Events

= __Events__ =

At the Boise Art Museum

 * Devorah Sperber: Threads of Perception

**June 20 – September 20, 2009** In the second exhibition in BAM’s //Threads of Perception//series, New York artist Devorah Sperber combines commonplace materials with simple optical devices to investigate the connections between art, perception and technology. Her works address the complex relationship between the way we think we see and the way that the brain actually processes images. Her most recent works examine famous paintings from art history. Sperber uses the computer to pixelate the images and then reproduces the pixels with thousands of spools of colored thread. She then inverts the spool-constructed pictures so that the image is viewed up side down and recognizable only when viewed through an acrylic sphere. To the naked eye the thread spool sculpture appears as patterns of color, but when viewed through the specially designed acrylic sphere, the images spring into focus. Sperber's works were recently presented at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and the Brooklyn Museum and featured in articles in the New Yorker, the New York Times and Sculpture Magazine.

//Sponsored by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.// || //After the Mona Lisa 2//, 2005 85”h x 86” w 5,184 spools of thread, stainless steel ball chain and hanging apparatus, clear acrylic viewing sphere on metal stand || ===  || James Castle: Tying It Together //May 2 – September 27, 2009//

Raised in Garden Valley, Idaho, Castle was born deaf and never learned to read, write or use sign language. However, he developed a sophisticated means of communication through drawing and devoted a lifetime to the creation of his own images. Castle ignored traditional drawing materials in favor of discarded cardboard, paper scraps and homemade charcoal dyes. Using these materials, he produced drawings, assemblages and books illustrating his rural Idaho environment, including landscapes, buildings, self-portraits, family pictures and fantasy forms. The exhibition will celebrate Castle’s growing national renown and showcase a representative selection of BAM’s Castle holdings, the largest public collection of his works. The new documentary film about Castle’s life and creative processes, //James Castle: Portrait of an Artist,// will be shown in the galleries. //Sponsored by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies// || James Castle //Untitled (Figures in a line)//, 20th century Paper, pigment, soot Collection of the Boise Art Museum

= At the Flicks Movie Theater =

Opens September 11
=** __Séraphine__ **= directed by Martin Provost starring Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent SÉRAPHINE is the true story of Séraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis (Yolande Moreau), a simple and profoundly devout housekeeper who in 1905 at age 41 — self-taught and with the instigation of her guardian angel — began painting brilliantly colorful canvases. In 1912 Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), a German art critic and collector — he was one of the first collectors of Picasso and champion of naïve primitive painter Le Douanier Rousseau — discovered her paintings while she worked for him as a maid in his lodgings in Senlis outside Paris. Uhde became her patron and grouped her work with other naïve painters – the so-called “Sacred Heart Painters” — with acclaimed shows in Paris, elsewhere in Europe and eventually at New York’s MOMA. Director Martin Provost builds his story around the relationship between the avant-garde art dealer and the visionary cleaning lady, forging a testament to the mysteries of creativity and the resilience of one woman’s spirit. A sleeper hit in France, SÉRAPHINE went on to a surprise win of the Best Picture and Best Actress for Yolande Moreau along with five other awards at the 2009 Cesars, the French equivalent of the Academy Awards. **Winner – Seven Césars (France’s equivalent of the Academy Award)**

= __In the Loop__ - *12:30, *2:40, 4:50, 7:10, 9:25 (2:40 show on Monday)= From the TOK point of view this is a film that illustrates the way in which the drive for personal power and gratification (winning the argument and furthering one's personal ambitions) become more important than the truth of one's premises or the wisdom and desirability of one's goals, even when the consequences are catastrophic. Warning - the language is filthy! Get your parents' permission before you watch it.

