Mitchell Oldham

Although the title of one of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s more fascinating current exhibits may enjoy a light-hearted ring, I Was Raised on the Internet proved deeply provocative, startlingly imaginative and characteristically beautiful.  Rather than an examination of how the internet has shaped our lives, the artists participating in the show express the myriad ways the internet has “changed the way we experience the world” and how we may experience it in the future.

With works going back as far as 1998; one of the earliest, Blackness for Sale overlays the nuances of language and race onto the online bidding platform Ebay.  Its creators, Wendi + Keith Obadike, completed the work in 2001 as an online performance piece commenting on the language of colonialism and how it can still be found throughout the web as it relates to black people.

Broken up into five sections, the Obadike piece resides in the Look at Me portion of the show that delves into the malleability of identity in the age of social media. The Obadike’s insert irony into the description of selfhood and use it to ignite controversy and conversation.

The jolt of the piece is all subliminal and causes a small riot of the mind.  What I Was Raised on the Internet does so beautifully is to keep that stimulating cerebral insurgence percolating throughout the nearly 100 works in the exhibit.  Extending over a huge sweep of media including painting, photography, sculpture, film and video; it also embraces virtual reality and other new and developing technologies.  With the occasional employment of 3D googles, it’s the immersive capabilities of some the latter formats that give viewers the change to engage directly with the art.

Amalia Ulman’s 2016 Excellences & Perfections series take a more classical approach but with a destabilizing intent.  Her Instagram based projects intensifies those idealized images we take of ourselves and extends them out to fantasy. Analyzing “the influence of social media on attitudes toward the female body”, her works are ethereal, beautiful and ultimately impossible. In the end, they seem to be asking why is it so difficult to simply be who we are.

At times, roving through the exhibit also feels like journey through the future.  And the further you climb into it; you begin to realize there are stakes involved. In a number cases, the tone and feel of the installations’ messages were ominous and foreboding; evoking definite unease.  Sublime beauty would exist side by side with the luridly fantastical as seen in Jacolby Satterwhite’s engrossing En Plein Air Music of Objective Romance, Track #1 Healing In My House.  Using HD digital video for both color and sound with 3D animation, a sexualized otherworldly alternate reality exists in 9 minute loops.  You’ll need the time to visually dissect and digest the torrent of messages these images generate.

But even the hyperstimulation created by Satterwhite’s work won’t prepare you for Jon Rathman’s Transdimensional Serpent.  Taking up the equivalent of a small room, the serpent is oversized to allow seating, completely white and displayed in a circle.  And, because of its almost playful construction, it looks completely benign.  Almost like something you’d see in a playlot if snakes didn’t translate to fear.   Everything changes when you put on the goggles.  You’re immediately removed from the world that you know to one that is alien to the extreme and filled with two-legged human-like creatures you’ve never seen before.  And that benign cartoonish snake you sat down on appears to be writhing beneath you as you sit and takes on a much more sinister mien.  It’s a four-minute ride and the last two seem like an eternity.  Before donning the googles, the museum staff lets you know you have full movement of your head.  You can turn left to right, up or down.  When you engage accordingly, suddenly that world you’re immersed in has lost its gravity and everything goes into uncontrolled flight.  The skies darken and the wind whips as you sit in helpless observation.  Disconcerting and discomfiting?  Yes.  Exhilarating and brilliant?  Absolutely.

Placing Takeshi Murata’s Daliesque still life Golden Banana so close to the serpent was like giving viewers a soothing pool to lie in after an unexpected trauma.  With its tranquil mashup of the natural and the futuristic, the ancient and the contemporary, the mind can rest but still wonder at the time suspending beauty of Murata’s creation.

Like a river that’s both wide and deep, I Was Raised on the Internet covers a lot of ground.  Similar to the Look at Me segment of the show that peers into the shifting nature of identity, other areas show how artists process and create when they delve into the culture of surveillance or consider how corporate culture and consumerism are adapting and impacting our web centric existence.  One visit is not enough to absorb all that this majestic exhibit has on offer.

