Movie review: “Wuthering Heights”
A version of this review appears in Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. 2 1/2 of 4 stars.
British filmmaker Andrea Arnold deserves credit for originality and audacity with her radical remake of the classic novel “Wuthering Heights.”
But the Oscar-winning director/co-writer goes too far in her worthwhile efforts to strip away the frills and formality of the many previous adaptations. Best known for her gritty indie dramas “Fish Tank” and “Red Road,” Arnold becomes so focused on bringing the harsh wildness back to Emily Bronte’s 1847 melodrama that she turns her version into a dank, muddy slog.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit I’ve never been a fan of the Bronte sisters and their gothic romance stories. of wretched souls wallowing in their misery. But director Cary Fukunaga brought such fresh energy to his 2011 adaption of Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” that I was willing to see Arnold’s new vision of “Wuthering Heights,” playing this weekend at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
While Fukunaga tapped two of today’s most promising young actors — Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender — to play the leads in his “Jane Eyre,” Arnold unfortunately stuck with her practice of casting first-timers for her “Wuthering Heights.” The inexperienced players just aren’t equal to the task of traversing the story’s unsettling emotional morass.
Set on an isolated farm on the moors of Yorkshire, Northern England, “Wuthering Heights” opens with an act of kindness, as the lord of the manor, Mr. Earnshaw ( Paul Hilton) a kind-hearted Christian but stern disciplinarian, takes in an abused and homeless youth whom he names Heathcliff.
The novel describes Heathcliff as a dark-skinned “exotic” of gypsy blood, but the role has traditionally been played by white actors. Arnold cast black actors Solomon Glave to play the adolescent Heathcliff and James Howson to portray him as a young man. It’s a smart choice, even if it makes the story more about racial discrimination than class prejudice.
Mr. Earnshaw’s expects his children to accept Heathcliff as their brother, but his racist son Hindley (Lee Shaw) violently and fervently hates the newcomer. His daughter, Catherine (Shannon Beer as a youth, Kaya Scodelario of the British TV show “Skins” as a woman) develops an equally intense but much different relationship with Heathcliff. Although she initially spits in his face, They are kindred spirits, spending their days running wild on the moors together. Their bond is close, exclusive and ambiguous; Catherine and Heathcliff aren’t quite lovers but you couldn’t call their relationship platonic or familial.
When Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley becomes the new lord of the manor and immediately downgrades Heathcliff from family member to slave. even casting him out of the house and giving him a new room in the stable with the animals. Then, Catherine begins climbing the social ladder, spending more time with the well-to-do neighbors the Lintons. When she becomes engaged to their milquetoast son Edgar Linton (Jonathan Powell as a youth, James Northcote as an adult), Heathcliff leaves the farm.
He returns a few years later flush with a mysterious fortune and anxious to win back Catherine and exact revenge on Hindley. When he learns that Catherine has married Edgar and is expecting his child, Heathcliff also begins a destructive romance with her sister-in-law, Isabella (Nichola Burley).
Arnold’s first-time actors are only able to effectively capture the wildness of Heathcliff and Catherine, but the filmmaker makes it clear that the story’s animal fierceness is really the only part that interests her. Instead of becoming enamored of fancy frocks and bodice-ripping love scenes, she obsessively focuses on spiders building webs, feral-looking dogs slinking around and doomed rabbits trying to escape snares.
She pares away the florid dialogue to the point that the characters hardly do more than grunt, exchange loaded glances and drop a few f-bombs and other curses. (The film is not rated but the language would earn it an R.) She forgoes the typical musical score and lets the shrieking wind and other natural sounds provide the soundtrack. While the choice gives the story an aptly mournful air, the little dialogue she does is sometimes lost in the yowling gusts.
Likewise, Arnold eschews artificial light in favor of gas lamps and candle glow, which gives the movie a realistic and appropriate gloom, but some of the interior scenes are so dark you can’t even tell which characters are in them.
The director eagerly divests “Wuthering Heights” of the stifling artifice of the costume drama only to become enslaved by the artifice of the atmospheric indie drama.
-BAM
“American Moderns” closing today at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Isabel Lydia Whitney’s “The Blue Peter” is part of “American Moderns: 1910-1960,” an exhibit featuring 57 works from the Brooklyn Museum, is on view through today at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
See the special exhibition “American Moderns, 1910–1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell” before it closes today at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive.
