Cleveland Museum of Art – an intuitive perspective

July 21, 2024

Post #501, Four Years, and I Find Out I Am A Theater Critic!

WOW! Jane Eyre, The Musical, At The Lake Country Playhouse was my 500th Post here on An Intuitive Perspective. WOW! Yeah, I know not all of them are scintillating and insightful commentary on the arts but the Monday Music feature instead…but I hope you are enjoying all of it! And I apparently lost count and missed our 4th Anniversary on March 20, 2024…you do lose track of time when you are having fun. And now, I am a theater critic as well!

So, how did I get here? I retired from my career as a computer programmer in 2018. And back in 2010 I was invited to contribute to someone else’s blog and I enjoyed the writing and comments and such. It was on another topic, not the arts.

And then I had an opportunity to work with the Milwaukee Repertory Theater as part of their Social Media Club. A little social group who were invited by the Rep to attend their performances and then comment on our experiences across social media. And to share and re-share the Rep’s various social media posts. I really took that to heart and wrote some pretty extensive and detailed reports on Facebook that I referred to as a ‘response’. That was a lot of fun and I started doing similar posts around other events.

And then I started to tire of my participation in that other blog but knew that I didn’t necessarily want to stop writing so I started An Intuitive Perspective. And the first thing I did was republish all of my older items from Facebook and then proceed with my new content. And once published, I share the link around a variety of social media including of course Facebook. That’s the bare facts…but how did I become a theater critic?

Well I was writing ‘responses’ to the shows that I was seeing at the Rep and as a long time subscriber at the American Player’s Theatre in Spring Green. And then a dear friend from the Social Media Club, Kimberly Laberge, Artistic Director at Kith & Kin Theatre Collective, invited me out to Hartland to experience the presentation of Cabaret that she was directing at the Lake Country Playhouse. It was an amazing play and an amazing cast and a cozy jewel box theater and I have been invited back again and again and I am in awe of the quality of the plays that they take on and the high level quality of each and every presentations.

And then somehow, I wish I remembered the history here, I also became involved with First Stage, which is a children’s theater in Milwaukee, that presents full blown musicals in the Todd Wehr Theater in the Marcus Performing Arts Center and smaller more serious fare in the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center. The PAC shows blend a cast of adults and young people in shows that will appeal to all ages…and I love them…and I love to watch the reactions of the youngsters in the audience as they experience real theater featuring their peers and their stories. And the other venue generally features the First Stage’s Young Company, high school age actors presenting more complex stories in an in the round black box theater…things like an adaptation of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People or Shakespeare’s Henry IV (part 1). I hope that we see many of these young actors playing at our local adult theaters eventually.

And I have been invited to see any number of other small theater groups put on amazing theater in small theater settings that I didn’t even know existed before now. And I am so grateful for the experience.

Now one thing that I regret. I had started an idea to present posts about smaller art museums around the state and mid-west under the title A Place For A Muse. I have only written two so far. I need to do better.

And what is this bit about being a theater critic? Well, as I said I have always labeled my articles and posts about theater as responses because I hadn’t studied theater or criticism directly. So I didn’t feel confident using the term review. But after attending the Lake Country Player’s presentation of A Rock Sails By, and talking with director James Baker Jr and lead actor in Rock (and Artistic Director of LCP ) Sandra Baker-Renick, I was convinced that what I write is in fact a review…and that is what they will be from now on! So I am a theater critic now, I guess!

So thank you to all who visit here and read my scribblings. And thank you to all of the theater people who have adopted me and allowed me to see your marvelous shows and write about them with abandon. It has been a very rewarding four years…and I hope we can continue!!!

January 6, 2022January 26, 2022

Book Report: Disturbing the Universe: Wagner’s Musikdrama by David Vernon

I have never developed a taste for opera. My initial foray into Classical music was in high school and came via theater…when I read Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and then discovered Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suites. Then into the sturm and drang of Beethoven when one of my best friends ‘air conducted’ any number of his symphonies. And then in college when the drummer in my blues band told me that I needed to hear Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos by the Collegium Arium. Then there was no stopping me…as a friend pushed Mahler’s Second Symphony by Bruno Walter…and then on to the 20th Century Russians!

But this was all orchestral music. And even my introduction to music class at college as part of my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Education…still left me wondering what all the noise was about in opera.

But now decades later I have seen a fair number of paintings or prints in both Paris and the US based on the works of Richard Wagner. So my curiosity has been reawakened.

Odilon Redon: Parsifal, lithograph, Cleveland Museum of Art, photo by Ed Heinzelman

And then mid-2021, this book appeared on social media, written by a ‘new friend’ that I had recently met there…and I decided to dive in and see what I could learn from Disturbing the Universe: Wagner’s Musikdrama by David Vernon

So as a novice, I had no idea if this would work out…but it worked out marvelously. So what do we have here…a very engaged and precise discussion of all things Wagner. And for the novice a very clear outline of Wagner’s life, his influences, the legends and stories that inspired him, and his influence on the rest of the music world. And for a novice we learn some very fascinating things. The term motif in the context of musikdrama and how Wagner used them to deliminate the characters and how they meld the story lines and character development across the arc of his Ring Cycle.