I Was Raised on the Internet

Runs through October 14^th, 2018

Museum of Contemporary Art

220 E. Chicago Avenue

Chicago, IL   60611

mcachicago.org

Two years following the stunning Kerry James Marshall exhibit at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute of Chicago has brought a spectacular retrospective of another world acclaimed black artist who also happens to be a Chicago native son, Charles H. White.  Marking the centennial of White’s birth, the exhibit is currently enjoying a run that will carry it through early September when it will then travel to the Museum of Modern Art in New York before heading to L.A.’s County Museum of Art.

As is so often true of the phenomenally gifted, White’s artistic skills were evident very early.  Born in 1918, the self-portrait he created when he was 17 reflects the work of an artist who is not only tremendously accomplished but who is also capable of arresting depth.   Charles White:  A Retrospective takes you on a chronological journey through the artist’s extraordinary career and allows us to see how his sensibilities as a man matured and merged with his growth as an artist.

 

White’s abilities as a draftsman receive near constant mention.  When referring to a creative artist, the term sounds as if it might carry negative connotations.  In White’s case, it is the ultimate compliment.  The same was said of Matisse and simply refers to their seemingly boundless technical skills and incredible precision.  White uses both to tell the world how he sees and feels about it through various artistic mediums.

 

Although the exhibit includes pieces that extends to work White completed just prior to his death in 1979, most of the retrospective focuses on the three decades of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and is, aesthetically, richly beautiful.  Many of the works predate a cohesive self-affirming black consciousness that would spread through the United States in the 60’s. Other pieces parallel the “Black is Beautiful” movement that eventually prevailed.  The work White did during that time carried the artist’s unique and insightful perspective and were executed with the deftness of greatness.

One characteristic that threads through all of White’s art is the sense of physical strength he gives his subjects.  1940’s America was a cruel place for blacks.  Segregation was imbedded in the code of law as well as the everyday fabric of life.  Defying caricature, White saw the people with whom he shared a culture as much more than marginalized and dimensionless.  He saw them as they were; complex, nuanced and conscious of the who they are and how they were treated.  As shown in Four Workers, completed in 1940, that doesn’t mean they look or feel defeated.  White has given them something beyond dignity.  You may see fatigue in their faces, but what you see even more clearly is the strength shining through their eyes.  White matches that inner strength with muscular bodies that exude a complementary power.

White mastered the ability to distill the twin messages of strength and purpose and apply them to the human face as we see in Gideon (1951).  Intended to portray the likeness of an archetype, a model of what an ideal leader would look like, the image; like many of White’s portraits, is mesmerizing for its realism and the success of its emotive reach.  The entire piece is exquisitely drawn but it’s again the eyes that give Gideon so much expressive life.

 

 

That realism may be why White’s son says that he’s seen people shed tears while looking at his father’s work.  Its authenticity can be completely disarming.  Whether presented in something as resplendently confident as Our Land, a reinterpreted vision of Grant Woods American Gothic, with its lovely demeanor that says “I Got This”; or the individual poignancy found in each face of his 1966 Negro Women, the humanity captured in White’s images invites you to take your time and get to know these people through his representations of them.

Revisiting ideas, subjects and themes, he’d often over time paint multiple images of work he’d done before.  Historical figures are common subjects and receive near reverential treatment.  His depictions of John Brown and Abraham Lincoln are remarkably fresh perspectives that cause you to see these figures more deeply and with perhaps even with genuine compassion.

 

White said during his career that he sees a common good in people.  But he also saw and felt the inequities in life.  Having found a number of pre-Civil War posters advertising slave auctions and reward posters for runaway slaves, he completed a series of that is now known as the Wanted Poster Series.  In them, the indictment of man’s inhumanity to man comes through as clearly as the meticulous beauty exuding from each image.

 

By bringing together 80 of White’s finest works, the Art Institute is allowing us to fully absorb and appreciate not only White’s brilliant art, but also the man and his matchless vision.

 

 

Charles White: A Retrospective

Through September 3, 2018

Art Institute of Chicago

111 S. Michigan Ave.

Chicago, IL    60603

www.artic.org

American presidents are no strangers to writing books.  Usually memoirs, autobiographies or policy reflections, they’re generally thoughtful and well-considered assessments of the past.  Until Bill Clinton in conjunction with superstar author James Patterson released their suspense thriller The President is Missing in early June, none have entered the waters of literary imagination and invention.