This is a review from the New York Times Monday, September 7, 2009

"War of Words, Misspoken and Spun
It is somehow fitting that the unruly plot of __[|“In the Loop,”]__ a sharply written, fast-talking, almost dementedly articulate satire on modern statecraft, should commence with a verbal slip-up. In an atmosphere of impending military action, as the governments of Britain and the United States gear up to invade an unspecified Middle Eastern country, Simon Foster (__[|Tom Hollander]__), the British minister of international development, gives an interview to the __[|BBC]__. Surprised by a question outside his area of expertise —whatever that might be — he declares that in his view “war is unforeseeable.” This statement, which might sound either obvious or opaque to a casual listener, ignites a minor firestorm in and around 10 Downing Street, since Simon’s words seem to depart from the official line. Offered a chance to walk his gaffe back, the poor fellow only digs himself deeper. Winging it in front of the news cameras, he observes that, while peace is of course a desirable state of affairs, it is sometimes necessary to climb “the mountain of conflict.”

The genius of “In the Loop,” directed by Armando Iannucci and written by a crack team of British wits, is that it turns this mountain into a series of festering molehills. War is a deadly and consequential business. That much goes without saying, and when some of the motley technocrats and would-be statesmen who populate this film do say it, their words sound either embarrassingly tinny or patently self-serving. And that’s the point: Grave matters involving global power cannot finally be separated from the pettiness of democratic governance, which is impelled by careerism, vanity, moral compromise and, in London more than in prim Washington, by ear-singeing profanity.

If Anglo-Saxon epithets were armaments, Britannia would rule the waves, thanks to the uncivil tongue of Malcolm Tucker, a powerful press officer. Almost nothing he says can be quoted here..... Malcolm is so completely cynical that he attains a kind of integrity and thus becomes both the film’s chief monster and the closest thing it has to a hero.

The American and British heads of state are never named or shown, and no rogue nation or political party is ever mentioned, but the real-world template for “In the Loop” is easy enough to identify. The British-American push to war involves dubious, possibly cooked intelligence, and voices of dissent inside both governments are silenced and suborned.

But though it all sounds very 2003, the film’s insights are less topical than procedural. It’s not about something that happened but rather about the way things work.....

The plot is as intricate and elegant as a computer circuit board, though at times it looks more like a tangle of crossed wires. The short summary is that everybody betrays everybody else, that opportunism trumps idealism and that telling the truth is a matter of tactical calculation rather than ethical imperative. The principal doves — Karen and a sensitive Pentagon general played by __[|James Gandolfini]__ — are as puffed up and shabby as the hawks. Nobody’s motives are pure, and when it’s all sorted out, the killing will start.

The audience, meanwhile, is likely to die laughing. While “In the Loop” is a highly disciplined inquiry into a very serious subject, it is also, line by filthy line, scene by chaotic scene, by far the funniest big-screen satire in recent memory. The hand-held camera work, the hectic jump-cuts and the grubby visuals may resemble television, but the restless pacing and drab appearance serve a clear aesthetic purpose. The film visits some of the world’s great monuments to liberty and order on both sides of the Atlantic — 10 Downing Street, the White House, the __[|United Nations]__ headquarters — and they’ve never looked worse, as if shot through a filter made of grime.

And at the end you may feel a little unclean, which is also evidence of Mr. Iannucci’s satirical rigor. The people in whose hands momentous decisions rest are shown — convincingly and in squirming detail — to be duplicitous, vindictive, small-minded and untrustworthy. But why should they be any different from the rest of us?

Directed by Armando Iannucci; written by Mr. Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche; music by Adam Ilhan; production designer, Christina Casali; produced by Kevin Loader and Adam Tandy; released by IFC Films. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Anna Chlumsky (Liza), Chris Addison (Toby), David Rasche (Linton), Gina McKee (Judy), __[|James Gandolfini]__ (General Miller), Mimi Kennedy (Karen), Olivia Poulet (Suzy), Peter Capaldi (Malcolm Tucker), Steve Coogan (Paul Michaelson), __[|Tom Hollander]__ (Simon Foster) and Zach Woods (Chad)."

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