http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/ en Copyright 2009 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:45:02 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification For more than 40 years and in nearly 40 films, director "Frederick Wiseman":http://www.zipporah.com/ has documented a wide range of people's everyday routines and the goings-on inside institutions. He's been a fly on the wall at a mental institution, a suburban high school, an urban hospital, and the Idaho State Legislature. A "big ballet fan," and a sometimes-resident of Paris, Wiseman recently turned his camera to one of France's most important cultural institutions: the "Paris Opera Ballet":http://opera-de-paris.fr/. His new film, "La Danse," is currently playing at the "Film Forum":http://www.filmforum.org/ in New York and will be broadcast later on PBS. He talked to me by phone from Boston.           JEFFREY BROWN: Frederick Wiseman, hello to you. FREDERICK WISEMAN: Hello to you. JEFFREY BROWN: Tell me how, first, how did this project come about? Why pick a ballet company? Why pick this company? FREDERICK WISEMAN: I was living in Paris, as I have for much of the last 8 years and I'm a big ballet fan and in 1992, I'd made a movie about the American Ballet Theater and when I was in Paris, I went to the ballet a lot and I thought it was time to make another ballet movie. JEFFREY BROWN: So how do you make something like this happen? I mean you famously look at all kinds of different institutions. How do you approach them? What do you offer? What kind of negotiations are there? FREDERICK WISEMAN: In this case, I simply called up Brigitte Lefevre, who's the head of the ballet company at the Paris Opera and asked if I could come see her. I went to see her. I told her what I wanted to do. She accepted the idea right away and she -- her permission opened all the doors for me and then -- then I, of course, had to get the money. (Laughter.) I was able to get the money partially from PBS and partially from France. And I went ahead and made the film. My original conversation with her was in the spring of 2007 and I shot the film in the fall of 2007 because at that moment, the repertory included both modern and classical ballets. So I had a chance to show the full range and diversity of the choice of ballet and the talents of the dancers. JEFFREY BROWN: Yeah, I want to understand what doing a film like this entails. Before you shoot, I mean, how much prep or research goes into it? How much time do you spend there without the cameras? FREDERICK WISEMAN: I spend a day. JEFFREY BROWN: A day? That's it? **[Full transcript after the jump]**]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-frederick-wiseman-director-of-la-danse.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-frederick-wiseman-director-of-la-danse.html brown film film_featured performing conversation dance documentarian documentary film filmmaking paris Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:45:02 -0500 Below you can watch Wu and Zhang Ximin perform a folk song and also extended interviews with Wu and Clive Gillenson, Carnegie Hall's executive director, oversaw the "Ancient Paths, Modern Voices festival":http://www.carnegiehall.org/chinafestival/.     ]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/thursday-on-the-newshour-wu-man.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/thursday-on-the-newshour-wu-man.html brown culture legro music music_featured asia asian china chinese classical music folk new york Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:00:45 -0500 " [Watch a slideshow of moments from Jeanne-Claude and Christo's career together.]":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/art/jeanne-claude/index.html?type=flash     Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installations were never discreet and often so massive that they provoked accusations of profligacy or narcissism. In Northern California in the early '70s, residents of Sonoma and Marin Counties objected strenuously to the couple's plan to rig an "18-foot-high, 24-mile-long fence of nylon fabric":http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/rf.shtml. More recently, their "plan to cover the Arkansas River":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/09/-this-is-the-second-part-of.html with fabric upset some who feared the invasion of hundreds of thousands of visitors, even spawning an opposition group called "Rags Over the Arkansas River." Nonetheless, by virtue of their unique method of fundraising, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were relatively immune to naysayers. In a "recent interview with Art Beat":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/09/-this-is-the-second-part-of.html, Jeanne-Claude said that their work existed "without justification, like a poem." "The passing of Jeanne-Claude must be especially cruel for Christo, who was so very close both personally and as a team," "Philippe de Montebello":http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/685, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said in an email. De Montebello was instrumental in the implementation of "The Gates" in Central Park. "The two together were among the most inventive and marking artists of the last 40 years, and one can only hope that Christo will find the strength to continue their work. She remains his muse," he said. It's unclear how Jeanne-Claude's death will affect their two works in progress ("Over the River" in southern Colorado and the Mastaba in the United Arab Emirates), but in a statement on "their Web site":http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/, Christo affirmed that he "is committed to honor the promise they made to each other many years ago," and that "the art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude will continue." **Editor's Note:** Art Beat talked to Jeanne-Claude and Christo this summer in a two-part series on a major installation project under development in Colorado. "Click here":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/09/over-the-river.html for Part 1. "Click here":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/09/-this-is-the-second-part-of.html for Part 2. ]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/jeanne-claude-74-christos-muse-and-collaborator.