NET ART WITH MELANIE CLEMMONS. 2 P.M. FRIDAY, MAY 22, THEDAIRY.ORG/EVENTS/NET-ART-WITH-MELANIECLEMMONS.
NET ART UTILIZES the web as a creative space. In this introductory workshop you’ll try your hand at making a basic net art webpage using HTML and CSS. The instructor, Melanie Clemmons, is a new media artist and educator. In addition to her gallery and museum work, Clemmons has worked on videos for fashion designer Brandon Maxwell and toured with Pussy Riot doing visuals during their first North American tour and collaborated on several of their music videos. She is an assistant professor of digital/hybrid media at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. The workshop is open to all ages/levels of experience (some computer knowledge preferred). You’ll need to have access to an internet connection and a computer/ laptop. This 60- to 75-minute session is free, but registration is required.
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY PERFORMANCES AND DEMOS. 4 P.M. FRIDAY, MAY 22, MUSEUMOFBOULDER.ORG/EVENT/BEMUSED AN-EXPERIMENTAL-ART-PARTY. JOIN THE MUSEUM of Boulder virtually for an evening of performances and interactive installations by: Justin Gitlin, a creative coder, musician and multimedia artist (cacheflowe.com); Mark Mosher, a synthesist, electronic musician and multimedia artist (markmoshermusic.com); Monica Bolles, who creates experiences that immerse the audience in sonic, visual and tactile sensation (monicabolles.com); and MyCo Domicilia, a biodesign project exploring fabrication with mycelium (mushrooms) for common household items (instagram.com/myco_domicilia). For the event link, you’ll need to RSVP.
THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY PROJECT: A BENEFIT FOR BOULDER’S ARTISTS/COLORADO CHAUTAUQUA COVID-19 RESPONSE FUND. MAY 23-JUNE 5, CHARITYAUCTION.BID/CHAUTAUQUA.COM. THE COLORADO CHAUTAUQUA Association (CCA), the organization tasked with caring for the Chautauqua historic landmark district, relies heavily on lodging and events to fund its work and pay its staff. These activities have all been severely impacted during the pandemic. The CCA will be hosting a virtual art auction from May 22 to June 5. In addition to benefiting Chautauqua, 25% of the proceeds go to the COVID-19 Boulder County Response Fund. Artists will also have the option to keep 25% of the proceeds from the sale of their work.
“TOUCHED BY LOVING HANDS:” UP-CYCLED TEXTILE ART BY DAVID VAN BUSKIRK. BRICOLAGE GALLERY AT ART PARTS CREATIVE REUSE CENTER, 2870 BLUFF ST., BOULDER, MAY 23-JULY 3. ART PARTS CREATIVE Reuse Center is open (face masks required at the door), which means Bricolage Gallery is open. Drop by and enjoy a colorful exhibit of hard-wearing, functional handwoven rugs, shopping bags, tapestries and more by David van Buskirk. Van Buskirk is a former New York City textile designer and Fashion Institute of Technology instructor. He moved back to Colorado a few years ago to care for his ailing mother, whose life-long creativity and recent passing inspired the title for this exhibit. Please note that Art Parts Creative Reuse Center has reduced hours and days in May and possibly June. See its website and social media on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for updates.
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PALME D’OR WINNERS BY MICHAEL J. CASEY
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he origins of France’s Cannes Film Festival lay not in La République, but neighboring Italy. Specifically, 1937’s Venice Film Festival, when Benito Mussolini stuck his big, fat fascist fingers in the mix and ensured that The Grand Illusion from French filmmaker Jean Renoir — easily one of the greatest pacifist movies ever made — did not win the festival’s top prize. The following year, Mussolini and crony Adolf Hitler conspired to award an Italian war film and a German documentary top honors. Future allies England, France and the U.S. had enough and pulled out. To hell with the Venice Film Festival, they’d create their own. And on Aug. 31, 1939, La Festival International du Film held opening ceremonies in the tourist town of Cannes along the French Riviera. The following day Germany invaded Poland. The war was on, and the festival was off, canceled until September 1946. It took a while for Cannes to find its footing. In ’48 and ’50, the festival was canceled due to budgetary problems. In 1951, the festival was rescheduled to May so as not to compete with Venice, and in 1955 the festival revamped its top prize from the Grande Prix to the Palme d’Or, modeled after the palm trees lining the Promenade de la Croisette. The Palme d’Or has come to signify the top prize in cinema — an honor bestowed on movies both of a time and timeless. Below are four you can stream right now (you can find a fifth on page 26).
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Marty: The inaugural recipient of the award, Delbert Mann’s Marty was the only film to win both the Palme d’Or and the Oscar for Best Picture. That was until ‘Parasite’ came along in 2019. There are a few thematic similarities between the two, though Marty sticks firmly with the have-nots. Ernest Borgnine stars as the titular butcher and every Italian mother in his corner of the Bronx wonders when he’ll get married. Then Clara (Betsy Blair) walks by, and Marty finally sees a girl within reach. It’s a lonely film; populated by sad, I
lonely mothers, sad, lonely sons, and women who aren’t yet sad and lonely but will be once the world grinds them down. It’s a kitchen sink drama, one where it doesn’t take much to find a Hollywood ending. Thank goodness it does. Streaming on Amazon Prime. Black Orpheus: The Greek myth of Orpheus descending to the underworld to rescue his beloved Eurydice has been adapted numerous times by filmmakers, but few as good as Marcel Camus’ Brazilian treatment of the story. Set during Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival and featuring music from bossa nova legends Antônio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá, Black Orpheus is an elative fever dream. Streaming on The Criterion Channel and Kanopy. Dancer in the Dark: Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier is a sadist, and a proud one at that. He likes to put his characters (mostly women) through hell and back just to see if they’ll come out the other side. They do, and it’s uplifting — until you stop to wonder if they needed to go so low in the first place. Then again, that’s life. ‘Dancer in the Dark’ might be his best, and Björk might be his best conduit. She plays Selma, a Czech immigrant suffering from a degenerative eye disorder. It’s a rare, hereditary disease, and it’ll steal her sight but not the song in her heart. To save her son from a similar fate, Selma works tirelessly in a dreary Pacific Northwest factory pinching pennies to pay for his surgery. Would that it were so simple. Streaming on Vudu. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg: Director Jacques Demy sought to make a movie that would make audiences cry. He succeeded in spades. It helps that Michelle Legrande provided one of the most indelible film scores of all time, and cinematographer Jean Rabier found the sourness in candy-coated Eastmancolor. Catherine Deneuve is radiant as the 16-year-old Geneviève, who falls for Guy (Nino Castelnuovo), a mechanic with humble aspirations. Geneviève sells umbrellas at her mother’s shop, and everything looks like an old Hollywood movie. And no one talks, they sing. They sing every single line in the film no matter how banal. It’s ecstatic and frivolous, but war intervenes, and beauty that was once taken for granted is now sorely missed. Exaltation turns to elegy, and life goes on. It has one of the best endings in all of cinema — if it doesn’t break your heart, nothing will. Streaming on The Criterion Channel and Kanopy.
BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
