Culture & Arts

Since launching in 1994 Sónar Festival of Advanced Music and New Media Art has drawn international audiences. Those who have not made the trip to Barcelona before might be surprised by the genuinely robust digital art programme -- this is not a festival that only caters to pill-popping ravers, it's a melting pot of music, art, performance and industry-led talks.

This year, Sónar highlighted a very modern reality: there are no clearly defined roles within the creative sector anymore. Multi and interdisciplinary practice has become the norm and lines have been blurred between creators, artists, technicians, performers, DJs and even audiences.

Sónar curator José Luis de Vicente reflected on this message, saying it is "a cultural space that is constantly shifting".

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Aiming to push digital media boundaries, this year the creators of Sónar arranged for creatives from the audiovisual industry to meet digital e-commerce experts to search for new business models and ways of working.

"We want to be an agent in the way the culture of tomorrow takes place", said de Vicente.

Richie Hawtin is a Sónar regular. Striving to create experiences that go beyond those at a normal festival, he described his style as: "eccentric mind-bending Plastikman ambience and full-on dance floor".

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Text by Ruth Amelung for Crane.tv

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I praise the Lawyers Philharmonic of Los Angeles. I heard them perform this past weekend.

When they arranged themselves on stage in the glorious Walt Disney Hall, they looked exactly like a professional orchestra. When they played their fifth anniversary concert, they sounded so good you might not have guessed who they are: a collection of gifted amateurs devoted to their art. They were excellent. They are motivated by nothing more than their love for what they are doing.

Engrossed by a terrific recital, having flown down from San Francisco to see friends who belong to the ensemble, I concluded I would be happy to spend another evening in their company. The fact that everyone also holds a "day job" as well makes their success all the more impressive. For me as a listener anyway, my enjoyment is enhanced by identifying with the musicians in their "real" work as judges and lawyers.

I was inspired by their achievement. I envy it. They have the combination of talent and determination that is to be commended.

Their virtuosity makes me wonder. Perhaps we have been overwhelmed by a cult of perfection. In every context, we want "the best." By definition, we should prefer the superlative.

Yet there is an alternative to our obsession. By insisting there is a single ultimate experience, that it can be agreed upon, and, most damning to everything else, then acquired by anyone who can pay the price, we demean our lives.

We reduce ourselves to consumers who wish to purchase merit rather than participants who create it. We are discouraged from taking up hobbies, struggling through the early incompetence that leads to later proficiency. We lose the ability to enjoy the ordinary pleasures. What should be respected is disdained: the amateur and the audience member.

Amateurs and audience members are most of us. We should be proud of that.

Without us, there would not be professionals much less stars. The amateur is the mother of the professional, often enough literally. The audience members are the reason for the enterprise, except for the instance of a hermit supported by a patron.

The people whom I witnessed giving their all deserve applause for more than the effort. They were good regardless of whether they were compensated. The talent needed to entertain is underestimated by those of us who do not risk doing it. The coordination of a group requires its own considerable skill.

There was a time when the amateur and the audience members were the same, because to be educated meant being able to contribute a song to the social gathering. It likely has always been true that the most passionate devotees of an instrument are the performers who would like to emulate the experts, for whose appearances they buy tickets as fans.

The best orchestra that I have experienced live remains the Cleveland Orchestra. Among the American "Big Five" as they were called in the day, its technical superiority was instilled by the legendary maestro George Szell. When I lived in the Midwestern city that does not boast of much, I subscribed to the cheapest seats available in Severance Hall: Thursday nights, last row. There over the course of a season, I heard concerts conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi that were better than any I have heard since. It's not likely that any amateur orchestra will rival the Cleveland Orchestra, but it's also arguable that few professional orchestras can surpass it.

Here's the rub. I had no idea. Since I was new to classical music, new to concert going, and simply young, I could not discern quality. I could then, as I can now, identify what I like and dislike: lush middle-brow melodies by, say, Rachmaninoff, over unpredictable experiments such as Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.

Beyond that, I lacked any basis for appreciating any particular concert or recording compared to the same program by another set of players on a different night or compact disc. I could only say one was faster or louder. I couldn't even do that reliably.

I developed over time. I had to be deliberate in the auditorium, encountering a range of compositions and coming into repeated contact with the same pieces. I also read about composers, their creations, the contexts for their lives, and the programs they were expressing.

My wife, who has taught me much, says, "The world needs great audience members." She has so much knowledge of the music she loves that people assumes she herself plays. She, like me, doesn't have skill with any instrument; childhood piano lessons for us both, to no lasting effect. But we are enthusiastic about attending productions of live music. We have a range of tastes: classical, jazz, opera, rock.

The Lawyers Philharmonic concert was a delight. The major classical offering was Dvorak's lovely Eighth Symphony, established in the repertoire if not the top hit that his subsequent "New World" was destined to become. The packed concert hall responded as positively as possible: they disregarded the contemporary prohibition on clapping after each movement.

The program provided adventure in the form of lawyer Selma Moidel Smith's neoclassical Espressivo. The second half presented popular tunes such as a Mary Poppins medley, introduced by one of the two brothers responsible for the soundtrack. The law student, Caitlin Easter, who soloed in the Goldfinger movie theme received a standing ovation for a rendition that resonated through the space.

I was more than satisfied. I celebrate the amateur and her audience.

In an unfurnished New York City apartment with bare white walls, Wendell Headley paces the room with an intense energy bordering on unease. He's indoors--at what will soon be the home of an art installation featuring some of his avant-garde fashion designs--but he longs to be outside in the park across the street. It's by traversing the city's public spaces in his sartorial splendor (most notably throughout Harlem) that Headley has become a local legend. He's been content with existing on the periphery for years but the release of a new book, Where's Wendell? and collaborative installation New York, Naturally may be the beginning of bringing his name to a national stage.

Wendell Headley and park visitors/Credit: Felicia M. Gordon

Details on Headley's background are scarce and in an interview he was not forthcoming about the past. The only information provided is that he grew up in and around New York, was a painter in the 1980s mentioned in art periodicals with the likes of Keith Haring and started sewing to overcome substance abuse issues. The result of the latter has been the creation of colorful flamboyant designs where he repurposes materials, sometimes tearing apart and reworking one completed design into something entirely new. It gives the garments an ephemeral quality that is not exactly in line with the fashion world's business model. But Headley could care less. He creates not to sell but to promote a spirit of creativity and childhood innocence, even if he knows many may never understand.

Where's Wendell?/Credit: Felicia M. Gordon

"I am the working class heroes hero," he said. "I am saving middleclass and rich people from their own self-destruction. What makes my clothes a fantasy is nobody could wear them anywhere 'cause they are outside of people's causal imagination. My clothes are about childhood playtime and people grow out of that style altogether."

Where's Wendell? documents Headley's style and outlook on life through photographs taken by Felicia M. Gordon, founder of the art collective Sugar Hill Culture Club (SHCC). The limited edition book will be released July 2 with a private celebration as part of the exhibition "If You Build It" presented by No Longer Empty in partnership with Broadway Housing Communities. [Full disclosure: writer is creative director of the project's programming]. In addition Headley plans to lead interactive art and fashion workshops as part of
"New York Naturally", which also features additional work by Gordon and Imani Razat.

New streaming service for African content

It's being dubbed the "Hulu" of Africa to United States viewers but the new platform, Africa Magic GO, has a little more on its agenda than just offering access to the latest in African films and television series. The site, which allows U.S. viewers to stream original content from the continent online for only $8 a month, also hopes to foster a greater cross-cultural exchange.

Tinsel/Courtesy: Africa Magic GO

"Africa is a diverse continent and people living in the U.S. will now have access to stories told from an African perspective. This is an opportunity for Americans in general to see that our cultures enjoy great overlaps," said Wangi Mba-Uzoukwu, regional director at Africa Magic.

53 Extra/Courtesy: Africa Magic GO

Highlights include Nigeria's popular soap opera, Tinsel that focuses on the scandal and romance of the film production world. 53 Extra is a weekly West African entertainment magazine show. And Blue Flames, is the tale of three families vying for wealth and fulfillment.

Mba-Uzoukwu believes that content focused on themes with universal appeal will demonstrate that Africa Magic GO's programming is not just for a "niche" market.

"African content tells life stories and the underlying themes of love, deception, betrayal, jealousy and so on resonate with people from all walks of life. There is growing interest in stories from Africa told from the African perspective."

Danny Simmons has the best of both worlds in new poetry book

The relationship between poetry and visual art may not be immediate for some but for Danny Simmons the two are inextricably linked thanks to his childhood.

"My father was an amazing influence with his poetry. Everyday he'd recite poetry around the house and ask us what we felt about it. And my mother would be painting," Simmons recalled. "For neither of them was that their job but these were their passions. It steeped in and was something I picked up and I am now a painter and writer."

Courtesy KMW Studio Publishing

He's taken that inspiration and applied it to is new book, The Brown Beatnik Tomes which features his poems juxtaposed with his neo-African Abstract Expressionist paintings. The effect is a conversation between two artistic disciplines that broadens the scope and impact of each.

In looking back on his career, Simmons admitted to placing his poetry career on-hold for several years. While helping spoken word poetry reach a new mainstream audience through his work in co-creating the hit television series Def Poetry Jam he decided it'd be a conflict of interest to simultaneously pursue a career as a poet. But now he is catching up on that time that has gone by. And for him there is no better time than the present to be a poet.

"People are seeking something more cerebral. As rap music gets more ratchet people look for meaning in the words they listen to," he said. "The world has become a little more intense and people need ways to vent and talk about what is going on."

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The weekly column, On the "A" w/Souleo, covers the intersection of the arts, culture entertainment and philanthropy in Harlem and beyond and is written by Souleo, founder and president of event/media content production company, Souleo Enterprises, LLC.

How did Oprah become so wise, Bill Gates so successful, and J.K. Rowling so creative? We think the answer is something along the lines of "you are what you read." Even the president, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ellen DeGeneres had to start somewhere--and we like to think they started in the pages of a good book.

1. Barack Obama

When he's not guiding the country or being a role model and mentor to his daughters, President Obama likes to kick back with a good book. You know, in his down time. It's fitting that one of his own role models is Civil Rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr., and this Pulitzer Prize winner is one of his favorites. If the president can find the time to dive into this excellent bio, we think you can too.

2. J.K. Rowling

When the New York Times asked J.K. Rowling who her favorite literary character was as a child and as an adult, the answer was the same: Jo March from Little Women. "It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer."

3. Owen Wilson

Long before Owen Wilson was raising hell on the big screen, his favorite protagonist, Huck Finn, was shaking things up as the "juvenile pariah of his village." We like to think these two would become fast friends: Wilson could show Huck how to crash a wedding, and Huck could show Wilson how to crash his own funeral. Twain's classic goes out to all the good-hearted bad boys out there.

4. Oprah Winfrey

Who better to recommend a spiritual guidebook than Oprah, whose larger than life career has been built on self-improvement and personal transformation? Among O's favorites is Marianne Williamson's bestselling guide on improving relationships, work, and health by embracing love over fear. Sounds like something we all might need to read.

5. Chevy Chase

The first breakout star of "Saturday Night Live" and everyone's favorite bumbling madman in the National Lampoon movies, Chevy Chase does the comedy of errors genre like nobody's business. We think he took a page from his favorite book, Moby Dick, in which an eerily compelling madman relentlessly pursues a great white whale far beyond the point of sanity.

6. Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham loves confessional books by women, wants to publish her mother's diaries, and has just sold a memoir (for $3 million, btdubs). So it's no wonder one of her favorite books involves a 12-year-old girl in 13th-century England who is documenting her attempts at avoiding marriage. Catherine is pulled, kicking and screaming into adulthood. This sounds like the plot of a show we know...

7. Bill Gates

Bill Gates's favorite book is a far cry from the reading we did in our high school physics classes. MIT professor Walter Lewin makes the subject exciting and relatable (come again?). Gates says, "I wish more people shared Lewin's appreciation for observation, measurement and data--especially in debates over incredibly important matters that concern me very much, like public finance, climate change, education reform and vaccinations." We couldn't be happier that a man with such influence has such an enlightened outlook.

8. Hillary Clinton

When Hillary Clinton isn't reading the Bible (don't look so shocked), one of her favorite books is The Brothers Karamazov: "[It] made a lasting impression on me when I read it as a young woman; I intend to reread it this summer to see what I now think about it." Funny, former first lady Laura Bush also loves the Dostoyevsky novel. Coincidence? Maybe Clinton's new memoir will tell us more.

9. Mark Zuckerberg

The Facebook founder originally read The Aeneid in high school Latin class, and we like to think Virgil's classic got his wheels turning. In an interview with The New Yorker, Zuck recounts the story of Aeneas' quest to build a city that "knows no boundaries in time and greatness." Sound familiar?

10. Dave Eggers

Literary juggernaut Dave Eggers always has socially conscious nonfiction on his reading list. Among his favorite authors: journalist J. Malcolm Garcia, whom Eggers calls "urgent and provocative." Riding through Katrina with the Red Baron's Ghost features a unique blend of history, personal narrative, and insights into Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts.

11. Ellen DeGeneres

When Ellen started reading Garth Stein's book about a talking dog, she was skeptical. But now she can't stop the recommendations from flowing: "Your family will love it. Your friends will love it. And call me a gambler, but I'd put money on the fact that even your cats will want you to read it to them again and again." We'd bet the only thing that would make the book more interesting to Ellen is if Meryl Streep were reading it.

12. Malcolm Gladwell

After reading Malcolm Gladwell, we'll never think of underdogs (or dogs, for that matter) the same way again. But when you've already been named to Time's 100 Most Influential People list, who do you turn to for inspiring nonfiction? Gladwell has cited psychologist Richard Nisbett as the "most influential thinker" in his life. We're guessing we'll learn a few things from this one.

13. Steven Spielberg

True, Steven Spielberg didn't direct the film version, but James Fenimore Cooper's classic American novel is the director's all-time favorite book. We think the action-packed story set during the French and Indian War helped to spark Spielberg's imagination. Just add dinosaurs.

14. Marissa Mayer

Infuriated that you can't open your fridge door and dishwasher door at the same time? (Maybe that's just us.) Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer likes things to work properly. Enter Donald Norman's book. "It makes you think about design in new ways, because when you use something everyday it needs to be absolutely efficient and not get in your way. It's cool to be able to articulate and discuss that on a level that is really accessible and interesting."

15. Ira Glass

"This American Life" host Ira Glass is an expert radio storyteller (that voice!). But when he dove into writing the screenplay "Sleepwalk with Me," Glass found that he needed some storytelling tips for the big screen. Among his manuels? Save the Cat! If you can resist judging this (actually awesome) book by its cover, we think you'll be thanking us when you sell your script to Tinseltown.

16. Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn, of Gone Girl fame, is not one to shy away from dark psychological fiction. Discussing her preference for old-fashioned thrillers that create a sense of unease, Flynn shared a particularly vivid recommendation in the New York Times: "I will probably be clutching Flowers in the Attic in my gnarled hands on my deathbed." Not to be cryptic or anything, but we suggest reading this cult classic before it's too late.

17. David Sedaris

David Sedaris has a way of turning the worst life experiences into the funniest stories. Among his favorite fiction? The stories of Flannery O'Connor, whose Southern Gothic humor is equally witty and provocative. A good man is hard to find, but we think O'Connor would get along swimmingly with Sedaris.

18. Sheryl Sandberg

Facebook COO and bestselling author Sheryl Sandberg is a big fan of Marcus Buckingham, whose years of research found that the most important indicator of a company's success is whether its employees feel they have an opportunity to do their best work on a daily basis. Learn how to lean in with Buckingham's guide.

Discover and read more famous favorites and famous reading lists on Oyster. Let us who else's bookshelf you wish you could peruse on Twitter @Oyster or drop us a line at hello@oysterbooks.com.

The first time I ever saw Emmanuelle Seigner I was a 15 year old grunge kid, and she was the gorgeous vulnerable seductress Mimi, intertwined in her husband Roman Polanski's fatally passionate love story Bitter Moon. This was a time when the glamour of pictures was still very fresh to me, when artists and their work presented a parallel form of archetypes, so if Polanski, just like Goddard, Kubrick and Scorsese was a Master, Emanuelle was in all of her right his Muse and together they formed the ideal power couple of that time. Twenty years later in their newest collaboration Venus in Fur (based on the play by David Ives, which was itself based on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's novella of the same name) those archetypes still ring true.

Venus in Fur opens with Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner) as the foul mouth, vulgar, unprepared actress walking in late for a theater audition. When the writer/director of the play Thomas (Mathieu Almaric) finally lets her try out for the part, after much reluctance, Vanda proves she's not only prepared but ready to play it, and what begins as an audition from hell becomes a sexy game of obsession and seduction, where the roles of power and persona are constantly in flux.

When Emmanuelle walks in for our interview, I am mesmerized. In leather pants, high tops, and a striped T-shirt, she disarms me. She is soft spoken, funny and contained. Glimpses of her past screen personas come alive only when they are mentioned. As we speak of plays, movies, her husband and their collaboration, it becomes very clear that muses, masters and myths are first and foremost professionals.

Portrait by Leslie Hassler

How did the project come to be? Did it get in yours or in Polanski's hands first?
Seigner: In Polanski hands first. His agent gave him the play because we were looking for something to do together with a great role, and something that we could do in an intimate way, not in a big studio movie, something more artsy. So we were looking for the right project for many years and then when he read the play he was in trance. He was like, "We have to do it. It's amazing." I mean since I've known him I never saw him so excited about a material. So I read it, and in the beginning when I read it I was like 'Oh My God this role is so huge. I couldn't ... ' It seemed very difficult to do and then he said "No no, you will see you are so perfect is going to be fine", and then when I started working on it and I learned the lines, it felt kind of easy.

Sometimes we don't know what we are (laughs)
Seigner: Sometimes we don't know. It is kind of scary. Yes, maybe that is what it is.

Who is she for you?
Seigner: We don't know what she is. She might be only from his mind, you know as in Rosemary's Baby you think in the end maybe she dreamed that story, that maybe it is all in her mind? So maybe its all in his mind, or maybe she is a real goddess, or maybe she is real and she is giving him a lesson. So, I think each person can find their own story, that is what is nice about the movie, sometimes people see it two or three times and they say it is a totally different thing when you see it again.

How did you approach the labyrinth of Vanda?
Seigner: Most of the time I let myself be, I didn't try to fabrique... I don't know the word in English...You know? When you make it up and you organize everything. I just let myself find the different characters, mostly just had fun with it you know? But the most fun for me was the one from the beginning, when I come in and she is so vulgar and he wants to kill her because she is so irritating. That was the most fun because I could exaggerate everything and I kind of liked it.

Yes! She is one of those characters that you think, Oh My God she is too much! And I like it.
Seigner: She is terrible. She is so much fun.

How was working with Polanski?
Seigner: It was great working with him because he is one of the great directors and it is really always great to work with a great director, but for the first time I had such a big role and I have more experience and so it was much better for me this time, because I could use him. I could use his talent.

So it was a great collaboration.
Seigner: Yeah, and an amazing role first you know, there are not so many roles like that.

I heard David Ives went to your house and you worked on the script together.
Seigner: No no. He came and they worked together. I was away in the theater doing a play. They were working in Switzerland on the script and I was rehearsing the play. Then David came back when we were rehearsing the movie for three weeks, and we were looking for the right words and the right things, and he did a lot of collaboration for the film.

How was working with your fellow actor?
Seigner: Mathieu, oh it was great. I worked with him before in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and so I knew I loved working with him. He is such a good actor...And he swings you know? It was like when you play tennis with someone that sends you the ball in the right time, in the right moment, so it's exactly that feeling, it is really nice, because sometimes you play with someone, and is just aarrrggg, it doesn't work you know? With him it is really good.

What is your next project?
Seigner: I don't know. After that role I feel everything they are offering me is not good enough. For men there are so many good roles, and for very young girls, but for women there are not so many good roles and it's a pity because there are so many great actresses.

Do you think it may be because there are less women writing?
Seigner: Hmmmm. I don't know, but even in literature there are not so many great women, and most of them are made already, Madame Bovary, or the great heroines you know? That is why it was so great to find this play that nobody had done as a movie, but it's rare. We were looking for a long time to find the right thing, we read a lot of books and things and we were looking into period things but period is always a big production, so you don't want to go into that also you know, because it can be something too big.

Do you think is because it's all set in the theater you had more freedom?
Seigner: Yes it is simple. We shot in twenty-seven days, and what I like about the film is it's like the old Polanski from his old movies, like knife in the Water, Cul-de-sac, Repulsion and his short movies, is very much what he was doing in the beginning and I think it is because it is a small thing.

Would you say this is at the top?
Seigner: For me? Oh yeah. For the moment it is the best thing I have ever done for sure. I mean I've never had such a good role.

I loved you in Bitter Moon...
Seigner: Yeah but Bitter Moon. hmmmmm, I think when I did Bitter Moon I was not really ready to do it. I was a bit young to play that role, so there are things I did well, like the vulnerable part, but the tough part I feel I needed a bit more of maturity and experience in life and in work. And also this was funny, Bitter Moon was like on the first level you know, it's a love story, a passion. It's great and became sort of a cult movie, but this one I think is a bit more interesting, and funnier.

There is a hunger for good roles for women. I mean there was Blue Jasmine, which was a take on Blanche DuBois of Street Car Named Desire by Tennessee Williams.
Seigner: It is true, most of the good roles are from plays. Most of the time the great women's roles are from plays.

Maybe because in plays you cant' get away visually from the characters?
Seigner: Maybe, that is why we were looking for plays. I think this work is good, because it has a man writer and man director and is a feminist movie, and that is a nice change because we are fed up of being an object, and walking in the movies looking beautiful is boring.

Women are so interesting.
Seigner: Much more than men. (Laughs)

After all these years I still see the parallel between Polanski and Emmanuelle's work and archetypes, but as Emmanuelle the Muse becomes the Master of her own craft, one cannot help but wonder if in their long relationship their roles haven't had a fair amount of flux, just like the characters of their latest collaboration Venus in Fur.

Follow Leslie Hassler on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lesliehassler

For a change of pace, today I'm offering you a series of random theater-related thoughts. None of which could take up a post on its own, but together they seem worthy.

