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'Gun & Powder' review: Twin vigilantes stake claim to the American West
NEW YORK, NY.- The title of “Gun & Powder,” a thrillingly original new musical about mixed-race twin sisters who cut a path through Texas in 1893, refers to their travel essentials: a shrewd parting gift from their sharecropping mother and a touch of makeup to brighten their toasted-ivory complexions. The legend of Mary and Martha Clarke, who purportedly robbed white people while themselves passing for white, stretches back generations for the show’s book writer and lyricist, Angelica Chéri. She based this rousing Western, now playing at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, on her great-great-aunts. (“But you know how family stories do,” sings a gospel Greek chorus of narrators, “so we believe the story is mostly true.”) With a wide-ranging, powerhouse score by Ross Baum, “Gun & Powder” refashions ... More

Now open: The Estonian Pavilion at the Biennale Arte with Edith Karlson: Hora lupi
VENICE.- Estonia opened Hora lupi by Edith Karlson, the exhibition representing Estonia at the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia this year at Chiesa Santa Maria delle Penitenti. The exhibition remains open from 20 April to 24 November. The dramaturge of the exhibition is Eero Epner. The title, Hora lupi (hour of the wolf), refers to a mythical time before dawn, when things arise and disappear – an hour of deep darkness but also of transformation. It is believed to be the time of night when the most people are born and die. The exhibition’s central theme is the primitive urges of man in their banality and solemnity, explored through Karlson’s array of sculptures. The new works created for the exhibition are in direct dialogue with the historic interior of the 18th century church - no longer in use as a religious space - creating ... More

A collaborative exhibition exploring borderland narratives and cultural traditions
TUCSON, AZ.- The University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography and Poetry Center present The Place Where Clouds Are Formed, a collaborative exhibition exploring borderland narratives and cultural traditions. Spanning two venues—CCP's Alice Chaiten Baker Interdisciplinary Gallery and the Poetry Center—this exhibition delves into the intersection of spirituality, migration, and the impacts of policies on the Sonoran Desert borderlands through poems, photographs, sculpture, and mixed-media objects. On view from April 6 to August 31, 2024, and featuring more than 40 photos and 20 poems, the exhibition was curated by Denisse Brito, Jenna S. Green, and Julie Swarstad Johnson, with guidance from Ofelia Zepeda, Martín Zícari, and Gareth Smit. Translation support provided by Ron Geronimo (Tohono O'odham). Initiated ... More

'Stereophonic' review: Hitmakers rendered in sublime detail
NEW YORK, NY.- Peering behind the mystique of rock ’n’ roll has undeniable voyeuristic appeal. So there is an immediate thrill to seeing the mahogany-paneled control room and glassed-in sound booth that fill the Golden Theater stage, where “Stereophonic” opened Friday. But David Adjmi’s astonishing new play, with songs by former Arcade Fire member Will Butler, delivers far more than a dishy glimpse inside the recording studio during rock’s golden age. A fly-on-the-wall study of how people both need and viciously destroy each other, “Stereophonic” is a fiery family drama, as electrifying as any since “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Its real-time dissection of making music — a collaboration between flawed, gifted artists wrangled into unison — is ingeniously entertaining and an incisive meta commentary on the nature of art. The play is a staggering ... More

Peter Morgan turns his pen from 'The Crown' to the Kremlin
NEW YORK, NY.- Going from Princess Diana, a lovely icon who generated waves of sympathy, to Vladimir Putin, an icy villain who generates waves of disdain, might be difficult for some writers. Not Peter Morgan. After pulling back the curtain on the British royal family for six seasons of “The Crown,” Morgan was keen to move on. He had an idea for a play about the oligarchs who, in the 1990s, helped propel an obscure Putin to power and then had to watch as their Frankenstein changed the course of Russian history in a disastrous way. The resulting drama, “Patriots,” which opens on Broadway on Monday, offered Morgan a different way to approach recent history, and a new challenge: switching from the royals, who are household names but not ultimately very powerful, to oligarchs, who are superpowerful but not generally household names. ... More

University of Cincinnati presents exhibition on Renaissance women artists, collectors, and rulers
CINCINNATI, OH.- The University of Cincinnati’s Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlacter Library for Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning presents the exhibition “Rediscovering Catharina van Hemessen’s Scourging of Christ: Women Artists, Patrons, and Rulers in Renaissance Europe” from March 7 through April 30, 2024. This exhibition focuses on the Netherlandish painter Catharina van Hemessen’s Scourging of Christ, a jewel-like devotional work signed by the most famous female artist of the Northern Renaissance. Rarely on public display, this dynamic yet little-known narrative panel reveals Catharina’s originality, refined color palette, and adept rendering of the human form. The painting, recently redated to 1556 through technical examination, unites the exhibition’s three themes: female artists, female patrons and collectors, and female rulers in Renai ... More

Daniel C. Dennett, widely read and fiercely debated philosopher, dies at 82
NEW YORK, NY.- Daniel C. Dennett, one of the most widely read and debated American philosophers, whose prolific works explored consciousness, free will, religion and evolutionary biology, died Friday in Portland, Maine. He was 82. His death, at Maine Medical Center, was caused by complications of interstitial lung disease, his wife, Susan Bell Dennett, said. He lived in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Daniel Dennett combined a wide range of knowledge with an easy, often playful writing style to reach a lay public, avoiding the impenetrable concepts and turgid prose of many other contemporary philosophers. Beyond his more than 20 books and scores of essays, his writings even made their way into the theater and onto the concert stage. But Dennett, who never shirked controversy, often crossed swords with other famed scholars and thinkers. An outspoken atheist, he at times ... More

Peruvian Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia presents COSMIC TRACES
VENICE.- The 60th International Art Exhibition of the Biennale of Venice will take place from Saturday 20 April to Sunday 24 November, 2024, curated by Adriano Pedrosa under the title FOREIGNERS EVERYWHERE. At the Peruvian Pavilion, the chosen project to embody the essence of the country is entitled COSMIC TRACES by the esteemed artist Roberto Huarcaya (1959 | Lima, Peru). This exhibition is curated by Alejandro León Cannock (1980 | Lima, Peru), and benefits from the curatorial insights of Joan Fontcuberta (1955 | Barcelona, Spain), Andrea Jösch (1973 | Santiago, Chile), and Amanda Antunes (1986 | São Paulo, Brazil). The exhibition project introduces an installation that harmoniously brings together a collection of remarkable works: A monumental photogram meticulously conceived by artist Roberto Huarcaya in the heart ... More

Pangolin offers an insight into the extraordinary work of Scottish land artist Julie Brook
LONDON.- ‘What Is It That Will Last?’ offers an insight into the extraordinary work of Scottish land artist Julie Brook. Capturing the sculptures she creates in wild and inaccessible locations around the globe through film, photography and drawing, this exhibition explores Brook’s deep and immersive relationship with each landscape and the natural materials she uses. Originally trained as a painter and often working outside in the landscape, Brook’s practice led her to Hoy, Orkney where she studied the captivating cliffs. She subsequently moved to Glasgow, and a couple of years later she discovered a cliff arch on the west coast of Jura, where she lived in solitude over a period of three and a half years observing the daily rhythms and forces of nature. It was here that she had the idea to bring together nature’s four classical elements - air, earth, ... More