Disney-Britton

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory  &  Ernest Disney-Britton Reverse of a crucifix from the Holy Land, 19th century. On one side is the Corpus and on the other are Instruments of the Passion. Growing up, Ernest's neighborhood friend Tim Pope thought he was so cool. He wasn't the best dresser, or ball-player, or any kind of trendsetter, but he was way cooler than anyone else because somehow he made everyone else feel cooler than they really were by simply being in his presence. Ernest, David, Ricky and the others flocked to Tim like they were his disciples. He had an amazing gift. On Saturday morning, Tim passed away, and last night Ernest thought about the many years since he went away to college and lost touch.  He missed being in Tim's presence, and he missed feeling cool with Tim. He also thought how lucky heaven is to now have Tim Pope as part of their band. Farewell, childhood friend. THIS WILL BE THE FINAL WEEKLY UNTI...

NEW ZEALAND TIMES By Allison Hess The sand mandala at Tauranga Art Gallery. Photo/Andrew Warner NEW ZEALAND---Buddhist monks have finished making a colourful sand mandala at Tauranga Art Gallery. But the work of art is fleeting - the intricate mosaic will be swept up and poured into the Tauranga Harbour in a few days' time. The beautiful mandala was the result of 11 days of work' by monk-artists Venerable Geshe Jamyang Sherab and Venerable Karma Gyasey. From 10am to 4pm every day the monks used ridged metal funnels, which let coloured sand trickle out when rubbed with a piece of horn. The monks created a work entitled The Medicine Buddha, the Buddha of Healing - described as "the manifestation of the healing energy of all enlightened things". [ link ]

HAARETZ By Shany Littman Reuven Rubin’s 'Temptation in the Desert.' ISRAEL---Though Jesus has traditionally been a taboo subject among observant Jews, he has served as a common theme for modern Jewish painters and writers. It’s not surprising, then, that it took so many years for the Israel Museum to dare to mount an exhibition in Jerusalem of Israeli art dealing with Jesus. That institution, the closest thing we have to a national museum, generally tries to rock the boat as little as possible. But time has apparently calmed the tempestuous feelings about “that person”: Quite a few religiously observant folk were spotted on a recent visit to the exhibition “Behold the Man: Jesus in Israeli Art” (which opened shortly before Christmas and runs until April 16.) None were visibly upset by the fact that Israeli artists were occupied with what was once such a volatile subject. [ link ]

THE CATHOLIC REVIEW Movie poster HOLLYWOOD---"The Shack" (Summit), director Stuart Hazeldine's screen version of William Paul Young's best-selling novel, represents a serious effort to tackle the problem of evil from a Christian perspective. As such, it will be welcomed by believers. While objectionable elements are virtually absent from the film, however, patches of dialogue discounting the value of religion -- here implicitly set in opposition to faith broadly speaking -- and hinting that God is indifferent to how we worship him mean that impressionable viewers should keep their distance. So, too, does the morally problematic treatment of a dark and long-kept secret. While some may be uncomfortable with the fact that both the Father and the Holy Spirit manifest themselves to the protagonist as women, given that they would be free to do so in whatever guise they chose, this is no real objection. [ link ]

YALE NEWS A detail from Egyptian artist Effat Naghi's "The High Dam," 1966. Collection of the Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. © Effat Naghi. CONNECTICUT---The Yale University Art Gallery will mark the 175th anniversary of the field of Arabic studies at Yale with the exhibition “Modern Art from the Middle East,” a selection of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by Middle Eastern artists rarely exhibited in the United States. The exhibition is part of a campus-wide, yearlong celebration. The field of Arabic studies was inaugurated on campus in 1841 when Edward Elbridge Salisbury, B.A. 1832, became the first professor of Arabic and Sanskrit in the United States. The 19 artworks on display in the exhibition are on loan from the Barjeel Art Foundation, a collection of modern and contemporary art located in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates. Established by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, the foundation promotes the art of the Middle East through inte...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Holland Cotter “Vishvarupa” (1961) from “An Artist of Her Time: Y.G. Srimati and the Indian Style,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. NEW YORK--- Y. G. Srimati (1926-2007) was one of these artists, as seen in the beautiful and important small show, “ An Artist of Her Time: Y. G. Srimati and the Indian Style ,” at the Met. Born in Mysore and raised in Madras (now Chennai), Ms. Srimati studied several classical South Asian art forms, becoming an expert instrumentalist, vocalist, dancer and painter. In the end, she’s a devotional artist, in the religious or spiritual sense: Her 1947-48 painting of the Hindu goddess Saraswati was originally displayed on her family’s home altar. And this is yet another factor likely to keep her from mainstream modernist acceptance. Through June 18. Metropolitan Museum of Art; 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. [ link ]

