Must-see art

New perspectives abound at 10 must-see art exhibits in Dallas-Fort Worth for May

Save the date for the Deep Ellum Community Art Fair.

Photo courtesy of Deep Ellum Facebook

June isn't here yet, but art is busting out all over. A landmark exhibit at Fort Worth's Kimbell Art museum, community events in Deep Ellum and Carrollton, and several collaborative group exhibitions are among the must-see art happenings in Dallas-Fort Worth in May. There's also one bummer gallery closure in downtown Fort Worth, but they're going out with a grand party and everyone's invited.

Put these 10 must-see exhibits and events on your list before month's end.

"Tempus Peregrinari: A Time Travel Exhibition"
Bathhouse Cultural Center, through June 3
Paintings, prints, photographs, video, and mixed media art explore the concept of time travel in this exhibit featuring Texas artists and guest artists from Poland, Belgium, and New York. Works range from themes in science fiction to whimsical and purely imaginary. A collaboration with the Dallas Public Library offers suggested reading to accompany the visual art experience.

"Diverse Perspectives" by M4 Collective
Granville Art Center, through June 5
Four American women comprise this collective of mosaic artists. Their work covers a range of diverse styles, materials, and visions in an art form that has been around for millennia. Join them for an opening reception at the Granville Arts Center in downtown Garland at 6 pm Tuesday, May 23.

"Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art"
Kimbell Art Museum, through September 23
The creators of this art from the Classic period (A.D. 250-900) depict the gods of Maya mythology which flourished in what is now Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. Sculptures, vessels, and precious ornaments on loan from major Latin American, U.S., and European collections illustrate this facet of the Mayan culture. New discoveries from Palenque (Mexico) and El Zotz (Guatemala) are among the works on view in the U.S. for the first time.

"we are more"
Patterson-Appleton Arts Center, through May 26
The community group "we are more" was established to assist survivors of family and intimate partner violence in various stages of their recovery. Much of their work is collaborative and the exhibit includes art from multiple disciplines. One of the works, Broken Record, is a mosaic assembled from broken record pieces contributed by local community members. Each piece bears a word or phrase that explains how the contributor or a loved one is more. The arts center will host a reception with the artists on Friday, May 19 at 6:30 pm.

"Dark & Lovely II"
Kettle Art, opening May 20
In the spring of 2010, the original Kettle Art featured the work of four female Dallas artists in a show called "Dark and Lovely." This long-awaited sequel is an all-female group exhibition curated by artist Alicia Chapman. Artists Bree Smith, Chapis, Claudia Rivera, Eli Paek, Ferfetz, and RayTrill add their perspectives to the show, as well.The exhibition opens with a reception at 6 pm on Saturday, May 20.

"The Tipping Point: Echoes of Extinction"
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, May 20, 2023-May 1, 2024
Part of a multi-year outdoor sculpture program, this exhibition on the grounds of the Carter Museum focuses on endangered or extinct bird species. Each sculpture provides a visualization of a bird species that has reached a tipping point, and each includes a QR code containing an audio file of the bird's song.

Carrollton Chalk Art Festival
Mary Heads Carter Park, May 20
You'll have to look down to get the perspective at this event. Professional and amateur chalk artists will transform the sidewalks of this park in Carrollton with everything from whimsical wonders to eye-popping 3-D art. The free and family-friendly festival runs from 10 am-3 pm on Saturday, May 20.

Liz Ward: "The Grove"
Holly Johnson Gallery, through July 29
San Antonio-based artist Liz Ward creates works on paper inspired by her travels. Using trees as metaphors and bringing to life the awe and mysticism of Mexican cenotes, Ward explores the meaning of landscape through layers of human, natural, and environmental history, memory, and experience. The gallery will hold an opening reception with the artist from 5-8 pm Saturday, May 20.

Nancy Baron: "The Good Life"
Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery, through August 19
A happy jaunt back in time to Palm Springs in the 1950s, this exhibition delivers the colors and style of the Mid-Century Modern period in vibrant photographs taken over the last 13 years. Baron's books include The Good Life: Palm Springs, Palm Springs: The Good Life Goes On, and Palm Springs: Modern Dogs at Home, and all illustrate how a nostalgic period lives on in modern day. Baron will be available to sign books at an artist reception on Saturday, May 20 from 5-8 pm.

