Crowd-Sourced Filmmaking: Depending on the Kindness of Strangers

June 26, 2014, 4:43 am

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OK, stay calm! I want you to push the orange lever forward... slowly!

If the pilot of a 767 died, could you land it while the control tower talked you through it over the radio? This is akin to my longtime vision of hell -- having to teach my mother to edit a complicated film project in Final Cut Pro over the phone. Control freak? I admit I have something of an obsession with this idea of getting people to do complicated things, remotely, via instructions. And I invited the demon back -- as we always do -- when I made my new crowd-sourced film, Globe Trot.

I cajoled 54 filmmakers in 23 countries (representing all seven continents including Antarctica) to each contribute two seconds of precise footage that I edited together. Fifteen months of work, a three-minute film.

I've made 25 films in which I've done funny, I've done dramatic and conceptual and beautiful. In this film, I wanted to go for something I hadn't tried -- joyous. And I hoped to do that in a celebration of humanity.

The visual technique in Globe Trot has every adjacent edit aligned in position and continuity. This has the effect of creating equalization. When a new image takes the place of an old image, with the same continuity of action, it says, These things are equal. And I hope you find that that's the message of Globe Trot -- that people, all over the world, are equal.



My idea was to take a dance and assign four counts of it to filmmakers around the world. And I wanted them to shoot non-dancers so it would have a genuine quality -- a dance of the everyman. The hope was that seeing such a diversity of people all working to create something beautiful together would convey a sense of the unity of humanity.

Step One was to choreograph the dance and I enlisted Bebe Miller, my colleague at Ohio State University (where I'm a professor of dance-filmmaking).

Next: creating a manual to train the filmmakers. There was an absurd amount of instructions to cover and the challenge was to keep it as concise as possible to not lose the attention of volunteer filmmakers. I made training videos to accompany the manual. For the excessively curious, all this can be seen at MitchellRose.com.

And then there was the little detail of finding filmmakers around the world to participate. It took months of searching -- well, more accurately, groveling -- using social media and hitting up contacts from dance-film festivals. Eventually I found my people on all seven continents, including a guy at a research station in Antarctica.

Each filmmaker was sent their four-count phrase and a kit of materials, including a spreadsheet showing where the performer should be positioned. The frame was divided into ninths...



... so that if you were assigned, say, "Measure 4, Counts 2, 3, 4, 5" your chart would show you that for those counts the performer should hit marks 5, 6, 6, 5.

As meticulous as I'd tried to be in my training materials, most footage still ended up being off -- too close, wrong framing, misinterpreted choreography, etc. And so began The Summer of Emails, as I sent over a thousand emails offering critiques of footage and... talking them through it from the control tower. "I want you to push the orange lever forward... slowly!"

But all those trips to DropBox paid off as my mensches came through. I had enough to work with -- 561 video clips to be whittled into the 111 needed. Imperfect placement? Sure. But I could tweak them in editing.

As I started assembling it together, I remember showing a rough cut to the choreographer and her reaction was, "I love people!" That's exactly the response I want. And a response I hope is resonating as Globe Trot is shared about the planet.

---

ACT's Orphan of Zhao: Revenge, Honor, Sacrifice in Ancient China

June 26, 2014, 7:56 am

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BD Wong as a country doctor entrusted with a tiny but weighty burden

Photos by Kevin Berne

Like so many Asian antiquities seen through western eyes, the music-infused drama The Orphan of Zhao is a curiosity. Its approach to both character and narrative resembles few plays created in the West, from Sophocles to Sondheim.

Unlike most Asian antiquities that we encounter in museums, however, it offers few subtleties or puzzles. What you see and hear is absolutely lucid, and its reflections of cultural values that still exist in parts of our world need no decoding.

As translated and adapted by the British playwright-poet James Fenton and staged by ACT under the direction of Carey Perloff, this Orphan dashes headlong through episodes of treachery, murder, suicide, sacrifice, reverence, loyalty, honor and above all else the pursuit of revenge. Its climax -- bloody retribution for bloody acts -- can in its strange way be called optimistic.

The story dates from some 2,400 years ago, according to various sources, and its stage version can be traced to the 13th century playwright Ji Junxiang, whose play and its offshoots remain staples of Chinese theater and even a recent movie. Translated into French by a Jesuit missionary in the 16th century, Ji's drama has spawned adaptations in Italian, French, English and other languages, including one by Voltaire. In the 20th century it could well have influenced Bertolt Brecht, especially in The Caucasian Chalk Circle.

But that's history. Whether Orphan speaks to contemporary audiences as more than a cross-cultural period piece is debatable.

Apparently many San Francisco viewers find it marvelous. On opening night, ACT's production was greeted by a standing ovation from a huge portion of the audience in the Geary Theater. That doesn't happen often.

Much as I respect the work displayed by the cast of 12 as well as by the creators of the production's scenery, lighting, costumes and especially by the musicians who dispatch a complex and evocative score, the play lacks the quality that makes any theater piece resonate most powerfully: emotional engagement.

The tale contains enough anguish and tragedy to evoke shock after shock, and more than a few tears. But the performance style, which adheres to the historic Chinese conventions, dilutes its power and poignancy.



Nobles of the imperial court: Orville Mendoza, Sab Shimono, Nick Gabriel


Each of the principal movers of the drama's action addresses the audience, introducing himself along with his motivations and allegiances. That leaves only the plot to provide tension and surprise.

The epic stretches from the imperial palace to the far reaches of China, but its propelling events take place in the court of a dissolute emperor. He's a genuinely cheerful fellow who uses a newly constructed tower to indulge in a unique sport: using bow and arrow to shoot his subjects on the grounds below.

That pastime receives support and encouragement from courtier Tu'an Gu (Stan Egi), who aspires to succeed him to the throne. Skewering the populace doesn't sit well with three other members of the nobility, however.

Knowing they are powerless against the wily Tu'an Gu, the elderly Chongsun Chujiu (Sab Shimono) chooses to retire to a remote farm, while the general Wei Jiang (Orville Mendoza) opts to leave for distant places, along with his army. That leaves only Zhao Dun (Nick Gabriel), who is married to the emperor's pregnant daughter, to voice indignation about high-placed barbarism.

He's no match for Tu'an Gu, however. The conniver convinces the emperor that his son-in-law's is a traitor who must die, then gives Zhao the choice between execution or suicide. (That's a privilege reserved for the aristocracy; common folk suffer butchery, depicted in stylized forms that involve no blood on stage.)

His suicide is the catalyst for all that follows, including the offstage murder of every member of Zhao's extended family except his infant son, who is plucked from harm's way by a country doctor (BD Wong). The escape provokes Tu'an Gu to threaten death to every male infant in the country if the orphan is not found and killed, creating a harrowing quandary: Should the orphan be surrendered? Should thousands perish? Should another infant be passed off as the Zhao child, and sacrificed?

The predicament generates the drama's most agonizing interplay, but even here emotion is held in check by relatively rigid performances. The style offers a glimpse into ancient Chinese theater and into a philosophy that pits personal and social values against each other, but those insights fail to travel from the intellectual to the visceral.

That's playwright/adapter Fenton's choice, of course, but I would have appreciated a greater opportunity for empathy.

Daniel Ostling designed the towering but skeletal set, composed of bamboo-look tubes linked by ladders, stairs and platforms; Linda Cho did the excellent period costumes, ranging from armor to opulent robes to simple peasant garb; and Byron Au Yong composed the exotic and mesmerizing score, using a bowed and plucked cello, a violin and improvised or traditional instruments.

The Orphan of Zhao runs through June 29 in ACT's Geary Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. Tickets are $20-$120, from 415-749-2228 or http://www.act-sf.org

Willing Absurdity

June 26, 2014, 10:24 am

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If one ever wondered where Mel Brooks might have gotten his inspiration for The Producers, look no further than Jules Romains' hysterical Donogoo at New York's Mint Theatre.

This delightful, rarely produced comedy, which Le Figaro hailed in 1930 as "a complete triumph" (and whose success incidentally saved the Thêatre Pigalle from demise) flips absurdity even further on its ear than Mr. Brooks ever did.

The early-20th-century French playwright, who by the late 1930s was among the most prolifically produced, joyfully doles out this farce, allowing surreality to become reality by turning his story on the world's most immutable force -- man's unquenchable greed.

So relentless is everyone's desire to exploit a town (which doesn't exist) that it's actually willed into existence.

This non-entity called "Donogoo" gets its start when a French geographical scholar Le Trouhadec references it in his magnum opus. In his attempt to gain admission to the venerable Academies des Sciences, it's discovered Donogoo is but a figment of Trouhadec's imagination. But how to prove otherwise -- with almost Marx Brotherseque zaniness that takes jabs at all professions concerned -- is this Screwball comedy's tale.

Along the way, the story takes us over Parisian bridges, and into cafes, studies, metro and train stations and steamships, from Paris to Marseilles, Saigon, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, and yes, eventually to Donogoo. The itinerary outlined in the playbill makes one wonder even before the lights go down for the first of 23 "Tableaux" how the modest 100-seat theatre will pull off such travels.

