalled.



The rollback was completed in June 2015, when the new mayor announced on the day after his election that he intended to "put a stop to migration". In December 2016, he also pushed for the establishment of a "citadel of poverty" to contain homeless people.



The independence of cities is being gradually eroded by a federal management policy, with the "Lampedusa model" being the most striking illustration.



Cities are still suffering from the tensions created by a topdown federal control approach to humanitarian crises, where people become collateral damage.



Given the disparities between the powers and goals of local and national institutions, a socially conscious solidarity between cities could well be the way to find sustainable alternative solutions.






Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for Fast for Word.



The Conversation

Filippo Furri, Doctorant en anthropologie, Université de Montréal



This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Detroit Welcomes the Venice Architecture Biennale

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For the City of Detroit, the timing could not be better.

After a much-publicized run at the Venice Architecture Biennale from May to November, "The Architectural Imagination" opens tomorrow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

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US Pavilion Venice Architecture Biennale 2016 "The Architectural Imagination" Photo by Stefano Rubini


"We're moving from a period where Detroit was with dealing with decline and failure to a period of ambition and success," says Robert Fishman, interim dean at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. "I see the show as a symbol that will open up a new range of possibilities for the city."

In it, curators Cynthia Davidson and Monica Ponce de Leon selected 12 visionary American architectural practices to produce new work that demonstrates the creativity and resourcefulness of architecture that addresses the social and urban issues of Detroit in the 21st century.

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US Pavilion Venice Architecture Biennale 2016 "The Architectural Imagination" Photo by Stefano Rubini


"In a strange way, the very issue or challenge of abandonment of Detroit's built fabric requires a far more imaginative and radical approach to rebuilding," he says. "Simply filling in a built fabric like other, older East Coast cities would not be effective, because in Detroit there is a radical emptiness. I don't think any city has experienced the kind of stress that Detroit has experienced."

Still, the exhibition is nothing if not optimistic. It emphasizes the importance and value of the architectural imagination in shaping forms and spaces into exciting future possibilities for all Detroit citizens. The city was once a center of American imagination, not only for the products it made--cars and music and much more--but also for its modern architecture and modern lifestyle, which captivated audiences worldwide.

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US Pavilion Venice Architecture Biennale 2016 "The Architectural Imagination" - Photo by Stefano Rubini


"The most famous is the old Packard plant - it had been one of the largest factory complexes in the world through the 1950s," he says. "It was so solidly built that it's still standing and a monument to Detroit's industrial past and a challenge to the future. These are the kinds of unique sites within the city."

The Feb. 11 opening from 4 to 6 P.M. will feature an introduction by Dean Fishman of and a presentation by curators Davidson and Ponce de Leon. An exhibition viewing and opening reception will immediately follow until 9 p.m.

For more, go here.

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No Shortcuts For Yuja Wang, The World's Greatest Living Pianist

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Yuja Wang was still an undergraduate at Curtis when she got the call: piano soloist Murray Perahia was under the weather. Could she jump on a plane to southern California and perform the next day with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields?

She could, and she did.

The pianist, barely 22, played with authority and sensitivity, wowing the musically literate in the Orange County audience (yes, there are some even in Costa Mesa).

She also astonished the ensemble's legendary conductor, Sir Neville Marriner. The audience was treated to the unique tableau of this towering figure on the music scene, 82 and approaching retirement, gazing with fascination at a young woman in the first throes of her career playing breathtaking, breakneck encores.

Wang captivated another top conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas, at another impromptu performance, this time at Carnegie Hall, filling in for yet another ailing soloist. Her playing moved Thomas, a mentor figure in Wang's career, literally to bow down to her on the famous stage.

Word got around and piano virtuosi most likely started taking better care of their health.

Seven short years later, Wang has become an international star in her own right, touring the world, named 2017 Musical America Artist of the Year, and signed to Deutsche Grammophon, classical music's most respected brand.

Last week, Wang took her talents to Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall, where she performed a sold out recital with violinist Leonidas Kavakos. Wang could have taken the easy road and performed an evening of hummable crowd-pleasers, but that's not what you do when you're one of the most talented, enthralling, and even mesmerizing performers on the world scene.

Instead, Wang and Kavakos performed four extremely difficult pieces by Janacek, Schubert, Debussy, and Bartok. They are rarely performed because most touring musicians don't want to work that hard. The majority of the top dogs have a repertoire of concertos they can play in their sleep, and with some of their performances it sounds that way.

It used to bother Wang, when she was younger, that audiences initially compared her to Lang Lang, the Chinese prodigy known more for his showmanship than his technical skills. European audiences in particular held a prejudice against Asian performers, believing them capable of technical greatness but lacking the emotion that great music ushers forth.

They don't make those complaints any longer. Wang won over Europeans, Asians, North Americans, and probably also Martians and Venetians with her ability to play with both drama and dexterity.

Wang certainly blew the minds of her Lincoln Center audience. She played with urgency, brilliance, color, energy, and emotion. The Washington Post calls her "arguably" the hottest pianist in the world; they won't get an argument out of me.

The pairing of Wang and Kavakos seems odd to the eye and sometimes to the ear. He's world class, yet her talent comes from another planet. Wang dresses as elegantly as she plays; in New York, her jaw-droppingly elegant Atelier Rosemarie Umetsu gowns matched the music.

