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Shoot the Lobster opens an exhibition of works by Brunette Coleman
NEW YORK, NY.- Shoot the Lobster is presenting THE SAME ROOM. Before her death in 2016, Julie Becker’s life's work reflected the dilapidated rooms she lived in across Los Angeles. Through sculptural maquettes that resemble her numerous apartments, or as photographs of doll-houses, her series ‘The Same Room’ – which lends its title to this group show – depicts identically composed intersections of interiors. Varying in their decoration from one to the next, each room appears staged, their means of production unclear. Writer Kirsty Bell wrote that ‘the interior in pragmatic terms is the vessel of experience’. The grouping of works in the exhibition all depict interiors and facades; glimpses into what we leave behind. In Julie Becker's and Sylvie Hayes-Wallace’s, the interiors are empty vessels seemingly devoid of human ... More

No snoozing here: This 'Sleeping Beauty' is gearing up for a wild ride
NEW YORK, NY.- It was the first time the cast members of “Sleeping Beauty” were rehearsing in their costumes, and they were amped up. “The energy is palpable!” director Julie Atlas Muz said late last month as the actors gathered onstage at the Abrons Arts Center. They would need that energy, too. “We run like a steam train when it goes well,” said writer Mat Fraser, who is also Muz’s husband. “And that’s how it has to be.” This “Sleeping Beauty,” after all, is a pantomime, a British theatrical holiday tradition that, at its best, is fast and furious and hilarious. Muz’s first time at a panto, as they are called, was a revelation. “I was like, ‘What is this?’” she said. “I thought it was like a punk-rock concert for kids.” Fraser, who is British, introduced Muz, a Detroit native, to the daffy world of pantos — broadly comic versions of classic fairy tales that incorporate such staples as cheeky topical ... More

Review: Climate protests upstage a Met Opera debut
NEW YORK, NY.- “Wolfram, wake up!” came a shout from the highest box seats of the Metropolitan Opera. “The spring is polluted!” At first it seemed like an odd thing to throw at the character of Wolfram in Richard Wagner’s “Tannhäuser,” which returned to the Met on Thursday night, with that role sung by the great baritone Christian Gerhaher in his company debut. (Indeed, his arrival was what made the night notable to begin with.) But that cry was the start of an unbroken stream of climate grievances, designed to coincide with Wolfram’s description, during the singing contest midway through Act II, of love as a miraculous spring. “The spring is tainted!” the protester up in the Family Circle continued, then dropped a banner that said, “No Opera on a Dead Planet.” Several more protesting voices emerged from the group Extinction Rebellion. Onstage, performers froze in place until the Met’ ... More

Madonna lived to tell
NEW YORK, NY.- Shining out from the Instagram slag heap, amid the endless artificial intelligence selfies and reaction reels, is an account so quiet in presence and noble in intention that it is sometimes hard to believe it exists. The account, The AIDS Memorial, is an evolving testament, told in photographs, videos and user stories, to lives lost to a devastating and, it can occasionally seem, forgotten epidemic. The stories and photos are of lovers, parents, children, relatives, acquaintances and friends taken by the disease, and they are edited — and more generally guided into existence — by one man, Stuart Armstrong, from his home outside Edinburgh, Scotland. To date, Armstrong has posted more than 11,000 of these tales, and if you are aware of them at all, that may owe to one woman: Madonna. The 65-year-old singer was ... More

When a princess runs the ball and rescues a timid boy
GLASGOW.- At a recent rehearsal of the Scottish Ballet, Marge Hendrick did something unusual for a ballerina. Running through a scene from “Cinders!,” a gender-bending new version of “Cinderella,” she grazed her partner Evan Loudon’s chin reassuringly as he looked down, unsure of himself. Then, Hendrick extended a hand to Loudon and paraded him around her, welcoming him to her world. It was an exact reversal of the gender dynamic that has long dominated ballet’s repertoire. Typically men are cast as confident, chivalrous princes, there to provide support to their female partners. “You lead the woman, you present the woman,” Loudon said in an interview after the rehearsal. “It’s the job in traditional ballets.” In this production, with choreography by Christopher Hampson, the artistic director of the Scottish Ballet, Loudon ... More

