FineArtsLA.com

After a long search, FALA has finally found an editor to take over the daily maintenance of the site. Expect frequent posts and the resuscitation of the Forty Unders ticket-giveaway program.  Now at the helm is Renna Brown-Taher, who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley last year with a degree in film studies.  She grew up in Los Angeles and studied at Westside Ballet; she also attended summer programs at San Francisco Ballet School and American Ballet Theatre.  Since graduating, Brown-Taher has been working in PR and writing for Pocket Change Global.

by Renna Brown-Taher

In celebration of Vanity Fair’s 95^th Anniversary, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents “Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008.”  In the “Modern Vanity Fair” section you will find an amalgamation of the famous portraits you have ogled in grocery stands over the years.  We gaze at Scarlett and Keira, Jen and Prince William gracing the walls in a brilliant clarity unrivaled by their newsprint counterparts. 

The most engaging part of the exhibit (backstage footage of Jake Gyllenhaal’s photo shoot excluded) is the “Vintage Vanity Fair” section.  When suddenly faced with Man Ray’s portraits of Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein, the spirit of society in the twenties and thirties becomes palpable. 

Somewhere between Annie Leibovitz’s portrayal of Jack Nicholson golfing in his robe, both figuratively and literally at the peak of Hollywood, and Imogen Cunningham’s stirring portrait of Martha Graham, Vanity Fair’s 95-year history (25 since it’s rebirth) becomes monumental.  Not only has this magazine followed the pulse of society through the decades, its glorification of “The Glamour Shot” has created icons of both its artists and its photographers.  Hey Annie, I’m ready for my close-up.

Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008 runs through March 1, 2009

For More Information:  www.lacma.org

by Maia Harari

Let me preface this by saying, I am prone to motion sickness. At Paul McCarthy’s exhibition at the Whitney Museum, earlier this year, I actually had to excuse myself after only thirty minutes as my brain had begun turning cartwheels in my head. This is not a criticism. It’s proof that McCarthy is doing his job; namely, turning our worlds (and my stomach) upside-down.

Caribbean Pirates, a collaboration between Paul McCarthy and his son, Damon McCarthy, is a 90 minute, multi-screen video installation portraying crazed and repulsively cartoonish pirates in the midst of invading and plundering a village, armed with Hershey’s chocolate sauce and abundant phallic imagery. All the signature McCarthy elements are present—oversized appendages are used in less than appropriate ways, a constant soundtrack of maniacal laughing overrides the pirates’ and their victims’ screams, exposed camera rigging reveals and indulges the artifice of the movie set and aerial, upside-down and sideways camera angles disorient viewers. Essentially, it is 90 minutes of complete and total chaos, an assault on our senses in every way.

And in true McCarthy fashion, Caribbean Pirates is not only an assault on our senses, but on our value system as well. American pop culture icons like Barbie and Disney characters are deconstructed and turned violent and pornographic. At a certain point the screaming gets louder and one of the pirate’s oversized heads is on backwards and even he doesn’t seem to care. He simply puts his vest on backwards too as if that makes it all okay and many of the screens loop back to the beginning and a half-nude, real-life Barbie is now covered in chocolate sauce, sun-bathing, amidst the wreckage, stoned and unaffected, and another screen reveals that the little can-can dancing female pirates, that somehow invoke the mice in Cinderella, are now crying and screaming, “Stop it,” and the scene gets progressively more sadistic and bloody and the maniacal laughing starts in again.  The looks on the audience’s faces reveal they don’t know whether to run, vomit or laugh—or nod approvingly, as some did, with an air that they actually know what’s going on. The program explains, “According to the two artists, the pirate theme is treated as a metaphor for US invasion and occupation of foreign lands”—a seemingly inescapable theme in contemporary art. Of all the exhibitions I’ve seen acting as metaphors for US foreign policy, this is by far my favorite one.

For More Information:  http://redcat.org/season/0809/fv/pirates.php

FALA will eagerly be attending the Phil’s all-French Chamber Music Society concert on Tuesday, as it features the work of composer Ernest Chausson who, while a C-grade composer, has a certain unique sound. He’s also the only composer to have been killed by crashing his bicycle into a wall.

Says the Phil:

The program begins with Martinu’s lively Piano Trio No. 2 in D minor, H. 327, performed by Robert Thies, piano, and LA Phil musicians Michele Bovyer, violin, and Serge Oskotsky, cello. Poulenc’s carefree and rambunctious Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano follows, featuring LA Phil musicians Anne Marie Gabriele, oboe, Shawn Mouser, bassoon, and Joanne Pearce Martin, piano; and Chausson’s dark Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 3 concludes the evening, performed by  LA Phil musicians Martin Chalifour, violin, Peter Stumpf, cello, and Joanne Pearce Martin, piano.

The three composers featured on the program all shared a propensity for depression sometimes belied, but often exposed, in their music. As with most of Martinu’s works, his Piano Trio No. 2 exudes a shining energy, but it also carries an underlying heaviness and anxiety which could be attributed to the composer’s depressed state of mind at the time he wrote it. The mostly-self-taught Poulenc who suffered from fits of manic-depression, reveals a brilliant optimism in his Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano. Chausson’s melancholy nature is reflected in the fundamental gloominess of his Piano Trio in G minor.

For a transcendent Saturday night, check out Jacaranda’s presentation of Intervals of Passion performed by the Denali Quartet.  The night is composed of a collection of works by J.S. Bach and Anton Webern.  Joel Pargman, Timothy Loo, Alma Lisa Fernandez and Sarah Thornblade make up the talented Denali Quartet. 

When: Saturday November 22

Where: First Pres Santa Monica

More Info and Tickets:  www.jacarandamusic.com

If you’re looking for an edgy performing arts event this weekend, why not check out The California Touring Project:

Casebolt and Smith premiere their newest achievement, Having Words, November 21-23 with The California Touring Project.  This much anticipated program also features Cid Pearlman, Susan Rose and Yolande Snaith.  This talented group of Californian choreographers will present in the round, shifting the norms of perspective.  Their innovative collection of pieces promises to inspire and provoke audience members.

For Tickets:

www.brownpapertickets.com

For More Info:

www.caseboltandsmith.com

… And you’re left with LA.com.

Overwhelmed with the responsibility of maintaining FineArtsLA.com in addition to two other sites, founder Christian Chensvold has started scribing on the arts for LA.com. His first story, on the Vermeer painting on loan to the Norton Simon, is here.

FALA still needs an editor to take it over if any brave souls wish to step forth. Use the contact button above.