Under the creative direction of Gus Kaikkonen, who also translated the play, the Mint has pulled off perhaps its most imaginative production to date, projecting various venues against multi-faceted stage walls to capture and move between locales as seamlessly as the moving pictures.

But it does film one better when ostensibly two-dimensional, sometimes cartoon images -- from standing globes, espresso steamers, to public telephones and movie screens -- suddenly become animated upon an actor's touch.

The nearly 50-character script is played deftly by a troupe of just 13. The most compelling, Ross Bickell's Margajat -- the smooth-talking Madoff-like banker who sniffs out the tall tale being sold him even before the protagonist can fully spew the words -- propels the story by giving the scam legitimacy to take off.

The lead character, Lamendin, is played by James Riordan with somewhat Alan Rickmanesque drôle, but not quite. His occasional whining is off key as is his abrupt transformation from disillusioned loner to master of ceremonies. But let that go, as suspending reality is what this entire production does in keeping with the best of the Mint's Screwball traditions.

Contact Information: Mint Theatre 311 West 43rd Street 3rd Floor, New York City www.minttheater.org 866.811.4111

Ask the Art Professor: How Can I Make the Transition to Teaching Art at the College Level?

June 26, 2014, 10:54 am

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"I have taught art in public schools at the high school level for 27 years (I am 52) and at this point I am eligible for early retirement and would like to teach drawing and/or painting in college. I really love to teach, and would like a change from high school. I feel the longer classes in college would allow me to teach in more depth and at a slower pace than high school. I did, however get an interview for a position at a prestigious private high school, as well as a job offer which would have led to overseeing their entire art program in a few years. However, I turned it down since I currently work in a great public school with other full-time art teachers, and it would have involved a complicated relocation. I would, however, be willing to relocate for a college job. How can I make the transition to teaching art at the college level?"

One would think that with your 27 years of teaching experience that it would be easy for you to get a teaching position anywhere. I hate to say this, but the truth is that a substantial background teaching art at the high school level is actually a hindrance when applying for college-level teaching positions. The academic art world can be very snotty, and unfortunately teaching at the high school level is frequently seen as low on the food chain. As unfair as it may seem, most college art programs are more likely to hire someone who is just out of graduate school, and who has just a few years of teaching adjunct (part-time) at the college level.

You will have to start completely from scratch and accept that you will have to be an adjunct for a while, (usually years) before you are even in the running for a full-time position. It's nearly impossible to be hired full-time without any adjunct teaching experience. On top of that, many schools are cutting their budgets, so full-time positions are becoming extremely scarce. In a single year, it is not unusual for there to only be 15 national positions in your specialized field. Full-time teaching positions generally attract 200-400 applicants for one job. Today, saying you want to be a full-time art professor is basically like saying you want to be an A-list movie star.



Adjunct teaching positions are very unpredictable. There is never any guarantee that your contract will be renewed from semester to semester, since the majority of adjunct positions are temporary positions to replace full-time faculty who are on sabbatical. There have been countless times where I have been offered a class literally two weeks before the first day of class. On the flip side, I've also had courses cancelled the week before classes began. It is also becoming common for colleges to limit how long you are allowed to be an adjunct at their school. I've been in situations where my contract as an adjunct was only renewable up to 3-4 years, regardless of my performance.

Most adjuncts live in a constant state of anxiety, struggle financially, and have little time for their own artwork. For years, I taught as an adjunct at 2-3 schools each semester. I was shuttling back and forth between schools and lived in a state of distraction. Based on how unreliable the life of an adjunct is, I wouldn't recommend relocating in order to take an adjunct position. Another issue is that while being an adjunct can provide valuable experience, it can also work against you if you are adjunct for "too long." I know many people who have been adjunct for over 25 years and who have told me that their ship has sailed. At that point, you are branded as an adjunct, and become much less attractive to schools who are hiring for full-time positions.

If you do decide to go down this path, it's important to know that while some colleges do advertise adjunct teaching positions, many do not. When I was at the beginning of my teaching career, I cast a wide net by writing letters of inquiry every year to a number of department heads at the local colleges. I was surprised that several department heads responded and kept my information on file for the future. In numerous cases, I was offered an adjunct position a few years later, and that's initially how I launched my teaching career. Additionally, network and milk your personal connections. I got my first teaching position because I met a department head at a printmaking conference when I was still a graduate student. He asked me to send him my materials, and within one year I had my first adjunct teaching position.

Compared to full-time positions which require search committees and multiple interviews over several months, the interview process for adjuncts is relatively easy. Generally speaking, all it involves is an interview with the department head, and a review of your supporting materials. These materials usually include a resume, an artist statement, a teaching philosophy statement, 20 images of your professional artwork, and 20 images of your students' artwork.

This transition is possible, but you will need to be prepared for the long haul it will likely be. Even with your 27 years of teaching high school, you'll have to see this process as beginning a new career.

Ask the Art Professor is an advice column for visual artists. Submit your questions to clara(at)claralieu.com

17 Artists Earn Southern Exposure

June 26, 2014, 11:01 am

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9 Fictional Frenemies Who Remind Us That Relationships Are Complicated

June 26, 2014, 1:01 pm

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The frenemy. Not quite a trustworthy friend, but not quite an all-out enemy. Instead, the frenemy exists in some shadowy space between, often veering back and forth between these two extremes. In my new novel, Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend [Feiwel & Friends, $17.99], the main characters, Gemma and Hallie, definitely fall somewhere along the frenemy spectrum. Gemma wrecked Hallie's life when they were kids, but when they meet by chance in the Hamptons years later, it's not clear if Hallie has forgiven Gemma... or if she's plotting the ultimate revenge.

Thinking of the frenemies in my book got me wondering about other frenemies in literature. The word was entered into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2008, but from this grouping of famous literary frenemies, it's clear the concept has been around for centuries.

Jo and Amy March

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Sisters can be frenemies, too. Jo's relationship with Amy was always the most strained among the March sisters, and they were often at odds with each other. But Amy really took things too far when she burned Jo's manuscript -- to say nothing of marrying Laurie.

Elinor Dashwood and Lucy Steele

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Lucy Steele is the keep-your-enemies-close version of the frenemy. She forms a friendship with Elinor just to keep her away from Edward Ferrars, and consistently remind Elinor of their engagement. And when she marries Edward's brother (!), she makes sure Elinor thinks she's married Edward. Lucy Steele is the WORST.

Bridget Jones and Rebecca

Bridget Jones and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding

Rebecca is in Bridget's circle of friends, and a fairly innocuous presence in the first book. But in the second book, when Bridget and Mark Darcy are together, we see just how terrible she can be. She tries to create doubt and mistrust between Bridget and Mark, and then when they've broken up, she tries to steal Mark for herself. (Putting him in her room at the country house? NOT okay.)

Helena and Hermia

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

Sometimes it just takes a magical love potion to wreak havoc to let out the anger and resentment (along with a lot of insults about her height) you've been suppressing toward your supposed best friend.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Proof that you can sometimes be your own worst frenemy.

Mia Thermopolis and Lily Moscovitz

The Princess Diaries Series by Meg Cabot

While Mia and Lily's relationship starts out close, it becomes strained as the books progress. When you find out that your supposed BFF has created a website all about how much they hate you, things are not looking great for your once-strong friendship.

Serena Van Der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf

The Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar

Blair and Serena bounced from enemies to friends to somewhere in between so often throughout the series, that it was sometimes hard to keep track.

Hedda Gabler and Thea Elvsted

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen

Just a thought - when your supposed friend makes jokes about burning off your hair... maybe don't hang out with that person any longer.

Cecily Cardew and Gwyndolen Farifax

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Nothing gets in the way of a friendship like (mistakenly) thinking you're both engaged to the same guy. Frenemies at their wittiest.

The Pitfalls of Self-Expression

June 26, 2014, 1:45 pm

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Fifth grade is beginning in less than a week. The summer has been a long one but with the new school year looming, perhaps not long enough. At the end of our block lives a boy one year older and a decade more experienced than any other kid my age. His name is John Hartwig and he's always been first. First to touch a girl's breast, first to smoke a cigarette and the first to own Hot Wheels, the model race cars he'd douse in rubbing alcohol and send careening down their narrow orange tracks in blue flames. Once, in the midst of the driest summer we Minnesotans had seen in years, he made a miniature hot air balloon out of a plastic bag, four drinking straws, several sewing pins and a couple dozen-birthday candles. The design was simple:

1. Double the length of each straw by inserting one end into another straw.
2. Crisscross the two lengthened straws and hold them in place with masking tape.
3. Push a row of pins upwards from the bottom of the straws until the pointy end is sticking through.
4. Carefully push the birthday candles onto the pins.
5. Secure the criss-crossed straws with the candles in the mouth of a large plastic bag,
6. Light the candles and watch the bag go slowly upwards as the hot air begins to rise.

To see this luminescent orb floating into the darkness of a Minnesota night was nothing short of breathtaking. It was so magical in fact, that neither John nor any of us watching had any concern about what might happen if the bag were to have gotten stuck in a treetop, landed on a shake roof or in a pile of dried leaves in someone's backyard. We never asked. We never cared.

