Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper Ackland Art Museum Through July 1 The Dial show is accompanied at the Ackland by an exhibit called Piece by Piece: Quilts, Collages, and Constructions, which traces aesthetic lines from a central Gee’s Bend quilt to works from the Ackland’s permanent collection by Betye Saar, Ann Hamilton, Josef Albers, Romare […]
Chris Vitiello
Bio: Chris Vitiello lives in Durham and writes for INDY Week on art, music and hockey.Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrisvitiello
Posted inMusic
Iranian master Mohammad-Reza Shajarian delivers more than a stunning voice
Mohammad-Reza Shajarian performs at the Durham Performing Arts Center Saturday, April 28, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5–$55. See Duke Performances. Amir Rezvani pauses a moment before he can talk about it. When Mohammad-Reza Shajarian sings “Bird of Dawn,” he does this to people. “At the end of every concert people start to clap and […]
Posted inCulture
Hockey playoffs becoming violent farce
It’s safe to say that I’m thankful the Carolina Hurricanes didn’t make the playoffs this season. In fact, that’s about the only thing that’s safe about the National Hockey League right now. Coming home after a poetry reading last night—the fire and brimstone fury of Amiri Baraka—I flipped on the television to catch whatever first-round […]
Posted inMusic
Duke composer Stephen Jaffe joins the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Stephen Jaffe barges into his classroom in Duke University’s Biddle Music Building. Without breaking stride, he makes a beeline for the piano on the far wall and begins the day’s lesson. “Let’s do a little ear training first, to see where your ears are,” the composer and professor chirps. His students quickly settle into their […]
Posted inCulture
Why you should catch a Canes game this weekend
RALEIGH, NC—When a team is mathematically eliminated from the National Hockey League playoffs, newspapers put a lower-case “e” in front of the team’s name in the NHL standings. The Carolina Hurricanes don’t have their “e” yet, but somewhere a typesetter has taken it out of the drawer and polished its leaden face. The scarlet letter […]
Posted inArt
N.C. artists delve deep into codes at Flanders Gallery
Codework Heather Gordon, Kenn Kotara, David McConnell, Peter G. Oakley Flanders Gallery Through April 20 This sentence is in code. But you know the code. You can read this, so its encoding is more or less transparent. Meaning comes through without interference from the language in which the content sits. But imagine this sentence in […]
Posted inCulture
Canes won’t go away, drop Panthers for fourth straight win
PNC ARENA, RALEIGH—I am skilled, as it turns out, at avoiding jinxes. In order to snap my team out of a bad stretch of play in a game, I can sense just when to change clothing or turn my jersey inside-out. To fend off a favorite player’s injury in his first game back after a […]
Posted inArt
David Klein delves into the deep catalog of number songs in If 6 Was 9
If 6 Was 9 and Other Assorted Number Songs By David Klein 7/21 Books; 191 pp. David Klein reads at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham on Thursday, March 22, at 7 p.m. I readily admit that I’m a numerically hyper-aware guy. In numbered lots, I’ll only park in odd spaces, further preferring primes. To reheat […]
Posted inCulture
El Anatsui’s optimistic objects
Artists are a resourceful lot. In their hands, common materials become artifacts charged with new significance. Often this transformation is powered by an artist’s imagination or vision of metaphorical possibility. Other times it comes from sheer necessity—one uses what is at hand, almost regardless of the material itself. Western artists typically use found or discarded […]
Posted inArt
Pondering and playing with CAM Raleigh’s interactive Born Digital
Born Digital CAM Raleigh Through April 30 Cognitive psychology is a booming field, which doesn’t always make it a useful one. On one hand, it cranks out a lot of schlock books that you see executive wannabes reading at airport gates about how to manipulate people into buying things they don’t need. But many of […]