Yoko Ono at the Museum of Contemporary Art, University of São Paulo, Brazil, in March 2010. Photo by Marcela Cataldi Cipolla. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
NEW DELHI (AFP) – Yoko Ono, the artist and widow of John Lennon, said on Thursday that India’s booming art scene would be fertile ground for her experimental work as she prepared for her first show in the country.
Ono, who is renowned for her outlandish ideas, will display multimedia pieces at 20 venues across the capital New Delhi from Friday and also hold a live performance at the weekend.
“I will be learning a lot of things from this beautiful and very grand land,” she said, as she returned to the country for the first time since a trip with her late husband in the 1970s.
The Japanese-born 78-year-old said she and Lennon, who was shot dead in New York in 1980, visited Mumbai and then traveled to a mountain ashram of a spiritual guru.
“It was an incredible experience,” she said. “John and I thought it was something like out of the Bible going up this mountain, but I remember we were told men and women could not sit together at the camp.
“John insisted we sit together.”
The Beatles famously relocated to the foothills of the Indian Himalayas in 1968 where they adopted a guru, took up meditation and enjoyed a rich song-writing period.
Ono said she didn’t know what would happen with her live show in India.
“Each live show is different depending on who is there and what feeling I get from the audience,” she said.
“I am delighted to find many women running India’s art world,” Ono, who has been a vocal feminist for decades, added.
Among her most striking live performances is a show when people are encouraged to use scissors to cut pieces off her clothes.
Ono, wearing her trademark sunglasses and tilted hat, told reporters that her art was accessible to all and that she hoped Indians would see it as part of her lifelong campaign for world peace.
“I don’t think my work is ‘cutting edge’. I just create something that comes to me as inspiration,” she said. “Right now they are bombing countries … What would Gandhi think of that?”
The Delhi exhibition, called “Our Beautiful Daughters”, which includes video, music and viewer-participation elements, is being organized by the private Vadehra Art Gallery and runs until March 10.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Yoko Ono at the Museum of Contemporary Art, University of São Paulo, Brazil, in March 2010. Photo by Marcela Cataldi Cipolla. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
The gilt brass drum-shape pendant watch appears to be an early case with a later (18th century style) custom-made movement. It has an engraved 24-hour dial with a single hand. The estimate is $2,000-$3,000. Image courtesy of Keno Auctions. NEW YORK – Pocket watches and early American glass are not what made Leigh Keno famous, but unexpected finds helped propel him and his brother Leslie to the forefront of pop culture in the late 1990s.
As appraisers for the PBS series Antiques Roadshow, the twins spotted a card table and identified it as the work of 18th-century craftsmen John and Thomas Seymour of Boston. Purchased at an estate sale by an elementary schoolteacher for $25, this masterpiece of American furniture making, sold for $541,000 at auction in 1998.
Now Leigh has his own auction house in New York and has put together a sale of Important Americana, Paintings, Furniture and Decorative Arts on Tuesday, Jan. 17, at the start of Americana Week. While a Thomas Seymour card table is one of the headliners in the auction, the unexpected items are attracting many collectors.
A small but unique collection of 17th- to 19th-century pocket watches from the estate of Atlanta art patron George E. Missbach is drawing much attention to the auction, which will have Internet live bidding provided by LiveAuctioneers.com.
“Some of the watches that may appeal to collectors include lot 254, a handsome silver and tortoiseshell pair case pocket watch with sun and moon dial, circa 1700; lot 266, two pocket watches, a unique silver gilt pocket watch with three dials, circa 1860-1880, and a gilt and white enamel pocket watch with painted scene, circa 1880; and lot 268 consisting of two engraved silver pocket watches, the first a silver and engraved brass pair case pocket watch, early 18th century, and a silver quadruple case pocket watch with inner tortoiseshell case, circa 1820,” said Leigh Keno, president of Keno Auctions.
The pocket watches are grouped in lots 253-268.
Of the glassware, grouped in lots 164-174, much of the presale attention has been on the flasks.
A Colombia blown flask in clear with blue tint cornflower, 7 inches high by 4 inches wide, has 13 six-pointed stars in a semicircle above the bust on one side and a large American Eagle on the reverse. This rare flask from a Rhode Island family home has a $5,000-$10,000 estimate.
Colorful pieces include a pair of canary dolphin candlesticks (lot 167) made by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Co., 1845-1865 (est. $1,000-$1,500), and a Sandwich Star-pattern spoon holder/spill, which are paired with a covered sugar bowl in the Gothic Arch pattern, both blue, (est. $1,200-$1,800).