Although it got a couple of great reviews, Fly By Night didn't do as well with critics as I had hoped it would. While I too thought it should be shorter (my feeling was it should be a one-act with the first half of what is now the second act excised), I still was completely charmed by it. I took my friend and her husband and they both liked it as well. I urge the people reading this that like intimate musicals to head over to Playwrights Horizons before the show closes at the end of the month.

Everyone knows Shakespeare in the Park is pretty much my favorite annual event. Much Ado About Nothing got raves. For me, going in, I was nervous about Hamish Linklater as Benedick. He is in fact giving the best performance I've ever seen him give at the Delacorte. Lily Rabe of course is great, as is the rest of the supporting cast. (It was not surprising to me that Jack O'Brien chose to have Brian Stokes Mitchell sing.) I was particularly struck by the effectiveness of Jack Cutmore-Scott as Claudio. Claudio is a completely thankless role. He's an ass; he betrays poor Hero. You don't really feel great that he is getting the girl in the end -- you think he should suffer. A successful Claudio must be naïve enough that you don't completely hate him and yet believable as a soldier. Cutmore-Scott got there.

I was very interested to see what the reviews for Holler If Ya Hear Me would be like last night. The show, which has been struggling at the box office, needed raves. I didn't think it would get them, but I've often been completely off on predicting such things. This time I did not miss the mark -- the show did not do well with most critics (though it had its supporters). There will be some who believe this is because the Broadway critics, many of whom are white men over 40, did not relate to the show. For me, I don't think it's about that. I went into Holler If Ya Hear Me wanting to support it. I was excited to see something fresh; I ended up loving those guys my last column was about, Joshua Boone and Dyllon Burnside. A big problem for me was the stale choreography. If you're going to bring a unique sound to Broadway, why not go with unique steps? There are so many great, innovative hip-hop choreographers. Instead they hired Wayne Cilento, a 64-year-old Broadway veteran, whose work is not horrible, but just completely lacks innovation. Cilento has done a lot of good things in his career; I take nothing away from him. He should not however have been hired to choreograph this musical.

I love how Fool for Love at Williamstown went from starring Lauren Ambrose and Chris Pine to starring Nina Arianda and Sam Rockwell because of so-called "scheduling conflicts" for both the original actors. The show was expected to transfer to Broadway in the fall. Am I the only one who is a little less excited about that possibility now? I still wish it the best, but I am disappointed.

I am however excited about a possible transfer of the West End revival of David Hare's Skylight with Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy. Will it into being with me, please.

Currently the fall offering I am most looking forward to is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The National Theatre mounting is likely coming to a movie theater near you in the next couple of months. And the extended Broadway promo, featuring scenes from that mounting, can be seen here.

To end on a sad note, I've been thinking a lot about illness and death in the last few weeks. Not only because of some of the shows mentioned in this very column, but because I think I somehow end up going to more wakes and funerals than most people my age. Medical advances have come so far in many fields -- I got my last cap made at the Jurim Dental Group in Long Island and they made it while I read a Playbill. There was no temporary needed; coolest thing ever. And we all know that no matter what type of erectile dysfunction you have -- in 2014, the pharmaceutical companies have you covered, or so my TV tells me. But so many people are still getting sick with seemingly incurable diseases. One of my favorite theater actresses (who is turning to directing soon with ValueVille at NYMF), Donna Lynne Champlin, has a sister-in-law with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease). That is one of those things that, in most cases, has no known cause or cure. So what do you do? Well, Donna Lynne has gotten almost everyone she knows--and she knows a lot of people--to donate tons of Broadway memorabilia and services in hopes of raising enough money for her sister-in-law to buy a Tobii product, which basically allows you to generate speech through eye movements. Seriously. This very well might be cooler than the porcelain dental cap machine. Anyway, there are some great items in this auction, signed head shots, one-on-one lunches and cast memorabilia that I've even never seen before. Stuff from Harold Prince, Carol Burnett (you may remember Champlin played her in Hollywood Arms), Emily Skinner, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and many more.

Watch this video about the auction if you want and please check out the site and bid until 9pm tonight:

Also, as long as we're on sad things, I want to send my respects to the families of both Seth Popper, from the Broadway League, and casting director Barry Moss. Both men I worked periodically with throughout the years and both were great. There are so many in the theater that work behind-the-scenes. Their deaths are often meaningful to members of the community, but their losses don't make headline news. These two men contributed a great amount to the industry.

And for those of my readers in the community, veteran press agent Don Summa (Rent, Hairspray, many others) lost his mother a couple of weeks ago. He spoke at the funeral about how his mother helped support his love of the theater - as I have previously written, we need more parents like that. (There is a scholarship fund in her name, if you knew him and would like to learn more: Sylvia J. Summa Scholarship Fund Order Sons of Italy in America/ New York Grand Lodge Office/2101 Bellmore Avenue/Bellmore, NY 11710.)

Background

Intellectual property law is complex and varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but, roughly speaking, creative works can be copyrighted, while inventions and processes can be patented. In each case the intention is to protect the value of the owner's work or possession.

For the most part, mathematics is excluded by the Berne convention of the World International Property Organization (WIPO). An unusual exception was the successful patenting of Gray codes in 1953. More usual was the carefully timed Pi Day 2012 dismissal by a U.S. judge of a copyright infringement suit regarding Pi, since "Pi is a non-copyrightable fact."

Pi Period

In January 2014 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Brooklyn artist Paul Ingrisano a trademark on his design consisting of the Greek letter Pi followed by a period. It should be noted here that there is nothing stylistic or in any way particular about Ingrisano's trademark; it is simply a standard Greek Pi letter followed by a period. That's it: Pi period. No one doubts the enormous value of Apple's partly eaten apple or the MacDonald's arch. But Pi.?

We live in an era of aggressive patent trolling by vulture patent firms. There is vast amount at stake. Think of the current smartphone-patent wars and the sometimes-successful patenting of life forms. Additionally, it is often cheaper for a firm to pay than to go to court. A vague patent can be a "nice little earner," and even established firms such as Microsoft and Apple therefore go patent trolling. Other firms are more willing to "open source" some of their intellectual property, such as, for example, Tesla's announcement that it will open some of its patents to help spur the electric automobile industry.

What Happened Next?

To underscore that he means business, Ingrisano, through his lawyer, Ronald Millet, sent a letter to Zazzle.com, a Pi novelty company, demanding that they "[i]mmediately cease and desist" their "unlawful" usage of the Pi trademark or "any confusingly similar trademark," and, within 14 days:

Provide an accounting of all sales of any products containing their trademark.

Provide an inventory of all relevant products.

Disclose any other uses, electronic or print, that have been made of the trademark.

Provide an account of the date when the Pi trademark was first incorporated into their products, a list of all known links to Zazzle's webpage, and a list of third parties who offer such products.

The letter threatened attorney's fees and "treble money damages." The full text of the letter is available here.

Implied in the letter is the plaintiff's position that "any confusingly similar trademark" includes the Pi symbol itself, without the period, since none of the products offered by Zazzle features a Pi followed by a period. Indeed, according to a report in Wired, Ingrisano's attorney Millet has asserted that many items for sale by Zazzle "clearly have a pi sign and look similar enough that folks out there might confuse it with products that my client also sells."

Zazzle responded by temporarily banning all garments featuring the Pi symbol, which involved "thousands of products," according to the Wired report. But two days later, after being flooded with complaints, Zazzle restored the products. Millet is consulting with Ingrisano as to their next step.

Along this line, it is amusing to note that a Pi design is featured by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) as a finalist for its 2014 T-Shirt Contest (and the design includes one formula that one of the present authors was instrumental in discovering). Will MAA be challenged as well?

The Smiley Face

This spat is reminiscent of a dispute over the "smiley face" between litigants Walmart Stores and SmileyWorld, a London-based company that registered rights to the smiley face many years ago on behalf of Franklin Loufrani. The dispute was finally settled in June 2011, under undisclosed (but likely quite expensive) terms.

Unlike the Pi case, no one has argued that the smiley face has scientific significance! But the case does demonstrate that such disputes must be taken seriously. Moreover, the smiley face is a defined and recognizable image, and Loufrani explicitly makes no attempt to stop the use of it in email as plain text, such as :).

Pi in Modern Mathematics and Science

The Pi. trademark, and the aggressive actions taken by the trademark holder, may seem amusing and are certainly unfortunate for Zazzle and its owners, employees and customers.

But much more is at stake here. If Ingrisano and his attorney prevail in their legal actions, this would mean, in effect, that anyone who uses the Pi symbol in any context would live under the threat that they might receive a similar "cease and desist" letter, with the threats of significant financial loss. This would be an unmitigated disaster for modern mathematics and science.

It is not the slightest bit an exaggeration to say that Pi is the most important irrational constant of modern mathematics. Each year the Pi symbol appears in thousand of published books and in tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of technical papers, not just in books and papers related to geometry but in fields as diverse as statistics and quantum physics.

In fact, the numerical value of Pi (expressed in binary digits) is contained in every smartphone ever produced, since the computations performed to process wireless signals (using the "fast Fourier transform") inherently involve Pi.

Pi appears in several guises in the equations of quantum physics and therefore is central to semiconductor electronics. Pi even arises in GPS technology, since the frequency of clock signals broadcast by GPS satellites must be adjusted according to the formulas of Einstein's general relativity, the equations of which involve Pi.

The mind reels at the thought that the authors of every mathematical, scientific or engineering paper that uses a Pi symbol must live under a cloud of worry that they too might be accused of "trademark violation" by including Pi symbols in their articles. And can we really not put Pi on our posters and T-shirts?

Also, if Pi is placed under a cloud of trademark violation, what is next? The letter e, the base of natural logarithms, which is almost as ubiquitous as Pi? The "sigma" summation sign (another Greek letter)? The integral sign?

What to Do

Unlikely? Perhaps. But to even approach such a path, to place even a glimmer of doubt or worry into the workings and communications of modern science, would be an unmitigated disaster. No precedent even remotely approaching this scenario must be tolerated by the scientific community. Must the American Mathematical Society or the International Mathematical Union trademark all mathematical symbols -- including 5! -- as logos and release them under a general public license?

No, the best solution is simply to rescind the Pi. trademark and block any future attempts at trademarking mathematical symbols. There definitely are precedents for such action, including the June 2014 action by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the Washington Redskins' registration of their image, which was ruled as disparaging to Native Americans. Surely the needs of the worldwide mathematical and scientific community to use standard notation free from trademark worries is an equally compelling justification.

"Mi Querido Mexico (My Beloved Mexico): The Photographs of Manuel Carrillo," curated for the Museum of Latin American Art by its President and CEO Stuart A. Ashman, looks like a village. A small Mexican village. Its themes, though, are global.

Drunken Barrels-Pulqueria (Toluca) / Barriles borrachos-Pulqueria (Toluca), 1970
Gelatin-Silver Print

The space it inhabits is modest. The black and white photographs are about the size of a sheet of paper. They all have the same black frame. For all we know, the subjects could be members of the same family. Each piece is carefully composed. There's nothing extraneous, just as in the lives of these people. Carrillo isolates each subject, the better to focus on physiognomy, expressions, and textures. Everything blends together. The texture of skin, the texture of clothes, and the texture of landscape.