BREITBART NEWS By Thomas D. Williams, PhD In a new step forward in Jewish-Catholic relations, the Vatican Museums and the Rome Jewish Museum have announced a historic joint exhibition on the menorah. The works of art—comprising paintings, sculpture, engravings, illustrations, and literature—will showcase the seven-armed candelabra that has become the universal symbol of Judaism as well as of the relations between the Christian and Jewish faiths. The exhibit took three and a half years to prepare and will run from May 15 – July 23. [ link ]

THE UNIVERSITY NEWS By Nadia Sirajuddin Bernard Maisner’s "The Way Up Is The Way Inside the Whale" MISSOURI---Nestled right behind the frequently visited Subway and POD market is one of the hidden gems of campus, the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art . Containing an immensely broad spectrum of art, this cozy museum has something for anyone and everyone to appreciate. Currently until April 2, MOCRA is featuring Bernard Maisner  "The Hourglass and the Spiral," an exhibit that is definitely a treat but definitely not the only thing worth seeing. MOCRA urges us to see religion in a new light, setting the art as an example. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Jori Finkel The artist Gabriel Orozco in the Kurimanzutto gallery in Mexico City, which he turned into a well-stocked and fully functioning Oxxo convenience store. Credit Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times MEXICO CITY — It began as a friendly gesture. About five years ago, the artist Gabriel Orozco started printing colorful stickers that mimic the geometry of his abstract paintings: semicircles and quarter-circles in red, gold, white and blue. He plastered the patterns on the back of his iPhone and did the same for friends as small gifts. Now this artist, so acclaimed that he was able to sell an empty shoe box to the Museum of Modern Art, is about to find out how much his colorful art objects are worth to the public. For his newest project, which opened here on Wednesday, Feb. 8, he has transformed the Kurimanzutto gallery into a fully stocked and operating Oxxo convenience store, complete with cash registers, clerks, a coffee counter and the usual ...

ARTDAILY Reverse of a crucifix from the Holy Land, 19th century. On one side is the Corpus and on the other are Instruments of the Passion. UNITED KINGDOM---Could there be a more powerful and enduring expression of devotion than depictions of Christ and the cross? There are certainly no other religious images that have been made in so many locations over so many centuries. Starting on Ash Wednesday, the exhibition ‘Cross the World: Building Bridges in Wood’ will be at Westminster Cathedral , London. It is a rare attempt to bring together the global diversity of crucifixes and other types of cross in one place, side by side. It is appropriate that this exhibition of wooden crosses should be in the Cathedral’s Chapel of St Joseph, whose feast day is in Lent. The foster father of Jesus was not only a carpenter and a model of selflessness; he was also a refugee parent looking after a wife and child during their flight into Egypt. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Patricia Leigh Brown Alan and Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg with items from their folk art collection, including “El Festín del Nopal,” a papier-mâché cactus bedecked with skeletons playing instruments, by Ricardo Linares Garcia. Credit Philip Greenberg for The New York Times CONNECTICUT---Like many residences in this woodsy land of Modernist architecture, the house Alan Goldberg designed in 1977 for his wife, Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, and their children was conceived as a serene, minimalist paradise. That was before they started negotiating rocky trails to remote Mexican villages in pursuit of ceramic mermaids, funeral processions made of corn husks, and other folk art. Their exuberant collection by 86 known artists quickly subsumed their once-pristine house. They began traveling to Mexico in the early 1960s when Zihuatanejo, in Guerrero state, was a sleepy fishing village “filled with characters out of a Humphrey Bogart movie,” Mr. Gol...