The good news is that you get to hear four pieces seldom played, and you get to experience Wang's fiery virtuosity. If you missed the show in New York, you can catch it in southern California and Western Europe over the next few months (YujaWang.com for details).

One of their dates is at Segerstrom Concert Hall in Orange County, where the then-unknown Wang astonished Sir Neville Marriner, back when his career was winding down and hers had just begun. Just seven years later, she has become the ultimate must-see musician for anyone who loves blindingly great performance.

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Yuja Wang with the author and Chynna Levin, 2012.

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Hans Op de Beeck: The Silent Castle

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The Silent Castle is the title of Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck's solo exhibition at Museum Morsbroich in Leverkusen, Germany. Op de Beeck works in various mediums, from small watercolors to large, three-dimensional installations such as The Collector's House. The show at Museum Morsbroich presents works from the last twelve years, mainly drawn from the Goetz Collection.



Hans Op de Beeck (be) produces large installations, sculptures, films, drawings, paintings, photographs and texts. His work is a reflection on our complex society and the universal questions of meaning and mortality that resonate within it. He regards man as a being who stages the world around him in a tragi-comic way. Above all, Op de Beeck is keen to stimulate the viewers' senses, and invite them to really experience the image. He seeks to create a form of visual fiction that delivers a moment of wonder, silence and introspection.

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Hans Op de Beeck: The Lounge (2014) (Detail).

Hans Op de Beeck was born in Turnhout in 1969. He lives and works in Brussels and Gooik, Belgium. Op de Beeck has shown his work extensively in solo and group exhibitions around the world.

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Hans Op de Beeck: Lucas (2016).

For more videos covering contemporary art and architecture, go to VernissageTV.

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Pianist Gianni Bianchini's Trio: Type I

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The Florida based pianist Gianni Bianchini has a new album to be released on Feb 21, 2017 titled Type I. The title is reference to his recording debut and the fact that he fights with Type I diabetes which has been an influence on his life and so also his music. Perhaps his condition has given the gifted pianist a sense of urgency and if so that urgency has colored his music.

On this album, he is joined by bandmates Brandon Guerra on drums, Richard Mikel on bass. The liner notes indicate Jason Marsalis plays percussion, although to my ears one would be hard pressed to know exactly where he plays.

Bianchini has a deft touch and a joyful delivery that can be downright alluring. His trio runs through American songbook standards like Rogers and Harts' "My Romance" and "My Heart Stood Still," Julie Styne and Sammy Cahn's "Time After Time", George and Ira Gershwin's "A Foggy Day," Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer's "I'm Old Fashioned," and others that are played with a sense of authentic respect, pristine clarity and astute modernism. The man can certainly swing on a melody with creative arrangements and a sense of time that is quite impressive. Check out his version of "Softly as In a Morning Sunrise." The band is tight and stirs up an impressive froth.

Bianchini's playing is brimming with a vibrancy and attitude that is infectious. Bassist Mikel and drummer Guerra know how to dig deep and keep the music grooving. If there is one downside it is Bianchini's vocals. They leave a little to be desired. Though he sings adequately and with the same upbeat swagger of his piano, his voice just isn't nearly as musical or his delivery that compelling. The trio is much better served by the vocal talent of Karen Tennison who guests on "I Wish I Knew." Ms. Tennisson sings with a breezy ease, with words that float and scats that have a refined coolness. Mr. Bianchini's piano work on this one is very impressive.

Mr. Bianchini takes on Bill Evan's bouncy "Peri's Scope," a challenging piece for any pianist, which he and bandmates pull off with marvelous aplomb. Mikel's buoyant bass and Guerra 's brush work are of special note.

The cd ends with a Henry Mancini poignant composition "Two For the Road" with Mikel offering an arco bass opening.

This is a successful debut by a fine pianist and a sympathetic rhythm section who know their history and mine the Songbook's possibility with vim, vigor and a sense of modernism.

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Seeing Red, Feeling Blue, Something Borrowed, Something New

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"J. Steven Manolis: A Survey of Works," Coral Springs Museum of Art, Installation view. Photograph by Sargent Architectural Photography.

By Bruce Helander

The massive and brightly-hued survey exhibition of J. Steven Manolis' work currently on view at the Coral Springs Museum of Art, now in its second month of attracting record crowds of art lovers, has a show attendance and quality standard that's hard to equal. This unusual museum survey simply is spectacular in every important aspect, from presenting daring color combinations of deep red to inventive, transparent blue splashes to formidable black and white compositions.

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Splash, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 180 in. Courtesy Coral Springs Museum of Art.

Having followed this South Florida cultural landmark for over a decade, I don't recall another show there, other than the striking Hunt Slonem retrospective that was mounted there in 2010, which possessed the same kind of dazzling overall saturation of color and movement albeit in a narrative context. There are few exhibits at the Coral Springs Museum in recent memory that seem to take your breath away as you enter the main gallery, which now is flooded with light from the inside out to illuminate the more than sixty works solidly based in the principles of abstract expressionism, which often are adapted by Manolis from past pioneers of this genre. Don't get me wrong. These works are not appropriations of any particular artist's images, but are a respectful and engaging interpretation of a historic style made new. The word is out that this is an extraordinarily surprising gem of a show that is not to be missed.

