Arts & Society

Georgetowner • January 13, 2016

Elizabeth Webster of the District Council was out and about in Hollywood for its big awards weekend—the People’s Choice Awards and the Golden Globes—to meet her California friends and to promote film production in Washington, D.C. She ran into quite a few stars—but luckily not Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais. [gallery ids="102209,131422,131421" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird • January 11, 2016

The Washington International Piano Arts Council celebrated the culture and music of the Americas at its annual gala held on Nov. 13 at the Organization of American States. WIPAC’s board chair and founder Chateau Gardecki expressed her appreciation to the co-chairs: OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and Ambassador of the Philippines Jose L. Cusia, Jr. Proceeds from the annual gala benefit the Festival of Music and the Washington International Piano Competition for talented amateur pianists from around the world. [gallery ids="102178,132229,132240,132236" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post •

Among our intermingling generations of highly fluent arts enthusiasts, there are loose classifications and widely shared sentiments around various periods that evolve into a kind of shorthand. Certainly one of the most common collective opinions is the steadfast exaltation that we reserve for painters from about 1870 through the 1920s. No recent period in art history elicits as much untethered adoration in the popular consciousness as that from, say, Gauguin to Picasso.

At the Phillips Collection through Jan. 10, “Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerland” showcases a sensationally good collection of work that goes from Impressionism through early Modernism, never before exhibited in the United States. Centered around the collections of two pioneering supporters of the arts, Rudolf Staechelin (1881–1946) and Karl Im Obersteg (1883–1969), the show is rife with rare and famous masterworks from many of our favorite painters, as well as striking paintings by lesser-known artists of the time that will stake immediate claims in the territory of our memory.

To start with the heavy hitters, there are some breathtaking pieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Pissarro, Cézanne and Picasso, as well as by Chaim Soutine and Marc Chagall. Van Gogh’s “The Garden of Daubigny” shows us one of his most intriguing and lovely compositions, which says a lot for an artist of such unparalleled sense for arrangement. In “The Red Herrings,” he pulls light from darkness with stunning visual force, and the scaly terrain of this dusky, greasy pile of fish comes to life in a way rarely seen from the painter.

What might be the centerpiece of the entire exhibition, Gauguin’s “When Will You Marry? (Nafea faa ipoipo)” is a rather trance-inducing portrait of two Maori women in a colorful, idyllic landscape. With the demure, statuesque, impenetrable faces of the mysterious green-skinned women, this is an exemplary representative of the artist’s Tahitian paintings.

A double-sided panel by Picasso sits like a throne in the center of the main gallery. On one side, “The Absinthe Drinker” is a comically glum and charming portrait. On the verso, “Woman at the Theater” is a rare treat of muddy, exploratory brushwork from our crown prince of Modernism, the subtle pomposity of her posture perfectly attuned to her character.

The works by Soutine are just great. Using a palette of evening sea foam and raw clay, “Dead Pheasant” recalls the shriveled, cold weight of dead game with brushwork and an inherent sense of suffering that would make Francis Bacon drool.

And, of course, Chagall. Is there anyone better, more stylistically precise, more endlessly creative in arrangement and color? Chagall was so attuned to the joys of geometry that just to stand before his work is a treat. Compounding Fauvism and Cubism into his own singular, exuberant expression of Judaic pseudo-iconography, his cultural specificity was both brave and innovative in his time. His three portraits of rabbis in the final gallery of the exhibition are worth the price of admission.

The exhibition also features works by less familiar artists that stand up admirably to the big names, most notably Ferdinand.

Among our intermingling generations of highly fluent arts enthusiasts, there are loose classifications and widely shared sentiments around various periods that evolve into a kind of shorthand. Certainly one of the most common collective opinions is the steadfast exaltation that we reserve for painters from about 1870 through the 1920s. No recent period in art history elicits as much untethered adoration in the popular consciousness as that from, say, Gauguin to Picasso.

At the Phillips Collection through Jan. 10, “Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerland” showcases a sensationally good collection of work that goes from Impressionism through early Modernism, never before exhibited in the United States. Centered around the collections of two pioneering supporters of the arts, Rudolf Staechelin (1881–1946) and Karl Im Obersteg (1883–1969), the show is rife with rare and famous masterworks from many of our favorite painters, as well as striking paintings by lesser-known artists of the time that will stake immediate claims in the territory of our memory.

