#carnegie gallery

[garadinervi]

Forum 88 – Marie Watt: LAND STITCHES WATER SKY, (installation view), Forum Gallery, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, April 23 – September 22, 2024 [© Marie Watt; photo: Zachary Riggleman / Carnegie Museum of Art]

[white-elorda-photography]

22nd November 2023

Sculpture Gallery at Carnegie Museum of Art

[visualworms]

august 23

[regrese12]

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A post shared by Ken Young (@kenyounglineandwash)

[marywoodartdept]

Impasto

This week, Alyssa, Art History blogger, serendipitously visited a modern art gallery and discovered an American painter who loves cats and impasto. Discover who caught Alyssa's eye, despite her disdain for modern art. #MarywoodArt #artHistory #cats

[beatleshistoryblog]

LECTURE 18: COMING APART (PART 1): This unusual footage of Yoko Ono having all of her clothing cut up in a performance art exhibition was filmed by brothers Albert and David Maysles, a pair of documentary filmmakers, who shot the footage in Carnegie Recital Hall in New York on March 21, 1965. As one description of the short documentary aptly puts it: “Yoko Ono sits motionless on the concert hall stage, wearing her best suit of clothing, with a pair of scissors placed on the floor in front of her. inviting the audience to come up on stage - one at a time - and cut a bit of her clothes off which they were allowed to keep, covering her breasts at the moment of unbosoming.” The following year, in 1966, Yoko Ono met John Lennon at the Indica Gallery in London, and the two would gravitate closer and closer together. 

[xythlia]

11:17 PM

𓏲 ࣪₊sfw fluff, alcohol consumption, semi public make out, everything mentioned is based loosely on the carnegie museum of art in pittsburgh since it's the one I've been to the most

› for my lovely io @elusivemoon <3

"Look at this, they have the Panorama films on display," you said, grabbing his hand to drag Satoru over to the display.

He'd purchased tickets to the museum of arts twenty one and over night, an evening of art and wine as a surprise for you after spending too long away from you, all the demands of being the strongest tugging him out of your reach.

The gallery was hushed despite the crowd, at most gentle murmurs would roll through the mingling people taking in the displays and special exhibitions. He knew you loved this sort of thing, and while he wasn't particularly well versed in art it was more about seeing your eyes light up and hearing your commentary on the pieces around you.

You looked ethereal in the low lighting, a glass of white wine in one hand and his clasped in the other, your eyes eagerly taking in every detail of the gallery. It was especially cute how alcohol tended to make you far more easily excitable, making an easy grin sweep across his lips as he took you in.

"Hm, I thought you'd be more into the physical medium stuff," he said, taking a sip of his own glass. The dryness of the wine did little to detract from the sheer sweetness of your eyes.

"Well I love it all, but the film displays are always exciting. Once they had one that flickered stars in the pitch black with this droning synth, it was beautiful and so disorienting." You spoke in a whispered smile.

Beautiful and disorienting, he knew something about that. The thought made him squeeze your hand involuntarily, thumb caressing the back of it.

You both continued on the pre-set trail of displays, most of the museum was off limits since it was technically after hours. Over the rim of his glass he spotted the sign for the hall of statues, notably closed as well it's lights dimmed and a lone security guard wandering down the marbled hall.

Lacing his fingers tighter with yours he gently guided you to turn around, softly hushing your protests until he drew your attention to the sign.

"Wanna see the statues?" He leaned to brush his lips against your cheek, making you giggle softly.

"I was pretty sure you knew how to read 'Toru," you teased, gesturing with your glass to the small closed sign off to the side of the hallway entrance.

"Hmm must be the wine," he said softly, lightly pulling you along despite your hushed protests.

"There's a guard we're not getting in there," you whisper with a roll of your eyes.

In a second his long legged stride sped up, pulling you along clumsily as he ducked around the corner and into a semi dark room full of grand white statues, the matte marble still managing to glow despite the lack of direct illumination.

Your protests trailed off into silence. It really was exquisite, furtively admiring the lovingly carved pieces in silence. It felt like you two were the only people in the world at that moment, the thrill of a stolen secret joining the wine to create a soft warmth in your chest.

"They're all so..." you trailed off, too engrossed in the rows of lifelike depictions.