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"J. Steven Manolis: A Survey of Works," Coral Springs Museum of Art, Installation view. Photograph by Sargent Architectural Photography.

The unique exposition also has attracted the attention of notable writers such as the celebrated British critic, Anthony Haden-Guest, who penned a major review on Manolis for the well-regarded London publication Spear's. Also in the mix is a rare observation by senior critic and art historian Donald Kuspit, who is known widely as the foremost practitioner of psychoanalytic art criticism (and the author of Britannica's article on the history of art criticism), as well as being an expert on contemporary painting. His quote in the impressive catalog that accompanies the exhibition, which calls Manolis a "modern master," has sent out smoke signals for this red-hot show to South Florida residents, from West Palm Beach in the north, where he is concurrently displaying work at the Center for Creative Education, to Greater Miami in the south, where the artist operates an immense 5,000 sq. ft. studio off Brickell Avenue in the emerging artists' neighborhood nicknamed Lemon City.

When I first met J. Steven Manolis, I immediately was struck by the serious, professional attitude he had about his career as an obviously multi-talented artist, and his personal commitment to creating adventuresome, action-packed paintings that retained a remarkable freshness even while attached at the hip of abstract expressionist theory and history and seemed to vibrate off the gallery walls.

I later learned that Manolis had been interested in becoming an artist at an early age, but not surprisingly, like so many other artists and musicians (he is both), had not received the enthusiastic support of his parents, who naturally were concerned about him securing an education that eventually would guarantee regular employment. Manolis followed his parents' "guidance" and pursued a business degree, which led to a successful career as the youngest partner in the Salomon Brothers' investment firm. He did, however, promise himself that he would continue his interest in art, and participated in private art lessons over a thirty-year period with the renowned colorist painter Wolf Kahn, who in turn studied with Hans Hofmann, the eminent abstract expressionist artist and teacher. Since the early 1980s, Manolis has been enthusiastically painting privately and extensively, ultimately developing a recognizable iconic style where color synchronization and poetic movement in the first dimension become engagingly beautiful and harmonious.

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Redworld, 2015, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 120 in. Courtesy Coral Springs Museum of Art.

Manolis was with Salomon Brothers until 1992, leaving to found his own successful investment and real estate firm, Manolis & Company. When he decided to exit his business career entirely just over two years ago, he immediately switched gears and began painting full time with a personal goal of achieving a high level of polished professionalism, which should be obvious to viewers of the Coral Springs Museum of Art (CSMoA) survey exhibition, ranging from the artist's small and intimate Key West watercolor studies to his massive canvases that wholly embrace abstract expressionism.

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Key West--Splash--Sunset, 2016, Watercolor, gouache and acrylic on Arches paper, 12 x 16 in. Courtesy Coral Springs Museum of Art.

Great artists that I know personally also are influenced by the music of their time, but many of those working in an abstract expressionist mode clearly preferred listening to American jazz, a kind of abstracted improvisational arrangement of musical notes, while they painted. It should be pointed out that many successful artists are musicians also. Larry Rivers had a band, and some members of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were painters before rockers. Manolis has been playing in a band most of his life and recently performed on stage. With a necessary rhythmic equation deeply embedded into a standard recipe for cooking up abstract expressionism, there is little doubt Manolis' rhythm guitar has subconsciously influenced the movement felt in his painting. Jazz and abstract expressionism still are considered the most important purely American cultural inventions in history, and it's not surprising that we are experiencing a new renaissance and growing curiosity about second generation abstract expressionist painters like J. Steven Manolis. This classic and uniquely American style of painting is celebrated in Manolis' exceptional and commanding survey exhibition, which itself may be a pivotal event in his fast-moving, distinguished career. No doubt about it, this is a milestone in the fresh approach to superb picture-making, whose historic foundation and risk-taking has made it possible to continue with a great and proud American painterly tradition.

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Black & White, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 144 in. Courtesy Coral Springs Museum of Art.

Particularly powerful in Manolis' repertoire in this show is his series of challenging and dramatic canvases that are limited specifically to black and white pigment, which are like Franz Kline's glorious experiments without a hint of color, which still are considered his best works and continue to supersede in value any other variety of Kline's work at auction, even today.

For historical context, it needs to be pointed out that the exhibition at CSMoA is a pretty remarkable achievement for a painter who had kept his studio activities essentially private for most of his life. Another informative testament on Manolis' artwork, related to my own observations as an art critic, is from Michael Monas, President, Coral Springs Museum of Art, who observed, "This is by far the most exciting and powerful exhibition at CSMoA in the last twenty-three years [that] we have ever had."

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"J. Steven Manolis: A Survey of Works," Coral Springs Museum of Art, Installation view. Photograph by Sargent Architectural Photography.

I once asked Robert Rauschenberg what was the secret of his success as an artist? He replied that there was no secret. An artist must have a deep inherent natural talent and work like crazy seven days a week. Manolis works eight. The proof is in the pudding, as evidenced in this delicious show.

A beautiful 125-page hardcover book (printed by die Keure in Belgium) includes critical essays and eighty color plates.