To start with the heavy hitters, there are some breathtaking pieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Pissarro, Cézanne and Picasso, as well as by Chaim Soutine and Marc Chagall. Van Gogh’s “The Garden of Daubigny” shows us one of his most intriguing and lovely compositions, which says a lot for an artist of such unparalleled sense for arrangement. In “The Red Herrings,” he pulls light from darkness with stunning visual force, and the scaly terrain of this dusky, greasy pile of fish comes to life in a way rarely seen from the painter.

What might be the centerpiece of the entire exhibition, Gauguin’s “When Will You Marry? (Nafea faa ipoipo)” is a rather trance-inducing portrait of two Maori women in a colorful, idyllic landscape. With the demure, statuesque, impenetrable faces of the mysterious green-skinned women, this is an exemplary representative of the artist’s Tahitian paintings.

A double-sided panel by Picasso sits like a throne in the center of the main gallery. On one side, “The Absinthe Drinker” is a comically glum and charming portrait. On the verso, “Woman at the Theater” is a rare treat of muddy, exploratory brushwork from our crown prince of Modernism, the subtle pomposity of her posture perfectly attuned to her character.
The works by Soutine are just great. Using a palette of evening sea foam and raw clay, “Dead Pheasant” recalls the shriveled, cold weight of dead game with brushwork and an inherent sense of suffering that would make Francis Bacon drool.

And, of course, Chagall. Is there anyone better, more stylistically precise, more endlessly creative in arrangement and color? Chagall was so attuned to the joys of geometry that just to stand before his work is a treat. Compounding Fauvism and Cubism into his own singular, exuberant expression of Judaic pseudo-iconography, his cultural specificity was both brave and innovative in his time. His three portraits of rabbis in the final gallery of the exhibition are worth the price of admission.

The exhibition also features works by less familiar artists that stand up admirably to the big names, most notably Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918) and Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941). (Neither Hodler nor Jawlensky are pushovers. Jawlensky’s canvases regularly fetch in the millions at auction and Hodler is one of the most popular Swiss painters of the 19th century. But when put alongside the names that have just been tossed around, any artist can look like small potatoes.)

Jawlensky’s “Child” is a boxy, marionette-like seated portrait of a funny little girl. Like many children, she is severe in expression but made ridiculous by the very condition of her youngness. With overly rouged cheeks and a demeaning red bow fastened atop her straw-blond head like a cherry on a sundae, her entire existence up to this point amounts to following with aloof expectancy the dictates of her parents. Jawlensky was an Expressionist who moved from Russia to Germany as a young man and became a member of the prominent Blue Rider group alongside Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky. In the context of “Child,” his bold and sun-kissed colors take on new meaning.

A trio of paintings by Hodler are the most sobering in the exhibition, recording the slow death of his lover and fellow painter Valentine Godé-Darel. In two, both titled “The Patient,” she is shown lying in bed. They will remind anyone who has gone through a loved one’s passing of the acrid tinge and fleeting jolts of pained hope that encircle the terminally ill. The final painting, “The Dead,” is immediate, blunt, austere and troubling. The stark accuracy of the hard mattress and chunky pillow, the dead weight of the body stretched across them with its hollow, bloodless face, make it devastating.

Perhaps we should try to end on a lighter note, but, alas, this is sometimes where art takes us. Nevertheless, “Gauguin to Picasso” is a show that will refresh your senses in that particular way that only great paintings can.
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Georgetowner •

The Library of Congress awarded 82-year-old Willie Nelson, country music singer and songwriter, the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song — its top musical award. Nelson is the seventh recipient of the prize. A stirring musical tribute was held Nov. 18 at DAR Constitution Hall.

Mary Bird •

The American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation (ARCCF) saluted its outgoing longtime chairman, James W. Symington, at the Russian Ambassador’s residence on Nov. 17. U.S. Ambassadors to Russia John Beyrle and Thomas Pickering were among the speakers on a program that also featured renowned Russian bass from the Mariinsky Theater Askar Abdrazakov. Recalling his student days singing folk songs in Russian parks, the honoree said, “I was hooked on Russia before I went and ever since.” He capped the evening by performing “Moscow Nights” before guests departed with a signed copy of his book, “Heard and Overheard: Words Wise (and Otherwise) with Politicians, Statesmen¸ and Real People.”
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Mary Bird •

A studio at the Washington Ballet was turned into a shopper’s delight Nov. 20-22 as the Women’s Committee hosted the Sugar Plum Bazaar, with myriad temptations befitting Artistic Director Septime Webre’s “Nutcracker” to support the ballet’s community engagement programs. Luxury vendors included Anna Weatherly porcelain china and jewelry, Dalton Brody gifts and accessories, Sissy Yates Designs and Ibhana Creations ladies’ fashions. Silent auction items offered a one-hour salsa/meringue dance lesson with two company members. Andrea Rinaldi spearheaded Saturday’s cookies and cocoa for aspiring ballerinas. The Women’s Committee hosted their annual holiday party at the ballet on Friday evening with great success. [gallery ids="102177,132262,132251,132237,132257,132245" nav="thumbs"]

Richard Selden •

The Freer Gallery of Art, the oldest of the Smithsonian Institution’s art museums, will be closed for renovations from Jan. 4 through the spring or summer of 2017. The Sackler Gallery, to which it is linked underground — forming a bicameral museum of Asian art — will remain open.