The museum is open from noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.
“American Moderns, 1910–1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell” features 57 artworks from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum in an exploration of the myriad ways in which American artists engaged with modernity. Ranging widely in subject matter and style, the fifty-three paintings and four sculptures were produced by leading artists of the day, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Milton Avery, Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Rockwell Kent, Joseph Stella, Elie Nadelman, and Norman Rockwell. Significant works by these and other artists in the exhibition exemplify their unique contributions to modern culture.
Between 1910 and 1960, both American society and art underwent tumultuous and far-reaching transformations. The United States emerged as an international power of economic, industrial, and military might, while also experiencing two world wars and the Great Depression. New technologies fundamentally changed the pace and nature of all aspects of modern life. America’s increasingly diverse and mobile population challenged old social patterns and clamored for the equality and opportunities promised by the American dream. Art witnessed similarly dramatic changes as many artists rejected or reformulated artistic traditions, seeking new ways to make their work relevant in a contemporary context.
“American Moderns” explores themes such as the city, the body, landscape, still life, and Americana through the range of works in the exhibition. The American city was a common motif in art of this period as artists found new iconographic and aesthetic possibilities in the architectural forms and gridded geometries of the modern metropolis. Other works will address the human experience of the city—the vast diversity of urban populations; the hustle and bustle of urban living; and the sociological effects of alienation, lack of privacy, and increasing female independence. Artists captured the nation’s self-confidence in heroic depictions of the muscled, active bodies of laborers who fueled the economy and of athletes who embodied the new cult of physicality.
The conventional artistic genres of landscape and still-life painting also enjoyed revitalization: both nature and everyday objects were the focus of creative experimentation with new styles, decorative compositions, and the formal properties of line, color, and space. In addition, the natural beauty of the seaside, rural locales, and the Southwest inspired many artists to explore universal and spiritual concerns. As a counterpoint to works that address the modern and the new, the exhibition will include images steeped in nostalgia, which evoke the past and simpler ways of life. This highly popular imagery fostered American nationalism and suggested the continuity of cherished traditions during times of war, economic depression, and social change.
Across these themes and iconographies, “American Moderns” investigates a wide array of artistic styles, including cubism, synchromism, precisionism, expressionism, and social realism. Cubism was particularly influential on modern American art and bred many individualized expressions and variations. Other artists remained committed to realism but took a pared-down, refined approach to their subjects, creating an aesthetic inspired by such diverse sources as folk art or the streamlined forms of the Machine Age.
“American Moderns, 1910-1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell” has been organized by the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition is cocurated by Karen Sherry, assistant curator of American Art, and Margaret Stenz, curatorial associate, American Art.
For more information, go to www.okcmoa.com.
-BAM
RIP renowned Oklahoma artist Alexandra Alaupovic
Artist Alexandra Alaupovic poses for a 2004 photograph in front of three of her aluminum wall hangings titled “Triangular Variation,” in her rural Oklahoma City home. Photo by Doug Hoke, The Oklahoman Archives.
Internationally known artist Alexandra Alaupovic, a longtime Oklahoma City resident whose work is included in the Oklahoma State Art Collection, died Wednesday. She was 91.
She was born Dec. 21, 1921, in Podravska Slatina, Croatia, growing up in a small town and an artistic family. Her mother, Jelka, was an accomplished watercolorist who taught art at the local grammar school. Her father, Josip, was an amateur painter and musician as well as an attorney and later a judge. His brother, Antun, studied painting at a German art academy.
She created her first sculpture, a clay bust of a policeman, at the age of 5.
When Alaupovic was 6, her father told her he wished she would become an attorney but said she could be an artist if she wanted. He told her, “Whatever you’re going to do, do the best,” she recalled in a 2004 interview with The Oklahoman at her rural Oklahoma City home.
After she graduated from high school in 1940, Alaupovic started business school in Zagreb in what was then Yugoslavia. She spent a year in business classes and then worked as a secretary for three years. She said she needed the money and had reservations about going to art school with the Nazis in power.
“I didn’t want to be doing Hitler’s portrait,” she said in 2004.