"Beautiful," he stated, pulling you to face him, nearly flush against him.

The world felt frozen, like a film reel stopped on one frame stretching out eternally. His eyes, those overwhelming blues, locked with your own as his hand came up to cradle your jaw. His thumb brushed so gingerly against your lips you could almost say you were imagining it.

With a fumbling hand you tenderly gripped the side of his jacket, meeting him as he leaned down to capture your lips in a kiss that tasted of white wine and sparkling joy. His hand slid around your back, upwards to cup the base of your head as you leaned back, the kiss devolving into something more desperate edged with longing.

In that room, surrounded by the blank eyes of dozens of figures frozen in their own eternity, it was as though you'd both slipped through some secret, hidden seam to a place of hushed reverence wrapped in adoration. A place for only the two of you.

His tongue ran across your own like he was a cartographer mapping a brand new region, and the slight scrape of his nails against your scalp made you shiver despite the warmth of the museum. Just as you were running your hand up beneath his shirt, feeling the firm planes of muscle that the spell was broken, like a shattered mirror.

"Hey! Sections closed," a gruff, aged voice called from the front of the room.

Guiltily you jerked back from him, your ears burning and your lips feeling ever so slightly swollen as your grip on your glass nearly faltered, almost sending it hurtling towards the shiny tiled floor.

"Sorry, we got a little off track," Satoru said, smiling as he took your hand again to lead you both back towards the main display area.

The guard, an older man whose eyes held no annoyance smiled back, shaking his head. "Better make your way back to the main floor, they're about finished up for the night."

You both thanked him, though you did duck your head shyly as you passed the embarrassment of being caught like two naughty kids still lingered over you. In a blur your glasses were returned to the table, warm good nights were uttered by staff as Satoru pushed the heavy glass and metal doors open, letting a burst of frigid night air roll over you.

As it settled in your lungs you tipped your head back and laughed, a full rich sound that glittered in the near empty street.

Bathed in the warm glow of street lights he couldn't help but laugh with you, ignoring the bite of winter against his cheeks, hoping against all hope that he could make you even half as joyful for as long as you'd let him.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Sacklers woulda gotten away with it if it wasn't for those darned meddling feds

The saga of the Sacklers, a multigenerational billionaire crime family of mass-murdering dope-peddlers, is an enraging parable about how the wealthy, the courts, and sadistic high-powered lawyers collude to destroy the lives of millions, profit handsomely, and evade justice.

But there's an unexpected twist to this tale. After the Sacklers procured a sham bankruptcy that denied their victims the right to sue while leaving their fortune largely intact, the Supreme Court – yes, this Supreme Court – saw through the scam and froze the process, pending a full hearing:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/us/supreme-court-purdue-pharma-opioid-settlement.html

The Sacklers basically invented modern, legal dope peddling. Arthur Sackler, the family's original crime-boss, revived the practice of direct-to-consumer drug marketing, dormant since the death of the medicine show, to peddle Valium. An aggressive and shrewd lobbyist, Arthur built the family fortune and, more importantly, its connections:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-the-sackler-family-built-a-pharma-dynasty-and-fueled-an-american-calamity/

A generation later, the family's business company created Oxycontin, and procured misleading and false research about the drug's safety kickstarting the opioid epidemic, whose American body-count is closing in on a million dead. Armed with inflated claims about opioid safety, the Sacklers' pharma reps bribed, cajoled and tricked doctors into writing millions of prescriptions for oxy.

This scam had a natural best-before date. As ODs flooded America's ERs and bodies piled up in America's morgues, it became increasingly clear that something was rotten. The Sacklers pursued a multipronged campaign to keep the truth from coming to light, and to keep the billions flowing.

On the one hand, they hired McKinsey to find novel ways to encourage doctors to keep writing prescriptions and to convince pharmacists to turn a blind eye to abuse. McKinsey had all kinds of great ideas here, including paying pharma distributors cash bonuses for every overdose death in their territory:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/business/mckinsey-opioids-settlement.html

When the issue of these deaths came up in public, the Sacklers blamed "criminal addicts" for their own misery, stigmatizing both people who desperately needed pain relief and the people who'd been deliberately hooked on the Sacklers' products. The legacy of this smear campaign is still with us, both in the contempt for people struggling with addiction and in the cruel barriers placed between people in unbearable agony and medical relief.