Along with its extraordinary Asian holdings, the Freer is the home of a major collection of works by American expatriate artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler, of “Whistler’s Mother” fame (that painting, formally known as “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1,” is owned by Paris’s Musée d’Orsay), including his stunning Peacock Room.

On the third Thursday of the month at noon, the Peacock Room shutters are opened, allowing its flamboyantly colored and decorated walls and ceramics-packed shelves to be bathed in natural light. The last opportunity to experience this for a year and a half is this Thursday, Dec. 17.

Jan. 2-3 is “Say Goodbye to the Freer” weekend, with many family-friendly activities from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Julian Raby, director of the Freer-Sackler since 2002, was the speaker at Georgetown Media Group’s Nov. 5 Cultural Leadership Breakfast at the George Town Club. In his remarks, Raby brought to life the beginnings of the Freer Gallery of Art, dedicated in 1923 and spawned by the ideals of its founder, Charles Lang Freer, a full-cloth American self-made man.

“There was no silver spoon in the mouth of Charles Lang Freer,” he said, noting his beginnings as a maker and developer of railroad cars, which made him nearly a billionaire and allowed him to retire at age 47. He also had the good fortune, spurred by an interest in art collecting, to meet and be associated with Whistler, from whom he at first bought just a modest etching.

“The relationship was an extraordinary match,” Raby said. “Whistler was choleric, quixotic, and Freer was an extremely thoughtful man. It was a match that would lead to the acquisition of 1,300 works which formed the foundation of the collection and started a passion in Freer, and even obsession, with Asian art and culture, prints and screens and with China.”

“Imagine,” Raby said, “a relationship somewhat like what Velázquez might have had with the hidalgos” (a phrase you won’t hear every day). The complex history of the Peacock Room, created for British shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland and setting off a bitter feud between patron and artist, is currently the subject of a special Sackler Gallery exhibition, “Peacock Room REMIX.” The show’s centerpiece is “Filthy Lucre,” a recreation of the room in ruins by painter Darren Waterston.
Regarding the original Peacock Room, says Raby, “when we open the windows and let the light in, it’s still spectacular.”

Gary Tischler •

When it comes to the holidays for Washington theater-goers, Christmas isn’t over yet.

There’s still plenty of theatrical goodies available, for latecomers, or late gifting, going even past the new year, with regular runs finishing up, and some shows being extended.

It’s not just Yuletude shows—but those oddities, funny and serious, appealing and different that this season has to offer.

Yes, there’s still a chance to see “A Christmas Carol” at Ford’s Theatre with Edward Gero through Dec. 31. Indeed, there’s still a chance to see another kind of Scrooge—also through the end of 2015—at the Keegan Theatre on Church Street in Dupont Circle with “An Irish Carol,” which is about the travails and  troubles of a wealthy Irish pub owner who gets to take a deep look at his troubled life.

Elsewhere, there’s lots of music, music and musicals, a number of shows extending their runs and others completing theirs, a list that has something for everyone.

At the Kennedy Center, there’s something from Broadway, and something that’s hopefully going to Broadway.

There’s  the road company of “Matilda the Musical,” a smash Broadway hit that manages to be both heart-warming and dark, in the inimitable fashion of author Roald Dahl, who created the title character of a much put upon and long-suffering girl named Matilda, who has some special powers, lots of courage and energy, with which she combats her criminally-minded parents and a dire and monstrous school director named Mrs. Trunchbull played with grand relish (and mustard) by Bryce Ryness.  This may be the first big and splashy musical about abuse and bullying, but the production, directed by Matthew Warchus and choreographed spectacularly by Peter Darling, with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin and a book by Dennis Kelly, brings it off. It’s fast moving—with terrific sets and a cast headed by several Maltidas over the course of the run.  It’s good to go at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House until Jan. 10.