She entered the Academy of Visual Arts in Zagreb in 1944. One of her first projects was a bust of a Serbian orphan whose family had been killed by Croatian Nazis, a sculpture she kept and eventually brought with her to Oklahoma.
After World War II, Yugoslavia fell under Communist rule, as did Czechoslovakia, where she lived for a time with her husband Petar, whom she wed in 1947. When they returned to Zagreb – where their only child, daughter Betsy, was born in 1949 – the sculptor discovered some of her art professors had been replaced with party members.
In 1952, she created “Struggle I,” a bronze sculpture of an individual being pulled by two others representing art and family. The sculpture expressed her struggle to balance raising a young daughter, working as an artist and getting up at 4 a.m. to wait in lines for food.
In addition to food shortages, Alaupovic faced limits on her artistic style and expression. “Struggle I” wasn’t accepted for juried shows in Yugoslavia because it had too much space when monolithic sculptures were the norm. Realism was the accepted style, she said, and modernism was not taught.
“Everything is free (in the United States), and you could express yourself the way you wanted to in this country, and you could learn everything you wanted to over here,” she said in the 2004 interview. “This was a democracy, and over there, it was just the other way around.”
In the late 1950s, Alaupovic came to the United States with her husband, a research scientist, when he got a job at the University of Illinois. She enrolled as a graduate student in design and commercial art and began learning about modernism, abstract art and new sculpting techniques.
“She was freed to pursue her artistic interests without really any constraints or censorship as the kind of those in the immediate years after the Second World War faced in a communist regime,” Petar Alaupovic said in the 2004 interview. “Neither one of us would have really been able to utilize our gifts to their potential if we had not been invited to this country and allowed to stay.”
In 1960, the couple moved so Petar could take a job with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, where he celebrated his 50th anniversary in early 2011.
Alexandra Alaupovic enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, where she learned welding, won the 1964 Oscar Jacobson Award for her sculpture “Moon Girl” and earned her master of fine arts degree. She started her teaching career at OU and then spent several years as an art professor at Oklahoma City University.
In 1964, she and her husband became U.S. citizens in a ceremony in downtown Oklahoma City.
“She’s a frontier person, so it’s appropriate she ended up in Oklahoma. … She came along a little bit later, but she definitely had that same enthusiasm for exploring new territories,” Alaupovic’s daughter, Betsy Alaupovic Hyde, told The Oklahoman in 2004.
Alaupovic’s sense of adventure and willingness to experiment are evident in her sculptures, which range from strikingly realistic busts to enigmatic abstract forms.
“I always wanted to learn something new,” Alaupovic said.
She expressed herself in an array of media, including plaster, clay, aluminum, steel and marble, although she became best known for her bronzes.
“They were my expression of my feelings at certain times,” she said, reflecting on her career in the 2004 interview. “Whenever I changed my life, I changed also my style.”
She exhibited on the local, state, national and international level and was included in “Since Statehood: 12 Oklahoma Artists,” La Mandragore International Galerie d’Art, Paris, France and the Oklahoma City Arts Festival. In 1987, she was honored with a retrospective at the Oklahoma Art Center in Oklahoma City.
Her work is contained in many public and private collections in the United States, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Croatia, France, Japan and Argentina.
Locally, she is known for her Bart Conner sculpture at Sam Viersen Gymnastics Center at OU, Amelia Earhart bust at Science Museum Oklahoma, Henry Overholser bust at Overholser Mansion, “The Tree of Life” at Mercy Medical Center and her torch sculpture at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
Her work is included in the Oklahoma State Art Collection at the state Capitol and is part of the permanent collections at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Norick Art Center, Casady School, OU Health Sciences Center, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. Her biography is included in Contemporary American Women Sculptors, North American Women Artists of the 20th Century, and Who’s Who in America.
In addition to her artistic career, Alaupovic (known to friends as Sandra) enjoyed gourmet cooking, entertaining, gardening, attending art gallery and museum events, operas, traveling, and spending time with her family and friends.
She is survived by her husband of 65 years; her daughter Betsy Alaupovic Hyde of Oklahoma City; and two grandsons, Homer Clark Hyde of Chicago and Robert Alexander Hyde and his wife, Mary of Cleveland, Ohio.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that contributions be made in her memory to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive, Oklahoma City, OK 73102.
