“O Fortuna” in the Carmina Burana manuscript
Time for one last plug of the performance of Carmina Burana by the Des Moines Symphony and about 225 singers from Drake University choirs (including me, in the Drake University Chorus) this weekend at the Civic Center downtown. The Saturday show is at 7:30 p.m.; the Sunday show at 2:30 p.m. And as Ed Sullivan would say, it’s going to be “a realllly biiigggg show!”
Filed under Des Moines, music
Haven’t been to Elk Horn, an all things Danish town in western Iowa for years. When we lasted visited, we had young kids interested in touring the town’s famous windmill. Now there’s an exhibit of Danish Modern furniture at Elk Horn’s Danish Immigrant Museum that looks well worth a visit. We have some remnants of my parents’ Danish Modern stuff from my childhood home in Michigan here in Iowa – but some of the choicer pieces, that now go for big bucks, are long gone, sadly. Used to love spinning around in our Arne Jacobsen swan chairs, which I didn’t know at the time were destined to be design classics. As Mad Men’s next season approaches, we’re all being primed to see more Danish Modern 1960’s classics. The show Danish Modern: Design for Living runs thorugh Jan. 5 so there’s plenty of time. see dkmuseum.org. We just watched a very good Danish movie last night, as fate would have it, “A Royal Affair” which was about a very interesting period in Danish history during the late 1770’s.
Filed under Iowa, museum exhibit
The Civic Center of Greater Des Moines has done it again – it’s bringing some great shows to the city starting in fall 2013 and into 2014. This year, in February, we got the national traveling tour of the “Book of Mormon.” In 2014 we’re getting the one musical I REALLY wanted to see – “Once” – which comes April 22-27, 2014 (maybe I’ll go for my birthday on the 26th…I took my husband for his Feb. birthday to Book of Mormon). “Once” is the stage adaptation of the 2006 movie, which had such great songs by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová – Thank you thank you! Friends who saw it on Broadway raved!
Other great shows:
– Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – March 18, 2014 (photo below)
– Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty – sept. 27-28, 2013
– Porgy and Bess – april 1-6, 2014
– American Idiot (the Green Day -inspired rock opera) Jan. 24-25, 2014
Filed under dance, Des Moines, theater
Cover of the score to Carmina Burana showing the Wheel of Fortuna
The choir I sing in – the Drake University Community Chorus – has been painstakingly practicing “Carmina Burana” in great anticipation of our performance of the famous piece with Drake’s crackerjack student choirs and the Des Moines Symphony on April 13 and 14. One and all are cordially invited.
Here’s some more details:
Location: Civic Center of Greater Des Moines
Joseph Giunta, conducting
Gregory Oakes & Clarence Padilla, clarinets
Carrie Ellen Giunta, soprano
Christopher Pfund, tenor; Robert Orth, baritone
The Drake Choir, The Drake Chamber Choir & The Drake University/Community Chorus
Aimee Beckmann-Collier, Director
The Drake Chorale
Linda Vanderpool, Director
Heartland Youth Choir
Barbara Sletto, Director
Drake University Orchestra+
Akira Mori, Director
BRAHMS Academic Festival Overture
KROMMER Concerto for Two Clarinets & Orchestra in E-flat Major
ORFF Carmina Burana
The Des Moines Symphony began in 1937 as the Drake/Des Moines Symphony and with these concerts, we celebrate that important partnership and honor the Orchestra’s rich history with Drake University. You’ll experience Orff’s monumental and provocative Carmina Burana with double choirs—musical grandeur and power that will raise the roof of the Civic Center! These concerts are presented by EMC Insurance Companies. Concert Prelude Talks begin 45 minutes prior to each Masterworks concert in the East Lobby.
+Joining the Des Moines Symphony for Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture.
Tickets start at just $15 for adults and $7.50 for students and are available through the Civic Center Ticket Office and Ticketmaster.
Bust of Carl Orff in the Munich Hall of Fame (2009)
Filed under Des Moines, music
Looks like I will not make it to New York City until the summer – or late September – which unfortunately means I won’t get to go to an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that sounds great. Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, running through May 27, combines paintings by artists including one of my favorites Edouard Manet with the fashions of the artworks’ time, illustrating the role of fashion in the work of Impressionists and others of the period. Great idea and from the reviews I’ve read, the exhibit works!
I have two Manet posters in my bedroom – see below – in The Balcony, two women and a man stand on an outdoor balcony wearing markedly beautiful clothes; in the other, Olympia is famously unclothed.)
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| Artist | Édouard Manet |
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Here’s more on the exhibit. Can hardly bear to read – I so long to go!
Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity at The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a revealing look at the role of fashion in the works of the Impressionists and their contemporaries. Some 80 major figure paintings, seen in concert with period costumes, accessories, fashion plates, photographs, and popular prints, highlight the vital relationship between fashion and art during the pivotal years, from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s, when Paris emerged as the style capital of the world. With the rise of the department store, the advent of ready-made wear, and the proliferation of fashion magazines, those at the forefront of the avant-garde—from Manet, Monet, and Renoir to Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Zola—turned a fresh eye to contemporary dress, embracing la mode as the harbinger of la modernité. The novelty, vibrancy, and fleeting allure of the latest trends in fashion proved seductive for a generation of artists and writers who sought to give expression to the pulse of modern life in all its nuanced richness. Without rivaling the meticulous detail of society portraitists such as James Tissot or Alfred Stevens or the graphic flair of fashion plates, the Impressionists nonetheless engaged similar strategies in the making (and in the marketing) of their pictures of stylish men and women that sought to reflect the spirit of their age.
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| Artist | Édouard Manet |
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| Year | 1868 |
Filed under museum exhibit, New York City
When I lived in, and later visited, upstate New York, I used to enjoy going to the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, N.Y. which became increasingly sophisticated in its exhibits over the years. We got a glimpse of some cutting-edge glass artwork yesterday, near my present home, at the Des Moines Art Center. We thoroughly enjoyed an exhibit of work by 10 artists from around the world who do some remarkable things with glass – and I’m not even talking about Dale Chiluly here (whom some think is overexposed but I still like his work.)
Among our favorites from the show is the work (above) by Jim Dingilian (U.S.) who somehow manages to create paintings inside of old liquor bottles – apparently filling the bottle with smoke and then somehow removing portions of the smoke stains to create very intricate images of old cars and couches and landscapes. I still don’t quite get how he does it. Judith Schaechter, another American, does eery but gorgeous Medieval-type stained glass windows (see below) with characters that look like they walked out of a Tim Burton movie. How fun would it be to go to a church with her windows! (Don’t think that will happen anytime soon.)
There’s also (see further below) a mesmerizing installation by Ray Hwang (from Korea) in a darkened room that almost defies easy description – but I’ll give it a go. It combines light, video and the image of a chandelier created by thousands of crystal beads upon a plexiglass panel – to create the sensation of a chandelier that gradually lights up during a rain storm. Okay, I didn’t do it justice. You have to see it.
The DSM Register also has a good slide show and story about the exhibit. See: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130218/LIFE/302180015/Eye-candy-Art-Center-showcases-glass-art-from-around-world
The Transparencies show was small so we spent another hour or so wandering around the rest of the museum, admiring old favorites (by Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, Anselm Kiefer, Grant Wood) and catching some new views – including an interesting installation by Ai Weiwei, the dissident Chinese artist/activist, and a crazy video of a McDonald’s during a flood, slowly filling up with water (complete with poor Ronald bobbing in the waves), as well as work I’d never seen before by Alex Katz, Cindy Sherman and others.
Above: Monir Farmanfarmaian (Iranian, born 1924)
Convertible Series, Group 10, 2011
Transparencies brings together a group of international contemporary artists whose work explores glass as both medium and as subject matter. Each creates contemporary art that connects with the history of glasswork, from luxury objects such as chandeliers and mirrors to household items like drinking vessels and light bulbs. Many forms of glass are represented, from delicate, hand-worked mirrors to industrial sheets of Plexiglas, as well as works that despite appearances, are not made of glass at all. The artists selected for Transparencies come from around the world, and vary widely in their art-making practices. Some have always worked with glass, both actually and conceptually, while others have only explored it occasionally. Combining sculpture, video, and installation with traditional forms of artisan techniques such as stained glass and blown glass, Transparencies explores the role of glass in today’s contemporary art world as well as our everyday lives.
Filed under Des Moines, museum exhibit, THE ARTS
I was the only kid I knew with an “Aunt Ernie” but I never really thought twice about it – Aunt Ernie was Aunt Ernestine Ruben, one of my parents’ closest friends and our two families(one in Michigan, the other in New Jersey) had, and still have, a close bond. Aunt Ernie is also an accomplished photographer and I wish I could see an exhibit of her latest work entitled “Portraits of Sound” now on view at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Here are more details below from a NYTimes T magazine blog post. One of her nude photos from the mid-1980s hangs in my house here in Iowa.
“ZERNA-1,” a piece from Ernestine Ruben’s “Portraits of Sound” project with the New York Philharmonic.
“ALLEN-1,” from “Portraits of Sound.”