In our neighborhood there are two orders of humanity. People who may look essentially the same, who may wear the same clothes and go to the same schools, but in fact, inhabit totally different universes. They are the Jews and the non-Jews. It's never clear if John Hartwig has ever made this distinction. To be fair, it's hard to describe. By my reckoning, the Jews are a people living in their own heads, inhabiting a place of thought alone. An inward directed world of imagining, replete with an overabundance of anxiety and second-guessing. The non-Jews, like John for instance, are far better rooted in the natural world. They are more awake to the very stuff of the physical dimension. They're at least a hundred times braver, and enviably to me at any rate, a thousand times more impulsive. It is this impulsivity that leads John Hartwig to suggest that we walk to the Peace Presbyterian Church and draw to our hearts content on the back door of the chapel.

"Everyone does it," he says.

When we arrive there with our colored Marks-a-lots and I see no other drawings on the door, I simply assume as I always do, that John knows best. I begin my drawing with a passionate red arc starting at the heavy brass handle and moving up the door as high as I can reach. As I'm about to add a flourish of green, John screams,

"Run!"

And run he does, like a fucking gazelle. Seconds later, a janitor grabs me by the arm and yanks me into the Minister's office. As I wait I realize I've just done something of colossal stupidity, something, for which I may be beaten -- or even killed. The Minister finally enters and through tears I try to explain that I didn't realize people weren't allowed to draw on the door.

"I thought the door was for self expression," I pleaded, (self expression being one of the loftiest virtues in our home).

The Minister just looks at me, more disgusted than angry, swivels his high-backed chair to turn away, and calls my mother to come take me home.

An Illustration of Privilege

June 26, 2014, 2:27 pm

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My sophomore year of college I shared an "apartment-style" dorm with my best friend Katy and three other girls. We had a kitchen, a living room, two bathrooms, and our own teeny-tiny bedrooms that were only wide enough to fit a twin bed. Like most college students, we decorated our rooms with things that mattered to us and expressed who we were. My favorite decoration was the one on the outside of my bedroom door, a black-and-white poster of Martin Luther King Jr. delivering, "I Have a Dream."

A couple of my roommates laughed at me when I put the poster up, and more than one visitor to our dorm commented, upon seeing me for the first time, "Oh, I thought you were black."

I'm not black. I'm mostly white. But that hasn't stopped me from being captivated by the civil rights movement. Captivated isn't the right word, but I don't know if there is a right word to express how I feel about the civil rights movement -- a word that expresses at the same time horror, awe, shame, anger, and a desire to travel back 50 years so that I could march alongside those who stood up against hate.

While I've never been the kind of person who takes a special interest in history, I am the kind of person who thinks there's immense value in not sugarcoating it. The civil rights movement was something I learned about in school, and yet never felt like I was truly educated enough on. Like the first time you read about the Holocaust, or slavery, or Hiroshima, The civil rights movement taught me both about the depths of evil man is capable of, and the power in ordinary people standing up for justice.

That's one reason I was so excited to see the latest exhibit at Jacksonville's Cummer Museum and Gardens, on loan from the High Museum of Art -- "A Commemoration of the Civil Rights Movement."

The exhibit was small, and took up only a single room towards the end of the museum. The commemoration was comprised solely of black-and-white photographs, most only slightly larger than 5X8, taken from the civil rights era. There were many iconic pictures among the collection; Rosa Parks being fingerprinted by the police, Martin Luther King Jr. getting arrested at a lunch counter, two separate "white" and "colored" water fountains, and so on.

Unlike the other larger, more open rooms in the museum, this one was intimate. Small lights illuminated each photo, which were spaced evenly at eye level on the walls. Because of the subject and lighting, the room took on a hushed, reverent atmosphere. The handful of people in the room with my husband Ryan and me were whispering, or silent. All except one woman, and her son.

"Did you read that?" the mother said, the frustration in her voice making me look up. She was a heavy-set black woman in a long sundress, probably eight years older than me.

"Yeah," her son mumbled, clutching her hand. He saw me looking over and ducked behind her shyly. He was probably 11 or 12, still young enough that his chubbiness was endearing.

The woman didn't seem convinced.

"Then what did it say?" she asked, a sharper edge in her voice this time. She saw me looking and gave me an exasperated, "kids these days," shake of her head.

Her son pushed his glasses up on his nose and leaned into the photograph. "It says they were freedom fighters."

"And what year was that?" she asked.

He looked again. "1963." He paused a second. "That... wasn't that long ago."

"No," his mother said, "It wasn't. That's when Maymay was growing up."

We were right next to each other now, at side-by-side photographs, and I fought back the urge to say something stupid like, "I'm so sorry." I just smiled at the boy like I usually smile at kids embarrassed by their parents, and moved along.

Because the room was small, and the woman cared much more about her son paying attention than being quiet, I still could hear everything they were saying.

"Now look at this one," she said, pulling him towards the photograph of the segregated water fountains.

"Woah. That's messed up," the boy said.

"Yes it is," she said. "That's why I want you to read all these pictures. To see how far we've come."

By now the only people in the room were my husband and me, this woman, and her son. It was obvious I'd heard everything she was saying to him, and, since I'm not that good at hiding my emotions, that it had affected me. When we walked by each other leaving the exhibit she looked at me and I couldn't help but blurt something out.

"You're a good mother," I said, which I hoped encompassed everything I was feeling.

"Thank you," she said, giving me a small smile and nod.

After we left I looked back in and saw that the exhibit room was empty. I asked my husband to snap a picture of me.



I've seen a lot of talk lately about privilege -- who has it, if it matters, what owning up to it looks like, etc. It can be hard for people like me, who have immense privilege, to truly grasp what that means, since we don't know what it's like to not have it.

Last night though, walking through that exhibit, I got a chance to not just see pictures from the past, but an illustration of my current privilege.

How I looked at those photos, and how the mother and her son looked at those photos, could not be more different -- even if our reactions to injustice is the same. For me, I feel horror and anger and a desire to have been able to do something to stop what was happening. But none of that happened to me, or people who look like me. None of that happened to my grandparents*, or my parents, or the people I was raised by.

I will never understand what it's like to look at a photo of people being assaulted by police with a high-powered water hose, and know that 50 years ago, that could be me. Or my child. I'll never know what it's like to try and overcome this. Both emotionally, and systematically.

Privilege to me isn't about white guilt, or political correctness, or a fear of offending people. Privilege to me is standing side-by-side with an African-American woman and her son, looking at the same photo, and acknowledging that only one of us bears the weight of this history.

Or really, that only one of us has a choice in how this history will affect us.


*My Filipino grandfather was a segregated messman in the Navy

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Starting Out: 9 Abstract Painters 1958 -1971

June 26, 2014, 2:36 pm

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When I first walked into Starting Out: 9 Abstract Painters 1958-1971, I didn't immediately remember that the pristine space on Fifth Avenue was the site of an raucous opening I had attended decades ago for a 40th Anniversary Exhibition -- where Larry Rivers was present. Without the hecticness of a large crowd, there was a serenity that enabled me to see and be enveloped by the large-scale paintings (in addition to framed works on paper) in solitude, and with the advantage that an empty gallery allows.

The premise of the show, as outlined in the press release, is to highlight a different time not currently prominent in the art public's mind -- "the late 1950s into the 1960s." It was the period when the gallery championed the work of a new group of abstract painters, referenced as "the second-generation New York School."

Most of the exhibited artists continued to explore abstraction for the duration of their careers in one form or another. Others, such as Jane Freilicher (b. 1924), evolved to a place where she expressed her vision through representational images. The gallery states that for Freilicher abstraction was "a resting point." Ironically, it is her oil on canvas that is the first painting that greets the visitor upon arrival.



Jane Freilicher, Untitled Abstraction, c. 1960, Oil on Canvas, 49" x 50"

Untitled Abstraction can be read as a precursor to her future landscape paintings. Areas of blue at the top of the canvas and bottom sections of scumbled green -- that evidence the drip marks of thinned paint -- act as points of enclosure for a sandy colored swath which is punctuated by accents of red. Freilicher studied with Hans Hofmann, absorbing his lessons about non-objective painting. By 1963, in her watercolor on paper, Freilicher titles the piece Abstract Landscape. She is on the road to the imagery that would be clearly defined two years later.

Edward Avedisian (b. 1936), in his painting as well as his gouache on paper, makes use of strategically placed concentric circles placed in a larger field of opaque color. Their pictographic quality, combined with the ochre field it is placed upon, call to mind symbolic markings on the African masks of Burkina Faso.



Edward Avedisian, Normal Love #1, 1963, Liquitex on Canvas, 67 1/4" x 67 1/2"

Strategically placed on a wall by itself is Many Parts by Friedel Dzubas (b. 1915). Large floating forms resembling landmasses exist as individual islands of color. Although that are separate, they appear interactive. The shapes are static, yet there is a sense of movement. There are what appear to be shadows behind the colors of gunmetal grey, ultramarine blue, yellow and sherbet green. Rather, they are stains from the medium mixed with the paint -- which is flat and without texture. Dzubas emigrated from Nazi Germany in 1939. Thirteen years later, he would share a studio with Helen Frankenthaler (b. 1928).



