Michelangelo Makes Mincemeat of Soggy Bill Viola – Art Review

THE GUARDIAN
By @SearleAdrian

Theatrical … Bill Viola’s Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall), 2005. Photograph: Kira Perov/courtesy Bill Viola Studio

Bill Viola/Michelangelo is subtitled Life Death Rebirth. The three words are the first thing you see in the Royal Academy’s pairing of the two artists. You enter fully alive. About half way through the dark, labyrinthine galleries, we meet an naked elderly couple, each projected on a slab of black granite, examining their own bodies with small torches. Apparently, he is searching for immortality, she for eternity. By now I wish it were over. At the end, we come across a woman silhouetted against a wall of flame. This is the last frontier. The pairing of Viola’s video installations with Michelangelo drawings is not, the RA insists, an attempt to elevate the American video artist to the status of a modern Michelangelo. Rather, it is an attempt to point out affinities in subject matter and spiritual aspirations: “The nature of being, the transience of life, and the search for a greater meaning beyond mortality.” [More]

‘Visions’ Means Visitors at The Albuquerque Museum

ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
By Kathleeen Roberts

Rosemary Buckley of Fishkill, N.Y., looks at the Processional Shield Painting "The Nativity (recto)" and "The Virgin and Child (verso)" from the Viceroyalty of Peru in "Visions of the Hispanic World: Treasures From the Hispanic Society Museum & Library" at the Albuquerque Museum. (Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal)

An art exhibition from New York’s Hispanic Society is producing visions of visitors at the Albuquerque Museum. Since the show opened in early November, attendance at “Visions of the Hispanic World: Treasures From the Hispanic Society Museum & Library” has skyrocketed by 59 percent compared to the same period in 2017. Featuring works by such high-profile artists as Goya, Velásquez and El Greco, “Visions” encompasses Celtic, Islamic and Judaic cultures, as well as the Impressionist paintings of Joquin Sorolla y Bastida. The exhibition is open through March 31. [More]

Theatre Review: Raising a Joyful New Voice in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s ‘Choir Boy’

THE YORK TIMES
By Jesse Green

The Broadway premiere of Oscar winner Tarell Alvin McCraney's acclaimed drama.

You haven’t seen a character like Pharus before. Certainly not on Broadway. It’s not just that he’s “an effeminate young man of color,” as Tarell Alvin McCraney thumbnails him in the script for “Choir Boy.” But by the time Jeremy Pope, making a sensational Broadway debut in the role, gets through with him, that sketch has been filled in, roughed up and turned inside out — and with it a world of tired ideas about what it means for a man to be strong. When “Choir Boy,” which opened on Tuesday at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, sticks to that idea, focusing on Pharus’s discovery, through exuberant music, of the brawn inside his perceived weakness, it is captivating and fresh. [More]

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Exhibition Focuses on Shrines Across Japan

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Kansa Shrine at Lake Tazawa, from the series Souvenirs of Travel III, 1927, Kawase Hasui (Japanese, 1883 - 1957), Woodblock print; ink and color on paper. René and Carolyn Balcer Collection.

This Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibition features twelve woodblock prints by Japanese artist Kawase Hasui (1883-1957). Selected from nearly 700 Hasuiprints donated to the museum by René and Carolyn Balcer, these works focus on scenes of temples and shrines across Japan, celebrating their sacred architecture and connections between people and nature. This installation is curated by Li Jian, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of East Asian Art, and coincides with the 100th anniversary of the first prints created by Hasui in 1918. [More]

Critics Pick: An Art of Faith, Facts and Miracles in Manhattan

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Holland Cotter

Metal votives in various shapes, from Italy, 1930-50. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich.CreditCreditBayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich; Walter Haberland

Walk into the big art-packed churches of Rome and Mexico City and you can spot the most valuable image instantly. It’s not the great painting or sculpture described in the Blue Guide. As often as not, it’s the smallish Madonna over there in the corner with a bank of candles burning in front of her and the handwritten notes, photographs and silver medals attached to her cloak. These add-on items are by no means peripheral to her image. They constitute an art genre of their own — an art of please-and-thank-you — and one that is the subject of a marvelous show called “Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in Time and Place” at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery in Manhattan. Votive objects — also called ex-votos, from the Latin word for vow — are common to every culture and have a long history. [More]