 

During Mr. Clinton’s hour long conversation with Robert Barnett on the Auditorium Theater stage Thursday night, a curious and receptive audience learned what drove the decision to write the book and became reacquainted with the natural charm and formidable intelligence of a former leader of the free world.

 

At 71, Mr. Clinton simply explained one of the biggest reasons for writing the book was to enable “an old dog to learn a new trick”.  The moderator, Mr. Barnett, played a role in the decision as well.  A colossus in both law and the entertainment industry, Barnett is a partner in the preeminent DC law firm of Williams and Connolly.  Assisting government officials transition to the private sector is one of his many professional occupations and it was his idea that Mr. Clinton and Mr. Patterson, also a client, collaborate.

Even if you’re not a suspense enthusiast, plot lines for The President is Missing are intriguing; even seductive.  Not only does the President of the United States vanish, cyber warfare is treated seriously and figures prominently in the work. And women, including an assassin with a 100% success rate, play major roles throughout.  As Barnett hinted, the gravitas of Mr. Clinton’s “realistic portrayal of the presidency” is a rare and valuable commodity.  Added to Patterson’s exceptional gifts as a novelist, you have the ingredients for a glittering success.  With over a quarter million copies sold since its debut three weeks ago, sales of the book have been impressively robust and critics have been admiring of the book’s balance of authenticity and literary ingenuity.  Following a vigorous bidding war, Showtime ended up victorious and will be releasing a twelve-part series based on the book.

On stage and from a distance, the former President appeared suave and relaxed chatting comfortably about his latest venture and answering friendly questions about his sense of the world today.  Cybersecurity dangles persistently at the forefront of his and the world’s concerns and he not only believes the United States should lead the world in cyber defense, he supports our going on the offensive in order to slow the unrelenting assaults we are currently enduring.

Mr. Clinton was also particularly generous in his comments about women and the importance of their presence at the heights of influence and decision making.  When asked who his favorite character was in the book, he confided he was most sympathetic to Bach, the hired killer.  Basing his remarks on the belief that people become what they become for a reason, he concluded “you have to be careful how you raise children”.   When ingrained early and deeply, the seeds of discontent can warp an individual, negate positive potential and foster the will to destroy.

Resembling a cautionary optimist, Mr. Clinton sounded a familiar refrain about the climate of the national mood.  If you want a better country, “show up” when it’s time to vote in off season elections as well as general elections. And if we want to be better people, we need to “see each other as human beings”.   Somehow, it wouldn’t be surprising if those sentiments resonate ever so softly in his novel as well.

 

A Conversation with President Bill Clinton

The Auditorium Theater

June 21st, 2018

7:30pm

50 W. Congress Parkway

Chicago, IL   60605

 

 

Expectations are always high when attending certain performances and Giordano Dance Chicago (GDC) easily counts in that number.  Far beyond the city on the lake, the company stands at a pinnacle.  Performing a type of dance that marries African and European dance traditions to rhythm, they  are now exporting their renowned brand across the globe.  GDC sweetens the pot by adding something of the very own; the Giordano technique which fuses sophistication, elegance and poise to jazz dance.

The company’s Saturday night show at the Auditorium Theater was a like a celebration among friends commemorating longevity, excellence and legacy. The one night only show marks the company’s 55^th year of existence and the 33^rd year since Nan Giordano has been steering the ship as Artistic Director.  Dance and praise filled a program that in the end was a reminder of where dedication to purpose can take you.   And It showed how a vision of a father can be nurtured by a daughter to grow a thriving world acclaimed dance company.

 

Intended to showcase the breadth of the company’s dancing abilities within the jazz dance form, the dance portion of the evening enveloped the conceptual and the fanciful, the spiritual and the funky; all united by GDC’s unique portrayal of precision and grace.

Opening strong with Giordano Moves, a work created by Gus Giordano three years before he passed away in 2008; and reconstructed in 2017, dancers rode the rhythms of hot jazz horns to revel in the founders “classic style of jazz dance”.  In collaboration with Jon Lehrer, Nan Giordano reworked the piece as a tribute to her father which features attributes emblematic of his touch and approach.  The audience was left to simply luxuriate in the sheer artistry of the dancers as they profiled the company’s impeccable unison timing and exquisite technical refinement.