Friedel Dzubas, Many Parts, 1962, Oil on Canvas, 84" x 69"

There are numerous connections between the different artists in the show -- such as friendships or student-teacher relationships. Part of the history of the Tibor de Nagy gallery is embedded in the camaraderie that grew within a community of artists, poets and writers.

Frankenthaler's Two Live as One on a Crocodile Isle is hung opposite the work of Dzubas. She studied at Bennington with Paul Feeley (b. 1910). Frankenthaler was included in two shows at Tibor de Nagy in 1951. In the spring, she was featured in The New Generation exhibit. At the end of that year, she had a solo show. Here, she uses oil washes to achieve both a spontaneous and a lyrical character. Combining color, fluidity and spontaneous markings, there is the suggestion that the movement within the canvas can only be temporarily contained.



Helen Frankenthaler, Two Live as One on a Crocodile Isle, 1959,
Oil on Unsized, Unprimed Canvas, 82" x 55"

Adjacent to the Frankenthaler is a narrow painting by Kenneth Noland (b. 1924). His output, frequently divided into categories reflecting the geometric impetuses of his work -- circles, chevrons, diamonds, stripes and plaids, were examined and reexamined. Space of Red falls into the "plaid" period. Muted tones of reds and purples stain the surface while combining tonalities with vertical and horizontal lines.

Represented by both works on paper and a painting, Feely's canvas challenges the observer to gravitate between perceiving the work through the prism of either positive or negative space. His blue expanse can easily read as a body of water between two earthly regions. Then again, while focusing on the yellow vastness, his blue transmits the symbolism of an hourglass.



Paul Feeley, Trajan, 1960, Oil-Based Enamel on Canvas, 69" x 46"

In his watercolor, executed two years earlier, Feeley investigates interlocking shapes that mimic each other. Here he uses three colors with an intermediary band establishing a neutral no-man's-land, thereby alleviating the conundrum of an either/or resolution. The interlocking shapes suggest both male and female manifestations, simultaneously thrusting and receiving.



Paul Feeley, Untitled, 1958-59, Watercolor on Paper, 16" x 11"

Also engaged in the use of positive and negative space is Kendall Shaw (b. 1924), who had three one-person shows at the gallery in the mid-Sixties. Shaw uses form and color as a meditation on the energy of space, placement and connection. Of the six panels, all colors claim a wide band and a narrow band. It is how they interface with the wall and to each other that is crucial. Like Feely, Shaw challenges participants to the witnessing process to resolve their own determination as to where the borders and frontiers lie. For Shaw, color is feeling, and here every unit operates both individually and as part of a whole.



Kendall Shaw, Escatawpa Sunrise, 1968, Acrylic on Canvas (6 panels),
96" x 168"

The large, seemingly monochromatic work of Ralph Humphrey (b. 1932) invites a prolonged examination of his tactile and velvety black surface. The conscious application of paint is evident in his use of texture as hints of blue and evidence of brick red reveal themselves as part of the underpainting. There is a feeling of planetary "other worldliness," as if one is viewing part of something that fell to earth. The canvas yields a hint of Humphrey's work to come, which would explore subtle modulations of color on wood -- as well as his witty and spirited "window paintings."



Ralph Humphrey, Alma Court #1, 1958, Oil on Canvas, 84" x 66"

While Humphrey's image struck me as lunar, the Darbary Bannard (b. 1943) gouache and pencil on paper (1962) and his alkyd on canvas resonated as solar. Executed during a period of minimalism, Bannard's pencil drawn circle, surrounded by a halo of yellow paint, almost looks as if it were achieved through the use of a protractor. There is a slight element of shading that gives the circle a three-dimensionality, yielding the potential of a sphere. Perhaps Bannard was working out ideas he would explore the following year, when he placed a half-circle of saturated yellow at the bottom of his canvas.



Darby Bannard, Yellow Rose #1, 1963, Alkyd on Canvas, 62" x 62"

Many of these artists veered in totally different directions as time passed and they continued to challenge themselves with questions about how they were painting and what they were trying to express. Bannard, in a recent article in the Miami press in conjunction with a 2012 exhibition, spoke about finding himself "at loggerheads with the art world's tastemakers." He stated, "I don't change for any reason except that I want to keep myself interested."

This exhibit gives gallery goers the opportunity to see how that path started for him and his contemporaries.

Photos: Courtesy of Tibor de Nagy Gallery


Tibor de Nagy Gallery
724 Fifth Avenue
New York City
June 5, 2014 - August 1, 2014

Jazz on a New Summer Night's Dream

June 26, 2014, 3:56 pm

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Bandleader Pablo Batista in rehearsal for the premiere of The Journey (photo courtesy of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

The Kimmel Center's Solstice in the City had a little something for everyone including rock concerts in Verizon Hall, an arcade in the plaza to carnival style and the requite a DJ booming out pop tunes to go with shabby Philly dancing (fortunately some salsa tunes drew a few couples who knew actual steps). On the lower level in the SEI Innovation Studio it proved to be a sublime jazz on a summer's night dream.

Jay Wahl, artistic director of the studio's programming has been piloting arts residencies programs and commissions bringing together a stellar line-up of Philly vanguard musicians, composers and allied artists. Workshop installments have been in development for a year and and the completed works were a centerpiece of the Solstice fete.

Local saxophone great Bobby Zankel assembled a raucous jazz-dance set collaborating with choreographer Raphael Xavier and his troupe of six dancers that interplayed from structured routines by the dancers and electrifying improvs with the musicians.

Compositions by Zankel and Cuban percussionist Francoise Zayas, with Xavier dancing and narrating with his troupe starting with a piece called 'Still be Young' explores themes of alienation of African American youth, with inspiring messages of community solidarity and expression, danced out in hypnotic hip-hop lexicon. Xavier's dancers fuse many individual variations of hip-hop variants and explosive acrobatics.

Zankel and his tight group of six musicians moved within a trove of jazz genres, reflective to the dancers pick up the orchestral pulse, or solo lines of one of the musicians. All of the band members weighed had virtuosic passages, some to the jazz singer Venissa Santi's floating lilting mezzo tones to sultry vocalese.

The second concert featured trumpeter Josh Lawrence's 11-piece orchestra. Lawrence may have been the marquee draw, but he was very much just a member of the band on the sixty-five minute piece, four movement opus titled Life Mosaic: Birth, Adolescence, Maturity and Death composed by drummer Amwar Marshall (Born, Into What Village?), Bassist Jason Fraticelli (Adolescence (Waltz for the Universe'), trumpeter Josh Lawrence (Presence) and guitarist Tim Conley ( Impermanence: Death).

Marshall's driving rhythms, (with Francois Zaya, who returned for this set, on bongos) is a galloping engine. Lawrence's trumpet can shift from blue fire cool to blistering staccato in a second. Tim Conley on electric guitar is trance inducing and Fraticelli's bassline never evaporates. In one section, pianist Brian Marsella played a mach -- speed, era traveling piano riff that just blew the roof off. But truth be told, everyone distinguished themselves separately and together on the bandstand.

Philly's big-bands are starting to be a healthy trend in jazz, not as a return to a bygone era, but what is possible to achieve with new generations of jazz artists skilled in many jazz forms and eras.

Full disclosure, I was completely listener spent after the first two concerts ( you can call me wimp) but judging from the development stage Pablo Batista & the Mambo Syndicate that I had attended in the spring, his work The Journey was the capper on a great evening of jazz. Batista led his 16 member big-band of Latin jazz fusion with side specialists Bata drummers on traditional instruments and a string quartet in the mix. It was not titled The Journey for nothing.

Theater: The Lion Roars (With Pride); Tupac Doesn't Bloom on Broadway in Holler

June 26, 2014, 10:05 pm

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THE LION *** out of ****
HOLLER IF YA HEAR ME * 1/2 out of ****


THE LION *** out of ****
MANHATTAN THEATRE CLUB AT NEW YORK CITY CENTER

This one-man musical written by and starring Benjamin Scheuer is sweet, unassuming, very tuneful and very good. But you don't want to overpraise it. It's a charmer people will enjoy the most if they let it sneak up on them. It's worth seeing, I've casually told some friends, definitely the best new musical I've seen so far this year. Then they'll go, start to smile when they realize it's going to be good and then relax into the rare pleasure of seeing a show that is unexpectedly very good indeed.

The staging is simplicity itself. Scheuer comes out looking casually snazzy in a blue suit, walking onto the intimate stage of The Studio at Stage II, which is filled with various guitars, mostly acoustic. He starts to play the song you can hear a portion of in the video below and music fans will immediately relax: Scheuer is a confident guitarist and a canny songwriter who makes songs as casual as conversation but as well-crafted as can be.

Looming over the tale of his life is a father that Scheuer looked up to and feared a little. His father was an academic but loved to play the guitar. Scheuer took to playing immediately and wanted nothing more than to play guitar like his dad. "Don't be stupid!" snaps his dad, getting angry at the little boy and storming off. Not to worry: this is not a tale where Scheuer works his way through each guitar on stage, with each instrument intro-ing a new chapter. Nor is it a tale of parental abuse or some monstrous secret. His father suffered from depression and died suddenly when Scheuer was young and while the boy doesn't quite escape the shadow of the man that formed him, he slowly realizes he doesn't need to, not really.