But mostly, the Sacklers kept their names out of it. They laundered their reputations by donating a homeopathic fraction of their vast drug fortune to art galleries and museums in a bid to make their names synonymous with good deeds.

The Sacklers didn't invent this trick. Think of the way that history's great monsters – Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Ford – are remembered today for the foundations and charities that bear their names, not for the untold misery they inflicted on their workers, their crimes against their customers, and the corruption of governments.

But the Sacklers made those Gilded Age barons seem like amateurs. They invented a modern elite philanthropy playbook that Anand Giridharadas documents in his must-read Winners Take All, about the charity-industrial complex that washes away an ocean of blood with a trickle of money:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/10/winners-take-all-modern-philanthropy-means-that-giving-some-away-is-more-important-than-how-you-got-it/

As part of this PR exercise, the individual Sacklers kept their names and images out of the public eye. For years, there were virtually no news-service photos of individual Sacklers. When journalists dared to criticize the family, they used vicious attack-lawyers to intimidate them into retractions and silence (I was threatened by the Sacklers' lawyers).

They also worked their media mogul pals, like Mike Bloomberg, who added their names to the "Friends of Mike" list that Bloomberg reporters were required to consult before writing negative coverage:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/29/friends-of-mike-enemies-of-the-people/#sacklerbergs

But Stein's Law says that "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." As lawsuits mounted, the Sacklers found themselves increasingly synonymous with death, not charitable works. But like any canny criminal, the Sacklers had a getaway plan.

First, they extracted vast sums from Purdue and shifted it into offshore financial secrecy havens:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purduepharma-bankruptcy/sacklers-reaped-up-to-13-billion-from-oxycontin-maker-u-s-states-say-idUSKBN1WJ19V

Even as this money was disappearing into legal black holes, the Sacklers demanded – and received – extraordinary protection from the courts, who aggressively sealed testimony and materials presented through discovery:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-courts-secrecy-judges/

When this gambit finally failed, the Sacklers insisted that were down to their last $4 billion, and, with trillions in claims pending against them, they declared bankruptcy.

When a normal person declares bankruptcy, they are required to divest themselves of nearly everything of value they possess, and then still find themselves hounded by cruel arm-breakers who deluge them with threatening calls and letters:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

But for the richest people in America, bankruptcy is merely a way to cleanse one's balance sheet of liabilities for any atrocity you may have committed on the way, without giving up your fortune.

The Sacklers are a case-study in how a corrupt bankruptcy can be conducted.

Purdue Pharma presents a maddening case-study in the corrupt benefits of bankruptcy. When it was announced in March, many were outraged to learn that the Sacklers were going to walk away with billions, while their victims got stiffed.

First, they converted their victims' right to compensation into "property" that the Sacklers themselves owned. This transferred jurisdiction over these claims from the regular court system to the bankruptcy court. A bankruptcy judge – not a jury – would decide how much each of these claims was worth, and then what how much of that worth these victims (now recast as creditors) would be entitled to through the bankruptcy.

Thus tens of thousands of claims were nonconsensually settled without a trial, by an administrative judge with no criminal jurisdiction, not a federal judge who'd undergone Senate confirmation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/31/vaccine-for-the-global-south/#claims-extinguished

These "coercive restructuring techniques" are not available to everyday people who are drowning in student debt or credit-card bills – these are the exclusive purview of the wealthiest Americans, who enjoy a completely different bankruptcy system that is rigged in their favor.

Three judges – David Jones and Marvin Isgur of Houston and Bob Drain of New York – hear 96% of the country's large corporate bankruptcies:

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2021/05/judge-shopping-in-bankruptcy.html

These judges are unbelievably horny for corporations, embracing a legal theory "that casts the invention of the limited liability corporation alongside that of the steam engine as a paradigmatic development in the pursuit of prosperity":

https://prospect.org/justice/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-the-sacklers-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy/

Now there are more than three bankruptcy judges in America, so how do the nation's biggest companies get their cases heard by these three enthusiastic Renfields for corporate vampirism?

They cheat.

