Thanks to the wise suggestion of my visiting Canadian friend Fran Cherry, we saw a wonderful exhibit of work by the painter,  Ad Reinhardt (1913-1966).   On display are his satire, cartoons, photography, social and art criticism, and glorious paintings.  You can visit the website (click here for that site).  Better though would be to go the show and see things up close.

Learning more about the period in which he worked is always a good thing.  I am fascinated by how postwar and through the 1960s, New York grew into an international art capital.  It's now hard to believe that early in Reinhardt's career, there was only small group of painters, most of them working in the village, and just a handful of galleries.  That, however, drastically changed.  It is easy both to yearn for the "good old days" of a recognizable community and reasonable art prices, and be impressed by how American artists came so quickly to center stage.  Reinhardt was there for it all.  He left a remarkable record of the change and his strong feelings and thoughts about it. 

Also appealing about this visit was the chance it gave me to see links between Ad Reinhardt and the late painter Saul Lambert in whose East Village studio I now work.  Reinhardt was one of Saul's teachers when Saul was a student at Brooklyn College.  

The exhibition at Zwirner takes up three rooms.  The first large room that you enter is chock full of his graphic work, on the walls and in two large cases. It includes political and art historical satire and commentary (with biting critique of both European fascism and American capitalism), essentially all of it presented as cartoons and a little collage.  There are his marvelous drawings of trees through which he shows us "How to Look at Modern Art in America." Each leaf represents a contemporary painter, the many varied clusters of leaves are all supported by the roots and trunks that Reinhardt also labels.  He graciously leaves viewers some blank leaves on which they might tag and locate their own favorite painters.  Here is one of those trees.

In the second room, a side room, one finds a large screen on which is projected a slide show made of a set of Reinhardt's collection of 12,000 slides.  Most of these images are photographs that he took, often during his world travels (a smaller number are reproductions from magazines and museums).  These are not your typical tourist photos.  Actually, you get a hint of their uniqueness in a case from the first room, in a sketch book that Reinhardt kept while traveling in Italy.  It is open to two pages filled with the tops of telephone poles.  Yes, telephone poles; not the usual cathedrals and landscapes.  The poles like all the other things that captured Reinhardt's unique eye are beautiful forms. What you see on the screen are all sorts of forms. For example, one will see a long series of roof tops. Then there is a series of faces with prominent eyes that suddenly shifts to a series of pairs of windows.  The slides move through and back and forth across centuries and geographical locations.  He projected these slides on any surface available in his classes and for discussion of art with his friends.  Watching them come onto the screen, one after another in quick succession, is a delight.  I became so aware of his distinctive way of seeing the world; and I also could feel how his perception was shaping my own.  I can say that I will never look at a pair of windows in the same way again.  And I am glad for it.  It is impossible adequately to describe these slides.  Go see them.  

The third and final room contains a set of Reinhardt's famous black paintings.  These are magnificient.  In each, Reinhardt has a special way of capturing light in the darkness and using various colors to create what we call black. 

After all the busyness and crush of the marks in the first room's graphic work and the extraordinarily varied and complex images of the second room, there is a welcome peace and expansiveness in these paintings.   In looking at them, I saw an artist who simply loved paint and the act of painting.  I will go back and just sit in the room to have his company. 

Now what about the links between Ad Reinhardt's work and that of Saul Lambert,  whose spirit keeps me company in the studio?  I would love to find a notebook in which Saul recorded his class notes and the painting ideas he was inspired  to have by Reinhardt.  Missing that, I can only make a couple of observations. 

First, there are the words.  In Saul's studio, one wall is covered by words that Saul composed or that he quoted from others.  They include lists of names, not unlike the lists of names in several of Reinhardt's pieces. 

And then, there is the blackness.  Many of Saul's paintings are also filled with black.  Most have black grounds on which Saul paints abstract forms that often represent grand celestial spheres.  I wish I could ask him both about the black and why he chose to add to it.  

And wouldn't it be wonderful to know what Reinhardt would say about the work of his former student, another true lover of painting.  My image of heaven is of a place where there is lots of talk about painting.  

But in the meantime, please make your comments here.  All will be appreciated. 

Last Friday evening, I attended a special event at The National Arts Club at 15 Gramercy Park South.  A large enthusiastic group of people gathered.  They listened to talks about a new social science publication, heard marvelous tango music, and watched wonderful examples of tango dancing by a pair of stunning dancers.  They also got to do some tangoing of their own at the end of the evening.  All of this activity went on within walls chock full of contemporary paintings.  So many different elements that one wouldn't normally think to mix together. But it worked.