There's much more. Scheuer falls in and out of love, faces a medical crisis, and strives to maintain a relationship with his mother and siblings. Our sense of who he is and how he relates to everyone else takes subtle shifts throughout the show. He's modest, funny, unsparing on himself and ultimately generous of spirit to all involved. But above all, there are the songs, whether they're rockish love songs written for a girlfriend he plays on electric guitar or tunes his father taught him or his own defiant celebrations of life.

They flow out of this confident, engaging performer with ease. The lighting design by Ben Stanton is empathetic throughout, never calling attention to itself but a signal part of the show that makes use of the warm setting provided by Neil Patel. Director Sean Daniels keeps the pacing spot-on. By the end you grow appreciative of the floppy head of hair Scheuer is sporting. You may notice how he came out in a suit but first off comes his jacket and then the tie and then the suspenders are lowered, the shoes and socks come off and you see a man opening himself up to you, emotionally naked if not quite so in reality.

If you're like me, you'll want to check out his music released under the moniker Escapist Papers. If you're like my female guest, you might wonder if he's still single. And you'll want to tell your friends to check out The Lion. It's good, you'll say casually. You should go.


HOLLER IF YA HEAR ME * 1/2 out of ****
PALACE THEATRE


It's taken Broadway many, many years to find a way to celebrate rock n roll and pop. Mostly, that's happened as nostalgia, whether it's Grease or Mamma Mia or The Who's Tommy, with rare exceptions like Green Day's American Idiot the exception. If original Broadway shows have rock n roll in their DNA -- I'm thinking of Spring Awakening and to a lesser degree the barely rock-ish Rent -- it's still musical theater that is the dominant gene.

So clearly hip-hop in general and rap in particular may take a lot longer to handle the transition to the Great White Way with ease. The musical Holler If You Hear Me is clearly well-intentioned to the core. But Broadway would probably embrace a show about the Sugarhill Gang or Run DMC a lot more easily than someone as complex and fresh as the late Tupac Shakur.

One problem: it uses the lyrics of Shakur but often gives them new musical settings to tell an anonymous story of ghetto life. Those shows I mentioned before that worked? They may not have been truly "rock and roll," but they loved that music unabashedly and did their best to recreate it onstage. This show with a book by Todd Kreidler and orchestration and arrangements by Daryl Waters has a split personality when it comes to the songs. Sometimes they try to turn Shakur's lyrics into the basis for a classic Broadway duet ("Unconditional Love") and sometimes they sort of don't. Either approach could work. The two most memorable numbers are the most rap-like "Holler If Ya Hear Me" (presented with ferocious conviction and the volume turned up to 11) and in a way the least, "Thugz Mansion" (which is given a gentle, effective acoustic setting akin to a version Shakur did himself). Either approach could work, but trying both or more often falling somewhere in between most assuredly does not.



The story is painfully familiar, both in the sense of grinding poverty and few choices inevitably pointing people towards desperation and violence and in the sense of stereotypical. John is out of prison after years of refusing all visitors and cutting himself off from everyone. Not surprisingly, he discovers his best friend and his girl have started dating. Whatever. He just wants to get a job, cash a check and pay his rent. Before you know it, his best friend's kid brother Benny is senselessly shot down and people are calling for revenge so Benny's death can mean something.

Will the kid with a gift for art like John go down the path of a thug? Will they gun down a stranger in payback? Will John stay on the straight and narrow? Ultimately, very little happens except for an accidental tragedy at the climax, adding to the aimless nature of the story. Matters aren't helped by a very inexpensive production design that amounts mostly to a few stoops that are pushed around the stage here and there in an effort to create some sort of change of scene or choreography that feels dreadfully dated. Typically, one of the show's biggest numbers right before the finale is "California Love," a huge production with a purple Cadillac and most of the cast dancing around in this celebration of that state, even though the show isn't set there, no one is heading there and it is essentially a time-waster.

John is resolutely done with gang violence for most of the show..until he isn't (I've no idea why unless it's pique over being bullheaded with his co-worker/boss at an auto body shop), starts to arrange a showdown and then abruptly changes his mind again. Other plot twists and big numbers don't register. Benny's death means little since the show has just begun. Later, Vertus, the brother of the just-murdered Benny and best friend to John, sings one of Shakur's signature songs "Dear Mama" to his mother at the end of Act One. Since the great Tonya Pinkins has had about two lines as his mother, this ode to a character we've barely met hardly registers either, especially since the show is halfway over.

Director Kenny Leon is enjoying one of the triumphs of his career with the acclaimed, Tony-winning revival of A Raisin In The Sun. Here so much is wrong that it's hard to know where to begin, though clearly from inception it was as muddled a mess as the ugly poster that's both afraid of what the show is about and yet clumsily striving for ghetto cool.

But some things do indeed go right. Christopher Jackson has a natural appeal as Vertus, who is clearly a good person struggling to do what's right under impossible conditions, whether it's the violence that surrounds him or a friend that has locked him out. Ben Thompson has affable charm as the token white guy (and gets definite points for the most head-spinning transition on Broadway -- he came here straight from playing Miss Trunchbull in Matilda!). Pinkins brings authority even to a sliver of a role like Vertus's mother.

And Saul Williams embodies the spirit of the righteously angry, whip-smart and emotionally complex Shakur in the role of John. He delivers his lines with passion, especially on the straightforward rap of the unapologetic "Holler If Ya Hear Me." The presentation of that song, like most, is no masterpiece, with rudimentary staging and choreography and lighting often undercutting the actors on stage even when they have something decent to do.

But it has an undeniable presence and authority. When they're not shying away from hip-hop and performing it the way fans of the music would love to hear, the show provides a glimpse of how rap could power a great musical. Let's just hope we don't have to wait for nostalgia's warm glow to tame its spirit before that happens.


THEATER OF 2014

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical ***
Rodney King ***
Hard Times ** 1/2
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead **
I Could Say More *
The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner **
Machinal ***
Outside Mullingar ***
A Man's A Man * 1/2
The Tribute Artist ** 1/2
Transport **
Prince Igor at the Met **
The Bridges Of Madison County ** 1/2
Kung Fu (at Signature) **
Stage Kiss ***
Satchmo At The Waldorf ***
Antony and Cleopatra at the Public **
All The Way ** 1/2
The Open House (Will Eno at Signature) ** 1/2
Wozzeck (at Met w Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson and Simon O'Neill)
Hand To God ***
Tales From Red Vienna **
Appropriate (at Signature) *
Rocky * 1/2
Aladdin ***
Mothers And Sons **
Les Miserables *** 1/2
Breathing Time * 1/2
Cirque Du Soleil's Amaluna * 1/2
Heathers The Musical * 1/2
Red Velvet, at St. Ann's Warehouse ***
Broadway By The Year 1940-1964 *** 1/2
A Second Chance **
Guys And Dolls *** 1/2
If/Then * 1/2
The Threepenny Opera * 1/2
A Raisin In The Sun *** 1/2
The Heir Apparent *** 1/2
The Realistic Joneses ***
Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill ***
The Library **
South Pacific ** 1/2
Violet ***
Bullets Over Broadway **
Of Mice And Men **
The World Is Round ***
Your Mother's Copy Of The Kama Sutra **
Hedwig and the Angry Inch ***
The Cripple Of Inishmaan ***
The Great Immensity * 1/2
Casa Valentina ** 1/2
Act One **
Inventing Mary Martin **
Cabaret ***
An Octoroon *** 1/2
Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging ***
Here Lies Love *** 1/2
6th Annual August Wilson Monologue Competition
Sea Marks * 1/2
A Time-Traveler's Trip To Niagara * 1/2
Selected Shorts: Neil Gaiman ***
Too Much Sun * 1/2
Broadway By The Year 1965-1989 ***
In The Park **
The Essential Straight & Narrow ** 1/2
Much Ado About Nothing ***
When We Were Young And Unafraid
Savion Glover's Om **
Broadway By The Year 1990-2014 ***
The Lion ***
Holler If Ya Hear Me * 1/2

_____________
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the founder and CEO of the forthcoming website BookFilter, a book lover's best friend. It's a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. It's like a fall book preview or holiday gift guide -- but every week in every category. He's also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

Note: Michael Giltz is provided with free tickets to shows with the understanding that he will be writing a review. All productions are in New York City unless otherwise indicated.

Philosophy You Can Use: The Ancient, Practical Wisdom in Stoic Thinking

June 27, 2014, 8:02 am

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When most people think of "philosophy," their eyes glaze over. It's the last thing they want, let alone something they need.

But this, as you already know, is silly and naive.

Philosophy is not just about talking or lecturing, or even reading long, dense books. In fact, it is something men and women of action use -- and have used throughout history -- to solve their problems and achieve their greatest triumphs. Not in the classroom, but on the battlefield, in the forum, and at court.

It was jotted down (and practiced) by slaves, poets, emperors, politicians and soldiers, as well as ordinary folks to help with their own problems and those of their friends, family and followers. This wisdom is still there, available to us.

