POP! A New Musical @ Yale Repertory Theater

BY ALEXANDER J. NOELLE

I was thrilled when I saw a poster promoting a new musical based on the life and art of Andy Warhol.

The world premiere run of POP!, underway at Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, CT, through December 19, has been very well received and was glowingly reviewed in both the Boston Globe and New York Times. It isn’t everyday that an art-themed musical emerges, so I was both excited and apprehensive about seeing it. Warhol is such an iconic figure in the history of art, and I was unsure that a musical could really capture this infamous and mysterious person.

And that is exactly what the musical sets out to do. Instead of focusing on his art, POP! hones in on Warhol’s relationships with key people in his life, like right-hand man Gerard Malanga or transsexual muse Candy Darling. The six figures that flow in and out of the scenes define Warhol more concretely than he ever did, illuminating not only the mind behind the art, but also the mysterious person that they, as well as the art world, were captivated with. They are more than happy to tell volumes about the difficult genius–but Andy speaks his lines in enigmatic tones and hides behind his sunglasses, offering only an empty paper bag to solve any and every problem. He plays the role of the voyeur, much as he did in life.

Darling emcees this over the top murder-mystery musical that takes place in Warhol’s famous Silver Factory in New York City. Set in June of 1968, the show revolves around the attempted murder of Andy Warhol, an event I hadn’t realized had been a part of his life. The Factory is rendered as an industrial yet artsy playground for the cast and serves as a wonderful backdrop to the colorful personalities that epitomize the ’60′s. While there is definitely an art-inspired component to the set (mostly in the form of a large projections and live camera feeds), the focus remains on the personal relationships in Warhol’s life.

My favorite scene took place at a New York City bar where Warhol trespasses on the turf of some famous abstract expressionists: Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock. The “cowboys” of the art world, Motherwell, Kline, and Pollock are seen here as if they come straight out of a western movie, only they use paintbrushes instead of revolvers. The ensuing duel involves splatter painting, expressions of emotion, and the production of an abstract expressionist work of art on the back wall of the theater. A scathing commentary on this pivotal art movement, it was also incredibly hilarious. Upon seeing the work, Warhol simply comments, “I’ve always liked your little splatter paints. They look like so much fun!”

POP! is an experience not to be missed by any art historian or theater lover. The cast is extremely talented, the story is both fascinating and informative, and this unique study of modern art makes art history not only jump off the page, but also dance, sing, and perform the scandalous but true story of one of the most influential artists of our time.

The audience is left with one burning question: Who is Andy Warhol?

POP! at Yale Reperatory Theater through December 19
Visit their website for more information

Chick lit? Romance novels? Not for the art historian or museum professional, surely!  If you’re looking for a juicy read that you can apply to your day job, look no further than (the regrettably out of print) Making the Mummies Dance by Thomas Hoving.  I’ve been looking for a copy of this book for years, and finally found it for only five bucks among the vast shelves of my new favorite bookstore.  This book not only kept me sane through a week alone in my new apartment without TV or internet, it helped me get back into museum mode after a month of doing little more than catching up on Bravo marathons post-graduation.  

This wonderfully gossipy tell-all from the director who revolutionized the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1967-77 is readable, informative, and has all the famous and infamous names of the 60′s and 70′s. Hoving doesn’t shy from telling every detail, good or bad, about his former curators, trustees, donors, and enemies — and he’s also not shy about his own accomplishments. I found Hoving’s self-confidence more amusing than annoying, and in my opinion it was often justified: he did, after all, expand the Met’s encyclopedic collections as well as its campus, truly pushing the Met into the household name it is today  Either way, it’s not hard to get past the boasting (to his credit, he does identify what he thinks were his mistakes) and simply enjoy this conversational confessional, with its glimpse into the inner workings of the glittery world of Museum trustees and executives, who jetsetted back and forth between countries every other week, courted donors with grand parties, and built palatial palaces for art in an age before recessions and budget cuts.  Definitely a must-read for any museum professional or museum lover.

Making the Mummies Dance, Thomas Hoving, 1994. Buy from Amazon

A few weeks ago, I had the great fortune of being able to attend not one, but two members-only events at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City… and now I’ll bring them to you! These events, an opening and a Saturday morning lecture, were in conjunction with the Met’s newest exhibition, titled simply J. M. W. Turner.