 

Another founder created piece was also featured later that night.  This work is much older and a departure from the glistening slick polish you associate with Giordano Dance Chicago.  Developed in 1978, Wings is a journey into the spiritual self and features live vocals on stage.  A nine member acapella gospel group consisting of a mother and her adult offspring, the Bourné family were the evening’s guest vocalists. Singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot so softly it seemed hushed, their music was the palette used for dancer Cesar Salinas’ solo turn.  Salinas, who once was member of the GDC company and now teaches master classes with dance schools across the country, is an exemplary performer and magnificently demonstrated the power of one.   Expressing through dance the release of the body from the cares of the world and the ascent into the divine, every movement was studied grace tied to spellbinding execution.  The standing ovation that immediately followed recognized how dance and song can come together to achieve perfection.

Take a Gambol, created just this year by Joshua Blake Carter shows what can happen when a former dancer finds and is allowed to follow his choreographic muse. Carter, now the company’s Operations Manager and Director of the company’s dance incubator, Giordano II, created a sly and playful vehicle to spotlight the dance chops of GDC’s male contingent.

 

Adding drama to the piece, the eight dancers enter behind the audience from the two center aisles in an unhurried jazz stroll to converge briefly in a single Chippendale style line.  Then they let their feet do the talking.  All of the classic elements of jazz dance were there, the close synchronization, the tight body control, the virtuoso spins that shriek phenomenal athleticism.  Overlay intangibles like wry cool and playful bluster and you’ve got the formula for sophisticated fun.

 

Gambol contrasted wildly from what was to follow, Ray Mercer’s futuristic feeling Tossed Around; where yellow chairs figure prominently.  All about timing and tension, a thunderous score heightens suspense and intensifies a sense of combat.  Sometimes moving almost mechanically like automatons, the dancers literally push each other to higher levels of dance perfection.  Ashley Downs and Adam Houston’s duet in the work’s mid-section proved once again flawless synchronization is possible and allows you to marvel at the capacity of the human body to create absolute harmony through the physics of movement.

When professionals dance suggestively, you can bet it’s going to get very steamy.  And that’s exactly what happens in Feelin’ Good Sweet, where class still trumped seduction.  Michael Buble’s interpretation of Feelin’ Good is stuffed with innuendo and served as the catalyst for dance mischief.  Guys in black T’s and midnight fedoras, with the ladies working it in striped bustiers, the piece gave plenty of opportunity for company dancers to show their mettle while it seamlessly wove frolic into amorous intrigue.

 

But it was the show’s finale that pulled out all the stops.  Choreographed by Christopher Huggins in 2007, there’s an enduring freshness to Pyrokinesis.  Much of it comes the dance’s sheer energy.  The works title translates to the ability to create and control fire through the mind.   Giordano Dance Chicago’s version controls it through their feet.  Building from the initial strains of reflective piano, it quickly flips to pure vibrant motion and displays of phenomenal skill; the kind that raises goosebumps.  Once red shoes replace black ones, the whole stage turns to dance fire.  The fluidity of contemporary dance, the endurance of ballet, and the rhythmic sensitivities of jazz come together to create a rare kind of bounty.  A crowd pleaser since its introduction 11 years ago, Pyrokinesis feels like a celebration and a fitting close to a night honoring the astonishing realization of  one man’s vision.

Great dance companies share a certain majesty.  Founded in 1948 by a now 97-year-old woman with an iron will and unwavering standards in excellence, the National Ballet of Cuba (the Ballet Nacional de Cuba) showered Friday night’s audience at the Auditorium Theater with a performance that epitomized what magnificence means in the world of dance.

 

Performing one of its signature pieces, Don Quixote, story and movement unfurled quietly and beautifully to music from the Chicago Philharmonic orchestra. But in very short order there were sparks of light and energy shining out from the dancers’ feet that hinted at what was to come.

 

Infamous for the amount of work and personal investment each dancer must commit to the company and notorious for the severity of the corps training, the fruit of that sacrifice would soon explode all over the Auditorium stage.

