Based upon Edward Hopper\’s famous painting of a late-night coffee shop on a desolate city street corner, Douglas Steinberg\’s new play, \”Nighthawks,\” which is having its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theater, features a painter who says only one word in the entire first act.
My senior students suffer from short-term memory loss, a condition less severe than Alzheimer\’s and dementia but nonetheless frightening. They can recall exact moments from decades past, but in the present, from one moment to the next, many don\’t remember who or where they are. Sort of like elected officials.
Museums, like movie studios, prefer to open big.\n\nThe high cost of museum management, from health care to advertising, has forced institutions to reach for blockbuster exhibits — Tutmania! — market them like summer movies, and pray for long lines and lasting buzz on opening day.\n\nThen there\’s Max Liebermann.\n\nSkirball Cultural Center founder and director Uri Herscher was in Jerusalem several years ago, visiting a friend\’s small, art-filled apartment. His eye caught an attractive painting, a Liebermann, his friend said, and Herscher responded, \”Who?\”\n\nVirtually unknown today, Max Liebermann was the most famous German painter of his time. He died at age 87 in 1935, just as Adolf Hitler rose to power. As he watched the Nazis march through the Brandenburg Gate celebrating the takeover of Hitler, Liebermann famously remarked, \”One cannot eat as much as one would like to vomit.\”
There is something raw about the rough brush strokes in the work of native Israeli artist Rhea Carmi, and about her textured materials, such as sand and stone. But then, there also was a rawness to the tragedy that originally informed and inspired her work.
\”The black-and-white snapshots revealed little worlds and scenes I wanted to bring alive in color,\” said Shelley Adler, whose \”Shades of Time: The Extended Family of Shelley Adler\” runs through July 1 at the Workmen\’s Circle.
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