Category Archives: Arts & Literature

Behind The Scenes Books: “Stealing The Show” By John Barelli Showcases The NY Metropolitan Museum Of Art Security

From a Wall Street Journal book review:

Stealing The Show John BarelliWhen Diana, Princess of Wales, attended the Met’s Costume Institute Gala in 1996, a black-tie-clad Mr. Barelli was at her side. “I wasn’t nervous, but the pressure!” he said. “You don’t want anything to go wrong.” The princess had one request: that he keep an eye on the black lace shoulder straps of her midnight blue Dior dress and adjust them if they slipped. “I almost told her: ‘Yeah, right, I have to touch your dress.’ That’s all I have to do. I think my wife would be a little upset,” he recalled. There was no wardrobe malfunction and the evening went off without a hitch, although Mr. Barelli remembers security concerns putting a damper on the fun-loving princess. “We couldn’t let her dance,” he said.

Mr. Barelli, now 70 years old, devoted much of his tenure to less-glamorous work, such as disposing of artifacts from would-be donors. In 2007, a curator in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas received two shrunken human heads in the mail. The cardboard box had no return address, just a note donating the contents, which the sender said had come from friends in Ecuador. “They did have an odor,” said Mr. Barelli, who ultimately consigned the package to the city morgue.

To read more click on the following link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/royalty-a-naked-visitor-and-shrunken-heads-at-the-met-11565521202

Top New Creative Videos: “Mini Landscapes 2” By Clemens Wirth (2019)

Filmed, Edited and Directed by: Clemens Wirth

Mini Landscapes 2 Directed by Clemens Wirth 2019

Music originally composed by the wonderful echoic studio in Bristol (echoicaudio.com)

Mini Landscapes 2 Directed by Clemens Wirth 2019

In this shortfilm I’ve tried to recreate some of the nature great events our beautiful planet has to offer, but in a much smaller scale. Every scene was carefully crafted by hand in miniature. Please see a little bonus making of at the end.

Watch original Mini Landscapes below:

 

Architectural Day Trips: The Glass House Designed By Philip Johnson In New Canaan, CT (1949)

From an Architectural Digest article:

The Glass House PresentationsThe Glass House, designed by architect Philip Johnson in 1949, when floor-to-ceiling windows were a novelty even in office buildings, is a work of art in itself. But there’s much more art to be found on the lush grounds of this famous home in New Canaan, Connecticut. Amble on over to the Painting Gallery, which houses large-scale works by Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cindy Sherman, among others, or the Sculpture Gallery, featuring works by such artists as Michael Heizer, George Segal, Frank Stella, and Bruce Nauman. 

 

http://theglasshouse.org/

New Artistic Short Films: “Dear Enemy – The Journey Of Bashir” Directed By Arne Totz (2019)

“An abstract visual journey based on the true story of Bashir Ramathan.”

Directed by: Arne Totz

Dear Enemy - The Journey Of Bashir Cinematic Poem Short Film Directed By Arne Totz (2019)

Production Company: Friends & Fellows
Director of Photography: Paul Meyers
Editor: Matt Osborne
Colorist: Marina Starke
VFX: NHB Munich
Composer: Jakob Balogh

Dear Enemy - The Journey Of Bashir Cinematic Poem Short Film Directed By Arne Totz (2019)
Sound Designer: David Herbst
Copywriter: Arne Totz, Vicky Jacob-Ebbinghaus
Voice Over Artist: Isaac Simba

Dear Enemy - The Journey Of Bashir Cinematic Poem Short Film Directed By Arne Totz (2019)

Website: https://friendsandfellows.com/work/dear-enemy/

Cinematic Nostalgia: “Jay Myself” Documents Life Of NYC Artist/Photographer Jay Maisel, End Of An Era

DSC1245_A-1JAY MYSELF documents the monumental move of renowned photographer and artist, Jay Maisel, who, in February 2015 after forty-eight years, begrudgingly sold his home—the 36,000 square-foot, 100-year-old landmark building in Manhattan known simply as “The Bank.” Through the intimate lens of filmmaker and Jay’s protégé, noted artist and photographer Stephen Wilkes, the viewer is taken on a remarkable journey through Jay’s life as an artist, mentor, and man; a man grappling with time, life, change, and the end of an era in New York City.

