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Category Archives: Performance Art
DJANGO UNCHAINED (NOT WHAT YOU THINK)
Is there such a thing as a crazily violent movie that beckons an audience to the farthest reaches of reflection?
A RANGE OF VIOLENCE
The recent catastrophe in Connecticut has driven all thoughtful people to reconsider the issue of violence.
Posted in Current Events, Fine Art, Performance Art
Tagged contemporary film, contemporary issues, Quentin Tarantino, violence
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A NOTABLE FILM FROM 2012
We’re going to look at several of the movies produced in the past year, with a view to what they tell us about where we are and where we’re going. Not long ago we touched upon Holy Motors, divulging very … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Performance Art
Tagged contemporary film, democracy in america, Jacques Demy, Tocqueville
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BOOKS—WHERE ARE THEY GOING?
For many centuries, books were the virtually sole way to find out what others in other places were thinking about. Since the dawn of printing, artisans of book design and artisans of discursive design have found indescribable gratification in being … Continue reading
PARIS, OF COURSE (First of a series on Paris, and other great cities)
Rue de l,arbre sec (Street of the Dry Tree), the site of the gallows in medieval Paris, and also the site of the once-glorious Art Nouveau department store, La Samaritaine, now shut down (just off the right foreground of the … Continue reading
THE SAGA OF JACQUES DEMY:PAUL AUSTER’S “THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS”
© 2010 James Clark I’ve introduced this piece, before dealing with “The Elephant Man” and “The Straight Story,” because it provides a look at someone else, besides Lynch, who has become haunted by the energies of French Surrealist artists. Moreover, … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Performance Art
Tagged contemporary film, contemporary novel, Jacques Demy, Paul Auster
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NUIT BLANCHE
On the last Saturday night in September, Toronto mounts its version of a twelve-hour, all-night art expo the likes of which can be seen in several other large cities. Hidden within this episode—which many of the hundreds of thousands in … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Illustrators, Performance Art
Tagged contemporary dance, music, spectacle, Toronto, Trisha Brown, urbanity
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“PLANES” by Trisha Brown
In 1968, New York choreographer, Trisha Brown, produced a dance piece, titled, “Planes.” This past weekend, she introduced it (fresh as the night it was premiered) to the throngs milling about Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, and I, for one, feel very … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Performance Art
Tagged avant-garde, contemporary dance, Toronto, Trisha Brown
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THE LONG SHADOWS OF SURREALISM
How often have we described something a bit odd as “surreal”? Usually, in bringing up that word, we are struck by a setting where the parts are seldom seen together. For instance, the recent film, Melancholia, sends us the following … Continue reading
Posted in Avant-Garde Posters&Graphics, Current Events, Industrial Design, Performance Art, Surrealist Posters&Graphics
Tagged Art History, Contemporary Movies, David Lynch, Fashion Design, Fortune Magazine, Industrial Design, Interior Design, Marxism, Salvador Dali, Vintage Fashion Magazines, Vintage Fortune Magazine, Writers
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A LITTLE STORY
Here’s a little story that begins in what seems to be firmly fixed in the heart of the performing arts—specifically dance—but actually extends to contemporary fiction, music and the whole galaxy of Surrealism, including Surrealist graphics. In 1986, the great … Continue reading
Posted in Fine Art, Performance Art, Poster&Graphic Art, Surrealist Posters&Graphics
Tagged contemporary dance, contemporary fiction, In the Country of Last Things, In the Upper Room, Jacques Demy, modern ballet, Paul Auster, Philip Glass, Surrealism, Surrealist graphics, The Book of Illusions, Twyla Tharp
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