The event was a celebration of the publication of More than Two to Tango:  Argentine Tango Immigrants in New York City by Professor Anahi Viladrich, a faculty member in the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology at Queens College, and in the Doctor of Public Health program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Professor Viladrich studies the causes of health and social disparities.  Her primary research focus is on immigrants' health and human rights.  

She writes a special book on tango.  It is not just about wonderfully appealing dancing, fancy clothes, and the extraordinarily popular milonga (tango salon) scene in New York.  Professor Viladrich understands tango as a complicated set of phenomena that involve immigration, history, globalization, race, ethnicity, and national identity.  For example, she shows us how tango provides a special social niche for Argentinian tango performers and instructors.  This is a niche that enables some (but not all) Argentine immigrants to resolve many of the formidable challenges of transition to their new land.  

Her data come from her involvement in the tango communities of New York and the extensive interviews she has done with tango performers and teachers.  Her book is filled with the stories of the trajectories of their lives.

The event on Friday began with comments by two of Professor Viladrich's research and teaching colleagues from Queens College who praised the scholarly merits of the book.  Then, Professor Viladrich herself took us on a journey through her research.  She was accompanied by an amazing trio of tango musicians, a famous bandoneon player, Tito Castro, a violinist, and bass player.    

Tito, shown at left, is very well known in New York and that was demonstrated at the event.  He had many, many fans in the audience.  

The trio played a wonderful selection of tango pieces.  Many of them were danced to by the stunning dancers pictured above on the book cover.  

The tango pieces  were from different time periods, presented in an almost chronological order.  I was captivated through the entire program.  I love this music.  I was most intrigued, however, by the very first piece of music in the program that came from a recording.  It was a delightfully peppy and playful arrangement that included drums.  It was a very early piece from the late 19th century when tango was still a dance of Black and Creole people.  Professor Viladrich explained that this link between tango and Black and Creole communities ended early in tango's history.  It ended when the Europeans who came to Argentina decided that tango would be theirs.  They made it white, we lost the drums, and I would expect much more.

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     As I watched a New York City Center performance of Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty  ballet, I wished my eyes were bigger so I could take in more of what was on stage.  I wanted more of that phenomenally glorious dancing, 

and more of those inventive, breathtaking sets.

Given Bourne's skill at making dance not only serve but enhance the music, seeing more would have meant hearing more of Tschiakovsky's magnificent music.   Given Bourne's ability to tell a good tale through dance, music, and staging, seeing more would have meant learning more from his new version of the Sleeping Beauty story.  Sitting in my audience seat, I was happily with all senses open in the hands of a master.

     There is lots to say about how unique Bourne's treatment of this ballet is (this is definitely not the Sleeping Beauty you know).  Let's just focus here on one narrative twist: the one that involves a Count Lilac who is King of the fairies. He is also a vampire.  In the original ballet, this central rescuer role is played by a queen fairy-no vampire). Count Lilac is the one on the right in the first photo.

This change in character allows Bourne to bridge what is often a confusing gap in story line (i.e., how can sleeping beauty's young lover whom she met before the curse takes effect still be around after all those 100 years that she has been sleeping?).   Well, if that young lover has become a vampire through his contact with Count Lilac, then  ...  I think you can fill  in the blanks.  Vampires are not Bourne's only choice of the gothic, dark, and creepy over the classical, light-filled, and hopeful in Petipa's original 1890 choreography.    With lots of wit and comedy, there are several visits in this performance to the evil side.  As I watched, I wondered if vampires and amazingly louche downtown club goers were, in 2013, our major romantic choices.   I fear I have some cultural catching up to do. I might have missed a lot by letting the recent vampire craze escape me. 

Reviewing the images I have posted here, I need to add that although there is lots of darkness (one reviewer noted that instead of pink tutus in this production, we get fairies wearing costumes that are the color of bruises), there is also lots of light.  The ending is upbeat and then there is that amazing Baby Aurora (Baby Sleeping Beauty) played by an absolutely charming puppet, controlled as in Bunraku puppetry.  She is filled with light and hope and gumption.  There is a theatrical saying that if you dare go onstage with a child or a dog, you are sure to be upstaged.  This puppet in her cuteness and responsiveness upstages even the most awesome dancing.

Roma Torre in her television review of this production advises all New Yorkers who missed it to catch the Amtrak train to Washington D.C.  The ballet begins its run at the Kennedy Center on November 12th and goes through the  17th. Roma is right.

Comments to this and all posts are much appreciated.