Truth to Power 2 Pleiades Gallery, Durham Through Aug. 2 Artist’s salon on Thurs., July 24, 6 p.m. Even though it’s July in North Carolina, this is the winter of our discontent. Last year’s enthusiastic Moral Monday protests and the art that came out of them were fueled by a mixture of joy and outrage. […]
Chris Vitiello
Bio: Chris Vitiello lives in Durham and writes for INDY Week on art, music and hockey.Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrisvitiello
Posted inCulture
Update: Valerie Macon resigns from Poet Laureate appointment after uproar
Valerie Macon, appointed by Governor Pat McCrory as North Carolina’s poet laureate last Friday, resigned her appointment Thursday. The North Carolina literary community noisily—and almost unanimously—objected to the virtually unknown Macon’s appointment on the grounds that she was substantially unqualified for the honor and that her inexperience undermined the integrity of the office of laureate […]
Posted inCulture
Opinion: McCrory’s mean joke, a poet laureate who’s barely a poet
Update: Valerie Macon has resigned. Who the hell is Valerie Macon? That’s what poets in North Carolina are asking this week after Gov. Pat McCrory bypassed the established process for choosing the state’s poet laureate and appointed the unknown, inexperienced Macon to the post for the next two years. Typically, the North Carolina Arts Council […]
Posted inMusic
The new album from former Carolina Chocolate Drop Dom Flemons is all quick hits, nervous fits
Dom Flemons With John Dee Holeman Friday, July 18, $10–$12, 9:30 p.m. The Pinhook, thepinhook.com Dom Flemons holds a beer on the patio outside a Hillsborough bar, but he’s too excited to take a drink. Each time the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist lifts his glass, another thought about a song on his new album, Prospect Hill, […]
Posted inArt
On the uncompromising artifice of influential local painter and professor Marvin Saltzman
THE ABSTRACT LANDSCAPES OF MARVIN SALTZMAN Eno Gallery, Hillsborough Through August 17 Artist’s talk July 24, 7 p.m. Landscape painters often fit into one of two categories. On the impressionist side of the fence, landscape is seen as an optical phenomenon transferred onto canvas through a stylistic or realistic lens. Meanwhile, on the expressionist side, […]
Posted inArt
Miami choreographer Rosie Herrera discusses her 2014 American Dance Festival showstopper, Show.Girl.
Since her first visit as a resident artist in 2009, Miami’s Rosie Herrera has become an American Dance Festival mainstay. Her company visited in 2010, 2011 and 2013, premiering ADF commissions that established Herrera’s reputation as an emotionally powerful, intellectually rigorous dance-maker. Herrera’s 2014 ADF commission also represents a new direction for her. Show.Girl.which had […]
Posted inCulture
Ackland’s More Love, Nasher’s Mutu receive national honors
It’s the rare museum exhibition that makes you cry or blows your mind, but we are getting used to them here. Word is getting out about it, too. The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) recognized a pair of 2013 shows at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Ackland Art Museum and Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art in their […]
Posted inArt
A new Durham History Hub exhibit celebrates the 25th anniversary of a groundbreaking, divisive public art project
REMEMBERING LOADED TEXT Durham History Hub June 17–July 19, free Opening reception, June 20, 6–9 p.m. Walking tour, June 28, 10:30 a.m. Cities use a variety of benchmarks to measure progress. They slice and dice economic and demographic statistics to show growth or hide decline. But Chamber of Commerce figures don’t paint a vivid cultural […]
Posted inMusic
Live ensemble New Music Raleigh makes its first foray into recording
New Music Raleigh might be the Southeast’s most plugged-in musical collective devoted to the work of living composers. Co-curated by percussionist Shawn Galvin and violinist Karen Strittmatter Galvin, the group has focused on bringing stellar performers such as Detroit-based vocalist and songwriter Shara Worden to the area, as well as live collaborations with local talent […]
Posted inMusic
With strange music and make-believe worlds, Grandma Sparrow wants adults to remember the wonder of being a kid
Twitching at the microphone, Joe Westerlunda bearded 33-year-old donning a drab shawl, a brown flapper hat, outlandish glasses and a bright yellow beakscolds his backing band, Canine Heart Sounds, in the shaky voice of an old schoolmarm. “Calm down,” he pleads. “It’s time for naptime.” They protest in unison: “I don’t wanna take a nap!” […]