Sunday, September 06, 2009
Arts & Extras: Check out the arts blog
Photos courtesy of the Gagosian Gallery
"Recumbent Larry" (above) and "Semaphone" are two of the new photographs by Sally Mann that will be on display at New York's Gagosian Gallery as part of the "Proud Flesh" exhibit.
Arts & Extras column
Mike Allen, arts columnist
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Arts&Extras blog
Recent posts
My Arts & Extras blog at roanoke.com has been up and running for a couple of weeks now, and I'd like to take a moment to make sure you know it's there.
The Web address is blogs.roanoke.com/arts/ -- and if you visit there now, aside from a funny photo of yours truly posing with a fancy frame, you'll find more information about some of the items that have appeared in previous columns, including the exhibits that just opened at the Taubman Museum of Art, and notices about upcoming events that didn't fit in the space I have here. You'll also find occasional pointers to curious cultural developments I've found to be of note.
Feel free to stop by and leave comments, or shoot me suggestions about things you'd like me to share with readers. Figuratively speaking, I'm all ears.
Lexington artists on Madison Avenue
If life happens to take you to Madison Avenue in New York a couple of weeks from now, you might consider taking a look at new artwork from two of Lexington's most famous residents.
"Sally Mann: Proud Flesh" and "Cy Twombly: Eight Sculptures" will open at the Gagosian Gallery on Sept. 15.
Mann became both famous and notorious in 1992 for her powerful and disquieting black-and-white photographs of her children and husband, "Immediate Family," which drew criticism because of the nudity in some of the photos.
Her work has drawn praise for both its daring and its technical prowess. Time Magazine named her Photographer of the Year in 2001, writing of her breakthrough 1992 exhibit, "No other collection of family photographs is remotely like it, in both its naked candor and the fervor of its maternal curiosity and care."
True to her tradition, in Mann's new exhibit, she uses her husband as her subject. Part of the purpose of "Proud Flesh" is to provide a reversal of the male artist regarding the female nude that dominates centuries of traditional art.
"It is a testimony to Larry's tremendous dignity and strength that he allowed me to take the pictures that I did," Mann writes in an essay about the exhibit. Her husband is afflicted with late onset muscular dystrophy, but had no objections to posing nude.
"Larry and I began this work of exploring what it means to grow older, to let the sunshine fall voluptuously on a still-beautiful form, and to spend quiet afternoons together again," Mann writes.
Twombly, Mann's fellow Lexington resident who also has a home in Italy, works at the opposite end of the spectrum, eschewing representational imagery and filling large canvases with graffiti-like scribbles or splashes of paint.
The new Gagosian exhibit features Twombly's sculpture, in which he has taken combinations of everyday objects -- for example, a broom inside a funnel, placed on a pedestal -- and cast them in bronze. Twombly has said this method transforms the objects into abstract forms.
The exhibits close Oct. 31. For more information call (212) 744-2313 or visit www.gagosian.com.
Mill Mountain Theatre down to one employee
Mill Mountain Theatre, which canceled its season and laid off most of its employees in January, has gone from two paid staff members to one.
Daria Goode, director of development, confirmed earlier this week that she has been laid off. She was notified Aug. 21, and her job officially ended Aug. 28.
The theater's only remaining employee is Ginger Poole, who runs the educational programs.
Mill Mountain board member Jason Bingham declined to comment on the loss of Goode's position, though he said the board appreciated the work she had done.
The layoff makes the theater's situation appear dire, but Bingham said the efforts to resolve Mill Mountain's debts, believed to have been about $750,000 when operations ceased, are "still on track. It does not change where we are, where we're going."
Southwest Virginia Ballet receives tourism grant
The Virginia Tourism Corporation has awarded a grant to the Southwest Virginia Ballet for its 2009-10 season, "Moving Stories Beyond Words." The grants are awarded for campaigns done in partnership with other organizations aimed at attracting tourists.
The ballet's season begins Oct. 3 with "TIES," a performance that combines dancers, classical music and the photography of O. Winston Link to tell the history of the railroad in the Roanoke Valley. For more information, visit www.svballet.org.
Poets and cyclists at Taubman Museum
Three award-winning poets and Roanoke College faculty members -- Melanie Almeder, Cynthia Atkins and Mary Crockett Hill -- will speak at noon Friday at the Taubman Museum of Art about "Language For the Sake of Art." The event is free.
Then at 7 p.m., the Taubman will host a screening of "Veer," an award-winning documentary about bicycling culture. Tickets for the film are $7.
For more information call 342-5760 or visit www.taubmanmuseum.org. Look for more details about both of these events in the Arts & Extras blog.