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
The gilt brass drum-shape pendant watch appears to be an early case with a later (18th century style) custom-made movement. It has an engraved 24-hour dial with a single hand. The estimate is $2,000-$3,000. Image courtesy of Keno Auctions.
This rare blown flask is clear glass having a blue tint and pictures a bust of Columbia on one side and an American Eagle on the reverse. The 7-inch-tall flask has a $5,000-$10,000 estimate. Image courtesy of Keno Auctions.
Dolphin candlesticks by Boston and Sandwich Glass Co. are favorites of early American glass collectors. These canary-colored candleholders are 10 1/2 inches high and have a $1,000-$1,500 estimate. Image courtesy of Keno Auctions.
John Bowman (right), in his garage, explaining how a moonshine still works to Mary Hufford and John Flynn. Courtesy of the American Folklife Center, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
GASTONIA, N.C. (AP) – It’s popularly known as “white lightning,” “hooch” and “mountain dew.”
But to lawbreakers producing homemade whiskey by the light of the moon in an attempt to not get caught, it’s simply referred to as “moonshine.”
The Gaston County Museum of Art and History is planning a temporary exhibit featuring whiskey production in Gaston County during prohibition.
The exhibit, which plans to feature memorabilia, stories and photographs, will encompass the entire second floor of the museum in Dallas beginning in September. It will be on display for six months.
Gaston County Museum curator Stephanie Elliott is busy gathering information and learning more about Gaston County residents who made homemade whiskey.
“Right now, we’re just in the initial planning research phase,” she said. “From what little research I’ve been able to do, it was very big in this area. There were people in it for a legitimate business.”
She’s hoping that residents of Gaston, Cleveland and Lincoln counties will share stories and memorabilia to be displayed in the exhibit.
Museum employees want to tell the whole story about the art of moon shining including the illegality of it. Elliott said it’s OK for people to share stories or items for the exhibit on the contingency of remaining anonymous.
“We haven’t gotten a lot of stories yet,” she said. “We still need a lot more information. Really, we’ve just been trying to go through our archives and records. To find a local angle has been difficult.”
The 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution outlawed the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.
The amendment was ratified in January 1919 and repealed by the 21st Amendment in December 1933.
Moonshine making continued heavily in North Carolina through the 1960s and to some extent still exists today.
Stills hidden in the woods produced the liquor, enticing people to take a nip.
Elliott says that past visitors to the Gaston County Museum have asked about the county’s moonshine history and she hopes it will be of interest to Gaston residents.
Except as authorized by state Alcoholic Beverage Commission law, it’s illegal in North Carolina for anyone to manufacture, sell, transport, import, deliver, furnish, purchase, consume or possess any alcoholic beverages.
Any violation would constitute a class 1 misdemeanor charge, according to N.C. General Statute 18B-102.
Several vehicle drivers who would go on to success in NASCAR polished their driving skills while running moonshine. Junior Johnson’s infamous moonshine still is featured in the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte.
Country music artists George Jones, Dolly Parton and Grandpa Jones popularized songs about moon shining including White Lightning, Daddy’s Moonshine Still and Good Old Mountain Dew.
Some of the most popular television shows of the past century chronicled illegal stills.
The Andy Griffith Show featured several episodes about illegal liquor. Otis Campbell, portrayed by actor Hal Smith on the show, was affectionately known as the town drunk.
On The Beverly Hillbillies, actress Irene Ryan played Granny and made moonshine by their home’s swimming pool, known to the Clampett family as the cement pond.
Actress Cloris Leachman reprised Ryan’s role in the 1993 film The Beverly Hillbillies. In the movie, Granny ran a moonshine still in the woods near the Clampett home.
The Gaston County Museum is asking anyone with stories or memorabilia to contact Elliott.
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Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
John Bowman (right), in his garage, explaining how a moonshine still works to Mary Hufford and John Flynn. Courtesy of the American Folklife Center, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Then, more than 55 years later, you sit at a table at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, sign autographs — lots and lots of photographs — and soak in the adulation of Elvis fans on what would have been Presley’s 77th birthday, as Barbara Gray did Jan. 7.
“We were just mobbed,” Gray said afterward. “It blew my mind.”
As Elvis music played, a line snaked through the museum’s atrium for more than two hours as people waited to meet Gray and have her sign books and pictures from the VMFA’s “Elvis at 21” exhibit. The books sold out. The four huge sheet cakes decorated with guitars in honor of Elvis’ birthday? “I went to Martin’s,” said museum marketing director Bob Tarren, “and asked for cake for 400.” It was gone in half an hour.