For additional information on the exhibition at the Coral Springs Museum (which continues through February 28): Coral Springs Museum of Art and on the artist (or to order the book): http://jstevenmanolisart.com/

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In Defense Of Letting Yourself Go

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By Dayna Evans


For someone who’s never had a baby, I know a hell of a lot about “baby weight.” After Jessica Simpson gave birth to her first child in 2012, she was criticized publicly for how much weight she’d gained during pregnancy; the news cycle speculated so obsessively over Simpson’s body and potential “bounce back” that it inspired a Jezebel story cataloging 109 of the worst headlines. “Despite battle to lose 70 pounds, Jessica Simpson binges on birthday brownies,” wrote the Examiner; “Jessica Simpson is Working Her Way Back to Her Daisy Dukes,” wrote OK! How ghastly! Ack! The lady had put on too many pounds after, lord have mercy, bringing a real human life into the world. And after she admitted that her body was “not bouncing back like a supermodel,” Simpson, then 31, worked extra hard to get herself back into fighting form. Drew Barrymore admitted to the same disgrace recently: putting on 20 pounds when she’d been going through a divorce. “I had sort of let myself go,” she said.


When a woman concedes to letting herself go, she rings the death knell of her valued contributions to society. Letting yourself go by putting on weight, not wearing makeup, eating buttered Pop Tarts, deciding to wear clothes that are fit for comfort instead of style, is the equivalent of saying the morally accepted standards of beauty and presentability do not apply to you. And this is unacceptable. One of my favorite photographs (below) is from the premiere of Hotel Transylvania 2. In it, Kevin James and Adam Sandler flank Selena Gomez, who is dressed in a ruby-red tube dress with a cutout at her abs, a slit up to her pelvis. Her face is done up. Her fingernails and toenails are painted. James and Sandler, on the other hand, are dressed in T-shirts and sweats, sneakers. If Gomez had dressed like them that night, it would have raised a lot of eyebrows. If she had been the same age as either actor and done the same, she would have been laughed off the red carpet. How dare any woman decide what beauty standards she’d like to live by? How dare any woman don sweatpants for the gala?



Being a woman is a little like putting on a pair of tight shoes at birth and then not taking them off until you die. Sometimes those tight shoes are five-inch heels. Sometimes you are forced to wear them on the wrong feet. And most of the time, those shoes — the ones you didn’t even volunteer to wear — cost a lot of freaking money. Being appropriately contained and packaged is one of the many things culture demands of women — whether in how we speak, how we act, how we dress, or how we age — and so we have a hard time reconciling women like Cherry Jones’s devil-may-care character in the third season of Black Mirror, or Jessica Simpson’s baby weight, or Alicia Keys vowing to stop wearing makeup. These women have allowed themselves to age, to unbuckle the belts cinching their waists, to protest beauty routines, to resist wrinkle-reducing procedures, to put on a pair of comfortable tennis shoes. Ones that fit. These women act outside of a system that aims to contain us physically, and it drives people crazy.


Women have lived within the framework of beauty, thinness, and appropriate etiquette for centuries. The procedure of putting on makeup, doing our hair, opting to squeeze into jeans that don’t fit, feels natural, invisible, largely because we’ve been brought up with the knowledge that in order to succeed, we must fall in line. In adolescence, young women are expected to feel shame about menstruation; in college, female students are blamed for drinking too much; in the workplace, special attention is paid to women who look polished — but not too polished. Studies show that women who wear makeup at work are seen as more competent than women who don’t. The life of a woman is one of great and perpetual constraint. Why else would Spanx have been invented if it weren’t?


But however much we try to keep up appearances, biology inevitably gets in the way. Whether we decide to have children, or start to show signs of age, the world begins to see us differently. Our bodies shift, we wear looser-fitting clothes, our hair goes gray, our breasts sag. A woman at this stage of life, as they say, has let herself go. She has given up on her societal responsibility to appear forever desirable to others, much to the offense of those around her.


To let oneself go is not something that happens behind closed doors — it’s an infringement on those who must observe your decline. The loose flannels, the obvious wrinkles, the unplucked chin hairs, the unmanicured fingers, the public denial of participating in the feminine industrial complex. Women’s appearances must be perfect and without seams; women must never let anyone know how hard they are working to appear “normal.”


A year before she died, Carrie Fisher tweeted about aging: “Youth and beauty are not accomplishments. They are the temporary, happy bi-products of time and/or DNA. Don’t hold your breath for either.” If you think you could possibly stave off aging forever, you’ve got another thing coming. But instead, you could start letting yourself go right now.


Wouldn’t it be nice, instead of concerning ourselves every morning with the most flattering shirt to wear or putting aside extra cash to dye our hair, if we wore the shirt we wanted to and the one that felt good? And we put that extra cash toward a bowl of chili on a cold winter evening? And when we wanted to “be cozy,” we just were cozy. Or we didn’t put Spanx on under our bridesmaid dresses because the shape of our bodies is just that: the shape of our bodies. Why shouldn’t we? Letting go sounds great.


Letting myself go means I can eat chicken wings at my leisure and my pants don’t constrict my crotch. I’m not worried that my hair is thinning, that my thighs are thicker than when I was a teenager. My eyebrows aren’t always clean, and haven’t grown back to their original, 12-year-old shape, but they’re eyebrows — they literally serve a net-even function. I am healthy and happy, and dress up on the rare occasion when I feel like it. I wore a pair of maternity jeans for several months before knowing the difference. Body positivity may be wonderful, but freedom from the fear of growing older is even better.