Portrait (Santa Rosa, Guanajuato) / Retrato (Santa Rosa, Guanajuato), 1960
Gelatin-Silver Print

Each piece brims with unrehearsed moments. Its tone is slower than slow. People and animals go about their business. No one and no thing are in a hurry. (There is a party next door, though. An exhibition of magical realism work culled from the Museum's permanent collection to honor of the passing Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)

Boy Watering Horses, Veracruz / Niño dando de beber a los caballos, Veracruz, 1956
Gelatin-Silver Print

One image is funny. Two tilted barrels sit in front of an agave bar, posed as if drunk and 86ed onto the sidewalk. One image is sad. A dog sits on the grave of its master. Three images are profound. The shadow of a cross bends at an unnatural angle. A young boy hesitates before he goes into a church. An old woman walks in the direction opposite a set of stairs. All of the images are sincere and intimate.

Dog Joins the Games at 2nd Base / Perro se une al juego en la segunda base, 1970
Gelatin-Silver Print

The show begins with mundane situations. Carrillo ritualizes these simple acts. He makes them monumental. A mother breastfeeding her child out in the open becomes a metaphor for everywoman. A man selling rope to support his family is everyman. The boys playing baseball, a young girl sitting up against a wall, they represent the future.

Woman on Park Bench (San Miguel) / Mujer en el banco del parque (San Miguel), 1970
Gelatin-Silver Print

The work is clean, simple, uncluttered. They're more like windows. On the wall outside the gallery is an Edward Steichen quote: "A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it." That's what makes this minimal show so monumental. Carrillo sees and then seizes the basics of what he photographs. Nothing more, nothing less. Daily gains and losses, joys and despairs. Subjects are what they appear to be. Nothing is lost in translation. Nothing at all.

Carrillo was born in Mexico City in 1906. At the age of 49, he took up photography, joining the Club Fotografico de Mexico and the Photographic Society of America. In 1960 he had his first international show at the Chicago Public Library. Since then, he has shown all over the world, including the US, England, China, Hong Kong, Rumania, and France. He died in 1989. He donated his archive of over 10,000 prints, negatives and slides to the University of Texas at El Paso Library.

The exhibition runs until November 30. Museum hours are 11am - 5pm, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, 11am - 9pm, Friday. Admission is $6 - $9, with free admission on Sunday. The Museum is located at 628 Alamitos Avenue, Long Beach CA 90802. For more information call (562) 437-1689 or visit www.molaa.org.

When people think about artistic achievement, many focus on an individual's triumph in winning an award, a trophy, or some honor to recognize his talent, effort, and skill. The truth, however, is that the road leading up to that person's moment of glory was paved with the input and contributions of many others. If you don't believe me, try listening to a series of acceptance speeches from the Tony, Emmy, Golden Globe, or Academy Awards ceremonies.

In her 1996 book, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us, Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to show how, for better or worse, many people outside the nuclear family can influence a child's growth and behavior. While most folks are quick to recognize the kind of teamwork that leads to victory in sports or politics, few grasp the collaborative effort required to bring many forms of art to fruition.

From the intimate communication required between a recitalist and accompanist to the full-throttle grandeur of Brunnhilde's immolation scene at the end of Der Ring des Nibelungen (when a soprano's voice must carry over the sound of a large, Wagnerian orchestra); from the sensitive ensemble work of a string quartet to the full impact of an orchestra, soloists, and chorus performing the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a great deal of rehearsal, discipline, informed choices, and collegiality is required to deliver an ideal musical experience.

Two new productions focus on the teamwork that goes into bringing a piece of art to life. While their stories take place on different continents, in different eras, and within vastly different cultures, each work manages to shine a light on the need for cooperation and attention to detail.

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Theatre Rhinoceros recently presented the Bay Area premiere of Alan Bennett's play, The Habit of Art (2009). In the following video clip, Bennett describes some of the inspiration for his play, how he arrived at the play's peculiar dramatic structure, and explains how the character of Stuart (the young rent boy) embodies some of his early (albeit nonsexual) emotions as an undergraduate at Oxford.

Some may say that Bennett's drama employs the old play within a play gimmick, but he takes matters much further than that. Several actors pretend to be a talking chair, bed, and mirror. At one point, an actor in rehearsal has a hissy fit after being referred to as "a device."

With Tamar Cohn doing double duty as Kay (the stage manager) and a talking chair -- and Kathryn Wood appearing as George (an assistant stage manager) -- the supporting cast includes the following actors:

Seth Siegel appears as Charlie, a young actor portraying a rather clueless boy soprano working with Benjamin Britten.

Michael DeMartini appears as Neil, who portrays a frustrated playwright struggling to cope with a group of actors in rehearsals (who are doing a stunning job of trashing his play) while he is commuting between Leeds and several other cities.

Craig Souza appears as Donald, the actor who portrays Humphrey Carpenter (the author who would eventually write biographies of both W. H. Auden and Benjamin Britten). In a curious turn as an actor trying to puff up his role, Souza appears in drag while attempting to play a sousaphone.

Justin Lucas appears as Tim, the actor who portrays a young hustler hired by Auden for some casual sex.

Justin Lucas as Tim in The Habit of Art
(Photo by: Kent Taylor)

The two meatiest roles are reserved for the men portraying the actors attempting to play two of Britain's greatest 20th century creative artists. Each grew up during a time when homosexuality was barely mentionable in public; when their attraction to younger men showed up in their art in ways that might have surprised them.

John Fisher appears as Henry, the actor portraying Benjamin Britten, whose most powerful operas -- Peter Grimes (1945), Billy Budd (1951), and Death in Venice (1973) -- had strong undercurrents of repressed homosexual lust.

Donald Currie appears as Fitz, a popular voice-over artist who is attempting to sink his teeth into the role of Auden. As Fitz, he is nervous and crotchety about receiving changes in text and stage directions; as Auden he is an aging poet in the early stages of dementia who is prone to perseveration.

I found the structure of Bennett's play to be a refreshing challenge for the audience, which allows them to contrast each actor's inner thoughts with the thoughts and emotions of characters they portray. While Justin Lucas gets a rare chance to ruminate on whether the clients of the rent boy he is portraying might be famous (or someone he could tell his grandchildren about), his approach to giving his clients what they want often delivers unexpected comic moments as he attempts to deal with an eccentric old man whose impending dementia and obsession with time could frustrate the most accommodating hustler.

W. H. Auden (Donald Currie) and Stuart (Justin Lucas) talk
about cock in The Habit of Art (Photo by: Kent Taylor)

Without doubt, the evening belongs to Donald Currie, who gives a glowing performance as Fitz/Auden (even when it requires him to don an ape-like mask that can suggest the aging poet's heavily wrinkled face.

In recent years, I've found myself having increased difficulty when forced to listen to music while someone is speaking (I can no longer process both forms of communication simultaneously). Thus, in a key moment when Auden was reciting his lengthy poem entitled "The Sea and the Mirror" (1942), the music from one of the sea interludes Britten composed for Peter Grimes was competing for my attention. Because I love that music so much, I don't think I heard a word of Auden's poem. Listen to the following performance of all four sea interludes and I'm sure you'll understand why.

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I'm a sucker for the kind of movie that has no explosions, no car chases, and no CGI scripting. Instead, this kind of film tells a story about real people with an emotional acuity that quietly disarms the viewer and seduces him into following a slow-moving story to its end.

Yuya Ishii's delightful new film, The Great Passage (which was screened at CAAMFest 2014) is a joy from start to finish. Bottom line? I can't recommend it strongly enough.

Ishii's protagonist, Mitsuya Majime (Ryuhei Matsuda), is a painfully shy introvert with limited social skills who loves to read. As the film begins, he is failing spectacularly as a sales executive for a Tokyo publishing house.

Majime lives at the Sou-Un-Sou Rooming House, where his closest friends are the elderly landlady, (Misako Watanabe), her fat cat named Tora-san, and the piles of books that fill his room. With his post-graduate degree in linguistics, Majime soon attracts the attention of Masashi Nishioka (Joe Odagiri), whose editor, Kouhei Araki (Kaoru Kobayashi), is eager to retire so that he can spend more time at home caring for his ailing wife.

It's 1995 and, with the Internet growing in importance as a research tool, the publishing firm's dictionary department could easily become irrelevant in the growing presence of online databases. The only way to save the dictionary department is to come up with a revolutionary new project.

The editorial team eventually decides to create a new dictionary ("The Great Passage") which will take several years and long hours of teamwork to complete. Majime's new boss, chief editor Tomohiro Matsumoto (Go Kato), describes the project as a modern "living dictionary" which (as opposed to standard dictionaries) will include new terminology, Japanese slang, and the spoken vernacular.

Kaguya Hayashi (Aoi Miyazaki) and the shy dictionary editor
Mitsuya Majime (Ryuhei Matsuda) fall in love in The Great Passage

Working with a script by Kensaku Watanabe (which was adapted from Shiwon Miura's novel), Ishii's film also follows the budding romance between the shy Majime and his landlady's granddaughter, Kaguya Hayashi (Aoi Miyazaki), who is determined to be taken seriously as a chef in a profession dominated by Japanese men.

After 15 years of work (with a few deadline-related setbacks), The Great Passage is ready for publication. By this time, Matsumoto has taken ill and been confined to his home. He and his wife, Chie (Kaoru Yachigusa), are occasionally visited by Majime and Kaguya. On one of their last visits, Matsumoto asks the mature Majime to write a contemporary definition for the word "love" to be included in the new dictionary.

Kaguya Hayashi (Aoi Miyazaki) and the shy dictionary editor
Mitsuya Majime (Ryuhei Matsuda) fall in love in The Great Passage

The Great Passage is one of those gentle gems that takes viewers into a world where words are far more powerful than guns or money and a person's eccentricities are what make him most appealing (from both a personal and professional perspective). Here's the trailer:

To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

Illness is the great leveler.

It renders us vulnerable and open to truths we've consciously hidden from others and ourselves. For Nino, his sickness results in hallucinations. His fevered dreams of a troubled past in the Dominican Republic activate issues of betrayal, regret and sexual longing.

Barceló Con Hielo, written by Marco Antonio Rodriquez, who also plays Nino, poignantly delves into the tricky torment of memory with both humor and pathos.

Now off-Broadway at the Repertorio Español, Rodriquez posits a family drama in which two sons, the responsible Sergio, a young painter, (Ivan Camilo) and irresponsible Dennis (Javier Fano), cope with their ailing father. Set in Washington Heights, where Nino rails against fellow Dominicans, he is haunted by visions of Joaquín Balaguer, a former president of the Dominican Republic, and longtime aide to military strongman Rafael Trujillo, who ruled for three decades.

The suppression of human rights proves costly to Nino. His tragic tale is told in flashbacks. We meet Jastón (Modesto Lacen) his Army friend, who touts the new regime, and Fello (Jerry Soto), his revolutionary brother, who notes "dictatorship hides under the wing of democracy." His bitterness, like his disease, demands he confront his demons.

Rodriquez is adept at illustrating Nino's guilt and heartache, as well as the pain of generational conflict. He captures the rage of regret and understands that in order to come to terms with life, one is forced to make peace with -- or at least acknowledge -- the past.

Director Jose Zayas has done justice to Rodriquez's multilayered work, aided by solid performances from his cast. Barceló Con Hielo is a stark reminder of Tennyson's poetic line: "I am a part of all that I have met."

Photo: Jose Antonio Cruz

Whenever I meet people I always approach them from the standpoint of the most basic things we have in common. We each have a physical structure, a mind, emotions. We are all born in the same way and we all die. All of us want happiness and do not want to suffer.