The 1956 picture by photographer Alfred Wertheimer of Presley “playfully romancing a blonde fan,” as Vanity Fair writer Alanna Nash put it, is well-known. Gray, not so much, until she came forward last year and Nash revealed her identity.
Gray, 75, a retired real estate manager from Charleston, S.C., said family and close friends have known for years that she was the “mystery blonde” and had urged her to go public.
“It wasn’t important to me,” Gray said. “It wasn’t a big thing.”
Her fourth husband, Malcolm Gray, who accompanied her, finally persuaded her to let the world know.
In 1956, Gray was from Charleston, as she is now, and had spoken to Presley on the phone when he performed there. They agreed to meet two days later in Richmond, where Presley would be performing at the Mosque, now the Landmark Theater. (Gray actually has family in Richmond, including relatives who were resident caretakers of the property that has since become Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.)
Presley sent a car to bring her to Richmond, where Wertheimer was chronicling Presley, then a rising star, and captured a number of photographs of the couple. Wertheimer never knew her name but identified her as Presley’s “date for the day.” After Richmond, Gray and Presley never met again.
At the museum, it was clear that since “The King,” as Presley was known, couldn’t make it — he died in 1977 — Gray was the next best thing.
“I’m so excited!” squealed Terri Arroyo of Charlottesville, wearing an Elvis T-shirt and Elvis wristwatch and carrying an Elvis pocketbook as she ran around the table to hug Gray and have her picture taken with her.
“I love Elvis,” Arroyo said a few minutes later, as she showed off the books and photographs she had Gray sign. “Oh, my gosh! I should have gotten her to sign my arm!”
J.D. Moore of Hopewell said he has been a “huge fan all my life” of Elvis and asked Gray to sign a copy of the famous photo that had been used for a CD of Presley music that Moore had purchased several years ago, not knowing, of course, he would one day meet the woman in it.
“Was that cool or what?” he said to a friend after posing for a picture with Gray
Linda Sadler of Richmond asked Gray to sign a book to her mother, Laura, who lives in Tennessee: “To one Elvis fan from another.”
“My mom and dad were big Elvis fans,” Sadler said. Her mother is 88.
Gray said she stepped into the spotlight only for recognition and her place in history. She hasn’t done it for the money. She sold a few prints made available to her by Wertheimer with proceeds going to a home for battered women managed by a granddaughter. Otherwise, she’s just doing this for the fun of it.
“It was so great for my heart to know that people didn’t just love Elvis, but they were really wanting to know who I was,” she said.
Told that she seemed to make a lot of people happy at the museum, Gray said, “and they made me happy. It’s very nice to be loved.”
Damien Hirst (British, 1965-), spot painting titled ‘LSD.’ Fair use of copyrighted image per Section 107, United States Copyright Act of 1976.
NEW YORK (AP) – An exhibition featuring hundreds of British artist Damien Hirst’s color spot paintings is opening simultaneously at Gagosian Gallery’s 11 locations around the world.
“The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011,” opening today, is the first time that the art gallery has decided to feature the work of one artist at all its galleries at the same time.
A total of more than 300 spot paintings will be featured at the various locations: three galleries in New York, two in London and one each in Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, Athens and Geneva. The exhibition runs through Feb. 10.
The gallery held a media preview on Wednesday in New York where the artist posed for cameras but did not speak.
It said most of the spot paintings are on loan from private collections and institutions.
The conceptual artist, whose best-known pieces include an actual tiger shark carcass suspended in formaldehyde, created his first spot canvas in 1986. A recent monumental work contains 25,781 spots, each only 1 millimeter in diameter with no single color repeated.
Hirst has created only a small number of the canvasses himself. He has said his assistants do a better painting job than he could and that he becomes easily bored.
The gallery said people who visit all 11 locations during the exhibition will receive a signed spot print by Hirst.
His other works include a human skull with more than 8,000 diamonds and a series of small medicine and pill cabinets.
A 20-year retrospective of his work is scheduled to open at Tate Modern in London on April 4.
Hirst was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize in 1995.
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Online: http://www.gagosian.com
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Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Damien Hirst (British, 1965-), spot painting titled ‘LSD.’ Fair use of copyrighted image per Section 107, United States Copyright Act of 1976.
Low-resolution logo of Target Corporation, a non-copyrighted registered trademark.
NEW YORK – Target says it will team up with owners of specialty shops to create affordable, limited edition merchandise for sale online and at its stores in a bid to attract more customers and distinguish itself from rivals.
Target Corp. said Thursday it will start featuring products from five shops starting May 6. The shops will be open for six weeks and then be replaced with another slew of shops in the fall.