For example: when GM was facing bankruptcy, it argued that it was a New York company on the basis that it owned a single Chevy dealership in Harlem, and got in front of Judge Drain.

The Sacklers were – characteristically – even more brazen. They really wanted to get their case in front of Judge Drain, the nation's most enthusiastic supporter of "third party releases," through which bankrupt billionaires can wipe the slate clean, securing dismissals of all claims by the people they wronged.

Drain is also uniquely hostile to independent examiners, "an independent third-party appointed by the court to investigate 'fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, misconduct, mismanagement, or irregularity…by current or former management of the debtor."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3851339

If you're the Sacklers, hoping to keep two thirds of your billions and extinguish all claims by your victims, there is no better helpmeet than Judge Robert Drain of the Southern District of New York.

So, 192 days before filing for bankruptcy, the Sacklers opened an office in White Plains, New York (a company may claim jurisdiction in a specific court once they've operated a business there for 180 days).

Then they filed a bankruptcy in which they altered the metadata on their casefile, inserting the code for a Westchester county hearing into the machine-readable, human-invisible parts of the documents they uploaded to the federal Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system (they also captioned the case with "RDD, for "Robert D Drain").

They chose their judge, and the judge obliged. UCLA Law's Lynn LoPucki is one of the leading scholars of these bankruptcy "megacases," and has written extensively on why these three judges are so deferential to corporate criminals seeking to flense themselves of culpability. She sees judges like Drain motivated by "personal aggrandizement and celebrity and ability to indirectly channel to the local bankruptcy bar. The judge is the star and the ringmaster of a megacase – very appealing to certain personalities."

Thus, these judges are "willing and eager to cater to debtors to attract business…[an] assurance to debtors that…these judges will not transfer out cases with improper venue or rule against the debtor…"

https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/02870w66d

This kind of judge-shopping goes beyond the Sacklers; the cases that Drain and co preside over make a mockery of the idea of America as a land of equal justice. "Prepack" and "drive-through" bankruptcies are reliable get-out-of-jail-free cards for capitalism's worst monsters: private equity firms.

Whether PE murdered your grandmother by buying her care-home and putting each worker in charge of 30 seniors:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/portopiccolo-nursing-homes-maryland/2020/12/21/a1ffb2a6-292b-11eb-9b14-ad872157ebc9_story.html

or poisoned your kids by filling your neighborhood with carcinogens:

https://www.webmd.com/special-reports/ethylene-oxide/20190719/residents-unaware-of-cancer-causing-toxin-in-air

limited liability wipes the slate clean.

30% of America's bankruptcies are private equity companies using the bankruptcy system to wipe away claims for their misdeeds, while keeping a fortune, thanks to the shield of limited liability.

Take Millennium Health, JamesS lattery's fake drug-testing company, which promised to help nursing homes figure out whether seniors were abusing (or selling) their meds by testing their piss for angel dust and other drugs. Slattery defrauded Medicare and Medicaid for millions, borrowed $1.8 billion (Slattery got $1.3 billion of that). He eventually walked away from this fraud after paying a mere $256m to settle all claims, and kept a fortune in assets, including the 40 vintage planes his private company ("Pissed Away LLC" – I am not making this up) owned:

https://prospect.org/justice/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-the-sacklers-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy/

For the wealthy, bankruptcy is the sport of kings, a way to skip out on consequences. For the poor, bankruptcy is an anchor – or a noose. This is by design: judges who preside over elite bankruptcies speak of their protagonists as heroic "risk takers" and tiptoe around any consequences, lest these titans be chained to a mortal's fate, costing us all the benefits of their entrepreneurial genius.

PE companies helped the Sacklers design their own bankruptcy strategy, and it was a standout, even by the standards of Bob Drain and his kangaroo bankruptcy court. But now, the Supreme Court has pumped the brakes on the whole enterprise.

The judges ruled that the exceptions the Sacklers took advantage of were intended for bankrupts in "financial distress" – not billionaires with vast fortunes hidden overseas. In so doing, the court threatens all manner of corrupt arrangements, from "the Boy Scouts, wildfires and allegations of sexual abuse in the church diocese — where third parties get a benefit from a bankruptcy they themselves aren’t going through.”

