I was stoked to get an invitation from my rockabilly buddy Steve to join him for a Sunday afternoon of motorcycle riding and biker bars — basically a biker tradition — but a previous commitment kept me from the fun. I suggested we reschedule for a Friday night, and in…
Titillating us with a parental warning that the exhibit may be unsuitable for children, “Have a Nice Bidet” showcases the work of the Armory Art Center’s five artists in residence and contrasts the beautiful and whimsical with the ugly and depraved. Ernie Sandidge paints fairies, mermaids, and a satyr and…
When I heard the Back Room was back after six dark years, I wasn’t gonna let the headache that had dogged me all day keep me away. Since it opened in 1991, the Delray Beach institution had hosted blues legends — Leon Russell, John Mayall, Junior Wells, and James Cotton,…
Demonstrating that sabbaticals really are more than just a fancy word for a vacation from academia, Professor Carol Prusa returns from her yearlong absence with an exhibition of new works, “Drawn In/Drawn Out.” Her images are delicate and organic — sometimes floral, sometimes vaginal, and sometimes cellular. Though billed as…
The sign outside MJ’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Clubhouse reads “Eat, Drink, Remember.” Which didn’t make much sense to me, since the second item generally precludes the third. But when I entered the red-lit joint with the black-and-white tiled arch and the posters of Elvis and some dude on stage was…
In case you needed more proof that celebrity gives a person a big head, here’s “Gerry Gersten: Face to Face,” an exhibit of caricatures by the guy who was once an illustrator for Mad Magazine, capturing the enormous mugs of entertainment celebs and political personages. For instance, Willie Nelson’s big…
Since it was season, Emily and I hoped that Thursday night on Fort Lauderdale Beach would be hopping, but it just turned out to be lame. Beginning at an empty McSorley’s, we moved to the Elbo Room, where we were scared off by a flock of dangerous predators who gave…
“The Peacock’s Feather: Male Jewelry of Old Japan” doesn’t actually contain any colorful plumage. It’s just a metaphor for how 18th- and 19th-century Japanese men called attention to themselves by displaying their finery (it’s only the male peacock that has those lovely feathers). The exhibit displays a fine selection of…
“That’s what’s missing in the world — a sense of danger,” Robbio told me just as the first punk band was taking the stage at the Brick. “There’s no danger, not even from punk bands… because you get in trouble, you get kicked off MTV, you get sued because some…
Take a look around you. Do it now — whether you’re at a café table, your work desk, your living room couch. How much of the everyday objects surrounding you could be considered art? “Objects of Design: Decorative Arts and Elements of Frank Lloyd Wright” shows that in the hands…
The new year swaggered in and bitch-slapped me hard — the kind of smackdown the universe delivers to tell a person to wake up or knock it off. Or something. I’m still not quite sure. All I know is it had my attention. Let me break it down: I’d just…
Graham Flint’s mural-sized photographs aren’t just artistic — they’re scientific. That’s why they feel like portals to other places rather than mere photographic evidence that those places exist. It’s almost surreal. No mere virtual reality, the images provide a kind of meta-reality. In New York Cityscape at Night (2006), for…
I lost my connection with surf culture when my band broke up more than a year ago. Intense and driven, I had relied on the contagious calm that the guys — all of them surfers — brought to my life and to our collaboration. They were the vibe; I was…
A well-to-do couple was scooping out sections from grapefruit halves as they wondered aloud about a Crow Indian necklace made of beaver teeth and weasel fur (circa 1815). With spoon poised just inches from her mouth, the missus stopped, turned to the mister, and said, “Oh, honey, the natives have…
“Popularity is exhausting,” the late playwright, dilettante, raconteur Wilson Mizner once said. “The life of the party almost always ends up in the corner with an overcoat over him.” The principle of diminishing revelry returns might have applied here at Delux, though the brother of South Florida architect Addison (for…
The zen of tedium can produce the sweetest fruit. “Yozo Hamaguchi: Father of the Modern Mezzotint” proves it, though the contemplative exhibit might easily be overlooked, tucked in a quiet corner behind the flagrant Marilyn Monroe exhibit at the Boca Museum. You really would be missing something. The Japanese artist…
“I can tell you’re not used to live entertainment. You’re the 17th worst crowd I’ve played to. I am the show. You are the audience.” Just about every entertainer fantasizes about delivering such a rant to inattentive audiences of ungrateful chit-chatters. But it was a half-pint Rod Stewart impersonator at…
Binding mortality, relationships, and blessings together poetically in one exhibit, Marsha Christo’s “Contemporary Approaches to Printmaking” explores the art of replication. Using a variety of printing approaches — silk-screens, stencils, woodblock stamps, and plaster and rubber relief prints — the Albanian-American artist shows the power of printmaking to explore an…
It’s been a while since the days when I lived in a hovel by T’s Lounge out by Palm Beach International Airport. During those glory days, there were some months when my weekdays began with a bike ride past the strip bar’s suggestive marquee and another six miles to my…
Don’t be too quick to dismiss it as just a college poster exhibition. And don’t knock yourself if you find yourself enjoying FAU’s exhibit more than, let’s say, a show of “important” works by “serious” artists. There’s a reason this stuff is appealing — it’s advertising, baby. “Graphic Noise: Art…
If there’s one place at the Museum of Art’s new exhibit, “Cradle of Christianity: Jewish and Christian Treasures from the Holy Land,” where the evangelical-minded might feel compelled to drop to their knees and shout hosannas, it’s right at the beginning. The opening display is a fragment of marble relief…
Not your ordinary burlesque, Thursday nights at The G in Fort Lauderdale is more than just half-dressed hotties undulating on stripper poles. It’s half-dressed hotties in fetish gear and vampire fangs undulating on stripper poles. But before I could get inside, I had to pass through an inflatable arch in…
