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This post comes to us from WFPL arts and humanities reporter Elizabeth Kramer.
Today on “All Things Considered” there’ll be a feature about Polk Miller and his Old South Quartette. He and his group recorded seven songs 100 years ago in Richmond, Virginia. Miller was white, but his collaborators where black, and they produced unique work, especially for the time. Ken Flaherty, a native Louisvillian, now residing in Detroit, produced an album of music made by Polk Miller and the Old South Quartet. And last year, that album was nominated for a Grammy Award. He’s also interviewed for the feature that airs today. If you want to know more about Flaherty and his work on the album, I interviewed him last December after the Grammy nominations where announced and you can listen here.
This post comes to us from WFPL arts reporter Elizabeth Kramer.
On a Sunday afternoon last April, a Japanese filmmaker was directing a small crew in shooting scenes of spectators at the Speed Art Museum as they looked over 50 works donated to the museum by an unlikely couple of art collectors: Herb and Dorothy Vogel. Megumi Sasaki had made a film about the Vogels and how they amassed an impressive collection of contemporary art (mostly minimalist and conceptual), while he earned his living with the U.S. Postal Office and she worked as a librarian. (They lived off her salary and used his to purchase art.) They later donated their collection to the National Gallery of Art as well as 50 of their works to one museum in each of the 50 states (which is how Louisville’s museum got its 50 works). Sasaki was at the Speed to document reactions to the collection for a follow up to her documentary.
The museum showed that documentary — Herb & Dorothy — that afternoon. Since then, it has made its way through a slew of film festivals and earned many awards.
At 10 p.m. today, the film has its first broadcast on PBS’s program Independent Lens (shown on KET2, with rebroadcasts at 3 a.m., Thursday, Oct. 15 on KET2 and 1 a.m., Sunday, Oct. 18 on KET1).
Even though I watched the film that afternoon at the museum, I’m looking forward to again getting a glimpse into the world of Herb and Dorothy Vogel. It still amazes me how their passion drove them to collect more than 4,000 works of art, much of which they generously donated to museums around the country, including our own Speed Art Museum.
This post comes to us from WFPL arts and humanities reporter Elizabeth Kramer.
Last night, the Speed Art Museum announced its choice of landscape architects to work on its expansion project. And it made other solid strides towards that goal.
The most immediately tangible? Well, last night the museum whetted viewers’ appetites with the opening of its refashioned second floor galleries. There’s brighter paint on the walls as well as lighting that gives the eye a clearer view onto the many art works now on display there. Museum director Charles Venable and chief curator Ruth Cloudman led the staff in choosing and hanging the combinations of works grouped in the various rooms. The most notable change is the way the arrangement showcases modern art from the museum’s permanent collection (some of which used to hang in the room just after the entrance, which seems more like a corridor than an actual room in which to view work). Venable says the museum will later hang more works in what is now the sculpture garden area; and he and the staff have given that project a jumpstart by now featuring some of the museum’s works there by Robert Rauschenberg, which Venable says were in storage.
All of this movement shows the dance towards the expansion of the museum, whose original building opened in 1927, is well underway. Venable even showed some preliminary views (he called them “conceptual drawings”) of what the place could look like when the expansion is done (the museum plans to break ground next year and finish construction by 2014). The main features will be a new lobby, more exhibition space, an ample area for education programs; a piazza with a café and museum shop; and a new auditorium. At points throughout, Venable says the interior will have views to the exterior and vice versa. There also will be more natural light inside — which will include sunshine streaming in from skylights that have been covered in recent years but that were originally installed in the 1927 building and the addition built in 1983. He says he hopes to unveil the final architectural plans in about six months.
The museum also seems to have captured more than attention with the expansion. Last night, Venable says the museum had raised more money in the last fiscal year than any other in its history.
Here’s what we reported on today:
- In Depth – MSD Considering Buyouts To Prevent Floods
- Another Drug Toss Set For Thursday Through Saturday
- Conway Applauds Gouging Law Ruling
- Indiana Launches Flu Shot Campaign
- Blanton Leaving Governor’s Office
- Arts Groups Offer Discounted Tickets Again This Season
- City, Firefighters Approaching Deal
- In Depth: Governor’s Arts Awards Handed Out In Frankfort
If you listened to Weekend Edition this past Sunday, you heard a conversation with Bela Fleck about his latest project with double-bass-master Edgar Meyer and tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain.
Page One is giving away tickets to see the trio in Louisville. The deadline to enter is tonight.
Here’s what we reported on today:
Metromix has a short profile on indie rockers Yo La Tengo. The band is in town for a show tonight. I recommend the article and the concert. Let’s hope tonight’s show goes better than the one chronicled in The Onion.
If you’re an avid WFPL listener, you’ve already heard a snippet of Yo La Tengo’s work. Their song Moby Octopad is the backing track for the current promo for this blog.
Here’s a fun sampling of YLT’s mentality and sound, with help from the guys at the long gone HBO comedy series Mr. Show.
Here’s what we reported on today:
This post comes from WFPL arts reporter Elizabeth Kramer.
Back in 1982, I rushed home from high school to see and listen to a band that at the time was never featured on the radio in these parts: The B-52s. So, in honor of today’s last installment of the longest-running soap, I found these posts on YouTube:
This post comes to us from WFPL arts and humanities reporter Elizabeth Kramer.
Last week, I wrote a post about recent grumblings, complaints, etc., about the National Endowment for the Arts. Meanwhile, there has been some action at the NEA after criticisms about conference calls that discussed getting artists and arts groups involved in weighing in on discussions about issues like health care, the environment and so on, which are also important to President Obama. The Washington Post is crediting FOX News talk show host Glenn Beck with the shakeup. (The newspaper’s media columnist Howard Kurtz also wrote about this in yesterday’s column. And, of course, with the column’s other tidbits, it’s definitely worth the read.) Beck was probably the loudest voice to ring out after news about the calls surfaced, but there were other voices that brought up some valuable concerns about the thrust of the conference call.
But let’s face it; the idea of co-opting artists to help spread particular ideas is ancient. Now, one historically known practitioner is trying looking to bridge the gap it has with contemporary artists: Pope Benedict XVI has announced an arts summit for November. The Vatican has invited 500 painters, sculptors, architects, writers, musicians, singers and film and theatre directors to form “an alliance between art and faith.” This comes after years of criticism of the Church in work by contemporary artists. (Here are reports by the BBC and The Guardian.) Some invited artists have already declined, including Bill Viola, whose video art work was shown in an exhibit last year at the 21C Museum Hotel.