Specifically, I am referring to Stoicism, which, in my opinion, is the most practical of all philosophies.

A brief synopsis on this particular school of Hellenistic philosophy: Stoicism was founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC, but was famously practiced by the likes of Epictetus, Cato, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. The philosophy asserts that virtue (such as wisdom) is happiness and judgment be based on behavior, rather than words. That we don't control and cannot rely on external events, only ourselves and our responses.

But at the very root of the thinking, there is a very simple, though not easy, way of living. Take obstacles in your life and turn them into your advantage, control what you can and accept what you can't.

In the words of Epictetus:

In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.

Amazingly we still have access to these ideas, despite the fact that many of the greatest Stoics never wrote anything down for publication. Cato definitely didn't. Marcus Aurelius never intended for Meditations to be anything but personal. Seneca's letters were, well, letters and Epictetus' thoughts come to us by way of a note-taking student.

And so it was from their example, their actions, we find real philosophy.

Because other than their common study of the philosophy, the Stoics were all men of action -- and I don't think this is a coincidence. Marcus Aurelius was emperor of the most powerful empire in the history of the world. Cato, the moral example for many philosophers, defended the Roman republic with Stoic bravery until his defiant death. Even Epictetus, the lecturer, had no cushy tenure -- he was a former slave.

And this shouldn't really be that surprising...

The modern-day philosopher and writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb defines a Stoic as someone who, "transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation and desire into undertaking."

Using this definition as a model we can see that throughout the centuries Stoicism has been a common thread though some of history's great leaders. It has been practiced by Kings, presidents, artists, writers and entrepreneurs. Both historical and modern men illustrate Stoicism as a way of life.

Prussian King, Frederick the Great, was said to ride with the works of the Stoics in his saddlebags because they could, in his words, "sustain you in misfortune."

Meanwhile, Montaigne, the politician and essayist, had a line from Epictetus carved into the beam above the study in which he spent most of his time.

The founding fathers were also inspired by the philosophy. George Washington was introduced to Stoicism by his neighbors at age seventeen, and afterwards, put on a play about Cato to inspire his men in that dark winter at Valley Forge. Whereas Thomas Jefferson had a copy of Seneca on his nightstand when he died.

The economist Adam Smith's theories on the interconnectedness of the world -- capitalism -- were significantly influenced by the Stoicism that he studied as a schoolboy, under a teacher who had translated Marcus Aurelius' works.

The political thinker, John Stuart Mill, wrote of Marcus Aurelius and Stoicism in his famous treatise On Liberty, calling it "the highest ethical product of the ancient mind."

But those influenced by the Stoics goes on...

Eugène Delacroix, the renowned French Romantic artist (known best for his painting Liberty Leading the People) was an ardent Stoic, referring to it as his "consoling religion."

Toussaint Louverture, himself a former slave who challenged an emperor by leading the Haitian revolution, read and was deeply influenced by the works of Epictetus.

Theodore Roosevelt, after his presidency, spent eight months exploring (and nearly dying in) the unknown jungles of the Amazon, and of the eight books he brought on the journey, two were Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and Epictetus' Enchiridion.

Indeed, Teddy seems to represent the temperance and self-control of the philosophy beautifully when he said, "What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice." Likewise he expressed the necessity of action advocated by the Stoics when he famously remarked: "We must all wear out or rust out, everyone of us. My choice is to wear out."

Today's leaders are no different, with many finding their inspiration from the ancient texts. Bill Clinton rereads Marcus Aurelius every single year, while Wen Jiabao, the former prime minister of China, claims that Meditations is one of two books he travels with and has read it more than one hundred times over the course of his life.

You see, Stoicism -- and philosophy -- are not the domains of idle professors. They are the succor of the successful, and the men and women of action. As Thoreau put it: "To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school... it is to solve some of the problems of life not only theoretically, but practically."

The mantle is ours to pick up and carry and do with what we can.

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Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of The Obstacle Is The Way. Based on timeless philosophical principles and the stories from history's greats, The Obstacle Is The Way reveals a formula for turning difficulty and tribulation into advantage. Ryan is also the author of Trust Me, I'm Lying and Growth Hacker Marketing and currently an editor at large for the New York Observer.

Awol Erizku on the ImageBlog

June 27, 2014, 8:06 am

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A group of women on their way to Sunday mass from the series ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA: THE CITY OF TRUE LOVE

First Nighter: Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, Brook's Valley of Astonishment in London

June 27, 2014, 8:39 am

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Although it may be that most men would prefer their first-born to be a boy, is there any man in history more intent on having a son than Henry VIII, known to intimates (such as they are) as Harry?

Hilary Mantel persuasively presents the case for his preeminence at this relentless need in Wolf Hall, which won the 2009 Man Booker Prize, and then again in Bring Up the Bodies, which won the 2012 Man Booker Prize. She's the first author to win the award twice, an accomplishment that may be partially responsible for her becoming Dame Hilary as of the most recent Queen's honors list.

The popularity of the books, not to mention their Shakespearean potential, certainly made them candidates for a stage adaptation, which Mike Poulton undertook for Playful Productions that was initially presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon. It's now transferred to the Aldwych in magnificent form as two three-hour dramas.

For those who haven't read the novels and/or don't know the history, it's Henry (Nathaniel Parker) who must have a son to succeed him according to supposedly inflexible tradition and sees to getting one from his first two wives -- Katherine of Aragon (Lucy Briers) and Anne Boleyn (Lydia Leonard) -- but notoriously without success. It's Thomas Cromwell (Ben Miles), however, a blacksmith's son risen to Master Secretary and eventually to the rank of baron, who goes steadfastly, and according to his own scruples, manipulatively about assuring that Henry's will is met.

In the first of the stage histories, both of which make a convincing argument for religion being inextricable from politics, Cromwell has to rid his king of a first wife, who's only supplied him with daughter Mary, in order to wed a second who says she's "promised" him a son--Anne. Incidentally, she's the sister of Mary Boleyn (Olivia Darnley), a mistress of whom Henry has tired.

In the second of the stage histories, Cromwell mounts a campaign against Anne, who's no mean adversary, in favor of her often abused lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour (Leah Brotherhead), Henry's latest fancy. The master secretary does so by trapping into semi-confessions at least five men with whom Anne may or may not have dallied behind the King's broad back. When asked by son Gregory (Daniel Fraser) if the men are truly guilty of the crimes for which they've been convicted, Cromwell replies, "Who knows?"

In a way, the staged Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies resemble -- this is not meant as a pejorative -- a graphic novel, akin, say, to one drawn from any classic work. And since Mantel's books are stuffed with dialogue, Poulton has had a relatively simple job of making them stage-worthy. As scenes progress from one frame to the next in Cromwell's complicated enterprise, they're panoramic and include related plots involving most crucially Cardinal Wolsey (Paul Jesson), who refuses the annulment Anne fights for, and Sir Thomas More (John Ramm), whose first loyalty is to the church.

To accommodate such sprawling events, set designer Christopher Oram has built three spaced walls stretching into the wings at stage left and a wall with a doorway and another opening at stage right. At the back he sometimes drops scrims. Above the otherwise empty stage onto which furniture is brought and removed is a Sol Lewitt-like grid, through which Paule Constable can throw lights that at times suggest the shadows the sun might cause through prison bars. (Perhaps only Constable and assistants have any idea how many lighting cues there are over these six hours.)

Directed with a kind of genius for constant movement by Jeremy Herrin and in Oram's sumptuous costumes, the cast, many of them doubling, is outstanding. First among equals, of course, is Miles as the shrewd, compassionate yet uncompromising Cromwell. Parker's Henry, hands on hips, is imperious, though sometimes frightened and uncertain. Leonard's Anne, who calls Cromwell "Cremuel" and does refer to her "little neck," is a calculating firebrand. Jesson's Wolsey, as well as the other three characters he takes on, is charismatic.

One question that could arise after seeing the plays without having read the novels is whether it's then necessary to do so. The answer is yes. Though in imagining Henry's court and its inhabitants' psychologies Mantel does include bountiful court talk, she also writes pointed descriptive prose often lost when the printed page is rifled.

Here's an example from Bring Up the Bodies concerning Cromwell's sense of Anne's lovers: "They come and go by night, unchallenged. They skim over the river like midges, flicker against the dark, their doublets sewn with diamonds. The moon sees them, peering from her hood of bone, and Thames water reflects them, glimmering like fish, like pearls."

Makes a reader eager for The Mirror and the Light, the concluding volume of Mantel's trilogy, not due for another couple years. Poulton must be ready to pounce. Let's hope so.

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The interest Oliver Sacks takes in the human brain fascinates Peter Brook. The Valley of Astonishment is another consequence of that fascination, and, as presented at the Young Vic, currently Brook's London outlet of choice, it, too, is fascinating.

Just after it begins, small and child-like-voiced Kathryn Hunter, these days Brook's frequent leading lady of choice, introduces herself as Sammy Costas and announces she's a "real phenomenon." A reporter, she illustrates why she's a phenomenon on a visit she makes to a clinic at the suggestion of her editor after he becomes aware of her unusually impressive memory.