'David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive' spans six decades of his career showing life in South Africa
CHICATO, IL.- The The Art Institute of Chicago commenced David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive, on view since yesterday through March 25, 2024. Spanning six decades of Goldblatt’s career, this exhibition demonstrates his commitment to showing the realities of daily life in South Africa without pretense. Known for his nuanced portrayals of life during and after apartheid, Goldblatt devoted himself to documenting his country and its people. His impetus for photographing South African social relations in everyday encounters was deeply informed by reflection on his relative position of privilege in a racially segregated society. This presentation shows early black-and-white work alongside color photographs made after the end of apartheid, highlighting how Goldblatt’s perspective shifted over time in response to South Africa’s political ... More

Academy Art Museum hosting 'A Fire That No Water Could Put Out' and 'Sebastian Martorana: Public/Private'
EASTON, MD.- The Academy Art Museum is currently conducting the winter exhibitions: A Fire That No Water Could Put Out: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement from the Collection of The High Museum and a solo exhibition by Baltimore-based artist Sebastian Martorana entitled Public/Private. An artist talk for Martorana was held on Friday, November 17. 'A Fire That No Water Could Put Out: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement from the Collection of The High Museum': Taking its title from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech before his assassination in 1968, A Fire That No Water Could Put Out: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement from the Collection of The High Museum reflects ... More

Ben Woolfitt 'Blue Passage' solo exhibition shows new paintings and drawings in NY
NEW YORK, NY.- David Richard Gallery is showing Blue Passage, a solo exhibition and debut of new paintings and drawings by artist Ben Woolfitt in his first presentation with the gallery. Always exploring non-objective abstraction and inspired by Color Field painting, Woolfitt’s process-driven paintings begin and end with surface and color. These newest works start with waves and swaths of gesso that provide the first step in his process. Applying pigment in layers with each mark and gesture in response to the prior additions, the colors and imagery organically evolve filling the canvas and running off the edges in every direction. The variety of media, including acrylic paint, dry pigment, metallic leaf, and graphite and the canvas filling, all over painting approach makes the work dynamic, full of intrigue with the color and imagery extending ... More

The Huntington's presentation of 'Art for the People' is 3rd and last stop for the traveling exhibition
SAN MARINO, CA.- “Art for the People: WPA-Era Paintings from the Dijkstra Collection,” includes 19 striking works on view in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. Drawn from the collection of Sandra and Bram Dijkstra, “Art for the People” and its accompanying catalog explore representational paintings created in the United States between the 1929 stock market crash and World War II. Organized by the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California; the Oceanside Museum of Art in Oceanside, California; and The Huntington Library, the exhibition focuses on federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) artists of the 1930s and early 1940s who were employed by the government to help stimulate the post-Depression economy. More than 10,000 artists participated, creating works that represented the nation and its people ... More

Review: A shady documentary becomes a weapon of war in 'Spain'
NEW YORK, NY.- “Financing is complicated when it comes to the arts,” says a low-budget filmmaker in Jen Silverman’s “Spain.” That’s hardly news, but the clever if murky play, which had its world premiere Thursday at Second Stage Theater, offers a solution: Let the Soviets foot the bill. In Silverman’s telling, the filmmaker, Joris Ivens, a Dutchman working in the United States, is already an undercover infiltrator for Soviet interests when the Spanish Civil War breaks out in 1936. Over bloody steak in a dim restaurant, his handler “offers” him the chance to make a big-budget pro-Republican documentary whose theme would be “the noble peasant crushed by the rich fascist.” The goal: to end American neutrality, overthrow Francisco Franco and change the world. The part about communizing the emergent republic by any means necessary ... More

Judge weighs in on bitter dispute between Daryl Hall and John Oates
NASHVILLE, TENN.- The nature of the dispute between Daryl Hall and John Oates, which had been obscured in sealed court documents, became clearer Thursday as one of pop music’s most recognizable and long-running duos put their fight in front of a judge in Nashville. Details of the collapse of the 50-year artistic collaboration and business partnership between the two had been trickling out for days in court papers submitted before Thursday’s hearing in Chancery Court, where Hall and Oates were represented by lawyers but did not appear. Hall, the lead singer and songwriter for many of the band’s hits, is arguing that Oates violated their contract by moving to sell his portion of one of their business partnerships without Hall’s approval. Hall’s lawyers went to court to block any sale while their business disagreement goes through ... More

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