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Anyone near Chicago, the Cultural Center just opened a retrospective -- I guess 80-90 prints (out of 100,000+). Should run through early April. I haven't gone (the first week has just been mobbed), but I'll run by very soon, maybe as early as Tuesday. Very excited. I'll almost certainly get the book too.

The opposite can also be true. I'm no art expert (my interest does not go much beyond reacting to classical LP covers and the links with the history of the time the paintings come from), but I recall seeing the Impressionist paintings in Paris in the very early 80s before they moved into the big railway station and being stunned by Van Gogh and Renoir. With the latter it was the way he portrayed the play of light on leaves so perfectly. Oh definitely. Even some of the abstract expressionists, particularly Pollack and Guston, have many paintings that are essentially three dimensional because of the heavy, heavy layering of paint. They come across considerably better in person. And don't forget Ad Reinhardt who started intentionally painting black on black so that it couldn't be reproduced well and one had to see it at a gallery. (This happens to be an idea that is perhaps more powerful than the actual work itself. For some reason -- perhaps as an in-joke -- the MoMA catalog actually has one of these black-on-black paintings, when they really should have given the page over to something else.)

It's interesting - the difference in seeing the work in the flesh. The artist that surprised me most was Dali I think, due to the small scale... sometimes it can be disappointing - I know it sounds ridiculous, but even when I visited the Great Pyramid it was a bit of an anti-climax, I couldn't really grasp the scale or something - due to over-familiarity Actually much of Dali's later work, as well as Metamorphosis of Narcissus, look just fine in person. But after seeing it for most of one's college years on dorm room posters, Persistance of Memory is a let down. It is tiny and you can't see it particularly well in a museum setting as everyone else is crowding in.

I don't read too many mysteries, but I did enjoy Chester Himes. Somehow I came up with The Harlem Cycle in 3 volues. I must have special ordered it. Plan B is near-apocalpytic... Another detective series of interest is the Inspector Espinosa series by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, which is set in Rio. It's defintely more of a police procedural than a mystery series per se. I've read The Silence of the Rain and December Heat. It looks like there are 3 others translated into English and 2 as yet untranslated.

Daughter and I did the opposite thing - saw the Gorky, but not the Doesburg. The late Gorkys are superb - too much to take in on one visit. (You'll gather from my choices that I'm a big fan of the American abstract expressionists - the visual equivalent of the jazz of that period which is tops for me.) Then you would love the current exhibit at MoMA (and the catalog isn't too shabby either but it is certainly incomplete http://www.amazon.com/Abstract-Expressionism-Museum-Modern-Art/dp/0870707930/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1294847003&sr=8-3). Perhaps the single most surprising exhibit was one on Suitcase Paintings at the Loyola Museum of Art in 2008: http://www.luc.edu/luma/Exhibition_page/Exhibitions_-_Suitca.html. These were all small scale abstract expressionist pieces that could fit into a dealer's oversized suitcase, hence the name. While the catalog is out of print and ridiculously expensive, it was such a fabulous surprise to come across this at such a small museum. I made sure to go back a second time. Biggest disappointment is that apparently I was actually at the Met while their Philip Guston exhibit was winding down and I missed it (was it tucked away somewhere?). I have to say I find this hard to believe I wouldn't have noticed at least one sign for it, and I certainly would have gone had I seen a sign.

Good luck. In addition to the box set I knew the seller wasn't going to produce, I had a book sent from India. I got a yellow slip to sign for it, and left it for the postman for 3 days. Finally, I forgot about it (I thought it was a certified letter about some nearby construction project). When I asked the Indian bookseller where was my book, I finally put two and two together and went to the package retrieval center in Lakeview. I only had another few days before they were going to ship it back, but I certainly never got my second and final notices. Fortunately, that was a fairly rare lapse for the carrier on my route.

