Monthly Archives: March 2014

Its a Bolly Holi Day at the Ron Robinson Theater with CALS and the LR Film Fest

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LRFF CALS HoliHoli is a popular Hindu festival that celebrates the arrival of spring. The festival is traditionally celebrated by throwing vibrantly colored powder and water, playing music, dancing, and eating.

The Central Arkansas Library System and Little Rock Film Festival are celebrating by screening three Bollywood movies at the Ron Robinson Theater today.

12pm – Sholay

In a rural village, two bandits find romance and a hope for redemption as they seek to free the village from a vicious criminal and his minions.

3pm – Bhool Bhulaiya

When the ancestral palace of the Brahmin family becomes the site of some seriously unsettling events, it’s up to a psychiatrist from America to determine if the house is truly haunted in this comic thriller.

6pm – Om Shanti Om

Love and dreams follow two starry-eyed actors across three decades and two incarnations in this splashy Hindi musical.

Admission to the films is free.

Museum of Discovery and Arkansas Chapter of Society of Neuroscience Celebrate Brain Awareness Day

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modIf Julius Caesar had used his brain, he’d have stayed away from the Senate that day and heeded the advice of his Soothsayer. The Museum of Discovery is offering an opportunity to user yours today.

March 10-16 is International Brain Awareness Week and to commemorate, the Arkansas Chapter of Society of Neuroscience has partnered with the Museum of Discovery to present Brain Awareness Day on Saturday, March 15 at the museum.

Representatives from the Center of Toxicological Research, The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Hendrix College and University of Central Arkansas will provide  hands-on activities about the brain throughout the museum that will include optical illusions, creating brains out of molds, MRI examples, explanations of brain freeze and diseases that affect the brain, cognitive function games and more.

For more information, contact 501-396-7050.

Museum of Discovery’s mission is to ignite a passion for science, technology and math in a dynamic, interactive environment.

Museum Information
Hours of Operation: Tuesday – Saturday: 9 am – 5 pm; Sunday: 1-5 pm; Closed Mondays except major holidays and in summer.
Admission: $10 adults; $8 ages 1-12; free under 1; members free
Phone Number: 501.396.7050

The Ides of March

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“The Ides of March hath come” – so wrote William Shakespeare.

In tribute to the day on which Julius Caesar was felled by assassins in Rome, a look at a two pieces of art featuring views of Rome, which are in the Arkansas Arts Center collection.

AAC Rome 1

Giovanni Battista Piranesi – from the collection of the Arkansas Arts Center

The first presents a classical take on Rome.  View of the Piazza del Campidoglio (Veduta della Piazza del Campdoglio) was painted in 1774 by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 – 1778).  The print is an etching, acquired by the Arts Center in 1990; it was a gift of John and Grace Marjorie Wood Keppel and Nell Wood.

According to the Arkansas Arts Center,

The Campidoglio has been the seat of the city government of Rome from ancient times to the present. At the top of the Capitoline Hill-one of the famed Seven Hills of Rome-the buildings in Piranesi’s etching are the work of Michelangelo. These elegant Renaissance palaces, perched on this ancient site, were important tourist destinations in the 18th century just as they are today.

Piranesi takes a viewpoint from the side of the site, giving us a dramatic diagonal view of one palace and a head-on view of the other. In the foreground are Grand Tourists in their three-cornered hats as well as a number of less well dressed, slightly suspicious-looking figures.

John Heliker - from the collection of the Arkansas Arts Center

John Heliker – from the collection of the Arkansas Arts Center

The second piece is John Heliker’s Pertaining to Rome.  Heliker was a 20th Century artist from New York living from 1909 to 2000.  His painting is an abstract look at the Italian capital city.  It was a gift in 2005 to the Arkansas Arts Center from the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation, Inc.

 

Ron Howard’s RUSH being shown by LR Film Festival tonight at 7.

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LRFF RushTonight you can see Andy Griffith on screen at the Old State House at 5:30.  At 7pm, you can see an opus by Opie as Ron Howard’s recent film Rush is screened by the Little Rock Film Festival at the Ron Robinson Theater.  (If you want to have a Mayberry weekend, you can see Griffith tonight and catch a reprise of Rush on Sunday at 7pm.)

Two-time Academy Award®-winner Ron Howard delivers the exhilarating true story of a legendary rivalry that rocked the world. During the sexy and glamorous golden age of Formula 1 racing, two drivers emerged as the best: gifted English playboy James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, The Avengers) and his methodical, brilliant Austrian opponent, Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl, Inglourious Basterds). As they mercilessly clash on and off the Grand Prix racetrack, the two drivers push themselves to the breaking point of physical and psychological endurance, where there’s no shortcut to victory and no margin for error.

The film reunited Howard with screenwriter Peter Morgan from Frost/Nixon.

