The only thing dull about The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection at the National Gallery of Art: Selected Works (NGA) through May 2, 2010 is the exhibition title. I’d rather call it, with apologies to Wallace Stevens, Ten Ways of Looking at a Painting, with further apologies for the handful of drawings, prints and 3-dimensional works; it is overwhelmingly a paintings exhibition. The works, some already donated, the remainder promised to the NGA, are superb and the curatorial decisions intelligent, provocative and subtle. Harry Cooper, curator of modern and contemporary art, arranged ten sections, each labeled with a subject to ...
Since the King of Pop died, I’ve been catching up on my Michael Jackson video watching. The ones that really grab me are Thriller and Beat It which aspire to be short movies and pretty much are. Jackon’s dancing is remarkable to watch of course. But his dance moves take on even greater visual energy and emotion when he’s backed up by a dance troupe mimicking him and amplifying the movements. It’s then that the quick-stepping, twitching, pirouetting and hip popping becomes one big satisfying wave of movement.