More from The Cut:


The Cut’s Ultimate Guide to Relationship Advice


What Aging Gracefully Looks Like After 100


How to Help a Friend Who’s Going Through Something Horrible


12 Reasons Valentine’s Day Is Actually the Best


Why Everyone Smelled the Same in the ’90s






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BroadwayCon Creates a Bubble for Theater Fans

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By Megan Wrappe, ZEALnyc Contributing Writer, February 13, 2017

When BroadwayCon, the theatre community's version of Comic Con, began as an idea to bring theatre fans together for one weekend, no one could have imagined just how big it would become. While last year's premiere BroadwayCon was a success, an unfortunate blizzard deterred some fans from the festivities. This year though, there was no keeping the fans away!

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The convention floor at BroadwayCon


The second edition of BroadwayCon kicked off bright and early at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, January 27 at New York City's Javits Center and ran until 7:00 p.m. Sunday, January 29. In between the opening and closing ceremonies, thousands of theatre fans were treated to a plethora of workshops, panel discussions, sing-alongs, fan meetups, and autograph sessions with their favorite stars. And with so much activity, fans unknowingly created their own bubble where the events of the outside world couldn't touch them.

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An 'unidentified Ariel' and Sierra Boggess, the original Ariel, together at BroadwayCon


The amazing thing about BroadwayCon is its ability to bring so many people together under the same roof. Fans certainly made up the majority of attendees, but for the number of well known actors, such as Anthony Rapp, Joel Grey, Chita Rivera, and the cast of Hamilton in the room, they were just as excited to be there as everyone else. Veteran actors and fans alike mingled together all weekend and happily shared their own theatre nerdiness with each other.

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Playbill's booth at BroadwayCon


"I did BroadwayCon last year and I've also done a GleeCon in London which was my first taste of something like this, and it was super fun" said actor Telly Leung who is currently starring in Broadway's In Transit. "I never hesitate to say that Rent is my favorite show that I've done. It made me love theatre and to do that show is a theatre nerd's dream come true, It's like if you're dressed up as Elphaba and then you get to meet Elphaba, it's amazing."

In addition to fans having access to be up close and personal with their favorite stars, BroadwayCon is also a fantastic opportunity to discuss the ins and outs of theatre and where it's heading in the future. There were panels on everything from stage management, to women playwrights, being 'out' on Brodway, marketing a show correctly, preserving theatre on film, and so many others. There wasn't a single topic in the theatre world that wasn't discussed, and many walked away from the weekend feeling they had found a home in the theatre community.

"BroadwayCon is something that has needed to exist for a long time," said J. Quinton Johnson, Jordan Fisher and Michael Luwoye from Hamilton. "Everyone here, including those of us in the Hamilton cast, are huge fans of this community so it's awesome to be in a room full of that energy."

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(l. to r.) Michael Cerveris and a StubHub host in a 'Green Room' discussion


During a weekend when there was so much political upheaval around the world, BroadwayCon became a safe space for expression, acceptance, and communication, no matter who you are. The majority of attendees didn't want the weekend to end and were sad to leave their new friends they had made within the little bubble of theatre bliss they had created.

BroadwayCon's co-founder Melissa Anelli gave voice to the sentiments many of the participants had felt and experienced over the course of the weekend:

"We recognize that this weekend has been a welcomed escape from the all too harsh reality of the world outside it. We cannot restrict the empowerment we feel after a weekend like this to only those who are privileged enough to be a part of it. The theatre community is not one event, one moment, or one weekend--its spirit is ever-growing. We here onstage are asking you as one to take what you felt this weekend with you. If you leave here and are met with hatred, intolerance, oppression, and bigotry from people who want to build walls, take away rights and tear down spirits, please remember what it was like this weekend--the times that you felt impassioned, enlightened, welcomed, informed, safe, included, happy, encouraged, accepted, and loved."

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BroadwayCon MainStage during a sound check


All photos courtesy of ZEALnyc.
____________________________

Megan Wrappe, a Contributing Writer for ZEALnyc, writes on theater and other cultural events.

Read more ZEALnyc features below:

'Outside the Box' Ways to Celebrate Valentine's Day

The Public Theater and The New Yorker Team Up to Talk Trump

Welcome Back, William Inge

Pedrito Martinez--A Look Back on the Journey Thus Far

For all the news on New York City arts and culture, visit ZEALnyc Front Page.

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First Nighter: Christopher Demos-Brown's First-Rate "American Son" Confronts Troubled Race Relations

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NEW BRUNSWICK--The ugly fact that we continue to live in a racist society is so widely acknowledged, it's not surprising that contemporary playwrights are aggressively taking up the subject. More than that, it looks as if there may be a growing trend whereby scribes are drawing attention not only to the obvious examples of intolerance but also to the convoluted subtleties of racist thinking.

Only last week Tanya Saracho's Fade opened in Manhattan and concerned two Mexicans from different backgrounds sometimes arguing about, and sometimes agreeing on, their experiences dealing with careers north of the (soon-to-be-walled?) border.