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/jeanne-claude-74-christos-muse-and-collaborator.html hopkins visual environment jeanne-claude obit Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:30:00 -0500 On Wednesday, prolific songwriter and singer "Johnny Mercer":http://www.johnnymercer.com/ would have turned 100. In his lifetime, he worked with more than 200 collaborators and churned out lyrics for more than 1,500 songs for both Broadway and the silver screen, which were made famous by stars like Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire and Louis Armstrong. He was also a founder of recording label "Capitol Records":http://www.capitolrecords.com/. To celebrate the anniversary, a new "complete collection of Mercer's lyrics":http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307265197 has just been published. One of the scholars who worked on that collection, Robert Kimball, spoke with me by phone from New York about Mercer's legacy and the project. **For more on Mercer,** "check out this story from NPR Music.":http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120541054 **And here's "Moon River," one of Johnny Mercer's most famous songs (with music by Henry Mancini), sung by Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," for which he won an Academy Award:** ]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-robert-kimball-author-of-complete-lyrics-of-johnny-mercer.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-robert-kimball-author-of-complete-lyrics-of-johnny-mercer.html brown music performing_featured America book lyricist music songwriter Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0500 Artist Jeanne-Claude, who with her husband Christo, created public art installations around the world, has died. She was 74. Her family said she died Wednesday night at a New York hospital from complications of a brain aneurysm. Most recently, in February 2005, Jeanne-Claude and Christo created the art installation in Central Park called "The Gates." Constructed from more than 7,500 metal gates draped with orange fabric, city officials estimated that the project brought in about 4 million visitors and generated $254 million. The Associated Press reported that Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke with Christo on Thursday morning and offered condolences on behalf of all New Yorkers.               **Editor's Note:** Art Beat talked to Jeanne-Claude and Christo this summer for a two-part series on a major installation project under development in Colorado. "Click here":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/09/over-the-river.html for Part 1. "Click here":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/09/-this-is-the-second-part-of.html for Part 2. We'll have more "on the life and work of Jeanne-Claude later today":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/jeanne-claude-74-christos-muse-and-collaborator.html.]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/artist-jeanne-claude-has-died-at-74.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/artist-jeanne-claude-has-died-at-74.html arts desk finnegan legro visual environment jeanne-claude obit Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:06:22 -0500 **Editor's Note:** "Jeffrey Brown talked to Lynch":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/03/conversation-robert-lynch-president-americans-for-the-arts.html in March about the state of arts funding across the country. We'll have more on the health care debate coming up soon on Art Beat, including interviews with artists about how they manage their health care. You can also read more about the national debate on our "Rx for Reform":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/health/healthreform/ page. ]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/the-picture-of-health-artists-and-the-health-insurance-debate.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/the-picture-of-health-artists-and-the-health-insurance-debate.html culture culture_featured finnegan legro americans for the arts arts health care lynch non-profit Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:41:40 -0500 Holding out for the course of a career that spans more than 40 years, photographer Robert Bergman refused to compromise on when and where he would hold his first show -- standing by a personal philosophy of "getting it right," he patiently waited for the right time. When it came this year, the 65 year-old artist landed not just one exhibition, but three. "'Robert Bergman: Portraits, 1986-1995,'":http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/bergmaninfo.shtm which opened in October at the National Gallery of Art, showcases 33 portraits Bergman took while traveling around American cities. In addition, 'Robert Bergman: Selected Portraits' is at "P.S.1":http://ps1.org/ in Queens (a branch of the Museum of Modern Art), as well as 'Robert Bergman: A Kind of Rapture' at the "Yossi Milo":http://www.yossimilo.com/ gallery in New York City. Born in New Orleans in 1944 and raised in Minnesota, Bergman began to explore photography at around the age of 5, snapping photos and developing his own negatives before he gave it up as an adolescent. At 20, when he dropped out of college, he "followed [his] instincts again." He picked the work back up, and hasn't put his 35mm Nikon down since. Part of a project Bergman undertook to document people within the American cityscape, the subjects in the photographs at the National Gallery are all individuals he encountered within a 12-year period of cross-country travel during the 1980s and 90s. When he encountered people that interested him, he would get out of the car to ask permission to take their picture; rarely did they say no. The portraits feature individuals of all ages, races and socio-economic class, whose facial expressions seem to reveal complex emotions and the physical evidence of struggle and life experience. Bergman also hones in on posture, gesture and a sense of form. "I think that people who look at the imagery carefully will begin to see that psychological complexity of the people that he is depicting," said Sarah Greenough, the senior curator of photography at the National Gallery of Art, and the curator of Bergman's exhibit. **Art Beat talked to curator Sarah Greenough about the impact of Bergman's work and the variety of emotions the portraits reveal.