Art: The Pérez Art Museum in Miami has scored a triumph by landing the first major U.S. retrospective of the work of Beatriz Milhazes, a Brazilian artist whose big, colorful abstract paintings brim with a riot of colors that nevertheless cohere with a pleasant, joyous effect. Jardim Botânico (her studio adjoins a botanical garden) covers the last 25 years of the Rio-based … [Read more...]
Sexuality, subjugation drive powerful ‘Augustine’
Sometimes, under the auspices of a director with a vision, a film’s opening shot can subtly reveal a lot, providing a prologue that foretells the grand theme. Such is the case with Augustine, debut French filmmaker Alice Winocour’s study of the real-life 19th century neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his vulnerable teenage patient Augustine. The opening image is of a crab, … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: April 26-28
Theater: OK, procrastinators, this is the final weekend to catch the first-rate Palm Beach Dramaworks production of Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King, the great absurdist playwright’s comic meditation on death. In it, the king of a shabby, rundown realm learns that he has only 90 minutes left to live ― not coincidentally the lengths of this one-act play ― so he takes stock of his … [Read more...]
‘Catch Me’ too weak to deserve good cast, sharp staging
The concept musical was an invention of the 1970s, typified by Chicago, which couched a tale of murders in Cook County as a series of vaudeville turns. When it works, the results are dazzling. When it doesn’t, you have a dull misfire like Catch Me If You Can, currently on view at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. Based on the 2002 Steven Spielberg flick starring Leonardo … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 16-18
Art: The Norton Museum of Art is currently showing a major exhibit of works by one of the most highly regarded British artists of our day, Jenny Saville. She’s best known for her work featuring female nudes, but many of her works are drawn from her studies of plastic surgery, generating pictures whose painterly strokes remind the viewer of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. The … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 14-16
Art: This is the last weekend to catch Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture From the Victoria and Albert Museum, showing through Sunday at the Society of the Four Arts. This national touring collection of 60 alabaster panels and sculpture from the 15th and 16th centuries is the work of anonymous artisans who created devotional pieces for aristocrats and … [Read more...]