Also at the Kennedy Center at the Eisenhower Theater is the pre-Broadway run for the  Americana-Folkish new musical “Bright Star” with music and book by Steve Martin and music and lyrics by Edie Brickell.  A charmer that imagines a South full of rustic folks and would-be novelists, it’s fueled by banjo, guitar and fiddle music. It contains a great centerpiece performance by Carmen Cusack, who stars as a woman who published a literary magazine in North Carolina after World War II and has a big, and romance-fueled secret.  Through Jan. 10.

Three big musicals are having their runs extended, especially the Signature Theater’s production of “West Side Story,” directed by James Gardiner. It was already scheduled to run through Jan. 24 and has already garnered another extension through Jan. 31, because it’s become a truly hot ticket.  The Stephen  Sondheim-Jerome Robbins-Leonard Bernstein musical about rival gangs in New York comes to modern times again a la Romeo and Juliet, yes it does, with songs like  “Maria” and “Tonight” fueling the proceedings.

Out at Olnery, Jerry Whiddon is directing the Olney Theatre production of the swell musical about wise guys—all right, Broadway gamblers—showgirls and a salvation army lady—called “Guys and Dolls.” It gets a second extension, through Jan. 10.  “Luck Be a Lady,” indeed.

“Kiss Me Kate” features not only Petrucchio, Shakespeare, Kate, swell theater and broadway guys and dolls, but music and songs by Cole Porter, and direction by Alan Paul, who has brought his gifts to a series of musicals at the Shakespeare Theatre Company.  “Kiss Me Kate” has been extended through Jan. 10  at Sidney Harman Hall.

Let’s not forget the Chicago Neo Futurists, the heroes of Chicago’s underground theatre community, who’ve landed again at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre with their distinct style of audience-friendly-and-involving comedy (be prepared to be a part of the show), which touches on a set of topics (changing every night) with a complete skit.  In their production, “Too  Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,” the troupe races the clock to perform 30 miniature plays in 60 minutes, giving new meaning to fast and furious as it applies to the theater.  Funny, topical, frantic, full of surprises, it’s a new year kind of show which may look exactly like a futurist show.  Through Jan. 3, known as Sunday.

Ari Post •

John Blee at Cross MacKenzie

For John Blee, painting is poetry and color is its language.

“Color determines the voice of each painting,” he says. “It can never be exactly repeated. So when I find the right colors in the process of painting, they are like keys that open the works for me.”

His recent work, on view at Cross MacKenzie Gallery, 1675 Wisconsin Ave. NW, expands his “Orchard” series, which began in 2007. These lush, atmospheric environments of color and delicate shapes are a sensory envelopment, recalling the painterly geometric abstraction of Hans Hofmann and the alluring garden scenes of Pierre Bonnard.

Yet Blee finds much of his inspiration in poetry. The origin of this series is connected to the late French poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, specifically his collection “Vergers,” (French for “Orchards”).

Regardless, his paintings are for those among us who adore the secret life of paint itself. They are for those who lean in close to explore the trails of the brush, tracing its path and listening for the echo of colors scratched gently across the taut canvas. For this writer, paintings do not get much better. These are paintings I would like to live with.

Wolf Kahn at Addison/Ripley and Gallery Neptune & Brown

Wolf Kahn is one of the greatest living American landscape artists, able to evoke with his soft, exuberant palette the fleeting essence and particularities of time and place in nature. His work is beloved because he so beautifully communicates his own love for the world so clearly.

Born in Stuttgart in 1927, Kahn came to the U.S. in 1940. He studied painting with Hans Hofmann in New York before venturing across the country on his own, beginning to distill his visions of nature. Kahn’s current work at Addison/Ripley Fine Art, 1670 Wisconsin Ave. NW, is a continuum of his steadily unfolding oeuvre. There are trees, hills, fields and skies, painted and drawn in colors that feel as if they were plucked right out of the sky at dawn.
The exhibition at Gallery Neptune & Brown, 1530 14th St. NW, presents Kahn’s limited editions and unique monotypes, suitable for seasoned collectors and recent devotees alike. It includes both early and recent works on paper that display his iconic use of gestural line, compelling composition and ever-evolving mastery of color and light.

Dana Westring at Susan Calloway

Dana Westring looks for the beauty found in timeless forms. Interpreting the grand, awe-inspiring ruins of Cambodia and Angkor Wat, his watercolors and drawings are meticulously created, with rendering both gestural and precise. Westring’s work, on view at Susan Calloway Art, 1643 Wisconsin Ave. NW, aims to draw us into shadows, scattered across the mysterious terrain of a lost history.