Men and Women Wearing Veils

Visitors at Burquoi, an exhibit by artist Naneci Yurdagül

On HuffPost Arts and Culture, the headline reads "Exhibition Forces Visitors to Veil Themselves." It's provocative and I read the article - but was left wondering about the artist, Naneci Yurdagül. To begin with, was this a woman or a man? Normally not the first question that comes to mind, but in this exhibition, the visitors in their veils are a big part of what you're there to see. Everyone puts on a burqa, men and women alike. It takes the issue of the veil outside of a woman's choice or lack of choice, and puts it into a squarely human arena. I wonder how Muslim men feel when they visit Yurdagül's little world inside a gallery, when they must don the full head to toe covering of the burqa. The only men I've ever heard of putting on burqas in the past have been suicide bombers hoping not to be searched. With a little research, I found out that Naneci Yurdagül is a German born man. 

I've been looking at an extensive collection of art by women from the Middle East recently as part of the Fertile Crescent exhibitions going on in Princeton and New Brunswick, and the veil is a theme that runs through many of the works. It's pretty powerful stuff, women and their sometimes conflicted feelings towards the veil, both its beauty and its power to suppress. Yurdagül takes a step in a different direction by inviting everyone - men and women - to experience what it feels like to wear a burqa, and to become all but anonymous to the world. 

"Burquoi" runs until December 16 at the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden in Germany, and I certainly wish I could visit and participate. Just thinking about the experience makes me realize how strange it would be - and how very different from just seeing someone else wearing it.

Will Barnet, painting at 99, dies at 101

Will Barnet painting for videographer Aubrey Kauffman

Today the artist Will Barnet died, at the age of 101. I remember the day that I met him, in the early winter two years ago. He was preparing for an exhibit at the Montclair Art Museum of his new work, and I went with the museum's director of marketing Michael Gillespie and my NJN video crew (Aubrey Kauffman and Paul Horvath), to his apartment in the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park in New York City. 

It was a classic old apartment and Will Barnett had lived and painted there for a long time. There was a balcony along the main living room/studio hung with African masks. There were stacks of art books, and some of his large paintings from the 1970s hung very high on the tall walls. But what struck me most were the canvasses - stacked facing in against the walls, with dates painted on the backs. Many were from that very month.

Will Barnet painted that day, and let our camera record him. He was working on an abstract painting destined for his show in Montclair. He had other exhibits coming up as well, to mark the occasion of his 100th birthday that spring. The visit made a strong impression on all of us - his spirit was so young, so involved with what he was doing, and his body of work was so deep. It was the kind of life that lucky artists can have, productive and meaningful to the last.

Here's a link to the story I did for State of the Arts. It's on the old NJN Arts & Culture YouTube, where people still find it.

At Soundcheck for the Banjo Summit

Saturday, October 27th about 4 pm

I'm sitting in the front of the house (what theater people call it - I think of it as in the back) watching an amazing group of talent onstage going through their soundcheck. It's for the "Banjo Summit: A Gathering of 5-String Masters," tonight at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank. One of the masters, new to me, is Richie Stearns. He just finished playing and singing a song with that high lonesome sound, so roots it's pre-bluegrass. Béla Fleck, probably the best known contemporary banjo player in the world, is the artistic director. Earlier I passed by him in a dressing room, playing scales incredibly fast and precisely.

Before the soundcheck started, I interviewed Noam Pikelny, of the Punch Brothers. One of his partners in the progressive classical-bluegrass quartet Punch Brothers is the mandolinist Chris Thile, who got a MacArthur Genius Award a couple of weeks ago. Noam, who's in his early thirties, is the third banjo generation on stage. He is definitely steeped in the love and lore of this mysterious American instrument. Noam recounted the history of his banjo to me - a very heavy mostly metal 1941 Gibson that he found in Nashville, after it had spent years in South Africa.

In a few minutes, when sound check is over, I'm talking to Tony Trischka. He came up during the 1960s, and was one of the first to play genres other than bluegrass on the banjo. Since then, he's become a mentor of sorts to players looking to expand their sounds. He taught a 16 year old Béla Fleck, although he says it didn't take long to show him everything he could (Béla was so good already). Noam played with Tony when he was a kid, too, only 9 or 10. Noam says Tony was always very generous with his time, giving him lessons on the bus before a concert. As one of the greatest players and historians of the instrument, Tony is the co-producer of Give Me the Banjo, an award-winning documentary by my friend and former State of the Arts colleague Marc Fields.

Sitting in an empty theater, this is that rare off moment, inside the space of one of those different worlds that I find myself in sometimes. I'll think, how did I get here? It really is a privilege, to hear these artists discuss how to end a piece, how to balance the levels of their various instruments, to see in action their total dedication to fine tuning.


Monday, November 5th

A week later, an eternity has passed! Superstorm Sandy came and went, cancelling three of the Banjo Summit concerts amid the rest of the devastation. Power outages and the east coast's slow recovery, plus a bad cold, and I'm just getting to look at the footage we shot at the Count Basie. Here's a clip of Noam Pikelny playing "The Broken Drought" off his latest solo album Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail. It has that minor key sound I love. 

Yesterday I read in the New York Times that Danai Gurira had won a 2012 Whiting Writers' Award. Whiting awards are given to writers of promise, and she is certainly one of those. A playwright and actress, Danai is hugely talented, with a rare perspective on the world that comes in part from being born in Iowa and raised in Zimbabwe.  I talked to her just before her play The Convert premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, in January 2012. Her seriousness and intelligence are evident, and the story she tells, of a bright young girl seeking her future in colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), is timely and important. How often are we hearing lately that the education of girls may be the key to a brighter future in Africa? Congratulations Danai Gurira!