The opening of the Turner exhibit was populated largely by an older crowd than me, but it was a great opportunity to see the exhibit with a relatively small number of people.  The show itself is exhaustive, a seemingly complete monograph on the artist and his many different works — from watercolors to oil sketches to full-blown oil paintings, and represent works from all the various periods of his life.  Simply by walking through the early galleries, you can see exactly where Turner’s art is heading; from the bright red reflection of a shirt on the sea, to the churning waves of a darkly-lit night, the vortexes and aureoles of Turner’s mature work looms. It is a great opportunity to get a glimpse into Turner’s entire career; not just the swirling, near-Impressionistic works he is famous for, but his realistic, haunting early watercolors and pale, ambiguous unfinished last works.

The members-only lecture was packed into the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at the Met and I was told it was the first in a while that was standing-room only.  The lecturer was an assistant curator in the 19th Century art department, and she was bubbly and excited about the show and Turner.  She had a great account of the usually-reclusive Turner’s tendency to paint the majority of his works during “varnishing days” (three days before the English Salons, or art showings, when the works were hung but not open to the public).   She threw in a few more fun facts, too, and had a killer ending.

Organized in conjunction with the Tate Britain (whose Turner Bequest makes up a majority of the works shown), the exhibition is likely the last-ever Turner retrospective in this country, so try tomake it to New York this summer to take in this very accessible, beautiful exhibition.  (While you’re there, visit the Pietre Dure show; review forthcoming!)

J. M. W. Turner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fifth Avenue at 82nd St., New York City) | Now through September 21, 2008.

The Telectroscope in Brooklyn. Photo by Gabrielle

A few weekends ago, I went to see what appeared to be a giant telescope at the Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn, NY, near the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. The Telectroscope, a giant contraption that looks like it was imported straight from Disney’s Tommorowland, was an exhibit created by artist Paul St. George to connect viewers in London and New York by giant video screens inside what appears to be the end of a giant telescope. A “connecting” Telectroscope was also installed in London, and both ends of the Telectroscope were positioned so that viewers on the other side of the ocean could see picturesque views. In back of New Yorkers, the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline could be seen, and the London Bridge rose up in back of Londoners looking through the giant lens.

According to Wikipedia, French writer and publisher Louis Figuier first used the term “telectroscope” in 1878 in regards to an invention of Alexander Graham Bell that Figuier wrongly interpreted as real. According to Figuier, Bell had invented a device in which people anywhere in the world “could be seen anywhere by anybody” – something like a combination of television and video-conferencing, on a larger scale. In reality, such a device never existed. But Paul St. George picked up on this idea of visually connecting people in creating the Telectroscope exhibit, and even created a fictional back-story to go along with it. (On the official website of the Telectroscope, the device is presented a giant telescope running beneath the Atlantic Ocean connecting London and New York, originally started by St. George’s fictional great-grandfather, Alexander Stanhope St. George.)

The view from inside the Telectroscope in Brooklyn. Photo by Gabrielle

The exhibit was a little disappointing when I saw it in person because the screen was pixelating, so there could be no illusions about it being a real telescope. Nevertheless, I really liked the idea of a giant “telescope” through which you could see people in real time in London. Through a giant glass lens, you could see a screen across from you and wave to people in London, who were waving back at you. Without sound, there was no way to speak to each other, and so these people on a screen became part of the artwork as well. The most fascinating part is to consider that for them, you are the elusive person on the other side of the screen.

The exhibit took the act of people watching, a hobby of both city residents and tourists, to a whole new level. Each viewer was aware that the people on the opposite continent were seeing him or her as part of the exhibit. There was a very blurry line between observing and interacting, which people really seemed to find intriguing.

The Telectroscope exhibit could be seen in London and New York from May 22nd–June 15th, 2008.

View of galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire. (Credit)

The Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire, is actually North America’s oldest museum in continuous operation. Dating back to 1772, it is owned and operated by Dartmouth College, and was founded just 3 years after the college itself. With nearly 65,000 objects in its permanent collection, this small museum boasts quite an impressive range of art. There’s a bit of everything, from Ancient Near Eastern reliefs, to American landscapes, to European paintings, and even some home furnishings.

While there are no “world famous” pieces in this museum that most would have heard of, I find it refreshing to wander this quiet museum and not worry about when you will get to the “Mona Lisa” of this college art museum. You get to really look at the art and take it in for what it is, not what you have heard about it. There is a substantial amount of their collection on display, and makes for a well rounded yet not overwhelming experience.

