Team USA Softball Playing Hardball with Top Player

Still in the Midwest/Southwest, my dad and I took in a game at the World Cup of Softball VII event in Oklahoma City's ASA Hall of Fame Stadium yesterday. Good times!

Though the 90 degree noon game (Canada vs. Puerto Rico) had just a few hundred shade-seeking fans, when I returned to the evening USA vs. Australia match the stands were packed, good for the female sport and supporters working hard since 2008 to bring softball back into the Olympics.

Softball/baseball is up against wrestling and squash to get on the Olympic roster for the 2020 Games.

Driving to the stadium, my dad and I talked briefly about our take on which sport is worthy of five-ringed status. For this blogger, softball is a great sport, but wrestling never should have come out of the Olympic roster in the first place (as it is an ancient sport of strength while the ball and stick games are more of a modern thing). But I do also think softball is worthy of the upgrade -- it was cool to see Team USA players around town in Athens in 2004.

Sadly, the powers that be at the ASA may have shot themselves in the foot, according to a Daily Oklahoman sports column describing the runaround, sans bases, for the woman who is arguably the sports greatest player this year. Seems like a risky tactic for the Team USA decision makers to take on the eve of the IOC's vote for one sport to gain or regain Olympic status.

Photo by Nicholas Wolaver

Museum Hopping In OKC

In Oklahoma for a few weeks to tend to some family matters, I broke away for most of Saturday to visit two great OKC museums worth a special trip for the locals and for those passing through these parts.

The first stop was the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, currently hosting the photography exhibition "Herb Ritts: Beauty and Celebrity."

Until checking out the enormous black and white prints, my only prior experience putting on the Ritts was through the purchase of Madonna's "True Blue" album for which Herb was the photographer. His images of Prince, a super model or two and a portrait of Jack Nicholson's grin enlarged by a well-placed magnifying glass also got easy recognition on the OKC gallery walls.

I liked the exhibition for the enormous images of Christopher

Reeve, Nelson Mandela, Louis Armstrong and a handful of other celebrity images.

Favorites include the more abstract or "artsy" images like "Woman in Sea," "Neith with Shadows" (both the front and back versions) and "Mask" featuring a gorgeous brunette woman hiding behind her long locks.

Though the first image of the exhibition features a diver, and there are numerous images with clearly athletic subjects mocking Greek or Roman gods and goddesses, I was surprised and a little bummed Olympic athletes don't seem to be part of Ritts' repertoire -- all those years of beauty and celebrity but no Olympians? What's up with that? Did Annie Leibovitz get a monopoly on the famous five-ringed set?

The Olympic-free status of Ritts' portfolio (I looked in every book of his work) is all the more surprising since so many of his projects had Hollywood ties. Driving away from the exhibition it puzzled me wondering "where was Herb?" during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics? Oh, well.

The second museum of the day featured a trek to Persimmon Hill overlooking I-44, where an enormous statue of Buffalo Bill on horseback beckons everyone to visit the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Best bets at this museum include:

• A room of Frederick Remington canvases, sketches and
  sculpture, including one bronze for which there was only one cast, and a selection of Charles Russell works
• An extensive collection of works by Charles Schreyvogel, a lesser known and extremely talented Western artist
• Western Performers gallery, including portraits by Norman Rockwell and LeRoy Neiman, details about Oklahoman Will Rogers, and memorabilia from more than a century of cowboy cinema (the mini-movie theatre documentary on the history of Westerns is well done).
• A Native American gallery on par with the Detroit Institute of Arts' similar and expansive collection
• Monumental sculptures and paintings including four Southwest weather-themed triptychs that are the biggest canvases I've ever seen.

The museum is home to the annual Prix de West competition celebrating its 40th year. On view are hundreds of contemporary Western art works, many of which are for sale. I wish my bank account had enough funds to let me take home a George Carlson landscape painting (priced like a new Volvo and worth every penny).

There's at least one Olympic connection to the Cowboy collection as President Ronald Reagan got inducted into the Hall of Fame on the eve of U.S. Olympic Festival '89 in OKC (after the induction he spoke at the Opening Ceremonies in Norman, Okla.). Of course you can learn all about Olympic level rodeo competitions in the museum as well.

And another nice surprise at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is the expansive gardens south of the main gallery buildings. From this outdoor vantage there are great views of the Buffalo Bill monument and "The End of the Trail" in the museum main entry. Y'all head on over there when you can.