- the Dalai Lama XIV in The Art of Happiness: a Handbook for Living

Nathan Oliveira, Couple with Red, 2003
Oil and galkyd on polyester canvas, 50 x 42 inches
© The Estate of Nathan Oliveira

When I look at the late Nathan Oliveira's painting Couple with Red I feel very strongly connected to its dual human presences who in turn are strongly connected to each other. Even though the two figures offer up only the scantest specifics Oliveira has invested them with a strong sense of humanity. Their rust-colored world feels separate from mine but I feel warmly invited into it. I really don't need to know exactly who the figures are as individuals: they are universal figures who share the "basic things" that the Dalai Lama mentions in his sagacious quote.

Couple with Red is an apolitical painting about how our humanity connects us and what we have in common. I'm going to characterize the approach of this painting as "Universal Humanism." It emanates an optimistic and utopian feeling of commonality.

One of the essential elements of friendship -- and of a healthy society -- is the feeling of commonality. When we as individuals feel excessive difference from others our social connections fracture and we retreat into smaller and smaller circles: I think of these metaphorical circles as "tribes" that keep us divided and create competition and conflict.

Yes, contemporary tribalism is a major problem -- just think about American politics and you will instantly know what I mean -- but commonality has its pitfalls too: hate groups can be built on themes of commonality.

Still, we all need friendship and we all need human connections. We can't survive or thrive as individuals or create any meaningful sense of identity without friends. In our polarized, fast-changing, aggressive society -- one in which the "self" is always being made insecure by consumerism -- personal identity is a fragile construction that needs to be defended and protected. Not surprisingly, identity is one of the leading themes of contemporary art.

In innumerable paintings, performances, videos, and installations, Postmodern artists concerned with identity have made political, sociological, cultural and personal points about the particularities of their situations. Gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity -- and other factors that have historically circumscribed, damaged and defined the lives of both groups and individuals -- are the raw material of Identity Art, which presents itself as being in opposition to hostile social and historical forces and contexts.

I am rather susceptible to Identity Art because it holds the possibility of broadening my understanding of others and increasing my empathy. I use art museums and galleries as my churches, and Identity Art -- when it works -- can be a kind of sermon that tells me how I might become a better person by understanding the situations of others. That is, of course, exactly what the artists who make Identity Art have in mind.

One artist who deals with identity in a way that speaks to me is Kerry James Marshall, whose works in many media have commented on race and black identity in a way that consistently strikes me as both authentic and aesthetically accomplished. Marshall, whose work is deeply rooted both in African-American history and his personal history has commented that: "You can't be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and grow up in South Central [Los Angeles] near the Black Panthers headquarters, and not feel like you've got some kind of social responsibility." I buy that, and if I had the bucks I would buy his work too.

If you don't know Marshall's work take a few minutes to watch the video below and you will get a feeling of what his work looks like and where he is coming from.

Of course, not every artist who deals with identity is as accomplished or articulate as Kerry Marshall. And not all Identity Art is good art: not by a long-shot.

This brings me to one of the major problems with Identity Art: it can create a situation where really lame art seems to resist criticism because it stands for "good" progressive values. As someone who writes about contemporary art I know that if I make critical comments about a work of art that deals with racism there is a chance I may be singled out as being racist, even if it is the aesthetics of the work that leave me cold. Identity art connects directly to hot-button social issues and that makes critical appraisals a real minefield.

Speaking of minefields, a recent blog by Ryan Wong of Hyperalleric -- I am Joe Scanlan -- caused a number of small explosions. In his blog Wong -- a curator and writer -- claims that he invented an artist by the name of Joe Scanlan who was carefully designed to "test the limits" of what he calls "straight white male positionality within in the art world." Scanlan (who was actually Wong) then invented Donelle Woolford, a black female artist. Amazingly -- or not amazingly, depending on how cynical you are about the New York art world -- Woolford's "work" was included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial.

Ryan Wong claims that he was surprised "how long it took for the Joe Scanlan/Donelle Woolford project to be identified as racist." Here is the kicker: Wong's blog was a parody that added another layer of commentary to something real. Joe Scanlan is real artist and professor who teaches at Princeton.

There is a lot to discuss here, but for me one thing really stands out: I'm amazed that the work created by Scanlan for his invented artist Donelle Woolford actually made it into the Whitney. Her contribution to the show included an off-site performance called Dick's Last Stand which "explores the central role given to the male sexual organ in both American art and politics." Isn't there anyone in New York with a sense of humor who immediately recognized that as parody, not art?

While the hot discussions and comment wars rage over all of this actual artists are left dealing with serious moral and philosophical questions such as "what do I want my art to say about the human condition?" One way that artists in the western tradition used to make statements about humanity was through allegory: they created stories and figures that symbolize and stand for ideas about human life. There seems to be a resurgence of ambitious allegorical painting going on right now -- I think I need to write a full blog about that -- but I'm presenting a Patricia Watwood's remarkable Sleeping Venus below to provide an example.

In one sense Sleeping Venus is Identity Art: Watwood's allegorical image of the power of beauty as a tool of enlightenment has a hint of feminism about it. At the same time, it has something in common with the qualities that I admire in Nathan Oliveira's art. Sleeping Venus is a universal symbol of beauty, not a particular woman. If you have been looking at too much Identity Art -- or if you are determined to seek out every shred of political suggestion in every work of art -- you may see her as a privileged white woman.

When I look at works of art I am more interested than ever in a single question: "What do I have in common with the artist who made this?" Identity Art has its place and I'm not going to say that we don't all need to know about the world's mis-alignments and injustices. Its just that at this point in my life I am so much more interested in what I have in common with others than in how we might be different. Of course, I am a privileged white male, so maybe being able to approach art and people that way is my luxury.

I'm always open to discussing that possibility...

"This is a cruel joke" she says staring at the tour van bench seat in the green room. "She" is Jessica Lea Mayfield, lead and namesake of the trio that just performed; frailly thin, soft-spoken, black roots showing under now-blonde hair at her crown. She takes a seat on the bench anyway. It's after midnight. We're here to talk about her tour, her music, her album. Her dog. Whatever. But first we talk about glitter.

I've always liked glitter, ever since I was a kid. It's beautiful. And in the winter-time, in Ohio especially, I love it when the snow looks like glitter, when it's got the moon or the sun on it. I can't help it.

She shuffles her glittering golden boots, looking down with glitter-ringed eyes. On stage she plays guitars that glitter: a pink 12-string and black baritone. The only time she doesn't, is when she lifts a big white hollow-body to play old songs. Ones written before Make My Head Sing.... Before The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach produced her albums Tell Me and With Blasphemy So Heartfelt. Really, before she started to discover who she was.

That is what can be heard on Make My Head Sing.... The sound of a young artist making the first bold split in the back of her image, beginning to wriggle free from the confining past and grow.

Around the time that the tour cycle for Tell Me was ending...I was just starting to get to that point where I needed to figure myself out. I've been travelling my whole life, and I'm 24 years old right now, and I feel like I've just started to get a grasp on what I like and who I am. And not giving a s -- is something that comes with getting a little bit older. You know, what I enjoy doesn't hinge on what other people think.

As a result, she approached this record differently: bought the black baritone, wrote the guitar parts before the words, lost the outside influences and found out what she really wanted to sound like. After 9 months of writing and recording, what came out is far different and far more real than anything she's released before.

Make My Head Sing... opens with a grinding, squeaking grunge riff that leads a ketamine drumbeat by the nose, and from there dives only deeper into the world of distorted chorus and stripped-down songwriting. The 10 tracks are muddy, shimmering, odes laden with unrest, delivered by the one part of Mayfield's music that hasn't changed: her voice. Light as ever, she calmly spills dissociated thoughts darkly into the microphone, singing of sorrow, overdose and dissatisfaction, as sweet as a sip of antifreeze.

Let her outta her cage
She's been dead in there long enough
The smell is filling the air
Of ya'lls decomposing love
-"Pure Stuff"

If you think you'll miss me
Then resuscitate me
My mouth is turning blue
It tastes like blood and barbecue
- "Do I have the Time"

Replacing the more rigid song structures of past albums, Make My Head Sing... is loosely bound together, written in a style that sounds simple but has the intelligent turns to prove its un-gilded gist purposeful. (You hate my child-like qualities / I hate the meanie in you). There are occasional touches of lightness, like the repetitive "Standing in the Sun," where the the title-refrain splits up a message of hope and support for someone (I would like to see you live....Not survive but really live).

That someone could very well be her husband and bandmate, Jesse Newport, whom Mayfield met, toured with, and married all within 10 months of releasing Tell Me. Listeners who are tempted to trace the blacker sound to some negativity involving him would be sorely mistaken: Mayfield credits their meeting for a vital, brighter shift in both of their lives. One that got each off of drugs and both out of fatalistic futures.

It's like the switch kind of flipped and we wanted to take care of each other and be alive, and I don't think either of us really gave a s--- about being alive before we met each other. And one of us probably would be dead had we not found each other.

On a smaller scale, had they not found each other this album wouldn't have existed either. Mayfield and Newport produced and recorded it together in Nashville, though she did the writing herself: composing the songs at the home they share, the lyrics never being revealed until the day he sat down to track them.

When he would hear me working on the songs at the house he would never hear the lyrics. And then when we got in the studio we would do guitar and bass and drums and then the first time he would hear the lyrics is when I would go in and sing the vocals...There would definitely be some interesting times where he would hear me...express these feelings for the first time.

In some sense, Mayfield taking more control of the process is what leads to the best feature of this album: that without Auerbach's production touches, without any other voices singing, she is the centerpiece more clearly than ever. And with that, Make My Head Sing... achieves a level of intimacy and immediacy not often heard.

On-stage that night, Mayfield stood and sang unforgivingly, making endless eye contact with the crowd. She stepped gently side-to-side with the music, barely swinging her dress, head held steady like a serpent. Behind and to her right stood Newport, seemingly determined to avoid the spotlight. Head always down. Silently holding cables when needed. Darkly bringing bass to Mayfield's music, but beaming brightly in the songs.

Heels over head I'm fallin' hard
I'm sa sa sa sa seein' starz
When it's just us two in the dark
You've got a strangle hold
On my heart

Recommended Reading #2
(What is this? See last week's post.)

#1.
If you haven't seen this series of videos, they're a great learning/teaching resource on the painting techniques of the Abstract Expressionists--specifically Pollock, Newman, Rothko, Reinhardt and Kline--by Corey d'Augustine of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

#2.
Ian Bogost's blog. Read about object-oriented ontology. (Thanks for the recommendation, Jamie Zigelbaum.)

#3.
Socrates' fear of writing, as explained in Phaedrus. (This came up in a conversation I had about our fear of new technology--particularly technology which attempts to record everything, such as Google Glass.)

#4.
More on banning laptops in the classroom

#5.
Even if you don't agree, worth reading: Jerry Saltz on new abstract painting. Mentions the work of Lucien Smith, Oscar Murillo, Josh Smith, Leo Gabin, and David Ostrowski, among others.

