Steve Brudniak: The Science of Surrealism
Comte de Lautréamont was a 19th-century poet whose famously cryptic line – “beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table” – was adopted as one of Surrealism’s aesthetic credos. Nearly sixty years later, André Breton, one of the founders of Surrealism, would similarly define surrealist art as [...]
Read MoreMid-Century Melancholia
Abby & Nancy Dish on Mid-Season Mad Men The Abby and Nancy Show (the one in my head) is back, this time for some high level analysis of the sixth season of Mad Men, or at least some low level analysis of the ketchup campaign, Joan’s undergarments and Peggy’s fashion/men/work problems. I had planned to [...]
Read MoreRecked Productions Takes to the Pool
Recked Productions Up For Air Imagine you are strolling around Hermann Park and you notice a gaggle of enchanting dancers around the perimeter of the gigantic Jones Reflection Pool. You may have to look twice to make sure what you are seeing is real, and it is. You have just stumbled upon Recked Productions latest [...]
Read MoreCreature Comforts, Indoors and Out
Andy Coolquitt’s Sculptures and Tableaux Use Urban Materials to Evoke Domesticity Andy Coolquitt has a steadfast interest in domestic spaces. So much so that the Austin-based artist, who has a solo exhibition opening soon at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston [...]
Read MoreReview: Diotima Quartet
In acknowledgment their commitment to modern and contemporary music, the Diotima Quartet takes its name from Luigi Nono’s work, “Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima.” The French ensemble’s concert at Houston’s Menil Collection was presented by Da Camera Houston [...]
Read MoreartiFACTS: May 2013
After a successful run in Houston, Henry V, a joint production of Main Street Theater and Prague Shakespeare Company, heads to Prague for an October run. Main Street also launched the public phase of its capital campaign to purchase and renovate its Rice Village facility, where the theater has been creating nationally recognized productions for [...]
Read MoreReview: Roscoe Mitchell with Nameless Sound
On March 29th, Roscoe Mitchell’s Houston residency with Nameless Sound came to a joyous end at the Eldorado Ballroom. The quartet, featuring trumpeter Hugh Ragin, bassist Jaribu Shahid, and drummer Tani Tabbal, played two solid sets, each of which felt fully-fledged on its own. Roscoe Mitchell is chair of composition at Mills College in Oakland, [...]
Read MoreRobert Ruello: Open Other Side
Visiting Robert Ruello’s third solo exhibition at Inman Gallery, I was reminded of the term “abstract illusionism,” which critic Barbara Rose coined in the late 1960s to describe painters using trompe-l’oeuil devices to create spatial and other pictorial illusions in non-representational painting. After years of Clement Greenberg-decreed movements [...]
Read MoreReview: Il trovatore
There are two sides to every story, but it’s easy to pick a favorite when the fight is between a sniveling Count and a fiery gypsy. Verdi’s ever-popular Il trovatore, Houston Grand Opera’s last production of the season, shows why revenge is something to savor. First performed in Rome in 1853, the music in this opera is structured very differently from Wagner’s [...]
Read MoreReview: Falstaff
Send two identical love letters to two married women, and even a lovable scoundrel deserves to be dumped in the brook with the dirty laundry. There may be no honest, civil or sober men in Verdi’s Falstaff, but it makes for a hilarious opera, and Opera in the Heights’ production had the audience [...]
Read More
A+C on the Web