The doctors testing her (Marcelo Magni, Jared McNeill) diagnose her case as synesthesia. She's able to remember long series of words and numbers because she instantly associates what she's told with colors, sounds and objects.

Although she's fired from her newspaper job for being overqualified, she gets stage work based on her astonishing memory. It's a life that goes well for quite a while, until she realizes that everything she's been asked to remember has cluttered her brain. She needs to forget, but can she construct a way? That's her dilemma for the remainder of Brook's enthralling 75 minutes.

The formidable director, now 83 and working as he often does with Marie-Hélene Estienne, intersperses two other conditions with Costas's. The first involves a patient (McNeill), who associates sounds and letters of the alphabet with color. Confiding that he was an unhappy child among other children -- he made the mistake of telling friends that "A" is pink -- he found himself when he realized that if he paints the colors he sees when listening to jazz, he'd have a career.

The other patient (Magni) consulting the doctors (McNeill, Hunter this time) suffers from proprioception, which is the loss of a sense of how body parts coordinate. He's of particular enlightenment for the physicians, because he's formulated a system by which he has partially recovered: focusing his eyes on whatever body part he wants to move and having it respond. On entering the doctors' office, he's especially proud that he arrived on his own, awkwardly but successfully.

As an addition to his preceding Sacks-related pieces The Man Who and Je Suis un Phenomene, The Valley of Astonishment -- which the painter declares is the place reached where an affliction becomes an asset -- has great charm. (It's enhanced by Raphael Chambouvet at the piano and Toshi Tsuchitori on wind instruments).

Much of the charm -- in a piece that ultimately doesn't come to any conclusions about the brain's infinite capacity -- is due to the playing and includes an interlude when actor/sleight-of-hand artist Magni uses audience members to execute several card tricks. Exactly what the music-hall turn has to do with synesthesia and proprioception is obscure, but it definitely adds to the overall, uh, astonishment.

Taking My Baby to Kara Walker's Sugar Baby

June 27, 2014, 9:00 am

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I have a pretty raw blister on my left pinky toe right now. It is my battle wound from making the long trek out to the Domino sugar factory in Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon while still wearing my Sunday morning heels. The trip was worth the pain because, after a 20 minute walk through Williamsburg and 45 minutes standing in line, we got to enter the amazing and extremely uncomfortable experience of Kara Walker's newest art installation entitled "A Subtlety (or the Marvelous Sugar Baby: an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant)."

Walker is known for her disturbing commentaries on the African American experience. You might have seen her well-known silhouettes depicting almost whimsical images of the antebellum South that, on closer look, betray the violence and sexual horrors of our nation's past.

Her latest work in Brooklyn is at the Domino sugar factory, a defunct warehouse that is set for demolition. Walker is taking this opportunity to make a statement about slavery, perceptions of black bodies, human exploitation, and the sugar-coating of history. The most iconic image of this installation is a giant sphinx covered in white sugar with the face and body of the black female "Mammy" stereotype. Towering several stories into the air, the massive sugar statue is pretty amazing and extremely disturbing, especially when you walk to the back and find the sphinx's cartoonish, sugar-coated vagina in full view.

The sphinx image is what you will find in the newspapers and on the Kara Walker posters being sold outside the factory. But we found the most haunting part of the work to be the collection of smaller statues of children that were sprinkled around the open factory floor leading up to the sphinx. Based on old racist kitsch, the statues are cute black baby bodies doing manual labor. About five feet tall, these working babies are made out of dark, candied sugar that is smeared on the surface with messy brown sugar. Several of these statues have been broken.

We wheeled our own multi-racial baby, privileged in time, color, and status, through these cruel representations of her baby kin and past the giant, naked white-sugar sphinx. As we left the factory, we found ourselves in a park bordering the East River. A lot of people were milling about with their children. We took our baby out of her stroller, as my husband noted that this was the first time she would ever see a body of water. A number of other babies were being held to face the rolling waves, as parents pointed to the water, all of us having the same fun experience. This kind of delightful introduction to a river was the developmentally appropriate kind of cognitive stimulation for our three month old child.

But as we sat there under the shade of a breeze-blown tree, watching the rolling river with our daughter, I asked my husband, "Did you hear that white woman talking to her little white daughter about the artwork?" The girl was about 7- or 8-years-old. Unlike our little one, this child was old enough to know that something was off about those statues. I caught a moment of their conversation near one of the baby statues that had been knocked over and broken. The child's limbs were violently splattered about, and the dark candy that made up the statue lay melting around it like a sticky blood that threatened to seep up onto our shoes.

The mother was obviously responding to the question, "Why is the statue knocked over and broken?" And I was both impressed and crushed to hear her answer, "Because a lot of people got hurt making sugar." I was impressed that a white woman would take her impressionable young daughter to a gallery like this, where inevitable questions would arise about racial history that would implicate her own racial privilege (Near the sphinx, we saw a black woman wearing a t-shirt that read, "F*&# white people privilege," a reminder that only the most anti-racist white folks should feel any level of comfort here. Others have written about the opposite problem -- of some white folks letting themselves get too comfortable.). I was impressed that the white woman was willing to engage her child in developmentally appropriate conversation about it all. But I was also crushed because I have a daughter who must one day learn about the cruelties of slavery and racism and sexism. I have a child who is marveling at the magic of water today, but who must one day be taught that the world is a dangerous and mean place, that she is not safe here, and that the people she unabashedly smiles at when they lock eyes with her have the capacity to harm her. And, worst yet, she has the capacity to harm them... and herself.

Like Adam and Eve, she will one day witness or be a part of evil. (May it be as abstract as a broken candy baby or as simple as a trespassed fruit tree.) And, on that day of the end of innocence, of the childish paradise lost, the whole world will change around her. Like putting on a pair of glasses for the first time, the leaves on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which she did not even know existed before, will become sharp and defined. She will know the consequences of God's controversial decision to give us free will. She will know the potential -- and certainty -- in each person, including herself, for sin and separation.

But, hopefully, like that white mom at the Kara Walker installation, someone who loves her will get to frame the experience for her. She will be able to ask questions of people she trusts, and she will observe how we all cope and even flourish in this hard situation in which humanity finds itself. And I pray that, when the adolescent cynicism and anger subside, she will decide that it is worth her attention, energy, and more than a few blisters to try to put what has been broken back together again.

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A Chef Off the Old Block

June 27, 2014, 9:02 am

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If you are a Food Channel regular and a devotee of Chopped you will love Chef. It's a far cry from reality TV, but it thrives off the same impulse of turning food preparation into an athletic competition. Chef is also a road move which should appeal to followers of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. But it goes one step further by making one of its lead characters an on-line celebrity critic named Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt), who uses social media to either elevate or excoriate his marks. Oliver Platt might have been helped in researching his role by the fact that his brother happens to be the well-known New York Magazine critic, Adam Platt. At one point the chef, Carl Casper (Jon Favreau), whose hipster personality derives from the same mold as Guy Fieri of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, responds to Michel's barbs by saying "You wouldn't know a good meal if it sat on your face." Casper's young son Percy (Emjay Anthony), whose mother Inez (Sofia Vergara) strategically places her son in his father's charge, has unfortunately just taught his father about Twitter. His adversary responds in kind by saying, "I would rather have you sit on my face after a brisk walk on a warm day than have to suffer through that fucking lava cake again" and the whole exchange goes viral. Carl loses his job because of the exchange (one of his only prospects is to appear on a reality TV show called Hell's Kitchen), but gains a lot of followers, a tight little conceit from which the rest of the movie devolves. So here is the recipe for Chef, take Vittorio De Sica's classic Bicycle Thief, about a father and son left to their own devices, add a pinch of The Social Network and take your pick of any number of romantic comedies about estranged lovers who are reunited et bien "voila!"


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This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture.

Mapping New Ground: the Artist-Run London Biennale Pollination Event

June 27, 2014, 9:50 am

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The street frontages do not automatically suggest art venues within -- a mid-modern home in an historic suburb, a grilled-window apartment block in a 'transitioning' downtown neighborhood, a metal fence topped by spikes alongside a steep freeway embankment and an imposing façade of New York-style loft apartments. But each of these four locations is host to the '2014 London Biennale Pollination in Las Vegas.'

Founded in 1998 by London-based conceptual artist David Medalla, the London Biennale project challenges the notion of the art world 'biennale' as a large state or corporate-sponsored event, operating within tight parameters. The artist-initiated London Biennale, with it's emphasis on performance and installation works, has expanded over the years to include simultaneous satellite events in Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Berlin, New York, Boston and -- since 2010 -- Las Vegas.

This year's theme 'Maps, Mazes and Mysteries' was chosen by David Medalla, and the journey of discovery for each visitor to the Las Vegas event begins with contacting organizers Jevijoe Vitug and Matthew Couper to receive maps and instructions to locate the artists' studios and residences that are hosting the events.

The event on the first night is held at Anthony Bondi's suburban home and workplace, where we encounter an alternative playscape of Bondi's interactive installations, many enjoying a quiet retirement after featuring at festivals and museums around Nevada. Behind the pool, Scott Grow's video work is projected, documenting the release of balloons carrying artworks into the desert, and Jevijoe Vitug in the role of contemporary Shaman, dons a survival blanket and leads a conga-line of participants around the installations.