The case was brought by the DoJ's US Trustee Program, which lost in the Second Circuit when it tried to halt the Purdue bankruptcy and argued that the Sacklers themselves had to declare bankruptcy to discharge the claims against them.

Now the Supremes have hit pause on the bankruptcy the Second Circuit approved, and will hear the case themselves. It's only one step on a long road, but it's an unprecedented one. Some of the country's filthiest fortunes are riding on the outcome.

Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” tomorrow (Aug 12) at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Image: Edwardx (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Serpentine_Sackler_Gallery,_June_2016_05.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[scotianostra]

On January 28th 1908 Jimmy Shand, Scottish country dance band leader was born.

Shand was a musician who played traditional Scottish dance music on the accordion.

Born James Shand in East Wemyss in Fife, son of a farm ploughman turned miner. One of nine children, they soon moved to the burgh of Auchtermuchty.The town is also known as the birthplace of the brothers Charlie and Craig Reid of The Proclaimers and now boasts a larger than life-sized sculpture of Shand. His father was a skilled melodeon player. Jimmy started with the mouth organ and soon played the fiddle. At the age of 14 he had to leave school and go down the mines. He played at social events and competitions. His enthusiasm for motor-bikes turned to an advantage when he played for events all round Fife. In 1926 he did benefit gigs for striking miners and was consequently prevented from returning to colliery work.

One day Jimmy and a friend were admiring the instruments in the window of Forbes' Music Shop in Dundee. His friend said "It wouldn't cost you to try one". Jimmy walked in and strapped on an accordion. The owner heard Jimmy and immediately offered him a job as travelling salesman and debt-collector. He soon acquired a van and drove all over the north of Scotland. He switched to the British chromatic button accordion, an instrument he stuck with for the rest of his life.

Shand failed an audition for the BBC because he kept time with his foot. At a time when gramophones were very much luxury items he made two records for the Regal Zonophone label in 1933. His career took off when he switched to making 78s for the Beltona label between 1935 and 1940. Most of the Beltona recordings were solo, but he experimented with small bands. This boosted sales. He appeared in a promo film shown in cinemas. While the image showed his fingers moving in a blur, Jimmy was disappointed to hear the sound track playing a slow air.

Jimmy was prevented from joining the RAF by a digestive disorder, and spent the war years in the Fire Service. On New Year's morning 1945 he made his first broadcast with "Jimmy Shand and Band". This was the first of many such BBC radio and television appearances.

After the war he became a full-time musician and adopted a punishing life-style later adopted by rock bands. He would play Inverness one night, London the next night and still drive the van back, at breakneck speed, to bed in Dundee.

He took his trademark bald head, Buddy Holly specs and full kilted regalia, Scottish reels, waltzes, jigs and strathspeys to North America, Australia and New Zealand, including Carnegie Hall in New York

In 1972 he went into semi-retirement. From then he played only small venues in out of the way places for a reduced fee. He was made a freeman of Auchtermuchty in 1974, North East Fife in 1980 and Fife in 1998. He became Sir Jimmy Shand in 1999. His portrait is in the Scottish National Gallery, close to Niel Gow.

In 1983 Jimmy released a retrospective album with the cheeky title "The First 50 years". At the age of 88 he recorded an album and video with his son, "Dancing with the Shands".

More than 330 compositions are credited to Jimmy Shand. He recorded more tracks than the Beatles and Elvis Presley combined. In 1985, British Rail named a locomotive Jimmy Shand.

Dissatisfied with the chromatic button-key accordions available on the market in the 1940s so he designed his own one. The Hohner company still manufactures the "Shand Morino" to his specifications.

The statue, as I earlier said is in Auchtermuchty, there is also a memorial in East Wemyss/

How many of you out there remember doing "Strip theWillow" during our school years, or even after at a cèilidh

[yujisleftshoe]

Not to beat a dead horse, but LIBRARIES literally will give you online access to TV and movies for free without having to pirate them. They also have recordings of theatre productions!! I just watched David Tennants Richard ii FOR FREE with a really high quality recording FROM THE LIBRARY!!!! Everyone needs to GET A LIBRARY CARD!!!!

My library also has access to programs that can help you make your own legal documents if you can't afford an attorney but need things like wills or bills of sale or lease agreements!!

There is concerts and and documentaries and operas and Ballets from carnegie hall and the Palace of Versailles and other world class theaters!

