INQUISITIVE, DAUNTLESS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 41
The Dirty Ball #10 Saturday, S aturday, Ap April pri ri 11th, 2015 ril 415 Bingham Street in the Southside 8:00 p.m. - Midnight
Tickets on sale now! TICKETS: www.attacktheatre.com/TDB15 or call 1.888.71.TICKETS The Dirty Ball #10 is made possible in part by:
Attack Theatre’s Season 20 is made possible in part by:
www.smarterguys.com
The McKinney Charitable Foundation of the PNC Charitable Trusts
!02), %Vents 0-/ 4HUrsday/ !PrIL - 4HE )NSPIrE 3PEAkers SerIES FEaturING Michael Slaby, Debra Lam, and Andrew Butcher Presented by THE THE 'rEEN "UILDING !LLIANCE$OOrS OPEN aT
0rOGRAM STArts aT 0- !DMISSION &2%% 0-/ 4HUrsday/ !PrIL - 4HE ,IVINGrOOM #HrONIcles Featured Storyteller Paradise Gray - Hosted by Leslie “Ezra: Smith $OOrS OPEN aT 0rOGRAM STArts aT 0 fOR AND oVer 0-/ FrIDAY !PrIL - Crossroads - An Oral History of Music in the Hill ,UNCHEON INcluded fOR THE fIrST GUESTS $OOrS OPEN aT !- 0rOGRAM STArts aT .OON &2%% 0-/ Saturday/ !PrIL - Local Legends of Jazz 2, The Next Generation featurING #/, JAZZ #OMBO THE .eXT 'ENERaTION !,,3T!2 "AND WITH 3PECIAL 'UESTS 2ON (Orton -ILES Jackson *ESSICA ,EE -AGGIE *OHNSON JEVON 2USHTON
!NQWENIQUE WINGfIELD and morE 0resented by JAZZSPACE +AUFMANN #ENTER
$OOrS OPEN aT 0- 0rOGRAM STArts aT GENERAL ADMISSION For Info on events at the Kaufmann Center go to:
www.hillhouse.org or call 412.281.1026 *UST BLOCKS FROM #ONSOL #ENTER s #ENTRE !VE 0ITTSBURGH 0!
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 04.01/04.08.2015
collaboration with the Corita Art Center, Los Angeles. It is divided into sections that follow a more-or-less linear timeline. Displayed salon-style, the sections begin with her early, more directly religious subject matter, and end with her watercolors. Dominated by religious iconography, some of her very earliest work intertwines text with biblical scenes and ďŹ gures. Starting with scripture, Kent later began to incorporate quotes from favorite writers such as e. e. cummings and Gertrude Stein. Other inuences, such as folk art and abstract expressionism, also began to show up in her early work. But in the 1960s, inspired by artists such as Warhol, Kent developed her own version of pop art by mixing bold numbers and letters, bright colors and provocative texts that were often written in a distinctive cursive. Rather than mere appropriations, Kent manipulated recognizable fonts and slogans from magazines, advertisements and signage. Symbols such as the Wonder Bread dots and the scripted General Mills “Gâ€? appear cropped, inverted, reframed and over-laid with texts and lyrics. The original meanings are subverted to serve her aesthetic goals as well as to deliver her humanist messages. As a teacher, Kent encouraged her students and others to experience the extraordinary in the ordinary. In 1966, she developed a technique whereby she would take a photograph, crumple it, re-photograph it, enlarge it and from that create a stencil in which the texts could warp and bend, rendering layers of meaning. As Kent’s imagery became more overtly political, her radicalism clashed with the diocese in Los Angeles. In 1968, she decided to leave the church and move to Boston, where she pursued her art full time until her death, in 1986. While many of the works in the exhibition deal with war, racism, poverty or death, they are not all gloomy. In fact, they are mostly bright and exuberant. “The Beatitudes,â€? a striking 40-foot banner commissioned for the Vatican pavilion for the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, features the word “happyâ€? in large letters several times. And two sets of alphabets displayed at the entrance to the exhibition add ash and wit. One uses vintage circus images, and the other borrows from sailing ags. Kent was clearly very proliďŹ c, and it’s difďŹ cult to take in the whole show all at once. In addition to her many prints, there are two ďŹ lms showing in a central space that also includes a hands-on activity area inspired by her teachings. If you feel a little overwhelmed, head over there. After all, Rule 6 states: “Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.â€? INF O @PGH C IT YPAPE R . C O M
[BOOK REVIEW]
AFTER-EFFECTS {BY FRED SHAW} Slag is waste left over from steelmaking. But a scholarly epigraph in Leslie Anne Mcilroy’s newest poetry collection, SLAG (Main Street Rag, $14), suggests a more personal parallel: “The long-term adverse effects of sexual abuse in infancy are the results of memories ‌ which in later years can be triggered by a host of cues that are pervasive.â€? The notion that trauma and its life-long after-effects can be made into something meaningful becomes an aesthetic Mcilroy heartily embraces. Full of complicated emotion and desire, SLAG’s 87 pages read as a work of honesty. Mcilroy, a Carnegie Mellon grad and local copywriter, co-founded the lit mag HEArt, dedicated to social justice. On that note, SLAG doesn’t pontificate, but shows her female speaker wrestling with relationships and motherhood, along with the emotional and physical fallout of abuse. While heavy themes can overwhelm, a range of moments play out in these well-developed lines. In “Punch Buggy,â€? Mcilroy describes a mother’s rickety VW Bug in detail: “The interior was peeling, / the smell almost wet, / and the drive to Toronto / cold without heat.â€? The tone matches a child-like speaker’s dread of the cramped beater when she writes of the rusty floorboards, “I wished it would give, / let me slip out and roll / away to the berm, / that little car and all its / stupid, eager / endurance, / headed north / without me.â€? It’s an interesting metaphor for its insight and accessibility. While several poems take place within the context of dreams, a favorite in the collection is the reflective “15 Years After The Cage,â€? which invokes the landmark Squirrel Hill CafĂŠ. Busy shifts being the provenance of stress dreams for many servers and bartenders, it was spot-on for its lucid surrealism: â€œâ€Ś [D]eath wasn’t like this. It was more like / opening the bar door at 5 a.m. to make / soup and finding your bartenders drunk / on the bar stools, a bottle of vodka / between them, tips divided, ketchup / bottles full and the cash bag delivered/ duly to the bank after close. It was more / like emptying the ashtray, pouring them / another and sending them home to sleep.â€? It’s a beautiful and haunting portrayal. With its frequent use of figurative language and a strong voice, SLAG succeeds by letting the reader consider human complexity in weighty and insightful ways. INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM