Culture and the Arts - ArtsBeat Blog

Oct 14 12:31 pm

Marquis de Sade, in Paris, Retains the Power to Shock

PARIS — Two hundred years after his death, the Marquis de Sade, dark philosopher of libertines and sexual freedom, is making a comeback as a muse for art exhibitions, a video game and an unlikely museum trailer.

On Tuesday, the Musée d’Orsay opened its exhibition “Sade: Attacking the Sun,” promoting it with a tribute to the French aristocrat’s radical vision of the 18th century with a brief video trailer of writhing nude men and women. Soon after, YouTube posted a warning, “For Viewers Under 18,” on the 53-second video.

It was rather tame stuff by comparison to the artistic mayhem in the Musée d’Orsay’s exhibition of artists influenced by Sade’s views that challenged limits and desires. There are works by Goya exploring cannibals preparing their victims for slaughter, the rape of the Sabines by Pablo Picasso and Paul Cézanne’s haunting portrait of a strangled woman.

For the Musée d’Orsay, the show is just its latest step to push the limits. Earlier, under the leadership of its president, Guy Cogeval, it organized an exhibition on crime and punishment that included an original French guillotine. More recently it created a show on male nudes that broke audience records and also prompted Facebook to also issue warnings about a museum trailer that featured some frontal nudity.

The Sade show, which ends Jan. 25, coincides with the 200th anniversary of the death of Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, who penned his provocative novel, “The 120 Days of Sodom,” while imprisoned in 1785 in the Bastille. He was held there on a royal order — pressed by his mother-in-law — in connection with charges against him for sodomy and poisoning prostitutes.

The exhibition is one of two in the French capital exploring the influence of the man, whose reach has extended to the films of Luis Buñuel and John Waters, for example. The 18th-century philosopher is also poised to make an appearance in a video game to be released by Ubisoft in France in November — a sequel to the “Assassin’s Creed” series that is set in the French Revolution.

Until Jan. 18, the Museum of Letters and Manuscripts in Paris is also presenting an exhibition of Sade’s letters and books, including his manuscript for “The 120 Days of Sodom,” a tale of four wealthy libertines who settle in a remote medieval castle with young victims who are abused and tortured.

The Marquis de Sade wrote this work on pages assembled into a 39-foot-long roll that he hid between two stones in his prison cell in the Bastille. The museum of letters is also displaying his handwritten letters to his wife, stepmother, lawyer and an actress.

Oct 14 11:35 am

Wall Street Joins Blues Rock in Benefit

By Allan Kozinn

The worlds of Wall Street and blues rock may seem galaxies apart, but for the last four years a group of employees of financial institutions, technology companies and the entertainment business have been pooling their resources as Wall Street Rocks, a program that has raised more than $350,000 to support military veterans and first responders, mainly by presenting starry concerts.

For this year’s concert, at the Highline Ballroom on Nov. 10, the organization has assembled a bluesy supergroup. The musicians includes the guitarists Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top), Warren Haynes (who will have just played in the Allman Brothers’ final shows, and still performs with Gov’t Mule) and Mike Addiego (who plays with Steely Dan), as well as Phish’s bassist, Aaron Hersey and Blues Traveler’s singer, guitarist and harmonica virtuoso, John Popper. The band’s rhythm section includes the bassist Will Lee and the drummer Anton Fig, from David Letterman’s house band.

A spokeswoman said that the full ensemble would play four or five songs made famous by each member’s own group, and would do some jamming as well. The proceeds from the show will benefit ReserveAid, which provides financial support for reservists and National Guard members currently deployed abroad or recently returned.

Music Oct 14 9:32 am

Taylor Swift’s ‘Out of the Woods’ Lives Up to The Hype, Soaring to No. 1 on iTunes

By Ben Sisario

She tweeted about it for days. She Instagrammed in anticipation all evening. She went on “Good Morning America” to talk about it, whipping up a complicit entertainment news media. And then at midnight on Monday, as promised, Taylor Swift’s latest single, “Out of the Woods,” was released and quickly shot to No. 1 on the iTunes’ chart.