Photos via Herb Ritts Foundation/OKC Museum of Art and National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

Happy Olympic Day 2013

June 23 marks the worldwide celebration of Olympic Day.

What is Olympic Day? Here's what the International Olympic Committee has to say about it for 2013:

On 23 June, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Movement are celebrating [the] 65th Olympic Day! The IOC celebrated its first World Olympic Day on 23 June 1948 with nine National Olympic Committees hosting ceremonies in their respective countries. Today, Olympic Day has evolved to become a key date in the Olympic Movement’s calendar and has gained momentum worldwide with last year, almost 4 million participants from around the world and over 150 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) taking part.

The official page for Olympic Day also provides an interactive map of the NOCs taking park, and a cool video featuring Kobe Bryant encouraging participation. Here in the United States, there's a Team USA directory of participating communities -- it's not too late to participate like 2010 Vancouver Olympian/Sochi 2014 Olympic hopeful Julia Clukey and participants did at the camp she created in Maine.

I plan to participate by taking a brisk walk from Midtown Atlanta to downtown's Centennial Olympic Park, home of the statue honoring modern Olympic founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Hope you will also make it an Olympic Day.

Olympic Day logo image via this link; Olympic Day photos via IOC Facebook page; Centennial Olympic Park photo via The Eternal Optimist blog by Sara Bondioli

Delights Der Dutch Details

I've got a new summer girlfriend in Atlanta. You need to meet her!

She's Dutch. She's famous. She's likes to wear pearls and she's got a smile that stops people in their tracks.

This week at my freelance P.R. job, the High Museum of Art welcomed the long-awaited arrival of "Girl With A Pearl Earring." The world-famous canvas by Johannes Vermeer got its official Atlanta unveiling on Monday, joining 34 other Dutch masterworks on view through Sept. 29.

Wednesday's media preview and advance work got some nice play with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Public Broadcasting, Atlanta Magazine, Fox 5 Good Day Atlanta, Creative Loafing and the Associated Press.

The exhibition marks the first Southeast U.S. visit of the "Dutch Mona Lisa," and I have to say that gazing upon the canvas in person reminded me of crossing paths with Madonna, Lady Gaga, Cher, Annie Lennox and other famous and beautiful women backstage or from the photo pit at Philips Arena. Like shaking hands with Hillary Clinton a few years back, walking up to the "Girl With A Pearl Earring" for the first time provided those "meeting a celebrity" ganzen staten (Dutch goose bumps).

For this blogger, art exhibitions must deliver on several fronts to earn "outstanding" status. In addition to the inclusion of "important" works, a heavy dose of learning and "elements of interest" are key. I loved walking through "Girl With A Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis" for it entices the visitor to get up in the face of most of the works and really study the fine details.

A cousin of mine who experienced the exhibition in San Francisco a few weeks ago remarked that she loved how small and detailed many of the canvases are -- I concur, and I also delighted in the Dutch details many times.

The exhibition includes works grouped by landscapes/seascapes, still lifes, genre and history paintings and portraits.

While viewing the first few frames, visitors should be sure to closely study the snow-tipped leaves in "Winter Landscape" by Jacob van Ruisdael, and make time for his larger work "View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds" for the glorious countryside it portrays, filled with churches, windmills and fields under a cloudy summer sky (the title refers to the olde school methods of making linen -- ranked with beer as Haarlem's top exports -- and the fabric bleaching process that covered acres of farmland).

I also enjoyed an early peek at Mauritshuis -- the museum from which the exhibition is on loan during a two-year remodeling project -- shown in "A Hunting Party near the Hofvijver in The Hague, Seen from the Plaats" (later in the exhibition, a floor-to-ceiling photograph of modern day Mauritshuis quickly moved a trip to The Netherlands up on my world travel wish list).

The still lifes showcase Dutch flowers, food and property enjoyed by the wealthy elite, while the genre paintings bring to life a day in the middle class Holland.

The largest canvas by artist Jan Steen titled "As the Old Sing, So Twitter the Young" (see image at base of this post) includes a family party scene not too shy for its commentary on liberal lifestyles (smokes and drinks for all ages!) and the consequences for future generations, while a tiny canvas by the same artist, "The Oyster Eater," made me hungry (check out the fine porcelain detail -- how did the painter do that?). Studying the latter canvas was like standing before the tiny oil canvases by Salvador Dalí that were in the same High galleries not long ago. Wonderful surprises in the tiniest details.

