Long Live The King
Austin, Los Fresnos
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Best in Show
Fort Worth It’s hard to imagine that many—if any—of today’s cinematic offerings will be held up as artistically significant masterpieces in fifty years’ time. (Though there’s something to be said for mindlessly entertaining blockbusters, who wants Ocean’s 13 and Transformers to be remembered as shining examples of this decade’s best movies?) The Magnolia at the Modern film series happens to be offering the perfect antidote to summer’s trilogy binge with Essential Arthouse: 50 Years of Janus Films, a ten-day presentation of fourteen foreign classics. Plucked from the much-lauded archives of Janus Films, one of the leading theatrical distributors of the fifties and sixties, these selections are reminders that good art—in any medium—stays relevant even as the decades pass. Two not to be missed: Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night, which will charm even the most jaded cinephiles with its comedic plotline (an unconsummated marriage, an illegitimate child, lots of lovers); and Children of Paradise, the epic French romance that has a lovesick mime as its hero. At $7.50 a pop (and only $5.50 for museum members), each viewing costs the same, if not less, than whatever’s playing at the nearby multiplex. Plus, a local critic or industry insider will offer his thoughts on the work before most of the screenings. (TEXAS MONTHLY writer-at-large Christopher Kelly, who is the film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, will be introducing the 1959 tragicomedy The Rules of the Game.) Aug 9—19. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell; 866-824-5566; themodern.org
Out There
Houston The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston can be forgiven if its latest exhibit seems less than precisely defined. “Nexus Texas,” opening this month, is (very) broadly described as “new work by a group of artists living and working in the state.” That’s quite a pool to choose from, but the CAMH’s three organizing curators have managed to select sixteen creatives from all parts and all backgrounds who work in just about every medium you can think of. The one thing they have in common, though, is that none are household names; most are familiar only to those who troll obscure galleries and read online art zines. Luckily for both artist and viewer, a lack of widespread recognition does not coincide with a lack of talent, at least not here. Take for instance Jeff Zilm’s eerily arresting paintings, which are made with pigments stripped from 35mm movie film negatives that are then trickled onto canvas. The result is light wisps of images on a nearly blacked-out surface that conjure up the amorphous faces of ghosts. Equally as conceptual, though a 180-degree turn in the other direction, are Sterling Allen’s quirky offerings, such as his found-object creations. Chicken Wheel, for one, is just as comic as it sounds: two yellow plush-toy chicks suspended from green garden hoses that are attached to a children’s bicycle wheel. You can’t miss it on his Web site, sterlingallen.com. Amy Blakemore’s poignantly simple photographs, on the other hand, are easy to miss if you’re not right in front of them. Included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, her soft-focus snapshots—often portraits of friends (think old ladies with beehives) and familiar suburban landscapes (a deer decoy in the backyard)—show off an acute eye. It’s important to keep in mind that “Nexus” is not meant as a survey or celebration of the state’s best or even next best. There’s something refreshing about what it is meant to be: an openly subjective reminder that artistic currents are running deep in Texas, if we only know where to look. Aug 18—Oct 21. 5216 Montrose Blvd, 713-284-8250, camh.org
Symphonic Salute
Fort Worth Among a symphony orchestra’s responsibilities, one is foremost: its artistic—even moral—obligation to stay true to a composer’s intentions. It is this commitment to capture even the most nuanced aspects of a work that ultimately maintains the music’s integrity over centuries. The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra takes on a rather challenging oeuvre this month as it uses its annual Great Performances Festival to kick off a three-year cycle of works by Gustav Mahler, one of the twentieth century’s most noted post-romantic composers. During his lifetime, though, Mahler was known not for his compositions but for his skill as an operatic and orchestral conductor. At the age of 37 he became the director of the Vienna Opera, a position that required him to convert from Judaism to Catholicism before he was allowed to take the job. After ten years there, and after a good run of bad luck (the death of his eldest daughter, the discovery that he had a disabling heart condition, and continued anti-Semitic blows in the press), Mahler and his family moved to the U.S., where he lasted only one season at the Metropolitan Opera before being replaced. The following year, he signed another big contract, this time with the New York Philharmonic; in 1911 he fell ill, conducting his last concert in a fever (against doctor’s orders) before dying a few months later at the age of 50. It wasn’t until the sixties that Mahler, the formidable symphonist, was embraced as a revolutionary composer. The same characteristics of his work that had so inflamed critics when he was alive—the thunderous emotion, the expressive harmonies—now seem prescient. But his symphonies, monumental in emotional scope and grandiose in length, still remain delightfully convoluted. Along with several of Mahler’s vocal works, the FWSO is first tackling Symphonies no. 1, 5, and 9, but it’s the ninth that underscores the tragedy that so often coincides with genius. Mahler was deeply concerned about what has come to be known as the “curse of the ninth”; several of his predecessors, namely Ludwig van Beethoven and Anton Bruckner, died after completing their ninth symphonies. Mahler’s ninth is considered to be his most intense and is held up as one of his masterpieces. It was also, just as he’d feared, the last symphony he would complete. Aug 23—26. Bass Performance Hall, 4th & Calhoun; 817-665-6000; fortworthsymphony.com 
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