Top Museum Exhibits: “Leonardo Da Vinci – A Closer Look” At The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace

From a Studio International online article:

Queen's Gallery Buckingham Palace Leonardo Da Vinci DrawingsThe 200 pages on display at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, have been together since the artist’s death. They were bound by the sculptor Pompeo Leoni in about 1590 and entered the Royal Collection during the reign of Charles II. Some of his most iconic images are here, including his study of a foetus in the womb, made as part of a treatise on anatomy that came close to being finished, but was never published.

Leonardo da Vinci: A Closer Look is a revolutionary re-examination of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings, of his techniques and of his creative thinking process. It showcases 80 of Leonardo’s finest works on paper from the Royal Collection, using specialist photographic techniques to examine his working practices. One by one, Leonardo’s processes of creation are revealed, from his choice of paper and the composition of the specialist grounds used for his drawings, to his first touches in chalk, ink or metalpoint, and on to the finished compositions.

Many of these features are of course invisible to the naked eye, and have been so for centuries, ever since Leonardo took his pen from the paper. Infrared images reveal underdrawings unseen for 500 years, published here for the first time. Ultraviolet photography brings back to life now-vanished metalpoint sketches; while spectrographic analysis allows us to explore the origin and precise chemistry of Leonardo’s papers and grounds.

Click on the following link to read more:

https://www.rct.uk/visit/the-queens-gallery-buckingham-palace?gclid=CjwKCAjw1f_pBRAEEiwApp0JKFGfQ_3bnyjYHvJIjXDW4qtepjMp_Ve8k159h0DbrFQgC3Hsy9BQBhoC4BkQAvD_BwE

Top Exhibitions: “N.C. Wyeth – New Perspectives” At Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

From a Wall Street Journal article by Edward Rothstein:

Brandywine River Museum of Art Wyeth Exhibit The Lobsterman 1944 Metropolitan Museum of ArtIn some cases, Wyeth’s images bore into memory as sharply as the books they illuminate. I’m thankful I never saw Wyeth’s “Captain Nemo” (1918) while steeping myself in Jules Verne’s “The Mysterious Island” (1874): I would never have been able to shed the image Wyeth created of this white-haired, secretive, dying man, surrounded by allusions to his exotic past, his skin seeming bleached, we learn here, by the electrical lighting of his submarine.

 

This is the first retrospective Wyeth has received in a generation, and it may be unfair to begin an account of it with the illustrations that made him a commercial success, for they also haunted him as he struggled to free himself from his reputation as an illustrator— a struggle that ultimately involved his relationship with his more
artistically celebrated son, Andrew, and his attempts to both accommodate and bypass modernist taste. But you can see how they could have had that impact. This show—jointly created with Maine’s Portland Museum of Art, and curated by Christine B. Podmaniczky from the Brandywine and Jessica May from the Portland—pays tribute
to the illustrations’ power and notes, too, that Wyeth often cut his artistic cloth to suit the demands of magazine editors, advertising agencies and bank-building mural planners.

Top Summer Destinations: Laguna Beach Festival Of Arts Celebrates 87th Year

From an Orange County Register article:

IMG_4711The Pageant of the Masters was first developed in the 1930s to combine music, storytelling and theatrical illusions to celebrate artistic interpretation and history. It has since become a Laguna Beach tradition drawing visitors from around the world. This year’s show, which opens Sunday, July 7, and runs through Aug. 31, marks the pageant’s 86th year. Continue reading Top Summer Destinations: Laguna Beach Festival Of Arts Celebrates 87th Year

Top Artistic Short Films: “Carbon” By Felipe Hermini Portrays Life As A Countryman In Brazil

Director, DP, Camera and Editor _ FELIPE HERMINI

Carbon Cinematic Short Film by Felipe Hermini 2019
Additional Photographers_Diego Querzoli_Luca Pucci
Sound Production, Folley, Mix and Mastering_ Rafael Freitas
Color Grading_ Marcio Pasqualino, ABC
Motion Designer_ Júlia Hermini

Carbon Cinematic Short Film by Felipe Hermini 2019

The project was co-created by 4 artists( Hermini, Pucci, Querzoli and Freire) through their perception of a day in a countryman’s life.

Website; https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3106384/