The King and the Genie, Relief from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, 883-859 BCE, Gypsum (Credit)

While there are many gems in the permanent collection, my favorite thing to see is the group of reliefs from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, Assyria, dating back to circa 883-859 BCE. Ashurnasirpal II was the King of Assyria from 884-859 BCE, and inhabited this palace in present-day Iraq. These over life-sized reliefs made of gypsum occupy a vast wall in one of the galleries, and show a variety of figures, including a King and a Genie. What I find most interesting is that if you look up close, you can see bands of cuneiform (an ancient style of writing) that proclaim the laws of the kingdom. These reliefs stick to the custom of depicting figures solely in profile, and are easily relatable to Egyptian and other Eastern art from that timeperiod. This impressive grouping remains powerful, even removed from its original context, and gives a sense of grandiosity that the original palace must have had. The museum has informative pamphlets that go into depth about the reliefs, the laws they proclaim, the figures they depict, and the provenance of the works themselves.

Maud Sulter, Terpsichore, 1989, dye destructions print. Arts Council Collection, London. Photograph courtesy of Maud Sulter and the Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London. On view in the exhibition Black Womanhood. Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire (Credit)

In addition to the vast permanent collection, the Hood Museum also presents about eight special exhibitions each year, as well as two teaching exhibitions each term. To quote the Museum itself, “The exhibitions program of the Hood Museum of Art represents one of the most important means by which the museum fulfills its primary mission: to foster a greater appreciation of the visual arts as a medium for the expression of ideas and cultural values. The exhibitions presented by the museum are intended to contribute to scholarship in art history and related disciplines and to offer insight into the artistic production of many different historical periods and cultures.” The current exhibitions are entitled “Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body” (April 1-August 10, 2008) and “Ruscha and Pop: Icons of the 1960s” (April 12-June 15, 2008).

Perhaps the most interesting exhibition program that the Hood has (at least to me, as an undergrad Art History major…) is called A Space for Dialogue. This program, started 7 years ago, allows the Senior Interns at the Museum to curate Mini-Exhibitions in the entrance lobby to the museum itself. There have been over 38 since 2001, each accompanied by a brochure written by the intern, and ranging in themes from Consuming Life: On Ideals of Beauty and Assuming Identity in a Culture of Fear to Picturing Family in the “South”: Legacies of the American Civil War. These exhibitions use works from the permanent collection that have not been displayed recently to create a provocative and thoughtful statement as well as give the Seniors a chance to get some hands-on curatorial experience. The full title of this program is: A Space for Dialogue: Fresh Perspectives on the Permanent Collection from Dartmouth Students, and it truly creates a venue for interaction not only between the students and their selected works of art, but also between the viewers, the students, and the museum itself.

Gods of the Modern World, detail of mural cycle The Epic of American Civilization. Detail of mural by José Clemente Orozco at Baker Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. (Credit)

The museum is located just off “The Big Green” at the heart of both Dartmouth College’s campus as well as the college town of Hanover, New Hampshire. It is situated next to the Hopkin’s Art Center, and just off the main street where you can find Lou’s (a classy ‘50s style diner, which is also the best place for breakfast in the area) as well as many cute shops and restaurants. Just across the green is the Baker Library, home to Jose Clemente Orozco’s massive mural project entitled The Epic of American Civilization. These works of art depict an intricate and compelling narrative that covers the history of the Americas, beginning with the Aztecs’ migration into central Mexico and ending with the development of our modern industrial society. Located in the Reserve room in the lower level of the library, these vibrant murals (comprised of 24 individual scenes and covering approximately 3,200 square feet) are a must-see for anyone in the area.

Overall, the Hood Museum of Art is a wonderful place to simply enjoy art. As long as you go with an open mind and an eye that is not looking for a Manet or Michelangelo, I truly believe anyone can really enjoy this peaceful and accessible collection. The special exhibitions are always worth a look, and the Museum Staff are very friendly and more than happy to answer any and all questions.

View of Hood Museum of Art from courtyard (Credit)

Hanover, New Hampshire is pretty far off of the beaten path for most, but the Upper Valley is a great place for a weekend retreat. In the summer, there are endless outdoors activities and even a Drive-In nearby. The Fall offers breathtaking views and hikes as the mountains seem to burst into flame with the changing foliage. In the winter, this cute college town turns into a winter wonderland with lots of local skiing and plenty of raging fireplaces to keep you warm. Lastly, in the spring, (or what we call “Mud Season”) the expanses of blooming flowers and rushing rivers offer a wonderful escape into nature.

It isn’t common to find such an impressive range of art outside of a major city, and I believe the location of the Hood Museum of Art, away from the hustle and bustle of city life, adds to its character of quiet and removed contemplation. It is a sanctuary of sorts, where you can really relax, take a deep breath, and open your eyes to truly see what is in front of you.

More information on any topic discussed above, as well as complete information on current and upcoming exhibitions, can be found on the Hood Museum of Art’s official website.