Services, under the direction of Hahn-Cook/Street & Draper Funeral Directors, are private.
-BAM
Best Bets for Jan. 4-6, 2013: Asleep at the Wheel, Snow Tubing at the Brick, Paseo Gallery Walk and “American Moderns”
Eight-year-old Daniel Dobson begins a run as snow tubing starts at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City, OK, Friday, December 21, 2012. By Paul Hellstern, The Oklahoman
1. NORMAN — Hear the Grammy-winning “Kings of Texas Swing” Asleep at the Wheel at 8 p.m. Friday at the Sooner Theatre, 101 E Main. Information: 321-9600 or www.soonertheatre.org.
2. See the special exhibition “American Moderns, 1910–1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell” before it closes Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive. Information: 236-3100 or www.okcmoa.com.
3. Take your last cruise down one of the country’s largest manmade snow tubing slopes Friday and Saturday at Chesapeake Energy’s Snow Tubing at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. The Downtown in December attraction closes for the season Saturday. Sessions begin every two hours starting at noon. Information: 218-1000 or www.downtownindecember.com.
4. View new work by Oklahoma artists during the monthly Paseo Gallery Walk from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday in the Paseo Arts District. Information: www.thepaseo.com.
- BAM
“American Moderns” closing Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
George Wesley Bellows’ “The Sand Cart”
The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is closed today for the New Year’s Eve holiday, but when it reopens Wednesday, I urge all art lovers to make plans to see the special exhibition “American Moderns” before it closes there Sunday.
“American Moderns, 1910–1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell” features 57 artworks from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum in an exploration of the myriad ways in which American artists engaged with modernity. Ranging widely in subject matter and style, the fifty-three paintings and four sculptures were produced by leading artists of the day, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Milton Avery, Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Rockwell Kent, Joseph Stella, Elie Nadelman, and Norman Rockwell. Significant works by these and other artists in the exhibition exemplify their unique contributions to modern culture.
Between 1910 and 1960, both American society and art underwent tumultuous and far-reaching transformations. The United States emerged as an international power of economic, industrial, and military might, while also experiencing two world wars and the Great Depression. New technologies fundamentally changed the pace and nature of all aspects of modern life. America’s increasingly diverse and mobile population challenged old social patterns and clamored for the equality and opportunities promised by the American dream. Art witnessed similarly dramatic changes as many artists rejected or reformulated artistic traditions, seeking new ways to make their work relevant in a contemporary context.
“American Moderns” explores themes such as the city, the body, landscape, still life, and Americana through the range of works in the exhibition. The American city was a common motif in art of this period as artists found new iconographic and aesthetic possibilities in the architectural forms and gridded geometries of the modern metropolis. Other works will address the human experience of the city—the vast diversity of urban populations; the hustle and bustle of urban living; and the sociological effects of alienation, lack of privacy, and increasing female independence. Artists captured the nation’s self-confidence in heroic depictions of the muscled, active bodies of laborers who fueled the economy and of athletes who embodied the new cult of physicality.
The conventional artistic genres of landscape and still-life painting also enjoyed revitalization: both nature and everyday objects were the focus of creative experimentation with new styles, decorative compositions, and the formal properties of line, color, and space. In addition, the natural beauty of the seaside, rural locales, and the Southwest inspired many artists to explore universal and spiritual concerns. As a counterpoint to works that address the modern and the new, the exhibition will include images steeped in nostalgia, which evoke the past and simpler ways of life. This highly popular imagery fostered American nationalism and suggested the continuity of cherished traditions during times of war, economic depression, and social change.
Across these themes and iconographies, “American Moderns” investigates a wide array of artistic styles, including cubism, synchromism, precisionism, expressionism, and social realism. Cubism was particularly influential on modern American art and bred many individualized expressions and variations. Other artists remained committed to realism but took a pared-down, refined approach to their subjects, creating an aesthetic inspired by such diverse sources as folk art or the streamlined forms of the Machine Age.
“American Moderns, 1910-1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell” has been organized by the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition is cocurated by Karen Sherry, assistant curator of American Art, and Margaret Stenz, curatorial associate, American Art.
Again, it closes Sunday. For more information, go to www.okcmoa.com.
