La Sylphide

I found this photo posted on Twitter by an enthusiastic guest on opening night. Oddly, there are no photos of the set on the NYCB website. 

What a thrill to finally see Susan Tammany’s sets and costumes for the New York City Ballet’s production of La Sylphide in all their gloriousness the other night.

Set in Scotland, the 1836 ballet by Danish choreographer August Bournonville, is a classic boy-meets-sylph-on-his-wedding-day story. Unable to resist her flirtation, the groom-to-be, James, a poet, chases the alluring wood nymph straight into her otherworldly forest habitat. Needless to say, it all comes to a tragic end when James attempts to possess the ethereal creature. Her capture, of course means her demise. The ballet ends with James collapsed in despair, and we can see, off in the distance, the wedding of his jilted fiancé to his best friend.

For Danish-born NYCB-master-in-chief Peter Martins, the ballet holds special significance. He writes in the program notes:

La Sylphide is the first ballet that I ever saw. I danced in it when I was a student at the Royal Danish Ballet School, and more than a decade later, I graduated to the role of James, the male lead. Working my way up through the various corps roles, I came to know this ballet very well, and whenever I look at the cozy domestic scene that provides the setting for Act I it is as if I’m staring into my own living room.

The costumes were produced from Tammany’s designs in the NYCB’s costume shop under the direction of Marc Happel.

The following photos are samples from some of the wonderful slideshows about the production from around the web and social media.

It takes many wings to propel a flock of sylphs …

Above, Elle magazine slideshow backstage at the opening performance. Below, NYCB and Women's Wear Daily slideshows of the costume production.

And custom-woven tartan to outfit a Scottish wedding party …

Women's Wear Daily and NYCB  slideshows of the costume shop.

And Scenic Art Studios' massive industrial facility in Newburgh, NY to create the farmhouse where James first encounters the sylph…

and the beguiling woodland into which he is lured.

Photos from Scenic Arts Studios and Susan Tammany.

Michael Cooper tells an even more surprising story behind the scenes in the New York Times about Tammany's other role at Lincoln Center's Koch Theater ...

NY Times photo by Sam Hodgson

The street art of Buenos Aires is as exuberant as it is plentiful. The painting of murals on outside walls throughout the city is not only accepted, but encouraged and celebrated.

I wandered by the above mural of Argentine deity, Diego Maradona, during my visit to BA in 2009. It’s way more lighthearted and cartoonish than more recent soccer murals, which tend toward the heroic and reverential. A big supporter of the local street art scene is Buenos Aires Street Art. They organize and document projects, offer regular street-art tours and even aerosol classes. You can see soccer related murals they’ve posted here and here.

As all will be watching Lionel Messi’s “date with history,” in the World Cup final of Argentina v. Germany, I thought I’d finally post Maradona and some of the other painted walls I saw in BA. While I can’t give equal time here to Germany’s wall art, I’ve slipped in a mural from a visit to Berlin. I think you’ll figure out which one it is. (Hint: don’t be fooled by the Volkswagen)

 Also check out the NY Times infographic on Messi vs. Maradona.

Raymond Pettibon: Making Waves

Venus over Manhattan has assembled forty ‘surfer works’ created between 1985 and 2013 by California-based artist Raymond Pettibon. Inked across one of the works is the line “SOME THINGS (SEA FOAM, FOR INSTANCE) CANNOT BE DRAWN AT ALL, BUT ONLY SURFED.” While this might sound like a disclaimer, it ends up serving as more of a myth for Pettibon to defy. Impressively, the non-surfer manages with his loose, gestural style to convey, way beyond more realistic renderings, the heart-stopping tininess of the surfer up against a world-obliterating wave.

I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with how the viewer experiences the paint as water and the rhythmic strokes as waves. The vigor of Pettibon’s marks and the wateriness of the drips impart an immediacy that lets you see the big picture and be inside it at the same time, something not possible with a more photographic approach. In effect, this allows Pettibon to work both the wide-angle lens and the zoom in one frame. The comic book-style freefloating thoughts and phrases, add yet another level of intimacy, placing the viewer inside the head of the speck inside the monster curl. 

“Are Your Motives Pure? / Raymond Pettibon Surfers 1985-2013” is on view through May 17.

Run, Don't Walk: Hopper Drawings at the Whitney

In the supporting reference for “New York Movie,” 1939, we learn that usherettes were to refrain from watching the film while on duty. 

You really don’t want to miss the show of Hopper drawings at the Whitney. It closes on October 6th, so consider this fair warning: Get yourself over there this week.

Edward Hopper was a master of distillation. His powerful ability to observe, stage, and edit have resulted in some of the most iconic images in American painting. He manages to evoke not just a geographic sense of place, but a location’s emotional essence as well.

The drawings document Hopper’s perception and thought in real time. Raw reportage. It might be the flicker of what he’s seeing at a given moment while riding the elevated train, or the framing of a scene he’s studied for some time. We watch him record, digest and process the world. Through his drawings, we experience, visually, the artist’s brain at work.

This show is also an opportunity to marvel at Hoppers draftsmanship, which is something not always evident in his paintings. And to support the drawings, the Whitney provides sketchbook pages, vintage photographs, maps, floor plans, and—oh yes—21 paintings.

"Early Sunday Morning," from 1930, was reunited with the easel Hopper painted it on in his studio.

The Many Sides of Le Corbusier

Even if you don’t get to MoMA to see the fantastic Le Corbusier show, you must visit the site of Fondation Le Corbusier. There, you will find the work of a prolific and multi-dimensional talent.

In addition to paintings, you

will find sculpture ...

Drawings ...

Furniture ...

Tapestries ...

Collage ...

Graphic design ...

And photographs, which are stills shot with a

movie camera between films. 

Oh, I almost forgot, he was also an architect.