A little under two weeks ago Lana Del Rey was interviewed by The Guardian. The resulting post was titled "Lana Del Rey: 'I wish I was dead already,'" after one of the pop star's more provocative quotations. In the interview Del Rey spoke specifically about Kurt Cobain, which -- rightfully -- didn't sit well with the Nirvana frontman's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, who is now 21. The younger Cobain took to Twitter to respond to the remarks and, in a series of tweets, wrote:

@LanaDelRey the death of young musicians isn't something to romanticize (cont)
-- Frances Bean Cobain (@alka_seltzer666) June 23, 2014

@LanaDelRey I'll never know my father because he died young & it becomes a desirable feat because ppl like u think it's "cool"(cont)
-- Frances Bean Cobain (@alka_seltzer666) June 23, 2014

@LanaDelRey Well, it's fucking not. Embrace life, because u only get one life. The ppl u mentioned wasted that life.Don't be 1 of those ppl
-- Frances Bean Cobain (@alka_seltzer666) June 23, 2014

In all fairness, a fair deal has been written about this since Cobain's rebuttal, which was posted on Sunday. While the main thrust of the coverage has seemed to occupy the sort of basic tabloid hubbub that springs up when two celebrities disagree, a few writers (including the wonderful Tom Hawking of Flavorwire) have gone deeper to examine the emotional and conversational implications of Del Rey's comment.

Now, on the one hand, it would be easy to dismiss Del Rey's remarks as a sort of especially callous extension of the posturing that seems to form the foundation of her persona. As many have written in the wake of the release of the songstress' second album, Del Rey can easily be seen as a consciously false persona, an ever-evolving comment on what her critics and fans say about and expect from her. Even if this is the case, however, the outright and simplistic romanticization of suicide (and the issues that can lead some to consider it) is an issue that exists elsewhere in the world in high concentrations, and with uncomfortable sincerity. The archetype of the suffering artist is ubiquitous in our culture, and the ways in which both fans and emulators alike look to portray, understand, and interact with it is extremely troubling.

It's hard to attack a topic such as this without sounding moralizing. Of course, that is also the absolute wrong approach. Both moralization and romanticization occupy the same sort of spectrum of thought that drains conversation of empathy and makes any real acknowledgement of humanity or heft nearly impossible. Ultimately, that's what this topic and its hornets nest of cultural implications represents: a failure of empathy (as many have noted in their own discussions of the comments). To turn Kurt Cobain into a symbol of something -- to hold up his tragic passing as something other than personal tragedy -- robs his loved ones of their personal truths. It means that the discussion isn't about the fact that Frances Bean Cobain will never know her father but about some other capital-letter themes that become about art or figurehead outside humanity. And to try to discuss something artistic, much less something personal, without the necessary human currents is at best futile, and at worst irresponsible.

The idea of the tortured artist -- whether it's a member of the so-called "27 Club" (a notion that, in and of itself, distances discussion from any sort of compassionate discourse about the nature of suicide) or someone like Van Gogh or any of the many others who are remanded to this category of existence -- is reductive and tends dangerously close to questions of martyrdom. On the personal level it produces comments like Del Rey's and mindsets that neuter the conversation about suicide, transforming victims, survivors, and mourners alike into "others" who orbit the rest of the world in a distant valence defined by either judgment or worship. It forbids us from interacting with them as members of our communities, and from treating them as defined by something other than the act or the loss or -- in the worst cases -- the "sin." In the same way that Philip Seymour Hoffman's death seemed to bring about more uninformed criticism of some vague cultural concept of discussion than any actual human examination of who he was and what caused the tragedy of his passing, comments like Del Rey's will inevitably bring about more conversation about suicide as some sort of philosophical issue, some distant possibility to either be chased, or criticized, or ignored, rather than as a problem that faces a large number of people. In 2011 over 39,000 deaths were the result of suicide. That's not a small number, nor is it a number that's reducible to some sort of philosophical or theological or artistic question. We should not remand almost 40,000 people yearly (plus all those other wounded and confused friends and family) to some sphere of symbolic suffering. Even as so many use the question of "mental illness" as a way to redirect attention in the wake of school shootings and other outbreaks of random violence, we as a society toss it aside and ignore its victims and sufferers when the possibility for discussion isn't screaming in our ears. Much of this is because of off-hand comments like Del Rey's, which casually and gradually encode suicide and its surrounding issues to the vacancies of otherness.

To assume that the words exchanged (indirectly) by Del Rey and Frances Bean Cobain are some sort of tabloid squabble is irresponsible, apathetic, and lazy. It continues the pattern of treating real discussion of difficult topics as unworthy of attention. It lets us pretend that these issues that we either lionize or demonize exist far away from us, in some realm that we don't ever have to interact with. It makes it ever harder for those who then find themselves staring these issues down to ask for help, or to see themselves as part of a world that can and will provide it. Kurt Cobain was a cultural figure, yes, but he was also a father, a husband, and a friend. He was someone whose music fought to escape the objectifying walls of the rock-star persona as he opened his heart up to listeners and fought against the restrictive and dehumanizing notions of stardom. That Del Rey should declare him such an influence but then miss everything that he tried to do in one reductive swoop is certainly upsetting. That she should tear down scores and scores of people in the rush to see something complicated as something simple -- that any of us would -- is troubling in a vastly more damaging way.

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

I'm surprised at the opera snobbishness of the people who've wondered why San Francisco Opera is presenting a musical this summer -- that is to say, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat. Have they never seen The Merry Widow? Would they really prefer to go to Carmen for the dozenth time instead of something new and fresh? (Not that you have to choose, opera or musical, one or the other.)

Most important, would they really let the word musical keep them from attending Show Boat?? If so -- and it's not too late to buy tickets -- that would be a shame.

I understand the lack of appeal of many typical Broadway musicals, with their often generic, bombastic, less than nuanced, overmiked voices. But as SFO's delightful Porgy and Bess, which I saw in 2009, and now Show Boat prove, a well-done production, with vibrant sets and costumes, good dancing, engaging acting, and singers with fine operatic voices, can be absolutely exhilarating. Think of Ezio Pinza on the cast album of South Pacific. Some enchanted evening, indeed!

Thus: Show Boat. Heidi Stober, who plays Magnolia, daughter of the riverboat's Cap'n Andy, has performed here recently in The Magic Flute and Falstaff. Star soprano Patricia Racette (Julie, the showboat's leading lady, who passes for white until her mixed parentage is revealed) is singing Madama Butterfly here this summer, too; bass Morris Robinson, who offers a showstopping "Ol' Man River," is also in that production. And I can't wait to see baritone Michael Todd Simpson, making his local debut as Gaylord Ravenal, the charming gambler who marries Magnolia, in something else.

A cool thing about this production, though, is that Broadway performers have been cast as well. Who wouldn't want to see the great physical actor Bill Irwin as Cap'n Andy? His hilarious one-man depiction of a fistfight is a showstopper in itself. (Irwin won a Tony in 2005, for playing George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf--!). The Broadway vets include Kirsten Wyatt (the lead in Sweet Charity, Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls), John Bolton (Spamalot, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, TV's Gossip Girls), and Harriet Harris (On the Town; Tony winner for Thoroughly Modern Millie, the indelible Bebe Glazer on TV's Frasier). James Asher, in a small role as the manager of the seedy Chicago cabaret in which Magnolia finds work after the dead-broke Ravenal leaves her, has acted in plays such as Love's Labour's Lost and The Laramie Project.

That's a lot of names and credits. My point is that the variety of actors and voices and styles adds another level of interest and enjoyment to this show. Which must lead to a shout-out for Tod Nixon, Show Boat's sound designer. Unlike musical theater performers, opera singers don't use mikes; Nixon came up with a way of placing area microphones so that the sound was consistent and clear, without that somewhat tinny, vibrating quality that microphones bring.

Premiering in 1927, Show Boat is considered the first great American musical. In 1982, Houston Grand Opera, then led by San Francisco Opera general director David Gockley, created an "historic" production that restored much of Kern and Hammerstein's original score and dialogue and was reprised seven years later. We're seeing this Show Boat thanks to Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Washington National Opera, as well as SFO.

In his program notes, Gockley reminds us that Show Boat is "steeped in the musical language and plot issues of our native culture" and says that it could open the door at SFO to "operatic musicals" such as Carousel and Sweeney Todd. To that I say, Yes, David, yes!

June 26, 28, July 1 and 2, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., S.F., 415.861.4008, sfopera.com.

Effigy and Exile is the third installment of the Minneapolis collective Holdfast, a group dedicated to finding the timeless in the contemporary by calling attention to the best in the figurative arts. An extraordinary level of new work will converge at CoExhibitions Gallery which opens June 28.

Self Portrait as Possessed by Caleb Knodell

Minneapolis natives Jamie Lee Cook, Luke Hillestad and Luke Tromiczak have invited some of their favorite painters and sculptors from New York, Paris, Iceland, Arkansas, Missouri and the Twin Cities to participate in. Each of the 13 talents in the show bring a distinct background and style, yet they share a common creative focus of depicting the vitality of flesh, timeless myths and images that haunt us -- a life's memory in an earnest face -- stories of wandering and loss all engraved into single objects.

Cerce by Luke Hillestad

Perhaps the images we ordinarily see move too quickly. Maybe we wince when we are stared at or when are caught staring. Holdfast III will allow you to slow down and stare at our faces, engage the characters depicted, be they familiar effigies or exiles come home.

Androgyny by Maria Kreyn

Effigy implies to me that there are images to be found here of individuals who have carved out a place for themselves, sculpted as much as painted a shared experience, the experience of the outsider, the one who refines their talents, in spite of the social marginalization that results from it.

When I asked Luke Hillestad about the title of the exhibition he described effigy as being about obsession, and noted that exile either precedes or follows obsession. He said that they decided to include both words in the title because either one of them seemed incomplete without the other.

To wander away from the city-state (the home) is to be exposed without the protection of government (laws), friends and family. In the ancient Greek world, exile was seen as a fate worse than death. Are effigy and exile companions by nature? Does effigy making lead to exile or does it represent exile? Is the exile self imposed by dedicating oneself to making effigies? Questions to contemplate.

Contemplating Men by Stefan Boulter

We discover here a group of painters who impose isolation upon themselves in order to follow their vision, that is to say, their obsession to paint and make the symbols, carve out the effigies that will echo through time, regardless of the consequences.

Pink Grass by Hélène Delmaire

It is interesting to see how Odd Nerdrum's influence continues to resonate with today''s representational painters. Several of the painters have studied with Nerdrum and the show can be considered a homage to the Norwegian figurative painter, according to Hillestad. In light of the most recent episode in the case against Odd Nerdrum by the Norwegian State, in which he was sentenced to 1 year and 8 months in prison, we can see a tragic but pertinent example of how a talented individual can be punished by exile. It is more important than ever to pay attention, to value and respect in society what is well done, honor lives well lived and to not take what is being offered here for granted.

Consider the Lilies by Stephen Cefalo

Effigy and Exile offers you the opportunity to see some truly remarkable sculptures and paintings. Work which is being done now, by contemporary, living painters and sculptors who, in their exile, have come together to give us effigies that ask us to take a look at ourselves.

