Artdaily.cc - The First Art Newspaper on the Net

On 'OrquÃdeas,' Kali Uchis gets all she wants
NEW YORK, NY.- Kali Uchis basks in pleasure on her fourth studio album, OrquÃdeas. Make that pleasures: carnal, material, romantic, sonic, competitive and, if necessary, vengeful, all with a girlish nonchalance. The album begins with loops of laughter and ethereal oohs and ahs; it ends with Uchis thanking listeners with a mwah kiss. Its an album of breezy confidence and sly ingenuity, easily moving among futuristic electronics, 1990s nostalgia and Latin roots. OrquÃdeas are orchids: the national flower of Colombia, where Uchis parents were born. Uchis Karly-Marina Loaiza was born and grew up in Virginia, but she made long visits to Colombia while growing up. Orchids are colorful, alluring, fleshy, delicate, demanding and coveted, just as Uchis has presented herself throughout her recording career. In her new songs, ... More

Review: Hilary Hahn gives, and gets, at the Philharmonic
NEW YORK, NY.- After the concerto, after the encore, there was still more business to take care of when Hilary Hahn appeared with the New York Philharmonic on Thursday. She returned to the stage of David Geffen Hall, joined by Deborah Borda, the orchestras former leader, and Gary Ginstling, its current one. They had an announcement to make: Hahn at 44 a star violinist for four decades had been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize, a $100,000 honor that rewards the good citizens of classical music who have complemented artistic excellence with lasting contributions to the field. Those contributions are varied but often affirm the vitality of the art form. Midori, the violinist who won in 2001, tours like a roving artist in residence, working with young musicians in small towns far from music capitals like Boston and New York; flutist Claire ... More

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art names Philippe Halbert, PhD Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts
HARTFORD, CONN.- The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art has named Philippe Halbert, PhD as Richard Koopman Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts. A graduate of the College of William and Mary and the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, Halbert is an art historian and earned his PhD in the history of art from Yale University, where he studied the intersections of art, empire, race, and self-fashioning in the Atlantic world. His academic work centers American decorative arts and material culture broadly, from its Indigenous roots to interconnected phenomena of diaspora, creolization, and settler-colonialism. Halbert has served as Interim Curator of American Decorative ... More

Tellus Science Museum announces new expansion plan
CARTERSVILLE, GA.- Tellus Science Museum announced an expansion project for two new exhibit spaces beginning in early 2024. The expansion will consist of a detached nearly 20,000 square foot building near the front of the museum campus which will house a new permanent exhibit featuring the technology of smartphones and an expanded space for special, temporary exhibits. Weve been talking for years about the need to have these important spaces at Tellus, said Executive Director Emeritus, Jose Santamaria. It is exciting that they will soon become a reality. The new permanent exhibit space will comprise about 3,200 square feet. The gallery will give guests the chance to explore the evolution of technology, including things now considered antiquated because of the development of smartphones. Artifacts like calculators, ... More

Jay Clayton, vocal innovator in jazz and beyond, dies at 82
NEW YORK, NY.- Jay Clayton, a singer whose six-decade career encompassed freewheeling improvisation, lyrical songs and poetry, and the prescient use of electronics, died Dec. 31 at her home in New Paltz, New York. She was 82. Her daughter, Dejha Colantuono, said the cause was small-cell lung cancer. Clayton established herself as an innovator in the 1970s and 80s, sparring with instrumentalists in avant-garde settings and using electronics to alter and extend her vocal palette well before the practice became common. She worked frequently with other singers she formed an especially close bond with Sheila Jordan, an early mentor and she sang in playfully aerobatic vocal groups with peers including Jeanne Lee, Ursula Dudziak, Norma Winstone and Bobby McFerrin. She works in the familiar avant-garde terrain of wordless, ... More