Perhaps even more agitated about the many forms of knee-jerk racist behavior is Christopher Demos-Brown's American Son, at the George Street Playhouse, helmed with ferocity by company artistic director David Saint. (The play's world premiere took place at the Barrington Stage Company.)

When the lights go up on Jason Simms's clean, well-lighted (by Tyler Micoleau) representation of a Miami police precinct waiting room. It's just after 4 a.m. on a June, 2016 morning. (A wall clock attests to the time.)

Kendra Ellis-Connor (Suzzanne Douglas) is seated on an industrial chair and locked in rapt thought. Only after a very long minute passes does she make a few agitated calls. What's eating at her is revealed only when young-ish Officer Paul Larkin (Mark Junek) enters and is instantly confronted by Ellis-Connor.

Ellis-Connor is African-American and Larkin is Caucasian, and they both operate on the long-ingrained assumptions they've made. Ellis-Connor wants to know the whereabouts of her son Jamal. He's disappeared for several hours, and the little his worried mother knows is that there's been a reported automobile incident involving a black boy.

Her intention is finding out from Larkin what he's heard. His intention is going strictly by the police book, which means eliciting information from her and letting her know that she'll learn much more when his superior, Lieutenant John Stokes (Mark Kenneth Smaltz) arrives for his early morning shift.

Right off the bat, they're in conflict, and that results in the kind of expressed beliefs neither has carefully examined. From that turbulent get-go, Demos-Brown begins lining up instances from his lists or prejudiced thinking. He keeps it up from every possible angle. He certainly delves deeply when FBI agent--with the badge to prove it--Scott Connor (John Bolger) charges through the waiting room door. Larkin assumes Connor, who's white, is the lieutenant he's never met. Most likely, everyone in the audience has the same reaction

So, okay, here's a spoiler necessary for this review to make any further sense. Connor is not the expected Lieutenant Stokes. He's the husband from whom Ellis-Connor is separated--a husband who, meaning to be amusing, will indulge in Ebonics when his wife assiduously will not. And this is one way in which Demos-Brown seizes the opportunity to look closely at the possible difficulties challenging couples in a mixed marriage. The two of them even argue about his resistance to addressing West-Point-admitted Jamal as Jamal rather than as Jay.

Highly educated Ellis-Connor also quarrels with Lieutenant Stokes when he arrives, calling him an "Uncle Tom" for his adhering to that rigid police book. Standing by their individual convictions, Connor, for his part, becomes physical with officers Stokes and Larkin. The scene is explosive, especially as wrangled by fight director Rick Sordelet.

And more volatility is to come before the final blackout, which, though it won't be detailed here, is devastating. It's sufficient to note that pointedly and to Demos-Brown's larger point, rampant unanalyzed biases eventually have dire consequences. They irrevocably have innumerable victims.

For some patrons director Saint's ferocious engineering may be too consistently over-the-top--despite the playwright inclusion of a few quieter moments, such as the Connors' reflecting on their still-abiding love. Nevertheless, context is always all, and in this context, the feverishly heated verbal combat is entirely justified.

The four members of the ensemble are flawless in their roles, although Douglas as an unappeased mother has a gamut to run that goes from here way over to there. She runs it to jaw-dropping effect. Bolger, as a man with a weakened heart, also covers extremely well this frustrated father's demanding dramatic conflicts. In parts less combustible than that of the frightened parents, Junek and Smaltz are strong.

Demos-Brown has taken up a subject that's dogged the United States story for two centuries and more. Perhaps his greatest achievement in the jam-packed 90-minute American Son is his astutely realized implication that the intricately unresolved race situation promises woefully to extend far into the future.

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Moby Dick at South Coast Repertory

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Photo by ​Debora Robinson/SCR.

Founded in 1988 in Chicago by a group of Northwestern graduates, the Lookingglass Theatre is known for its innovative ensemble theater productions. In its adaptation of Herman Melville's sprawling novel, Moby Dick, the company has tackled the monumental challenge of translating an epic work into a couple of hours of stage time.

For the most part, the effort is successful, largely due to the skillful adaptation by director David Catlin, who manages to hit the key points of the story and also weave in the major thematic elements of Melville's opus. In his role as director, Catlin underlines the religious themes not only with key passages from the work, but also by using a chorus of three women to emphasize a divine, otherworldly tone.

Many of the theatrical techniques in this production are likely to be familiar to regular theater goers, including the use of billowing fabric to connote waves on the sea, or the circus-like acrobatics that increasingly show up in theatrical productions. Also there are traditional story-theater conventions that feel somewhat tired and overused.

However, working from a strong script and with an energetic cast, Catlin creates an engaging and sturdy formulation of Melville's work. A fine and piercing performance by Anthony Flemming III in the role of Queequeq, as well as an earthy and demonic interpretation of Captain Ahab by Christopher Donohue, provide the emotional thrust of the piece. Jamie Abelson as Ishmael is solid as the witness to the devolving madness aboard the Pequod. The set by Courtney O'Neill, which is built around the abstracted skeletal form of a whale, punctuates the ongoing metaphor of the play.