The song, co-written with Jack Antonoff of the band Fun, is the second single for Ms. Swift’s next album, “1989,” which comes out Oct. 27. Laden with synthesizers, “Out of the Woods” is clearly in the pop realm, demonstrating Ms. Swift’s transition from crossover country phenomenon to unqualified pop star. The album’s first single, “Shake It Off,” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s pop charts even though it was largely ignored by country radio stations, once her biggest promoters.

In a season of experimental album-release stunts — U2 offering its new album free to 500 million iTunes users, Thom Yorke using BitTorrent, a file-sharing technology usually favored for piracy — Ms. Swift and her label, Big Machine, are using tried-and-true marketing techniques to push hard for big opening-week sales for “1989.” Those include advance singles serviced to pop radio stations, frequent media appearances and a constant drumbeat of social-media notifications.

In August, Ms. Swift announced the release of “Shake It Off” through a talk-show presentation in the Empire State Building streamed live by Yahoo. The video quickly became a smash hit online and within a few days she performed the song at MTV’s Video Music Awards.

Other big album releases this fall include Florida Georgia Line’s “Anything Goes” and the commercial release of U2’s “Songs of Innocence,” both out this week; Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter V,” scheduled for Oct. 28; the soundtrack to the next “Hunger Games” film, programmed by Lorde, on Nov. 18; Nicki Minaj’s “The Pinkprint,” scheduled for Nov. 24; AC/DC’s “Rock or Bust,” on Dec. 2; and possibly others by Kanye West and One Direction.

Adele, who is working on the follow up to her 2011 hit “21,” will not be releasing a new album this year, her label reported.

Oct 14 8:00 am

In Performance: Rachel Dratch of ‘Tail! Spin!’

By Erik Piepenburg

This week’s video features the former “Saturday Night Live” actress Rachel Dratch in a scene from “Tail! Spin!,” a political comedy that draws on interviews, emails and speeches by and about male politicians involved in sex scandals. In this scene, taken from a Barbara Walters interview, Ms. Dratch plays three characters: Ms. Walters; Jenny Sanford, the wife of the former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford; and Mr. Sanford’s Argentine girlfriend, María Belén Chapur, with whom he admitted having an extramarital affair. (Last month Mr. Sanford announced the breakup of his engagement to Ms. Chapur.) Written by Mario Correa and directed by Dan Knechtges, “Tail! Spin!” is at the Lynn Redgrave Theater at Culture Project.

In Performance

Actors in excerpts from new shows.

Recent videos in this series include Bridget Everett singing “I’ll Take You Home,” accompanied by the composer Marc Shaiman, from the show “Rock Bottom,” and Anthony Wayne singing the title song from “Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical.”

Coming soon: Alysha Umphress sings “I Can Cook Too” from the Broadway revival of “On the Town.”

Oct 14 6:51 am

‘Gotham’ Recap: Land Deals and Flutes of Death

By Jeremy Egner

Season 1, Episode 4, “Arkham”

Spoilers and cannoli lurk below. Skip the cannoli.

“Gotham” got some good news on Monday afternoon, as Fox opted to extend its original 16-episode order to a full slate of 22. It’s unclear whether the move owed more to the show’s decent performance thus far or the contrasting mediocrity of Fox’s other new shows, but it amounts to a vote of confidence regardless.

'Gotham'

Recaps of the Fox crime drama.

The bad news is “Gotham” followed up these glad tidings a few hours later with an episode that displayed the show’s usual problems — rampant cliches, leaden dialogue — unleavened by some of the livelier touches we’ve seen in previous weeks.

