Click to enlarge.
Children view Richard Ansdell's painting, "The Hunted Slaves," at the International Slavery Museum on Thursday in Liverpool, England. Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.
]]>A new recording by Jonathan Biss is recently out, the first of nine to be released over nine years, that will eventually include the entire cycle. Biss has also written a long essay about the project, titled "Beethoven's Shadow," which was released in Amazon's Kindle Singles series.
I spoke to Biss last week:
A transcript will be posted soon.
]]>
Click to enlarge.
Children view Richard Ansdell's painting, "The Hunted Slaves," at the International Slavery Museum on Thursday in Liverpool, England. Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.
]]>
The nation of Qatar purchased a Paul Cezanne painting, "The Card Players," for more than $250 million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art, via Vanity Fair.
*
Uruguay's first biennial art show will open next fall, via The Art Newspaper.
*
Artists and intellectuals in Hungary are concerned about increasing tension between the government and cultural institutions, via The Art Newspaper.
*
La Scala fired a ballerina for alleging high rates of anorexia in the company during an interview, via The Los Angeles Times.
*
A nylon star designed to improve air quality was selected as the winner of the 13th Young Architects Program. The nylon is treated with a chemical spray that neutralizes pollutants in the surrounding air. The design, by architecture firm HWKN, will take its place in the courtyard of MOMA PS1, via The New York Times.
*
Laura H. Kahn discusses the relationship between science fiction and public understanding of scientific ideas.
*
The Eisenhower family objects to the designs of the forthcoming national memorial to the former president. Famed architect Frank Gehry designed the plans.
]]> *Paintings, jewelry and fashion belonging to the late Elizabeth Taylor sold for more than $183 million, Christie's auction house said Thursday, via the Associated Press. The most expensive item was Vincent van Gogh's landscape "Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Remy," which sold for $16 million.
*
John T. Sargent, who oversaw Doubleday & Company's expansion from a family-controlled book publisher to an industry giant, died at age 87.
*
British science fiction writer John Christopher, author of the popular "Tripods" trilogy, died at age 89.
*
Spy novelist Dorothy Gilman, author of "The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax," died at age 88.
]]>
Click to enlarge.
Kalamandalam Radhakrishnan touches up his make-up before his Ottanthullal performance Thursday at the Soorya Festival in Ahmedabad, India. Ottanthullal is a type of classical performing art from Kerala, India, featuring dance and storytelling. Photo by Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images.
]]>Rothko died in 1970. His life has been turned into art in the play "Red," written by John Logan. Staged first in 2009, "Red" is now at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in a production directed by Robert Falls.
Actor Edward Gero plays the role of Rothko alongside Patrick Andrews as Rothko's assistant.
I spoke to Gero last week about his role:
A transcript is after the jump.
]]> Mark Rothko was one of the giants of American art in the 20th century, known for his luminous abstract paintings, rectangular fields of color and light, which for many had an almost spiritual quality to them. Rothko died in 1970. His life has been turned into art in the play "Red," written by John Logan. Staged first in 2009, "Red" is now at the Arena Stage in Washington in a production directed by Roberts Falls. Actor Edward Gero plays the role of Rothko alongside Patrick Andrews as Rothko's assistant. Edward Gero joins me now, and Ed, hello. I should say we're good friends, we're old friends.EDWARD GERO: We are. Yes, we are.
JEFFREY BROWN: Of a few years. Nice to see you here.
EDWARD GERO: It's great to be here.
JEFFREY BROWN: This is a historical character in our own lifetimes.
EDWARD GERO: Yes.
JEFFREY BROWN: Is it different for you in the preparation?
EDWARD GERO: Well, it is a bit different, because of biographical and historical context it really requires some research on getting the biographical story clear and learning from that, finding character traits that might become clear in the reading. I read the Breslin biography, the definitive, spent time with the paintings, met students of Rothko who live in the area to get a sense. I've done a couple of other biographical characters. I did Nixon a few years ago here in Washington and Salieri is also a historical character, so they're fascinating to do, and I think you get to combine the imagination of creating a physical life. There's no film of him, there are only iconic photographs, so it's an interesting process.