-BAM
This Christmas, consider giving books as gifts
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
‘Tis the season for interesting books
If you’ve still got holiday gifts to buy, consider a fascinating volume like Dan Kainen’s “Safari: A Photicular Book.”
For all the action figures and other plastic bits of boyhood joy my son received at his recent birthday, it was a book that brought the present opening to a complete halt.
That’s right, a book.
With only four shopping days left until Christmas, if you are still seeking gifts for some of the loved ones on your list, might I suggest a book or two?
In this era of e-readers, tablet computers and smartphones, a book might seem a downright old-fashioned notion. But even if you’re looking for something more than just a good story to read — which is still one my favorite pastimes, by the way — many books these days are more than just words on paper.
Take “Safari: A Photicular Book” (Workman Publishing, $24.95), the one that every child at my son Gabe’s party had to flip through before he could carry on with unwrapping the rest of his presents. Created by Dan Kainen, the book features striking moving photographs of eight African animals. As you turn the pages, the cheetah on the cover dashes across the savanna, a Western lowland gorilla munches on a snack and an African elephant flaps its voluminous ears.
The result is so fascinating that once the youngsters had their cake and dashed off to play some more, the adults took turns flipping the pages of Kainen’s book, which also features an engrossing essay by National Geographic contributor Carol Kaufmann.
With “Safari,” Kainen, who describes himself as an artist, designer and inventor, takes an old technology — “lenticular” or “integrated” photography has been around since the early 20th century, although the basic concept dates back to the 1690s — and applies it in a new way. Individual video frames were sliced into thin adjacent strips to create a single master image. On its own, the image just looks blurry, but once a sheet of thin lenses has been placed over it, it appears to come to life and really move.
The effect is similar to Rufus Butler Seder’s Scanimation books like “Gallop,” but in full color and even more mesmerizingly lifelike.
While they don’t feature magical moving technology, here are more recently released books that will appeal to a wide range of ages and interests:
“Illusionology” (Candlewick, $19.99): When my older son, Chris, now 18, was a grade-schooler, he adored the elaborate volumes “Dragonology,” “Wizardology” and “Egyptology,” which incorporated all kinds of novelty items like samples of dragon wings, a playable version of the Egyptian game Senet and booklets within the books. While Chris has outgrown it — and 6-year-old Gabe is not quite old enough for it — I’m happy to report that the “Ologies” series has continued, and the latest installment promises insights into “The Secret Science of Magic,” with a set of trick playing cards, a magical “dematerializer” and other small sleight-of-hand props.
“The Secret History of Hobgoblins” (Candlewick, $16.99): In a similar spirit, this beautifully illustrated handbook, credited to Professor Ari Berk, contains all sorts of pamphlets, maps and tips on how to identify and deal with kindly hobs and troublesome goblins.
“The Goldilocks Variations” (Candlewick, $17.99): So you think you know the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” Well, how about the one with “Goldilocks and the 33 Bears” or the futuristic “Goldilocks and the Bliim”? Written by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg, this children’s book features pop-ups and pull-tabs, plus a play that gets its own little booklet.
“Knowing Horses: Q&As to Boost Your Equine IQ” (Storey, $14.95): Did your kiddos wish for a pony or horsey for Christmas this year? Get them Les Sellnow and Carol A. Butler’s interesting guidebook, which covers a wide range of facts, from why horses yawn to who was Justin Morgan. It also addresses the many responsibilities of horse ownership, which may curb those childlike desires to have an equine of their own.
“Twilight: The Complete Journey” (Time Home Entertainment Inc., $17.95): For the Twihard on your list, the editors of Entertainment Weekly compiled the highlights of its “Twilight Saga” coverage into a glossy collection of cast interviews, behind-the-scenes photos and five pullout magazine cover posters.
“Chihuly Garden Installations” (Abrams, $75): This nearly 6 ½-pound full-color coffee table book was released about 13 months ago, but it’s such a gorgeous 
photographic tribute to Dale Chihuly’s eye-popping glass sculptures that I just had to add it to the list. Between the Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s extensive Chihuly glass collection and the extension of the Chihuly outdoor exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum to Dec. 31, it seemed appropriate to include the huge art volume.
“Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters by Marilyn Monroe” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $17): The entertainment icon has been the subject of countless books over the years, but “Fragments” is particularly fascinating because it features never-before-published tidbits scrawled in her own handwriting, including recipes, poetry and notes-to-self, as long as rarely seen photos.
