Arts news and notes
There’s too much for one blog!
MASTER-PEACE OUT: From the High Museum:
The last day to view Johannes Vermeer’s painting “The Astronomer” at the High Museum of Art is Sunday, February 15. This painting, on view as part of “The Louvre and the Masterpiece” exhibition, had never been seen in the southeastern United States before coming to Atlanta in October 2008. George de la Tour’s “The Card Sharp” painting will replace the Vermeer in the exhibition beginning February 17, and remain on view through September 6, 2009.
LANGUAGE CITY: From the Alliance Theatre:
Atlanta’s nationally acclaimed Alliance Theatre has been awarded a $1.1 million 2008 Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination (AEMDD) grant from the U.S. Department of Education through its Office of Innovation and Improvement. The grant money will be distributed over a four-year period and will be used in planning, researching and implementing programs to introduce young English Language Learners (ELL) to the theatre art form and build verbal communication abilities. There were 74 applicants for the grant nation wide. The Alliance ranked first out of 15 awardees.
SUPPORT SYSTEM: Eight local artists have been tapped for grants from the Charles Loridans Foundation. The Loridans Arts Medal comes with $15,000 and will be awarded to Dwight Coleman, head of the Georgia State University School of Music; Klimchak, local a performer and composer; Larry Larson, local actor and playwright (who can currently be seen in Smart Cookie at the Alliance Theatre); and Juan Ramirez-Hernandez, a first violinist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
The Loridans Encouragement will be awarded to photographer Sheila Pree Bright ($10,000); Actors and founders of Out-of-Hand Theater Ariel de Man and Maia Knispel, ($15,000-$7,500 each); and the Center for Puppetry Arts’ Jason von Hinezmeyer ($10,000).
MEET AND GREETS: CUMANANA opens tonight at Saltworks from 7-9 p.m. followed by an artist’s talk Sat., Feb. 14 at noon with William Cordova, Gene Moreno, Glexis Novoa and Ernesto Oroza. Atlanta Pecha Kucha opens its spring series at Octane Sun., Feb. 15, 7 p.m. with talks from Louise E. Shaw on “AIDS in the Eighties,” Alex West on “WonderRoot is Cool,” William Boling and Corinne Vionnet on their Opal Gallery exhibit “Complete Desire,” among others. Caterina Verde discusses her solo exhibition of video installation, photography and drawings, “All You Can’t Eat and Other Tales of Waiting,” at Wm Turner Gallery, Sat., Feb. 14 at noon. SCAD’s Ivy Hall Lecture Series presents Walter O. Evans, “a distinguished surgeon and bibliophile, is widely regarded as one of the foremost collectors of African American art in the United States,” for the lecture Great Collectors: The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, Sun., Feb. 15, 3 p.m. at Ivy Hall.