The initial group includes The Candy Store in San Francisco, The Privet House home accessories shop in Connecticut; The Webster House, a clothing store in Miami; Polka Dog Bakery in Boston; and The Cos Bar, a cosmetic shop in Aspen.
The items will be sold both at Target stores and online. With prices ranging from $1 for a nail file to a $159.99 online only ottoman for the home, the five collections total nearly 400 products.
“This puts Target at the frontier of what’s next in retail,” said Brian Robinson, director of fashion and design partnership at Target.
Separately, Target says will testing creating mini-Apple shops in 25 Target stores. Target currently sells selected Apple products, including iPads and iPods, but it does not sell Macintosh computers.
Target pioneered the concept of offering designer merchandise at affordable prices starting with its Michael Graves launch of home accessories in 1999. It says rivals have copied its cheap chic mantra.
Target shares rose 17 cents to $49.20 in morning trading Thursday. Its shares have traded in a 52-week range between $45.28 and $56.44.
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Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Mount Rushmore with morning sunlight shining off the faces of the sculpture. Image by Bbadgett. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) – Virtual visitors to Mount Rushmore can now explore even more remote areas of the memorial than some who see it in person.
Three-dimensional laser technology scans that captured every nook of the four presidential faces and other features of the monument last year mean that starting Tuesday, visitors will be able to take in-depth tours online of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in western South Dakota.
The portal, comprised of models of the monument, allows people remote access to the site to plan a visit or explore unusual areas, said Maureen McGee-Ballinger, the memorial’s director of interpretation and education. The monument draws about 3 million in-person visitors a year.
Online users are able to manipulate or dissect the three-dimensional models in various ways to learn more about the 60-foot granite carvings of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, McGee-Ballinger said.
Crews scanned the entire monument and other features of the park in 2010 for historic documentation and preservation.
“They physically scanned all the different aspects of the sculpture,” McGee-Ballinger said. “This is going to really enhance our preservation aspect.”
The project is a five-year collaboration between the National Park Service and CyArk, a nonprofit project of the Kacyra Family Foundation based in Orinda, Calif. The Scottish government also provided resources and technology to perform the 3-D laser documentation, McGee-Ballinger said.
Some of the sights and experiences that virtual visitors to the memorial will be able to take in that they couldn’t in person are climbing to the top of the structure or accessing the Hall of Records behind the presidents’ heads, said Elizabeth Lee, director of operations at CyArk.
Younger people are so accustomed to three-dimensional content because of video games that “being able to communicate about a historical site or the reservation work, you need something that is going to interest them or entice them,” Lee said.
“Just on the educational front, having 3-D media is a great way to engage the next generation,” she said.
The Kacyra Family Foundation, formed to foster humanitarian, cultural and scientific endeavors, has documented about 50 historical sites using state-of-the-art technology, including Pompeii in Italy and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It says it is committed to preserving world heritage and freely disseminating the data.
The Mount Rushmore data will also be available to researchers and teachers who want to incorporate it into their lesson plans, McGee-Ballinger said.
Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton.
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Mount Rushmore with morning sunlight shining off the faces of the sculpture. Image by Bbadgett. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, Tuskegee Airmen, at Ramitelli Airfield in Italy. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) – The museum in Tuskegee that honors the Tuskegee Airmen will offer an extended schedule of tours Jan. 20-22 to celebrate the release of the new George Lucas film about the airmen called Red Tails.
Superintendent Sandy Taylor says the public can watch the release of the movie on Jan. 20 and then visit the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site and Museum at Moton Field in Tuskegee. Six guided tours will be offered each day at 9, 10 and 11 a.m. and 1, 2 and 3 p.m.
State tourism director Lee Sentell says he hopes the movie will encourage tourists to visit Tuskegee to see planes used by the black pilots in World War II and experience real history.
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, Tuskegee Airmen, at Ramitelli Airfield in Italy. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
CYNTHIANA, Ky. (AP) –When Salvation Army officials in Cynthiana found a 131-year-old $10 gold piece dropped in one of the organization’s red kettles before Christmas, they hoped they could turn it into $1,000.
But an auction yielded twice that, with the 1880 coin bringing $2,001 from a bidder from eastern Kentucky this week, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.
Treasurer Kim Brooks of the service unit of the Harrison County chapter of the Salvation Army says the buyer from eastern Kentucky wants to remain anonymous. Service unit Chairman John Hodge says the winning bid was one of 10 opened Monday from Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. He does not know if the buyer was a coin collector
Proceeds from the auction will help people who need assistance with utility bills, food or prescription medicine this winter.
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Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