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Between The Ideal And Reality With 'Yours Unfaithfully'

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Yours Unfaithfully
Mint Theatre, Theatre Row
410 West 42nd Street, NYC

Through February 18 +

"Sometimes it seems drama is such a passing business. A performance is given, a picture screened then probably forgotten. Only occasionally do you hear that something is remembered, and then you feel you may have added a little to the knowledge about the stuff of life."

How prescient for British playwright Miles Malleson to have penned this thought decades ago and for the Mint's artistic director Jonathan Bank to prove him true.

More than 80 years after Malleson wrote "Yours Unfaithfully," it finally enjoyed its world premiere at the Mint Theatre in New York last Thursday night. This compelling, finely-tuned drama, beautifully acted, begs the question: why did it take so long to see the light of stage?

After attending performances of short pieces of Malleson's in London, Mr. Bank, whose agenda over the past 20 years has been to discover lost plays, started sifting through other works of the playwright. He stumbled across this unknown gem about the timeless question of how to keep a marriage vital.

"When you strike a match on a box, which begins the flame?" asks Anne (the classically beautiful Elizabeth Gray) to her husband Stephen (Max von Essen), who's in a funk.

Far from suggesting either being part of this combustible equation, Anne plainly tells Stephen to do whatever it takes to rekindle his spirit. And from there on, the horse is out of the barn.

While all on stage agree (our couple included) that their's is among the healthiest marriages around, what puzzles initially is why one would believe extracurricular activity would help rekindle a spark without great risk.

Getting the playwright thinking along such lines likely came from his first marriage to a creative, powerhouse of a woman who was as beautiful as he was homely. (Think Alfred Hitchcock.) An open marriage was settled on, and by the end of his days, Malleson was on his third wife.

Don't mistake this for a whimsical thesis to drive a drama or to pay the bills (it certainly didn't do that). Malleson was regarded as "a playwright of provocative wit, searching insight, and a sense of ethical passion," by the Manchester Guardian. The play takes on the challenging task of exploring how much give a marriage bond must have to be sustainable?

We're provided various thoughts on the matter, from Stephen's reverend father (John Hutton) who offers the puritanical take to Dr. Kirby (psychiatrist, Todd Ceveris) who quips, "what we think we feel... that's as near as most of us get."

While everyone in the audience will have their own thoughts about what's going on, the play explores undeniable truths: life is made more difficult the more you try to get out of it; how partners' emotions can often be out of sync; there can be no true love without sacrifice; and there is pain in knowing too much.

This last point is the dramatic crescendo of the evening, several wordless minutes of an anxious, jealous spouse restlessly waiting the return of the other with background lights and noises of a London night filing a dark void.

The directness in which Malleson attacks his subject reminds how, just two generations earlier, Thomas Hardy approached the subject of marriage in his extraordinary, "Jude the Obscure." Hardy was burned in effigy for speaking so plainly, which "cured" the author of further novel writing. And perhaps for similar Victorian reason, Malleson never saw his play performed.

For a work that speaks to "men and women of full age, which attempts to deal unaffectedly with the fret and fever, derision and disaster that may press in the wake of the strongest passion known to humanity; to tell, without a mincing of words of a deadly war waged between the flesh and spirit; and to point the tragedy of unfulfilled aims, I am not aware that there is anything in the handling to which exception can be taken."

Hardy's preface to his story serves well to explain Malleson's more modest but daring tale about love, passion, and survival.

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At once silent and eloquent': a glimpse of Pakistani visual poetry

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Rickshaw poetry in Pakistan. D.Kazi, CC BY-NC-ND

Durriya Kazi, University of Karachi


Whose mischief created a world of beseechers?
Each petitioner is seen wearing a garment of paper




This line from the famous Mughul poet Ghalib refers to what he claimed to be ancient Persian tradition of petitioners wearing paper before entering the courts to get justice.



Indeed, for a country that has a low literacy rate, the written word is a central part of Pakistani society. All over Karachi, "wall chalking", as it is called, lines the streets with announcements of political meetings, informal advertising and messages in support of or against political leaders.






Wall chalking in Karachi.
D.Kazi, CC BY-NC-ND



Intelligence agencies and the press pick up writings that appear overnight as a show of political strength or indicators of political party infighting. Sometimes walls carry threats against specific people, such as "ainda na dehkoon" (this should not happen again) written by "bosses" to keep the local heavies in check. These are usually written in Urdu calligraphic style.



An unusual message stands out for its untidy spray painted phrase "Perfume Chowk" (perfume crossroads). Curious viewers discovered it was a message written by the heroic owner of a small stall selling attar (scented oil) in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, a suburb of Karachi, whose stall was regularly destroyed by people to whom he refused to give protection money.



A people's narrative



Countries have many narratives: the official state narrative, the narratives of friends and allies, that of enemies, of moral custodians; and then there is the complex, layered narrative of a country's people. These occupy sociologists, historians, literary critics, artists, film-makers, musicians, novelists and poets. Beneath the surface waves, one has to dive deeper to understand the true nature of the soul of a people, but occasionally the hidden becomes visible and lends itself to decoding.



This is most true of the place occupied by poetry in Pakistan. Classic forms can be of religious songs such as naats (a poem usually sung without music in praise of the Prophet Muhammad), qawalis (Sufi devotional songs performed by a large group of musicians accompanied by harmonium, drums and rhythmic clapping) and marsias (a poem of mourning and lament recounting the martyrdom of the Prophet's grandson and his family at Kerbela).





