Outrageous Expectation (2011) an oil on canvas by Karen Kuykendall of Tampa.
By Greg Stepanich
Every year for the past six decades, the Boca Raton Museum of Art calls on the artists of the Sunshine State to send work its way for the All-Florida Juried Competition and Exhibition.
This year, they answered the call in plenteous fashion, with about 600 artists supplying more than 1,800 entries. The judge for all this work was Valerie Cassel Oliver, who is senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. It was her less-than-enviable task to try to winnow all that work down to a manageable show.
“With such a large volume of works, I really focused on what works felt complete (technically and conceptually solid),” Oliver wrote in an email. “I came to the process with no expectations other than the fact that good to great art works will always reveal themselves.”
Oliver herself is widely recognized for her curating, having worked at the National Endowment for the Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her appointment as senior curator of the Houston museum, where she’s worked since 2000, was widely welcomed in the area press.
Oliver wrote that in today’s “global age,” it’s hard to support the idea of any specific “regional style.”
“That being said, there were thematic and material practices that seemed to organically emerge: A focus on nature regardless of media (painting, photogaphy, sculpture — all had a focus on nature) and the impulse to repurpose material through assemblage work and/or collage works,” she wrote.
Monike AKA Chicken Wang (2011), an oil on
canvas by Kandy Lopez of Miami.
The show, which opened May 30 and runs through July 8, will contain 101 paintings, sculptures, installations, videos and photographs from 74 artists.
Casting a wide net for so much art has its benefits and drawbacks, Oliver wrote, but it does give the judge a sense of how much artistic activity is going on in a given area.
And was there anyone whose work she saw that she might consider for her own museum in Houston?
“Yes, there were a few artists who I took special notice of. But my lips are sealed!” she wrote.
The Boca Museum calls the juried show the oldest such competition in all of Florida, and this year’s is the 61st edition. Running concurrently with the juried show is the biennial exhibition of the Boca Museum Artists’ Guild, which includes works by members of the Museum Auxiliary Guild.
Tickets are $8, $6 for seniors and $4 for students; members and children 12 and under get in free. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Call 392-2500.
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Once upon a time, Olivia Newton-John was the good girl-bad girl crush of the geek set, wondrously pretty but still approachable, and with a voice that had a nice honey-pop sound that managed to elevate everything she sang, even when it was routine junk like “Please Mister, Please.”
In 1980, she starred in Xanadu, a movie that was greeted with well-deserved critical abuse (despite also featuring Gene Kelly), but the score, by fellow Aussie John Farrar and Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra, did very well indeed, with songs such as the title track and “Magic” becoming staples of early 1980s radio.
The show returned in 2007 as a musical, garnering a respectable Broadway run of more than 500 performances. Since then, it has had several revivals and has become something of a favorite for community theaters.
This month, Slow Burn Theatre in Boca Raton presents the show for six performances from June 22 to July 1 at the West Boca High auditorium. Xanadu has an intentionally ridiculous plot about the youngest of the Muses, Clio, descending from Mount Olympus to bring some inspiration to a Venice Beach, California, sidewalk artist who thereupon decides to build a roller disco.
Yes, it’s still set in 1980, after all.
“We wanted to do something that was light and fun,” said Patrick Fitzwater, the troupe’s co-founding artistic director along with Matthew Korinko. “It’s also our first summer show, and it establishes us as a year-round theater company.”
Fitzwater said he saw the show on Broadway, and with memories of the movie still in his head, “I thought, ‘This is either going to be really good or really terrible,’ and it turned out to be a great night,” he said. “It was 90 minutes of sheer fun.”
Nine cast members are in the show, which Fitzwater says is getting its South Florida premiere with this production. Lindsey Forgey stars as Clio (Kira), and Rick Pena is Sonny, and there will be a four-piece rock band on stage accompanying the action.
The show is something of a self-parody, but you won’t notice that once the show gets going, Fitzwater said.
“In the first 15 minutes, you’ll fall into the ironic thing, but after that you’ll really get into the show. It’s just a really fun night,” he said.
And since Newton-John herself is a resident of Palm Beach County (in Jupiter Inlet Colony), perhaps she’ll come down to Boca to check it out.
“We’re actually trying to see if she’ll come to opening night,” Fitzwater said, adding that the company has been in touch with her manager, who has promised to check her schedule. “We all love Olivia Newton-John.”
Tickets for the show are $35 for adults, $30 for seniors, and $20 for students. Call 866-811-4111 or visit www.slowburntheatre.org.
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It’s worth noting that the Arts Garage in Delray Beach has added some significant jazz and blues acts to its summer roster, adding to the strength of the venue’s offerings as its second year of existence gets under way.
The Doug Carn Quartet appears June 9 in a relatively rare appearance by the St. Augustine-based pianist and reedman, and on June 16, it’s veteran Gainesville blues shouter Little Jake Mitchell (“Work With Me Annie”) and his Soul Searchers.
On the 23rd, a true Florida jazz legend pays a visit to the series when organist Dr. Lonnie Smith and his trio come to the Garage.
The turban-wearing musician is a formidable player who has helped keep the jazz flame alive in a part of the state that really should have more jazz to offer.
And summer also brings one of the last of the great bluesmen, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, now in his early 80s but still making the tour circuit (July 21); pianist Lynne Arriale, who teaches at the University of North Florida (July 28); and, guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and his quartet (Aug. 25). Tickets start at $20 for these shows; call 450-6357 or visit www.artsgarage.org.
Greg Stepanich is editor of The ArtsPaper. Email him at gstepanich@pbartspaper.com.
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