Ernestine Ruben in her studio at Mana Contemporary art center. Vladimir Weinstein
In 1981, the curator of photography at Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, Jean-Claude Lemagny, discovered the American photographer Ernestine Ruben. Reviewing student portfolios, Lemagny was taken by a compilation of Ruben’s early, signature nudes. At the time, the artist was 49. “It was only later in life that I had the courage to do my own thing,” recalled the now 81-year-old Ruben from her Upper West side apartment. Dozens of stories below and across the street, her latest exhibit “Portraits of Sound” has just been installed at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, where it will be on view for the next two months. “You can see it’s easy to be inspired from up here,” she remarked of the sweeping view west from her living room window.
Ruben began her career shooting nudes, but she expanded the form by bringing her lens close to the flesh, morphing small sections of the body into sensual landscapes. Similarly, in “Portraits of Sound,” Ruben plays with the limits of portraiture. Following sessions with members of the New York City Philharmonic (in which, she said, she might crawl under a chair in pursuit of the right angle), Ruben manipulated the images in Photoshop to reflect the relationship between music and maker and the experience of performance: an image of the bassoon transforms into bundles of sticks to suggest the tone of wood; a triplicate of a double bass extends across space, communicating oversized sound and physical stature. (“He seemed to be everywhere,” Ruben remembered.) “They said, ‘that’s exactly how I feel about my music or my instrument,’” she recounted of some of the musicians’ reaction to her work.
Ruben’s parents were renowned art collectors, and she describes their trove of futurist art as among the largest outside of Italy. “I was filled with passion and energy, but frightened to have to compete with things like this,” she recalled, gesturing behind her to a cobalt and cream Picasso-designed textile that belonged to her mother. She finally got her start in 1978 when, by chance, a friend invited her to a photography class. After years of devoting herself to motherhood and teaching art, she felt the time was right. “I wanted to do something that was mine. I wanted to extend photography in as many directions as possible.” Today her images can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
In her ninth decade, Ruben continues to extend the reach of her camera. She is creating photographic three-dimensional environments and sculpture in a new studio space at Mana Contemporary and, she said, the ideas keep pouring out of her. “I think it’s terribly important not just to reflect the world around you but to penetrate it,” she declared. At Lincoln Center, Ruben’s photographs reverberate with that vision.
“Portraits of Sound” is currently on view at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.
Filed under New York City, THE ARTS
Blustery day in Chicago, with the winds especially fierce along Michigan avenue so after a pleasant lunch at cafe zinc ( cream of mushroom soup, egg salad sandwich) I got a bus pass and some ear muffs at Walgreens and hopped onto the 151 bus to the art institute where I caught what I believe is one of the last days of an exhibit about studio gang, the architecture firm of Jeanne Gang, which designed the fabulous Aqua building in downtown Chicago and lots of other buildings as I learned from the exhibit. Well worth a visit. I also popped to see the small collection of folk art at the institute. I didn’t have enough time or energy to go to the Picasso in Chicago show that just opened.
this is a cool building in Iowa, near grinnell.
Filed under architecture, Chicago, DINING
September 20, 2013 – December 15, 2013 |
I like contemporary art that rifs off of contemporary life (isn’t that what it should do?) so I’m intrigued by an upcoming show at Grinnell College’s excellent Faulconer Gallery “Stocked Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles” that features art inspired by “shopping carts, candy wrappers, grocery lists, paper bags, milk bottles and cereal boxes – ordinary often overlooked items” that emerge as “objects for artistic investigation. The show runs from Sept. 20 to Dec. 15, 2013 and will give me another excuse to dine at the excellent Prairie Canary restaurant on Main Street. The show also has connections to Wichita, where I lived long ago. It was organized by Wichita State University’s Ulrich Museum.
– Yoga in the Gallery on Mondays and Thursdays through March 14.
– A “Let Them Eat Cake” event this Saturday (Feb. 16) that presumably was inspired by Polidori’s dramatic Versailles photos currently on exhibit. You can make and wear a wig while eating your cake and touring the gallery. There’s another Versailles event on Feb. 26 – a presentation by several Grinnell College professors about the art, opera, and baroque music that Versailles gave birth to.
– The founders of “Team Rubicon” – military vets who provide disaster relief after catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina – will speak on Feb. 25 in the gallery, which also features Polidori’s photos of post-Katrina New Orleans. The founders, Jacob Wood and William McNulty, will also talk about their recent work helping people on the east coast after Hurricane Sandy. And they’ll pick up their 2012 Grinnell Prize metals.
– A lecture by a Grinnell Professor on March 12 on the political impact of Chernobyl – the exhibit also features photos, you guessed it, of the post-Chernobyl Ukrainian countryside.
TakeBetsywithyou
TakeBetsywithyou 