Corruption, extremism, politics, decadence. Washington D.C.? No, ‘Babylon Berlin’
Sep
28
2017
Berlin in the 1920s was a time when German arts, culture and sciences flourished with immense liberty. It was also a time of decadence. A new German-made television series, Babylon Berlin, features the full spectrum of Berlin life, fueled by drugs and music, corruption and politics, and murder and extremism. Sounds much like a day ...
REVIEW: ‘Bobbi Jene,’ life-and-love in contemporary-dance lane
Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber in “Bobbi Jene” Tropes and customs of the world of contemporary dance are on view in the new dance-documentary, Bobbi Jene, soon to open in Los Angeles. Rarefied and bizarre rituals, notably a naked dancer, that would be the titular Bobbi Jene, masturbating against a sandbag before a roomful of ...
Our review: TULIP FEVER from A to Z 1
arts·meme friend and avid movie fan Owen Simon contributes a boiled-down film review that tours his gamut of emotions, from A to Z, for TULIP FEVER recently released by the Weinstein Company. Tom Stoppard’s screenplay depicts a 17th-century painter in Amsterdam who falls in love with a married woman whose portrait he has been hired ...
How George Martin found first dance job — in the Yellow Pages
Sep
25
2017
Debra Levine lectures on Jack Cole’s “The Gladiators” dancers: Rod Alexander, Jack Cole, George Martin A wonderful sliver of dance history sourced at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts concerns Jack Cole dancer George Martin. Said Martin, in an interview, apropos the start of his dance career: “My mother took me to see ...
The Guadalajara scene seen by Hans Burkhardt
Sep
23
2017
Hans Burkhardt, City At Night I – Guadalajara, 1957, Oil on Canvas, 50 x 60 inches Hans Burkhardt in Mexico, opening tonight at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, features major works painted in Mexico by the Los Angeles artist Hans Burkhardt over a span of more than 10 years beginning in 1950. Mexico’s contrasting architecture and ...
Pond·ering sixty years of art history
Sep
19
2017
Sixty years, more or less one generation, brought us from Monet to Almaraz. To my eye, two works aligned in hot harmony. Above, the majestic vision of Los Angeles painter Carlos Almaraz, in his reconstituted four-panel Echo Park Lake (1982) — now on rare display at LACMA, as part of Pacific Standard Time LA/LA. (Our ...
Motown magic to Malibu: Mary Wilson, Martha Reeves @ Pepperdine 1
Sep
17
2017
It’s difficult to witness the decay of present-day Detroit and reckon that the city was a booming factory town in the 1960s. While Detroit’s auto manufacturers put America in the driver’s seat, Motown Records flooded dance floors and came as close to dominating Top 40 radio as any domestic record label in history. Berry Gordy, ...
Baryshnikov praises Pam Tanowitz
It’s whippped cream — dolloped onto Pam Tanowitz Dance receiving the Baryshnikov Art Center’s Cage Cunningham Award. It’s the high praise BAC Artistic Director Mikhail Baryshnikov gave in noting the ‘distinct intellectual journey’ of the choreographer’s work. “We have followed Pam’s work throughout the years, and are greatly impressed with her intelligence, determination, and the ...
Showing & telling the difficult: Laura Aguilar @ Vincent Price Art Museum
Sep
13
2017
The wonderful Vincent Price Art Museum on the campus of East Los Angeles College has as its Pacific Standard Time LA/LA exhibit, “Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell,” opening Sept 16, the first comprehensive retrospective of the challenging photographer’s works. A series of talks and community events accompanies the show. This exhibition tells the story of ...
Tales of neuroses from Roz Chast
New Yorker magazine cartoonist Roz Chast has a new book. That makes me anxious. It’s not that I’m jealous. I would be totally fine, but I couldn’t sleep last night. I think the waiter at that restaurant was looking at me funny. Then my neighbors were keeping me up … argh! Chast’s new book, Going ...