** For his 1998 book of portraits, "A Kind of Rapture," Bergman approached Toni Morrison to write the introduction. But Morrison politely declined, stating she wanted to focus on her own work. So Bergman persisted and waited, and finally received what he wanted: an essay called 'The Fisherwoman,' a tale reflecting on "the other" and universal humanity. "Occasionally there arises an event or a moment that one knows immediately will forever mark a place in the history of artistic endeavor," wrote Morrison. "Robert Bergman's portraits represent such a moment, such an event." Despite the publication of his monograph, there had been still no literal event for Bergman, no right moment for his first show -- until now. "I think the idea of an exhibition...gradually evolved over time," explained Sarah Greenough. Bergman is hesitant to offer an artist statement. "I don't know how to elicit an artist statement from myself...I just don't have an interest in limiting the response to the work." "Many artists are hesitant to define what they want people to get from their works because each person will approach it with a completely different life experience, a completely different understanding and one doesn't want to limit it and prescribe it ahead of time," says Greenough. Bergman is willing, though, to talk about what he, as a viewer, "got" from the work of another photographer. Robert Frank's famous series "'The Americans'":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/01/robert-frank-an-outsider-looking-in.html had a particular impact on Bergman's work, and on his philosophy regarding instinct and intuition. "Frank's influence was profound...He confirmed what I felt as a child -- both in photography and in archery -- which was that, first, one had to have a vision. And second, that the faculties of being human that serve that vision are those of intuition and emotion and sense of form." "I just went on instinct," says Bergman. "I trust intuition...Always, I go on instinct." _'Robert Bergman: Portraits, 1986-1995,' is at the National Gallery of Art until January 10, 2010; P.S.1's 'Robert Bergman: Selected Portraits' is up until January 4, 2010, and 'Robert Bergman: A Kind of Rapture' at the Yossi Milo gallery runs through January 9, 2010._]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/a-photography-debut-65-years-in-the-making.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/a-photography-debut-65-years-in-the-making.html visual visual_featured wilson photography portrait washington dc Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:25:23 -0500 Kovacs and Zsigmond helped each other throughout their careers, offering both moral and professional support. Their similar cinematic sensibilities were a direct result of their shared past. "I got the idea of how to light 'The Hired Hand' from the villages in Hungary where there was no electricity and they used kerosene lamps," Zsigmond says in tonight's documentary. "Creating the mood is more important than making everything look beautiful. Laszlo and I sort of created the _nouvelle vague_ in the U.S.; simple lighting, but more realistic." Their combined resumes read like a nearly comprehensive catalog of the best of independent American cinema at its epoch: Kovacs shot "Easy Rider" and then "Five Easy Pieces" in 1970. Zsigmond followed with Robert Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" in 1971 and "Deliverance" in 1972. They worked with Steven Spielberg, Peter Bogdanovich, Brian De Palma, Norman Jewison, and Mark Rydell, among many other of the greatest directors from that period, with whom and for whom, these two men helped shape the look and feel of the American film. "Check your local listings for the time.":http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/broadcast.html]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/tonight-on-pbs-no-subtitles-necessary.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/tonight-on-pbs-no-subtitles-necessary.html film pollock cinema cinematography documentary filmmaking pbs Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:19:00 -0500 Kingston settles on your skin, the grit of wood-fire and exhaust on your body; you know sin, the pleasure of untrammeled lust. Kingston is green in November, so much rain; the water creeps to the surface. I remember the taste of june plum seeds. Most of my friends are dying-- the thing is they know it, and the others are busy nursing the dying: God's cruel edits. So many saints frighten me and I grow silent, disease has a name: HIV/AIDS. We are caught up in a breeze that grows to a growl crossing the water, dragging the belly of the sea--a howl shattering the black evening. I stand in the storm, let its battering break me; I know now every form of death; no more mystery here. The eye passes mutely; and while the earth vomits and shingles cartwheel around me. I doubt it all; the conspiracy of death. I will live to see the wasting of my flesh; my last breath will be in a calm season. They will know my sins, every betrayal; those I killed, those whose voices begin whisper to me until tears come, until I pray to slip away like night, a frail man limping towards morning light.   "Kwame Dawes":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/profiles/poet_dawes.html is director of the "South Carolina Poetry Initiative":http://www.sc.edu/poetry/index.shtml and the "University of South Carolina Arts Institute":http://artsinstitute.sc.edu/index.shtml, where he also teaches as distinguished poet in residence. He also blogs for the "Poetry Foundation":http://www.poetryfoundation.org/ and serves as programming director for the "Calabash International Literary Festival":http://www.calabashfestival.org, which takes place each May in Jamaica. Recently, "Dawes teamed up with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec08/jamaica_10-07.html to create a multimedia Web site called "'HOPE: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica.'":http://www.livehopelove.com/ The interactive site pairs his poetry with music, essays and video from people living with the disease and their caretakers.]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/weekly-poem-storm.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/weekly-poem-storm.html arts desk literature poetry_featured AIDS hiv jamaica poem poet poetry Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:51:57 -0500 ]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-writer-barbara-kingsolver.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-writer-barbara-kingsolver.html brown literature literature_featured communism literature mexico novel Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:28:54 -0500 ]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/herblocks-sketches-of-history-on-exhibition.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/herblocks-sketches-of-history-on-exhibition.html arts desk bowman culture fritz visual_featured cartoons media newspapers politics washington washington dc Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:58:26 -0500   **Editor's note:** For more on the discussion about recovering art looted by the Nazis, you can watch "this conversation with Stewart Eizenstat,":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/07/conversation-stuart-eizenstat.html who led the U.S. delegation at the recent Holocaust Era Assests Conference held in Prague this year. And for another story for Veterans Day, "watch an interview with Maya Lin,":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/05/maya-lin-extended-interviews.html the architect who made her spectacular debut in 1982 with the work she's still best known for: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-robert-edsel.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-robert-edsel.html brown culture europe nazis war Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:16:55 -0500 "Sesame Street":http://www.sesamestreet.org/ celebrates its 40th anniversary Tuesday, and there at nearly the beginning was "Sonia Manzano":http://www.soniamanzano.com, who was cast as "Maria" in the early '70s, becoming one of the first Hispanic characters on television. After ten years as in that role, Manzano began writing scripts for the series and has earned 15 Emmy Awards as part of the Sesame Street writing staff. I talked to her by phone Tuesday about the early days of the show and about working with and writing for children: ]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-sesame-streets-maria.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/conversation-sesame-streets-maria.html brown culture film_featured children conversation jeffrey brown pbs television Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:10:24 -0500 ]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/weekly-poems-on-sesame-streets-40th-birthday-kermit-and-cookie-monster.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/weekly-poems-on-sesame-streets-40th-birthday-kermit-and-cookie-monster.html culture legro literature children pbs poem poetry Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:17:18 -0500 Nostalgia for the East -- or _ostalgie_, a portmanteau combining the words _ost_ ('east') and _nostalgie_ ('nostalgia') -- has taken hold in contemporary, unified Germany. A symbol of the former East Germany, the Trabant used to be the German Democratic Republic's most popular car. But production ceased in 1991, two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, 20 years after the reunification, drivers will now ferry you around the city in one of the plastic-sheathed relics, in a kind of safari-style homage to pre-1989 culture. Trabants -- along with Spee laundry detergent, Vita Cola, and even the little figure on traffic lights known as the Ampelmann -- have reappeared in recent years, hearkening back to an era that most agree flopped politically, but still resonates with a generation of Germans disenchanted with what they view as some of the failed promises of German reunification. "Two years after the _Wende_, or the 'turning point' in 1989, these East Germans started to feel a bit of disillusionment with the effects of reunification," explains historian and German consumer culture expert Prof. Katherine Pence. "They had had secure jobs under the socialist regime and now they had to struggle in a very competitive marketplace."       A scholar at Baruch College at the City University of New York, Pence sat down with Art Beat to discuss the particularities of East German design and culture, and how the products of the past continue to play a role in contemporary Germany. ]]> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/20-years-after-the-fall-nostalgia-builds-for-east-german-design.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/11/20-years-after-the-fall-nostalgia-builds-for-east-german-design.html culture culture_featured fee finnegan berlin consumer design germany product Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:27:39 -0500