The crime of the week involved an assassin whose weapon of choice was a sort of steampunk flute with a blade hidden inside. It was useless from afar but absolutely deadly to anyone dense enough to hold their eye to it, which is what our first victim opted to do. The target was that man’s boss, a luckless councilman who had his own retina skewered in quick order. (This after watching the killer approach in a dark parking lot and literally assemble the weapon in front of him. We keep hearing about how dangerous Gotham City is but apparently nobody told him.)

Those murders and the ones to follow surrounded the coming development of the old Arkham Asylum district, which the Waynes, we’re told, hoped to turn into a state of the art mental health facility and low-income housing, to be developed by Carmine Falcone. The rival Maroni crime family, showing precious little mobster imagination, wants to turn it instead into a waste disposal site.

“This isn’t just about the asylum,” Gordon tells young Bruce Wayne, and he was just getting warmed up.

‘Sleepy Hollow’ Recap: Following the Pied Piper To…

By Neil Genzlinger

Season 2, Episode 3, “Go Where I Send Thee”

The opening scene of Monday night’s “Sleepy Hollow” episode was clearly a result of one of these two writers’-room bets, or perhaps both:

– “Ten bucks to the first person who can work �?jinba ittai’ into the show.”

– “Let’s see if we can write a car-driving scene whose dialogue and squeals can be mashed up with footage from a soft-core movie.”

In both cases, mission accomplished. Abbie (Nicole Beharie) gave Ichabod (Tom Mison) a driving lesson, and before long he was invoking jinba ittai, which the Internet tells us is a Japanese phrase embodying unity between horse and rider. The Internet also tells us that the phrase was hijacked some years ago by Mazda for its advertising. Does Mazda sponsor this show? (I sometimes accidentally forget to watch commercials.) If so, well done, product placement team!

As for the mashup, yeah, when Abbie is saying lines like “All that power is now a part of you; make it your steed” and then shrieking in a way that could suggest either terror or ecstasy, someone is inevitably going to cobble together a steamy one. Maybe someone already has.

Anyway, the episode, “Go Where I Send Thee,” turned into a worthy follow-up to last week’s home run, as Ichabod and Abbie took on a pied piper with a long history of luring children into the woods to a nasty fate. The set-up raised a brief concern that the show was veering into “Grimm” territory, but the writers gave the Pied Piper legend a Revolutionary War spin that kept the episode true to the series.

And the night’s final scene proved that this hour wasn’t a mere detour. John Noble wasn’t given much work in this installment, but the sight of him mortar-and-pestling the pied piper’s flute into a powder for as-yet unknown sinister purposes brought the night’s story into the larger framework nicely. Are we likely to see other fairy tales turn up as “Sleepy Hollow” plot lines? Maybe. Which ones? You tell me.

$400,000 Grant to Help Connect Orchestra With Next Generation

By Allan Kozinn

If only a conductor were on its wish list, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra now has the spare cash to hire one. The 42-year-old ensemble, which has always prided itself on its ability to perform complex works through a collaborative interpretive process, and without anyone on its podium, has been awarded a $400,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The grant, which the orchestra will receive over three years, has been set aside mostly for Next Generation Orpheus, a new program meant to help the orchestra expand the demographic breadth of its roster, and to navigate the transition from a roster dominated by its founding members to one led by younger performers.

Part of the grant will also be used to create part-time staff positions for emeritus members of the orchestra. Among the jobs to be created are two-year positions with the Orpheus Institute, a program in which the ensemble uses its collaborative approach to interpretation and performance as a model for university students in all disciplines.

Oct 13 1:51 pm

MoMA to Present a Robert Altman Retrospective

By Allan Kozinn

If you had been meaning to revisit Robert Altman’s most admired films – say, “MASH,” “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” “The Player” or “Nashville” – or catch up with some you may have missed, the Museum of Modern Art will make it easy for you. It is presenting a 50-program Altman retrospective, from Dec. 3 to Jan. 17. It may not be as easy as binge-watching at home, but the museum has found some films that aren’t readily available on Netflix (or anywhere else).