The company is an unabashedly traditional classical ballet company emulating a style of dance that flourished and became renowned in the 19^th century.  But they have adapted Don Quixote, this ancient lion of a dance, to their Caribbean culture; one that is awash in spirit and emotional fire.  It’s that tantalizing combination that they carry with them around the world; danced by a vibrantly young corps de ballet.

 

The immaculate lines of the dancers’ bodies capture the eye first.  Then it notices the extreme ease dancers employ in the execution of technically difficult poses and positions.  This is where classicism shines brightest and Friday evening’s principals, Patricio Reve, Viengsay Valdes and Ariel Martinez each teetered on astounding in the purity and flawlessness of their movements.  Each was grace personified and each was as powerful as they were graceful.

 

Divided into three parts, with an intermission between the first and the second segments, Reve and Martinez owned the production’s first act where the imagery and pantomime began the story of star crossed lovers.  Reve, as the suitor too poor to pay a monetary tribute to his sweetheart’s family, has a casual charisma that grows as the storyline progresses.  The conversations in dance that he and Ms. Valdes shared on stage were ones of extreme competence and unchained confidence.  His one arm lifts were breathtaking for their speed and unassailability.

 

The spectacle of a swarm of matadors flooding the stage in bright yellow traje de luces (suits of lights) with their brilliant red sashes, matching red capes in tow, brought and instant jolt of energy and palpable machismo into the mix.  Both served to enhance by the dramatic appeal of Mr. Martinez’s bullfighter solo’s where he seemed completely liberated from the confining limitations of bones.  It was also here where the male corps flawlessly demonstrated one of the company’s seminal strengths; unison group timing.

 

Not only was technical perfection paramount; it was just as important that it appear completely unfettered and free.  Given the success of the company to accomplish both, Friday night’s audience had the pleasure of witnessing feats of physical prowess that only elite athletes are capable of executing.

Every dancer knows the price their craft exacts from the body.  Hard won careers can end abruptly when the body is asked to do push itself one iota beyond its outermost capabilities. The National Ballet of Cuba’s show was made all the more thrilling because much of what you saw was exactly that, dancers performing at the outer limits of their art.

 

Scant resources are a hallmark of Cuban society and the country’s ballet company is not exempt from doing more with less.  Housed in one of Havana’s beautiful revival buildings,  i the studio has no air conditioning to counter the island’s tropical heat and humidity.  Often even the stage set the company travels with can appear dated and worn.  Not so on this tour.  A sheer gauze curtain edged in an embroidered scroll design turned Don Quixote’s dream sequence into an ethereal vision.  And the massive cloth draped wheel hanging like a chandelier in the third act would be quite at home in Windsor Palace or Versailles.

 

It was also the third act that contained the remarkable dance for two, always one of the most anticipated moments in classical dance. At its best, it is paired perfection where dancers show off the heights of their skills and, in the end, compete for the audience’s approval.  As wonderful as Mr. Reve was in this final sequence, the choreography was designed to glorify the capabilities of the prima ballerina.

 

Ballet Nacional de Cuba had been performing the final pas de deux from Don Quixote well before they took on dancing the full program.  An essential piece of the repertoire, it has now been sculpted into a dance that showcases the remarkable.  Viengsay Valdes delivered what would have been considered the impossible Friday night; a series of episodes when she balanced on pointe on one foot for what seemed like minutes at a time.  To create that illusion of ease with a position that is so incomprehensibly difficult is as remarkable to see as it is to do and proved a spectacular finale to a sensational performance.

 

Ballet dancers often change roles in a production simply to help them stay fresh.  That isn’t always  the case for a company’s star dancers.  The Ballet Nacional de Cuba’s bench is so deep, each night features different lead dancers.  As difficult as it is to believe the quality of dance could go any higher than it did Friday night, it would be wonderful to see how the performances would compare one against the another.  At the very least, we hope they don’t wait another 15 years to return to Chicago.

 

The National Ballet of Cuba

May 18 – 20, 2018

Auditorium Theatre

50 East Congress Pkwy.

Chicago, IL  60605

312-341-2300

www.auditoriumtheatre.org