Long before I saw what turned out to be my favorite piece in “publikulture (a social experiment by eight Miami artists)” — one of two shows now downstairs at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale — I heard it. The work, called Playground (for Mila), is a room-size installation…
A jet-set philanthropic tradition makes its inaugural appearance in Broward County Friday night. The Cattle Barons’ Ball, one of several taking place across the United States, is one of the largest fundraisers for the American Cancer Society. Tickets range in price from $150 to $1000, but because the hard-core gala…
The doomed are often a remarkably energetic and productive lot, especially when it comes to creating portraits of their personal horrors. Themes vary in intensity between slow self-destruction and grand devastation, but in vampirism the full spectrum of ghastliness may be covered, because the imbalance represents so much to so…
For 17 years, Dorothy Swanson has waged the loneliest battle: keeping good shows on television, a medium that exists as if only to taunt her. You can hear in her voice the toll such a struggle has taken on her. Her voice breaks and softens when she speaks about the…
After a year of construction and a fundraising campaign that brought in $13 million, the Boca Raton Museum of Art reopens Wednesday, January 24, at its new location in the world’s pinkest upscale mall, Mizner Park. For the grand opening, organizers will kick things off with plenty of pomp and…
This Sunday the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood continues the city’s tradition of throwing parties to attract folks to its redone downtown. The center’s shindig is actually three events: the Fabulous Art and Funky Antiques Market in the east parking lot, an Artist and Artisan’s Outdoor Market in the…
Something weird is definitely going on in the British pop scene. Years after tasteful Yanks allowed classic works such as Saturday Night Fever and Grease to dissolve into our vast iconic array, villainous limey programmers were still hyping them over there. Thus the dual plagues of disco and ’50s rock…
This is some damn fine coffee you got here in Twin Peaks. And some damn good cherry pie. But I have to tell you something, sheriff: Last night I had a dream in which a dancing midget talked backward, thus leading me to believe that our killer is a man…
The small-town setting of The Laramie Project has been compared to Thornton Wilder’s Grover’s Corners in the classic play Our Town, and rightfully so. Both plays forage the archetypal American town and uncover truths that are disturbing, moving, and in the case of the more recent work, brutal. The bare…
At the time, it was meant to be read as a great compliment: Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez create comic books for people who don’t read comic books! A publisher or pitchman couldn’t have come up with a more glorious phrase, one magical sentence that would reel in the literate and…
Cirque du Soleil has become an international brand name by bringing theatricality to circus performance. Though it doesn’t yet have a standing engagement at Disney World or an IMAX movie, the DynamO Théâtre Company has built its own worldwide rep by doing the opposite: bringing such circus staples as gymnastics,…
John Jackson, proprietor of the new The Around the World Art Village & Café in West Palm Beach, has always been a man with a vision. Back in 1989, that vision involved a series of small plastic tubes he called the Insider, which would be his contribution to the war…
For slightly more than a decade, Chinese martial arts films have directly and indirectly gained a growing audience in the United States. Now the genre may find its greatest breakthrough coming from an unlikely source: director Ang Lee, best known for comedy-dramas of social manners such as Sense and Sensibility,…
Thirteen Days is a suspenseful look at the American government in the grip of a crucial, minute-to-minute, real-life crisis that threatens to destroy the country. No, it is not — as the relatively brief time span referenced in the title makes clear — about the recent election struggles… or the…
Made famous by reggae legend Bob Marley, buffalo soldiers were the African-American U.S. Army troops who patrolled the American West after the Civil War. As the song indicates, these black soldiers had a unique tie to the land they were protecting. Many had been born slaves or were sons of…
Give me a break,” a friend said when I told her about one of the works in “Making Art in Miami: Travels in Hyperreality,” the new show at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in North Miami. The piece is identified as an oil, but rather than oil on canvas,…
“You’re right! I quit!” Until this moment–this shrill outburst that comes out of nowhere and startles both interviewer and subject–Marisa Tomei had been speaking in hushed tones, like someone making funeral arrangements. Every so often, she would punctuate her sentences with giggles–some nervous, some delirious–but suddenly, she is laughing uncontrollably…
Christmas has come and gone, and now that you’ve blown your cash on presents, you may be wondering where your next meal will come from. So what’s a cost-effective way to entertain yourself? Shop at the Brandeis Used Book Store in Boca Raton. You’ll be amazed at the prices. This…
Back in the 16th Century, when the Hapsburgs ruled most of Europe and got pretty much whatever they wanted, Archduke Maximilian, brother to Holy Roman Emperor Charles II, decided to breed Spanish horses in Austria. Critics said he didn’t know what he was talking about. The Arabian and Andalusian horses…
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad year for filmgoing after all, if only because it’s far harder to assemble a Top 10 list this year than it was last year. Or maybe the best of 1999 towered so far above the worst (and the middling, which includes the grossly overrated…
The year 2000 was by no means the best of times for moviegoers, but only a curmudgeon would fail to find, say, ten points of light in a darkened room. 1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Once we marveled at the flying gymnastics of Bruce Lee. Now it’s Ang Lee who…
As The Music Lesson opens, the houselights are dimmed and a subtle illumination spotlights the hand of Irena (Jessica K. Peterson), a pianist and music teacher from the former Yugoslavia. As she sits center stage on a white piano bench, her hand slowly begins to play an invisible keyboard one…