JEFFREY BROWN: Because there was a major Rothko exhibition here a few years ago, which I did a story on, so I'm familiar with some of the biographical text you're talking about. He was not a pleasant man is what comes through. I mean, he was in many ways a very difficult man.
EDWARD GERO: Exactly.
JEFFREY BROWN: And you have to make us care about him.
EDWARD GERO: Well, it's interesting. When I particularly spoke to his student -- there's a woman here who studied with him at the Brooklyn College -- and she said he was a really warm, empathetic human being, and I thought, How do I reconcile that? But this personal experience was quite different from the stories I'd read in the book. So it was trying to find those values in the script, and I think that comes across in some small way in his relationship with the assistant.
JEFFREY BROWN: Well, let's look at a clip. Do you want to set this up? This is you and your assistant.
EDWARD GERO: Yeah, we're just about ready to prime the canvas and we're talking about his frustration about people not understanding how to look at the work and the sort of shallow approach that most people who are buying his works may take.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right, let's look at this clip from Red.
[CLIP]
JEFFREY BROWN: Now, there's a lot of humor in that clip, but it gets to the real drama of the piece of this question of the purpose of art, the value of art in a commercial society, and this focuses on one episode, right, when he was given a commission to do a series of paintings.
EDWARD GERO: Yeah, this was the largest commission in the 20th century at the time, to do about 500 or 600 square feet of canvas for the Seagram Building designed by Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe, and it was $35,000 commission, which was a lot of money in 1957. So, yes, he was struggling with this, how we value art and what we want to do with it.
JEFFREY BROWN: I have always thought that one of the hardest things to do in art, in film and theater and books, sometimes is to capture the creative process itself. Now here's what - and I think of various examples where it's sort of unsuccessfully done. Here it works. You're sort of seeing it happen.
EDWARD GERO: We see the canvases being stretched, we see the stretchers being built, the paint being mixed. There's always activity during the play and sort of a multitasking thing. We're talking about Nietzsche and the birth of tragedy while we're mixing paint, putting up canvases, and at the center of the piece is, of course, the sort of burst of painting that happens where we both prime the canvas, which is a great moment to play.
JEFFREY BROWN: Yeah, I'll bet, did all of this -- sort of as you say 'work' aspects to it -- did that help you?
EDWARD GERO: Oh, there's no question about it. I spent some time talking with painters and how to paint, how he held the brush, how he mixed the paint and so forth. But it physically links us to the reality of the event. There was one moment we did where in the beginning of the play actually knocked over a bucket of paint that we were going to use later in the play, and I thought, 'What are we going to do now?' Well the good news was I heard the prop man running back stage to mix another bucket, but Ken, Patrick Andrews, I just tossed him a couple of towels and he just went about cleaning up. Just incorporated it into the evening.
JEFFREY BROWN: You know, maybe because I've been able to watch you over a number of years as an actor I can ask, how does each role, leading up to this one, allow you to grow? What is it that you're aspiring too?
EDWARD GERO: That's a great question. I've had the opportunity to play these very complex, interesting, troubled men, artists -- musician in Salieri, Nixon, Scrooge -- it's a kind of thing that you hope to have happen in a lifetime in the theater where you train and hopefully these opportunities will come where you get to play these great, troubled, complex human beings. And I'm very grateful for this opportunity to do that. With this particular role, there's a little bit of the Chicago, what I would call the Chicago aesthetic. Being Italian I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve a little bit and I think maybe I do that in performance but --
JEFFREY BROWN: What is the Chicago aesthetic?