They have coding courses! IELTS training!! News paper access that usually requires a subscription! Audio books! Music! Tickets to events and museums and aquariums and art galleries and carnivales and park passes and youth programs!!!

There is literally no reason to not have a library card. They're free.

[garadinervi]

Marie Watt, Quilt (Legendary), (detail), 2024, in Forum 88 – Marie Watt: LAND STITCHES WATER SKY, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, April 13 – September 22, 2024 [© Marie Watt. Photo: Zachary Riggleman / Carnegie Museum of Art]

[arthistoryanimalia]

Happy #WorldMigratoryBirdDay!

Norman Lewis (American, 1909-79) Migrating Birds, 1954 oil on canvas

"In 1955, Norman Lewis became the first African-American artist to receive the Carnegie International Award for this celebrated painting. The critic for the New York Herald-Tribune proclaimed Lewis's work "one of the most significant events of the 1955 art year." This work demonstrates Lewis's continued commitment to the natural world, using representation as the starting point for abstraction. Within the golden yellows which cover the canvas completely, Lewis creates a mass of movement and energy with his application of sharp, white strokes of paint which conjures up images of birds in flight. Lewis's sense of duality, the abstract and the representational, are in complete balance in this prized painting. The sensation is that of multitudes of birds taking flight in the blazing sun and sky." https://www.theartstory.org/artist/lewis-norman/

image credit: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York. © Estate of Norman W. Lewis [educational use]

[nobrashfestivity]

Photo-Secession, a Collection of American Pictorial Photographs as arranged by the Photo-Secession and exhibited under the auspices of the Camera Club of Pittsburg, at the Art Galleries of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh

Alfred Stieglitz 2/1/1904

[chicanoartmovement]

CHICANO ART MOVEMENT visits: “Traditions” 2024

(“Traditions: Honoring Heritage, Ritual and Family” exhibition title wall at Muzeo 2024.)

CAM:

First exhibit of the new year brings us Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center of Anaheim to view “Traditions: Honoring Heritage, Ritual and Family.”

(“Sharky’s Billiard” by artist Jimmy Bonks, 2023. Acrylic on canvas.)

Via its mission: “What exactly is a tradition? It can be a shared experience established by a family and community to be sustained over time or part of a larger cultural expression, the origins of which may be lost to the past and distant spaces. Either way, our vast Southern California landscape claims many of these traditions as its own. Traditions pays homage to the many familial and cultural facets of our diverse region.”

(“I Hurt The Whole Way Through” by artist Jacqueline Valenzuela, 2023. Oil, aerosol and china marker on canvas.)

“This special collaborative exhibition, curated by Thinkspace Projects and Taloc Studios, celebrates the many ways we honor heritage, ritual, and family through the artistic expression of working SoCal artists.”

(“I Can Make You Dance” by The Perez Bros, 2023. Acrylic on paper.)

Within the “Traditions” exhibit, Anita was captivated by The Perez Bros and their newest painting titled “I Can Make You Dance.” The impressionist-style illustration with realistic qualities made it easy to picture myself within the crowd, dancing to the great tunes with lots friends & community members.

(“Big Wonder - Luna” by Giorgiko, 2022. Acrylic and aerosol on fiberglass and steel coated in gloss enamel.)

This exhibit runs from December 2, 2023 through February 25, 2024 and is located in the Muzeo Main Gallery.

(Travel poster included in the “Muzeo Express” diorama exhibition.)

Our last stop at the museum was the Carnegie Station to view “Muzeo Express a downtown Anaheim tradition that brings a whimsical holiday model train diorama to life in celebration of the season.” Anita loved all the details including one pre-historic reptile and pachyderm. The dioramas are on view from December 2, 2023 to January 28, 2024.

[thasallweare]

Mark Bradford, Noah’s Third Day (detail), 2007, Carnegie Museum of Art, Gift of Milton and Sheila Fine © Mark Bradford, Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

The Milton and Sheila Fine Collection celebrates the Fines’ landmark gift of more than 100 works of painting, sculpture, photography, and time-based media. From the 1980s through the 2000s, in close conversation with Carnegie Museum of Art’s directors and curators, the Fines created Western Pennsylvania’s most significant and boldest private collection of contemporary art. What distinguishes their collection from others of its kind is the Fines’ enduring intention to donate it to the museum for all of us in the region and beyond to appreciate in perpetuity. Perhaps even more notably, Milton and Sheila Fine collected directly from the museum’s Carnegie Internationals, making their collection a living archive of the longest-running survey of international art in America.