The exhibition runs until the 25th of July at Coexhibitions Gallery in Minneapolis.
For more information please contact: lukehillestad@gmail.com

Allegory of Tea by Teresa Oaxaca

New York -- There are many religious and spiritual practices around the world that utilize rhythms and chants as part of their ritual, with their shamanic leaders surrounded by frenzied adherents. This visual can easily be used to describe dance music culture today, each tribe gathering to their own order. Followers come from miles around to pay homage with their bodies and feet. Such was the case last weekend at Central Park's always anticipated tradition, SummerStage. The religious order of this day came by way of southern Africa, in the corporal vessels of DJ Cortega, Underdog, DJ Spoko, and the headliner known for his international dance-floor hit, "Superman," DJ and super-producer, Black Coffee. Several thousand New Yorkers filed into the venue at Rumsey Playfield, bringing with them the energy and excitement that is normally confined to dark nightclubs. It's a good thing, too; for the 5-hour event was filled to overflow with the familiar sound of New York's long favorite house music, but flavored with African percussion and vocals. It was a melding, perfect for this so-called melting pot that is New York City, and it happened directly at the center of it; the center of the world. People of all nations, shapes sizes and colors danced their troubles away (as the song goes). There is a term used across the African continent; Nganga. The nearest Western equivalent would be "witch doctor," but that suggests almost exactly the opposite meaning, as a witch would cast spells to do harm. A N'ganga is a traditional healer, using all manner of natural and spiritual means to salve their charges. The quartet of DJs, as ngangas, spread their sonic balms to the crowd, and were loved for it. Anyone there, and anyone familiar with that feeling -- the feeling a good DJ gives to the crowd would agree that, at that moment, Central Park was the most beautiful place in the world.

I spoke with DJ Cortega, Electrafrique's curator for the event, and asked his thoughts on music, SummerStage, and the future of this global dance community.

My exposure to OkayAfrica and Electrafrique, as most Americans with interest, comes by way of social media and websites. How important was it to bring this event to New York's Central Park SummerStage?

It's been hugely important to us, and such an honor to be able to bring our music to such a prestigious stage. I mean Summerstage is an institution... Almost 30 years and running, and it has seen musical giants from all corners perform, from Curtis Mayfield, to Celia Cruz, Youssou N'Dour, Roy Ayers and Lil Louie Vega. This is definitely an honor and recognition for us, but also a great opportunity to share Afro-futuristic vibes with a large and very diverse New Yorker public.

How do you see the relationship between dance music in originating
cities such as Chicago and New York, and emerging regions, such as
Southern Africa?

Music is a never-ending continuum... a movement that does not stop at the borders, and that draws inspiration where it finds a common soul, a common vibration. It doesn't stop at the borders, such that music from different Continents can have major influences on each other. So yes, if you consider South African house music, the connection with the deep house scenes of Chicago and New York is evident. There is huge respect from Johannesburg to Cape Town for house pioneers like Master At Work, to name just them. This said, it's interesting to see that South Africans started from that base to develop their unique "mzansi" sound in the production of beats, the use of drumming and instrumentation, as well as amazing vocals. And more and more these days, one starts to see collaborations between South African and US artists. Just today for example, the fact that Monique Bingham and Kenny Bobien would join Black Coffee on stage is very telling. In general, though, I do feel like African music today is breathing new energy and new life into the American house scene, and that's very much welcomed...

Tell me something about your background, and how you came to be an
ambassador for this music.

I have long had a passion for African music. I can still remember the first time I heard a Fela Kuti song... I was traveling in Madagascar, something like 15 years ago. I felt such an intense connection with it. This sparked my interest into African music as a whole: old, new, traditional, street, dance, all of it. It didn't matter where it came from, I started digging deep into the endless world of African music. And the more I discover, the more I realize it's still just the tip of the iceberg. The Continent has such a rich musical tradition, it's huge. Every country has its traditions, instruments, melodies, dances. It's really an amazing journey to travel Africa through music. But for all this depth and riches I realized that few people outside of Africa knew about its music. For many this was all lumped under a generic "World" music label which frankly doesn't represent anything, except the West's ethnocentricity... As a DJ, I've always considered it my role to bring new flavors, new energy to the dancefloor. So I used djing and curating events such as Electrafrique (in partnership with Okayafrica) as mediums to bring new African sounds to the world. I am really happy to see such beautiful response as the one we saw today at Summerstage!

Who were your favorite DJ's coming up, and who/what influenced you
toward this music?

There have been so many influences, that I don't know where to start. In Africa, Boddhi Satva, Black Coffee, the Uhuru crew and Djeff among others, have had a serious influence in my music. But if it wasn't for cats like Green Giant (Switzerland) and Kimozaki (US/Sudan), I likely wouldn't be doing what I am currently doing...

Why is house and other forms of dance music so popular in Southern Africa?

That's an interesting question... Well I don't have a clear answer to this. What I am seeing is that house music is definitely picking up momentum in Africa beyond South Africa. Think of Angola for example, which has a really big house scene. And in Nigeria, the African pop culture powerhouse, I am seeing increasingly collaborations between Naija pop stars and South African producers. There are also emerging movements in Kenya, Tanzania, Senegal and beyond. So it's not just Southern Africa. But beyond this, I feel like most African cultures I have encountered make a lot of space for music and dancing. Two ways of expression which are just very present in most corners of Africa... and that's one reason I love living on the Continent.

How does the larger African community in America respond to these,
more African styles of electronic dance music?

From what I have seen, the response has been really great... and I can only suspect it will continue to be so, as there is a fresh new energy in African music. I also think African music in many ays speaks to the roots of the African diaspora, whether in America or beyond. And so, listening to music from the continent can also be a way to connect with the motherland, to some extent... I think a lot of people with African roots definitely appreciate this connection.

With the global rise in EDM (electronic dance music), what do you see on the horizon for
artists such as yourself, DJ Spoko and Black Coffee.

Wow. That's really hard to say. Certainly, I would not consider myself as playing in the same sandbox as someone like Black Coffee... For him, I think he clearly has the potential to expand his reach globally, and be on of the lead ambassadors of African music. I really wish for him, and for all of us, that it will be the case. Beyond being an extremely gifted musician, he is also such a kind and humble soul. The world would definitely benefit from more role models like him.

Agnieszka Holland's Burning Bush, playing at Film Forum through Tuesday, takes place in the aftermath of Prague Spring when Russian tanks invaded and repressed the Czech revolution.

The movie, originally produced as a TV mini-series, is not a philosophical mediation like Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (which was filmed by Philip Kaufman), but more a political thriller in the style of Costa-Gravas Z or Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers. The title of the film comes from the biblical miracle that's echoed in the image of Jan Palach's self-immolation with the conceit lying in the fact that while the body might have died his spirit lived on.

Twenty years after his death came the Velvet Revolution of l989 in which Communism was finally overthrown. Apparently, the biblical metaphor still remains relevant. In a flagrant slap in the face to post-modernism with its promise of non-ideological drives in an equally non-Manichean universe, what was deemed unthinkable in our day and age, occurred only weeks ago in the Crimea. Burning Bush splices real life footage as well as characters into its partially fictionalized narrative and the central figure is the real life figure of Dagmar Buresova (Tatiana Pauhofova), a lawyer who brings libel charges against a party apparachnik named Novy (Martin Huba) who had claimed that Jan Palach's death was the result of a reactionary conspiracy. Novy claims Palach's act was intended as a circus trick, "cold fire" in which the illusion of burning is created.

The conspiracy theory derives from the notion that the Russians would be provoked into a full out annexation of Czechoslovakia if the ante were raised--something which those who preferred a veneer of autonomy to the truth of subjugation were out to forestall.The leitmotif of appearance and reality actually inserts itself from the beginning of the film when the iconic burning scene, which also recalls the Buddhist monks in Vietnam in a similar period, is reflected in a ticket kiosk and a number of other mirrored surfaces, mimicking the distancing effect the mind creates to protect itself from traumatic perception. Kafka's cockroach, an honorary citizen of Prague, makes a cameo appearance in Holland's film and he's neither killed nor freed from the box in which he's kept as food for a lizard, which is one way to view the geopolitics of Eastern Europe at the time.

Political films tend to create a black and white universe and Burning Bush is rescued from being a lives of the saints, employing the Czech penchant for ambivalence and irony, which serve to broaden its moral spectrum

{This was originally posted to Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture}

After a long tedious flight cramped into a seat built for a munchkin instead of a 6'4" Swede, I was finally there.

Stepping off the plane was an experience in itself.

As a cold-blooded Scandinavian, I'm used to a dry, cool climate.

Even when it´s hot, it is still cool, dry breezes. Scents in the air are easily separated, and the air itself is clear.

It was like walking into a wall. Air you could cut with a knife, and you could actually feel it slip into your lungs. The best way I could describe it to someone that never has experienced tropical climate is:

Imagine that you step into a bathroom where someone has taken a really, hot and steamy shower. And everything has a damp smell of wet leather and djungel. There you have it. Beautiful and amazing in it´s own way.

My clothes turned soaking wet in a matter of minutes. A sense of panic came over me. "How the hell will I be able to work in this climate? I will die just trying to get from A to B and then have the energy and passion to raise my camera?"

Well, after a few days I did. Adapting to the humidity and the scorching sun took it's time. After a couple of sunburns, my pale skin turned into a red/brown tan and I could function as a person part of the normal everyday life. Liberating to say the least. My first obstacle had been climbed and conquered.

I spent most of my time just taking the days as they came along.

Enjoying the Thai people's friendly ways. The warmth of the beaches, the street life and the Andaman Sea that didn't exactly cool off your body, just made it... wetter. Even the heavy monsoon rains that came and went in minutes was warm.

I have a fondness for umbrellas. I never use one myself, but I like to take pictures of people who do. It's a cliché, but I can´t really help it. In Thailand, unlike Sweden, people use umbrellas all the time, not only when it rains but also to protect themselves from the sun. It was interesting to see. Small differences between cultures are the ones you react to the most.

Another small detail occured when I was walking into a public mensroom. I noticed a cleaning lady polishing the bathroom mirror. At a closer look I saw that she was cleaning the whole mensroom with her eyes closed. It made me smile, I've never seen such a thing before.

Another thing happened at a major motorway. A little kitten lost its way into the traffic. And a huge trailer truck stopped, out climbed the chauffeur, took the kitten by its neck and put it at the side of the road and then went on like nothing happened.

Not one single car honked its horn behind him when he created the stop even though the ones behind him didnt know WHY he stopped.

A calm respect for all life hoovers over the Thai people.

I spent a day at the fishing docks. The rain was pouring down and I was knee deep in a soup of fish and rainwater. But I had fun. The locals loved my presence. Probably because they knew that the tall, stupid western guy would smell like somthing from hell at the end of the day. And I did, especially my new sneakers. It was interesting to see how the fishermen unloaded their catch, how the women sorted the fish and how buyers came to the auctions to get the best prices. At the end of the day I slipped on a fish and had a short refreshing bath in the fish soup. Thais have a childish humour by the way, but, then again, so do I.

I had one subject that I really wanted to cover during my stay in Thailand: The Sea Gypsies.
I figured that if I only had the chance to do one planned photography story, it would be to visit a sea gypsy village. Before I went to Thailand I did some research about where to find these villages. The thing was, that all these villages was already on the map so to speak. These people knew that tourists would come and visit them and had done changes to their lives to meet the tourists needs. No authenticity left.

