The Arts Diva

HE DOES WINDOWS My journey to the Aspen Music Festival and School started at Chico Paper Co. Saturday, June 1. Eric Richter’s latest body of work, Landscape Memories, is on display through June in the Fourth Street window. His signature cicada is there, and so is a moth—beautiful, glowing and still. Richter seems to be dabbling in a wider color palette, though. He’s worked up some wonderful tree paintings with vibrant blues, reds and oranges. Even though they are colorful, these paintings still evoke a sense of melancholy.

MUSICAL CHAIRS In Reno, the Nevada Museum of Art’s exhibition 100 Years/100 Chairs features chairs from some great designers including Frank O. Gehry (architect of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles), Charles Rennie Mackintosh (amazing Art Nouveau designer) and Charles and Ray Eames (innovative design visionaries). NMA is including a film series, with more than 70 of the Eames’ short films, and other chair-related events through Oct. 1, 2006.

NUCLEAR FALLOUT The new visitor center outside of Great Basin National Park in Baker, Nev., hosted Nuclear West, a traveling exhibition of 31 photographs of places in the West affected by nuclear testing and development.

100 Suns: 012 Stokes by Michael Light shows a mushroom cloud of bright glowing light, caught in time like a jellyfish in glass. 100 Suns: 019 Simon, also by Light, gives us a look down a row of helmeted men packed into a narrow earthen trench with their heads down while a blinding light devours the sky above.

Most remarkable is a color photograph, Dead Animals #1, by Richard Misrach. The print shows a gully filled with approximately 100 dead, bloated bovine of various ages and sizes.

The exhibition travels next to Carson City for a showing at Nevada State University, June 27-Sept. 12.

Every summer people pour into the small mountain town of Aspen, Colo., to soak in the sounds of the Aspen Music Festival and School. The event brings together the best classical instrumentalists, vocalists and conductors who perform and teach talented students of music, recording and conducting.

Over nine weeks, June 21-Aug. 20, the festival puts on more than 350 concerts, operas, classes and more. This year, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and soprano Renée Fleming will make special appearances at the festival June 25 and July 27, respectively. Two composers have big birthdays this year—Mozart’s 250th and Shostakovich’s 100th—and the festival is celebrating with many performances of their respective works.

Carla Resnick is a self-proclaimed arts diva, writer and musician whose day job is gallery director at 1078 Gallery. Send juicy art tidbits or questions to carlaresnick@sbcglobal.net.