The series, which was organized by Ronald S. Magliozzi, an associate curator at the museum, will include the full scope of Altman’s feature filmmaking, from “The Delinquents” (1957) through “A Prairie Home Companion” (released shortly before his death in 2006).

But Mr. Magliozzi plans to show less-frequently-explored sides of Altman’s art as well. He will be screening industrial shorts that Altman produced in Kansas City, early in his career, among them his 1950 “Honeymoon for Harriet” for International Harvester, in 1950 (when Altman was 25); and his 1955 “The Magic Bond,” for the Veterans of Foreign Wars). Music videos he made for the Color-Sonics film jukebox system – including Bobby Troup’s “Girl Talk” and Lili St. Cyr’s “Speak Low,” both from 1966 – will be screened as well.

Episodes Altman directed for television series (including “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Bonanza,” “Combat!” and “Route 66”) are included. So are Altman’s adaptations of theater works like Ed Graczyk’s “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” which he also directed on Broadway, and David Rabe’s “Streamers” (1983), Sam Shepard’s “Fool for Love” (1985), Harold Pinter’s “Dumb Waiter” and Christopher Durang’s “Beyond Therapy” (both 1987).

Several of the prints, including newly restored versions, are on loan to the museum from the Robert Altman Collection at the U.C.L.A. Film & Television Archive, which presented a similar but less extensive retrospective this spring.

Oct 13 1:32 pm

American Music Awards Nominees Include Iggy Azalea, Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams

By Ben Sisario

Iggy Azalea leads the nominations for this year’s American Music Awards, with a total of six nods, including artist of the year, new artist of the year and single of the year, for her summer hit “Fancy,” it was announced on Monday.

John Legend, Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams are next with five nods each, and Lorde has four. The number of stars nominated for the top prize, artist of the year, has doubled this year to 10. Besides Iggy Azalea, Mr. Legend, Ms. Perry, Mr. Williams and Lorde, the category also includes Beyoncé, Luke Bryan, Eminem, Imagine Dragons and One Direction.

The American Music Awards, created by Dick Clark in 1973 as an alternative to the Grammys, will be presented this year on Nov. 23 by Dick Clark Productions and broadcast by ABC. Nominees are based on music sales, radio airplay and online popularity, and winners are chosen by public voting through the awards’ website, AMAvote.com, and on Twitter.

Oct 13 12:49 pm

$50,000 for Meshell Ndegeocello and 33 Other U.S.A. Fellows

By Felicia R. Lee

The singer and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello, the painter and sculptor Edouard Duval-Carrié, the filmmakers Ryan White and Ben Cotner and the artist Wangechi Mutu are among 34 people who have been awarded $50,000 and named U.S.A. fellows for 2014. The unrestricted awards, announced Monday, are from the United States Artists program, a grant-making organization funded by philanthropic foundations and individuals to support creativity. The 16 women and 18 men were selected by experts in their fields and were among 116 nominated artists living in the United States.

“U.S.A. Fellowships are awarded to innovative artists of all ages and at all stages of their careers, who are nominated for their commitment to excellence and the enduring potential of their work,” Carolina Garcia Jayaram, the chief executive of U.S.A. said in a statement.

The awards were given in architecture and design, crafts and traditional arts, dance, literature, media, music, theater and visual arts. A complete list of winners can be found at www.unitedstatesartists.org/2014fellows.

Founded in 2006 by the Ford, Rockefeller, Rasmuson and Prudential Foundations, U.S.A. is currently funded by several philanthropic foundations and individuals, including the Bloomberg Foundation and the Knight Foundation. Each artist’s fellowship is named for the foundation or individual supporting him or her. Since its founding, the fellows program has given $19.1 million to 405 artists. Past recipients include Kara Walker, Meredith Monk, Jason Moran, Benjamin Millepied and Bill T. Jones.

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