Monthly Archives: August 2012

Channel Your Inner Coward

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Noel Coward, that is, by going for the full immersion experience at NYPL of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center’s show that covers every inch of his creative life. Spend an hour or two probing the films, videos, music, and items that overflow at the exhibition, Star Quality: The World of Noel Coward.

It will definitely inspire you to write that musical revue, star in your own drama, entertain around a piano, paint a landscape that you love, snag a cameo in a film, be a friend to one and all, and party like it’s 1999.

You can begin by visiting the special website the NYPL has created and digging around in the decade-by-decade archive that keeps unfurling before you. Not all of the photos are dated, but you’ll see stage production photos from the original 1920s productions of Easy Virtue and The Vortex, Private Lives from the 30s, and Blithe Spirit from the 40s (go, Mildred Natwick!). There’s plenty of Lunt-Fontanne to go around in subsequent decades, and some classic shots of Elaine Stritch in Sail Away from the 60s.

If you need a quick refresher on all Coward’s shows, check out his portion of the Playbill vault.

But the walk-through at Lincoln Center goes well beyond just the songs, reviews, and drawing-room comedies with tales of his debut as a precocious child actor, iconic dressing gowns, inscribed gold and silver cigarette cases, a piano festooned with his favorite celebrity portraits, his “spy” career during WWII, his Vegas career (tuxedo in the desert?), and his TV/film work.

In fact, the lights, camera, and action are on full display with NYPL’s multiple viewing stations around the show, including some early 1930s footage of Coward’s musical stage reviews that are filmed from the wings, including a parade of “Children of the Ritz” and the Broadway debut of “Mad About the Boy”.

Go to see this now, and don’t miss the slide show of recently discovered private 3-D photos from the 1950s that is just inside the door.

Cool Off in Dublin Water Works

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During the summer heat wave, there’s a way to cool down in Chelsea and let the team from the Science Gallery at Trinity College challenge you to think differently about the splashing water you take for granted.

Take advantage of the final weeks of Surface Tension: The Future of Water at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center on West 21st Street, an incubator for digital art/design experimentation. For the past two-plus months, they’ve hosted an exhibition (first curated in Dublin) on the social-economic-political tensions created by water scarcity.

As soon as you walk into Eyebeam, you’ll be struck by the plethora of infographics that show you just how much water bounty that we have in the United States versus the availability and consumption per capita in the rest of the world. What’s your water footprint?

One of the ways you’ll find out is by looking at The Virtual Water Project, a celebrated infographic by German designer Tim Kekeritz, that depicts everyday objects and the amount of water required to produce them. Download the iPhone app. For $1.99, it will blow your mind (but not your budget) and continue to deliver a truly a conscious-raising experience of epic proportion.

Another unforgettable experience is Bit.Fall by artist Julius Popp, an installation that translates words from Internet newsfeeds into bits that are reconverted into a stunning waterfall of words:

There’s so much great stuff: multiple takes on water consumption, conservation, next-gen thinking, third-world innovations, and art-meets-technology solutions. Like Tele-Present Water by David Bowen, which recreates actual water movements from NOAA data being collected from a random buoy out in the ocean.

If you can’t get over to Chelsea for an hour, just click through the thought-provoking objects, artworks, design solutions, documentaries, and thought pieces by the scientists, artists, engineers, and designers whose works are on display on the Dublin microsite.

Egyptian Animal Planet at The Met

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Animal lovers, rush to see the final days of a truly spectacular journey back in time to experience the African wildlife that bounded across the still-lush lands surrounding the Nile. Tucked back into the lower level of the Met’s Lehman Wing, it may be easy to miss The Dawn of Egyptian Art, but don’t!

The items in this show are embellished with some of the liveliest, whimsical, and dramatic creatures, big and small, that entranced the citizens of Dynasties I and II, over five millennia ago.

Back in 3300 B.C., it was all about the animals – carvings of sleek and savvy jackals, mehen game boards in the shapes of snakes and turtles, fat bird jars, and frog containers that would make 14th century Mesoamerican artists jealous.  Who knew that you’d carry your stuff around in ostrich-egg containers? Or use palettes adorned with antelopes and turtles? Or have hair combs decorated with giraffes, hippos, and wildebeest? (Pre-dating Hello Kitty by about 5,000 years.)

It’s as if the curators were mounting a show for the AMNH, because they clearly have an eco-anthro explanation about the hottest trends. Examples: elephants were commonly seen in the lands around the Nile around 3700 B.C., but they vanished from the desert (and thus, from the art) by 2649 B.C.

Also, around 3300 B.C., there was art trend to portray some animals as sacred. But it wasn’t until the Upper and Lower Egyptian kingdoms were united in 2150 B.C. that animals were used as royal symbols and the well-known style of animal-head-on-human-body became the thing.

Jackal (ca. 3300-3100 B.C.)

Other highlights of this show include the Two-Dog Palette (which gives the famous Narmar Palette a run for its money) and a seemingly unremarkable ceramic bowl that documents a time of unprecedented high-tech innovation in 3700-3450 B.C. textile making: a new technique with ground looms that enabled the ancient Egyptians to weave the strongest, widest linen in the world (ever).

Join this safari and go spot some big game through the eyes of the ancient Egyptians.