I remembered this thread after someone asked if we needed a more general art thread. Anyway, there was a quite good (and focused) Matisse exhibit at Art Institute of Chicago in the first part of 2010. This past weekend, I made it to NYC. I liked this small exhibit at the Met on Miro and his "Dutch" paintings inspired by postcards he bought at the Rijksmuseum. Also, the Abstract Expressionist exhibit at the MoMA is really something else. The catalog is nice, but leaves out some really key works. I was trying to look at the paintings and not be a total tourist who in fact only sees the paintings through a camera lens. But that meant that I didn't take pictures of a few real stunners. I'm going to try to make it back before late April when it closes, though that's a bit unlikely. (Anyone heading over to see it, feel free to PM me...)

I have mixed feelings about this, because it seems the LoC will put incredible resources into preserving and digitizing this collection -- and that's great -- but then Universal can still sit on it and refuse to release it. And for that matter, they may well lobby to have copyright extended over and over. I personally think it is appropriate that they transition it into the public domain, but that'll happen when pigs fly. I don't think it is a particularly good "business model" from the public's perspective.

I'm really struggling to remember what I saw, particularly at the Chicago Jazz Fest (which I personally didn't find all that memorable). Probably the single best was Regina Carter at Chicago's Symphony Center (though unfortunately paired with Esperanza Spalding). Carter was playing off her new CD Reverse Thread, which is pretty interesting. 2. Portico Quartet playing at this real dive in Chicago 3. Dave Holland - Jazz Showcase 4. Rudresh Mahanthappa - Jazz Showcase 5. Either/Orchestra - Chicago Jazz Fest 6. Tatsu Aoki's East-West Orchestra (this probably isn't the official name). Very cool blend of jazz and taiko drumming! Saw some absolutely amazing African groups, including Tinariwen (twice!), Toumani Diabete (also twice in very different settings), and Bassekou Kouyate & his group Ngoni Ba. The classical events were no joke either. We're 2/5 of the way through the Pacifica Quartet's performances of the complete Shostakovich String Quartets. For me personally, the African and classical events were stronger than the live jazz performances, though I enjoyed those as well. Edit: I knew I was forgetting something. J.H.'s awesome list reminded me that I had also seen Konono #1 in Millennium Park. Great show!

I was getting kind of antsy about deliveries around the holidays, though they all came through. There was one which I didn't expect to get -- the seller had grossly underpriced a box set. Of course, it never arrived. They claim they sent it (without tracking). Sure... They gave me the refund without any hassle. It would have been cool to get the set, but I went into that transaction quite sure they weren't going to deliver. Guess it's all about expectations.

I was given a CD player and a few CDs in 1987 as a graduation present. I think there was a Columbia jazz sampler as well. I bought a few CDs over the summer, including some Beatles. But I didn't have the CD player with me on a regular basis, so I actually bought a fair number of cassette tapes from 1987-89. It wasn't until 1989-90 that I started buying CDs on a fairly regular basis. As far as the (jazz) collecting mania, that seems to have started around 2000.

I finally tracked down a copy at JazzLoft (not for $12, it is true). It looks like he still has a copy or two: http://www.jazzloft.com/m-30206-aldo-romano.aspx Carnet de Routes and African Flashback are very much in the same vein (and both have killer booklets of photos), so you might want to consider them as well.

Thanks! I really had planned on going Sat. evening, but the temperature just dropped too much for it to be worth it (always far too much standing around on El platforms when I travel to the Green Mill).

Ironically, Northwestern put up the best fight, but still came up short. Well, maybe next year.

Yeah, I saw For Sure at Dusty Groove, but I am pretty sure I already have this session.

There is a thread about best art exhibits you've seen, but it's a bit buried...

If I could find it cheap enough, I would get this. I don't think anything/anyone would convince or compel me to get the Benedetti set. Just not my cup of tea.

I really enjoyed this one. I wasn't that taken with Number9Dream. Haven't read his latest two, but will probably get to them one day. On a bit of a tangent, I am wondering when Murakami's 1Q84 comes out in English. I was somewhere where I actually saw it in Japanese (probably just the first volume), but it would have been pointless and pretentious to have bought it.