A song of joyous love and surrender, from the poet Amir Khusro to his spiritual guide, Nizamuddin Auliya by qawwals Farid Ayaz and Abu Mohammed.



But often poems are also more worldly love songs of film; colourful metaphors that take place during mushairas (public recitation of Urdu poetry) or poetry events. The preferred form of Urdu poetry is the ghazal, or couplet, which has its origins in Arabic literature via Persian poetry. Ghazals are composed as sophisticated conceits, ostensibly about love, longing, separation and loss, but imply commentaries that range from Sufi love of the divine, to local politics.



Hearing the voice of the individual



The decorated transport of Pakistan is much celebrated for its excessive colourful adornment and painted images. Less noticed are the embedded verses that are an essential part of all trucks, buses and rickshaws.



These are attempted conversations with "someone out there", an amplification of one's presence in a society that renders the common man invisible. "Whispering in our ears", these writings express personal feelings, outrage or simply indignation, loss, desire, or a moment of reflection.



Hungarian philosopher Ferenc Hörcher has suggested that conversation "liberates the human self from the bondages of practical life and brings about a sense of equilibrium". Intimate expressions are externalised in the public sphere addressing an assumed community. These writings symbolise an attempt to wrest authorship by marginalised citizens.



As Pakistani poet Noon Meem Rashid (1910-1975) wrote:




From amidst the crowd of men

The voice of the individual is heard




There are 600,000 commercial vehicles, which include buses, trucks and three wheelers (among them rickshaws), that circulate on 260,760 km of roads according to 2010 data published by the government. Most of these vehicles carry writings.






From left to right: A Pakistan Youth Alliance rickshaw carries peace messages; Discreet writing on a police vehicle reads: 'All your splendour will lie useless, when the nomad packs up and leaves'; a Melbourne tram decorated like a Karachi bus.
CC BY-NC-ND



Pakistan is portrayed as a belligerent, angry country, churning out extremists. The poetry on decorated transport tells another story. The most commonly used phrase is Maan ki dua Jannat ki hawa (A mother's prayer is a breeze from heaven) followed by Dekh magar piyar say (You can look, but with love), and a newcomer, Jiyo aur jinay do (Live and let live).



The themes of the poetry varies with the type of transport. The poetry on long-distance trucks transporting good across the country reflect the insecure journeys they face and the loneliness of being away from their families:




Road se dosti safar se yaari

Dekh pyaray zindgi hamari




I befriend the road, my companion is the journey

See the life I lead, my dear friend



The city busses are usually more light-hearted and risqué:




Dil Barai farookht. Qeemat ail muskarahat




My heart is for sale. The price: one smile




Aaghaz e jawani hai hum jhoom kay chaltay hain
dunya yeh samajhti hai hum pi kay nikaltay hain




I swagger because I am young

The world thinks I reel because I am drunk



But occasionally the concerns are serious:




Pata kiya khaak batain nishan hai be nishan apna
laga baithay bistar jahan wahin samjho makan apna




How can I tell you my address, I have left no mark

Wherever I lay down my bags, that is home




mohabbat na kar ameeron say jo barbad kartay hain
mohabbat kar ghareebon say jo hameesha yaad kartay hain




Do not love the rich who only ruin you

Love the poor who always remember you






Left to right: A truck reads, 'Oh Bulbul, why do you cry? Are there no fruits in your garden?
I should cry whose life knows no peace'; the back of a truck simply says 'Love'; a passenger bus decorated with reflective tape.

D.Kazi, CC BY-NC-ND



Buses and trucks are usually a lucrative business. The rickshaw on the other hand is usually owner-driven and provides an insight into Pakistani society's least privileged communities.



Rather than the ghazal couplet seen on trucks and buses, rickshaws have boldly written enigmatic poetic phrases such as Kaash (if only), Bikhray Moti (strewn pearls) zakhmi parinda (wounded bird) akhri goli (the last bullet). Sometimes a rickshaw simply carries the name of a beloved daughter or a Sufi saint.



Funny poems or phrases are common to all forms of transport, making life's problems and suffering bearable if only for a while. This is a feint that compels us to read between the lines, an essential component of the layered and often esoteric nature of Pakistani society.



Arabic poetry also gave Urdu the influence of Hija or satiric poetry. While the -qit'ah (a light-hearted fragmentary poetic phrase) extolled the virtues of tribal heroes, the hija denigrated rival tribes.



Another influence is that of Sufi poetry. The majority of Pakistani Muslims are of the Barelvi sect, which is interwoven with Sufism. Most decorated vehicles carry messages and prayers collected from Sufi shrines.



This penchant for bitter-sweet or dark humour pervades Pakistani society and may spring from the loss of agency in a region that has been repeatedly invaded since at least 1800 BC, each invader creating a powerful ruling elite imposing its culture and ignoring, for the most part, the lives of ordinary citizens.



In this sense these subtexts are essentially a protest, reaching out to a community longing for social justice and recognition. As poet Noon Meem Rashid wrote:




We are a solitary letter of the alphabet

At once silent and eloquent




The Conversation

Durriya Kazi, Head of department Visual Studies, University of Karachi



This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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