While Tweeting about the Twitter-titled Steen, one may also wish to IM RE: "The Goldfinch" by Carel Fabritius (saved by conservation works, according to the exhibition catalog), the skull in "Vanitas Still Life" by Pieter Claesz, or "Still Life with Five Apricots" that look so real its as though peach fuzz grew on the canvas.

Other favorites include "Woman Writing a Letter" with a young lady donning an earring like the exhibition's namesake, and her neighbor "The Violin Player" with a life-sized female giggling through her wardrobe malfunction circa 1636. Tobacco and alcohol return in "A Man Smoking and a Woman Drinking in a Courtyard" and there's a Muppet-like quality to each of the peasant faces in "The Violinist."

The big guns come out with four magnificent Rembrandt van Rijn masterpieces, including "Susanna" and "Simeon's Song of Praise" flanked by portraits and tronies or facial paintings that capture people of era but not necessarily a specific person. Which brings us to the "Mona Lisa of the North" by Vermeer, who is not a specific person as portrayed by Scarlett Johansson in the film based on a fictional bestseller by the same name.

The "Girl With A Pearl Earring" gets to hang out in her own private green room just like the other lady rock stars mentioned in this post, with her gaze following your movements across the room like the eyes of the president's statue inside the Lincoln Memorial rotunda.

I highly recommend a visit to experience "Girl With A Pearl Earring" during her once in a lifetime stop at Atlanta, or during her final worldwide tour dates with The Frick Collection in New York and at a museum in Balogna, Italy, before her homecoming in The Hague. And though I don't often do this, I also recommend the audio tour and exhibition catalog which elaborate on many more details of the Dutch masterworks.

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver except for "The Girl With The Pearl Earring" image from this link

Too Many Days Since A Night of O'K

About a month ago, I blew out 40 birthday candles.

Actually, this did not happen as my girlfriend's and family members' promises of a candle-topped cake remain only half-baked.

Though 40 and cakeless, last month I DID enjoy a Friday evening visit to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, where everything was O'K. What a treat as the icing to a five-day vacation including New Mexico destinations in and around Albuquerque, Shiprock, Four Corners, Farmington, Taos and the state capitol.

The road trip holiday also included a day at Colorado's Mesa Verde and an evening in Durango.

Until May 17, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum was on my "to visit" list since its opening in the latter 1990s. A warm Friday afternoon (May 17) proved good timing to arrive at the museum door on opening day for the summer exhibition "Georgia O'Keeffe In New Mexico: Architecture, Katsinam, and the Land" on view through September 11.

The exhibition featured many familiar favorites and an array of surprises worth a special trip.

In the first gallery, fellow O'Keeffe fans and I gathered 'round the landscape canvas currently in circulation as a recent U.S. Postal Service commemorative stamp. We also sampled some early works from the Wisconsin native, including a Manhattan cityscape and some abstract creations (the documentary films playing in the adjacent theatre -- worth a look-see -- explained the varied reasons O'Keeffe's early works differed from her more famous flowers, landscapes and nature-rich works).

One detailed vertical canvas showcased paint resembling black velvet, drawing out a sand-polished animal skull crowned with a large flower blossom -- too cool!

It was fun to see a private collection portrait of a nun-like female figure (I think this canvas is in rotation at the Milwaukee Art Museum, in O'Keeffe's home state).

New-to-my-eyes: Trees and vistas as seen from the artist's home studio at Abiquiu; dreamy nighttime images from O'Keeffe's camping trips in the highlands far west of Santa Fe; religious icons including Kachinas (fabulous!), church steeples, a sunlight cross in a large Easter-themed painting; rooster portraits (i.e. The China Cock) and the rushing mountain waters of Chama River, Ghost Ranch cast in sky blue.

In the museum shop and on the walls of the exhibition, I took time (with the help of the friendly staff) to locate more details about O'Keeffe's 1935 canvas titled Yellow Cactus, which hangs about midway through the exhibition but visible down the length of a main museum corridor.

With their team, the co-curators of the exhibition, Carolyn Kastner and Barbara Buhler Lynes, chose to hang Yellow Cactus in one direction (vertically, as I recall), while several published catalogs of O'Keeffe's work present Yellow Cactus horizontally. This led to the biggest lesson of the evening (something I just never noticed in 23 years as an O'K fan): O'Keeffe did not sign her works; therefore, many of them (the florals in particular) may be presented in any direction. While typing this blog tonight, I wonder still whether the museum team went back and re-hung the painting as a result of my gift shop sleuthing.