Agreed. Comparatively unknown compared to The National Gallery, Tate Britain and Tate Modern, but with a collection of prime items by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Rousseau and a roomful of Fauves and one of German Expressionists, absolutely not to be missed! Aside from a few high profile exhibitions, the place is always nearly empty, which makes studying the works much more pleasant (actually the main floor rooms in Tate Britain are usually nearly empty as well, though the exhibitions in the basement are often packed).

I got interested in Sickert when coming across him in several UK collections, particularly the Tate Britain (Ennui is a more conventional painting but still well done - it is now a bit undervalued because of the emphasis on the Camden Town nudes). There is also a decent Sickert in the Cambridge museum but it isn't often reproduced. I sadly wasn't in town for the Courtauld Institute of Art exhibit in 2007. I did manage to get to the Courtauld several times though. What a great museum!

Well, I am a bit hesitant to bring this up, since it is unclear if the shows/podcasts will be available in 2011, but what the heck. About a month ago, I was tipped off to a book called History of the World in 100 Objects through the Guardian website. It is also available on the Amazon.co.uk website, though probably being reprinted at the moment:100 Objects book So far it is not available in the US. After some reflection, I decided that it really was a gorgeous book and put in an order. In the reviews, they mentioned that the BBC 4 series was even better. Curiously, I am an avid listener of BBC Radio 3 but never remembered hearing anything about this project. To sum it up, BBC Radio 4 approached Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, and asked him to choose 100 objects from the museum that summed up human history. Then deliver 100 radio broadcasts on the objects. Pretty daunting, no? Well, most people think MacGregor delivered in spades, though there are a few detractors. In the comments here, they are about 75% supportive and 25% negative: Comments1 Here it is more 50/50: Comments2 My feeling is that the programs are quite well done until the last 5 when he goes seriously off the rails in terms of what is important in the larger scheme of things (and then to have chosen a solar lamp when the runner-up object was a mobile phone??). My second thought is that the emphasis is so heavily on religion/royalty/culture and there was almost nothing on technology, though some of this is due to the nature of the British Museum's collection. If they had somehow combined this with the V & A Collection it might have been more balanced. In general, I thought there were some critical items that really ought to have been included: a plow printing press and/or the Gutenberg Bible something representing train technology something representing the American and probably the French revolutions (they wait all the way until the Russian revolution for an object) the telegraph probably a transistor radio computer automobile culture So a really great series but an incomplete one. I would probably combine it with James Burke's Connection series for a more rounded view of things. (Boy, that was a great series and fortunately all available on Netflix!) Here are the episodes (there is another place to try to download podcasts but I think only valid from the UK): 100 Objects radio. Hopefully they will leave them up at least through 2011. Then you can let me know if I am all wet.

You can get the downloads from eMusic or Amazon and probably iTunes. There are a fair number of new and used copies of the box itself from resellers floating about on Amazon, but no idea how long they will last. You guys convinced me (esp. Chuck) and now there is one fewer...

True, but except for Famous Door, in most cases I'd still have to go elsewhere to get the rest of the live set.

It's been really frustrating for me. I have about $50 in Borders cards that I can't locate (somewhere in my home office ). Not only have I missed out on some 35% off sales, but if I can't get my act together I might lose it completely. Am trying to clean out the office this weekend.

Is there a discography of Disc 4 of #1 band set floating around (aside from the booklet inside the box of course)? I have the Mosaic, so am unlikely to get this for just the live sessions, but I might look at other ways of obtaining the live material. (I didn't see a specific CD release that had the same material, but maybe it is spread over a few CDs.) Thanks! The main thing is the Famous Door broadcast - Pres is just unbelievable there! ... Hope this helps... Just as a note of warning: the info I give above is far from complete... and I'm in no way sure there aren't more recent (than my info, that is) releases where the music could be found more easily. Thanks! Very helpful. I'll see if I can track some of these down. It is a shame that some European outfit hasn't pulled together this material into one place.