The Fines leaned toward vanguard art that challenged tradition, acquiring works from some of today’s most prominent artists, such as Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing, and Mark Bradford. From private collection to public art museum, these artworks enter a new context where they will become an integral part of our shared experiences within the galleries of the museum that Milton and Sheila loved. This exhibition is a celebration of their generous gift, as well as a remembrance of Milton Fine, who passed away in 2019. We invite you to discover and explore the many histories and art practices that give powerful expression to the Fines’ 45-year relationship to art and the museum.

The exhibition is organized by Eric Crosby, Henry J. Heinz II Director, Carnegie Museum of Art, and Vice President, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, with Tiffany Sims, Margaret Powell Curatorial Fellow, and Cynthia Stucki, curatorial assistant for contemporary art and photography.

[theycallme-thejackal]

Can we get Midge and Benjamin running into each other after they've moved on and being friendly? Maybe with new partners (or at least Lenny) in tow?

Pairing: Lenny Bruce & Midge Maisel Rated T

Part 1 | Part 2

"Oh, I'm sorry!"

Midge grips the arm of the man she's just collided with. The very tall man.

The very tall ex-fiancé, actually. "Hi, Benjamin," she greets, feeling a little awkward as she releases her grip on his arm and he moves his hand from her waist.

"Hi, Miriam," he replies with an easy smile that makes her feel like maybe he's not angry with her anymore. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Well it is Steiner," she reasons with a little shrug. "I'm surprised to see you here actually. I figured the box of cereal would be empty by now."

"Actually the cereal just arrived in the Catskills today. As did we," he replies, gesturing to the woman standing next to him. "Miriam, this is my girlfriend, Beth. Beth, this is - "

"Oh my god, you're Mrs. Maisel!" The woman interrupts. "I'm such a fan."

"Oh, I like you already," Midge jokes, shaking the other woman's hand. Beth is a tall, blonde woman. Not as tall as Benjamin, but she might have an inch or two on Joel.

"One of my girlfriends had her bachelorette party at the Wolford, and you were so funny," Beth gushes.

Midge smiles. "Thank you so much, Beth. And what do you do?"

"I'm an artist," she explains. "Benjamin and I met at an art gallery in Chelsea."

"Oh, that's wonderful. You'll have to let me know when you have a showing. I'd love to see your work," Midge says.

Behind her, the door to the ice cream shop swings open. "I will never understand why you always pick vanilla even when there are so many - " Lenny stops, and Midge turns to find him standing just behind her with an ice cream cone in each hand and grinning from ear to ear. "Hello, doctuh!" He greets.

When she turns, Benjamin is standing there, absolutely stunned. "Lenny Bruce...in the Catskills." Midge giggles a little as Lenny hands her the vanilla cone. The men shake hands. "Good to see you again, Lenny.”

"Likewise." He looks at Beth, who's almost at his eye level. "And you must be..."

"Beth Horowitz," she replies. "We loved you at Carnegie Hall," she says, touching Benjamin's shoulder.

"You were two of the mental patients who braved the snowstorm for little ol' me?" He asks, and Midge snorts.

"Hey," she jumps in. "I was also one of those mental patients."

"You had an ulterior motive, Miss Weissman," he quips with an arched brow

Midge blushes lightly as she looks from him to Benjamin. The taller man's lips have curved into a little smirk, and she shakes her head with a little chuckle. "It was good to see you both. Maybe we'll see you at dinner tonight?" She suggests.

"We'll be there," Benjamin answers with a nod before he takes Beth's hand and leads her off.

Midge licks her ice cream and looks up at her boyfriend, who's watching the other couple go. "Lenny?" She says with a smirk. "Go get him if you really want. I'm sure you'd make a beautiful couple."

Lenny laughs. "No, I was just thinking I'm glad that man finally found a woman who won't suffer a neck injury kissing him."

She giggles and loops her arm through his.