And although I was aware of Bayreuth and its history as the keeper of the flame, I wasn’t aware until reading Disturbing the Universe, that Wagner was the driving force behind its development. As his spirit is still writ large there.

Yes, at times this gets a little deep for the novice, but not often. Instead I found myself driven by the sense of wonder and amazement at Wagner’s accomplishments. How his story telling evolved and how the music, although supporting opera, builds on and builds a new tradition for symphonic orchestral works. So for those of us not schooled in opera or with limited experience, this is a solid platform to start our education.

And for those of you with a solid understanding of opera or even a detailed interest in Wagner, you will find a lot of information here to increase your awareness and appreciation of his story telling and composition. And if you are attuned to the history of Bayreuth you may pick up on some of the comments comparing recent performances of Wagner’s works to the historical norms. I think you will find a lot to like here! There is even several inserts about how the different voices of the instruments were written specifically to support the mood and feeling of a particular section…something I understood…but if you are familiar with the works…you will really really appreciate how it works in performance.

So look for chapter long details on Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, THE Ring Cycle, and others. My biggest problem now will be deciding where to start my listening!

And apologies for not having the depth of experience to do justice to this book!

Odilon Redon, Brunhilde In Twilight Of The Gods, lithograph, Cleveland Museum of Art

P.S. Added 1/26/2022: Dr. Vernon has also included two addenda. One is a synopsis of each Wagner Musikdrama and the second is suggested reference materials listed as a guide to further reading.

December 29, 2021

Picturing Motherhood Now at the Cleveland Museum of Art

If you’ve been following along you know what I did on my pre-holiday vacation. A little trip to Cleveland and a lot of time spent at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Just across the hall from the Revealing Krishna show is Picturing Motherhood Now! Quite a thought provoking locally curated show that presents us with a lot of different representations of what we think motherhood can be. Some of the works are exceptionally touching. Some of them didn’t quite connect me to the idea of motherhood. But there is a lot of very accomplished and dynamic work to see here.

One of the paintings that captured my attention and emotions is Portrait of her Mother by Mequitta Ahuja (American, born 1976). She writes, “I make paintings by scraping away paint, figuring something new out of loss”. This painting was done during the last months of her mother’s life and I find it quite compelling.

*Portrait of Her Mother*, 2020. Mequitta Ahuja (American, b. 1976). Oil on canvas; 182.9 x 213.4 cm. Courtesy of Mequitta Ahuja and Aicon Art, New York. © Mequitta Ahuja

Another painting that puts me in a similar frame of mine is Titus Kaphar’s Not My Burden. The painting features two Black women who have been touchingly depicted and are certainly two individuals. But they are holding children consciously absent…so absent that the canvas has been actually cut away to show the exposed gallery wall in a brilliant white. The museum wall card suggests that the missing children might represent white children who are often cared for by Black women or Black children who have been tragically lost and a hole is left to their mothers. This painting is probably the show’s centerpiece and most gripping…

*Not My Burden*, 2019. Titus Kaphar (American, b. 1976). Oil on canvas; 167.6 x 153 cm. **© Titus Kaphar. Image courtesy of the artist and Gagosian. Collection of Ellen Susman, Houston, Texas. Photo: Rob McKeever**

There are a number of very elegant but evocative sculptures as well. This clay mother and child or Madonna by Rose B. Simpson (American, born 1983) is a prime example. Ms. Simpson is working with traditional methods used by her family and ancestors in the American Southwest. Titled Genesis this sculpture is both tied to our immediate era and timeless at the same time.

*Genesis*, 2017. Rose B. Simpson (American, b. 1983). Ceramic and mixed media; 83.8 x 22.9 x 15.2 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco. © Rose B. Simpson

And then we have a group of multi-media sculptures by Alison Saar (American, born 1956) that are troubling in their content. These works are based on an enslaved child character, Topsy, from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I am going to post a number of photos here. One from the museum that shows us the clear vision of Rice, one of three sculptures on display from a series of five. And then I will provide two more that I took that show all three in the context of the show. The three figures are Indigo, Cotton, and Rice. The youngster is clearly shown wielding the tools of slavery and harvesting cotton. A clear indictment of our past…and a prod to think about what that means to our present.

*Rice*, 2018. Alison Saar (American, b. 1956). Wood, copper, ceiling tin, bronze, tar, and vintage found tools; 162.6 x 76.2 x 63.5 cm. Collection of Susan Morse, Los Angeles. © Alison Saar. Courtesy of L. A. Louver, Venice, CA

And now a bit of whimsy: Louise Bourgeois (American, 1911 – 2010):

*The Nest*, 1994. Louise Bourgeois (American, 1911–2010). Steel; 256.5 x 480.1 x 401.3 cm. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase through the Agnes E. Meyer and Elise S. Haas Fund and the gifts of Doris and Donald Fisher, Helen and Charles Schwab, and Vicki and Kent Logan, 98.193.A–E. © The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Katherine Du Tiel

Picturing Motherhood Now runs through March 13, 2022. This show is ticketed and tickets can be purchased online at the link shown here. Be sure to check the museum website for COVID precautions before visiting.