So, I went around the coastlines searching for the real thing. I discovered a bridge where the longtail boats passed under as they came in from the Andaman Sea. Because of the high tides I couldn't come close enough to see where they went. So, early next morning I went to the bridge during low tide, walked under the bridge and there it was. It was like a beautiful revelation. A small Sea Gypsie village revealed itself in a lagoon. A djungle like forest surrounded the village and the characteristic Long Tail boats who gently was bobbing in the shallow waters. A vision so far from my own reality back in Stockholm that I had to pinch myself to check that I wasn't dreaming.

To understand and gather information about the Sea Gypsies was a task. I had to speak to other locals and taxi drivers as I couldn't find a Gypsie that could speak English themselves.
And all I spoke to had different stories. The most common one though, was this one:

The Sea Gypsies are called "Chao Le", which means "People from the sea" in Thai.

They are belived to be immigrants from Malaysia and Burma that for different reasons started to live as nomads along the Thai coastlines. They are divided into three ethnic groups, Moken, Moklen and Urak Lawoi. Moken is the only group who still live like nomads, the other two groups are today settled in small villages. They have their own language and religion -- animism.

Animism is a bit hard to explain, but the idea is that everything in nature are tied toghether, every tree, stone and even a rippling brook has a spirit. If a person dies, her spirit lives on forever as long as she is remembered. Chao Le, celebrates the spirits two times a year. The festival is called Loy Ruea. They release small wooden boats with hair, fingernails, weapons and other presents to the ghosts of the sea and the spirits of the dead. Like in most sacrificial religions, it's a way to keep the spirits happy and to establish peace and harmony between the living and the dead.

The Chao Le is also having a yearly hunt for sea turtles. The legend says that a female member of the Sea Gypsies once turned into a turtle with a human face. Because of that, the Chao Le now worships the turtles and looks at them as sisters to the human kind. Why they eat the turtles I actually don't know.

Chao Le seems to live their lives as the day comes. They rather use trading instead of money.
They fish, hunt for pearls and sell their handcrafts to tourists. Like the local Thais, they have a calm, respectful way about them.

From what I learned the Chao Le has lived along the coastlines for thousands of years in the very same way as their ancient ancestors did. But as they never claimed any land, they are today forced from their settlements as the Thais and foreign investors buy land to build new hotels.

There is one thing, that bothered me as you came behind the fasad of the beauty of Thailand.

When you enter the poor neighborhoods where no hotels are to be found and where people like the Sea Gypsies stay. This is what we are doing to our world. This is what our oceans are filled with. This is what washes up on our beaches during low tides only to be swept "under the rug" as the high tides hides it all only to double it all until next low tide.

This is not ok. This is a global problem.

More on the Sea Gypsies to come, but first a short stop in Sicily, Italy.

Shortly after my essay "After Malevich" was posted here on the Huffington Post my long time friend and fellow artist Joseph Imhauser emailed me the following.

"hey j can you send me some detail info about the After Malevich piece as well as the sound pieces you made while there?

I am starting to see an exhibition forming, with one or two other artists involved... all working with conceptual structures and the potential of affect... maybe working from that as a starting point for writing about it"

Over the following months the exhibition began to take shape. Imhauser had spent a year between Paris and Berlin and through unassociated research had begun to contemplate the ebb and flow of a cities bliss and tragedy, especially cities as old as Paris and Berlin whose pasts were romanticized for their highs and scared for such lows.

The title, Joy Syringe, came from these contemplations.

"Joy Syringe -- happiness in a tube -- a prescriptive bliss of temptatious fixed focus. Works of art engage the bell curves of dominance and narrative, gifting small revelations that oscillate between trauma and ecstasy. The messages they dispatch slide between coherency depending upon their present and future tense. Each piece on display becomes a plume on the fusion of horizons[1] performing as thickener in the starched dopamine haze of desire. A bridge OR a gap, a fissure AND a fusion - singularities calcified in-between. Tabula Rasa's becoming objectified aides of clarification. Burn the frost. No more ice. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was."

Rheims Alkadhi
Nancy Barton
Sofi Brazzeal
j.frede
lyeberry
Taro Masushio
Antje Rieck

June 28 - August 2, 2014 | Opening Reception: June 28th

321 Gallery - 321 Washington Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11205
321gallery.org

Joy Syringe is a pollination exhibition of the London Biennale.

Rheim Alkhadhi : Monolog: I Am/Man" (or "Plot") Text, Recorded Audio and Photographs

I've found refuge in this city now for a year, a month, and seventeen days, worshipping nighttime and praising god for able legs that carry me to deeper corners, leaking and runny with the primal waste I apply second-and third-handedly to a description of my condition. I take intermittent shelter in a cement enclosure formed by the space between buildings, or nestled along neglected urban stairwells, feeling around their surfaces for any hole to put my meager belongings, my tins, pricks, and pins in. Nearly never hungry, this is a capital city for someone like me, where bread grows on trees, in pods of translucent and black plastic bags hung from stiff bare branches, the fruit of staling, molding charity -- gracious, we are still not devoid of the miraculous -- about whose origins I am content to remain ignorant.

Sometimes charity offers its example in a refuse heap consisting of butcher's bones and offal, and I gladly battle mobs of flies to scoop handfuls, my fingers spread to form a coarse trowel, into my pockets, and I take a moment to remind myself the shape of my genitals, measuring length and texture with the goods I have only now acquired by grace of god. I rise and move swiftly like a global empire guard, anxious with desire, perverting structures of knowledge, power with each silent step while I chew on the stub of an expired American cigarette, a relative of my gold-tipped finger. And as an antidote to boredom, to feed this hunger for control over my profane sanctuary, my mania, I scrape oils from her enfolding skin using a utensil fashioned from pliable metal, and smear my findings like madness, sebum and oil, across the dry planar round of the day's bread just before demolishing it, thanks be to god or anyone who will listen. My hands excitedly and nervously rummage through layers of clothing until I am well underneath and atop a by-now filthy dermal wall. I am wretched, lousy, desperate for an aperture, and I find one after what seems like an prison sentence; I wrench it wide open and enter, pushing my index and middle fingers inside, searching for something I can collect and carry off with me.

picturesclerk.net

Nancy Barton : Assisted Living, 1 & 2 Photographs

The photos are titled "Assisted Living, 1 & 2" They among the last photos I took of my mother, with whom I did a series of projects based on her early wish to become an opera singer. In the earlier series, I created performance posters of her singing the title roles of La Gioconda, Salome, Lucia di Lammermoor, and other tragic operas. She sang in public for the first time in 40 years along with the exhibitions. However, her favorite operas were those of Wagner, which she, as a soprano, was not able to sing. In the last years of her life, she was no longer able to sing, at which point Wagner came within our reach. These images are less directly a translation of a specific opera, and more of an attempt to embody some of the contradictions and pleasures of tragedy.

I saved the hair from the last haircut I gave my mother. After her death, my own hair fell out copiously. This idea of letting go, as hair is released from the body and yet remains a part of it, seems somehow appropriately part of this story.

Sofi Brazzeal : Drawings

Who knows how drawing operates or what conflicting orders it sends when it takes you in, or when you take it up. I made this cut-up about "drawings,"

Torn from the English translation (Frechtman) of Jean Genet's A Thief's Journal:
From all the areas of shadow, I drew a nocturnal universe / I draw attention to one of those lacerations -- horrible, for I shall provoke them despite the danger -- by which beauty was revealed to me. / I drew the most disturbing image so that my anxiety might grow / The hero...is lovingly drawn...almost always nude or obscenely dressed / to draw to himself the most unexpected, the most unhappy situations. / Realizing that it was through me that he had to act, I attached myself to him sure of drawing strength from the elementary and disorganized power that shaped him / a genuine bandit, capable, and by himself alone, of drawing me, almost carrying me, into that frightening world from which I believed he had emerged. / In the street, if he drew me to him, with his arm as if to embrace me, a brutal push of the same arm would shove me aside. / He draws his strength from the certainty of his right to occupy this conquered furniture /And the strength I draw from it, is meant only to ruin me and save him. / A few women drew up and some men. A circle gathered around us. A fight seemed inevitable. / The mother drew him to her, or drew herself to him / I went back to the museum several days in succession and stayed for hours in front of the books, drawing as best I could.

sofibrazzeal.com

j.frede : After Malevich

I knew I had to address Kazimir Malevich while I was here. I have recreated his famous Black Square painting using the snow and the dark ice of the Baltic Sea beneath it. Approaching the execution of the piece as an action and documenting the process and event with video as well as photographs taken by Mikhael Sator. The location has been chosen as point Azimuth Zero (N 59.99702° E 29.79213°) Made in conjunction with the Russian collective ACHROM SYMPOSIUM.

I have recreated the work to the exact dimensions of the original painting and carefully removed all of the snow from the ice's surface. That which remains is a visual reference to the 1915 milestone painting. The final work will consist of a photograph that is to be cropped and printed to the size of the original Black Square painting along with the video document of the action. During the filming of the action the were deep booms in the distance which sounded much like thunder and was caused by the shifting ice further out at sea.

The work was made using snow for a few reasons. The sentence "it wants to have nothing further to do with the object" in the above quoted text encouraged me to make something temporary that would pay homage without a continued existence outside of the photographic evidence of its creation. I also enjoy the thought that this snow has fallen time and again for ages on this land and possibly fell during Malevich's time in Saint Petersburg (there are likely meteorologists rolling their eyes as they read this, but please forgive me I am a romantic).

I enjoy the thought that this work will continue to fall, for ages.

Text taken from the aforementioned essay of the same name. This work was made possible by the support of the National Center for Contemporary Art - Saint Petersburg, Russia (Kronstadt)

jfrede.com

Lyeberry : Luckyday

Stitching together footage from years of independent accumulation, lyeberry is pleased to present lyeberry #13: luckyday, an evening screening of new video works by Akina Cox and Joseph Imhauser. Pairing ordinary moments and everyday rituals with investigations into structured belief systems, lyeberry focuses attention on Camp Mozumdar, a retreat in Crestline, CA. Currently owned by the Unification Church, the utopian center has been the site of several experiments in communal living for over 80 years. lyeberry #13: luckyday reflects on the sense of belonging and comfort these inclusive communities provide, as well as the dichotomy often produced between the believers and the outside world. Through quilting, editing, and other handmade gestures of care, lyeberry suggests that while beliefs come and go, the communal gatherings and shared moments are the valuable experiences of all societies, utopian or not.

lyeberry.com | josephimhauser.com | akinaruthcox.com

Taro Masushio : The Place Between Our Bodies

The work is as much about amorousness as time and space. It traces the distance between two individuals (would be partners in crime, in LA and New York), collapsing the three dimensional space onto a two dimensional plane, which will eventually be rendered back to a three dimensional form. The method is this; "cameras" are sent via united states postal service system from point A to point B then returned back to A, all the while recording the entire trip on sheets of light sensitive material, it will, then, be printed and take on sculptural form.

taromasushio.com

Antje Rieck : SkinnyTable, I & Skinny Table, II

The esthetic is breaking up (of the pure image), the firm form, the supporting surface, the thin membrane.

Into the awareness and Spiegelung -- reflection, of the principle of parallel universes, the infinite growth and repetition of ourselves, thought, idea, which in their interference appear as one (Fred Alan Wolf and Heisenberg/Unschärfeprinzip).

This creative principle is represented through the Crystal Growing Sculptures, a series of installations I initiated in 2008. A research in many ways is like a science experiment in order to explore the relationships between growth and awareness.

antjerieck.net

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