The visit to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum delivered all I hoped the experience would include and more. Beautiful works, a mix of popular and rarely viewed paintings, detailed history lessons and reminders of longtime favorites. Future plans definitely include return visits, and a trek to the artist's Ghost Ranch home and studio, for which tours are available.

Get yourself to New Mexico and see this outstanding summer exhibition!

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver; image of Yellow Cactus via BoulderWeekly.com; postage stamp image via U.S. Postal Service. Special thanks to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum for providing complimentary ticket to the exhibition.

 

 

Meet London Champions FIRST

 

As readers of this Olympic blog may know from past posts, five-ringed feature films appear across this writer's best picture lists.

After shaking hands with Bud Greenspan in 1997 and again in 2010, it was sad to learn of his death after the Vancouver Games. What would it mean for the official Olympic film of London 2012?

We'll get a peek at the answer when the U.S. Olympic Committee, National CineMedia (NCM) Fathom Events and New Moon present the premiere screening of "FIRST: The Story of the London 2012 Olympic Games" on Thursday, May 30, with tickets available at select theatres across the USA.

Though this blog is Atlanta-based, the screening site for my viewing is at Cinemark Tinseltown in Oklahoma City (readers in OKC, please join me!).

According to the premiere press release and trailer, "FIRST" is the only IOC-sanctioned film of London's Games, and it "follows a dozen first-time Olympic athletes on their journey from their homes in different corners of the globe to meet their fate in London."

Sounds good to me!

Though there are dozens of Olympians who briefly appear in "FIRST" -- including Michael Phelps, Jessica Ennis, Usain Bolt and Oscar Pistorius -- here's the rundown of Olympians who viewers will get to know in more detail via behind-the-scenes access at London Olympic venues:

• Qiu Bo of China (men's diving 10m platform)
• Caroline Buchanan of Australia (women's BMX)
• Chad le Clos of South Africa (men's swimming)
• Missy Franklin of the USA (women's swimming)
• Majlinda Kelmendi of Albania (women's judo)
• Christophe Lemaitre of France (men's athletics 200m)
• John Orozco of the USA (men's gymnastics)
• David Rudisha of Kenya (men's athletics 800m)
• Heena Sidhu of India (women's shooting 10m air pistol)
• Katie Taylor of Ireland (women's boxing lightweight)
• Laura Trott of Great Britain (women's track cycling)
• Queen Underwood of the USA (women's boxing lightweight)

I was privileged to meet Franklin at the USOC Media Summit last year, Orozco at USA House in London and Trott at the Olympic Stadium on one night of the 2012 Games -- can hardly wait to learn more about their journeys in particular, and also for the introduction to the other Olympians on screen.

According to at least one Facebook post, this film actually debuted overseas a few months ago, with May 30 as the U.S. premiere.

The film's comprehensive IMDB listing makes me wonder the extent to which the USA version was edited for American audiences (if this is the case, here's hoping they let the Olympic drama speak for itself and they don't crap it up as NBC Sports sometimes does with over-the-top USA-USA-USA sentiment).

Multiple versions or not, this Olympic documentary appears to be a directorial first for Caroline Rowlands, who previously produced other films, according to IMBD. Can't wait to see what directorial cues she took from Leni Riefenstahl, Greenspan, Hugh Hudson and other Olympic film directors while putting her own spin on Olympic cinema.

Photos via NCM Fathom Events

Atlanta Contemporary Art Center Shows Photography Exhibition "The Olympic City"

 

 

Not long ago -- before the awful Oklahoma tornado news, a 40th birthday vacation in New Mexico, and a week of work at Cedar Point theme park in Sandusky, Ohio (all experiences about which I will eventually write) -- an online calendar listing caught my eye in April.

The brief mentioned the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center just opened a photography exhibition titled "The Olympic City" featuring numerous works compiled by a pair of photographers who visited several five-ringed host cities. The exhibition continues through June 15.

Though I regret the travel-related delays to craft this post (it's been a few weeks since a rainy afternoon visit to the exhibition), it's been good to reflect on the show in anticipation of a panel discussion set for March 23 (Thursday night -- tomorrow at 6:30 p.m.) and an upcoming Atlanta Olympic field trip also planned by the museum on June 8.