“Chuck Norris: Longer and Harder” (Penguin, $18): Ian Spector has made a New York Times-bestselling publishing career out of parodying the Ryan-born actor/martial arts practitioner. With the latest installment of his humor series, Spector promises 1,500 Chuck Norris “facts” amounting to “The Complete Chronicle of the World’s Deadliest, Sexiest and Beardiest Man.” As the title indicates, some of the material is too explicit for youngsters, but if you’re of age, it’s pretty hilarious.
-BAM
Oklahoma City Museum of Art celebrating “American Moderns” Sunday with Family Day, free admission
Georgia O’Keeffe’s “2 Yellow Leaves (Yellow Leaves)” is featured in the special exhibit “American Moderns, 1910-1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell” on view through Jan. 6 at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Oklahoma City Museum of Art offers free admission Sunday for Family Day
An array of complementary activities are planned to celebrate the special exhibit “American Moderns, 1910–1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell,” closing Jan. 6.
From authentic red dirt music by the Red Dirt Rangers to five paintings by legendary artist Georgia O’Keeffe, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art is offering a thoroughly diverse sampling of American culture at its next Family Day.
The museum will celebrate Family Day in honor of the special exhibition “American Moderns, 1910-1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell” from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Sponsored by Sonic, the event will offer free admission to the museum as well as an array of free family-friendly activities.
“It’s to celebrate the exhibition, but it’s also to really open the doors to our community and welcome everyone in to really experience all that the museum has to offer. So there’s something for kids, there’s something for adults, and they don’t have to be burdened by the admission charge. So that’s a blessing,” said Chandra Boyd, senior associate curator of education.
The Red Dirt Rangers will give two free performances Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s Family Day.
Venerable Payne County band the Red Dirt Rangers will give their debut performances at the museum at 3 and 4 p.m. Sunday. Since the Family Day goes with “American Moderns,” Boyd wanted a band known for making “real traditional American music” with instruments like the guitar, mandolin and fiddle.
“I went to Stillwater, so I’ve heard them play since I was a lot younger,” said Boyd, an Oklahoma State University graduate, with a laugh. “I love them, and they do such good kids’ music.”
Magician Jim Green, a returning favorite, will perform at 12:30 and 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
“He is such a huge hit. I mean, the kids love him, the parents love him,” Boyd said. “He puts on a great show.”
Hourly prize drawings and giveaways, scavenger hunts and story times provided by the Metropolitan Library System will be included in festivities. Docents and staffers will offer guided family tours of “American Moderns” every hour from 1 to 4 p.m.
The traveling exhibit, which closes Jan. 6, features 53 paintings and four sculptures from the Brooklyn Museum. “American Moderns” includes artworks by Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses and many others.
Alison Amick, the Oklahoma City museum’s curator of collections, said “American Moderns” explores how several 20th-century U.S. artists addressed questions like “what is really America, what is unique (about it) and what is our artistic heritage” in their work.
“The more time you spend in the gallery, it really continues to unfold,” she said. “There is a lot of variety,” she said. “It really does give a sense of the number of different approaches artists had and how they were all influenced by the same things but in their own different ways.”
With the diverse artworks in “American Moderns,” museum staffers are planning a wide range of hands-on art activities for Family Day. Adults, teens and children can create cubist collages, mixed-media cityscapes, zany hats and O’Keeffe-style flowers.
“Really, all ages can do them. You know, a teenager’s not going to get bored with them. But a little kid’s not going to struggle too much; they may need a little bit of help from Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa,” Boyd said.
Local artist Clarissa Sharp will not only paint faces — always the most popular Family Day activity — she also has been researching Rockwell’s 1944 painting “The Tattoo Artist” and has prepared some retro-style temporary tattoos just for Sunday’s event.
As the exhibit’s title indicates, O’Keeffe’s work will be well-represented, too. Four of her paintings are featured in “American Moderns.” Along with her famed flower studies, the traveling show includes the distinctive “Fishhook from Hawaii — No 1,” which the artist painted in 1939 while living in the islands and working on a series of never-used illustrations for Dole Pineapple, Boyd said.