EDWARD GERO: Well, I think it's a real aversion to any kind of sentimentality, that people have emotion, of course, but just get on with it, you have to survive the winter, they've worked in the slaughter houses or the railroad, there's a real working toughness. That's my sense. I might be imagining it, but that's what I took from it. And I learned how to incorporate that in the role. It was a little bit sentimental, I think. Some of the press had said that in Chicago, and I sort of took that in a little bit and adjusted that along the course of the run and now here in Washington. But he's just fierce, and it's a really interesting thing to play. It seems more simple, but in a way I think the audiences get to come inside a little bit more and bring their own -- like the art -- bring their own experience, their own emotion, to what's happening inside Rothko. It doesn't mean that I don't work on those things, but I don't have to show it as much and it's been a real interesting journey.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Edward Gero as Mark Rothko in "Red." Ed, it's nice to talk to you.
EDWARD GERO: Thanks, Jeff.
]]>
Click to enlarge.
Stormtroopers in London promote Friday's release of "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace 3D." Photo by Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images.
]]>Starting in the late-1960s, Swedish journalists traveled to the United States to document the anti-war and Black Power movements. Premiering Thursday , Independent Lens will air "The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975," which combines music, the journalists' original 16mm footage, much of it never seen until now, and contemporary audio interviews from leading African-American artists, activists, musicians and scholars:
Watch Looking Back at the Black Power Movement on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.
NYC-ARTS is the new name of the WNET program formerly known as SundayArts. The new website and weekly magazine program, which airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at noon in the New York City area, made its debut last week:
MN Original profiles Christopher Poor, founder of Arms and Armor. Poor and his artisans research, model and create pieces for theaters around the world, including Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, as well as many museum and private collections, feature films and television productions:
WHYY's "Friday Arts" for February looks at Pennsylvania Hospital's "Flowers to Pharmacy" exhibition, profiles Suzie Brown, a cardiologist who has found a second career as a singer-songwriter, and explores the first major exhibition devoted to Henry Ossawa Tanner's work in 20 years:
Watch Friday Arts for February 2012 on PBS. See more from Friday Arts.
]]>
Click to enlarge.
A visitor looks at "Haran II" by Frank Stella, which is part of the exhibition, "Guggenheim Collection: The American Avant-Garde 1945-1980," at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. The exhibition, running through May 6, showcases more than 60 works produced after World War II from the Guggenheim museum's permanent collection. Photo by Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images.
]]>The thin thread that holds us here, tethered / or maybe tied, together,
what / do you call it--telephone? horizon? song? Listen / to yourself
sing, We are all god's children / we are all gods, we walk the earth /
sometimes, two sails inside us sometimes / beating, our bodies the
bottle, a ship inside each / until one day, for no reason, it sails--
hello? / damn phone--until one day it sails / out of sight, until one
day it cuts out of / earshot, bye-bye muttered into your cupped palm,
bye-bye / boat, bye-bye rain--Look / maybe this is the place we've been /
waiting for, maybe this place / is the day, inside us, inside each /
corpuscle, the day, that day, everyday is / inside, my body, your body,
everyday is / this thread, everyday you said, come / get me, everyday
you said, it's been way too long / you said, bye-bye, bye-bye, not a day /
went by, the thin, the thread, so thin, this thread, are you still / here,
is it still, your heart, is it well / well welling?
Nick Flynn is a poet, playwright and memoirist whose most recent book is "The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands" (2011, Graywolf Press), a collection of poems that are linked to his latest memoir, "The Ticking is the Bomb" (2010, W. W. Norton & Company). He teaches creative writing at the University of Houston.
Click to enlarge.
Children participate in Monday's celebrations of the Chinese Lantern Festival in Zibo, China. The Lantern Festival marks the last day of the Lunar New Year celebrations. Photo by Hong Wu/Getty Images.