"The Olympic City" features several dozen images created by photographer Jon Pack and filmmaker Gary Hustwit, who since 2008 trekked the globe to explore past Olympic host cities and evidence of impact and legacy from the big event. Details of their journey are chronicled via The Olympic Project.

Not every Olympic host city is represented, but the exhibition includes a healthy mix of recent and older, summer and winter, historic and less iconic Olympic developments. Most Olympiads from Rome 1960 to London 2012 are covered, with Munich as the only gaping hole in Hustwit's and Pack's travels.

I pondered the exclusion of Munich and the extent to which this may be intentional since the 1972 Games, in many ways, defies one component of the exhibition, presented to serve as a "possible guide to the dos and don’ts of contemporary built environments." If not overshadowed by the events of Sept. 5, Munich's Games would stand today as a marvel of Olympic legacies done right.

"The Olympic City" exhibition skews on the "don'ts" in many ways. Why include Berlin 1936 without the Bavarian Olympic counterpart of 1972? If you want to make an anti-Games point, leaving out Munich is one way to punctuate the point.

Seoul's 1988 successes also are excluded; but then, maybe Korea remains on the photographers' "to do" lists, not yet earning enough votes from those tallied by project donors.

Most of the exhibition photographs provide a beautiful and thoughtful snapshot on the many ways time buffs away the shimmer of the Olympic glory days. Images of Barcelona's amazing 1992 architecture and Mediterranean-nestled venues stand out. A look at inner-city Los Angeles and remnants of 1932 and 1984 influences are interesting and shed new light on lesser-known legacy projects (In 2003, I think I bought ice cream from the same vendor photographed at the L.A. Coliseum).

A peek at small town Lake Placid, N.Y., brought back memories of my own visit to the Olympic Village in the Adirondacks and the conversion of housing to modern prison. And a look at the harsh realities of war torn Sarajevo allude to the dark tale of the region's post-Games horrors. Well done.

So it confused me that when their project visited Mexico City, Pack and Hustwit missed some spectacular and positive impacts of the Games. Where was their photo of Diego Rivera's murals created for the Olympic venues? Not here, perhaps overlooked on the hunt for homeless inhabitants of a city long-since changed by the Olympic impact, or missed while exploring the crapped out Olympic Village cinema?

In London, why show the trash-strewn backside of an Underground station when across town there are new world class buildings by renowned best-of-our era architects (like in Barcelona)? I liked the Banksy-style anti-Games spray paint commentary (and concur, not everyone likes the Olympics). But there was a lot of graffiti photographed in this exhibition, across many Olympic cities, where more attention could have gone to non-negatives and non-alleyways. I had the feeling both photographers got locked on a mission to find the filth.

There are exceptions. On the luxury side, I liked the Helsinki image of an historic waterfront hotel opened in 1952. Images of the people in or around the once-Games gathering places are more personal and thought provoking -- what was the personal legacy for these individuals, I wondered. The bandage-clad Montreal Olympic Stadium also stood out for this visitor.

But the exhibition kept bringing me back to observations of other art museum photography noted earlier this year. Why go for decrepitude when there is more positive "out there" to be captured by the lens?

One other Olympic city stood out for its exclusion from the current exhibition stop: Atlanta and the 1996 Games. I'd like to think that the museum's planned June 8 "opinionated tour" will be fair and balanced, including Atlanta's "good" Olympic legacy elements (Centennial Olympic Park, 7,000+ college dorm rooms, Georgia Tech Aquatic Center, Turner Field, Atlanta History Center archives and expansion) and forgotten legacies (tennis center, AUC venues), but have a sinking feeling the tour may be a Fox News version of "fair" and "balanced" skewed on the negative side. Thursday night's panel discussion should be interesting to experience.

Other critics and reporters offered their POV on the exhibition when it stopped in Atlanta and  recent markets. The book version of the exhibition is coming soon, too.

Should anyone go see "The Olympic City" exhibition? Yes, absolutely! Just soak it in with a grain of salt, looking beyond the grime to the brighter side of the cities once lit by the Olympic flame.

Photos of exhibition by Nicholas Wolaver include works copyrighted by Jon Pack and Gary Hustwit -- view their gallery here. The Montreal stadium image at the top of this post is from the exhibition and its website OlympicCityProject.com