Rush is rated R.  Admission is $5 and concessions will be available for $1.

Second Friday Cinema at Old State House – A FACE IN THE CROWD

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OSH FaceFor Second Friday Cinema, the Old State House Museum will screen A Face in the Crowd.

With scenes shot in Piggott and other Arkansas locations, A Face in the Crowd tells the story of an Arkansas native, Lonesome Rhodes (played by Andy Griffith in his first screen role), who becomes a media sensation. Director Elia Kazan used many Arkansans as extras in the film and praised the people of Piggott for their hospitality. The film has achieved notoriety in recent years because of its predictions about the rise of the cult of celebrity and the power of television to make and break personalities and politicians.

Joining Griffin in this film are Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick and Kay Medford.  Also in the cast are Lois Nettleton, Charles Nelson Reilly, Diana Sands and Rip Torn. Lending an air of reality to the movie is a series of cameos by media personalities playing themselves including Bennett Cerf, Faye Emerson, Betty Furness, Burl Ives, John Cameron Swayze, Mike Wallace and Walter Winchell.

Ben Fry, General Manager of KLRE/KUAR and coordinator of the film minor at UALR, will introduce the film and lead a discussion after the screening.

The screening starts at 5:30 pm.

Arkansas College Art History Symposium is today

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ualr logoFive University of Arkansas at Little Rock art students will present papers at the 24th Annual Arkansas College Art History Symposium on Friday, March 14.

Students will give 20-minute illustrated talks on an area of their research, similar to professional art historians. The symposium is being held this year at the University of Central Arkansas.

The following UALR students will present their work:

  • Ann Beck, a Master of Arts student with an emphasis in art history, will deliver a presentation called “Mirror Game.”
  • Tessa Davidson, also a student emphasizing art history in the M.A. program, will present on “Laocoön and his Secrets: Dating Attribution Concerns of the Vatican Sculpture Laocoön and his Sons.”
  • Hayley Chronister, who is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in art with an art history emphasis, will present “Thomas Gainsborough’s Response to Nature: An Analysis of Two Shepherd Boys with Dogs Fighting.”
  • Jeannie Lee, also pursuing a B.A. in art with an art history emphasis, will do her presentation on “Of Marriage and Death: Alternative Meaning in the Myth of Persephone.”
  • Badi Galinkin is in the Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art program with a graphic design emphasis and will present “Mrs. Musters as Hebe by Sir Joshua Reynolds.”

The symposium was established in 1991 by Dr. Floyd Martin of UALR and Dr. Gayle Seymour of UCA as a means of encouraging and recognizing student achievements in art history in the state.

The symposium, which has been hosted by UALR, UCA, and Hendrix College, has helped encourage cooperation among art history faculty throughout the state.

Each symposium includes a guest art historian, this year’s is Dr. Ann Prentice Wagner, curator of drawings at the Arkansas Arts Center.

Marching to Historic Arkansas Museum and Butler Center for 2nd Friday Art Night

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March 2FAN

It is time again for 2nd Friday Art Night in Downtown Little Rock.  Numerous locations from 5pm to 8pm with free admission and free shuttle to various sites.

Ciara Long: A Different Perspective – at Historic Arkansas Museum‘s Second Floor Gallery.
Opening tonight and running through May 4, 2014 – Ciara Long’s art reflects the itinerate life of a military child. Moving from place to place, Long ritualistically sketched the people she met and left behind. “The fragmented lifestyle of my past has directly influenced the way I observe the environment around me now,” says Long.

The body of work on exhibit illustrates Long’s ongoing process of elaborately encoding her observations and has been carefully organized according to place of occurrence, specific moments in time, or specific individuals.

At the Butler Center Galleries of the Central Arkansas Library System –

Featured artist: Judy Tipton Rush is a self-educated fiber artist who studied at the University of Arkansas and came to her avocation from an art background. Her work has been exhibited in numerous juried shows and has toured the United States and abroad. Her work is also included in many private collections.
Featured musician: Tribal Motion & the Motioneers will pair bellydance performances with rhythmic tribal drumming.
Opening exhibitions:

Southern Voices: A Regional Exhibition of the Studio Art Quilt Associates – This show features contemporary textile works related to the folk art quilt tradition. Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibition, professional development, and documentation. SAQA defines an art quilt as “a creative visual work that is layered or stitched or that references this form of stitched layered structure.” SAQA was founded in 1989 by a group of 50 artists and now has over 3,000 members.

An Exhibition of the Arkansas Printmakers Association – This show features prints in a variety of artistic media by members of the Arkansas Printmakers Association. Artist whose work will be shown include Robert Bean, Win Bruhl, Warren Criswell, Debi Findley, Melissa Gill, Diane Harper, Neal Harrington, Evan Lindquist, Dominique Simmons, Tom Sullivan, David Warren, Jorey May Greene, and Jane Watson.