]]>
I recently had a chance to see a performance of Mark Morris' "L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato" at Washington's Kennedy Center, a piece he first presented in 1988 and that is widely considered one of the masterpieces of dance in our era. Earlier today, I talked to Morris about the piece, his company and what he's working on now. He joined me on the phone from Tulsa, Okla.:
Here's an except of "L'Allegro," a section titled "The Walking Duet":
Editor's note: Jeffrey Brown's conversation with Mark Morris from 2001 can be found here.
]]>
Don Cornelius, the creator and host of "Soul Train," died this week at the age of 72. The New York Times quotes Lonnie G. Bunch III, the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture: "He was able to provide the country a window into black youth culture and black music... For young black teenagers like myself, it gave a sense of pride and a sense that the culture we loved could be shared and appreciated nationally."
*
Websites devoted to art sales stand to become heavyweights in the wheeling and dealing of fine art, reaching out to investors and forming partnerships with highly-regarded galleries and museums, via The New York Times. The Wall Street Journal reports that art values and sales in 2011 rose at major auction houses.
*
NBC is launching its own publishing house exclusively for e-books, via Wired.
*
The Rhode Island School of Design and the U.S. Department of State are launching an initiative to promote cultural artistic exchange, via The New York Observer.
*
Shukree Hassan Tilghman's documentary 'More Than a Month' follows his campaign to end Black History Month, celebrated each February. Tilghman argues that the designated month sets African-American history apart from the rest of the country's past, cramming the study and recognition of African-American contributions into a few weeks. The film features numerous opinions and interviews from around the country, via ITVS.
]]> *Netflix is developing five original series, available only to costumers who stream video. The first of the series, Steven Van Zandt's 'Lilyhammer', will be available Monday, via The Wall Street Journal.
*
Architect Frank Gehry is designing a new jazz venue in Los Angeles pro bono, via The Los Angeles Times.
*
Chicago's Navy Pier is about to be redesigned, and the five finalists in the competition revealed their plans for the site this week, via WBEZ.
*
Camilla Williams, thought to be the first African-American woman to perform with a major opera company in the United States, died this weekend at the age of 92.
*
Gothic surrealist Dorothea Tanning died this week at the age of 101.
*
Influential artist Mike Kelley died this week at the age of 57.
*
Opera star and Tony Award-winner Patricia Neway died this week at the age of 92.
]]>
Click to enlarge.
Brazilian dancer Edson Barbosa warms up for her performance Thursday at the Prix de Lausanne 40th International Ballet Competition in Lausanne, Switzerland. The international competition is open to dancers aged 15 to 18 who are not yet professionals. Winners receive scholarships granting free tuition in a world renowned dance school or company. Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images.
]]>
In 1996, Wislawa Szymborska was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. She was little known outside of her native Poland, but the award helped make her a major figure in modern world literature. Szymborska died Wednesday in Poland at age 88. Earlier today, I spoke to Szymborska's longtime translator, Clare Cavanagh, professor of Slavic languages and comparative literature at Northwestern University, about the poet's life and work:
A transcript will be posted soon.
Editor's note: In 1996, poet Robert Hass appeared on the NewsHour to talk about Szymborska after she won the Nobel Prize. You can read that transcript here. And in 1999, poet Robert Pinsky read one of Szymborska's poems on the program. You can find that here.
Photo by Mariusz Kubik.
]]>
Click to enlarge.
Officials at Spain's Prado Museum said Wednesday that a "Mona Lisa" copy owned by the museum was almost certainly painted by one of Leonardo da Vinci's pupils alongside da Vinci himself as he created the original that now hangs in the Louvre.
According to The Art Newspaper, "[W]hat is most exciting about the Prado replica is what it reveals about Leonardo's original. In the Madrid copy there are areas that are better preserved than in the Louvre painting. The replica gives us more detail of the spindles of the chair, the frill on the edge of the fabric on Lisa's chest and the semi-transparent veil around her left shoulder, arm and elbow."
You can compare the copy and the original "Mona Lisa" in this interactive on the Guardian's website.
Photo by Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images.
]]>