The following night at our downtown Couper Russ Studios, visitors find my 'linked limbs' collages directing them into our apartment, where Shelbi Shroeder has brought a nude photographic self-portrait to life in our living room. In the kitchen, viewers become participants, contributing to the 'Collaborative Cartographic Collage.' Meanwhile, Matthew Couper's stone-age caveman has assembled a basic tool and is carving out a Cretan Labyrinth in the adjacent vacant lot.

Event 3 takes place the following weekend at David Ryan's studio in an industrial area backing on to the 95 freeway. Pink strands of yarn crisscross the loading dock where Yasmina Chavez and Javier Sanchez sweat through a durational Butoh-inspired performance. Inside the studio, Ryan has set up a computer-controlled milling machine to map out the locations where Justin Favela has video documented his ongoing 'Taco Takeover' performance.

The final event is held the next night at Giorgio Guidi and Cara Seymour's apartment venue 'Casa' where their collaborative sound installation combines restructured song lyrics and percussion to map a journey between London and Las Vegas. Joining them at Casa is San Francisco-based artist Kady Monroe-Tracey who performs a flowing body-movement drawing and facilitates a collaborative sound happening, where guests choose envelopes and read out the stories they find within.

The London Biennale's aim to encourage a more intimate and community-based dialogue between artists and audiences appears to have been achieved in Las Vegas, with informal conversations taking place at the various events -- around a spa pool, a vacant lot, a loading dock and over bowls of pasta on the final night. In a town where a sense of community can be hard to find, the London Biennale is a jewel in the sand.

How the Jeff Koons Retrospective Was Curated and Other Recommended Readings

June 27, 2014, 11:58 am

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#1
If you're looking for some insight into the current Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney Museum, this interview with curator Scott Rothkopf is a good place to start.

#2
Why does connoisseurship matter again? "The stifling of expert opinions is like having fully trained doctors who can't make a diagnosis, says the art historian Bendor Grosvenor."

#3
Google Launches Street Art. "There's a portrait of an anonymous Chinese man chiseled into a wall in Shanghai, a colorful mural in Atlanta and black-and-white photographs of eyes that the French artist JR affixed to the houses of a hillside favela in Rio de Janeiro. These are among the images of more than 4,000 works included in [Google's] vast new online gallery of street art." New York Times.

#4
Was Christian Marclay's Shake, Rattle and Roll the best work at Art Basel? Daily Pic.

#5
Colliding Worlds: How Cutting-Edge Science Is Redefining Contemporary Art by Arthur I. Miller

Mary Rodgers

June 27, 2014, 12:00 pm

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Back when Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza opened on Broadway in 2005, it was what we call a "nervous hit." The critics appreciated it, by and large, but with a slightly apologetic tone; they seemed to feel the necessity to warn viewers that it was "special" and "fragile," as in this is my sort of musical but maybe you won't quite like it. I wasn't a first-night drama critic at the time, but I wrote a column heartily stating that The Light in the Piazza was exceptional and urging theatergoers-on-the-fence to immediately see the show or buy the CD so they could fall in love with it themselves.

The next morning, I received an e-mail from Mary Rodgers -- mother of Adam, daughter of Richard, and a composer in her own right -- saying "I of course agree." But going on to say that she was writing not only because she appreciated what I said, but the way I expressed it; that I clearly understood what they were trying to do, and gave a convincing and well-reasoned explanation of why Piazza was such a major accomplishment.

I introduced myself to Mary the next time I saw her -- I had already worked briefly with her husband, Henry (Hank) Guettel -- and we thereafter spoke whenever we ran into each other at some theatre or other. When I was writing my 2009 book The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations, we had a couple of long discussions; not only about the work of her father, but about the world that she observed as a child.

Two of the key, if virtually unknown, players in musical theatre in the first half of the 20th century were music publishers Max and Louis Dreyfus. They pulled strings like puppet masters and treated their stable (which included Rodgers, Kern, Gershwin and Porter) like benevolent despots, albeit sometimes more despotic than benevolent. "They were killers," Mary said, "Daddy called them the Dreyfei." (We're talking about Richard Rodgers and she calls him daddy?) This was enlightening, inside information which pointed me towards an understanding of how this Machiavellian pair of outsiders were able to earn millions manipulating songwriters and producers. Mary was a link to another world, and a protective but not obstructive guardian of her father's work.

Hank -- who died in October -- had a nephew with the very same, not-very-common name as mine; to Hank, I was always "the other Steven Suskin." In February, I received a card from Mary thanking me for "the lovely violets, Hank would have loved them." Said violets were presumably a condolence offering from the other me; whoever typed the envelope for Mary must have found my address and looked no further. I sent back the card with a note, taking the opportunity to say hello.

And also to make a request regarding Mary's forthcoming memoir. After reading disparaging remarks about poor Larry Hart again and again over the decades -- all seemingly stemming from a few long-ago interviews filled with unattributed rumors and hearsay, rather than actual facts -- I entreated Mary to please give us a sense of what the man, who apparently adored her, was actually like.

I immediately received a response (with the salutation "Dear The Other One"). She affirmed that Hart was an alcoholic and she was "pretty sure" was a homosexual. "He was a poor, unfortunate, tortured soul, perhaps most of the time, but he also was funny, loved children (me and my sister), dogs (his chow named Kiki), and my father. I was fourteen when he died, and it was a heartbreaker for all of us, because it was a blessing, a relief, and a deep sorrow."

She also noted that the music her father wrote with Hart -- as opposed to Hammerstein -- was "mischievous, and saucy, and daring, and silly, and heartbreaking, which was the real Larry."

Mary Rodgers died yesterday, at the age of 83. I do hope that her book is forthcoming, as she was a firsthand observer of and participant in our musical theater world. And one who was willing to speak candidly, with good nature and humor.

Michael C. McMillen's 'The Entropic Taxi; Final Destination' at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris

June 27, 2014, 1:05 pm

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"In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay." - Ernst Fischer




To enter Michael C. McMillen's new installation at the Grand Palais -- Entropic Taxi; The Final Destination -- visitors need to open a creaking pair of double doors below a spot-lit wooden sign that announces their destination: ELSEWHERE. I'm betting that the hint of existentialism will go over well in Paris.

Once inside, they discover curious patchwork dwelling accented by a rusted-out 1930 Citroën Rosalie perched at a tilt above a pile of leaves. The car is an elegiac image: a forgotten relic that moldered in the Loire valley for decades before being hauled into Paris for McMillen's piece. Most of the other materials used in the installation came from McMillen's home in Santa Monica: he still lives in the home where he was raised by his grandparents and he has been collecting evocative junk for decades. Paris is the "final destination" of a great deal of California debris from the artist's backyard...




McMillen's piece is one of a flock of installations assembled by co-curators Mary Brugerolle & Gérard Wajcman as part of an exhibition titled All that Falls: "From the Berlin Wall to the Twin Towers, the twenty-first century was born in the fall," they philosophize in the exhibition catalog's opening statement. Along with twenty-three other artist/particpants McMillen was selected because his art deals with the dialogue between decay and redemption. Like other installations he has previously created in the United States, Entropic Taxi; Final Destination combines detritus, cultural artifacts, street signs and even film.


The entire installation was built with a 5 degree tilt in both the walls and floor: McMillen notes that this "produces an odd sensation in the visitor that is hard to identify at first."




Inside the installation's ramshackle dwelling -- a kind of post-industrial hobbit house and workshop -- they eventually come across a chair that faces video tower. This "curious stack of analog technology" shows four of McMillen's surreal homemade movies, which are there both to add narrative suggestions and to entertain.




One of the goal's of McMillen's piece is to "take you out of Paris," and the quirky, abandoned vibe of Entropic Taxi certainly does that. The Citroën Rosalie that tilts outside might be seen as a symbol roaring-20s optimism, a relic of the brief window of optimism that was felt in Europe before so much of Europe fell to Fascism and Hitler. It is truly one delicious piece of rusted-out automotive history.

Of course, Mc Millen has put it in front of you to let you see if it holds any symbolic meaning for you as an individual. If he has done his job, the beautiful decay of his installation will remind you -- as the curators of All that Falls propose -- that "There are falls, which, like curtains, reveal and open our eyes."



All photos courtesy of Michael C. McMillen

Video: Michael McMillen prepares for his Palais de Tokyo Exhibition:

Final Destination from zac t on Vimeo.

The Entropic Taxi; Final Destination
All that Falls
The Palais de Tokyo
Through September 7, 2014

Artists:

Ronald Amstutz, Vasco Araújo, Julien Bismuth, Jean-Pascal Flavien, Dominique Ghesquière, Lola Gonzalez, Camille Henrot, Willy Kautz, Agnieszka Kurant, Julie Legrand, Urs Lüthi, Michael C. McMillen, Steve McQueen, Philip Metz, Deimantas Narkevicius, Tony Oursler, Daniel Pommereulle Benoit Pype, Delphine Reist, Lili Reynaud Dewar, Jimmy Robert, Miri Segal, Pablo Vargas Lugo. And with the participation of: Felix Baumgartner.