Alina Cojocaru: A freelance ballerina, forging her own path
NEW YORK, NY.- Is it possible for a great ballerina to take control of her destiny outside a company and find fulfilling creative expression? Alina Cojocaru, a former principal dancer with the Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet, and an adored guest star at major companies worldwide, is trying. Cojocaru, 42, who has been freelance since 2020, has produced programs in London, New York and Japan and danced as a principal guest artist with the Hamburg Ballet. But her latest venture is her most ambitious to date: She has commissioned and produced a full-length ballet, La Strada, based on Federico Fellinis 1954 film, which will open Jan. 25 at Sadlers Wells in London. The ballet, with choreography by Natalia Horecna, is set to music by Nino Rota, who composed for many of Fellinis films. La Strada tells the tale of the simple ... More

When Mean Girls grow up
NEW YORK, NY.- Rosalind Wiseman regularly receives emails from women who think they are going to surprise her with the following divulgence: You are never going to believe this: My work is like middle school. Wiseman, however, is unfazed. Of course I can believe it, she said. Her response is a pep talk that goes something like this: I remind them that they arent weak because they are affected by these dynamics. And that even if we have left our teen years behind us, we are driven to feel valued by the groups we are connected to, and most of us will do anything to avoid embarrassment and shame. Its not an opportunity to lash out at people in retribution, no matter how horrible the other person is. Women decades past high school seek out Wiseman because they know her as the author of Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping ... More

An actor channeling the folklore of his ancestors
NEW YORK, NY.- Two of Eric Berrymans favorite things are drinking tea and telling stories, both of which were on the agenda on a recent rainy afternoon in the Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo. This first infusion Im going to do is just to awaken the leaves and open things up, he said, beginning with the tea. You could drink it, but it wouldnt be very flavorful. Serving an audience of one, in a ramshackle office space and storage room above the Performing Garage theater, Berryman poured hot water from a portable kettle over a pile of loose, Chinese black tea leaves in a small vessel. The water turned a deep amber as the leaves softened and unfurled. After a moment, he poured the liquid away, refilled the vessel and served the tea in two gleaming white cups. On the stage below, a small crew of sound and lighting technicians was preparing ... More

With 'Echo,' Alaqua Cox smashes boundaries and bad guys' faces
NEW YORK, NY.- I thought in the back of my head, Theres no way Im going to get this. Alaqua Cox was in her home office in the Green Bay area of Wisconsin, recalling the moment in early 2020 when some friends forwarded her an online link to a casting call for a deaf Indigenous woman in her 20s. At the time, Cox, now 26, had been hopping from job to job at a nursing home, at Amazon and FedEx warehouses and had never acted outside a couple of plays in high school. She could scarcely envision clinching any regular TV gig, let alone the role of a Marvel superhero: Maya Lopez, better known as Echo, a Marvel comic book character. But Cox did get it, and soon she found herself flipping and punching her way through the 2021 Disney+ series Hawkeye alongside stars Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld. Now, just over ... More

Red Paden, juke joint 'King' who kept the blues alive, dies at 67
NEW YORK, NY.- Red Paden, who as the self-proclaimed king of the juke joint runners spent four decades as the owner of Reds, an unassuming music spot in downtown Clarksdale, Mississippi, and one of the last places in the United States to offer authentic Delta blues in its natural setting, died Dec. 30. He was 67. His son, Orlando, said the death, in a hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, was from complications of heart surgery. Juke joints, once commonplace across the Deep South, were the loam out of which blues music grew, a vast network of shacks, old shops and converted homes where traveling musicians would play a night for a share of the cover charge, then move on to the next gig. Reds is the quintessential example: low-ceilinged and the size of a large garage, decorated with old music posters and lighted with neon signs ... More

Wang Tuo wins the Sigg Prize 2023 with his multi-channel cinematic installation The Northeast Tetralogy
HONG KONG.- M+, Asias first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, announced Wang Tuo (b. 1984, lives and works in Beijing) as the winner of the Sigg Prize 2023. The jury was impressed with Wangs sophisticated cinematic practice and the quality of the films production that create elaborate imagery with multi-layered references to cultural and historical contexts. His winning work, The Northeast Tetralogy (20182021) is an immersive, multi-channel installation of four videos and is currently on view in the Sigg Prize 2023 exhibition alongside works by five shortlisted artists at the Main Hall Gallery until 14 January 2024. The Sigg Prize recognises important artistic practices in the Greater China region and aims to highlight and promote diverse works on an international scale, awarding ... More