Deep Ellum Community Arts Fair
May 27-29
A new festival celebrates 150 years of history in Deep Ellum with curated exhibits, concerts, food, and more. Hundreds of local artists will be part of this Memorial Day weekend celebration. Hours are 11 am-10 pm Saturday and 11 am-8 pm Sunday and Monday. Visit the website, Facebook event page or Instagram for more information.

Deep Ellum Community Arts Fair exhibitions-visual-arts galleries

A good listen

Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi release landmark Wagner 'Ring Cycle' set

Fabio Luisi conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Photo courtesy of Dallas Symphony Orchestra

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Fabio Luisi wanted his Ring Cycle to be heard and not seen.

Wagner’s four-opera epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, approaching the 150th anniversary of its premiere in 1876, has been reinterpreted and deconstructed by directors finding various meanings in the conflicts among gods, humans, giants and dwarfs.

While most new recordings are on video, Luisi led his Dallas Symphony Orchestra in concert performances that were released on 13 compact discs by Delos on May 22 and are available on streaming services.

“Wagner conceived this as a total immersion in visual and acoustic, but I could focus really only on the music, and this was the point actually — not to be distracted by staging and not to have to cope with maybe strange ideas of staging,” Luisi said. “I think the music tells everything.”

Luisi became DSO music director in 2020 and broached the idea while dining two years later with (the now late) Morton H. Meyerson, a longtime board member.

“Fabio came back from lunch sort of giddy but sort of sheepishly saying: `Do you think that this would ever be possible?” recalled Kim Noltemy, the Dallas CEO at the time. “So, I said, well, let’s give it a try. So, we called around to see if there were people who wanted to support it and did a budget.”

After securing a waiver from the orchestra allowing for the needed rehearsals and performance length, recordings were made during four concerts from May 1-5 and six more from Oct. 5-20. Each opera was performed two or three times.

Americans in cast fill big roles
American singers featured prominently, with Mark Delavan as Wotan, Lise Lindstrom as Brünnhilde and Sara Jakubiak as Sieglinde, part of a cast that included Christopher Ventris (Siegmund), Daniel Johansson (Siegfried), Deniz Uzun (Fricka), Tómas Tómasson (Alberich), Michael Laurenz (Mime) and Stephen Milling (Hagen).

Delavan sang Wotan at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2013 after Luisi took over from an ailing James Levine in Robert Lepage’s much-maligned production staged on a 45-ton set of 24 rotating planks.

“We’re accessible and they know that we’re hungry and we have a chip on our shoulders,” Delavan said. “What conductors like about American singers is their technique is sound. Even a European conductor would say: Well, I’m going to give up some of the communication skills, only one degree of separation with the language, but I’m going to get a solid technique, and I’m going to get pretty good acting chops.”

Lindstrom has been in Atlanta to sing in its production of “Götterdämmerung,” the concluding night of the tetralogy, leading to what is being billed as the first complete Ring Cycles in the America South in 2029.

“The wonderful thing about it is the intimacy between the orchestra and us, because we’re not separated by a chunk of stage or a chunk a scenery or a chunk of concept,” she said of the Dallas performances. “And for people like me, who have had the opportunity to perform the role before, I have all those iterations to rely on for my portrayal that I can sort of filter myself through.”

A younger Luisi listened to famous renditions
Luisi, 67, first heard a Ring recording in Georg Solti’s famous studio set with the Vienna Philharmonic from 1958-65. He also admires Karl Böhm’s live recording from the 1967 Bayreuth Festival and Marek Janowski’s 1980-83 studio version with the Staatskapelle Dresden.

He first conducted Ring when he was music director of Dresden’s Semperoper from 2007-10. Luisi’s Dallas performances include more legato and softer sound than his rendition a decade earlier at the Met. He tries to keep an arc from the first notes of “Das Rheingold” to the final strains of “Götterdämmerung.”

“I have a deeper understanding about the meaning of this piece,” he said. “I consider the ring to be a big Bruckner symphony. So we have the introduction, then we have the first movement, this is “Walküre,” which happens to be a slow movement, and then we have the scherzo, which is “Siegfried,” of course, and then the long, long, last movement. There is a unity.”

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