In addition, Family Day visitors can see the museum’s own O’Keeffe painting, 1927’s “Calla Lily (Lily-Yellow No. 2),” which is back on view in the second-floor galleries after touring Europe as part of a prestigious traveling exhibit.
“They can see the whole museum. They can check out ‘American Moderns,’ they can go up to the third floor and see the way the galleries have been newly reinstalled and see more of our permanent collection, plus Chihuly,” Boyd said, referring to the museum’s vast collection of Dale Chihuly glass art.
“There have been a lot of changes in the galleries, so it’s fun to see what all we have coming out from the vault.”
GOING ON
Family Day
Celebrating: The special exhibition “American Moderns, 1910–1960: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell.”
When: Noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Where: Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive.
Admission: Free.
Information: 236-3100 or www.okcmoa.com.
-BAM
What to do in Oklahoma on Nov. 25, 2012: See “Fred Won’t Move Out” at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Today’s featured event:
See the movie “Fred Won’t Move Out” at 2 p.m. today at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s Noble Theater, 415 Couch Drive.
With levity and sadness, two grown children and their aging parents struggle with the decision whether the older generation should stay in the house where they have lived for 50 years. Shot in the house where director’s parents lived for close to 50 years shortly after they moved out, the film’s semi-autobiographical story is memorably acted by a small ensemble cast led by Elliott Gould. Shot in sequence in three weeks with a heady mix of improvisational work by author Richard Ledes and his cast, the film’s personal approach to its subject captures a universal story uniquely told.
For more information, go to www.okcmoa.com.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
Best Bets for Oct. 5-7, 2012: Cedric the Entertainer, “The Art of Golf,” Guthrie Escape
Cedric the Entertainer (AP file)
Here are the Best Bets for entertainment in central Oklahoma this weekend, as listed in Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
Hear Stillwater-based orchestral pop band Other Lives at 9 p.m. Friday at the ACM@UCO Performance Lab, 329 E Sheridan. Doors open at 8 p.m. Information: www.facebook.com/ACM.UCO.
2. CONCHO — Laugh along as Cedric the Entertainer performs at 8 p.m. Saturday at Lucky Star Casino, 7777 N U.S. 81. Doors open at 7 p.m. Information: 262-7612 or www.luckystarcasino.org.
3. See the special exhibition “The Art of Golf” before it closes Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive. Information: 236-3100 or www.okcmoa.com.
4. GUTHRIE — Take in fine art, wine, live music and more at the Guthrie Escape festival from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday in historic downtown Guthrie. Information: 260-2345 or www.guthrieescape.com.
-BAM
Oklahoma City Museum of Art celebrating National Golf Day tonight with Last Call for “The Art of Golf,” “Caddyshack” Quote-Along
Norman Rockwell’s “Old Man Tracy” is featured in “The Art of Golf” at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
It’s National Golf Day, and the Oklahoma City Museum of Art is teeing off a special celebration from 5 to 9 tonight.
The museum will host tonight its Last Call festivities for the special exhibition “The Art of Golf,” which closes Sunday. The event will include performances by Oklahoma Scottish Pipes and Drums and red-dirt singer-songwriter Susan Herndon, games, gallery talks, Wii Golf and more.
Admission is $5 after 5 p.m., and members receive free admission (no other discounts apply). Visitors are invited to come dressed in their best golf attire.
Since it’s Thursday, the museum will host its weekly Cocktails on the Skyline event, with the Roof Terrace open until 10:30 p.m.
Bill Murray in “Caddyshack”
The museum also will celebration National Golf Day with a “Caddyshack” Quote-Along, an interactive screening where fans can quote their favorite lines of dialogue out loud. Harold Ramis’ beloved 1980 comedy follows a greenskeeper (Bill Murray) who is at war with a gopher. The judge (Ted Knight) plays to win, but his nubile niece (Cindy Morgan) has her mind set on scoring her own way. The playboy (Chevy Chase) shoots perfect golf by pretending he is the ball. And the country club loudmouth (Rodney Dangerfield) just doubled a $20,000 bet on a 10-foot putt. “It’s the snobs against the slobs.” Plaid golf pants also are encouraged at the special screening, which will be hosted by guest emcees the “2 Movie Guys.”
See the schedule for the museum’s National Golf Day festivities after the break. For more information, go to www.okcmoa.com.
